Robert Donaldson

Nearly 50 years after they jump-started their continuing love affair and marriage by jumping the fence at Garden State Park to watch the last race at the age of 14, Robert Donaldson and his wife, Sue, had an interesting afternoon on May 18, 2018. Previously, with the approval of Sue (a teacher), Donaldson (a 62-year-old retired pharmaceutical executive) had been racing claimers. 

That changed that afternoon when Donaldson called his former trainer, Carlos Guerrero, to inquire about a possible claim. Guerrero happened to be at the Timonium Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale in May. “I had spent time with that catalog,” Donaldson said. “I grabbed a sales book. I told him, ‘I want you to possibly buy a horse.’ I called to get a credit line for $100,000. They were on No. 43. I told him, `No. 50 is a Hard Spun.’ I said, `Carlos, have you seen him?’ He said, `He’s a good-looking colt. He texted me, `How much do you want to spend?’ I said, `$70,000.’ They were at $60,000, once, twice, three times; and Carlos bid $64,000.”

They got the colt. “Every horse prior to that I had claimed,” Donaldson said. “This is the first baby I bought.”

Now there was a personal matter to address. “I did this without speaking to my wife about it,” he said. “This went down. She was at school teaching three- to five-year-olds.”

The conversation when she got home went something like this:

“I bought a baby for $64,000.”

“What?”

“I bought this horse for $64,000.”

Donaldson continued, “She was cool with it. She’s a gamer like me. Not many people could tell their wife that, and it’s okay. Sue—I love her more today than I did then. I’m very lucky.”

They were 14 when they broke into Garden State to watch a race. “We were freshmen in high school,” Donaldson said. “She played field hockey. I played football. Her uncle dabbled with horses, and she always liked them. When we got together, we had a common interest.”

One afternoon, they bet $5 on a longshot at Garden State but couldn’t stay for the race. “We had to go home for dinner,” Donaldson said. “We listened to the results on the radio. He paid about $100. That was big-time action at my age. We were really smitten from then on.”

After Robert graduated from Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, Donaldson worked for Kellogg’s before he found his career in pharmaceuticals, working for three different companies, including Astra Pharmaceuticals (now Astra Zeneca), a Swedish start-up company in Westborough, Mass. Sue worked at the Romney School for the Deaf and Blind.

Donaldson made his first claim at Garden State, taking Pitch Out for $7,500. “He turned into an overnight stakes horse,” Donaldson said. “I got offered $30,000 for him, and I took it.” That led him to claiming Groovy Feeling for $20,000. “She turned into a Gr2 stakes winner with John Servis and was the top handicap mare in New York,” he said. “She won the Gr2 Ladies Handicap and the Gr3 Rare Treat and Next Move. She was just a killer. She’d get on the front end and say, `See ya.’” He also had a good run with Slick Horn, a $40,000 claim. “Talk about a nice horse,” Donaldson said. “He would give you everything he had. When he heard another horse coming, he’d pin his ears back. He was ultra-game—a good hard-knocking horse.”

Donaldson took a break from Thoroughbreds for a good reason. “I had to educate my kids,” he said. “I put our priorities in place. The horses took a back seat. I got out of the game for a few years. I still would go to Garden State. I missed it.”

Both his daughter Christine and son Steven prospered after college, Christine doing clinical trials in drugs, Steven becoming a tree surgeon. He also is an artist, climber and a charity worker.

Then Donaldson got back in the game, reconnecting with Guerrero and reinstating him as his trainer on Spun to Run.  

Spun to Run needed five starts to break his maiden; he won two in a row then finished third to Maximum Security in the Gr1 Haskell. He captured the Gr3 Smarty Jones, finished a close fifth by 1 ½ lengths to Math Wizard in the Gr1 Pennsylvania Derby and won the $100,000 M.P. Ballezzi Appreciation Mile at Parx. That made Spun to Run two-for-two at one mile and convinced Guerrero and Donaldson to give their rapidly improving three-year-old colt a start in the Breeders’ Cup Mile to take on superstar Omaha Beach.

When Spun to Run won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile wire-to-wire by 2¾ lengths over Omaha Beach, the Donaldsons had their first Gr1 stakes victory. Spun to Run followed that effort with a strong second to Maximum Security in the Gr1 Cigar Mile. “It’s just indescribable,” Donaldson said. “This horse has brought so much enjoyment—I can’t tell you.”

It’s a journey he’s shared with the woman he loves. “She keeps me grounded,” Donaldson said. “Sue is so much a part of me.”

Ryan Exline and Justin Border

Ryan Exline will never forget the feeling after he bought his first horse at the 2013 Ocala March Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale for himself, his dad and three friends who had decided to take a shot and buy their first Thoroughbred. “I remember sweating profusely in an Uber heading to the airport,” he said. There was a good reason. The group had agreed to budget $50,000. On the advice of bloodstock agent Marette Farrell, Exline spent $100,000 to purchase Sheza Smoke Show, who had worked a furlong in :10 flat.

“I called the others and said, `Congratulations, we bought a horse. We spent a little more than we wanted,’” Exline said. “We gave them the option of going in or not. Every single person went in.” 

Justin Border was one of the friends he called. “I’m following along the sales online. Obviously, it was a shock. I was fine, once I got up from falling down on the floor,” he laughed. “We were just two guys getting into this crazy game.” 

They’re two guys who are 50-50 partners in Exline Border Racing, which did just fine with Sheza Smoke Show. “Thankfully, she went on to win a Gr1 at Santa Anita,” Exline said. “She earned $150,000 racing. And we sold her for over $200,000 at a broodmare sale. We had to retire her a little early because of injuries.”

Exline, 38, is a senior living management administrator who was born in Oklahoma, moved to Indianapolis with his family when he was three, and ultimately moved to San Diego in 2006. He’d watched the Kentucky Derby on TV but never attended a racetrack.

That changed when some high school friends who had moved from Indiana to San Diego decided to go to the track—Del Mar—near Exline’s condo. “I’d never been before,” he said. “We all went. It seemed like we couldn’t lose a race. I said, `Wow, it’s an easy way to make money.’”

He quickly learned that bettors can lose too, but his fascination with the sport had taken root. “I started researching it and studying it,” he said. “One day, I decided I wanted to own a horse. How do you do that? I needed to surround myself with people who are smarter than me. I got referred by a friend to Marette.”

Border, a 45-year-old occupational therapist from Northern California, had been raised around horses in Brentwood, a small town near San Francisco. He learned to ride at the age of five on a Quarter Horse named Red Bert Bailey. Unfortunately, the horse died when Border was seven. “It was a life lesson for a little kid, but it certainly didn’t put me off loving horses and wanting to take care of them,” he said.

He met Exline through work at a senior rehab facility in San Diego. “Immediately, I saw he had a lot of Indianapolis Colts paraphernalia, so I knew he was into sports,” Border said. “A big Colts fan, he had gone to the Super Bowl. We got talking about sports then about work. We became fast friends from there.”

Now they’re partners. And, after purchasing their first Thoroughbred, they needed a trainer. “We knew we needed a trainer who would have patience with us,” Border said. “Peter Eurton was highly recommended by another trainer. I said, `I think we have our guy.’ Ryan took the lead on reaching out to Peter. He called him and said, `Peter you don’t know us, but we have a horse, and we want to go into your barn.’ He saw the video from the sale, looked up the page in the catalog and said, `That’s a pretty nice filly.’”

Since then, Exline Border Racing has mostly hit home runs. After spending $100,000 to buy Bayonet—a Colonel John filly who didn’t make money on the track and became a broodmare—they campaigned the hard-hitter Giant Expectations, a winner of four of 23 starts including a pair of Gr2 stakes. He will race as a seven-year-old this year. “He’s been a special horse for us,” Exline said.

So was their brilliant 2016 Two-Year-Old Filly Champion Filly Champagne Room, who won the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly at 33-1; and Storm the Court, a two-year-old they purchased at Ocala in April 2019, for $60,000 who gave them their second Breeders’ Cup victory in the 2019 Juvenile.

“It’s been the stuff of dreams,” Border said. “Then again, it’s the result of a lot of hard work and a lot of great people helping us—a trainer like Peter and an agent like Marette. It’s a reflection of their talent and their expertise, and that the horse always comes first. We’re very humbled by the success we’ve had in such a short time.”

Before Storm the Court became “the stuff of dreams,” Exline, Border and their other partners on the horse, Dan Hudock, Susie Wilson and David Bernsen, had to survive a frightful moment in the Gr1 Del Mar Futurity on Sept. 2. Just a few steps out of the gate, Storm the Court was knocked sideways by Eight Rings when he ducked inside. Both horses lost their jockey, Flavien Prat and Drayden Van Dyke.

“We had the rail,” Border said. “We were happy with the break. We felt fine. Then all of a sudden, here comes Eight Rings looking like he was turning to go into the infield. We see our jockey went down. Storm was running loose on the track. With a two-year-old, that’s just a nightmare. We were looking back to see if the jockey was okay. We were looking at our horse. An outrider finally caught him on the turn. We walked on the track—a really upsetting moment at least. Flavien got up. The horse came off the track okay, not hurt, not lame.”

In his first race back, Storm the Court finished third by 8 ¼ lengths to Eight Rings in the Gr1 American Pharoah Stakes Sept. 27. Then Storm the Court won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile wire-to-wire by a neck at odds of 45-1. “Maybe two steps before they hit the finish line, all the blood left my body,” Border said. “There was this rush, knowing he had done it. Everybody exploded. Couldn’t find enough people to hug.”

He knows which horse to hug. “We love our boy,” he said.

Asked how he can possibly not dream about the 2020 Kentucky Derby, Border said, “It’s impossible.”

Terry Green

What’s a former professional cutting rider from Gulfport, Miss., doing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga Race Course after the Gr1 Hopeful Stakes? Well, he’s posing with his first Gr1 stakes winner, Basin, a horse he purchased for $150,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I can’t explain it,” Green said, taking a break from the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I’ve watched the race 25 times, probably 50 times. It’s hard to believe. When we bought the colt, we thought he was nice. When I’m sitting here in this arena, and you buy him from the bottom of the totem pole... what’s $150,000 when you see these prices these horses are going for?”

Green, 67, had quite a unique introduction to horses. “As a kid growing up in Mississippi, my grandfather had some horses,” he said. “He had cattle and he would turn them loose. Back in the day, we would brand them and turn them loose in the woods. At certain times of the year, we’d round them up. I would go into the woods with my grandfather and herd cattle. I couldn’t wait to do it every time with my grandfather. It was a blast.”

After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi, Green became a developer, building houses, apartments and shopping centers—an occupation he continued when he moved to Houston in the late ‘80s. “I heard of cutting horses (a Western style equestrian competition which demonstrates a horse’s athleticism and the horse and rider’s ability to handle cattle), and I watched it,” Green said. “It was really cool—just a horse and a cow by themselves. I just enjoyed it so much.”

He enjoyed it even more when he became a cutting rider in the late ‘90s, competing in the non-pro ranks for some 15 years. In 2003, he opened 200-acre Jackpot Ranch in Weatherford, Texas, which became a leader in producing outstanding cutting horses.

By then, he’d ventured into the casino business, almost by accident. He and a friend in the restaurant business, Rick Carter, went on a day cruise out of Miami. “Everybody was in the casino,” Green said. “I said, `This would be unbelievable in Mississippi.”

Green and Carter contacted the Mississippi Port Authority and secured the rights to do a gambling cruise ship out of Gulfport. “We didn’t know anything about gambling,” he said. “We started sailing in and out of Mississippi. It didn’t work. We had too many people working in the engine room. We came up with the idea that if we could tie it to the dock, we could make it work. It got approved. I think it was 1989 or 1990. Now we own two casinos there, both in Gulfport, Miss. It’s really exciting. How did we do this? We were just a couple local guys from Mississippi.”

Thoroughbreds were next, thanks to his friendship with Mike Rutherford Jr., a fellow cutting rider. They became hunting buddies.

Mike’s father is a life-long horseman who began riding horses and working with cattle at the age of eight in Austin, Texas. He was a force in Quarter Horse racing before switching to Thoroughbreds. He purchased Manchester Farm in Lexington, Ky., in 1976, and it continues to thrive.

Mike and his father invited Green to their farm seven years ago. Green was blown away. “I said this is a great alternative,” he said. “I said I’m not going to be able to ride cutting horses forever.”

Two years later, Green and Rutherford Jr. created Jackpot Ranch-Rutherford. They purchased and campaigned Mississippi Delta. “She was a Gr3 winner,” Green said. “That really gave me a buzz.”

Green purchased some land near Lexington, Ky., to begin Jackpot Farm. “We built barns and paddocks,” Green said. “The last two years, I really got into it. I have about eight or nine horses now. I kind of fell in love with it pretty quick.”

Basin’s performance in the Hopeful did nothing to cool his passion. “Oh my God,” Green said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Raymond Mamone

Quitting school at the age of 14 might not work for everyone, but it allowed 86-year-old Raymond Mamone an early entrance into the real world. He began hauling ice and plucking tomatoes, eventually earning enough to open his own body shop and get involved with Thoroughbreds by claiming 22 horses in one year. He even tried training his own horses for a few months.

Now he’s enjoying life more than ever, thanks to track-record breaking Imperial Hint—one of the top sprinters in the world and a horse from a mare he had given up on and sold. Luckily, he reconnected with Imperial Hint at the age of two, bought him for $17,500 and has watched with glee as Imperial Hint bankrolled more than $1.9 million. “You can’t believe it’s happening,” he said. “It doesn’t happen to many people. How many years do people spend trying to find a good horse?”

Born in the Great Depression, Mamone was the son of an Italian immigrant who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and was a tailor, too. Raymond was born in Brooklyn, where he would sneak into Ebbits Field to watch the Dodgers. His family moved to New Jersey, and Mamone quit school at an early age.

“I went looking for work,” he said. “I was an ice man—$2 a day. To make more money, I went to work on a tomato farm. Ten cents a bushel. Go down the line, bend down and pull tomatoes. I did mason work and mixed cement for contractors. I was a hustler. I moved around a lot. I went into the body shop business.”

He did well enough to open his own body shop in 1956. A trip to Monmouth Park with a friend piqued his interest. Why? “I won that day,” he laughed. “I went to the track occasionally. I decided to buy horses and get into the claiming business.”

In his first year, he claimed 22 horses with trainer Mike Vincitore. “He told me I was crazy,” Mamone said. “But I made money. I was written up in the Morning Telegraph. They wrote an article about me and Mike.”

Then Mamone began breeding horses. “I did it on my own,” he said. “Nobody really taught me anything. I have common sense. I would figure it out myself.”

He decided to try to figure out how to train his own horses and got his own trainer’s license. “I learned all this on my own,” he said. “It sounds stupid, but that’s how I did it. But I couldn’t handle the body shop and training.” So his training career lasted only six months. His involvement with Thoroughbreds has continued his whole life.

And he got lucky...very lucky. He went to look at some yearlings at the farm where he’d sold Imperial Hint’s dam. “I went down to look at yearlings and I said, `Who’s this?’ He said, `That’s your baby.’ I said, `You got to be kidding.’ He was almost two years old. They were going to take him to a sale. I bought him for $17,500. He was small but well-built.”

Mamone gave Imperial Hint and other horses to trainer Luis Carvajal, Jr., who had worked for Bobby Durso, a trainer Mamone had used. “He passed away, so I gave Luis the horses,” Mamone said. “We’re really close friends. We’re really tight.”

Carvajal is thrilled with the opportunity Mamone gave him. “It’s a good relationship—a business relationship and a friendship,” Carvajal said.

Of course, Imperial Hint’s immense success in Carvajal’s care has strengthened their bond. Imperial Hint won the 2018 Gr1 A.G. Vanderbilt Stakes at Saratoga by 3 ¾ lengths at 4-5. When he returned to defend his title in the $350,000 stakes, July 27, he went off at 5-1 due to the presence of Mitole, who had won seven straight races and nine of his last 10 starts.

“Luis didn’t want to put him in the Vanderbilt,” Mamone said. “He wanted to run in the $100,000 Tale of the Cat. I said, `No, we’re going to win this race. He said, `Are you for real?’ I said, `Yes.’ He said, `Mitole?’ I said, `Don’t worry about Mitole.’”

Imperial Hint certainly didn’t, taking his second consecutive Vanderbilt by four lengths in 1:07.92, the fastest six furlongs in Saratoga’s 150-year-history. The call from Larry Collmus was perfect: “He’s back! And he broke the track record!” That track record, 1:08.04, had been set by Spanish Riddle in 1972 and equaled by Speightstown in 2004.

Mamone said, “I didn’t think he’d break the track record. When he called that, that was unbelievable. That gave me chills.”

  It’s so much better getting chills that way than hauling ice for $2 a day.

Marc Holliday - Blue Devil Racing Stables

What could possibly be better than winning a Gr1 stakes at Saratoga? Winning a Gr1 at Saratoga with a homebred. That’s exactly what Marc Holliday’s Blue Devil Racing Stables did when its five-year-old mare Come Dancing rallied from last to capture the Gr1 Ballerina August 24th by 3 ½ lengths.

“She was awesome,” Holliday said. “Winning at Saratoga on Travers Day, a Gr1, `Win and you’re in.’ I’ve been going to Saratoga for close to 35 years. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

The 53-year-old native of Huntington, Long Island, is the CEO and Chairman of SL Green Realty—New York City’s largest owner of office properties and the dominant landlord in Midtown Manhattan. He is also a member of the New York Racing Association Board.

He has deep roots in horse racing, and he and his family have become benefactors of Akindale Sanctuary, a rest, rehab, retrain and retirement program with more than 165 retired Thoroughbreds in Pawling, New York.

Holliday’s father, Morton, raced a stable of Standardbreds at The Meadowlands and campaigned his horses in the rich New York Sire Stakes. “Way back in high school, I fell in love with racing...with the action,” Holliday said.

He didn’t get involved in the action until 2006, when he began Blue Devil Racing Stable. While in high school, Holliday played lacrosse with the Huntington, Long Island, club team. “The mascot was the Huntington Blue Devil,” Holliday said. He wanted to call his stable “Blue Devil,” but The Jockey Club said he had to get approval from Duke University—home of the more famous Blue Devils. It probably didn’t hurt that legendary Duke Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski is a huge Thoroughbred fan who annually comes to Saratoga. The name was approved.

In 2007, with the help of trainer Dale Romans, Blue Devil Racing Stable and partner James O’Reilly purchased Honest to Betsy, a two-year-old filly who had raced twice at Churchill Downs and finished second in a maiden $50,000 claimer and second again in a maiden special weight.

Honest to Betsy didn’t wait long to put a smile on Holliday’s face. In her first start for him at Belmont Park on July 19, 2007, she won a maiden special weight by four lengths. She followed that up with a fourth in the Gr2 Adirondack Stakes at Saratoga. “The first race was a bit of a surreal experience,” Holliday said. “I wasn’t at the track. James was there. I watched it on TV, she showing our colors in front. She won convincingly. I was pretty shocked. It all came together quickly. Then she was fourth in the Adirondack. I immersed myself in the business.”

Come Dancing, a daughter of Malibu Moon out of Tizahit by Tiznow, has become the star of his business. Trained by Carlos Martin, Come Dancing won her first two starts. As a five-year-old, she won the Gr3 Distaff Handicap by 7 ¾ lengths, the Gr2 Ruffian by 6 ¾ lengths and then finished second by 3 ½ lengths in the Gr1 Ogden Phipps, before her sparkling performance in the Ballerina.

Holliday has achieved almost as much success with Thoroughbreds as he has in real estate, which is saying a lot. “I think there are a lot of similarities with real estate and horses,” he said. “With real estate, it’s about vision, planning, design, development, and if you do it right, there’s a payoff. Horses are a long-term investment. It takes a lot of careful planning. There are all the hands-on issues that come along the way. Then you forget everything...all the time and the setbacks...when you have those successful moments with these great equine athletes racing at the top level. It’s the payoff for five years of work.

He has a handful of racehorses, yearlings, weanlings and 10 broodmares.

“I’m very passionate about the business,” he said.

He’s also passionate about the Thoroughbreds who create the business, and their aftercare when they’re done racing. His involvement with Akindale came not long after the patriarch of Akindale Farm, John Hettinger, passed on September 6, 2006. Hettinger, the former president of Fasig-Tipton and a successful owner and breeder, led the racing industry in the battle to end horse slaughter in the United States. He won as horse slaughter in America came to a halt that very year. Hettinger set aside 1,000 acres of Akindale Farm to be used as a home for rescued Thoroughbreds.

Holliday’s niece, Michelle Woolf, did a research paper on Thoroughbred retirement and included Akindale. “That was right after Mr. Hettinger died,” Holliday said. Holliday’s wife, Sheree, and their daughter, Danielle, are equestrians, and they ride in charity events at Akindale.

“I started sending my lay-ups and yearlings to break there,” Holliday, who has received numerous awards for his philanthropy with people, said. “I sent a couple retired horses there. It’s always been a nice relationship. We built a showing ring for them and donated some equipment to them. They always can use the help.”

Bill and Corrine Heiligbrodt

Let’s face it. Bill and Corrine Heiligbrodt did just an awful job of getting out of the Thoroughbred business in 2011. Eight years after their dispersal sale, they enjoyed an afternoon at Churchill Downs few owners could even imagine. They won two Gr 1 stakes on Kentucky Derby Day, the Churchill Down Stakes with Mitole and, in partnership with Heider Family Stable and Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables, the Humana Distaff with Mia Mischief.

“It’s pretty hard to win a Gr1 race, so winning two in an hour and a half was pretty good for a cowboy like me,” Bill Heiligbrodt said.

Who could imagine another incredible thrill awaited them when Mitole stretched his winning streak to seven by taking the Gr1 Met Mile with perhaps the deepest field the gloried stakes has ever offered, at Belmont Park on June 8?

Good thing the cowboy got back into racing, right?

In July 2011, the Heiligbrodts sold 80 broodmares, horses of racing age, yearlings, a stallion, and, in a separate dispersal sale, 12 foals. The decision wasn’t made lightly because the Heiligbrodts, bridged to Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen, had been consistently successful, finishing in the top 10 leading owners nationally every year from 2007 through 2010. They campaigned, either on their own or in partnerships, 118 stakes winners, including 45 graded stakes winners. None were better than Lady Tak, who won multiple Gr1 stakes, including the Ballerina when she set a track record at Saratoga, and earned more than $1 million with 10 victories from 19 starts before being retired and sold in 2005.

Asked why he got out of racing eight years earlier, Heiligbrodt said in June, “I wasn’t a youngster. “My children were going in different directions. I thought that it was a good thing for me. I always enjoyed the racing, but I had been involved in breeding. I decided to sell it all.”

But horses had always been in his life growing up in Bay City, Texas. “There were 7,000 to 8,000 people there back then, basically ranchers and farmers,” he said. 

Heiligbrodt met his lifelong partner Corrine, in high school, where they became sweethearts. “We were together in high school and then in college,” he said. They’re still sweethearts. “I think the big thing is we enjoy the same things,” Heiligbrodt said.

Dreaming of playing football at the University of Texas, Heiligbrodt was recruited in high school by legendary UT Coach Darrell Royal and received a full scholarship. “You played both ways then,” he said. “I was a running back, split end, defensive end and defensive halfback. Of Royal, Heiligbrodt said, “He was a great individual—a very good judge of people and a very good judge of talent.”

Heiligbrodt started on the freshman team, but an injury brought a premature end to his football career, though he remained on full scholarship through his final year.

After finishing graduate school, Heiligbrodt moved to California, taking a job with United California Bank. “I went to work in California and went to the races in California,” he said. “I liked it. We went a lot. I did handicapping. I got thoroughly indoctrinated in that.”

He returned to Texas in 1967 to work for Texas Commerce Bank in Houston, where he would eventually become a vice-chairman. 

Twenty years later, he took a job with United Service Corp International, one of his bank’s former customers. He became president and CEO before leaving to work for two other companies until he retired in 2015.

He’d been involved with horses much earlier, using Quarter Horses in cutting—a western-style equestrian event with horses and riders working together as a team to handle cattle before a judge or a panel of judges.

“Then I got involved with a Thoroughbred trainer looking to race in Kentucky, Arkansas and Louisiana,” he said. “I got involved and I liked it. My wife and I picked our own horses. The kids were working in the business. It was a family business.”

They didn’t need a long time to pick out their racing silks: white and burnt orange, the colors of the University of Texas. “We’re pretty big Texas fans,” he said. “She’s the only one who bleeds more orange than me. She’s pretty tough, too.”

The Heiligbrodts bought their first Thoroughbred, Appealing Breeze, in 1989 and he won more stakes than any two-year-old in the country that year. But in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he was hit in the eye by a chip of a rock and missed nearly a year before returning to finish his career, earning more than $600,000.

Despite ongoing success, the Heiligbrodts got out of the business in 2011. Fortunately for them, it didn’t take. “I couldn’t resist getting back into racing,” Heiligbrodt said.

Asmussen has said that he may have saddled more than 1,000 winners for the Heiligbrodts. And if Asmussen surpasses Dale Baird for most career victories in the history of racing, he’ll have the Heiligbrodts to thank.

That’s not bad for a cowboy.

Dr. Joel Politi

Challenges have defined Dr. Joel Politi’s life. Feeling constricted while working in a small practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Columbus, Ohio, he helped form Orthopedic ONE, the largest physician-owned orthopedic and sports medicine practice in the state, in 2016. “We’ve taken our small group and merged with other groups,” he said. “I’ve been a managing partner. I’m very proud of it.”

Think live TV is a challenge? Politi allows his surgeries to be live-streamed to the local science center COSI (Center of Science Industry), which sends the signal via the Library Science Center in Jersey City to six high schools around the country. Politi estimates the program, called “Surgical Suite,” has cumulatively reached more than 300,000 high school students who are building careers in medicine the last 15 years.

“It’s live and I have a microphone on me,” he said. “I narrate the operation to them and field questions.” 

At the end of the surgery, he introduces everyone—nurses, surgical technicians, anesthesiologists, medical device representatives and physicians’ assistants—and each one describes his or her role, training and education they received to get to this point.

“He’s not only a very successful surgeon, he’s developed tools for others,” his Thoroughbred trainer Tom Amoss said. “He’s a giver. He’s not just a client, he’s a friend.”

In his lifestyle as a newly-minted 50-year-old who is thrilled to be blessed with four daughters, Rachel (22), Leah (20), Annie (18) and Nina (14), Politi and his wife Julie have challenged themselves by running in five marathons and more than 20 half-marathons. “We run together and talk together the whole time,” he said. “We’re not winning any races, but it’s kind of our sanity.” Just to make the challenge of long-distance running a bit more daunting, they’ve signed up to do a half-Ironman: a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike race and then a half marathon (13.1 miles). “I’ll see if I’m still alive after that,” he laughed.

But the deepest-rooted challenge in Politi’s life is Thoroughbred racing, tracing back to the days he shared with his late father Jacques, a pediatric allergist who had a 12-horse barn of Thoroughbreds in their backyard. “My priorities are work, family, exercise and then horse racing,” Politi said. “But I love horse racing. I grew up with a barn in my backyard. I’d get the newspaper every day just to see the horses running at Thistledown and Waterford Park (now Mountaineer). In the winter, we used to drive an hour Friday night to get the Racing Form just to look at before we went to the track at Thistledown the next day. I was 12, or 13. I got into it. I really got into it.”

Politi and his three older siblings, Diane, June and John, earned 25 cents to feed the horses each morning, and they spent as much time as possible watching them race. Most, but not all of those Thoroughbreds were low-end claimers. “We had $1,500 claimers at Waterford and Thistledown,” Politi said. “That’s where I grew up. My dad owned and bred a bunch of Ohio-bred stakes winners. That was a really big accomplishment, especially with a home-bred. I said, `Wouldn’t it be great to win a little stakes?’”

That challenge wasn’t addressed until Politi became a Thoroughbred owner. “In 2005, I put together my first partnership with a bunch of friends,” he said. “We called it Giddy-Up Stables, from Kramer’s line in a Seinfeld episode. We claimed two horses with Bernie Flint.”

Serengeti Empress, whom Politi purchased for $70,000 as a yearling at Keeneland in 2017, took Politi to another level, when winning Politi his first Gr1 triumph, when she captured the Gr1 Kentucky Oaks by a length and three-quarters.

“I don’t know if I’ve recovered from it,” Politi said three weeks after the Oaks. “I would say it’s the greatest thrill—that race, that win. I’d love for her to win a bunch more races (she then finished second after an awkward start in the Gr1 Acorn at Belmont Park), but winning that race that day was a dream come true...a true dream come true.” Politi acknowledged he’s come a long way from Waterford Park: “Oh my gosh, yeah.”

Gatto Racing and All Schlaich Stables

Nick Gatto’s journey in horse racing began with a bucket of fried chicken he’d share with his father at Del Mar, 15 miles from their home in Encinitas, Calif. “I grew up going to Del Mar with my dad and a bucket of KFC ever since I could walk, or before I could walk,” Nick said. “My dad in college, he always joked around that he wanted to own a racehorse. My dad was a CPA. He was a numbers guy. He and a close friend, Jim Cahill, claimed a horse named Senator Maddy with trainer Ed Moger Jr. in 2008. An $8,000 claimer, he won a couple of races for us, and we became hooked for life.”

With both his father and Cahill still working regular jobs (Cahill worked in retail with PriceSmart), they turned to Nick for help. “They didn’t really have the time to manage their horses,” Nick said. “They gave me the responsibility of working with Ed Moger. Then we dipped our toes in the water and got a two-year-old with Jeff Mullins. She became a winner. We started to accumulate a bankroll. We were profitable, and we kept rolling with it.”

Soon, Nick had to make the most important decision of his life. “My dad’s good friend, Will DeBurgh had Tuscan Evening, a successful horse with Jerry Hollendorfer,” Nick said. “I met with them. I asked, `How do I get more involved?’ Will mentioned that Taylor Made had an internship program. I was working as a local EMT for the fire department. I decided I wanted to pursue a career in racing more than I wanted to be a firefighter.”

Nick, now 34, completed the internship program at Taylor Made and then took an offer to stay, working there three years and eventually becoming a barn foreman. Then he worked for trainer Matt Chew at Del Mar one summer. Nick then worked for Jenny Craig before turning his attention full-time to form and then operate Gatto Racing with his partner, Mark Schlaich.

If Schlaich tells you a horse is a lock, take him up on it. He runs a locksmith company in Northern California with three shops and 30 employees. He slipped into the lock business after racing motorcycles and working in a flower shop. “I’m very mechanical,” Schlaich said. Schlaich, 58, got to know Nick through Nick’s father.

In 2018, credit Nick, his father and Schlaich for not getting lost in the moment when their horse War Moccasin got claimed for $40,000 at Santa Anita in her first start as a four-year-old in 2018. Trainer/co-owner Jerry Hollendorfer and his partner George Todero claimed Vasilika for $40,000 in that same race. “Jerry gave me the opportunity to go in on her,” Nick said. “Dan Ward, Jerry’s assistant, takes his job very seriously. He doesn’t smile that much. When he claimed this mare, he smiled at me. So I knew I had to jump aboard. I told Jerry, `Absolutely. Thank you.’”

They haven’t looked back as Vasilika has turned into a once-in-a-lifetime claim. Her victory in the Gr1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita May 27 was her 12th victory in 14 starts since that claim. “When Jerry got her, he put some weight on her and spaced her races,” Nick said. “She was entered in the November sale last year, but we decided to race her another year.”

Smart move. She is four-for-four this year with that Gr1, a pair of Gr2 and a Gr3 stakes score, but it’s been a bittersweet journey for Nick, still trying to heal after his dad died in January at the age of 64. “He was at a golf tournament following Phil Mickelson,” Nick said. “My mother was with him. He had a heart attack when he was on the golf course. This ride with Vasilika has been very emotional. It was very difficult. It still is. What this mare has brought us after losing my dad. He couldn’t have this ride with her.”

Mark Schlaich said, “Nick and his dad were extremely close. Always very supporting and loving. He’s still processing the loss of his father.”

Nick's wife Karla handles all the stable's book work while also caring for their two young children. Nick has long-time partners in Schlaich, Hollendorfer and George Todero. “It’s been great to have a partnership that has been together for so many years,” Nick said. “We’re riding this wave together. That’s what partners do.”

Especially when one of them is gone. 

Grade 1 Winning Owners January and March, 2014

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