Westrock Stables

Fifty-one year old Scott Ford and his dad, Joe, have been partners in business and partners in horses, racing in the name of Westrock Stable. Scott succeeded his father as CEO of Alltel in 1996 and led the communication giant through several major transformations, including the acquisitions of Western Wireless Corporation and 360 Communications, which allowed Alltel to become a national wireless carrier. He led the $27 billion leveraged buyout of Alltell in 2007 and its sale to Verizon Wireless two years later.

Scott is a former chairman of the Little Rock, Arkansas, branch of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, a former board member and chairman of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, and a former director of Tyson Foods, Inc. He serves on the boards of the Arkansas Research Alliance and King’s College in New York City.

Currently, he is partners in Westrock Capital Partners LLC and Westrock Coffee Holdings, which is the official coffee supplier of his hometown track, Oaklawn Park, in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Scott was born and still resides in Little Rock. He and his wife have three children.

The Ford family began their involvement in horseracing with Quarter Horses before switching to Thoroughbreds. They became partners in three horses with Dogwood Stable in the mid-2000s before beginning their own stable with the help of Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas in 2008. They currently have 35 horses with Lukas and another Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert.

The Fords had considerable success before Secret Compass won the Chandelier Stakes at Santa Anita by a head in September. Westrock’s Hamazing Destiny (owned with Barry Butzow) didn’t win his first stakes until the age of six but still earned more than $850,000 thanks to five victories, seven seconds, and five thirds in 33 starts. Their other top horses include Tidal Pool, who made nearly $400,000 off five wins in 24 starts, and Grade 3 stakes winner Decelerator, who was five-for-21 and earned more than $360,000.

Brous Stable; Wachtel Stable, Jack Hammer; Gary Barber

New York partners Nils Brous, a relative newcomer to Thoroughbred ownership, met Adam Wachtel when they tried to buy a company from Joe Sweedler, who was an original partner in graded stakes winner Attila’s Storm. Brous became a partner on Attila’s Storm with Wachtel, Barry K. Schwartz – the co-founder of Calvin Klein and former President and CEO of the New York Racing Association - and Double S Stable in January, 2005. Attila’s Storm won the Grade 3 Toboggan Stakes, finished second in the Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt and third in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop Stakes. He also finished fourth and fifth in the 2005 and 2006 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, respectively.

Brous is a 49-year-old native of New York, who was raised in Woodmere, New York, not far from Belmont Park. His father owned a couple horses there. “I went with him to the stables at six o’clock in the morning and always loved it,” he said. “I always wanted to own horses.”

He is a private equity investor who worked for Goldman Sachs on Wall Street after graduating from Harvard. He then spent ten years working for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. He and his wife Stephanie, who is the granddaughter of Robert Meyerhoff of Spectacular Bid fame, have two children, Brandon and Ethan.

Adam Wachtel is a 51-year-old businessman who was born in Suffern, New York, a 45-minute drive from New York City. His dad, Ed, owned horses in New York for years and Wachtel bought his first horse, Ms. Stalwart, while he was a student at Emory College. He knew what he was doing. Ms. Stalwart produced six winners from six foals, including graded stakes winner Stalwart Member.

Wachtel races horses on his own, in partnership with his dad until his death in January, and in partnership with friends and business associates. He and his wife Susan have three children.

Jack T. Hammer bred Ron the Greek, naming him for his friend Ron Skrumbellos, a long-time Thoroughbred breeder who first saw the young colt in Ocala and was inspired by him during a two-year battle with lung cancer. Skrumbellos died in August, 2010, without ever seeing the horse run.

Hammer is a certified property manager and licensed real estate broker. He is a life member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors Million Dollar Round Table, a founder of HIS Management which operates 5,000 multi-family units, Chairman of the Board of the American Opportunity Foundation, a non-profit organization that advocates affordable housing and a founding member of the Southeastern Affordable Housing Management Association.

Hammer founded and is the director and owner of Buckingham Stable, a racing and breeding company in Florida, where he lives.

Gary Barber, a native of South Africa, is the co-founder of Spyglass Entertainment, whose list of successful movies includes “Seabiscuit,” one of 50 films with Barber as executive producer.

A lifelong racing fan. Barber won a 1982 handicapping contest by the Rand Daily Mail in South Africa for an all-expense-paid trip to the Arlington Million.

He worked as an accountant in his home country before immigrating to the United States three years after his brother Cecil. His first job in America was as a CPA. Gary and Cecil have partnered on horses, and had two starters in Breeders’ Cup races. Gary has also partnered with Team Valor International, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Allamira Racing Stable, Kevin Tsujihara, and trainer Jerry Hollendorfer.

Good Friends Stable

“Good” Friends doesn't seem to do justice to the bond of brotherhood in this stable. “Great” Friends would be more accurate for these owners: Hilton Gordon, Joe Casciato, former Chicago Blackhawks star Denis Savard, Dave Flanbaum, Larry Slavin, and former jockey Rene Douglas, who was paralyzed in a gruesome accident at Arlington Park on May 23, 2009.

It’s easy for Savard to remember the date. It’s his and his wife’s anniversary. They were in Las Vegas celebrating their anniversary when they received the call about Douglas’ accident, which left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Douglas, who has benefitted from the support of his wife Natalie, deeply appreciated the additional encouragement he received from his friends. With Douglas, they are an eclectic collection. “There’s a Frenchman; there’s a Panamanian, an Italian, a Jewish person. You’ve got them all,” Savard told Mike Spellman in a story in the Chicago Daily Herald last March.

The 46-year-old Douglas, who won more than 3,500 races in his career, is the Panamanian, born in Panama City. While watching racing in his native country on TV from his home in Florida a couple years ago, Douglas spotted two horses he thought he and his friends should buy. The first was Golden Moka. He won four of 11 starts and earned $331,102. The second one was Private Zone.

Reeves Thoroughbred Racing

Dean Reeves attended his first Kentucky Derby in 1976. The native of Atlanta is CEO of Reeves Contracting, a business begun by his dad in 1950. His wife Patti owns Reeves Media, an outdoor advertising consulting business. They have two children, William and Sarah. Dean and Patti are active members of North Point Community Church, where Dean is involved with the Money Wise Counseling Team. They both also volunteer for the American Cancer Society as Road to Recovery drivers, driving cancer patients to and from treatments.

Dean and Patti split their time between Atlanta and the Turks and Caicos Islands. They were on vacation there in 2007 when they met Bob Estes, a long-time owner who had won the Florida Derby with Technology in 1992, and his wife Esther. The two couples became Thoroughbred partners, buying their first horse, Fearless, at the 2007 Keeneland Two-Year-Olds-in-Training Sale. The following year they purchased two yearlings, Cause I Can and Giant Success. Cause I Can posted a record of four wins, one second, and two thirds in 23 starts and made $155,829.

Dean and Patti formed Reeves Thoroughbred Racing in 2009, purchasing Whistlin Dixie and Uncle Joe, named for Dean’s uncle Joe from Pipe Creek, Texas.

In the summer of 2010, Reeves Thoroughbred Racing became partners with Dream Team One Racing in the latter’s two-year-old colt Mucho Macho Man after he finished a front-running second by a length in his debut at Calder Race Course. Less than a year later, Mucho Macho Man fulfilled Dean Reeves’ childhood dream by running in the Kentucky Derby. He finished third. In the summer of 2012, Reeves Thoroughbred Racing became the sole owner of Mucho Macho Man, who was second in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic and finally got his Grade 1 in the Awesome Again Stakes at Santa Anita in September.

Priscilla Vaccarezza

Priscilla Vaccarezza and her husband Carlo are no strangers to celebrities. They co-owned restaurants with baseball star Rusty Staub in New York and actor Mickey Rourke in Miami, and had New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner as a client when they operated Break of Dawn Farm near Ocala, Florida.

Carlo, a native of Genoa, Italy, moved to New York and had a brief stint as a hotwalker at Aqueduct in the late 1960s. He bought his first horse in the early ’70s as he continued his incredibly successful restaurant career. In New York, he and Priscilla, who is 13 years younger than her husband, teamed with Staub to run Rusty’s, and they operated Mickey’s with Rourke. Now, the Vaccarezzas operate two restaurants in Florida: Damiano in Boca Raton and Dino’s in Deerfield Beach.

They’ve had a handful of successful horses, including stakes winners My Due Process and Little Nick, Little Mike’s half-brother.

Little Mike has taken the Vaccarezzas to a whole new level. After losing his first four starts on dirt – a surface he has not run on since – he has prospered on grass, where he displayed his dazzling early speed. Dale Romans took over as Little Mike’s trainer after he won the 2011 Grade 3 Fort Lauderdale by a nose. He had previously been trained by William White, who had him for his first two starts, and Allen Iwinski.

Last year, Little Mike won the Grade 1 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs and the Grade 1 Arlington Million. When he didn’t make the lead in last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf, who would have expected him to change running styles on that stage? Yet Little Mike did. He relaxed under jockey Ramon Dominguez and rated in third. And then he won. It was a ride for the ages.

Little Mike, though, hadn’t even hit the board in four starts this year, the first two in Dubai, until the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational Stakes. Yet he displayed his huge heart by grimly holding off challenges on his outside and inside to prevail in the race by a nose for his thirteenth victory in 21 grass starts. He has earned more than $3.4 million. That’s enough to open several restaurants.

Reddam Racing LLC

J. Paul Reddam seems to have crammed several successful careers into a single lifetime: college professor of philosophy, founder of a mortgage loan company, and horse owner in both harness and Thoroughbred racing. Last year, he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes with I’ll Have Another, which was his response every time his wife offered him her homemade cookies.
Reddam, a 60-year-old native of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, has been called by his middle name since childhood to distinguish him from his dad, who was named John Paul. He can thank a friend, who was a groom at Windsor Racing, for exposing him to racing when he was a teenager, and it continues to be his passion.

He graduated from the University of Windsor with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, got his Master’s at the University of Toronto, and his Ph. D at the University of Southern California. Reddam taught philosophy at California State University-Los Angeles and settled in Southern California with his wife Zillah and her daughter Chanel. Eventually, he turned to business. In 1995, he founded Ditech.com, a mortgage loan company which was the first to use television and billboard advertising for current rates. He sold the company to General Electric in 1999, then became the president of CashCall, a finance lending company in Fountain Valley, California.

During the ’80s, while he was still teaching, Reddam put together syndicates to buy harness horses. He claimed his first Thoroughbred, Ocean Warrior, in 1988. 

Reddam had many successful Thoroughbreds before I’ll Have Another brought him to the brink of immortality. He bought a 75 percent interest in two-year-old Wilko in England before that colt won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in 2004. Red Rocks provided Reddam’s second Breeders’ Cup score when he captured the 2006 Turf. His other Grade 1 stakes winners include Square Eddie, Elloluv, Sharp Lisa, Cash Included, Swept Overboard, Pt’s Grey Eagle, and Crowded House.

I’ll Have Another outshone them all by winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown, only to be scratched the day before the Belmont Stakes and retired because of tendonitis in one of his legs. Ever the businessman, Reddam sold him for stud duty in Japan for $10 million.

In 2015 his 2yo colt Nyquist became the Eclipse Juvenile Champion following victory in the Gr1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

In 2016 his flagbearing colt followed up his victory in the Gr1 Florida Derby with a scintillating success in the Gr1 Kentucky Derby and now remains unbeaten in seven starts. 

Stella Perdomo

Even today, when so much of racing is centered on getting the most you can out of horses when they’re two and three years old, having patience and doing the right thing with your horses can still pay off big time. It sure has for Stella Perdomo, who continues to have success with horses others might think were well past their prime.

Forte Dei Marmi’s third consecutive graded stakes victory in the Northern Dancer Turf Stakes at Woodbine pushed his earnings over the $1 million mark at the age of seven. “He’s at the best he’s ever been,” his trainer, Roger Attfield, said after the race. Having a horse peak at seven certainly reflects positively on Attfield and Perdomo. But Forte Dei Marmi isn’t close to being the oldest horse to go over the $1 million mark for Perdomo. Last year, Musketier did so as a ten-year-old, thanks to his third victory in the Grade 3 Singspiel Stakes at Woodbine.

Musketier, too, was trained by Attfield, who began training for Perdomo four and a half years ago. Attfield has yet to meet Perdomo in person.

Perdomo is the wife of trainer Pico Perdomo, a 71-year-old native of Uruguay. Perdomo was a successful jockey in Uruguay, winning that country’s Triple Crown, and in Argentina before becoming a trainer. He began training in the United States at Santa Anita in 1977. “My friends told me to go somewhere smaller and get my feet wet,” he said. “But I have survived. Just don’t ask me how.”

Perdomo trained in the United States for a long time before returning to Uruguay. He came back to the U.S. in 2010, but then took a job as racing manager for Rancho San Paesea, S.A. When he did, he leased three horses with Santa Anita trainer Humberto Ascanio to Stella, including multiple stakes winner Proudinsky and Philatelist. Ascanio was a former assistant to the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel.

Martin Schwartz

Alterite is the latest talented European runner Martin S. “Buzzy” Schwartz has brought to North America to have great success, giving him his second consecutive victory in the Garden City following Samitar’s triumph last fall. Before their victories, Schwartz imported subsequent Grade 1 stakes winners Angara, Asi Siempre, Gorella, Stacelita, and Zagora.

Schwartz is a 68-year-old native of New Haven, Connecticut. “I used to go to the races when I was a kid,” he said. “I grew up in Connecticut and I’d go to the races in New York in the ’60s. I always found it to be a spectacular sport.”

After he graduated from Amherst College in 1967, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve from 1968 to 1973, leaving with the rank of captain. By then, he had earned his MBA from Columbia University.

Schwartz made a fortune on Wall Street. After working several years as a financial analyst for E.F. Hutton, he took $100,000 he had saved and bought a seat on the American Stock Exchange, where he began trading stocks, stock options, and futures. In his first full year, he made $600,000. The next year, he doubled that total. He was so proficient in his profession that he was profiled in the national bestseller “Market Wizards” by Jack Schwager. Then Schwartz wrote his own book, “Pit Bull Lesson from Wall Street’s Champion Trainer,” which was published by Harper Collins in 1998.

Two years later, he purchased his first Thoroughbred, Bowman’s Band. Trained by Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, Bowman’s Band won the 2003 Meadowlands’ Cup, earned more than $1.2 million, and went on to sire champion Groupie Doll before dying as a relatively young stallion.

Now Schwartz has horses in England, France, and North America. They are trained by Mick Channon, Jean-Claude Rouget, and Chad Brown, respectively. 

Larry & Marianne Williams

For relative newcomers to Thoroughbred racing, Larry and Marianne Williams have done remarkably well from their Tree Top Ranches near Boise, Idaho, in just 13 years. “They started from scratch,” said Dan Kiser, a former trainer at Les Bois Park who became Tree Top’s Equine Manager. “Mr. Williams is a real upbeat, nice person. He treats people nicely and good things seem to happen for him.”

Both Larry and Marianne are from the tiny town of Midvale, Idaho. They married there and moved their young family from Midvale to Boise in 1966. They have three children: Cris, Cory, and Cari. Larry became founder and president of the Idaho Timber Company, and its success allowed the Williams to dive into Thoroughbred racing.

“My family owned Quarter Horses, but they were mostly ranch stock, horses you worked cattle with,” Larry told Debra Ginsburg in her November, 2004, story in California Thoroughbred. “I don’t think I went to more than two races in my entire life before we became Thoroughbred owners ourselves.”

Initially, they contemplated investing in Quarter Horses. A trip to Kentucky convinced them to go with Thoroughbreds instead. They were smart enough to solicit advice from people who have known success in the business, including bloodstock agent Tim McMurry of Fleetwood Bloodstock, trainers Jerry Dutton and Cliff Sise Jr., and Idaho breeders Donnie and Judy McFadden. “They have all been instrumental in leading us down the right path,” Larry told Ginsburg.

McMurry selected the Williams’ first purchase, a yearling filly by Dehere at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2000. The Williams paid $35,000 for her, named her Tamarack Bay, and watched with delight as she earned $210,000. She then produced four winners, including Tamarando, from her first four starters.

Three years before they bought Tamarack Bay, the Williams purchased 700 acres in Parma, Idaho, and built Tree Top Ranch. They keep about 20 mares at Tree Top and send eight mares to Kentucky. The Kentucky foals are pointed to the sales. The Idaho mares are bred to California stallions and race as homebreds hoping to cash in on the rich California breeding program. About a month before the Idaho mares are to foal, they are sent to California to have their babies and then be bred back.

Longtime supporters of Boise State University, the Williams have contributed generously to the college’s academic and athletic initiatives including the expansion of the Boise University Broncos Football Stadium. In 2005, the Williams donated a 72-acre park to the City of Boise, which was named Marianne Williams Park. Many times, the Williams donate to good causes anonymously.

They were pretty anonymous in Thoroughbred racing, but that seems to be changing every day. Tamarando’s half-length win in the Del Mar Futurity has really put their names out there.

Bill Mack & Bob Baker

Bill Mack, the founder and chairman of AREA Property Partners, chairman of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and chairman of the board of directors of the Mack-Cali Realty Corporation, and Bob Baker, who is the chairman and CEO of National Realty and Development Corporation in Purchase, New York, have been winning Grade 1 stakes races for 16 years, all with D. Wayne Lukas as trainer.

In 1997, their colt Grand Slam won the Grade 1 Futurity and Champagne before suffering a leg injury in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. They sold a half-interest in Grand Slam to Coolmore Stud for $5 million. Grand Slam recovered from his injury and finished second in the 1998 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Mack and Baker also campaigned stakes winners Proud Citizen (with David Cornstein), who finished second in the 2002 Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness, and 2009 Hopeful Stakes winner Dublin.

Strong Mandate didn’t indicate he would join their elite company of Grade 1 winners when he finished fifth by 12¼ lengths to Big Sugar Soda in his Saratoga debut six weeks before the Hopeful, which Big Sugar Soda would also enter.

In the interim, Lukas added blinkers, and Strong Mandate won a maiden race wire-to-wire by 4¼ lengths. In the Hopeful – Lukas’ 78th birthday – he blew past the leaders and won by a jaw-dropping 9¾ lengths under wraps for the final sixteenth of a mile. “Blinkers usually help with my horses,” Lukas said in a joyful winner’s circle. “These guys, Bill Mack and Bob Baker, have been with me for 25 years. We’ve gone through a lot. We’ve had Grand Slam and Dublin down through the years and Scorpion and Proud Citizen. We had some nice horses, but I don’t know if we’ve had one this good.” When jockey Jose Ortiz returned Strong Mandate to the winner’s circle, Mack put his arm around Baker and said, “This is what it’s all about.”

Treadway Racing Stable

Jeff Treadway, a 51-year-old private investor from Texas, now lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. He got involved with Thoroughbreds seven years ago and owns 14 horses, including his two-year-old filly Sweet Reason, whom he purchased for $185,000 at the Keeneland 2012 September Yearling Sale. Leah Gyarmati, a former exercise rider for Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens, trains all his horses.

In only her second start, Sweet Reason won the 122nd running of the $300,000 Spinaway Stakes by 5¼ lengths, giving Treadway his first Grade 1. 

Treadway appreciates the job Gyarmati has done with his horses: “I wouldn’t have stayed in it so long if not for Leah.” And with Gyarmati trained Noble Moon proving to be a popular winner at a freezing Aqueduct early on this year, Treadway already looks on track as one of 2014's owners to watch!

David Jacobson & Drawing Away Stable

David Jacobson, the son of legendary trainer Buddy Jacobson, left racing for 25 years to deal in real estate. He returned to racing in 2007 and has become a force in New York with Drawing Away Stable.

Their greatest success came with Saginaw, a gelding they claimed for $30,000 who subsequently won 14 of 18 starts, including ten stakes. Saginaw suffered a fatal injury in a race at Saratoga the day before Jacobson and Drawing Away Stable won the Grade 1 Forego with Strapping Groom, a horse they had claimed for $35,000 three months earlier.

Jacobson watched Strapping Groom defeat Jackson Bend and Justin Phillip in the Forego Stakes on TV from Aqueduct. He had shipped most of his horses from Saratoga back to Aqueduct that morning. Of his 24 hours of tragedy and triumph at Saratoga, he said a few days later, “I just tried to stay professional about Saginaw. Now I’m starting to feel emotional. We kind of got used to him. We thought he’d be around forever.”

Mark DeDomenico; Allen Aldrich; Lisa Hernandez; Stuart Downey

Dr. Mark DeDomenico, who campaigned champion Blind Luck, may not need another superstar, but he certainly deserves one for the contributions he continues to make to human and equine health. DeDomenico is a cardiovascular surgeon and researcher who played a vital role in the development of coronary bypass surgery; the Guided Flow Aortic Heart Valve; and the Bionit Arterial Grafts, which are used to replace damaged or artherosclerotic arteries. He is a founding member of the Hope Heart Institute in Seattle, Washington, and owns and operates the 45,000-member PRO Sports Health Club, where he continues to research metabolic disorders – including high cholesterol, hypertension, and diabetes – and obesity.

His love of horses may be genetic. His father raced multiple stakes winners on the West Coast, and now the younger DeDomenico is helping horses more than his father could have envisioned. Working at his Pegasus Training and Rehabilitation Center in Richmond, Washington, with Dr. Wayne McIlwraith of Colorado State University, DeDomenico, who is Chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California Medication and Integrity Committee, is researching new treatments for equine middle and lower knee injuries, and he is also researching the use of platelet rich plasma and stem cell therapy.

As if he weren’t busy enough, he and Canadian owner Glen Todd began the Pegasus Two-Year-Old in Training Sale in Redmond two years ago. “Our whole mission here is to get some new owners into the business,” he told the Thoroughbred Daily News in an interview. “If we don’t keep getting new people into this sport to attend these sales, we’re going to end up in a tough spot.”

Godolphin

Godolphin was formed to give the family of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum a central organization to run its horses around the world.

Godolphin has won more than two hundred Grade 1 and Group 1 stakes around the globe, but it’s never experienced two more exciting Grade 1 stakes victories from one horse at one track than the two Alpha delivered a little more than a year apart at Saratoga Race Course. In 2012, the son of Bernardini dead-heated with Golden Ticket.

Bernie Schiappa

Bernie Schiappa is a 68-year-old native of Plainview, New Jersey, who got involved in harness racing before switching to Thoroughbreds. He retired as general manager of Fletcher Jones Imports, a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Las Vegas, in 2010, which gave him more time to concentrate on Thoroughbreds. He owns 25 and manages another 150 for Mercedes Stable. Schiappa’s horses race in the orange and blue silks of his favorite basketball team, the New York Knicks.

Schiappa was a partner with the late Terry Lanni, a lifelong friend who was Chairman of the Board and CEO of MGM Mirage, in 1999 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Silic, who was also owned by Ken Poslosky, and with Game On Dude.

Game On Dude’s victory in the 2011 Santa Anita Handicap is cherished by Schiappa. The gelding won by a nose under Chantal Sutherland, then had to sweat out an inquiry that seemed to last forever. “That was a 15-minute inquiry,” Schiappa said. “I was fairly comfortable that the results would stay the same.” And when it did? “It was a relief,” Schiappa said. “It was special for Terry, because he was getting sick then.” Lanni passed away a little more than four months later.

When Game On Dude won this year’s Pacific Classic, Schiappa and baseball legend Joe Torre walked Game On Dude into the Del Mar winner’s circle. Torre got involved in Thoroughbred racing when he was managing the New York Yankees, and one of his coaches, Don Zimmer, took him to the track. Torre subsequently owned several horses with late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel.

Willis Horton

Willis Horton, who at the age of 73 is five years younger than his Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, is a native of Marshall, Arkansas, who developed D.R. Horton Custom Homes, which became the nation’s largest builder of single-family homes. Horton retired when the company went public in 1992. That allowed him to pursue his passion: horses. He’d had them growing up, and he became the managing partner of Horton Stable, which included his brother Leon, his son Cam, and his nephew Terry. Among their best horses were Kentucky Oaks winner Lemons Forever, and Partner’s Hero.

Horton fell in love with Will Take Charge, a colt in the 2011 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I liked his pedigree, his size, and his conformation is terrific,” Horton said. “I’ve been in this business for about 50 years, and not on a big scale. I did it on a small scale. But this was the best-looking horse I’ve even seen in a sale.”

Another bidder was also impressed, but then stopped bidding. Why? It was Lukas. “I looked out and saw Willis bidding and I thought, ‘Whoa, I better back off here,’” Lukas said. “We’ve been friends forever.”

“It’s the most wonderful feeling to be able to get somebody put up the money, stay by you, believe in you, to give them that moment,” Lukas said. “Three strides before the wire, the only thing I thought of was him (Willis) and his wife.”

Asked what it meant to win the Travers, Horton said, “Well, it’s hard to describe, you know? I’m so happy.”

Steve Beneto

Steve Beneto, a 74-year-old member of the California Horse Racing Board who was inducted into the California State Fair Rodeo Hall of Fame, has a fascinating background. He was making a living vanning horses in 1966 when he purchased his first horse, who won his first race. “That got me hooked,” he said. “I got the bug.”

In 1973, Beneto purchased an A&W Root Beer franchise and an adjacent gas station. When the national gas crisis hit, his suppliers cut him off. So he purchased an old truck at an auction and began hauling gas himself. That single truck evolved into Beneto Tank Lines, a $72 million business with 250 trucks based at 18 terminals. In 2003, he sold his company to Kenan Advantage Group. Because he was traveling so much to his terminals, he purchased his own airplane. That grew into Beneto Inc. Jet Sales and Leasing, with offices near his home in Sacramento and in Dallas, Texas. “I usually get straight to the point real fast and solve the problem,” Beneto said. “You’ve got to work through the issues and stay on top of things until you get what you want.”

A board meeting at Del Mar prevented Beneto from going to Saratoga to see the Test, so he called up his friend George Hearst, who owns the Times Union newspaper in Albany, New York. “He called me up and asked if I could represent him this weekend,” Hearst said. “I said, ‘I will if she can run.’”

She can, and she did. “She’s a killer of a horse,” Hearst said.

Susan Wantz

Susan Wantz rode and trained event horses for much of her life before getting involved with Thoroughbreds in 1997. She and her husband David own ten horses in Maryland. “I just love Thoroughbreds,” she said. “Thoroughbreds run because they love to run.”

Dance to Bristol sure does love to run. Wantz purchased Dance to Bristol for $42,000 as a yearling and has watched her evolve into one of the best filly sprinters in North America. The daughter of Speightstown has won ten of 19 starts, with eight seconds, and is less than $20,000 shy of a million in earnings.

Just three-and-a-half weeks after giving Wantz her first Grade 2 stakes victory, getting up in the final strides to capture the Honorable Miss Handicap at Saratoga Race Course by a neck over Classic Point, Dance to Bristol did even better, holding off Book Review by a head to capture the 35th running of the $500,000 Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes.

When jockey Xavier Perez brought Dance to Bristol back to the Ballerina winner’s circle, Wantz rubbed her filly’s neck, congratulated Perez, and then wiped tears away before pictures were taken. “You don’t find horses with that much heart,” Wantz said. “You can’t breed that.”

Patricia Generazio

The Generazios – Frank is 84, Pat is 78, and they’ve been married for 47 years and counting – have come a long way since they began racing horses at Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park in New England.

They enjoyed great success with Presious Passion, who won 14 of 52 career starts, earning just under $2.7 million. “We were never fond of grass horses until Passion,” Pat said. The ten-year-old is now enjoying a sedate life. “He’s very happy in retirement,” Pat said. “He lives on the farm where he was born in Ocala.”

Discreet Marq, who is trained by Christophe Clement, has given the Generazios another reason to love turf racing. Before their homebred ventured to California to run in the $300,000 Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks, she had already won the Grade 2 Sands Point at Belmont Park. The owners wanted to be in California for the Oaks, but doctors had told Pat not to fly following cataract surgery. So she and Frank, who used to train their horses, stayed at their summer home in Cape Cod and watched on TV. And they liked what they saw.

“When she won that race, I couldn’t believe it,” Pat said. “It was phenomenal. It’s a great feeling, especially when we raced and bred her dam (To Marquet) and her grandmother (Pretty Momma). We raced them all. They’re like part of our family. It’s a great family.”

James Wigan

James Wigan is the founder and manager of London Thoroughbred Services Ltd., an international bloodstock agency that has grown considerably since its inception in 1976. Services include purchasing and sales, both public and private; stallion syndication and management; and consultation on pedigrees, insurance, and transportation.

In partnership with his mother, Wigan owns the 130-acre West Blagdon Stud in Cranborne, Dorset, in the U.K., where he keeps his family’s 24 broodmares. The family keeps ten-to-15 horses in training with Sir Michael Stoute, Luca Cumani, Richard Hannon, and John Gosden in England and with Andre Fabre and Francois Rohaut in France.

Wigan doesn’t frequently ship his horses to run in North America, but he sent Dank to Arlington Park in Chicago to race in the 24th running of the $750,000 Grade 1 Beverly D. Stakes. 

Wigan was glad he journeyed to Chicago to witness his filly’s best performance in her 11-race career. “She has such a great turn of foot,” he said after the race. “Obviously she has improved over the last year.”