Flaxman Holdings Ltd

The legacy of a truly amazing man, Stavros Spyros Niarchos, has carried on long after his death on April 15, 1996—40 years after his first top horse, Pipe of Peace, was Champion Juvenile in England. Many more followed, including champion stallion Nureyev and two-time Eclipse Champion Turf Female Miesque, whose 12 victories in 16 career starts included the 1987 and 1988 Breeders’ Cup Mile against males. 

Born in Piraeus, Greece, on July 3, 1909, Niarchos graduated from law school at Athens University and worked in flour mills owned by his uncles. Convincing them to purchase their own ships to carry wheat to the mills, they built a fleet of seven ships, including two tankers. When Germany invaded Greece in 1941, he offered the fleet to the Allies, joined the Greek Navy and served four years on British destroyers escorting convoys in the North Atlantic.

After World War II ended, he established one of the world’s largest fleet of tankers and bulk carriers before the oil crisis; and subsequent recession in the 1980s forced him to halve his operation.

His two passions were Thoroughbreds and art, collecting more than 100 Impressionist and Post-Impressionist pieces, including over 15 van Gogh’s. In 1989, Niarchos bought Picasso’s self-portrait “Yo Picasso” for $47.85 million.

Initially racing his horses in England, Niarchos moved most of his horses to France, where he was the country’s leading breeder in 1989, 1993 and 1994, and leading owner in 1983 and 1984. From 1982 through 1994, trainer Francois Boutin produced at least one Group I winner for Niarchos every year, including seven in 1993.

Besides Nureyev and Miesque, Niarchos campaigned Ballamont, Chimes of Freedom, Common Grounds, Coup de Grace, East of the Moon, Exit to Nowhere, Hernando, Kingmambo, L’Emigrant, Machiavellian, Magic of Life, Melyno, Northern Trick, Procisa, Seattle Song and Shanghai.

The family’s first top horse after Niarchos’ passing was Spinning World, who won four Group I races, including the 1997 Breeders’ Cup Mile a year after finishing second in the race. His family’s horses continue to race under Flaxman Holdings.

Kaleem Shah

The son of one of India’s top trainers, Kaleem Shah was instructed by his father, Majeed, not to follow him into racing despite the fact that Kaleem loved going to the track. “My dad kept us out of the racetrack life,” Kaleem Shah told Jay Hovdey of the Daily Racing Form in a January 5, 2012, story. “He wanted me to concentrate on my studies, and he made it absolutely clear to us that he never wanted us in the sport as a trainer.”

His dad won the India Triple Crown twice with Bright Hanovar and Our Select. And Shah’s uncle, Saeed Shah – also a trainer – won the India Derby twice.

Shah, who was born on July 6, 1962 in Bellary, India, earned a degree in electrical engineering at Bangalore University and then moved to the United States, getting a Master’s Degree in computer engineering at Clemson University and an MBA from George Washington University.

He first worked as a software programmer at Telenet, then founded his own communications company, CalNet, in 1989, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, near where Shah lives with his wife, Lubi, and their daughter and son, Sophie and Arman. CalNet offers intelligence analysis, information technology, and language services. One of CalNet’s biggest clients is the U.S. government, which mandates that he keep much of his work confidential.

He has no restrictions on revealing his feelings about America. He became an American citizen in the early ’90s, and when he followed through on his delayed childhood dreams and became a Thoroughbred owner, he designed his silks in red, white, and blue.

Shah began racing in Maryland with trainers Jim Murphy and Dale Capuano; then, after his company opened a division in California, with Doug O’Neill before hiring Bob Baffert. He has 30 horses with Baffert in California and 10 broodmares at Hill ’n’ Dale Farm in Kentucky, where his first top horse, Concord Point, stands. Shah bought Concord Point after he won his maiden in 2009, and the son of Tapit went on to win the $250,000 Grade 3 Iowa Derby by 81⁄2 lengths in track-record time and the $750,000 Grade 2 West Virginia Derby by a length in 2010.

Eden’s Moon, the highest-priced filly ($390,000) at the 2011 Mid-Atlantic Two-Year-Old Sale, gave Shah his first Grade 1 victory when she captured the 2012 Las Virgenes. She also won the Grade 2 San Clemente Handicap and finished second in the Grade 2 Hollywood Oaks and third in both the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks and Grade 2 Indiana Oaks. 

When Declassify won the Triple Bend in his first stakes attempt, Khaleem Shah had another Grade 1 victory. Two years earlier, he told Hovdey, “If winning comes as a result of racing, all the better. 

What I truly enjoy is my red, white, and blue silks out there running.”

Gallant Stable

Majestic Harbor’s dominating victory in the Gold Cup at Santa Anita, which was previously the Hollywood Gold Cup, gave Ron Beegle, who races in the name of Gallant Stable LLC, and his partners David Osborne and wife Loren Hebel-Osborne their first Grade 1 victory. It was also trainer Sean McCarthy’s first Grade 1. 

Beegle, 51, is the co-founder and operating partner of Goode Partners LLC, a private equity firm established in 2005 that focuses on investments in small- to middle-market consumer product, retail, and restaurant companies, and he has been on the board of directors of Aeropostale, a mall-based, specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories with 914 stores worldwide, since 2003.

He is also on the board of directors of Neiman Marcus Inc., an American luxury specialty department store.Beegle graduated from Allegheny College in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics. He earned an MBA in finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University in 1991. The following year, he founded and was president of Norray Management Company. 

He joined Broadway Stores, Inc., in 1994 as the senior vice president of corporate finance and administration.In 1996, he began working for Gap Inc. as senior vice president of finance (CFO) for Banana Republic. Under his leadership, Banana Republic was established as one of America’s leading fashion apparel brands; Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy began a successful on-line business; and the Gap division executed a well-regarded business turnaround. 

Beegle is a founding director of the USA Swimming Foundation, the national governing body of swimming with 400,000 members, and is a trustee at his alma mater.He hooked up with the Osbornes through a chance meeting. “My wife used to run the Visa Triple Crown promotion,” David Osborne said. “When Ron was at the Gap, he came in, and we struck up a friendship.” That led to a lasting partnership.

“I’ve been in horses my whole life,” Osborne, who is 50, said. “I showed Saddlebreds. Loren showed event horses.”

The Osbornes have 30 horses, some in partnership with Beegle, at their Deerfield Farm in Prospect, Kentucky. Their most successful horse before Majestic Harbor was Laura’s Pistolette, who won the 1995 Humana Distaff when it was a Grade 2 stakes.

The Osbornes have a strong reputation for taking care of their horses after their racing careers are over. “It’s something we feel strongly about,” David said. “If you make the decision to bring them into this world, you should take care of them.” 

They were at Santa Anita to watch Majestic Harbor win the Gold Cup in a powerful performance. An hour before the Gold Cup, the Osbornes watched another horse they own finish next-to-last in a $5,000 claimer at Indiana Downs on a simulcast. “He beat one horse,” Osborne laughed.

Majestic Harbor beat all of them.

Randy Patterson

Randy Patterson was one week old when his mom first took him to Anthony Downs not far from their home in Anthony, Kansas, in 1953. “I never missed a meet from 1953 to 2009,” Patterson said proudly. The track, which opened in 1904, held an annual five or six-day meet alternating Thoroughbred/harness races with greyhound racing on a small track inside the bullring for horses. “They’d start the card with a horse race, then a dog race,” Patterson said. Despite the support of Patterson, a successful cattleman, and other sponsors, the track closed in 2009. It was demolished three years later to create space for a housing development.

Patterson didn’t buy his first horse until a chance meeting in 1985 in a parking lot with a fellow he had done cattle business. “He said, ‘Me and a lawyer are going to claim a horse at Ak-Sar-Ben. Do you want in?’” Patterson said, “Yes,” and the horse they claimed for $11,500, quickly made $20,000. “I thought, ‘Where’s this game been all my life?’” Patterson laughed. “Since then, it’s had its ups and downs.”

Claiming Moonshine Mullin, a six-year-old gelding, for $40,000 last November has taken Patterson to heights he never imagined. Moonshine Mullin had considerable back class. He’d finished second in the 2011 Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes and sixth in the Grade 1 Travers to Stay Thirsty, who won Randy Morse, one of the three trainers Patterson uses for his ten-horse stable, urged Patterson to claim Moonshine Mullin for $25,000 earlier in a race at Remington Park. Patterson declined, and the horse was claimed by Maggi Moss. Then on November 30th claim Moonshine Mullin, this time for $40,000.

Despite having a great reason to say no – he would close a deal to purchase a 40-acre farm southwest of Hot Springs, Arkansas, the very next day – Patterson said yes. After Moonshine Mullin finished fourth and third in his first two starts for his new connections, Morse, who had studied all of Moonshine Mullin’s previous 25 races, decided to tell his jockey, Cliff Berry, to race Moonshine Mullin on the lead. The horse hasn’t lost since. His fourth straight victory was in the Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes. 

He followed that with his win in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster. They were Patterson’s first Grade 2 and first Grade 1 victories. “Coming down the stretch, I was just like, ‘This is not supposed to happen with a claiming horse,’” Patterson said after the Stephen Foster.,Morse called Patterson again, asking him to

By purchasing his new farm, which he has named Cedar Run, Patterson took a leap of faith with his only child, his 28-year-old daughter Sara. “She’d say, ‘Why don’t you buy a horse farm and let me run it?’” Patterson said. At the time, she was working as the head of operations for a landfill. “She got a job offer in California, but she didn’t want to go there,” Patterson continued. “I didn’t want her to go.”

So he purchased the farm, which will be operated by Sara with the help of Randy Morse’s brother Robbie. “It was the day after the claim,” Patterson said.

Looks like a good decision, doesn’t it?

Hronis Racing

Brothers Kosta and Pete Hronis, who were born and now live in Delano, California, have had anincredible amount of success in Thoroughbred racing less than four years after they bought their first horse. Their interest in racing began when they were kids and journeyed to Pasadena to visit their grandparents, who took them to nearby Santa Anita. “My brother and I were always the first ones in the car when we went to Santa Anita,” Kosta said. 

Before they were born, their parents began Hronis Inc., which specializes in growing, packing, and shipping premium San Joaquin Valley table grapes and citrus. Kosta, 55, is the CEO and president. Pete, who is 41⁄2 years younger than his brother, is the vice-president of sales and marketing. Kosta’s son, Demetri, is the vice-president of operations.

They began investing in Thoroughbreds after Kosta told Pete one day at the track that he wanted to buy one. They reached out to John Sadler, who has been training their horses ever since. “The timing seemed to be just right for me, being a rookie and all, to find some room in the Sadler barn,” Kosta said.

Hronis Racing, which claimed two horses to get started, now owns 38 horses including Caities Secret, the stable’s first winner who is now a broodmare. Iotapa is not their first graded stakes winner. Lady of Shamrock and Vagabond Shoes each won Grade 2 stakes.

Their success helped Hronis Racing become the leading owners in victories at Santa Anita for two consecutive winters, 2011-2012 and 2012-2013. Hronis Racing was also the leading owner at the 2013 Del Mar meet in both wins and earnings.

Kosta’s wife, Stephanie, and their children, Demetri, Halley, and Nia, all enjoy watching their horses. Kosta has named several of his horses for family members, including Brother Pete, Scooter Bird (his daughter’s nickname), and Sophie’s Secret for his mother.

Robert S. Evans

Thirty-three years after watching Pleasant Colony, who was bred and raced by his father Thomas Mellon Evans’ Buckland Farm, be denied the Triple Crown by losing to Summing in the 1981 Belmont Stakes, Robert “Shel” Evans’s lightly-raced Tonalist denied California Chrome the Triple Crown by beating him in the Belmont. Tonalist’s broodmare sire is Pleasant Colony.

In the press conference following Tonalist’s victory, Evans told reporters, “Yesterday I went to my father’s grave and thanked him for putting me in the position to be doing this. We had high hopes for Pleasant Colony [in the Belmont Stakes] and it was very quiet after he didn’t win.”

Family is an important fabric in Evans’s life. His dad was a cousin of Paul Mellon, the incredibly popular owner, breeder, and philanthropist. Evans, now 70, owned 1992 Champion Older Male Pleasant Tap with his brothers Edward (“Ned”), who bred Horse of the Year Saint Liam and bred and raced Grade 1 winner Quality Road, and Thomas Jr.

Shel Evans graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and received a master’s degree from the Columbia Business School in 1969. He is the chairman of Crane Co., an industrial company based in Stamford, Conn., and of Huttig Building Products in St. Louis.

Evans, who bought his first horse in 1965, has owned Courtland Farm in Easton, Maryland, for more than two decades. Among his top horses were Sewickley, who won the Grade 1 Vosburgh in 1989 and 1990 and the 1989 Grade 2 Tom Fool and Fall Highweight Handicap; and Shared Interest, who took the 1992 Grade 2 First Flight and the 1993 Grade 1 Ruffian. He bred Shared Interest and her daughter Cash Run, who won the 1999 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. He also bred Cash Run’s half-brother, multiple stakes winner Forestry. Evans sold Cash Run for $1.2 million. She was later sold as a broodmare for $7.1 million.

Always willing to give back to the industry, Evans served on The Jockey Club for 15 years and was a member of the New York Racing Association Board of Trustees for 12.

Shel and Susan Evans have three children – Michael, Ashley, and Jonathan – and two grandchildren. Asked after the Belmont if he ever is confused with the chairman of Churchill Downs Incorporated with the same name, he said, “My middle name is Sheldon and in Canada they call me Shel. Here, I’m Robert, which is his name.” He prefers Shel.

Anita Cauley

It’s only fitting that Anita Cauley, who routinely gives so much to others, has been given so much by her foundation mare, Ornate, the dam of On Fire Baby and two other stakes winners. Fortunately, Cauley held on to Ornate after she failed to reach a reserve bid, “a wonderful turn of events,” she said.

A native of Indiana who moved to Lexington, Kentucky, Cauley is a member of the First Lady of Kentucky Jane Beshear’s “Pink Stable,” a committee of women in the racing industry that assists Beshear’s Horses and Hope Organization, which works to increase breast cancer awareness, education, and treatment referral in the Kentucky racing industry.

 Cauley, who grew up outside Indianapolis, loved horses but didn’t learn to ride until she was 22, 

taking a class with school-aged children. “I was completely embarrassed by that, but was told I needed to learn how to ride properly,” she said in a 2012 story by Evan Hammonds in The Blood-Horse. “I got through that and eventually showed Arabians.”Cauley and her late husband, Barry Ebert, who owned an investment counseling firm, got into racing more than 25 years ago.

Searching for a trainer, they met and were impressed with Gary “Red Dog” Hartlage’s demeanor and family-oriented operation, noting that most of Hartlage’s family lived within a mile of each other in the Louisville neighborhood of Shively. “That was the atmosphere I wanted,” Cauley said. “This is such a tough business that it makes it that much more enjoyable when all these other people get it and they know how hard it is.”

Hartlage is still thankful for meeting Cauley. “I’m still training horses because of her,” he said. “If you want to rate somebody on a scale of 1 to 10, she’s a 10. She’s got total faith in me, and I have total faith in her.”

Success can do that for you. Cauley and Ebert purchased Ornate for $80,000 as a yearling in 1998, and Ornate won the 2002 Pleasant Temper Stakes at Kentucky Downs. They entered Ornate, who 

was in foal to E Dubai, in the 2003 Keeneland November sale at Keeneland, then decided to keep the mare when she failed to meet her reserve.Ornate produced 2007 Grade 2 Fantasy Stakes winner High Heels, who finished third in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks and earned nearly half a million dollars, and French Kiss, who won the 2009 Pippin Stakes and was third in the Grade 3 Azeri Stakes.

Cauley takes her involvement in racing seriously. “I really look at the spreadsheets and stallion numbers,” she said. “I look at stallions that have good race records at four and five, a horse that was out 

there and was sound and racing at that age.”On Fire Baby may be Cauley’s best horse. The gray mare won the Grade 3 Honeybee as a three-year-old, the Grade 1 Apple Blossom at four, and now, after running second in the Apple Blossom to Close Hatches, the Grade 1 La Troienne this year at five. She has already earned more than $1.08 million from six victories, two seconds, and one third in just 16 starts.

Anselmo Emilio Cavalieri

Matias Cavalieri, 40, is the son of 74-year-old Anselmo Emilio Cavalieri, who bred MissSerendipity and lives in Argentina. Though he’s semi-retired, Anselmo still has 25 to 30 horses. “He’s had horses the last 30 to 35 years,” Matias said of his dad.

Matias is an investment advisory representative for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Miami, Florida. Previously, he worked for Prudential Securities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Citigroup, Global Markets in Miami. He was named one of the best 1,000 financial officers in America in 2010 by Wealthvest Marketing. He is married with five children, but still finds the time to be an active runner and rugby player.

Miss Serendipity’s success in her fifth North American start continues her Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally’s great run with imported horses from South America, including U.S. champions Paseana and Bayakoa. “I met the Cavalieris through Dr. Ignacio Pavlovsky,” McAnally said. Pavlovsky is a well-regarded veterinarian and racing commissioner in Argentina. Miss Serendipity’s debut in North America came in the $80,000 Paseana Stakes on dirt, when she finished fourth. Matias had attended Miss Serendipity’s two prior starts to the Gamely at Santa Anita, when she finished third in the Grade 2 Santa Ana and second by a neck in the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Handicap, but he stayed home in Florida on the day of the Gamely to watch one of his children’s soccer games with his family and his mom, who was visiting from Argentina. They watched Miss Serendipity win on his computer.

Matias’s dad, and Miss Serendipity’s owner, Anselmo was at Santa Anita to watch the Gamely. “Dad was there, and he called,” Matias said. “He was happy. He was really proud.”

Winchell Thoroughbreds

Winchell Thoroughbreds is a partnership of Joan Winchell and her son, Ron, who are continuing the operation of Joan’s husband and Ron’s dad Vernon, who died at the age of 87 in 2002. Vernon Winchell found the donut company, Winchell’s, in 1948 and subsequently was CEO and chairman of Denny’s restaurants. His success in business allowed Winchell to continue his passion with Thoroughbreds which began more than a half-century ago. He bred and raced $300,000-earner Mira Femme, and, in partnership, 1991 turf champion Tight Spot. His other top horses included Donut King; Olympio; Sea Cadet; Fleet Renee; Valiant Nature; On Target, who finished fourth in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile; and Etcetera, who was seventh in the Juvenile the very next year.

The Winchells bought Oakwind Farm near Lexington, Kentucky, and renamed it Corinthia Farm after a house that was built on the property in 1854. Racing manager and farm manager David Fiske has been with the Winchell family for more than 30 years. Steve Asmussen has been the family’s trainer for more than 25 years.

Ron Winchell, who is 42, is involved in gaming bars/restaurants, construction, and real estate development. Among the Winchell Thoroughbreds’ long list of outstanding horses is Summerly, a $410,000 Keeneland September yearling who won the 2005 Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks. She was sold as a broodmare for $3.3 million at the 2006 Fasig-Tipton November Mixed Sale, the second highest price of the sale. 

Cuvee was a Grade 1 winner who was bred by Vernon. Tapizar gave the Winchells their first Breeders’ Cup victory when he captured the 2012 Grade 1 Dirt Mile. Pyro, who was bred and initially raced by the Winchells, won the Grade 1 Forego Stakes for Godolphin, which purchased the colt privately from the Winchells during his three-year-old season. Another star bred by the Winchells was Donegal Racing’s Paddy O’Prado, who won the 2010 Grade 1 Secretariat, the Grade 2 Virginia Derby and Colonial Turf Cup, and the Grade 3 Palm Beach Stakes on grass and was third on dirt in the 2010 Grade 1 Kentucky.

The Winchells’ current star is their spectacular homebred three-year-old filly Untapable, whose victories in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks in May and Grade 1 Mother Goose in June, made her six-for-eight lifetime with more than $1.3 million in earnings. The Winchells campaigned Tapit, who won the 2004 Grade 1 Wood Memorial and has emerged as one of the dominant stallions in North America, currently ranking first in North America progeny earnings for 2014 standing at Gainesway Farm and the sire not only of the leading filly in Untapable, but one of the top three-year-old colts in Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist.

Sharon Alesia, Bran Jam Stable and Ciaglia Racing LLC

Sharon Alesia, who was first married to musician and recording industry executive Herb Alpert, was introduced to horse racing by her late second husband, Frank Alesia, an actor and television director from Chicago whose dad, raced Thoroughbreds with trainer Steve Ippolito. Ippolito’s stepson, Peter Eurton, would become the Alesias’ trainer after Sharon bought a Thoroughbred for Frank to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in June, 1984. That horse never raced, but Sharon and Frank have been in racing ever since.

Frank, who moved to Los Angeles in 1964, appeared in the beach party films “Pajama Party,” “Bikini Beach” and “Beach Blanket Bingo” and in television shows including “The Flying Nun,” “The Odd Couple,” “Gomer Pyle,” “That Girl,” “Room 222” and “Laverne & Shirley.” Turning to directing, he received a daytime Emmy nomination for “Captain Kangaroo.”

After Frank passed away in 2011, Sharon and her partners - Ciaglia Racing (Joe Ciaglia), Bran Jam Stable (Mike Mellen), Rob Dyrdek and Nick Cosato - named the two-year-old filly they purchased for $175,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale Weemissfrankie to honor Sharon’s husband. Weemissfrankie then won the Grade I Del Mar Debutante and the Grade 1 Oak Leaf Stakes before finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Filly. After she suffered a non-displaced condylar fracture while finishing fourth in the Grade I Hollywood Starlet Stakes, she was sold and is now a broodmare in Japan.

Joe Ciaglia Jr., now 50, worked at Ralph’s Grocery in Arcadia, Calif., as a teen-ager and he and a buddy there, Brad Free, went to Santa Anita to catch races after their shifts were done. Free became a columnist for the Daily Racing Form, and Ciaglia became one of the top designers of action sports facilities in the world, several of which have been featured in the X Games, which includes skateboarding, motorcross and snowboarding, and is televised annually by ESPN. Ciaglia has three companies: California Skateparks, California Landscape & Design and California Rampworks, which manages events. California Skateparks has built nearly 200 projects in 40 states, including ones for world champion skateboarder Tony Hawk and two-time snowboarder and skateboarder Olympic gold medalist Shawn White.

Ciaglia’s wife, Stephanie, who was good friends with trainer Peter Eurton’s wife, Julie, introduced Ciaglia to Frank Alasia, and Ciaglia became an owner in 1999 when he claimed Ask Crafty for $25,000. The horse was claimed in his first start for his new owner. Then Ciaglia went into partnership with Frank and Sharon Alasia and Mike Mellen’s Bran Jam Stable and claimed Cee Dreams, who went on to take the $150,000 California Cup Matron Handicap and retired with 11 victories from 40 starts and earnings of $433,318.   

Mike Mellen, the patriarch of Bran Jam Stables, has had an incredible impact in Thoroughbred racing through his daughter Dawn, who founded and is the president of After the Finish Line, a 501 (C3)  charity which has been helping fund Thoroughbred rescue operations around the country for 6 ½ years. She said, “There’s a purpose for every horse out there. The greatest victory for a Thoroughbred is not winning a race, but winning the race to live long past their days on the racetrack.”

Hillsbrook Farms

Skeptics say you have to be nuts to be a Thoroughbred owner. Garland Williamson is a Thoroughbred owner because he sold nuts. Lots of them. The transplanted Canadian, a native of Georgia, moved to Canada in 1967. “I started a nut business, all types of nuts,” he said.

His company, Trophy Foods, became the most successful food producers and distributors in his adopted country, specializing in edible nuts, dried fruits, confectionary and bulk foods. The company’s continuing success allowed him to retire four years ago, well after he re-connected with his Georgia roots and became a Thoroughbred owner and breeder, racing from his Hillsbrook Farm in Erin, Ontario. Hard Not to Like is a home-bred.

“I’ve always liked horses,” Williamson said. “I grew up in Georgia as a kid many years ago and we never had horses, but we always had animals. We had mules to plow the garden with.”

 His gray mare Hard Not to Like, like her dam Like a Gem, whom Williamson also bred and raced, is a lot faster than a mule. Like a Gem won the final three races of her career including the mile-and-a-quarter Maple Leaf Stakes. “Her first win was at five furlongs and she won up to a mile and a quarter,” he said. “We didn’t think there was any limitation on her distance.” She finished her career with more than a half million dollars in earnings.

Hard Not to Like, who was originally trained by Gail Cox and is now handled by Michael Matz, became just the second filly in 74 years to beat males in the Cup and Saucer Stakes for two-year-olds at Woodbine in 2011. She was second by three-quarters of a length in the 2012 Grade 1 Ashland Stakes. In her first start for Matz, she won the 2013 Grade 3 Marshua River Stakes before finishing ninth in last year’s Jenny Wiley Stakes. 

Vincent Scuderi

Born in Glen Cove, Long Island, 57-year-old Vincent Scuderi is the third-generation president of his family’s Brooklyn business, Van Blarcom Company, now known as VBC. The company’s five buildings occupy an entire city block, manufacturing child resistant closures and specialty products for the pharmaceutical and health-care industries. Incorporated on Feb. 3, 1947, VBC manufactures more than one billion closures and fitments annually and employs 300 people. “I have a good business that allows me to pay my horse bills,” Scuderi said April 22. “It’s a very hard game.”

It’s a game he loves to play. His father and uncle helped introduce him to horse racing, and he began catching harness races at nearby Roosevelt Raceway. “I started going for a few late races after work,” Scuderi said. “I was 18 or 19 back then with no money. Two of my friends and I, we used to go there and go party afterwards.”

Scuderi bought his first horse, a Thoroughbred, some 30 years back. The horse never made it to the races. Instead of giving up on racing, he claimed another. “Baby Chris was her name,” he said. “She won three or four races. I was hooked.”

Though he bred Dads Caps and still owns his dam, Seeking the Silver, Scuderi describes himself as a “most predominantly a claiming owner.” He hit a huge home run with Endless Circle, a horse he claimed for $14,000 who subsequently won two stakes with trainer Rudy Rodriguez. Scuderi also had considerable success with Uncle T Seven, a top New York-bred.

He now has six or seven horses with Rodriguez and trainer Michelle Nevin, three babies and one accomplished broodmare who has now produced a Grade I stakes winner. When Scuderi entered speedy Dads Caps in the Carter, he told Rodriguez he’d be okay with scratching him if there was a ton of other early speed in the race. “I honestly thought I could finish in the top four,” Scuderi said. “I was getting weight. It was my home track. And there wasn’t a lot of other early speed. I thought we had a chance.”

He did, giving Rodriguez, jockey Luis Contreras and Scuderi and his family, wife Deborah, son Vincent and daughter Liza, their first Grade I. “It was a surprise,” Scuderi said. “I just get such a thrill out of winning. I really do.”

Steve Coburn & Perry Martin

Long-time racing fans Perry Martin and Steve Coburn each owned a five percent share of an $8,000 mare named Love the Chase in a syndicate. When the syndicate dissolved, each wanted to buy the mare himself. Instead, they became partners. Someone suggested a name for their new stable. “A groom walked by and said, `Anybody who buys this horse is a dumb ass,’” Martin told Debbie Arrington in her April 4th, 2014, story in the Sacramento Bee. “Steve and I shook hands; we’re the Dumb Ass Partners.”

Indeed, their California Chrome races in purple and green silks featuring a caricature of a jackass. How dumb are Martin and Coburn? California Chrome was Love the Chase’s first foal. His dominating victories in the Grade 2 San Felipe and the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby extended his all-stakes winning streak to four heading into the Grade I Kentucky Derby for 77-year-old trainer Art Sherman, who was the exercise rider for 1955 Santa Anita and Kentucky Derby winner Swaps. Like Swaps, California Chrome is a California-bred.

Unlike their trainer, Martin and Coburn don’t have historical ties to racing. Martin and his wife Denise own and operate Martin Testing Laboratories at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento. Martin Testing Laboratories is a commercial full-service independent lab offering contract research and development, product assurance testing and material assurance testing services.

Coburn works at a factory that makes magnetic strips for credit cards. His wife, Carolyn, recently retired. “We’re just everyday people,” Coburn told Arrington. “I’m up at 4:30 every morning and in bed by 10.” Martin said, “We’ve got two businesses to run; the horse is our third business. But we’re really happy and excited.”

And that was before the Kentucky Derby. 

California Chrome was born at Harris Farms in California. “He weighed 137 pounds when he was born,” Coburn said. “That’s big. We nicknamed him Junior. I told my wife when we saw this horse on the day after he was born, `We better hang on for this ride because it’s going to be a good one.’ He had no idea.

Centennial Farms

Wicked Strong’s victory in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct came 21 years after Donald Little Sr. and Donald Little Jr.’s Centennial Farms enjoyed a seminal New York moment at nearby Belmont Park when Colonial Affair won the 1993 Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, making jockey Julie Krone the first female rider to win a Triple Crown race. “I was so nervous for that race that when they loaded the horses in the gate I left the owners in the box seats and hid behind a pole,” 53-year-old Little Jr. said. “By the time they were at the eighth pole, I was back in the middle of the group yelling and cheering.”

Colonial Affair wasn’t done giving the Littles reasons to cheer, adding the Grade I Whitney Handicap and Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup the following year.

Two years earlier, Centennial Farms’ Rubiano won the Grade 1 Carter Handicap, Grade I Vosburgh, Grade 2 Forego, Grade 2 Tom Fool and the Grade 3 Westchester on the way to being named 1992 Eclipse Champion Sprinter. “Rubiano and Colonial Affair put us on the map,” Little Jr. said.

Corinthian kept Centennial Farms in the headlines when he won the Grade I Metropolitan Mile and the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in 2007.

Little Sr. is an investment banker in Boston and the chairman of Centennial Farms. Little Jr. is the Centennial Farms President. Little Sr. is a past president of the United States Polo Association and a master of the Myopia Hunt Club who competes in the master’s class at Grand Prix show jumping events. He was also the youngest aircraft commander in the Strategic Air Command. Little Jr. is also a pilot.

Centennial Farms, which creates racing partnerships, began in 1982 and has won more than 65 graded stakes and $15 million in purses. Paula Parsons breaks and trains Centennial’s yearlings at its 60-acre farm in Middleburg, Va., and Dr. Stephen Carr, a veterinarian, advises Centennial on acquisitions and stallion management. Centennial has horses with three trainers, Jimmy Jerkens, Michael Matz and Rodney Jenkins.

When Centennial’s Grade 3 winner Chelokee was injured and retired, Centennial donated him to the University of Arizona to stand at stud.

Wicked Strong’s original name was Moyne Spun when he was purchased by Centennial for $375,000 at the 2012 Keeneland Yearling Sale. Two weeks after the 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon, Little Jr. wanted to rename him Boston Strong, but that name had already been taken by Sovereign Stable. After conferring with his friend and Principal of the Boston Bruins, Charlie Jacobs, and Jacob’s wife, Kim, Little settled on Wicked Strong. Then he announced that one percent of his earnings would be donated to the One Fund, which was set up to support victims of the bombings. Already, $7,000 has been donated to the One Fund. After the Wood, Little announced the percentage would be five for the Triple Crown races.

“A lot of times, it takes tragedy to pull people together, and it’s very obvious that did that for the people of Boston,” Little told Anthony Gulizia of the Boston Globe in an April 20th, 2014, story. “The first reaction is anger, which I had myself. But then after that you think about the victims and their families and how we’re going to grow from this and support each other from this, and it happened.”

It only happens when people decide to make a difference.

Landaluce Educe Stables

Ray Struder is living proof of the powerful, emotional attachment a fan can have to a Thoroughbred. The 51-year-old native of Tennessee named his all-filly stable Landaluce Educe, which is Latin for Landaluce remembered.

Following a football injury in high school, Struder moved cross country to attend San Diego State University. Every day in the summer he rode the city bus to Del Mar. On Sept. 5, 1982, he saw trainer D. Wayne Lukas’s unbeaten two-year-old filly Landaluce capture the Grade 2 Del Mar Debutante by 6 ½ lengths at odds of 3-10. Struder was so impressed that he traveled to Santa Anita to see her next start in the Grade 3 Anoakia Stakes, a race she captured by 10 lengths at 1-10.

In her following start, Landaluce won the Grade 1 Oak Leaf Stakes at Santa Anita by two lengths at odds of 1-20. But the filly who would be named an Eclipse Award winner contracted a bacterial infection in November. She died in Lukas’s arms a month later.

“Few things get to me emotionally, but I was surprised how heartbroken I was by her death, and especially for a horse I never met,” Struder said. “I would think about her and the two races I saw all the time.”

Struder never forgot the champion filly. “I wanted to be a Thoroughbred owner since I was 19 years old,” he said. “It took me close to 30 years.” He knew what he wanted to name his stable the whole time.

Struder’s business success with his engineering firm in Tennessee freed him to buy his first horse in 2010 with trainer Kenny McPeek. They would team up to buy 10 more. Four of the 11 have raced in graded stakes. Struder entered the game with a plan: buy quality fillies and develop a broodmare band.

Rosalind, whom he purchased for $70,000 as a yearling, may be the leader of the band. She nearly gave Struder a victory in the Breeders’ Cup last year, when she was a fast-finishing third by a half-length in the Grade 1 Juvenile Filly.

Now she’s given Struder his first Grade I, conjuring memories of another Grade I filly Struder fell in love with and still honors so many years later.

Wesley Ward

Success at the top level of racing as a jockey or trainer or owner is difficult enough. Wesley Ward has done all three in his remarkable, on-going career. And he’s only 46 years old.

The son of Washington trainer Dennis Ward and the grandson of New York outrider Jim Daley, Ward won the Eclipse Award for apprentice jockey in 1984 after winning 335 races, more than $5 million in earnings and riding titles at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and The Meadowlands. Weight problems impacted his riding career in North America, so he rode in Italy, Singapore and Malaysia before retiring in 1989 to begin his second career as a trainer.

After working as his dad’s assistant, he went on his own in 1991. His first stakes and graded stakes winner was Unfinished Symph, who captured the 1994 Grade 3 Will Rogers Handicap at Hollywood Park. Unfinished Symph subsequently finished third that year in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Three other horses Ward trained, Cannonball in both the 2007 Juvenile Turf and 2009 Turf Sprint, Holdin Bullets in the 2011 Juvenile Sprint and Sweet Shirley Mae in the 2012 Juvenile Sprint, also finished third. Judy the Beauty, whom he owns, almost got the job done last year, finishing second by a half-length to Groupie Doll in the Filly & Mare Sprint.

By then, Ward had made history. Twice. In 2009, on his first trip to England, he became the first American trainer to win at Royal Ascot. He did that twice with Strike the Tiger, who won the Windsor Castle Stakes, and with Group 2 Queens Mary Stakes winner Jealous Again. Ward, who bred Strike the Tiger, owned both horses in partnership. Two years later, Ward became the first American trainer to win at Longchamp when Tiz Terrific broke her maiden there. Ward saddled three more winners in France, another one at Longchamp with Italo and two at Chantilly with Judy the Beauty and Everyday Dave.

Still sensitive to the difficulties a young jockey can face, Ward has given mounts to many inexperienced riders including Ariel Smith in 1999 and Christian Santiago Reyes in 2009, helping each win the Eclipse Award for apprentice rider.

Ward, who owns a broodmare farm in Ocala, and his wife Kimberly have three children, Riley, Jack and Denae.

Twin Creek Racing Stables LLC

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Multi-faceted Steve Davison, a 47-year-old native of Ruston, La., owns both Twin Creeks Farm and Twin Creeks Racing Stables. He is an attorney who also is the principal owner of Genesis Energy LP, a publicly-traded energy and transportation company. He developed Squire Creek Country Club, a residential golf course community where his family lives in Choudrant, La.; and recently bought “The Sheets” handicapping service. He remains close to his alma mater, Louisiana Tech University, and is a radio broadcaster for its football games.

Davison got involved in racing when his farm manager and best friend since kindergarten, Randy Gullatt, began his career as a trainer in 1985. Davison bought a couple of horses for him to train. One was La Paz, whom was eventually sold as a broodmare for $1.6 million in 2000. Eight years later, Twin Creeks purchased her colt for $200,000, Mission Impazible, who went on to win a pair of Grade II stakes, the Louisiana Derby and the New Orleans Handicap.

Twin Creeks is the co-breeder of multiple Grade I stakes winner To Honor and Serve, who was sold as a weanling for $250,000 and then re-sold as a yearling for $575,000. Twin Creeks also sold his dam, Pilfer, for $650,000 in 2008.

Twin Creeks raced graded stakes winner Graydar, whose victories included the Grade I Donn Handicap and the Grade II New Orleans Handicap and Kelso Handicap.

Gullatt, who trains in Louisiana, Arkansas, California and Kentucky, is responsible for selecting the horses Twin Creeks purchases and managing their racing careers, while Davison handles the organization of the partnership and the evaluation and purchase of yearlings. Twin Creeks also race horses with trainers Todd Pletcher, Mike Maker, Dale Romans and Steve Asmussen. Gullatt’s wife Kim, a former jockey, handles marking and client relations.

Twin Creeks Farm, which opened in 1992, features 180 scenic acres in Nonesuch, Ky., and is home to 25 broodmares. Twin Creeks consign horses they want to sell commercially under its own name or with Taylor Made Sales Agency.

Davison and his wife, Sara, have twins, Joe and Kate. He also has two children from a previous marriage.

Tommy Town Thoroughbreds LLC

Tom and Debi Stull, who were named the 2004 Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders of the Year in California and were the leading breeders of California-breds in 2009 and 2012, operate Tommy Town Thoroughbreds LLC in the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County. Tom, a manufacturing machinist, started a single tool and die shop in Santa Fe Springs more than 30 years ago. That grew into Tower Industries, which has shops in Anaheim and Ontario, Calif., and in Wisconsin. He also dabbles in real estate. Debi was an accomplished equestrian, a talent she passed on to their daughter Shelly, who competes in show jumping. They also have a son, Aaron.

Jim Wilson of Wilson Stock Farm picked out their first winner, Fa La Te Dough, who captured seven stakes and earned more than a quarter of a million dollars in the mid-1980s. After racing and breeding a few horses at their farm in Hemet, Calif., they decided to do more. “We decided to do it right,” Tom said.

They purchased D. Wayne Lukas’ former 160-acre operation, the Westerly Training Center, in 2000 and have expanded it to more than 350 acres. It’s home to nearly 400 horses, including a broodmare band of more than 50 and four stallions, all multiple stakes winners: Kafwain, Ministers Wild Cat, Old Topper and Grazen. The facility, which is run by Ranch Manager Mike Allen, has 100 stalls, a custom Equicruiser and a seven-furlong track.

In 2004, Tommy Town Thoroughbreds offered a money-back guarantee on Old Topper’s 2003 and 2004 stud fees if the stallion wasn’t the state’s freshman sire of the year. Old Topper not only finished first in the state, but also ranked 13th nationally.

One of Tommy Town Thoroughbreds’ top horses was Whatsthescript, a private purchase after the horse raced three times in Ireland. After recovering from a foot bruise, he won a pair of Grade II stakes, the American Handicap and Del Mar Mile Handicap, before finishing third in the 2008 Grade I Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Tommy Town Thoroughbreds has some 40 horses in training with Jerry Hollendorfer, John Sadler, Mike Mitchell, Peter Miller and William Morey in California, Henry Dominguez in New Mexico and Joan Reynolds in Maryland.

David Heerensperger & Jose Maria Nelson

Trainer Neil Drysdale arranged David Heerensperger and Jose Maria Nelson’s 50-50 partnership on Winning Prize, who was imported from Nelson’s home country of Argentina, which is where Winning Prize will stand when his racing career is over.

Heerensperger, a 67-year-old native of Longview, Wash., retired as CEO of Pay ‘n Pak Hardware Stores in 1989 and founded Eagle Hardware and Garden. “He had always wanted a chain of stores that were bigger and better,” Jill said. After Eagle Hardware and Garden grew to more than 30 stores in the western United States, he retired again in 1997, nearly two decades after he and Jill got involved with Thoroughbreds.

After they purchased a trip to the Kentucky Derby at a charity auction, Jill, who had grown up showing Saddlebreds and Quarter Horses, suggested to her husband they buy a Thoroughbred. On a whim, they attended a horse sale in Washington in 1979 and wound up buying the sales topper, Flame Commander, who bowed a tendon and never raced. The Heerenspergers dove into Thoroughbred racing anyway, not just as owners and breeders, but also as significant investors in Emerald Downs, a track in Auburn, Wash., which opened on June 20, 1996. Jill served on the board of the Washington Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association for 13 years.

Their top horses include Grade I winners Artiste Royal and Millennium Wind and Bourbon Bay, who won six Grade II stakes and made nearly $1 million. The couple, who have homes in Bellevue, Wash., and Palm Springs, Calif., usually have up to half a dozen horses in training with Drysdale in Southern California and Tom Wenzel at Emerald Downs. “We both love our horses and we want to give them every chance we can,” Jill said. “We want to do right by them.”

Jose Maria Nelson, a prominent owner and breeder in Argentina, is the president of the Argentine Stud Book which watches over the Genealogic Register of identity and property of all Thoroughbred, Pure Arabian and Anglo-Arabian horses. He is also on the Argentine Jockey Club Committee and a member of the Racing Commission of the San Isidro Hippodrome.

Crossed Sabres Farm

Carolyn Vogel, an experienced equestrian who races in the name of Crossed Sabres Farm, has teamed with a fellow New Englander, trainer Marcus Vitali, to become a power in South Florida. Crossed Sabres was the second leading owner of the 2013 Calder Summer Meet with 14 victories from 50 starts. The stable is doing even better this year. Through early February, Crossed Sabres is the leading owner of the 2014 Calder Winter Meet with five wins from 14 starters. And Vitali is the leading trainer.

Winning the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap with 39-1 longshot Lochte was a major coup. “She encouraged me to start him,” Vitali said. “She said, `Go for it.’ She’s a wonderful lady and she’s good for the industry. She’s put me in a great position.”

Crossed Sabres also has horses with Dale Romans, who trains Pick of the Litter, a four-year-old colt who was a $150,000 yearling purchase at the 2011 Keeneland September. Following a 7 ½-length maiden victory in his second career start, Pick of the Litter became Crossed Sabres’ first starter in a Grade I stakes when he finished sixth to Orb in the 2013 Florida Derby. Pick of the Litter then finished third to Winning Cause in the Grade III Lexington Stakes at Keeneland and fifth in the Grade I Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park to Verrazano.

On Feb. 9 at Gulfstream, Pick of the Litter won an allowance race by 2 ¼ lengths, boosting his career earnings to $175,530.

Earlier this year, Crossed Sabres Farm’s Jay Eye See, who is trained by Vitali, finished third in the $65,000 Thrillin Discovery Handicap at Calder, Jan. 25.