Paul Bulmahn's GoldMark Farm

Paul Bulmahn is the founder, chairman, and CEO of ATP Oil and Gas Corporation, based in Houston, Texas, which develops and produces natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.

Bulmahn purchased 2,500-acre GoldMark Farm in Ocala, Florida, in 2002, but didn’t get involved in racing until 2006. The farm is now home to more than 1,400 horses, with about a third of them belonging to Bulmahn, who has had success with stakes winners Elusive Lady, Double Espresso, and Moontune Missy among others and Mylute, who was third in this year’s Preakness Stakes. But Cross Traffic has taken him even higher.

Cross Traffic, a gray or roan colt by Unbridled’s Song out of the Cure the Blues mare Stop Traffic, was purchased for $300,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale in 2010. In the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, Cross Traffic led from the start almost to the finish, losing by a nose on a head bob to Sahara Sky. Trainer Todd Pletcher called it one of the worst beats he’s had in years.

The sting of Cross Traffic’s Metropolitan loss evaporated on a historic, sunny afternoon at Saratoga two months later. There was Cross Traffic in the winner’s circle after taking the $750,000 Whitney by three-quarters of a length over Successful Dan. There was Bulmahn holding the Whitney trophy with Marylou Whitney on the exact 150th birthday of Saratoga Race Course, August 3rd. “This is huge,” Bulmahn said. “To be here with Marylou Whitney on Saratoga’s 150th birthday. This is my first Grade 1.”

Donnie Crevier & Charles Martin

Donnie Crevier was already on his way to a spectacular career selling top-line automobiles when three of his friends talked him into taking 25 percent of a Thoroughbred in 1988. “I thought it’d be fun and exciting,” he said. The horse won his debut, hooking Crevier for the rest of his life.

Now 63, he continues to follow three passions: cars, giving back to the community, and horses. He is president and CEO of one of the nation’s most successful BMW and Mini Cooper dealerships, Crevier BMW Mini in Costa Mesa, California. He also owns Crevier Class Cars, an innovative storage facility for classic cars that also functions as an exclusive club for the owners of those cars.

While he deals with toney clients and friends, Creview is legendary in Southern California for giving back to the community, especially with the Boys and Girls Club. “I was raised by a single mom with not much money,” he said in an interview in Dealer Magazine in 2008. “I was lucky enough to have youth organizations that I was involved with as a kid, and as an adult I’ve had the resources and good luck to be able to help those organizations.” He was realistic about being a Thoroughbred owner:  “It’s for fun,” he said. “If you have a little success, it’s all the more fun.” 

Lately, he and Chip Martin, a labor relations negotiator in Southern California, have had great success thanks to Bench Points and Bench Points’ full brother Points Offthebench. Bench Points won his first four starts. “That was an awesome thrill,” said Martin, a 40-year-old native of Indiana who attended Indiana University and went to the Kentucky Derby a couple of times with his college buddies. Bench Points’ win streak ended when he finished third in the Grade 2 San Felipe. Then, after running seventh in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, he won the Grade 3 Laz Barrera Stakes by a nose. Martin was surprised when trainer Tim Yakteen told him that Bench Points’ year-younger brother was going to be even better. ”He said he was going to win a Grade 1,” Martin said.

Yakteen, a former assistant to Charles Whittingham and Bob Baffert, was right. Points Offthebench edged Goldencents by a head to win the Bing Crosby Stakes and give Yakteen his first Grade 1 stakes win. “I didn’t think I’d have to wait this long,” Yakteen said after the race. Yakteen, who is the godfather to Martin’s oldest son Charlie, considers himself lucky to have Crevier and Martin as owners. “Donnie is a really good guy, very easy to work for, a professional,” Yakteen said. “He stays out of your way and lets you do your job. Chip is a true enthusiast about the sport of horseracing.”

A very happy enthusiast. “We’ve only owned a handful of horses,” Martin said. “We would have been grateful for just one good horse.”

Let's Go Stable - Michael B. Tabor, John Magnier and Derrick Smith

Bryan Sullivan was an investor on Wall Street before deciding in 2007 to launch Let’s Go Stable with his brother-in-law Kevin Scatuorchio, whose father, Jim, campaigned 2007 champion turf male English Channel and More Than Ready, the sire of Verrazano. Sullivan described his stable’s first Thoroughbred purchase, Ready’s Echo for $100,000, as “half exhilaration and half nausea.” Ready’s Echo turned out fine, dead-heating for third in the 2008 Belmont Stakes. “That worked out well,” Sullivan said.

So have most of his horses. Verrazano, a $250,000 yearling purchase as the 2011 Keeneland September Sale, gave Let’s Go a New Year’s present earlier this year when he won his debut at Gulfstream Park by 7¾ lengths. Quickly, Let’s Go was contacted by representatives of Michael Tabor, Mrs. John Magnier, and Derrick Smith, who offered to buy a percentage of Verrazano. “We owned horses with them in the past,” Sullivan said. “This made sense. We’d keep part.”

The deal was consummated the day before Verrazano’s second start, when he won an allowance race at Gulfstream by 16¼ lengths. “A lot of people called after that race,” Sullivan said. All of them were too late.

 “The anxiety before the Haskell was incredible,” he said. “I live two miles away.” Verrazano won the Haskell by nearly 10 lengths. “It was unreal,” Sullivan said. “It really was. Outside my wedding and the birth of my children, it was probably the most unforgettable day in my life.”

Besilu Stables

Benjamin Leon Jr., who races under the name of Besilu Stables, immigrated to the United States from Cuba when he was 16 years old in 1961. He had two passions, which he shared in an interview with Ocala.com in 2011: “Since I was young, I’ve been fascinated by horses. I’d get in trouble for drawing pictures of horses in my history class.  As long as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about horses and playing baseball.”

He pursued both. He was a world-class softball player, winning four national and world titles and was inducted into the National Softball Hall of Fame in 1988.

Leon, who owned and bred Paso Fino horses for nearly 30 years, waited another 19 years before buying his first Thoroughbred. By then, he and his family had established Leon Medical Centers, sold them, purchased them back, and re-sold them for hundreds of millions of dollars. Benjamin Leon III currently acts as CEO of Leon Medical Centers. The family, led by Benjamin Leon Sr., also founded clinics to help Cuban exiles.

Leon returned to his love of horses in a major way, buying the sales topper at three different sales in 2010 and 2011. Two were yearlings; the other was Royal Delta, whom he purchased for $8.5 million at the 2011 Keeneland November Sale.

“Everybody wants to be on the top of the mountain,” Says Leon. “Most people forget the fun is in the climb. I’m climbing right now and I’m having a lot of fun.”

Richlyn Farm

Richard “Dick” and Evelyn Pollard race as Richlyn Farm, which they concocted by combining letters of their first names. They met in New York City, where Dick was working as a bank clerk and Evelyn was a secretary for an oil company. Eventually, they moved to Boston, where Dick became a senior lending officer at a Boston-based bank and chairman of the Boston Ballet. Evelyn had ridden horses growing up on Long Island and on summer vacations at a dude ranch in upstate New York.

Their first horse, a cheap yearling, never made it to the races. Their second yearling, Jen’s Trueheart, became their first broodmare. They’ve enjoyed success in racing ever since, but rarely at the highest level. The last thing they expected this summer was to be standing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga after a Grade 1 stakes. Rather, they were surprised that their trainer, George Weaver, had even entered their three-year-old filly Lighthouse Bay into the Grade 1 Prioress Stakes.

Weaver, who was on his way to an outstanding Saratoga meet – nine winners from 41 starts – had surprised the Pollards eight years earlier when he entered their horse, Saratoga County, in the Dubai Gold Shaheen. He won, giving Weaver his first Grade 1 stakes victory.

B. J. Wright & Robert LaPenta

B.J. Wright, a 75-year-old native of Shelbyville, Kentucky, is the Chairman of the Board of LifeSource Water Systems, a water filtration company in Pasadena, California, which he bought as a full partner in 1985 shortly after the company was founded. His company is now run by his son Jay, his daughter Cherie and her husband Mark Harris, who is president of LifeSource. Wright gives filtered water to all his horses and backs up his belief of the importance of good water in people and horses’ health by donating a portion of his winnings to Nancy Santullo’s House of the Children, which provides clean water and sanitation to the people of the Southeastern Peruvian Amazon. He is now on the House of Children Board.

When he was in his 20s, he dabbled with Thoroughbreds. He and a couple partners bought a horse for $1,000 and went on to win a couple races with him. A second Thoroughbred didn’t do as well, and Wright left the game for some three decades, returning in the ’90s.

LaPenta, a 68-year-old native of Yonkers, New York, was the vice president of Lockheed Martin Corporation, founding general partner of Aston Capital LLC, and Chairman of the Board of L-1 Identity Solutions, which deals in the protection of personal identities and assets. He sold the latter company in July, 2011.

LaPenta was introduced to horses by his mother and made his first Thoroughbred purchase in 1988 as a partner with basketball coach Rick Pitino, whose University of Louisville team won last season’s national championship. LaPenta started his own stable in 2001, purchasing eight yearlings for $895,000 and racing in the name of Whitehorse Stables. His best horses include 2007 champion two-year-old colt War Pass and the outstanding sprinter Jackson Bend, and he won a Belmont Stakes with Da’ Tara.

Also a philanthropist, LaPenta donated $7 million to the LaPenta Student Union Building at his alma mater, Iona College in Westchester County, New York. LaPenta’s silks are Iona’s colors: maroon and gold. He lives in Deer Valley, Utah, and winters in Naples, Florida, and enjoys golfing and skiing.

Chasing Tales Stables

Starship Truffles must be wondering what she has to do to impress her owners enough to keep her. Just nine days after winning the Princess Rooney by 3¾ lengths, she was sold for a sale-topping $1 million at the Fasig-Tipton inaugural July Summer Select Horses of Racing Age Sale to Castleton Lyons. It was the sixth time this four-year-old filly, who is 14-for-26 lifetime, has changed hands. She was sold at auction three times, claimed twice, and sold privately once.

On July 4, 2012, one year and two days before she won the Princess Rooney, Starship Truffles was claimed for $6,250 by Gerald Procino. She won that race by 10¼ lengths, and had three more wins before she switched trainers to Marty Wolfson.

In her only previous graded stakes appearance before the Princess Rooney, she was a distant ninth in the Grade 2 Inside Information. Still, she won an allowance race by 10 lengths heading into her first Grade 1, in which she went off at 8-1 and won easily. She was immediately entered in the Fasig-Tipton Sale. “The Princess Rooney is, so far, the highlight of her career, and we are taking an opportunity to put her in the auction ring at an ideal time and place,” Steve Smith of Chasing Tails Stables said. “She’s at the top of her game and there are a lot of valuable stakes coming up for older fillies and mares throughout the rest of the year.”

After the sale, Gabriel Duignan, who signed the sales slip for Castleton Lyons before sending the filly back to Wolfson’s stable, said, “She was very impressive last out. She suits the program for Castleton Lyons and hopefully we can win a bit more with her.”

Tony Fanticola & Joe Scardino

“One of my goals in life was to own a sports team and I didn’t have $700 million laying around,” Tony Fanticola laughed when asked how he became a Thoroughbred owner.

Before he moved to California 25 years ago, the 70-year-old native of Staten Island, N.Y., used to go to the track in the morning with his late brother-in-law, Joe Trovato, a long-time, successful New York trainer who conditioned 1974 Filly Triple Crown Champion Chris Evert. “I used to go to the track with him in the morning,” Fanticola said. “Coffee and donuts and watch his horses train.”

When he came to California, he met Joe Scardino. “His son, Frank, built our house in Glendora,” Fanticola said. “We hit it off pretty good. He’s a sharp individual. He’s Italian. We broke bread a number of times.”

Scardino, an 81-year-old native of Chicago, has retired from his business as a contractor specializing in drywall construction. He began his involvement in horses some 45 years ago with Quarter Horses before switching to Thoroughbreds. “I think Quarter Horses are a lot of fun, but I thought it would be better for me to do Thoroughbreds,” he said.

Before he became partners with Fanticola, he did well on his own. “I won the Del Mar Derby and the Hollywood Derby (in 1988) with Silver Circus, that I claimed for $32,000,” he said. “That worked out well. Then I claimed Bruho for $50,000, and he went on to win Bing Crosby and Pat O’Brien (in 1991).”                          

And while Fanticola doesn’t have $700 million, he has done well enough, operating 105 Jiffy Lube franchises in Southern California, to risk an equine investment. “We wound up buying a horse together, Flying First Class,” Fanticola said. “It worked out well. We won a couple of races. He’s a fantastic partner.” The feeling is mutual. “It’s really a great partnership,” Scardino said. “Tony and I just agree very easily.”

They initially used Mike Mitchell as their trainer, then left racing for a couple of years before returning. Mitchell was glad to have them back. “This is my second time around with them,” Mitchell, said. “They’re wonderful, wonderful people. I’ve known Joe for a lifetime. They’re fun to work for and they love winning.”

They’ve done a lot of it, considering their stable size is usually just four or five horses.

“They make it fun,” Mitchell said. “They love being a part of it.”

Amerman Racing; Bongo Stable; Gary Finder; Elias Sabo

If horses had to wear uniforms, there wouldn’t be enough space on the back to list all the owners of Centralinteligence. “It’s my partnership group,” Bob Feld, the managing partner of Bongo Stable’s said. “We’ve been doing partnerships for about 10 years now. We’re like West Point.”

Feld said it wouldn’t be stretching the truth that much that the day after he graduated high school, he hit the backstretch to become a groom. “You either have the racing bug or you don’t,” he said. “My dad would take me and my three brothers to go to the track for the last race and bet a horse to show. Three of the four brothers are involved in racing. We all had a passion for it.”

Feld is a bloodstock agent, who worked with Barry Irwin’s Team Valor and met the Amermans through Irwin. Feld is especially close to Centralinteligence’s trainer, Ron Ellis. “I was the best man at Ron’s wedding,” he said. “He bought a Golden Retriever and named him Bob Feld.”

John, the retired CEO of Mattel Toys, and Jerry Amerman began as partners in Team Valor and went on win a slew of major stakes with Adoration, Balance, Happyanunoit and Lido Palace.

They do more than just race great horses. They take care of all of their horses when they’re done racing, working with such organizations as the California Equine Retirement Foundation and Tranquility Farm. They operate Peacefield Farm in Temecula, Cal., where their daughter Anne serves as manager.

Finder, a long-time owner, says, “I’ve owned horses for 18 years with Ron Ellis. We started with claimers. It’s sort of a dream come true winning a Grade I.”

Juddmonte Farms

Typically, talented Thoroughbreds owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms don’t take second billing. Since buying his first Thoroughbred in 1977, and winning his first graded/group stakes two years later, Abdullah has developed Juddmonte into an international racing empire whose list of champions will be forever linked to the unbeaten Frankel, named for the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who raced Juddmonte’s horses in the United States for 20 years before his death in 2009.

Juddmonte boasts multiple Classic winners in England, France and Ireland, and has amassed 11 Eclipse Awards in North America, including five for breeding and two as owners. Empire Maker’s victory in the 2003 Belmont Stakes gave Juddmonte its only Triple Crown Classic winner. He was trained by Frankel.

Now another Hall of Fame trainer, Bill Mott, handles Juddmonte’s horses in North America. 

Janis Whitham

Janis Whitham, now 81, is a fourth generation descendant of pioneers in Kansas, where she still lives. She and her husband Frank, who died in a 1993 plane crash, originally owned Quarter Horses before trying and succeeding with Thoroughbreds, none more successful than Bayakoa. Trained by Hall of Famer Ron McAnally, the two-time Eclipse Champion Older Mare (1989 and 1990) who won 21 of 39 starts with nine seconds and earnings of more than $2.8 million. In 1991, they won another Eclipse Award with Grass Champion Tight Spot.

Now, thanks to Bayakoa, Whitham has another star, Fort Larned, a son of E Dubai whose dam Arlucea, is a daughter of Bayakoa.  

Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners

The last two years must seem like a blur to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partnerships President Aron Wellman. The Southern California lawyer’s parents had a small breeding operation for 37 years near Fresno. “Because of them, I got to meet Shoe and Eddie Delahoussaye,” Wellman said. “I was very lucky to be able to hang with them. To be able to be exposed to racing royalty like that is something money can’t buy.”

While working as an attorney, Wellman began a second job setting up informal partnerships. His involvement in racing became formal when he was asked by Barry Irwin to become a vice-president of Team Valor in 2008. 

That allowed him to be part of the joy when Team Valor’s Animal Kingdom won the 2011 Kentucky Derby. “It is without question the most surreal experience I’ve ever encountered,” Wellman said. “It’s such a whirlwind of emotion and activity and pandemonium and jubilation. It’s sort of like time stands still.”

Just three months later, Wellman formed Eclipse Thoroughbred Partnerships. Its first starter, Patrioticandproud, won a maiden race at Woodbine in October, 2011.

Byrama took it to another level by winning a Grade I stakes. “We’ve been very lucky in a very short window of time,” Wellman said.

There might be a little bit more than luck involved. On July 1st, Cot Campbell’s Dogwood Stable officially merged with Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. All new yearling, two-year-old and older-horse purchases will be made and managed by Eclipse in the name of Eclipse/Dogwood. Existing Dogwood partnerships will continue to be managed by Campbell.

“It’s an amazing honor to be hand-picked by him to join with Dogwood,” Wellman said.

Wellman said Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners now have 125 active participants in various partnerships. Another 250 people have expressed interest in joining them.

If it’s a dream, don’t wake Wellman.

Cot Campbell's Dogwood Stable

When Wade Cothran “Cot” Campbell surrendered to his passion, selling his Atlanta advertising agency to race Thoroughbreds in the 1960s, he took a leap of faith. When he literally began a new era of racehorse partnerships through his Dogwood Stable in Aiken, South Carolina, he asked others to make that same leap.

He was up front about their prospects, telling them that if they invest, they best do it with discretionary income. He didn’t make any promises. Rather, he told them that if they were lucky, they might enjoy a special moment and have a heck of a good time pursuing the next one.

There’s nothing more special than winning a Triple Crown race. And on June 8th at Belmont Park, 23 years after Dogwood’s Summer Squall won the 1990 Preakness, Dogwood’s Palace Malice captured the Belmont Stakes. Campbell, now 85 years young, is co-owner of Palace Malice with Carl Myers in Monmouth, New Jersey; Paul Oreffice, who lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, and Paradise Valley, Arizona; Charles Pigg of Morton, Illinois; Mike Schneider of Aiken, S.C., and Margaret Smith of New York City.

Those partners are among some 1,500 new owners Campbell and his wife Anne have brought into Thoroughbred racing over the last four decades. That’s not Campbell’s only contribution to the industry. For more than a decade, Dogwood sponsored the Dominion Award recognizing unsung heroes in the sport, and Campbell has authored three thoroughly enjoyable racing books. He was honored with an Eclipse Award of Merit in 2011 for his contributions to racing.

CresRan LLC

Carol V. Ricks and her grandson, Ran Leonard, a real estate investor who is a member of the Oklahoma Racing Commission, are having the times of their lives watching Tiz Miz Sue win stakes races.  “She sure is fun to watch,” Carol, now in her ‘80s, said. Ran put it in perspective: “For small breeders like us to have one that blossomed like this is amazing. She’s taken us to Saratoga, Churchill and all over the country.”

Carol and her late husband, Ran Ricks, Jr., helped the state of Oklahoma start pari-mutuel racing. “My husband Ran, in about 1981, said, `I think Oklahoma is going to have pari-mutuels,” Carol said. “We owned this land, 35 miles north of Oklahoma City, and he said he’d like to have a horse farm. I said, `Okay.’ We moved into our home here in 1983.’”

Remington Park, built by Edward DeBartolo Sr., opened on Sept. 1st, 1988. Such was Ricks Jr.’s involvement, that the track named its annual award for owners the Ran Ricks Jr. Memorial Award.

Initially, the Ricks invested in Oklahoma-breds. “We had to change our philosophy,” Carol said. “We started going to Kentucky.”

Steve Hobby became their trainer. “One day, my grandson and my trainer called and said they’d like me to buy a Woodman filly,” Carol said. “I said, `I couldn’t afford her.’”

It turned out she could. That filly was Sue’s Good News. “She went on to win her first five starts,” Carol said. “She was really something. When she retired, she had so much talent that we bred her.”

Tiz Miz Sue was one of her foals. Her success reminds Leonard of the time he spent with his grandfather. “I’m the oldest grandson,” he said. “I was blessed to have a relationship with my grandfather and grandmother. I went to work with him when I was 15. He made his living in oil and gas.”

The family farm is in Crescent, Okla. They took the first four letters and combined it with Leonard’s grandpa’s first name, Ran, to create CresRan LLC. Originally created to manage the family’s Thoroughbreds, it’s grown into a commercial breeding operation with investments in stallions, mares and bloodstock in Oklahoma and Kentucky.

The family keeps four to eight horses in training and three or four babies a year, selling one or two of them and keeping one or two, hoping to get another horse as talented as Tiz Miz Sue.

Jerry Hollendorfer & Kim and Jerry Lloyd

So Kim Lloyd, a former trainer who is now general manager of Barretts Equine Sales and Fairplex Park, was down in Louisiana, scouting yearlings for the next sale. “Jeff Hebert was showing me eight or nine yearlings, and he said he had this horse who had just won a maiden $20,000 at Delta Downs,” Lloyd said. “He said he was as green as can be. So they walk this horse out. I’ve never seen a horse look as well, a picture of health. I said, `This horse is awesome.’”

So Lloyd makes a phone call to a proposed partner and makes a deal to buy that horse, Sahara Sky. “This guy was supposed to send Jeff the money, and Jeff called me and said he never sent the money,” Lloyd said. “I went to the track and ran into Dan Ward, Jerry Hollendorfer’s assistant. I said, `This is a damn shame. We’re going to lose this horse.’ He went back and he told Jerry how much I loved this horse. And he bought him.”

Hollendorfer said, “I value Kim’s opinion. Kim looks at a lot of horses.”

Kim had hit a home run. “The first time he ran, he won big in the slop,” Lloyd said. “He’s really good looking. He just carries himself. He walks like a panther.”

While Lloyd trained and continues to work and live in Southern California, the one stakes race he coveted was the Met Mile, because many years earlier he had seen Forego make one of his legendary late-runs to win one of his two consecutive Met Miles. Now Sahara Sky can be added to the list of Met Mile winners.

Standing in the winner’s circle, Lloyd’s cell phone lights up. “I had never heard from the guy that was supposed to send the money and never did,” Lloyd said. “It was him. He said, `I really screwed up, didn’t I?’ I said, `You sure did.’” 

Mike Pegram, Karl Watson & Paul Weitman

How do three guys, one from Fort Knox, Kentucky; one from Kansas City, Missouri, and another from Springfield, Georgia, become partners on Thoroughbreds? By attending a birthday party in Mexico.

The party was for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s brother Billy in 1999. “We really hit it off,” said Pegram, whose colt Real Quiet, had won the 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness before losing the lead in the final strides of the Belmont Stakes, missing the Triple Crown by a nose.

Watson and Weitman, who both own car dealerships in Tucson, Arizona, had raced their own horses, too. “I had horses with Bobby,” Weitman said. “Karl wasn’t with Bobby, but he had a horse or two. So we got a couple horses together.”

Pegram made it a threesome.

Weitman and Watson were in Chicago, watching the NCAA Basketball Tournament, and rooting for Arizona to beat Illinois when Baffert called, telling them he wanted the new trio to buy their first horse, Midnight Lute, a son of Real Quiet. All Midnight Lute did was win back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Sprints and one Eclipse Award as Champion Sprinter.

That’s one hell of way to start a partnership. Horses like Lookin At Lucky, Champion Two-Year-Old Colt in 2009 and Champion Three-Year-Old Colt of 2010, have followed. “When Looking At Lucky won the Preakness, somebody said the three of us were lucky,” Pegram said. “I was lucky to get into a partnership like this. Those guys have been the greatest partnership. Winning with them makes it so much more enjoyable.”

The trio, 61-year-old Pegram, 62-year-old Watson and 70-year-old Weitman, have expanded their partnership to include yearlings and broodmares. “I’ve had more fun with my two partners than if I was by myself,” Weitman said. “I don’t think we’ve had a cross word ever.”

Glen Hill Farm

To say that 93-year-old Leonard Lavin, the founder of Glen Hill Farm in Ocala, Fla., is still actively involved in racing would be an understatement. “My grandfather is still doing well, but he was quite upset by a story in the Racing Form that said he was 91,” his 35-year-old grandson Craig Bernick, who now runs the farm, said. “He’s proud to be 93.”

Bernick says his granddad watches all their horses’ races. “He let me know that he watches more when our horses don’t do well,” Bernick laughed.

Marketing Mix doesn’t fit that category. “She’s the best horse that we’ve had in at least 40 years,” Bernick said, noting that Glen Hill has had top horses before, mentioning Convenience who raced in the early ‘70s. “She’s the best horse that we’ve had in at least 40 years,” Bernick said, noting that Glen Hill has had top horses before, mentioning Convenience who raced in the early ‘70s. Glen Hill also campaigned Header Card, Relaunch and One Dreamer.

Bernick took over Glen Hill Farm in April, 2008, and said the farm now races 30 horses and keeps about the same number of broodmares. He said he’s learned a lot in the last five years. “I think, at the beginning, in my rush to change things, I might not have understood how much work had been done to get us to that place. But I do understand it now. We enjoy ourselves. We’ve spent the summer every year at Del Mar since I was 16. My granddad still lives in Chicago and we get to see him a lot.”

Marketing Mix will likely get him to Chicago again if she returns to run in the Beverly D., a stakes she finished second in last year. “She makes us look smart,” Bernick said. “But we’re not really smart. We have 30 horses in training, and she’s the only one who gets people to call us.”

Calumet Farm

As Oxbow neared the finish line of the Preakness Stakes, Calumet Farm’s Manager Eddie Kane, watching the race at home with his wife and children, couldn’t believe it. “We didn’t envision it to happen so quickly,” he said. “People try all their lives and never accomplish this. Doing it under the Calumet Farm banner made it even better.”

Immediately, Kane was on the phone with his boss, Brad Kelley, the man who had taken the challenge of re-inventing one of the storied farms in racing history. “As soon as they hit the wire, I was on the phone with him,” Kane said. “He was pretty emotional. He said his mom and dad watched the race from his home. Mr. Kelley was the guy who ultimately picked Oxbow out at the sale.”

Understandably, the mood at Calumet Farm went off the charts following the Preakness. “Everybody was excited,” Kane said. “I think I was the only one of the farm who didn’t bet the horse. My money would stop a herd of buffalo.”

Fortunately, Kane and Kelley deal with Thoroughbreds.

Kane had worked for Will Farish for 20 years at Lanes End Farm before accepting a job with Kelley. “I wasn’t going to leave Lane’s End for any other job,” Kane said. “I had to know it was the right job. After talking to Mr. Kelley, he seemed like and is a very good guy to work for. He’s a regular guy.”

A very wealthy, regular guy. Kelley’s estimated net worth is reported to be $1.9 billion and he is also reportedly the fourth largest landowner in the United States. Kelley, 56, had already accomplished more than several men when he decided to buy Calumet in May, 2012, more than three years after Kelley hired Kane to help his breeding operation. “We never really started talking about Calumet until much later,” Kane said.

Now, thanks to Oxbow, people are talking about Calumet again. The farm is relevant again. Thanks to Kelley. “He’s got a pretty good vision,” Kane said. We’re starting to get stallions on the farm. We’re talking about what type of mares he wants. He knows what he wants to do, and he knows how to get it done. I’m just glad to be part of it.”     

Morton Fink

If only 83-year-old Morton Fink had decided to downsize his stable decades earlier. After some four decades in racing, in which he had considerable success with his long-time partner Roy Gottlieb, Fink decided to sell all of his broodmares except the one he named for his granddaughter, Lisa Danielle. He’d bought her for $29,000 as a yearling, and she won just one race, her maiden.

Fink, who inherited a chain of movie theaters from his father and then sold them to a national chain, was way too savvy not to know that breeding her could be a losing proposition, but he did so anyway.

He bred her to Successful Appeal, and was rewarded with Successful Dan. All he’s done is win four graded stakes; set a track record at Churchill Downs, and earn more than $700,000.

For many owners, he would be the horse of a lifetime. For Fink, he would become the second horse people mention when they talk about his stable.

Fink spent a $1,0000 stud fee to bred Lisa Danielle to Wiseman’s Ferry, who had won the Grade III Lone Star Derby. That resulted in Wise Dan, the reigning Horse of the Year who won three Eclipse Awards in 2012 and is undefeated this year.

Fink, a life-long resident of Chicago, was introduced to racing by his mother when she took him to the track. After graduating from Roosevelt University with a degree in business administration, he and a group of friends claimed a horse for $4,000, who did not win a race. A few years later, Fink went partners with Gottlieb, and they called the stable Carelaine Farm, a combination of their wives’ names. Carelaine Farms bred and raced a million dollar mare, Annoconnor, named to honor a deceased employee, and bred Producer, a Group 1 winner in Europe whom was sold in foal to Northern Dancer for $5.25 million in 1983. A decade later, the farm disbanded.

It turns out, Fink was just getting warmed up.  

Phipps Stable & Stuart Janney III

 Stuart Janney III 

 Ogden Mills "Dinny" Phipps 

Dinny Phipps, the Chairman of the New York Racing Association from 1976-1983 and until his death in April 2016 (aged 75) was the Chairman of The Jockey Club, his family have helped shape the Thoroughbred racing industry for generations. Phipp’s grandmother, Mrs. Henry Carnegie Phipps, who raced her horses under the name of Wheatley Stable; Phipp’s father, Ogden, and Phipps himself have made an indelible stamp on Thoroughbred racing history, breeding and racing with many of the sport’s greatest stars.

Phipps has campaigned five Eclipse Champions: Inside Information, Rhythm, Smuggler, Storm Flag Flying and Successor, and has received an Eclipse Award of Merit and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s  Industry Service Award. The Phipps Family was presented with the Paul Mellon Award by the New York Turf Writers Association.

But Phipps knew that their family resume was missing one particular item: the Kentucky Derby. “We’ve been awfully lucky over the years, and we’ve been in racing a long time,” Phipps, said. “That was the major race we hadn’t won. My dad won the Belmont Stakes (with Easy Goer in 1989), and my grandmother had won the Preakness (with Bold Ruler in 1957). That was the one the family was missing.”

Orb, whom Phipps co-owns with his cousin Stuart Janney III, added that missing element when he stormed down the center of the sloppy Churchill Downs track and won the Kentucky Derby, May 4th going away by 2 ½ lengths. “At the sixteenth pole, it looked like he was going to win,” Phipps said. “I was just about as happy as a person could be. We came up with the right horse.”

And what was the first thing Phipps did after Orb crossed the finish line? “I gave my wife a kiss and knocked her hat off,” he laughed. “All my children were there and they got to share in it.”

Family is very important to Phipps. His great-grandfather, Henry Phipps, founded Bessemer Trust Company in 1907 to manage the proceeds from the sale of Carnegie Steel, which he founded with Andrew Carnegie. In 1911, Phipps wrote a letter to each of his five children, telling them: “It is my desire that neither the stock nor the bonds of the Company shall pass out of my family.”

Accordingly, Bessemer Trust has remained in the Phipps family for six generations. In 1974, the Phipps family invited “other like-minded families” to join Bessemer Trust. Currently, more than 2,100 families are involved with Bessemer Trust with total assets of $88 billion.

Janney has succeeded Dinny Phipps as Chairman at Bessemer Trust. Winning the Kentucky Derby as partners made their close relationship even sweeter.

Janney was faced with a difficult decision following the death of his parents just one year apart. Should he remain in racing? He was in his early 20s when he enjoyed the brilliant success and tragic ending of his parents’ Ruffian. This was much different. “I was in my early ‘40s, and I had a career. I was a managing partner of an investment bank. I had young kids. I realized if I didn’t do it (owning horses) then, I probably never would.”

He reached out to his Uncle Ogden, Dinny’s dad. “I was very close to him,” Janney said. “I used to take a lot of trips with Uncle Ogden. I saw him more than any relation and I liked him immensely, I discussed it with him. He called and said if it would be of any use, he would be my partner in as many or as few horses as I wanted. He would be my 50-50 partner. He said he’d want Shug (McGaughey) to train, which was fine with me. We got Seth Hancock to determine a price for the horses he invested in, a couple mares. From my perspective, it was a very critical element. I could always ask Uncle Ogden for advice.”

One of those two mares, Deputation, shows up in the pedigree of multiple stakes winners Search Party, Carriage Trail and Criminologist. The other dam was Steel Maiden, who produced Mesabi Maiden, who won the Black Eyed Susan and produced Lady Liberty, the dam of Orb.

Janney said he was as surprised as anyone that Orb won the Run for the Roses. “It’s a little more than I anticipated, and that’s an understatement,” he said. “My horses haven’t been precocious. With Orb, if you asked me on January 1 of this year if I’d have a horse in the Kentucky Derby, I would have said, “No.” If someone told me I would, I’d have said, `Which one?’ It came as a surprise the way he developed.”

If Janney is forever linked to Orb, his Kentucky Derby winner, he certainly doesn’t mind that his name will also be linked to Ruffian. “Orb has done something pretty special,” he said. “But I’ll never forget those moments, good and bad, with Ruffian. I think Ruffian set the gold standard.”