Nancy Favreau, Kathy Psoinos, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith & Susan Magnier

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Competitive Edge is the second horse owned by partners Nancy Favreau and Kathy Psoinos, who purchased him for $750,000 at a Fasig-Tipton Florida Two-Year-Olds-in-Training Sale. After Competitive Edge won his maiden debut at Saratoga by 10 ¾ lengths, Tabor, Smith and Magnier bought a percentage of the colt. 

Nancy and Kathy live together in Andover, Mass. Both are retired from careers in property management. Nancy, 51, has loved horses for a long time. “My father got me involved as a kid,” Nancy said in a phone interview October 6. “We used to go to Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park. I won my first bet. I was hooked. I loved it. It was a great time. It was fun.”

Kathy, 56, got involved in racing through Nancy. “I’ve been going to the racetrack for years,” she said. 

They discussed the possibility of buying a Thoroughbred for years. When they both retired, they took the plunge. “We talked about it for a long time, and we decided to do it,” Nancy said. “It was the right time.”

They still can’t believe Competitive Edge’s dazzling debut at Saratoga. They were there with a lot of friends. “It was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me,” Kathy said. Nancy added, “That was awesome. That was our first win. He is a beauty.”

Competitive Edge then won the Grade I Hopeful Stakes by 5 ¾ lengths at Saratoga. “We’re very excited,” Nancy said after the race. “Everything’s wonderful.”

But just two weeks later, they weren’t. Competitive Edge was taken out of training when X-rays revealed a hairline fracture of his left fore-leg. He’s expected to return to training in time to participate in next year’s Triple Crown. “We’re just keeping our fingers crossed,” Nancy said.

Nancy and Kathy are in racing for the long haul. “We bought two more yearlings last month,” Nancy said. “One’s a Street Cry, and one is a Harlan’s Holiday.”  

For biographies on Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and Susan Magnier click here

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.”