Richard Santulli

Richard Santulli, a native of Brooklyn, New York, earned his bachelor and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and a master’s degree in operations research at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Santulli worked as an investment banker, then as a vice president with Goldman Sachs & Co. from 1969-1980. Four years later, he purchased Executive Jet in 1984. He created NetJets Inc., which offered a new concept of fractional jet ownership and revolutionized the private and corporate business jet market. He sold the company to Berkshire Hathaway for $750 million in 1998, but stayed on as CEO through August, 2009.

Santulli got involved in racing in the early ’80s. With George Prussin, David Orlinsky, and the late Jules Fink as partners, Santulli formed Jayeff B Stable, whose top horses include 1989 champion sprint Safely Kept, who won the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and 1998 champion filly Banshee Breeze (owned in partnership with her breeder James B. Tafel). Santulli serves as the managing general partner of Jayeff B.

A member of the Jockey Club since 2002, he has served on the Board of Directors of the Breeders’ Cup and the New York Racing Association.

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.”

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.

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.”

Zayat Stables

Ahmed Zayat, who has residences in New Jersey, New York, London, and Egypt, made his fortune when he privatized Al Ahram Beverages Company and turned it into the largest beverage manufacturer and distributor in the Middle East. He then sold the company to Heineken International. Zayat is the largest shareholder in Misr Glass Manufacturing, the largest manufacturer of glass containers in Egypt.

Zayat’s business acumen allowed him to get involved with Thoroughbreds at the highest level. One of his best sprinters, Justin Phillip, has been chasing a Grade 1 stakes score for most of his career. As a four-year-old in 2012, he finished second by a neck to Poseidon’s Warrior in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Stakes. This year, he got the job done, winning the Vanderbilt by two lengths.

The five-year-old First Samurai horse has won or placed in 21 of 31 starts and has earned in excess of $1.2 million, and is one of many Grade 1 winners for Zayat. Others include Bodemeister, second in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, who won the Arkansas Derby; Wood Memorial Stakes winner Eskendereya; Belmont Stakes runner-up Paynter, first in last year’s Haskell Invitational; Pioneerof the Nile, who won the CashCall Futurity and the Santa Anita Derby; and Zensational, a winner at the top level three times.

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.”

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.