Loooch Racing

Ron Paolucci, a 44-year-old native of Akron, Ohio – “Home of Lebron James,” he says proudly – fell in love with racing at an early age. “I started going with my dad and my grandfather,” he said. “Thistle Downs in the afternoon; Waterford Park at night. For as long as I can remember. An hour’s drive. For a horseplayer, that’s not long.”

Make no mistake about it. Yes, he’s an owner of 55 to 60 Thoroughbreds under the name of Loooch Racing Stable, but he is one serious horseplayer. “I play them with two fists,” he said.

By doing so, he watches and bets on lots of horses at a lot of racetracks. And when he saw Ria Antonia make her debut at Woodbine, he was impressed with the two-year-old filly. “I thought it was interesting to start her in a stakes race first time out,” he said. “Seven furlongs. Then maiden special weights against the boys. Then she worked :46.1 on the Woodbine dirt training track.”

His partner, Chris Wright, was in. A 38-year-old native of East Greenbush, N.Y., he began following racing at Saratoga, just a half hour away. Wright worked on Wall Street before going into robotic sales for Mako Surgical. The Davie, Florida, company makes robots which assist doctors doing orthopedic knee and hip replacements. He met Paolucci through a mutual friend. “Ron offered me half of Ria Antonia,” he said. “He thought she would improve on dirt. It took about two weeks to close the deal.”

Once the deal was done, Paolucci hatched a plan with his partner and his trainer Jeremiah Englehart. “My plan all along was to get her out of Woodbine; get her down to New York; put her in blinkers; run in the Frizette, and then run in the Breeders’ Cup,” Paolucci said. “She’s a huge filly. She’s almost 17 hands. She’s got a big, long stride. I thought she would move up on two turns.”

The Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park was one-turn, and Ria Antonio finished fifth by six lengths. This did nothing to deter Paolucci from entering her in the Breeders’ Cup. “He was adamant about going to the Breeders’ Cup,” Wright said. 

Smart man. Ria Antonia closed ground resolutely in the stretch trying to catch front-running She’s a Tiger. They flashed past the finish line together. “I actually thought we got the bob,” Paolucci said. “Everyone around me said we lost. I was so ecstatic with the way she ran, it didn’t matter if she got up. I was right about her.”

But he was wrong about the finish. The photo revealed She’s a Tiger had won. But Rio Antonia’s rider, Javier Castellano, claimed four against the winner, who was ridden by Gary Stevens. After what seemed like hours, the stewards disqualified She’s a Tiger, placing Ria Antonia first. Paolucci got a text message from a friend of She’s a Tiger’s owners. “She said the owners were distraught, but they believed it was the right decision,” he said. “Gary Stevens told me the same thing the next day. Very classy.”

Fred Bradley, William Bradley

 In the span of five days, Groupie Doll won her second consecutive $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, then was sold for $3.1 million to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. She was the Bradley family’s second incredibly successful homebred, following $2.1 million earner Brass Hat. Both horses were born and raised at the Bradleys’ Indian Ridge Farm in Frankfort, Kentucky. Both horses were trained by William “Buff” Bradley.

Fred Bradley, the family’s 85-year-old patriarch, was successful in many endeavors. Born in Frankfort, he graduated from the University of Kentucky with a journalism degree in 1953, then received a law degree from the University of Kentucky six years later. That allowed him to serve as counsel for the Kentucky Racing Commission for ten years and as a judge in Franklin County. He also became a Kentucky State Senator. He was a fighter pilot during a long military career, and he founded his own trucking company, Fred’s Fast Freight, which he owned and used to transport horses right up to his death (20th May 2016).

Fred used to gallop horses that he trained at defunct Miles Park in Louisville and Mountaineer Park, then called Waterford Park, in West Virginia. That seems a long way from winning multiple graded stakes with home-breds from his own farm.

His son, Buff, helped him reach that lofty destination. Buff, whose nickname is short for “Buffalo Bill,” is nearing 3,800 career victories and $11 million in career earnings as a trainer. Now 50, Buff graduated from Kentucky State University with a business management degree, but he always knew his business would be horses. He worked as an assistant trainer for Clarence Picou before starting his own stable in 1993. His success with Brass Hat, who began his career as a $15,000 claimer, was followed by Groupie Doll’s exceptional career.

Longtime family friends Carl Hurst, a retired judge, and Brent Burns, a singer/songwriter from Alabama, have been along for the ride with Groupie Doll. Hurst has known Fred since they were five years old.

Willie Carson, Emily Asprey & Chris Wright

A shared lunch at the Tattersalls yearling sales in Newmarket, England, united legendary jockey/BBC commentator Willie Carson and Chris Wright, the co-founder and chairman of Chrysalis Records, as Thoroughbred partners. “It was a couple of years ago,” Wright said after Chriselliam won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. “I was having a pretty nice lunch, and I think I drank a little too much wine, and I ended up buying a filly. And I persuaded Willie, who had been drinking a little bit with me, that he should take half.” He did. That filly won a race and was sold, but Chriselliam is a keeper.

Carson, born on November 16, 1942 in Stirling, Scotland, became just the fourth jockey to win 3,000 races in Great Britain, retiring with 3,828 victories as the fourth leading jockey in British history behind Sir Gordon Richards, Lestor Piggott, and Pat Eddery. Carson was awarded the British Order of the Empire for his service to racing in 1983, and he was a member of the inaugural class of 50 inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. Besides working for the BBC, he has served as chairman of the Swindon Town Football Club and was the European racing manager for The Thoroughbred Corp.

Carson had a tough loss in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, when the horse on the lead he was riding, Dayjur, jumped two shadows a few strides before the wire, allowing Safely Kept to beat him. “To own a Breeders’ Cup winner is much better than riding one, I can assure you,” he said after Chriselliam’s victory. “When you’re riding them, you’re in charge and there’s no pressure on you. But as an owner standing up in those box seats, it’s nuts. I understand now what owners go through.”

Wright can compare owning Thoroughbreds to owning records. He and Terry Ellis founded Chrysalis Records, a British record label, in 1969. They changed the company’s original name from the Ellis-Wright Agency to Chrysalis, a reference to the pupil stage of a butterfly as well as a combination of Wright’s first name and Ellis’s last. Chrysalis evolved into EMI, then was sold for a reported $765 million. Of hanging out with rock stars, Wright said in a 2010 interview, “I hung out with them all. I did everything. Drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll.”

With Chriselliam, Carson and Wright took on 17-year-old Emily Asprey as a partner, allowing her to become the youngest owner of a Breeders’ Cup winner. She is an eighth generation descendant of William Asprey, founder of Asprey International Limited, a United Kingdom-based designer, manufacturer, and retailer of jewelry, silverware, home goods, leather goods, timepieces, books, accessories, and polo equipment. The company was founded in 1781 as Asprey & Co.

W.C. Racing

Less than a week after Goldencents won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, W.C. Racing’s partners Glenn Sorgenstein and Josh Kaplan, who owned 75 percent of the horse, announced that they had privately purchased the remaining ownership shares of Dave Kenney and RAP Racing’s Rick Pitino, the head coach of the University of Louisville’s defending national championship basketball team. “My plan is to continue to race him as a four-year-old,” Sorgenstein said. “Why not live the dream? Nothing beats this.”

Goldencents, whose dam is Golden Works, was named to promote Sorgenstein and Kaplan’s precious metal and rare coin auction website www.goldencents.com, which is now run by Sorgenstein’s son Landon. W.C. Racing stands for Wilshire Coin, another one of their businesses. Located in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire Coin offers cash for gold and silver, and deals in coin collections, foreign exchange, and estate jewelry.

Sorgenstein, a 57-year-old native of Bayside, New York, now living in California, fell in love with racing at the age of five. “My dad’s friend was [trainer] Lefty Nicholson,” he said. “They were best friends. He put me on a horse, Tudor Sovereign, when I was five, and I went around the backstretch at Belmont. I knew I’d be involved in horseracing one way or the other.”

When his family moved to California soon afterwards, Sorgenstein simply transferred his interest in racing to Santa Anita, where he learned how to drive a car by practicing in the track’s parking lot.

Sorgenstein held a real estate license when he chose another career at the age of 23. His first wife’s brother was a coin dealer. “As a kid, I collected everything: bottle caps, posters, stickers, coins,” he said. “I loved collecting.” So he went to work in the rare coin business for his brother-in-law. “After being in it for two weeks, I knew I could do it for the rest of my life,” he said. “I worked for him until 1985, and I went out on my own. I took Josh on in 1997. He’s 39. His grandfather would take him to the track in California. His grandfather loved horseracing.”

Sorgenstein bought his first horse, Green Eyes, in 2004. She raced once, finished out of the money, and was injured. Sorgenstein’s first top horse was Blazing Sunset, who finished second by a half-length in the 2006 Iowa Derby before suffering a fatal breakdown on the track at Del Mar in his next start. “I stayed away from horses for a year because that was really horrible,” Sorgenstein said. “Then I got back in it. With the help of Dennis O’Neill [trainer Doug’s brother], we started buying two-year-olds.”

They purchased Goldencents, who had sold for $5,500 as a yearling, for $62,000 as a two-year-old. After winning last year’s Santa Anita Derby, he became their first starter in the Kentucky Derby. Sorgenstein, Kaplan, and their friend Mark, who also owns horses in the O’Neill stable, had a special pair of pants made for jockey Kevin Krigger which included three first names with a smiley face on each one for the three people who introduced them to racing: Sorgenstein’s dad Sol, Kaplan’s grandfather Max, and Mark’s dad Art. “They all passed away the year prior,” Sorgenstein said.

Unfortunately, Goldencents finished 17th in the Kentucky Derby. But he bounced back to win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile by year’s end. “It’s been an amazing journey,” Sorgenstein said. “He’s a dream horse. This is the one we dream about.”

Their former partner Kenney is the President and CEO of Westrux International, which sells and services diesel trucks at five locations in Southern California. The company was founded in 1988. Westrun International was named Navistar’s International 2012 Dealer of the Year. Kenney has been a co-owner of Grade 1 stakes winners Richard’s Kid and Willyconker.

To read Trainer Magazine's profile on Goldecents, click here

Khalid Khalifa al Nabooda & Kamal Albahou

Joshua Tree’s historic third victory in the $1 million Pattison Canadian International at Woodbine on October 27 was his second for Khalid Khalifa al Nabooda, who, with partner Robert Andreas al Bahou, purchased Joshua Tree from Coolmore after he won his first one in 2010. In 2011, Joshua Tree finished second in the Pattison before capturing it again in 2012 and in 2013. Kamal Albahou is now the co-owner with Al Nabooda.

Joshua Tree’s victory was his sixth in 27 lifetime starts with six seconds, four thirds, and earnings of more than $3.5 million.

The 47-year-old al Nabooda, who lives in Dubai, is the managing director of the Khalifa Juma al Nabooda Companies in Dubai, which is composed of more than twenty businesses owned by the al Nabooda family. The parent company started as Dubai Printing Press in 1963 and has grown into a multi-faceted operation dealing with real estate, hospitality and food services management, construction, civil and marine engineering, hotels, education, printing, equipment trading, and facilities management and consultancy. Dubai Printing Press was honored with the Silver Award for Best Catalogue in 2012.

Al Nabooda first got involved in horseracing in 1990. In 1995, he turned his focus from Thoroughbreds to Arabians, and he currently owns more than 300 of them, who are trained by Eric Lamatinel and Gill Duffield, and two stud farms, Al Aweer and Al Bahayes. His number of Arabian horseracing winners increased from three in 2008 to 11 in 2011 and 12 in 2012. 

Albahou, who is 52, has been involved in racing and breeding Arabians for more than thirty years under the name of “Mr. Khalid.” He has Arabians stables in Jordan, Holland, France and Belgium, and lives in Amman, Jordan.  

Paul Buttigieg

Fifty-one years ago, when he first went to a racetrack, Paul Buttigieg couldn’t have imagined the success he would have in a sport he knew little about. He vividly remembers his first visit to Woodbine in 1962. He was 15 years old. “It was beautiful,” he said. Buttigieg immediately got a job on a nearby farm and, like everyone else, began at the bottom. “I was mucking out stalls,” he said. “Owning a farm was my dream.”

That dream came true. And that was before Phil’s Dream provided Buttigieg with a rare triple by winning the Grade I Nearctic Stakes at Woodbine, Oct. 13. Phil’s Dream was bred and is owned and trained by Buttigieg.

“He started with nothing, and look what he’s got now,” Ricky Hayashi, Buttigieg’s assistant trainer, said. “He’s got his own farm, and in the last few years, he’s upgraded his broodmare stock. He’s done nothing but good.” They’ve been working together for 40 years.

The Buttigieg Training Centre in Edberg, Ontario, an hour’s drive north from Woodbine, is home to 150 Thoroughbreds.  

Phil’s Dream isn’t Buttigieg’s first major success. Rushiscomingup won the 1998 Nearctic and earned nearly $400,000. Strait From Texas captured the 2003 Grade II Nassau and made nearly $600,000. More recently, Buttigieg’s home-bred Gypsy Ring, who was third by a neck in the 2011 Nearctic, earned $686,619. 

Phil’s Dream may be better than all of them. His victory in the Nearctic was his third straight and sixth in his last seven starts. The five-year-old gelding has never been better. This is heady stuff for Buttigieg. “I always had a small stable with horses I bought for $5,000 and $10,000,”he said. “Then I started breeding about 20 years ago.”

Buttigieg gets up at 3 a.m. every morning; drives to Woodbine; leaves there around 10 a.m., and is back at the farm by 11. Hayashi saddles all the racehorses. “I enjoy both worlds, training them and working on the farm,” Buttigieg said. “I love the game.” 

Sam-Son Farm

Sam-Son Farm in Ontario is Canadian horseracing royalty. Its origin traces back to Samuel, Son, & Co. Ltd., a steel and aluminum distribution family business founded in 1855 and operated since then by the Samuel and Balaz families. The late Ernie Samuel, whose great-grandfather founded the company, opened Sam-Son Farm in the 1960s as a site for hunter/jumper competitions. A Sam-Son horse, Canadian Club, won the 1967 Pan American Games individual jumping gold medal, and, under rider Jim Day, was a member of the Canadian Equestrian Team that won gold at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Sam-Son horses also competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. 

Sam-Son Farm entered Thoroughbred racing in 1972. Jim Day was the farm’s trainer until Mark Frostad took over in 1995. Sam-Son has produced a litany of champions, including seven Canadian Horses of the Year who accounted for eight titles. Chief Bearhart, who won the 1997 Eclipse Award as outstanding male turf horse, was a two-time Canadian Horse of the Year.

Mary & Chester Broman

As happy as he was when his two-year-old New York-bred filly Artemis Agrotera upped her record to two-for-two by winning the Frizette at Belmont Park by a length and a quarter, trainer Mike Hushion was even happier for Chester and Mary Broman, who own and bred the filly. “Any time you win for the Bromans makes it even better,” Hushion said. “Chester and Mary are wonderful people.”

And successful. The Bromans were named Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association New York Breeder of the Year in 2004 and 2005. They were the New York Thoroughbred Breeders’ Breeders of the Year in 2004 and 2012. In 2009, they were the leading owners at the Belmont Park Fall Meet with nine victories, each by a homebred who was foaled and raised at Chestertown Farm, a 300-acre spread in the foothills of the majestic Adirondacks they purchased in 1995. Previously, the property had been known as Assunta Louis Farms, whose owner, the late oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Dominick DeLuke, shepherded the early growth of the New York-bred program in its infancy as president of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc.

Chester was born in Pinelawn, New York, and became the owner, president, and CEO of Clifford Broman & Sons, Inc., a general contracting corporation in West Babylon, New York, established in 1938. The company, which specializes in trucking, now has a staff of 50.

The Bromans have two sons, Chester Jr. and Christopher, and a daughter, Rachel.

Chester was appointed to the New York Racing Association Board of Trustees in 1995 and has served multiple terms on the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Board of Directors.

Artemis Agrotera, named for an ancient Greek temple site in Athens, was not their first Grade 1 winner. In 2004, their New York-bred Friends Lake won the Florida Derby. Artemis Agrotera’s ability was the worst-kept secret of the Saratoga meet. In her debut in a New York-bred maiden race on August 16, she was bet down to 2-5 and won by 11¾ lengths.

Mark Bacon & Dana Wells

Dana Wells and Mark Bacon, both 46 years old, met at the Sports Spectrum, a simulcast center in Louisville. Wells, who lived in Louisville for four years before returning to his native Phoenix, was named the 37th best player at the University of Arizona by the Tucson Citizen and the Arizona Republic in its joint list of the top fifty players for the Wildcats.

Wells, a 6-foot-1 defensive lineman, played for Arizona for four years and was selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 11th round of the 1989 NFL Draft. He played in one game for the Bengals in 1989, spent the next season on the Cardinals’ practice squad.

Wells joined CBS outdoor advertising in 1991 as an account executive in Atlanta. He then served as a general manager in Louisville, Florida and New York before he was promoted to Executive Vice-President of the company’s billboard division in 2007. CBS Outdoor has more than $2 billion in revenue selling billboard and other media display space.

Bacon is the Managing Director of Southern Comfort at Brown-Forman. He’s been with Southern Comfort for 23 years and travels internationally as its brand manager.

Bacon and Wells bought Silver Max for $20,000 in the Fasig-Tipton July 2010 Select Yearling Sale. Bacon’s eight-year-old son Max named the horse.   

Conquest Stables

Conquest Stables consists of 63-year-old Ernie Semersky, a Porsche and Audi dealer in Chicago, and his long-time partner Dory Newell, a former model who named their star filly. Though they are both new in the industry, they have 28 horses, including 15 yearlings.

A friend recommended trainer Mark Casse, and after interviewing several trainers, they hired Casse. “There was something about him that was correct,” Semersky told Beverly Smith in her Sept. 15th, 2013, story in the Paulick Report.

My Conquistadory, who was purchased for $240,000 at the Ocala 2012 Two-Year-Old Sale last June, made an incredible debut last September at Woodbine, defeating colts by 3 ¼ lengths in the Grade II Summer Stakes before adding the Alcibades. But she is just one of Conquest Stables’ success stories. Conquest Titan, a $475,000 purchase at the same two-year-old sale, won the Swynford Stakes by 5 ¼ lengths at Woodbine in a stunning debut. Their filly Conquest Whiplash, a $370,000 purchase, also defeated colts in the Victoria Stakes at Woodbine.

When My Conquistadory went to post in the Summer Stakes, Semersky sported designer sunglasses with one lens glowing orange and the other green to literally reflect their silks. Newell explained to Smith, “Ernie always sees things through rose-colored glasses.”

Pamela Ziebarth

Nobody’s comparing Tiz Flirtatious to Tiznow, but the five-year-old mare has never finished out of the money. She has five wins and three seconds in eight grass starts and two wins and a third in three dirt races for Ziebarth, her husband of 34 years Gary, and their sons David, Tyson, and Regan. Her biggest victory came in Santa Anita’s Rodeo Drive Stakes, when she defeated defending winner Marketing Mix by a head, in September.

Tiz Flirtatious is a daughter of Tiznow’s stakes-winning full brother Tizbud. Ziebarth’s mom, Cecilia Straub-Rubens, bred Tiznow and Tizbud. Straub-Rubens died three days after Tiznow won the first of two consecutive Breeders’ Cup Classics, and Ziebarth inherited her stable.

Pamela Ziebarth, her brother Kevin Cochrane, and Michael Cooper – the family’s estate director and executor following the death of Ziebarth’s father Arthur “Bud” Straub in 1981 – formed Cee’s Stable. Straub had owned Straub Distributing Company for Anheuser-Busch in Orange County in Southern California, and Ziebarth is now a partner in the company. Straub began racing horses in the 1950s. When he passed away, his widow Straub-Rubens took over the stable, achieving success her husband probably would never have envisioned with the likes of Tiznow and his Grade 2-winning brother Budroyale, an earner of over $2.8 million.

Ziebarth’s interest in horses isn’t limited to Thoroughbreds. She has owned show horses for two decades and miniature horses for 15 years. Her son Tyson competed in international equestrian events.

Besides Marty Jones, who trains Tiz Flirtatious, Ziebarth and Cee’s Stable has horses with John Sadler and Doug O’Neill.

Westrock Stables

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

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

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

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

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

Brous Stable; Wachtel Stable, Jack Hammer; Gary Barber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Friends Stable

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

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

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

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

Reeves Thoroughbred Racing

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

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

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

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

Priscilla Vaccarezza

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reddam Racing LLC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spendthrift Farm

When B. Wayne Hughes purchased 850-acre Spendthrift Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2004, he tied his name to a farm with one of the richest histories in Thoroughbred racing.  Founded by Leslie Combs II in 1937, Spendthrift has been home to the only undefeated Triple Crown winner, Seattle Slew, as well as Preakness and Belmont Stakes winner Nashua, the outstanding sire Raise a Native, Dark Star, Jet Pilot, and Kentucky Derby winner Majestic Prince, who was bred by Combs, foaled at Spendthrift, and retired there to stud.

Currently, Spendthrift Farm is home to 60 broodmares and some 15 stallions, including Malibu Moon, who ranked fourth in North America in 2013 progeny earnings through mid-September, and new recruits Jimmy Creed and Liaison. Malibu Moon is the sire of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner Orb.

Hughes, who recently celebrated his 80th birthday, was born in Gotebo, Oklahoma. He was the founder of Public Storage, a company he began with a $50,000 investment in 1972. That very same year, Hughes, who had previously partnered with several neighbors to buy a horse, bought his first horse on his own.

Public Storage has grown to 1,400 storage sites serving 600,000 customers around the country. Hughes and his family retain 39 percent of the company, and he is ranked in the Forbes 400 as one of the country’s wealthiest people.

Obviously, his horse interests have grown as well. Trishyde gave him his first graded stakes victory when she captured the 1994 Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Handicap. Four years later, Joyeux Dancer gave him his first Grade 1 by taking the Early Times Turf Classic. Hughes has campaigned three Breeders’ Cup winners: Action This Day, victorious in the 2003 Juvenile; Court Vision, who upset Goldikova in the 2011 Mile; and Beholder, whose victory in last year’s Juvenile Fillies helped her win the Eclipse Award as champion two-year-old filly.

Hughes, who splits his time between Malibu, California, and Spendthrift, has numerous horses in training with five different conditioners: Richard Mandella and Carla Gaines in Southern California; and Albert Stall Jr., Paul McGee, and Dale Romans in Kentucky. 

Nearly a decade after becoming the owner of Spendthrift, Hughes said, “There’s so much history here. To be part of this was the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Stella Perdomo

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

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

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

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

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

Martin Schwartz

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

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

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

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

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

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