Sep 30
2014
Storming Rome (Kathy Barraclough Up)
The third horse in our “Follow A Firster” series is a 2-year horse named Storming Rome who is trained by Michelle Nihei. We first met Michelle in January 2014, and later published an extended interview with her. In fact, it was Michelle who provided the genesis for doing this series when she said, “Racing is about horses and the stories behind the faces of the horses are really cool.” Click here to read our interview with Michelle.
Back in July, Michelle singled out Storming Rome as a horse we might want to write an article about. At the time, she introduced me to the managers (Steve Komp and Matt Pappis) of the partnership that owns Storming Rome. Turns out that Storming Rome will be the first horse to run for their partnership, Whodoyoulike Stables. Both Steve and Matt had been involved in ownership with different partnerships in the past and recently decided it was time to start their own. Read More >>
Sep 28
2014
Ancient Goddess with Simon Harris
In a previous article on the topic of horse ownership, we introduced you to Sovereign Stable. Click here to read more about them. As explained in that article, the majority of horses purchased by Sovereign are unraced 2-year olds and yearlings purchased through auctions. However, once in awhile, Sovereign has purchased what Rich Cristiano (Director of Business Development) terms a “ready-made” horse. By his definition, this is a horse that has shown great promise in one or two debut races.
Meet Ancient Goddess, a 2-year old French filly, and the latest “ready-made” horse purchased by Sovereign Stable. She won her second race in France, on June 15, 2014. And, according to Matt Gatsas (President of Sovereign), it was an impressive win. Matt said, “That field was supposedly loaded and it was also against colts; the horse that ran second was supposed to be one of Andre Fabre’s best two year olds, explaining why he was almost even money. He has since come back to win on July 17th.”
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Aug 17
2014
Our conversation about horse ownership continues with Rich Cristiano, discussing several topics related to owners involved in the Sovereign Stable partnerships. Click here to read Part 1 of this article.
What happens if a horse doesn’t work out, and you either sell it, or enter it into a claiming race?
That’s part of the topic I call “exit strategy.” It costs $50,000 to keep a horse in training in New York. Say a horse breaks maiden, but then can’t make any headway in Allowance company. I think we’re one of the best in identifying that a horse is not going further … whether it’s physical issues, mental issues, not fast enough issues, this horse is not going to cover that nut. So, what are the exit strategies?
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Aug 12
2014
So you think you might want to get involved with the ownership side of the business, but you don’t know where to start. Many of my horse racing friends are at that point. We’ve been fans of the game for decades and dreamt about standing in the winner’s circle adjacent to our winning steed. However, although we might be able to handicap a race and pick out a winner, we have absolutely no idea what it takes to make a horse a winner. And the cost, holy cow, how can the average person expect to get into a sport that is so costly?
About one year ago, one of my friends bought into a horse racing partnership at Sovereign Stable. He did his homework – contacting multiple partnerships, asking a lot of questions, researching the horses that were available at each stable. In the end, he chose Sovereign because of the “positive vibe” he got from two of the principle members of the Sovereign team, Rich Cristiano (Director of Business Development) and Matt Gatsas (President). I figured that’s as good a place as any to get started, so I recently met with Rich and Matt to discuss horse ownership – the Sovereign Stable Way.
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