Preakness Quick Sheet: Get to Know the 2021 Preakness Horses
Get to Know the Horse Owners of the 2018 Kentucky Derby
Racing
Magnum Moon in the Arkansas Derby winner’s circle with owners Lawana and Robert Low at left. (Eclipse Sportswire)
The greatest two minutes in sports is right around the corner! While the horses take center stage at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, have you ever wondered about the people who own the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve runners? Meet the owners behind the run for the roses now:
Lawana and Robert Low with Magnum Moon. (Coady Photography)
1. Magnum Moon
Owners: Robert and Lawana Low
About: Robert and Lawana Low are prominent horse owners with a Thoroughbred farm called Primatara located just north of Springfield, Mo.; Primatara is also home to one of the country’s largest houses. Robert and Lawana are also the owners of Prime, Inc., which is America’s most successful refrigerated, flatbed, tanker, and intermodal trucking company. The Lows have owned several prominent racehorses before Magnum Moon, including 2006 Kentucky Derby third-place finisher Steppenwolfer, Real Cozzy, and Green Fee.
2. Good Magic
Owners: e Five Racing Thoroughbreds and Stonestreet Stables
About: e Five Racing Thoroughbreds is the nom de course of Bob and Kristine Edwards and their three children – Cassidy, Riley, and Delaney. The family got into Thoroughbred racing in August of 2015, and their success has been astronomical: in just two years of ownership, the Edwards have celebrated three Breeders’ Cup wins, including two World Championships victories in 2017. Bob is the owner of e5 Pharma, which is a pharmaceutical company for pets.
Stonestreet Stables is the name of owner Barbara Banke’s operation; Banke is best known for owning and operating Kendall-Jackson Wine and is a UCLA and Hastings Law School graduate who formerly practiced land use and constitutional law. Stonestreet is best known for campaigning 2007 and 2008 Horse of the Year Curlin and 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra.
3. Audible
Owners: China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing, and WinStar Farm
About: China Horse Club was established by Teo Ah Khing as a lifestyle and Thoroughbred racing club in 2013. They have been active at major North American Thoroughbred auctions as well as purchasing shares in racehorses that are already successful.
Head of Plains Partners is the nom de course for Sol Kumin. Kumin, founder and chief executive officer of Folger Hill Asset Management, has been as adept as a Thoroughbred owner as he is in the financial world. OwnerView honored him as the top new owner in 2015. Kumin is best known for teaming with Jay Hanley to purchase Lady Eli, who rebounded from life-threatening laminitis to reassert herself as one of the leading turf mares of her era.
Starlight Racing is the stable of Jack and Laurie Wolf. Louisville, Ky., native Jack was a hedge fund manager at Columbus Partners, and in 2000, he and his wife Laurie – both longtime racing fans – became owners when they purchased six yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky sale in July. The pair’s love of horses is evident in everything they do, including founding the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the industry's first broad-based initiative dedicated to helping retired Thoroughbreds. Laurie is the managing partner and CEO of StarLadies Racing and also serves on the board of the Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs.
In 2000, Kenny Troutt and Bill Casner, founders of Excel Communications, a long-distance telephone service and communications company, founded WinStar Farm after buying the 1,450-acre Prestonwood Farm property near Versailles, Ky., from brothers Art, Jack and J.R. Preston. In 2010, Troutt bought out Casner’s portion of WinStar, and is now the sole owner. With the Race Track Chaplaincy of America, Troutt created the White Horse Award, presented annually to a farm or racetrack worker who performs an unselfish heroic act. WinStar received the Eclipse Award as Outstanding Owner in 2010 based in part of the success of their Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver.
Mike Repole (Eclipse Sportswire)
4. Noble Indy
Owners: WinStar Farm and Repole Stable
About: See above for biographical information on WinStar Farm.
Repole Stable is owned by Mike Repole, a self-made New York billionaire who founded VitaminWater, Smartwater, Bodyarmor, and Pirate’s Booty. Repole has owned several top racehorses in his tenure in the Thoroughbred industry, most notably Uncle Mo, Stay Thirsty, Notacatbutallama, and Stopchargingmaria.
5. Vino Rosso
Owners: Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable
About: See above for biographical information on Repole Stable.
St. Elias Stable is the racing operation of Vincent Viola, founder and executive chairman of the electronic trading firm Virtu Financial and former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Viola graduated from West Point Academy and served in the U.S. Army Reserves. Viola also owns the NHL's Florida Panthers. Viola’s St. Elias co-owned 2017 Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming.
Mick Ruis and Javier Castellano (Eclipse Sportswire)
6. Bolt d’Oro
Owner: Ruis Racing
About: Ruis Racing is the operation of the Ruis family. Founder Mick Ruis also serves as the stable's trainer and his daughter, Shelbe, also is a licensed trainer. Before he dove in to horse racing, Mick Ruis was (and is) a hands-on owner of a large scaffolding company that was a major supplier for the U.S. Navy. A native of El Cajon, Calif., Ruis became a fan of horse racing after visiting Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico, as a teenager.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (Eclipse Sportswire)
7. Enticed
Owner: Godolphin Racing
About: Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, also known as Sheikh Mohammed, is the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and emir of Dubai. A keen equestrian, he is the founder of the Maktoum family-owned Godolphin racing stable and breeding operation with outposts in six countries. Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin have won the Dubai World Cup eight times, including this year with Thunder Snow.
Michael Tabor (right) and trainer Aidan O'Brien. (Eclipse Sportswire)
8. Mendelssohn
Owners: Derrick Smith, Susan Magnier and Michael Tabor
About: Englishman Derrick Smith, who lives in Barbados, is the part-owner of the Sandy Lane Hotel, a five-diamond luxury getaway in Barbados.
Susan Magnier, wife of Coolmore Stud owner John Magnier, is the daughter of famed Irish trainer Vincent O'Brien, one of the legends of the Turf who won 42 classic races in Europe during his career. Vincent O’Brien started Coolmore as a partnership in the 1970s with Tim Vigors and Robert Sangster. In the 1980s, John Magnier joined Coolmore and eventually became sole owner of one of the two leading international Thoroughbred owning-breeding enterprises, along with Godolphin.
Michael Tabor was the owner and chairman of the Prince Arthur betting shops in Great Britain. He sold the 114 shops on Sept. 29, 1995, to Coral, the country's third-largest operator of betting shops; the sale price was not disclosed, though estimates ranged from $15 million to $35 million. Tabor has been involved with Coolmore partners since the 1990s, and he enjoyed his first top-level success in U.S. racing in 1995 when Thunder Gulch won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
9. Justify
Owners: China Horse Club International, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing and WinStar Farm
About: See above for biographical information on China Horse Club International, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing, and WinStar Farm.
John Oxley (Keeneland/Coady Photography)
10. Flameaway
Owner: John C. Oxley
About: John Oxley founded Oxley Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration firm based in his native Tulsa, in 1962. He sold the company in May of 2003 and has since started Oxley Resources, a smaller scale oil and gas exploration and production venture.
John Oxley, along with his wife, Debbie, have campaigned many successful Thoroughbreds, among them 2016 champion 2-year-old male and 2017 Preakness Stakes runner-up Classic Empire, 2001 Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, and 2015 Stephen Foster Stakes winner Noble Bird.
11. Solomini
Owners: Zayat Stables, Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith
About: See above for biographical information on Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith.
Ahmed Zayat was born in Cairo, Egypt to a wealthy family, and grew up in an ethnically-diverse neighborhood where he learned to ride horses. At age 18, he moved to the United States where he attended college and ultimately obtained a master's degree in business and public health from Boston University. After a brief career in commercial real estate in New York City, he returned to Egypt, and for about a decade ran the Al-Ahram Beverages Company, which he owned as part of an investment group. In horse racing, Zayat is most famous for campaigning 2015 Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner American Pharoah.
12. Bravazo
Owner: Calumet Farm
About: The Calumet name is one of the most famous names in the history of racing. Established by William Monroe Wright, the farm produced eight Kentucky Derby winners and two Triple Crown winners. In 1992, Henryk de Kwiatkowski bought the farm where it ran under his name and then under trustees before Brad Kelley took the operation over in 2012.
Brad Maurice Kelley is an American businessman who is the fourth-largest landowner in the U.S., with an estimated net worth of $2.2 billion in 2015. He founded the Commonwealth Brands tobacco company in 1991 and sold the company in 2001 to Houchens Industries for $1 billion.
Kelley leases the historic farm from Calumet Investment Trust, which purchased the property in 2012 for an estimated $36-$40 million. In 2013, he started using the Calumet name for his stable, which he had previously operated under the name Bluegrass Hall. Kelley’s Calumet won that year’s Preakness Stakes with Oxbow. Last year, he sent three horses to the Kentucky Derby: Sonneteer, Hence, and Patch.
13. My Boy Jack
Owners: Don't Tell My Wife Stables and Monomoy Stables
About: Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Don’t Tell My Wife Stables is a partnership helmed by trainer J. Keith Desormeaux (who conditions My Boy Jack), Louisiana horseman Kirk Godby, and Lake George, N.Y., resident Rob Slack.
Monomoy Stables is run by Sol Kumin, founder and chief executive officer of Folger Hill Asset Management (see above under Audible and Justify: Head of Plains Partners.) Monomoy Stables is co-owner of 2018 Longines Kentucky Oaks favorite Monomoy Girl.
Owner: Robert J. Baron
About: Robert J. Baron is the Chairman of Baron Construction Corp. and is the owner of Baron Utilities Corp. in Albany, New York. As a child, Baron would visit Saratoga Race Course, sparking a passion that would last his lifetime. Baron named his horse Promises Fulfilled for three reasons: to celebrate his relationship with his wife of 44 years, to acknowledge that he’d kept a pledge to his children to educate them, and because his trainer Dale Romans told Baron that he’d have a good horse one day.
Dennis Albaugh and Jason Loutsch (both holding bridle). (Eclipse Sportswire)
15. Free Drop Billy
Owner: Albaugh Family Stables
About: Albaugh Family Stable is the Des Moines, Iowa-based racing operation of Dennis Albaugh, who mortgaged his home to start his own pesticide company Albaugh Inc. Today Albaugh is a multibillion-dollar international company. Albaugh owns 100% of the company and has a fortune estimated at $1.5 billion. Albaugh’s son-in-law Jason Loutsch is general manager of the stable. Albaugh Family Stables was represented in the 2016 Kentucky Derby with Brody’s Cause and in the 2017 Derby with J Boys Echo.
16. Lone Sailor
Owner: G M B Racing
About: G M B Racing is the ownership group run by Gayle Benson. Ms. Benson is the wife of the late Tom Benson, owner of the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints and the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association, who passed away in March 2018. Longtime supporters of Louisiana’s Thoroughbred industry, Tom and Gayle Benson owned 2016 Kentucky Derby starters Tom’s Ready and Mo Tom, both graded stakes winners.
17. Hofburg
Owner: Juddmonte Farms
About: Prince Khalid Abdullah is the first cousin of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the brother-in-law of the late ruler King Fahd. Juddmonte has been one of the most successful international owner-breeder operations for over 40 years, recently represented by stars such as European Horse of the Year Frankel (named after the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who was Juddmonte’s stable trainer in the U.S.) and all-time leading U.S. moneywinner Arrogate.
18. Firenze Fire
Owner: Mr. Amore Stable
About: Ron Lombardi of Mr. Amore Stables is the owner of a physical therapy franchise called Sports Care, and is the official physical therapy provider of the Brookyn Nets. Mr. Amore Stables has been operating since 2007, and Lombardi has campaigned such top horses as Tightend Touchdown, Ribo Bobo, and American Border.
19. Combatant
Owners: Winchell Thoroughbreds and Willis Horton Racing
Joan Winchell and her son, Ron, are continuing the racing operation started by the late Verne H. Winchell, Joan's husband and Ron's father. The elder Winchell, who died at age 87 in 2002, founded the donut company Winchell's in 1948 and later was CEO and chairman of Denny's restaurants. The Winchells have had great success in the sport of Thoroughbred racing, represented by such horses as Untapable and 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner.
Willis Horton is a longtime horse owner as well as a successful businessman: before dedicating himself full-time to Thoroughbred ownership, Horton helmed his family’s D. R. Horton Custom Homes until the business went public in 1992. Since then, Horton has campaigned such notable horses as Will Take Charge (later co-owned with Three Chimneys Farm) and Take Charge Brandi, both Eclipse Award winners.
20. Instilled Regard
Owner: OXO Racing
Lawrence Best is the founder and chairman of OXO Racing. He has seved as the chief financial officer of Boston Scientific, a developer, manufacturer, and marketer of medical devices; and Best is also the founder and chairman of OXO Capital LLC. Best serves on several corporate boards, including 4Tech, Myriad Genetics, and Archemix Corp. Best is a graduate of Kent State University, and is a founding director of the President's Council at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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