Connections

A few days after Wild in the Saddle’s win in the Dream of Summer Stakes at Santa Anita, Nadine Anderson was running on a few hours’ sleep, but her voice hadn’t lost the glow of an owner’s first stakes win. Anderson is a co-owner and manager at Brazeau Thoroughbred Farm in Hemet, Calif., where she […]

Donato Lanni is on a roll. Last year it was Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern, a son of Offlee Wild the Canadian-born bloodstock agent picked out of the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale for $320,000 on behalf of Kaleem Shah. A year earlier it was Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Secret Circle, an Eddington colt […]

When Chocolate Ride crossed the G2 Mervin Muniz Jr. Handicap wire first by a half-length over favored Slumber (GB), part of owner John Wentworth still couldn’t believe it: the 5-year-old former claimer is Wentworth’s first Thoroughbred racehorse. Wentworth spent 15 years training, driving, and owning Standardbred horses in his native Michigan. When the industry began […]

Gil Moutray’s passion for Thoroughbreds dates back decades to his childhood, although if his father had his way, things might have stopped there. “My grandfather had ‘sulky horses,’ as we called them back in the old days, he loved horses,” said Moutray, a lifelong resident of Carlsbad, N.M.  “My dad didn’t really want me to […]

Like many who work in the Thoroughbred industry or are merely fans of the sport, Jason Litt’s introduction came through family. “My dad was a big fan,” said Litt, a partner in the Solis/Litt bloodstock agency and a partner in Shared Belief, who ranks as the No. 1 horse in North America by virtue of […]

Fletcher and Carolyn Gray are used to watching their homebreds succeed at high levels, but usually they’re doing so from the comfort of their couch at home in Pleasant Hope, Mo. On Feb. 21 though, the Grays were on site at the Fair Grounds when their filly I’m a Chatterbox took home a Grade 3 […]

Growing up on a ranch in Bakersfield, Calif., in the 1960’s, Kosta Hronis and his brother Pete never dreaded the frequent two-hour drive to visit their grandparents. After all, they lived five blocks from Santa Anita Park, where in hindsight, Kosta became a racetrack lifer at the tender age of five. “We were always the […]

Last November, an impressive maiden-breaking juvenile by Speightstown went through the auction ring at Keeneland; the hammer fell at $340,000. The colt, Barbados, has won both of his subsequent starts – a pair of stakes races at Gulfstream Park – for new owner Paul Hanifl. “On the racetrack, he’s just level-headed, moves real nice, and to me, he’s […]

Rafael Lopez spent years watching racing from the sidelines as a handicapper and fan, which is why standing in the trainers’ lounge at Gulfstream Park recently made him do something of a double take. “It’s unbelievable,” said Lopez. “I never thought in my wildest dreams that I’d be hanging out and watching a race with […]

When I Am Jane Dough swung five wide in the upper stretch at Sam Houston Race Park on Jan. 31 and began charging for a half-length win in the Tomball Distaff, the toteboard said her odds were 2-1. But if you’d asked owner/breeder Rose Chandler on the night of April 3, 2011 whether the filly […]