Private stables once ruled the racing world. Owned by wealthy families with names like Galbreath, Kleberg, Mellon, Phipps, Vanderbilt, and Whitney, these stables bred Thoroughbreds to race them, developing female families over generations and sticking to mostly proven stallions, relying on one trainer and often having a jockey under contract to ride all of their horses.
Only a handful of them remain today, but almost all of the onetime private stables still operating have had to adapt their business models.
Craig Bernick, president and CEO of Glen Hill Farm, is the grandson of the racing and breeding operation's late founders, Leonard and Bernice Lavin. In 1967, the Lavins created the breed-to-race stable that primarily ran its homebreds in Illinois and California while breeding and raising them at Glen Hill Farm in Ocala, Fla. Glen Hill Farm has maintained a longstanding relationship with the Proctor family, with the stable's horses trained by the late Willard Proctor for many years, then by his son, Tom. Harry “Hap” Proctor, also a trainer, was longtime farm manager.
Since taking over the operation in 2008, Bernick has diversified Glen Hill. It still maintains a racing operation (with Tom Proctor as U.S. trainer), but auction purchases and partnerships in Europe and North America supplement the stable, some horses are bred for the commercial market, and Bernick created a division to invest in stallions and stallion shares.
Bernick is this week's Friday Show guest, discussing how economics, combined with a more commercial breeding and racing industry, necessitated diversification.
Watch this week's episode of The Friday Show below:
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