Keeneland Breeder Spotlight: Rigney Savoring Sweet Flavor of Success

Richard Rigney says that nothing in life gives him a bigger kick than his horses. To understand just what that means, it might help to know his idea of a vacation. A few years ago, for instance, he went on a shooting range in Russia. Not that startling, perhaps: this was obviously before the war in Ukraine. It's just the caliber of the ordnance that was a little unusual.

“Shooting a bazooka is so fun,” Rigney says. “My wife Tammy was like, 'You know what? I think it's okay that he shoots the bazooka, but I don't think you should really trust him to drive it.' Because I'm a really bad driver!”

He finds a picture on his phone.

“Here's me going into the tank,” he says. “It was from World War II. I blew up a car, like, half a mile away. So that was a thing. We do a lot of traveling, and we love safaris. I guess that was kind of one.”

If that's a day on the range, you can imagine what scuba diving in Honolulu might entail.

“So Tammy set it up with these Navy SEALs who do a lot of stuff for Hawaii Five-O,” Rigney says. “So we're doing all these helicopter stunts and then, at the end of it, we're 45 feet above the ocean in our wetsuits and dive into the ocean for a shark dive.”

Sorry, this is for fun?

“This is for fun!” exclaims Rigney. “It's like when we went to Cambodia. She goes, 'I got two things for you to do out there. They're burning down the jungle. So how do you feel about being an anti-poacher, one day, and then putting out fires the next?' For that we had a zipline from the helicopter into the hotel.”

He chuckles, before making the most superfluous statement of 2023: “We're not like normal tourists.”

And that is true in more ways than one. Just ask the Vietnamese jungle guide whose daughter was upset when he made her laugh, because it showed how bad her teeth were. Rigney paid for a dentist to fix those. Then, when Covid hit and the guide had no trade, he also paid her college fees.

So here's a guy whose appetite for life is commensurate with the size of his heart. Rigney talks with infectious relish, a frank grin never far away. But nothing is more instructive of his nature than how that heart deals with a horserace.

In its literal function, it pumps the blood at such a frantic rate that the pulse monitor on his smart-watch goes nuts. “Whenever we're racing, even if it's just a cheap claimer, my watch will say: 'Did you fall down? Do you need help?'” he says. “Because I'm so excited. So yeah, the racing is my favorite of all. And winning a Grade I was the No. 1 most exciting thing in my life, besides having my kids.”

Played Hard with Phil Bauer | Mike Kane

That was when Played Hard, a $280,000 Keeneland September yearling, won the GI La Troienne S. on Derby Day at Churchill. She couldn't be more aptly named, whether for her parentage–by Into Mischief out of Well Lived (Tiznow)–or her owner in the other, more figurative workings of his heart. For this is indeed a life lived on a most generous scale.

Phil Bauer, his trainer, interjects that Rigney didn't even go down to the saddling ring before the race, because he gave all his paddock passes to guests. His finish-line suite at Churchill was supposed to accommodate 40 people, but Rigney brought in extra tables so that he could seat 60. His guests ranged from his kids' ski instructor, to greenkeepers from a golf course he owns in Oklahoma, to his usher at the Tampa Bay Rays.

“All these people are important to me,” Rigney says. “So I had them all come in to experience this race. What a humongous day for me, right?”

And that's key: Rigney makes it sound as though he's doing himself a favor. There's no mistaking the authentic pleasure this man derives from doing things for other people. Even if, like the friend who watched the Churchill race alongside Rigney, the process has its perils.

“I got so excited that I knocked him over!” Rigney admits. “He thought he was going through the window. If you don't know what a rebel yell is, stand next to me during a race.”

There were further such scenes at Keeneland last weekend, when Buchu (Justify) came from last to win the GII Jessamine S. in emphatic style. This was a new frontier, as the filly is homebred, retained at $275,000 at the September Sale last year. She's the first foal of Flowering Peach (Ire), a staying mare by Galileo (Ire) out of a Giant's Causeway half-sister to Medaglia d'Oro. Unsurprisingly, after starting out on dirt, those genes have enabled Buchu to thrive for the switch to grass and she will now be among the leading home contenders for the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Buchu | Coady Photography

The sense that Rigney's program is going up a level, after some early struggles, is no coincidence. Played Hard was one of the first recruits made for Rigney by John Moynihan, renowned for his work with Stonestreet and others; while the private acquisition from Coolmore of Flowering Peach, with her sensational pedigree, qualified her as the cornerstone of a relatively new venture: a broodmare band, already up to 16, based at Denali Stud.

“So it's been kind of like a new thing with John,” Rigney explains. “I'm very excited about it. I really want John to be involved in developing the broodmare part. He's the right guy for it, that's obvious. And Played Hard was from the first full crop of yearlings he picked out for us. She was always one we were excited about–from when we were buying her, to when she went into pre-training, John was like, 'This is the horse that might take you to the promised land.'”

Before that, Rigney and Bauer are candid that they were not shopping quite so effectively. But first let's rewind to how this whole thing started; how Rigney was first drawn to the color and excitement of the sport, as a young man privileged to grow up in buzzing Pasadena, California. (His father was an engineer who worked on the B1 bomber and Apollo spacecraft; while his mother was an accountant.)

Rigney paid his way through college by his wagering at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park–which instinct, incidentally, has never left him. In 2014, having never played a hand in his life, Rigney accompanied a buddy to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. He thought he might as well pay the $10,000 fee and, from a field of 6,683, was famously ranking as high as 86th when losing out, on the fourth day, on a pile of chips that exceeded more than $800,000. Some of his rookie moves had baffled the professionals and Rigney, to disguise his ignorance, had maintained a silence so resolutely enigmatic that many assumed he couldn't even speak English.

But all this freewheeling through life–all these exotic exploits, all his munificence–is actually founded on lab coats and precision.

Rigney owns Clarendon Flavors, a manufacturer of extracts for the beverage industry. “It was just a very fortunate thing,” he protests. “I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but it was the right place, right time. I was working on my master's degree and looking for a job close by. And the nearest one to my school was in this little company, a flavor house. I didn't even know what that meant. But it said they needed a chemist, so I went to interview.”

So began his education in the intricate palette of ingredients from which flavor is designed.

'TDN Rising Star' Twirling Good Time | Coady Photography

“It's like painting,” he says. “It's a really bizarre industry: part chemistry, part art. And the longer you do it, the more of an artist you need to be. I don't really see myself as a chemist really anymore. It's just being a creative person.”

All flavor can apparently be broken down into basic constituents. “Banana, for example, has a hundred different components–but the No. 1 is isoamyl acetate,” Rigney explains. “And that's something you can synthesize from natural ingredients.”

In 1996, after a takeover of the holding group, the opportunity arose for Rigney to finance a buyout of the company he was working for. Three years later he had paid off the loan, and growth since has been perennial. He has clients around the world and across the spectrum: at least half in distilled spirits, but also others making soda pop, apple sauce, ice cream, baby food. Though his company's input usually comprises no more than 0.5-1.0 percent of the finished product, it will go out in 6,000-gallon tankers from two factories in Kentucky, at Louisville and Owensboro.

Things were soon going well enough that Tammy bought her husband a share in a racehorse: a Bernstein filly found by Kenny McPeek for $60,000 at the 2007 September Sale. In the silks of the Livin The Dream partnership, Dream Empress broke her maiden at Saratoga and then won the GI Alcibiades S. by four lengths before running second at the Breeders' Cup.

Not only was Rigney now hooked. He had also hit it off with Bauer, then working for McPeek. In fact, Bauer was the filly's groom at Saratoga before being made McPeek's assistant, even as Rigney started buying a few horses in his own right. The very next season Rigney was back in the Keeneland winner's circle after another juvenile Grade I, and Breeders' Futurity winner Noble's Promise (Cuvee) then went on to run fifth in the GI Kentucky Derby.

Eventually Rigney told Bauer that he would like to take his involvement to another level.

“He originally asked me how many horses it would take for me to go out on my own,” recalls Bauer. “I was unsure of a number. So then he said, 'Well, what about a private job? Just you and me?' And I said, 'I'm ready to go today.'”

“And we did terribly,” declares Rigney with a laugh. “So then I'm getting phone calls from all these different trainers, like, 'Hey, why don't you drop Phil?' And I was like, 'If I'm not with Philip, I'm not going to be in this game.' People didn't really quite understand, at first, but after a couple of years people stopped calling me. Because it's us doing this together. I get to be part of this process, I get to do the day-to-day. We talk all the time. We're like a married couple. We're always together, and we always support each other.”

Xigera | Sarah Andrew

And now, with the stock upgraded by Moynihan, it's all coming together. In 2023, Bauer has saddled 21 winners from just 89 starters–doubling his strike-rate from just two years ago. There are green shoots everywhere. A couple of weeks ago Twirling Good Time (Twirling Candy), a $250,000 Keeneland September yearling, was named a 'TDN Rising Star' for her stylish debut in a sprint maiden at Churchill Downs. Just three days previously Gorilla Trek (Curlin), homebred with Denali and Valli Rose Equine, also opened his account in Louisville; while only a day before that, Buchu herself had broken her maiden on a card that also featured a second stakes success, by six lengths, for the sophomore Xigera (Nyquist). That performance earned Xigera a 97 Beyer, one of the three fastest of the year among 3-year-old fillies, and helped Rigney racing to a share of the owner's title at the September meet.

“I knew Phil was a good trainer from the very beginning,” Rigney says proudly. “It's the way he takes care of horses. But it's also about the way we take care of people. The people at the barn are very important to us. We hire the best that we possibly can, and treat them the best we possibly can. So what's happening now, these are the most fun times.

“Some of these horses we get so close to, it all becomes very personal. Like a family experience. I have to worry about Philip a lot more than he has to worry about me! He gets all upset if a horse runs like Xigera did at the Breeders' Cup last year. I was like, 'It's okay, it's okay.' Most owners don't have to deal with this! But if things don't work out, we never look back.”

No need to do that, anyhow, with so much to look forward to.

“There's been an overall feeling, the last three years, that you could feel it coming,” Bauer agrees. “Just when you get introduced to the new ones coming in, when you breeze the horses, there's just so much more quality. It's such a difference. These horses are extremely talented athletes. A lot of times, you just have to keep out of their way.”

And, given how much their patron loves action, the program's evolution since Moynihan came aboard makes a lot of sense. With so much more quality now, plus a breeding division, there's seldom a dull moment. When they go to the sales these days, for instance, Rigney will be selling as well as buying. Buchu's dam Flowering Peach–aptly enough, Buchu is the flavoring agent for peach–already looks an extremely commercial proposition. She had an Uncle Mo filly this spring and is now in foal to Golden Pal.

Best of all, these episodic excitements all aggregate to something bigger. “The thing is that we're looking at it really long term,” Rigney emphasizes. “Even in our bad years, we've done better each year, and that was what I wanted. You do get used to being knocked down in this game, and that doesn't really bother me. It's a tough sport. There's a lot of people here who want to win just as badly as we do. And so I'm okay with that. But when we do win a big race, then it's just huge. We're so excited.”

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Milky Way Farm to Host Free Autumn Equine Fair

Seminars, horse demonstrations, stallion viewings, prize giveaways and networking opportunities headline an ambitious agenda for the 2023 Autumn Equine Fair at Milky Way Farm in Temecula, California from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14. Participation in the event is free for current and prospective horse owners and breeders.

Sponsored by the California Thoroughbred Farm Managers Association and California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, the event will feature several 20-minute sessions led by professional speakers on a wide variety of topics, including horse health, feeding and nutrition, broodmare care, foal imprinting, weanling training, yearling conformation, racing partnerships, handicapping tips and plenty more.

“We are honored to host this educational event for the benefit of Thoroughbred breeders and owners and other horse enthusiasts in our Southern California region,” said Milky Way Farm owner Linda Madsen. “Whether someone is an experienced horseman or a newcomer to our industry, we believe they will find tremendous benefit in attending the informative sessions, having the opportunity to ask questions on a one-on-one basis and interacting with others from the local equine community.”

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HBPA: Negotiations Between HISA And Sales Companies Equate To ‘Preferential Treatment’ For Breeders

Two days after the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority disclosed at a press conference last week that it had initiated discussions with sales companies in an attempt to bring about voluntary compliance with medication policies throughout the lifetimes of Thoroughbreds, the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) went on record with a letter filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit alleging that those efforts equate to improper rulemaking by the Authority and “preferential treatment” for breeders.

The purpose of the HISA Authority's Sept. 13 press conference was to go public with a months-in-the-making report on 12 horse deaths at Churchill Downs this past spring, and also for the Authority unveil a wide-ranging “strategic response plan” to predict and halt catastrophes before they occur. According to the report, which also listed numerous other safety proposals, the goal of entering into agreements with Thoroughbred auction houses would be “to more effectively align and coordinate our respective anti-doping and medication control [ADMC] programs.”

The purpose of the NHBPA's Sept. 15 legal filing, by contrast, was to let the court know that as the plaintiffs/appellants in a two-year-old lawsuit that is trying to derail HISA based on alleged constitutional violations, the NHBPA and 12 of its affiliates believed that by entering into such negotiations with sales companies, “the Authority has announced its intention to add another line to the already long list of 20-plus examples of the Authority writing the rules for the industry without going through the rulemaking process.”

The two-page letter written by the NHBPA's attorney, Daniel Suhr, prefaced its legal criticisms of the Authority's discussions with sales companies by first stating that, “The NHBPA Appellants appreciate the policy goal to ensure effective ADMC standards that include breeders: as the advocate for owners of horses, they support measures that ensure full and accurate information from breeders for buyers.

“But as a legal matter, two things are obvious from the announcement,” the NHBPA letter continued. “First, one section of the industry that is included in the scope of the Act is receiving preferential treatment-the breeders get to negotiate their rules through voluntary agreements while other sectors like trainers and racetracks have rules imposed upon them by Authority fiat.

“And second, once again the Authority is engaged in regulatory activity outside the rulemaking process. When the Authority enters into a 'voluntary agreement' with a breeding company, it is not required to publish or publicize the text of that agreement (or provide it if requested through FOIA), receive and consider public comment (including feedback from other affected equine constituencies), or run it by the Federal Trade Commission [FTC],” the NHBPA letter stated.

The allegations by the NHBPA were filed with oral arguments in the highly anticipated Fifth Circuit appeals case coming up soon, on Oct. 4.

A lower federal court already ruled back on May 4 that the rewritten HISA law that went into effect Dec. 29, 2022, is indeed constitutional because it fixes the problems the Fifth Circuit had identified in an earlier version of the law. The NHBPA plaintiffs are arguing for another reversal.

The points of law raised by the NHBPA's Sept. 15 letter, however, won't be considered by the court in their current format.

That's because the letter did not meet the standard for the type of filing that notifies the court of pertinent and significant findings after a party's brief has been filed, according to a docket entry made by the court clerk on Sept. 15. “Therefore, we are taking no action on this letter,” the clerk stated.

If the NHBPA wants its comments on the issue to be considered, the clerk's notation continued,  “A motion seeking leave to file a supplemental brief is required.”

Regardless of its status, the letter was made public within the docket once the court refused to take action on it, and its contents are important to the broader world of horse racing because the objections over the sales company discussions underscore both the ongoing and newly developing rifts between the NHBPA plaintiffs and the HISA and FTC defendants.

A chief point of contention between the two parties is that the Authority has stated that it will negotiate (rather than propose and implement) ADMC rules upon sales companies because its interpretation of the law is that some young horses sold as auction aren't yet “covered horses” under HISA.

Speaking at the Sept. 13 press conference, Lisa Lazarus, HISA's chief executive officer, explained that “a horse becomes a HISA [covered] horse after it's had its first public workout, first timed workout. So some of the 2-year-old sales would certainly fall under HISA's purview. The weanlings and yearlings wouldn't.”

But, Lazarus added last week, “I think we're at the point where if HISA leads the way that we should, and the way that we intend to, that we'll be able to motivate the industry to come under one kind of comprehensive, understandable, kind of ADMC approach.”

The NHBPA, on the other hand, wrote in a footnote to its Sept. 15 letter that under its reading of HISA, it believes breeders do qualify as “covered persons,” and that breeders as a group are included “among equine constituencies.” Thus, the plaintiffs' argument goes, it's allegedly not fair for one sector of covered persons to have a say in negotiating rules while other covered persons don't.

Asked on Sept. 18 if the HISA Authority would like to comment on the NHBPA's assertions in the letter, an Authority spokesperson wrote in an email that, “The NHBPA overlooks the fact that Congress decided that Thoroughbred horses are not covered horses under the Act until their 'first timed and reported workout.' Therefore, it is necessary for the sales companies to voluntarily agree so that we could effectively align and coordinate our respective ADMC programs throughout the lifetime of a horse.”

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French Stallion Trail Dates Set For January

The Route des Etalons will be held in Normandy from Jan. 20-21, 2024. Featuring many of the best French stud farms, La Route des Etalons will allow breeders and racing fans to view some of the best stallions in France. For more information, please visit the La Route des Etalons website.

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