Tag: Connections

Veteran jockey Kyle Frey returned from a self-imposed seven-week break with a goal: to be successful.

Unsurprising, right?

The thing that made Frey's goal unique was its impetus: he took time away from the races in order to get a better handle on his mental health, a fact he freely shares with anyone who asks. Frey wanted to prove that the racetrack's negative stigma against talking about mental health is fading.

“Thing that I prayed about was to come back and do well, not for myself, but for those who are still struggling,” he explained. “I wanted to show that: just because you come out and say you have a problem, it does not mean that you are damaged goods and will be discarded.”

That attitude, and a healthy dose of luck, helped Frey earn the biggest win of his career on Dec. 16. Piloting the Bob Baffert trainee Wynstock, Frey scored a 14-1 upset in the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity.

“It was just so out of this world,” the 32-year-old said. “I feel such an overwhelming sense of gratitude and grace. I'm grateful to Bob, the owners, to my wife and family, and of course to my agent who stuck with me through all of this. Most agents, or even people, would have said this was too much baggage, but Jack Carava really stood by me so I really appreciate that. He didn't have to; that's a very rare thing.”

Frey had struggled with mental health and addiction since his youth, growing up in what he called a “dysfunctional” home and lacking a clear sense of direction for his life.

“My parents tried their absolute best, but they had their own demons as well,” he said. “After my parents split, I started to act out seeking attention. I figured if my older brother, who was a deviant, was getting attention, then I was gonna be worse. I started partying, regular teenage stuff that got out of hand.

“I'm a competitive type, so I figured if I'm gonna be bad, I'm gonna be the best at it!”

Frey's father worked on the track, so when Frey was old enough he decided that his love of horses was a good place to start chasing a future.

“Coming to the track saved my life, I'm positive about that,” said Frey. “I was forced to get a good work ethic. I didn't want to party any more, I wanted to drive forward and be the best at my craft. In the first year I felt like I accomplished that, but then I had a bad injury, a broken femur. I felt like I was on top of the world and dropped back into reality.”

After winning the Eclipse Award as Outstanding Apprentice Jockey in 2011, Frey began using alcohol to combat the ups and downs of the jockey's profession.

He eventually got sober with the help of the Winners Foundation, but Frey's mental health had been precarious since the death of promising rider Avery Whisman in early 2023. The 23-year-old jockey and horseman committed suicide in January.

“I was really good friends with Avery,” Frey said. “I spoke to him two weeks before it happened. I really wish I was in a better place with myself then; it would have been a miracle if I could have just noticed something.”

Over the summer, Frey began to struggle with his sobriety. 

“I've had a few relapses over the years, and I began feeling like I was headed in that direction,” he said. “It seemed so impossible and miserable to be sober, but instead of going back to my old ways, I wondered if there was something more going on.”

The Winners Foundation and chaplains at Santa Anita helped Frey find therapeutic alternatives to alcohol. It was hard to walk through those doors, in full view of the backstretch community, but Frey was sure he was making the right choice.

“There's more power in being open about issues than not,” he said. “We're only as sick as our secrets. I think I was a little more open to the mental health aspect, because with alcohol abuse and sobriety, it was made open.

“What I found with my journey, I discovered that alcohol isn't the issue, it's the symptom of a much greater problem. I just struggle with the ability to deal with life on life's terms.

“I sought therapy of all kinds. I tried DBT therapy, CBT therapy, those types of wide umbrella stress tolerance coping mechanisms, cold therapy, internal self-dialogue, and meditation. There were a lot of different things.”

Ultimately, Frey decided to take the step back from racing for seven weeks. He was concerned about the reaction of the racing community, given the unrelenting physical and mental demands that the sport has of its participants, but he found himself pleasantly surprised.

“I was very shocked and surprised at how many people were concerned about me personally,” Frey said. “To hear that was very, very moving. Someone said, 'Well, he's not going to be on my horse, but is he okay?' 

“Typically, If you're not at the hospital, you better be on the horse! We create this big monster of rejection and judgment if we don't show up and perform to our best, but most people are a little more human than we give them credit for. 

“We all get a little bit fixated on success, and that's great, but I think keeping in mind that we can be loving and supportive while doing those things is extremely important.”

Frey spoke about his journey to better mental health with Jockey Cam's Nathan Horrocks for a documentary, and was thus invited to Tucson, Ariz., in early December to speak on a panel about jockeys' mental health at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program's Global Symposium on Racing.

“I was mortified at first,” he admitted. “But, I felt like if I was asked to speak up about something, even if I was to get judged or ridiculed, if one person found the strength to get help, it was worth it for me.

“I found out that a lot of people were very supportive, and it's very liberating to know that. Now, people come up to me and they might say, 'Hey, I'm struggling too, how do I get help?' To be able to help somebody else is just the most beautiful and freeing thing.”

Returning to the races at Los Alamitos Sept. 22 after missing most of the Del Mar summer meet, Frey won two races on his first day back, then doubled the next day as well.

“It was really good for other people to see that, but for me it was a validation that I did the right thing,” he said. “I just feel very blessed. I feel that God put something in my heart, put this feeling of unease on me that pushed me to see what I needed to work on and reflect on. Coming back after that and being successful, it's just even more so a testament to my faith.”

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Hoist the Gold's victory at 9-1 odds in the Cigar Mile (G2) may have been a bit of a surprise on the tote board (he went off as the sixth choice in a field of 12), but Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez never had a doubt in his mind.

Jim Culver, president of owner/breeder Dream Team One Racing Stable, explained that it was Velazquez who picked out the Cigar Mile after Hoist the Gold finished sixth in the G1 Breeders' Cup Sprint.

“Johnny rode him when he won the Phoenix (G2 at Keeneland), and in the Breeders' Cup, too, and when he came back from that race he said, 'Let me pick the next race,'” Culver said.

“The next day, Johnny called and said, 'We're going to go to the Cigar Mile, and he'll win for fun!' Well, he was right. Johnny said, 'He gallops out tremendously, but he does not like the kickback in his face. When the horse changes leads, you think he's about done, but he just takes off again.' I was a little surprised when he got that five-length lead at the top of the stretch – wow. It was just a tremendous performance.”

Hoist the Gold, a 4-year-old son of Mineshaft trained by Dallas Stewart, is a real throwback kind of horse. He's run almost every month since July of his 2-year-old season, compiling a record of five wins, six seconds, and three thirds from 26 starts for earnings of $1,119,547.

“He's been incredibly healthy,” said Culver. “We basically have to race him; he's not happy to sit around the barn for six weeks! We even have to breeze him, just to try to take the edge off him a little bit, so we've been really blessed in that sense.”

The Phoenix was Hoist the Gold's first graded stakes victory, and the first for the seven-partner Dream Team One Racing Stable since the days of Mucho Macho Man in the early 2010s. Culver personally purchased Mucho Macho Man from a farm in Ocala, paying just $30,000 for a colt who would go on to earn $5.6 million on the racetrack.

“They told me I should take a look at this guy who was galloping on the track,” Culver recalled. “I honestly didn't really like him! He was very thin from the front, tall and lanky. His conformation wasn't awful, but he had a long stride, which was the only thing I liked at the time, so I took a chance, and got lucky.”

Dream Team One owned 100 percent of Mucho Macho Man for his first race, after which Dean Reeves purchased a majority interest in the colt. Mucho Macho Man went on to win the G2 Risen Star, run third in the Kentucky Derby, and won the G2 Gulfstream Park Handicap for the partnership.

“We raced another 18 months together from that point, through the Triple Crown and several other major stakes, until eventually Dean bought us out on the remainder,” said Culver. “He was just a thrilling horse, and it was a thrill to be a part of it.”

Mucho Macho Man is still playing a role in Culver's life, albeit from the periphery.

Hoist the Gold's half-sister, Mucho Macho Girl (a 2020 filly sired by Mucho Macho Man), has won two of her three lifetime starts for the Dream Team One partnership, including an allowance race at Fair Grounds by 7 ½ lengths just 24 hours after Hoist the Gold won the Cigar Mile.

“Dallas loves that filly, too,” Culver said. “We're excited about her, for sure.”

The two horses' dam, Tacit Approval, is the only broodmare owned by Dream Team One. Culver purchased the two-time winning daughter of Tapit in 2015 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky February Mixed sale, paying $62,000 for her.

“We honestly hoped to race her again,” he said. “A few of the partners who had been in on her with West Point didn't believe she was ready to retire, so they came on board with us and we were able to buy her. Unfortunately, after four or five months of training, Graham Motion suggested we just retire her. We knew it was a possibility, so we decided to breed her instead.”

The plan was to breed one horse to race, then one horse to sell, but plans are not always so easily followed in the racehorse industry.
Tacit Approval's first foal was a filly by Mucho Macho Man named Mucho Macho Momma. She broke her maiden in her sixth start, but had to be retired after earning $117,332 on the track.

The next foal was Hoist the Gold. Culver entered him in the Keeneland September Yearling sale, per the business plan he'd put in place, but the colt did not achieve his reserve when bidding stopped at $47,000.

“We thought he was a nicer horse than that, so we decided to race him,” Culver said. “We knew he was pretty talented once he started training: when he was a 2-year-old, he breezed on Saratoga's Oklahoma training track, five furlongs in 58.1 seconds. It was the fastest five-furlong breeze on Oklahoma that entire summer.

“Now, we made some mistakes along the way. We thought with his pedigree that he would go long, but he faded at the end in two-turn races. We went to the Met Mile, and he faded in that, so we thought, maybe he just likes to sprint.

“Now, having seen him in the Cigar Mile, we'll be looking for more one-turn mile or so races in 2024. The first place we're talking about taking him is the G1 Saudi Cup in February.”

It's been a wild journey for the 62-year-old retired property tax consultant, whose introduction to racing featured an accidental trip to the wrong Saratoga in the late 1990's.

“I moved from Buffalo, N.Y., where I was born, to Albany for a new job, and the first weekend I was there, I asked my coworkers what was fun to do in the area,” Culver recalled. “They told me to go up to Saratoga and go to the races! So I did over the weekend, and when I got back on Monday, they asked me how it went.

“I said, 'I went, but it was at night, and I got back kind of late.' They laughed and told me, 'No, that was the harness track! You've got to go to the Thoroughbred racetrack!'

“Well, the very next weekend, I made it up to the Thoroughbred Saratoga. I remember thinking to myself, 'These horses are gorgeous, what athletes they are.' I knew that any time I had some money to waste, I would have to figure out how to get involved in this.”

By the early 2000's, Culver had invested with Sovereign Stable, and by 2007 he'd learned enough to launch his own syndicate. He took Dream Team One partnership private when the pandemic hit in 2020, but Culver is still loving his involvement in the game.

“I actually hurt my back just before the Cigar Mile, so I didn't go to the race because I couldn't stomach traveling,” he said. “But man, when I saw Hoist the Gold at the front at the top of the stretch, I forgot all about my back. By the time he hit the wire, I'd been jumping up and down and screaming so loud that my whole family came to check on me! It's still so much fun.”

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Most native Kentuckians find themselves enthralled by the Kentucky Derby, whether it be the pomp and circumstance, the festive atmosphere, or the races themselves. Attending is almost a right of passage, and finding a way to be personally involved is an item on many bucket lists.

That wasn't the case, however, for Whit Beckman, despite being raised in the Derby City itself. Instead, it was a series of quiet mornings in his early 20's, spent cleaning stalls and grooming his mother's show horses, that convinced Beckman to invest his future in the Thoroughbred industry.

The son of an equine veterinarian, Beckman didn't show any interest in his father's career during his formative years, preferring soccer and skateboarding to the horses. After college, though, he found himself unsure what to do with his life.

Beckman spent many a morning heading out to the farm to help his mother, doing basic care and chores, before he realized that his calling had been right there all along.

“You can go out in search of everything you're looking for, all over the world, but if you just look around you, you had it the whole time,” he said. “I realized I enjoyed working with the horse, the individual; switching off from the regular working world and doing the actual labor lets you get out of your own mind and into that communication that exists without any sort of words.”

Twenty some years later, 41-year-old Beckman has crafted a career path for himself that may just bring him to that pinnacle of sport on the first Saturday in May: the trainer saddled his first graded stakes winner last weekend, sending out 2-year-old Honor Marie to win the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs.

The win earned the son of Honor Code 10 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby.

“With all horses, you have an idea of how good they might be, and I was always thinking two turns with the horse, so I'm just glad he confirmed what we all kind of assumed,” Beckman said. “I know that it's only November, but I'm fortunate enough to have been on the Derby trail before, and it's still pretty cool that at the end of the day, we're all dreaming about this!”

Beckman's previous Derby seasoning occurred during his tenure with Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, for whom he served as an assistant from 2007 through 2013. 

Yet his first racetrack job came courtesy of “Louisville guy” Walter Binder, and Beckman also spent time working at Upson Downs Farm on the outskirts of Louisville, before deciding to pursue a job in New York.

“Back in those days, Churchill was not giving away the same kind of money that they are now, so there were not as many top-name trainers basing themselves there,” Beckman explained. “Charlie Bowden – I bounced a lot off him early – he told me that if I really wanted to get into this business and learn, then I needed to think about the New York and Florida circuit, because those were the biggest venues. 

“Todd called me back while I was on vacation in Florida, and he told me to be in Saratoga as soon as I could get there!”

After six years with Pletcher, Beckman took a job as head trainer in Saudi Arabia for a year, then returned stateside to work for Eoin Harty in Chicago and Tampa for a spell. He returned to Saudi Arabia, but the second trip was much shorter: his daughter was born, and Beckman realized he needed to be closer to home.

“When it was time to go back, I made it all the way to New York with my passport in hand before I realized I really didn't want to go,” he said. “So I turned around and came home, and I got lucky to get a job for Chad Brown a few months later.”

Beckman headed up a string at Churchill for Brown for several years, gaining even more high-level experience.

“I sometimes look back in disbelief that I've been able to work with such high-profile horses and be in such well-respected positions for as long as I have been,” Beckman said. “There are a lot of things that are very similar in both of those stables, especially in terms of consistency and patterns, attention to detail, going above and beyond to take the best possible care of the horse.”

After going out on his own in 2021, Beckman had a bit of a slow start under his own banner. The focus has always been on quality, not quantity: Honor Marie's victory was the 23rd under his own name.

“You know, it was such a transient lifestyle, and I just wanted to be more present for my daughter, who's now seven years old,” he said. “Things are just continuing to improve, and now I'm trying to figure out how to best navigate the winters; I have 12 at Trackside, and eight at Fair Grounds this year, so I'm trying to split my time appropriately.”

Among the connections he made while working for Pletcher was with Kristian Villante, one of the founding four members of Legion Bloodstock. The growing company has supported Beckman since his first days on his own, and their selection of Honor Marie for $40,000 at the 2022 Keeneland September sale is proving to be quite the bargain.

The colt broke his maiden at first asking, after which co-owners Alan and Carrie Ribble bought out their other partners. Honor Marie is named in part for their daughter, Marie, as well as after his sire and dam (Honor Code and Dame Marie).

He finished second in a sloppy allowance race in his second outing, then stepped up to two turns for the Kentucky Jockey Club. Honor Marie cruised from last-to-first and won by two lengths at odds of 8-1, stamping himself as a potential horse to be reckoned with in 2024.

“He's done everything right to this point,” said Beckman. “He's a young horse, a May foal. Early on, he just had some maturity things and we needed a little bit more time to get him going. But now that he's starting to kind of figure things out on the mental side, we've always known the physical side was there. At this point, the way he won, the way the gallop-out went, he could go on to be a very legitimate horse.”

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There's an old black-and-white photo of an early 1900's actress hanging on the wall of a theater in New Amsterdam, N.Y., with which half the members of the Thoroughbred ownership group First Row Partners have taken a “selfie.”

Following the back-to-back success of First Row-owned racemare Goodnight Olive in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint, and her subsequent sale for $6 million at auction, several others in the ownership group are now making plans to head to the theater for their own “selfie” memories.

The photograph depicts Olive Thomas, a Ziegfeld girl, flapper, and silent film actress whose ghost is said to haunt the New Amsterdam Theatre. Thomas often performed at the venue before her untimely death in Paris in 1920.

So prevalent is the legend of Thomas' spirit that stagehands and security guards regularly end their shifts by saying, “Goodnight, Olive!”

Steve Laymon, managing partner of First Row Partners, acquired a Ghostzapper filly out of the Smart Strike mare Salty Ghost at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling sale in 2019. When he took to Google searching for name ideas, Laymon's first query, “salty ghost,” led to a link about the Olive Thomas legend.

The story, published at boroughsofthedead.com, ends with the phrase, “Goodnight, Olive!”

“I remember thinking, 'What a great name for a racehorse,'” Laymon said. “At first, when we had partners going up to take selfies with Olive's picture, the theater employees asked them not to do so. Then my partners explained the story, and the employees started following Goodnight Olive's career. Well, when my son Tyler made it up there to take his selfie, the employees stepped up and wanted to help him get it just right!”

They wouldn't want to disappoint Olive – it's probably best to stay on a ghost's good side. 

It was First Row member Will Robbins who came up with the idea of honoring Olive while in New York. 

Now, Laymon plans to get his own selfie with the Olive Thomas photograph when he takes a trip up North in a few weeks' time; first, he's taking a breather to reflect on the joy the last few weeks have brought to his team.

“All the excitement this year happened so close together,” he said. “She won the race on Saturday, and the sale was on Tuesday; it was a big few days for all of us. For a guy who purchases three to five horses a year, I have just been so blessed. My son came up to me after she won, and said, 'Do you know we've had six starters in the Breeders' Cup, and you've won three and had a third?' I'll be honest, I didn't know the numbers, but that is just so special.”

Dayatthespa was Laymon's first Breeders' Cup winner, capturing the G1 Filly & Mare Turf in 2014, and Goodnight Olive is responsible for the other two victories, capturing back-to-back editions of the Filly & Mare Sprint in 2022 and 2023.

That success is partially attributable to luck, Laymon believes, but it's primarily a result of the team he's surrounded himself with.

“I heard Arthur Hancock once say: 'Line yourself up with good people, and hope good luck runs over you,'” Laymon recalled. “I knew (bloodstock agent) Liz (Crow) and (trainer) Chad (Brown) when they started out, working for Pete Bradley and Bobby Frankel, and I just felt that they were two young people that had a lot of talent, and I felt like they were gonna be successful in their careers. When they went out on their own, I knew them anyway, but it felt like supporting the next generation.”

Crow was the one to call Laymon about Goodnight Olive as a yearling. Though Laymon typically works the sales alongside his agents, he was forced to miss the Fasig-Tipton sale in 2019.

“Liz had called me and said, 'I found a Ghostzapper filly I like,'” said Laymon. “I said, 'Gosh, Liz, you know I'd love to have a Ghostzapper.' I'm a Ragozin sheet guy, and he was the fastest horse on Rag sheets ever. Then she called me back, and said that Jay Hanley had an interest in the horse as well, so I said, 'I've known Jay for 10 years; 'I'm sure we can work something out.'”

Thus, First Row Partners and Team Hanley purchased a yearling daughter of Ghostzapper for $170,000. By the time Goodnight Olive returned to Fasig-Tipton four years later, her record stood at nine wins in 12 starts for earnings of $2,196,200.

It's a long way from where Laymon started, an optometrist from North Carolina with no experience in horse racing whatsoever. The passion was launched at age 28, when Laymon was invited to attend the 1989 Preakness Stakes with a group of friends.

“That was the year of Sunday Silence and Easy Goer,” Laymon said, then paused to remember the epic stretch drive. “Well, it caught my attention.”

Laymon later read an article in USA Today about Cot Campbell and his Dogwood Stables, and decided he'd like to learn about becoming an owner. 

“He probably brought more individuals into racing than any single person that's been in the sport,” Laymon said. “So I started with Dogwood and kind of grew from there. 

“My wife's cousin, John Eaton, was kind of dabbling in the breeding business, so we decided to put our energies together. Now he's one of the six in First Row Partners; we sit on the first row together in Saratoga, and we started buying horses with Liz (Crow) six years ago.”

Crow was instrumental in the filly's purchase at the sale, but it was Brown and his insistence that the owners be patient that helped develop Goodnight Olive into a champion.

Goodnight Olive didn't debut until March of her 3-year-old season, running a good second at Gulfstream Park but then immediately requiring time off to remove a chip from her ankle.

The filly returned to the races in October, winning a Keeneland maiden special weight by 8 ½ lengths, and then an Aqueduct allowance race by nine lengths, but then she required a second chip removal surgery.

“(Surgeon) Dr. (Larry) Bramlage, he called after that second surgery and explained to me what he had done,” said Laymon. “He said her anatomy was a little bit atypical, so he felt like he had made some corrective changes and she would be fine.

“Well, after that was when she started on that really good roll.”

Brown ran the filly in two more allowance races in summer of 2022, then stepped her up to Grade 1 company. Goodnight Olive responded with a 2 ¾-length victory in the G1 Ballerina at Saratoga, then won the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint for the first time.

She started her 2023 campaign with a win in the Grade 1 Madison Stakes, and after her winning streak was snapped with a third in the G1 Derby City Distaff Stakes, she came back to win the G2 Bed o' Roses Stakes before finishing second in her defense of the Ballerina and winning her second Breeders' Cup race.

She is now in prime position to secure her second Eclipse Award as champion female sprinter. 

Racing newcomer John Stewart made the final bid on the mare for $6 million, then announced that she would stay in training for a 2024 campaign with Brown.

“Chad looks to be following the same pattern as last year, sending her to Florida for some rest and relaxation,” Laymon said. “I didn't think someone would buy her to race her, but I know Chad will make the right decision for her and I think John will make the right decision based on Chad's experience.”

Goodnight Olive is, of course, Laymon's stable star, but the mare means so much more than the numbers she put on her resume through the years.

“She is such a special animal to have,” Laymon said. “There's something about a horse like this that brings people so much joy.”

Perhaps the most important thing Goodnight Olive has done for Laymon, personally, is the impact she has had on his relationship with his son. Though Tyler Laymon rode pleasure horses growing up, he had moved away from the animals until he went off to college and Goodnight Olive stepped into the picture.

“He spends so much time with her,” Laymon said. “He'd been around horses a lot, and actually worked for Chad walking hots one summer. He would call me and tell me that she was the smartest horse in the barn, that they'd show her something one time, and she'd have it. Tyler said she may be the best horse we've ever owned, way before she won her first Grade 1.

“She was a little closed off when she was younger, but as she's gotten older, she became very, very kind, and she just loves the attention. She leaned right into me after her Breeders' Cup win, when I went to lead her into the winner's circle. She just knew.”

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