The Educational Parlay Of Chase Chamberlin

Chase Chamberlin scrutinized the numbers. It was a Dickensian moment to be sure. The bank account didn't lie, he did in fact have a $120 balance. There wasn't any way around it, he was broke. Well, nearly broke.

It was just a couple years prior that he had received one heck of a proposal though and it wasn't something he could pass up. So going all-in, as they say, was the plan. Not to put too fine a point on it, when opportunity knocks or in this case, arrives via Instagram, then you must be ready to parlay.

“It was at the 2022 Dubai World Cup and we had poured everything into the business and we needed a win,” Chamberlin said. “There's a time to be disciplined and just go for base hits, but there's also a moment to be bold.”

The series of conversations that spawned from that Instagram message sent by his fellow Western Michigan alum Brian Doxtator concerned the seed of a new company–Commonwealth, also known as CMNWLTH–which the pair agreed early on was going to be about one thing, and one thing only, the members. Yes, the thrill of victory was involved and all that, but it would be about putting together a series of experiences around microsharing and sports. The engine behind it all and the driving force was a sense of belonging.

“Our model is about the journey,” Chamberlin explained. “This is about sharing a belief because we realize that sports like horse racing are based on faith and if you don't build that through trust, then it is difficult to attract new customers.”

As co-founders, Chamberlin who serves as the company's head of racing and Doxtator, who as CEO comes from a diverse tech background, envisaged a world of microsharing where investors could own an affordable piece of a Thoroughbred. They made some well-documented wise calls, like in that aforementioned Dickensian moment in 2022 when Country Grammar (Tonalist) claimed victory in the G1 Dubai World Cup. Other hinge points have followed with We The People (Constitution) going off as the favorite in the GI Belmont S., and of course, when the 382 members that bought shares in Mage (Good Magic) watched that chestnut colt roll late to pick up the GI Kentucky Derby.

Mage during workout at Pimlico | Jim McCue

“We didn't plan to win the [Kentucky] Derby this soon, but we knew that our program and our partnerships would put us in a position to compete at the highest levels because we have a great team and they know how to pick great horses.”

For Chamberlin, taking a chance on joining Doxtator in starting Commonwealth was full of risk, but he was confident that it was the right move. His competitive nature in business that was honed at college comes directly from the equestrian world. When he was four years old growing up near Kalamazoo, Michigan, his mother who worked in a hair salon and his father in a paper mill, stoked his budding love of horses by enrolling him in riding programs. It took him down a path from hunters and jumpers to becoming a multi-national champion in which he showed horses from half-Arabians to Quarter Horses around the world.

“They didn't have any connection to anything equine-related, but they made sacrifices and that stoked my passion,” he said. “Over time, I encountered all of these different breeds, people connected to them with their wonderful stories and it just created this obsession.”

Then, he started to think about Thoroughbreds.

“I remember always hearing that showing was a hobby that wanted be a business, while racing was a business that always wanted to be a hobby,” Chamberlin said. “I could maybe be away from horses for six months and then I would find a way to get right back to them.”

Melding that love for all things equine with the mission of Commonwealth was linked by Chamberlin's last position as head of growth at Epipheo, a Cincinnati-based company that has assisted the likes of Walmart, Google, SAP and even the U.S. Air Force with brand awareness campaigns through what is called a video-first strategy. In other words, they explain stuff, succinctly and in a way that is palatable.

“Strategies through these explainer videos were built on education and we know through research that if you confuse people, you'll lose them,” he said. “So, you want members to soak up these complicated ideas because if they don't care, then the moment's gone. It's the old curse of knowledge. What we are doing with horse racing and Commonwealth is similar.”

Chase Chamberlin and Brian Doxtator at Pimlico during Preakness Week | Sara Gordon

Working with bloodstock agents like Marette Farrell, and WinStar Farm's Elliott Walden and David Hanley has brought Chamberlin to the immersive waters of the sales ring and he has learned the language of Thoroughbreds. From breeding to racing, it continues to be an ongoing curve for him. There is a fair amount of torque that he has experienced, but the “vernacular” as he calls it, isn't that far off from the one he once knew.

“David [Hanley] was an Olympic-level show jumper, so when we talk horse flesh we have a certain understanding between us and that has only helped my education, which is all about being a sponge,” Chamberlin said. “This complex and dizzying world has brought us into contact with some amazing partners who are about integrity first and then talent, not the other way around.”

No matter what happens this weekend at the GI Preakness S., Commonwealth has wind in its sails. But Chamberlin is quick to remind anyone that will listen that this isn't just about victories. You can't have win after win in a business like this, no matter how blessed or brilliant you might be.

“Our focus here is to spread the word and not be drained by these moments of euphoria because we know they don't last in the way that our minds think they should,” he said. “So, what you do as a company is be grateful for them, relish it, file it away, but you can temper the downswing you will inevitably feel, if you enjoy that journey along the way.”

Finding the next Mage will not be easy, but remember Chamberlin's origin story as an equestrian, his sponge-like approach to knowledge and his ability to explain complexities are all built assets. As horse racing continues to try and solve their own Rubik's Cube when it comes to bringing new, younger faces into its fold, in just four years has Chase Chamberlin and Team Commonwealth found an answer?

With the sports betting revolution drawing in more diverse customers, in a similar way, Commonwealth is poised to expand their digital platform space into golf. The future looks bright for this unique business model. Affordable investing through a set of experiences which crossover to other sports? That sounds like quite a parlay coupled with a strong sense of belonging. Now, that might be an explainer video worth watching.

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ITBA Awards: Celebrating Ireland’s Best

KILLENARD, Ireland–The trick to living a mostly happy life is to spend as much time as possible doing what you love. Simple, right?

That's not to say that people in the bloodstock industry don't work incredibly hard. There is no real let-up in the work either, with almost wall-to-wall sales these days, foals on the way, mares to be covered, mud to be scraped off almost everything and, some mornings, ice to be broken on water troughs and buckets. 

But it's a wonderful life nonetheless, and every now and then moments can be found for for a collective letting down of hair and slapping on of glad rags to celebrate those whose contributions have been particularly noteworthy over the previous year. 

The best of these events in Europe by a country mile is the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders' Association's National Breeding and Racing Awards. For a truly immersive experience, and in an effort to make it look like I wasn't turning up merely for the Champagne and dancing, the weekend escape from Newmarket to Ireland was augmented by trips to visit two significant breeding operations in the country's heartland. One of those has already featured significantly at the ITBA Awards over many years and another will undoubtedly do so in the future, and you can read more about Tally-Ho Stud and Al Shira'aa Farms in the TDN in the coming week.

I will admit to some trepidation ahead of my visit to the O'Callaghan family at Tally-Ho. Their incredible success is matched by their collective disinclination to be interviewed, so when you turn up at someone's house at lunchtime knowing that your arrival brings about as much joy to your hosts as a trip to the dentist for root canal treatment then it is nigh on impossible not to spend most of the time apologising for your presence. As it transpired, the warm welcome from Disney the black Labrador was extended heartily by Tony, Anne, Roger and Henry. Tally-Ho's seven stallions paraded without fuss, their laidback demeanours undoubtedly contributing to the success of the offspring of those far along enough in their careers.

“Temperament is everything,” declared Tony O'Callaghan over lunch, and it is hard to disagree with a man whose farm churns out smart winners with metronomic regularity. 

This time last year, the achievements of Tony and Anne O'Callaghan were deservedly recognised by their induction into the ITBA Hall of Fame. A Tally-Ho connection continued through Saturday's awards when the hugely popular Tom Lacy was recognised as Small Breeder of the Year for Persian Force (Ire). Not only is the G2 July S. winner and dual Group 1 runner-up a son of Mehmas (Ire) but he has joined his father on the roster at the O'Callaghans' farm this year. They know him well, having pinhooked him as a foal from the Lacy family. 

Tom Lacy was presented with his award by John O'Connor of Ballylinch Stud, to whom Lacy had sold his homebred Ingabelle (GB) (Taufan), who went on to become an important foundation mare at Ballylinch. Lacy's achievements extend well beyond his success as a breeder, however. In a marvellous video compilation encapsulating the 87-year-old's career in racing we saw grainy black-and-white footage of his days in the saddle. Not many people can boats of riding against the great Arkle (Ire) and Flyingbolt (GB), not that boastfulness is a term one would use to describe the hard-working Lacy.

After his race-riding days, he went on to carve a successful career as a trainer, launching the career of no less a talent than the much-missed Pat Smullen, who rode for him in his early days, as did Lacy's sons Barry and Tony, both of whom present on Saturday to support their father. 

Tony and his wife Cathy had made the trip from Kentucky, as had the recipients of arguably the most popular award of the evening, the Wild Geese Award, which recognises the contribution of Irishmen and women in the racing and breeding industry around the world. It is safe to say that the ITBA will not run out of potential recipients, for the Irish influence runs deep, particularly in Kentucky, where David and Ann Hanley have been based since leaving Ireland. 

Like Tom Lacy, David Hanley was previously a successful trainer before his move, with the Grade I winner Golden Apples (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) among his many achievements as both trainer and breeder (with James Egan of Corduff Stud).

Now general manager of WinStar Farm, he was described in the video marking the award by Mike Ryan as, “The best judge of a horse that I have ever been around.”

Ann Hanley is as beloved as her husband and, since being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease 16 years ago, has raised more than $4 million in vital research funding for the debilitating condition as well as being a tower of support to her many friends and colleagues in the breeding industry. The Hanleys' award was jointly deserved and universally approved by those in attendance, and surely by many more tuning in via the livestream.

This year's inductee into the ITBA Hall of Fame was William Flood, master of Boardsmill Stud and a great servant to Irish National Hunt breeding.

Flood's award was warmly greeted by a standing ovation from the 300-plus guests at The Heritage hotel on a night when emotions ran high. Earlier in the proceedings, the award for the Novice Hurdler of the Year, Sir Gerhard (Ire) (Jeremy), had ben collected by Joe and Sharon Fitzpatrick. Their son Jonathan, who bred the eight-year-old at the family's Keatingstown House Stud, died in a car crash in 2017 at the age of just 23, several years before Sir Gerhard became so successful in the colours of Cheveley Park Stud. Beaten only twice in his ten races to date, the gelding is a glorious, galloping reminder of the nascent talent of the young Fitzpatrick, a graduate of the Irish National Stud course who had also worked at Coolmore and Ballylinch. 

Two important anniversaries took place in 2022. The Aga Khan Studs celebrated its centenary while the Haefner family's Moyglare Stud marked its 60th year in the breeding industry. Both these milestones went hand-in-hand with continued excellence on the track for graduates of the respective operations. 

Princess Zahra Aga Khan and her mother Princess Salima were both in attendance to collect the Two-Year-Old Filly of the Year Award for the exciting Classic prospect Tahiyra (Ire) (Siyouni {Fr}).

“It was an amazing year, and I spent most of the year thinking about my grandfather and great grandfather,” said Princess Zahra, reflecting on the 2022 season which also saw Vadeni (Fr) (Churchill {Ire}) win the G1 Prix du Jockey Club and G1 Eclipse S. “I think it was incredible that it happened last year. We are going into year 101 with such a lovely range of hopes.”

Eva-Maria Bucher-Haefner, who took over the running of Moyglare Stud from her late father Walter, was the recipient of two awards on the evening, for the Three-Year-old Filly of the Year, the Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), and the Stayer of the Year, Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), whom she races in partnership with Coolmore. It has been noted before but it bears repeating that Kyprios's celebrated dam, Polished Gem (Ire) (Danehill), bore ten foals for ten winners, eight of whom won black-type races, including the Group 1 winners Free Eagle (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}), Kyprios, and his full-sister Search For A Song (Ire).

Ben Sangster was back at The Heritage to claim an award for the second year running as the breeder of Luxembourg (Ire) (Camelot {Ire}), who was named Three-Year-Old Colt of the Year, while Timmy Hyde of Camas Park Stud, flanked by his wife Trish and daughters Wendy and Valerie, collected the trophy for Two-Year-Old Colt of the Year, Little Big Bear (Ire) (No Nay Never). The Aidan O'Brien trainee was bred by Hyde along with his son, Tim, of Summerhill.

From budding talent to esteemed veterans of the sport, the ITBA Awards reward the passion, dedication and determination of the participants of what remains a vital industry in Ireland. The huge importance of Thoroughbred breeding to the Irish economy and the country's reputation of a global forerunner in horseracing was reflected by the fact that three Irish government ministers attended the ceremony, with Charlie McConalogue, Minster for Agriculture, on hand to present William Flood with his Hall of Fame Award alongside ITBA chair Cathy Grassick. 

That connection to the country's seat 0f power is undoubtedly one of the reasons that the Irish racing and breeding industry continues to thrive and remains a shining example to other nations attempting to emulate its success. 

 

The ITBA National Breeding and Racing Awards 2022

Next Generation Award: Micheal Conaghan

Young National Hunt Horse: Facile Vega
Bred by Hammer & Trowel Syndicate

Novice Hurdler of the Year: Sir Gerhard
Bred by Keatingstown Bloodstock

Novice Chaser of the Year: Bob Olinger
Bred by Kenneth Parkhill

Hurdler of the Year: Flooring Porter
Bred by Sean Murphy

Chaser of the Year: Shishkin
Bred by CJ & EB Barnett

Small Breeder of the Year: Tom Lacy

Two-Year-Old Filly of the Year: Tahiyra
Bred by HH The Aga Khan's Studs

Two-Year-Old Colt of the Year: Little Big Bear
Bred by Camas Park Stud & Summerhill

Three-Year-Old Filly of the Year: Homeless Songs
Bred by Moyglare Stud Farm

Three-Year-Old Colt of the Year: Luxembourg
Bred by B V Sangster

Stayer of the Year: Kyprios
Bred by Moyglare Stud Farm

Wild Geese Award: David and Ann Hanley

Hall of Fame: William Flood

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Echo Zulu Latest to Show Best of Bill Betz

Bill Betz won't forget the first day he worked on the farm he now calls home. Dr. McGee's son never even got out of his car, just told the college kid to start out front and work his way up.

“Back then they had those weed-eaters with a motor you strapped onto your back,” Betz recalls. “Weighed about 40lbs. So 7:00 a.m., I started weeding down the front of the farm. Get to 10:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., 1:00 p.m., I don't see anybody. I'm thinking, 'Boy, people really work hard on a farm.' Finally, about quarter to six, no lunch or anything, I'm weeding round these trees up here, and Doc McGee comes in off his rounds. And he drives by, backs up, rolls down the window and says: 'Who are you?'”

Betz introduced himself to the Hagyard veterinarian. First day of his summer job, funding classes at the University of Kentucky: nutrition, farm management, that kind of thing. He'd arrived from Notre Dame with all his worldly possessions–a '64 Dodge and a dog–with a vague plan to transfer some Bluegrass know-how to the Quarter Horse game where he'd been learning the ropes.

At that moment Mrs. McGee appeared with a tray.

“Young man,” she said. “You look like you could use some iced tea.”

Many years later, they all met again on the top floor of the First Security building in downtown Lexington, to close on the sale of the farm. And Mrs. McGee reminded Betz of his response.

With a self-deprecating chuckle, he admits: “Apparently I said to her, 'Yes, I could. Because now I know how Jesus felt when he carried that cross up Golgotha.'”

When Mine That Bird crossed the line, the first person to call was Dr. McGee, saying how happy he was that the farm had raised a Kentucky Derby winner.

Mine That Bird famously brought only $9,500 as a yearling. Betz doesn't pretend he was any kind of standout, though he always believed in the genes: he'd bought the granddam because she managed second in the Canadian Oaks despite cracking a knee. “Something like Mine That Bird, though, that's just the icing on the cake,” Betz says. “That's just being in the game and giving yourself a chance to get lucky.”

Among countless other photos sharing the office walls, however, are a sale-topper and the half-brother to Roman Ruler and El Corredor who made $4.6 million at the 2006 Keeneland September Sale; and many besides, that did their job both in the ring and on the track. The latest is Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), herself a $300,000 yearling, who assisted her American Pharoah half-sister to $1.4 million last September at Keeneland, even though she had just won the first of the three Grade Is that secured her Eclipse Award.

These mementos of elite horses-remarkably copious, for a farm that has seldom grazed more than a couple of dozen mares–attest to the journey dividing that perspiring college kid from the reflective figure now lounging behind the desk. But perhaps it can better be charted by less familiar navigational points dotted about the room: native American totems, a scale model of a Great Lakes freighter, even the “Meditations” of Marcus Aurelius. Hardly standard issue, on horse farms. But never mind that Betz was a Philosophy and English major; here, simply put, is a man profoundly inquisitive about the world around him. And, really, that was also what drew him to horses.

“I think that's the number one thing you need in this business,” he says. “A natural curiosity. To be a careful observer. I think in some ways it's probably been an advantage, not to be second or third generation [in the industry]. Some of those people either don't have that curiosity to really see things and learn. Experience is a great teacher.”

Betz is instead indebted to his father for the template of a self-made man. Having started out as locomotive fireman, he had ended up president of the railroad–and his sons, in turn, were expected to learn about life by experiencing it. Hence the desk replica of the SS Kinsman Enterprise, where Betz had another of his summer jobs.

“She was built in 1927 and was sister ship to the Edmund Fitzgerald that they wrote the song about,” Betz says, referring to the loss of all hands in a Lake Superior storm in 1975. “Having this here reminds me of a different time in my life. We'd bring taconite pellets mined in Minnesota and Wisconsin down to the steel mills. Loading onto the dock, being the young kid, they'd swing you over in what they called the bosun's chair, with a big cable you had to run up and put on a cleat. And the taconite, of course it spills out and you're running over these marbles, with the boat coming in and the gap so wide.” He holds his hands apart. “These boats come in at 660 feet, into a real high dock. And there are no brakes on a boat! There weren't a lot of safety rules back then.”

It was a grounding that gives Betz a distaste for any sign of entitlement in young people today, and he's grateful that his father's “nepotism” was confined to putting his sons on a section gang, laying the track.

“We were knocking these spikes in with a sledgehammer, and the Mexican men would go all day and then build a fire and cook their tacos,” Betz recalls. “But after about five hits, my arms were rubber. And they'd come up, put their arms round me and say, 'That's okay, you go rest.' So when the Mexicans started embracing the horse business, I had nothing but respect for them. It does open your eyes: what the real world is like, and that if you want something you have to go out and earn it.”

A first exposure to horses came through upcountry Ohio weekends with his great uncle, who drove a school bus, but traded work horses on the side.

“He was quite a character,” Betz recalls. “He'd go in there and next thing you knew he'd be coming out with a different horse from the one he went in with. And he'd hook them up to a sleigh, and we'd go on trail rides, and he'd tell all these stories round the camp fire.”

Having learned to handle horses, Betz hooked up with another rare type to show Quarter Horses through his high school years.    “This trainer took me all over the country: Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Chicago,” he says. “He liked the drink, he liked the ladies, so he'd go out and party while I stayed behind to feed and groom and then bed down in the corner of the stall. Interesting experience, to say the least. But there I was, a 15-year-old kid, paid $25 for every horse I showed in the ring. I'd go into tack shops and buy myself fancy chaps, I was king of the walk.”

To persevere with horses, even so, struck his family as “a ridiculous thing to do” with law school beckoning. But it was a time of opportunity. People were starting to cross Quarter Horses with Thoroughbreds, and Betz figured that he should come to the Bluegrass and learn a few angles–only to become so absorbed by Thoroughbreds that he never went back.

Lee Eaton gave him a little office to comb through regional racecards, digging out the pedigrees of any fillies entered for a claim. He also had to index, longhand, the families of the many horses sold by Eaton's pioneering agency: toil that left him thoroughly versed in pedigrees. Betz then rounded out his education with the chance to manage Helmore Farm for Edgar Lucas in Maryland.

“They stood three stallions and bred a couple of hundred mares each year,” he recalls. “I didn't have much experience of handling stallions, and it was three old racetrackers and me. I can remember to this day the first mare I foaled on my own, I was so nervous. But you got a lot of stuff thrown at you, real quick, and you learned how to deal with it. After that baptism under fire, coupled what I'd learnt with Lee, I felt there wasn't anything I couldn't do in this business if I kept working hard.”

Betz befriended another outstanding horseman in David Hanley, nowadays at WinStar, but then managing a farm in Ireland before an impressive stint as a trainer. They'd begun a transatlantic pinhook partnership, along with Irish vet James Egan, at a time when the weanling market was little contested.

By now Betz was leasing a farm near Paris from his former boss Lucas, who kept his mares there as part of the package. But then he heard that the McGees were selling and Betz, initially with partners, became only the third proprietor of 300 lush acres previously maintained on a revolutionary war land grant by heirs of Patrick Henry. (“Give me liberty, or give me death!”)

“I knew I didn't want to work for anybody else,” Betz reflects. “I'm my own best critic. It's my life, not somebody else's, and you're not going to give that away. But I realized early on that there was no money in boarding horses, if you do it as you should without cutting corners. So if I was going to have a farm, I decided I'd want a piece of everything that's on it. That was the business model: populate the farm in partnerships, with people loyal to your program. And then upgrade as much as you can, whenever you have the capital.

“You have to be willing to take chances–I started out week to week, payroll to payroll–and you have to be objective. It's like running a sports franchise. These mares are draft choices: some work out, some don't. I want to strengthen their weaknesses without weakening their strengths, but to do that you have to see those strengths and weaknesses clearly. You can't be sentimental. And I think over the years, you develop intuition about it.”

To Betz, mating is all about match-making. “I don't think any stallion is too 'cheap' or too 'expensive',” he says. “All that matters is whether it's the right one for the mare. Can he enhance her? That's what you strive for. Breed the best to the best? Nice if you're Vanderbilt. But sometimes best to the best isn't the best. Yes, I have to be aware of the commercial side, because I sell yearlings for a living. I only race the odd filly. But within that context, within that group of successful stallions, there will always be matches that fit my mare.”

A case in point is Echo Zulu's dam Letgomyecho (Menifee), who had fallen beyond reach in the 2010 Keeneland November Sale, at $235,000, only to slip to $135,000 in the same ring a year later. Her first covers had been pricey, commensurate with her record as winner of her first three starts including the GII Forward Gal S. But maybe they weren't the right covers. Betz sent her to Mineshaft, and came up with graded stakes winner J Boys Echo; to Speightstown, for Grade I winner Echo Town; and then to Gun Runner for her champion. As Steve Asmussen said to him, after Letgomyecho's American Pharoah hit the home run last September: “'Well, I got mine. Now you got yours!'”

“I want to breed aptitude to aptitude,” Betz says, dismissing another lazy convention. “If your mare's fast, don't breed her to a stayer. Breed a stayer to a stayer and hope it's fast, or a sprinter to a sprinter and hope it can carry its speed. But those are just principles over-riding the program. It's like if you're a painter, and someone says why did you use that color? It all goes together at the end of the day, and you just hope that you got it right.”

That feels an instructive analogy, for there's a really creative sensibility at work here.

“I think I do have an artistic side,” Betz accepts. “I love music, I love art, and the way people can express themselves like that. To me, this is really my way to express myself. I'd love to be a musician, but I'm not, so this is kind of my extension.”

Like all artistry, all intuition, horsemanship is hard to articulate. As Betz says, if he can't always remedy a situation with a horse, he tries not to be confused by what's causing it.

“We like to give them human qualities, say they're courageous or whatever,” he muses. “And maybe there's a little bit of that: they can be competitive. But truth be told, the ones that excel, I think it's probably just easier for them. What did Vince Lombardi say? 'Fatigue makes cowards of us all.'

“I remember being sent down to Hialeah to look at this filly Jimmy Conway had, who used to train for Darby Dan. And I was asking him what he looked for, in terms of soundness and all that, and he said: 'Bill, if they can run, they're all unsound.' You train them hard; they run hard. So there's probably some truth to that, too.”

What does seem obvious is that Betz's empathy must reflect a hinterland so much wider than you tend to encounter in the obsessive, all-consuming world of Thoroughbreds. Asked about the Native American totems, for instance, Betz gives a shrug.    “They understood one very important premise, in my view,” he says. “People complain about the world. But if there's a God, maybe he didn't just make the world for us. That may be inconvenient for us, but maybe we're missing the point. We think we're the center of everything-and those native cultures understood that maybe they weren't.”

Not that he pretends the slightest immunity to the vexations of a horseman's life, whether in trivial daily frustrations or the disasters that can ruin a whole business cycle.

“It is a rollercoaster,” he says. “The emotional highs and lows can be pretty dramatic. That's not for everybody. I've had people over the years wanting to get into the business, but I'm pretty careful who I partner with-just because you know what's coming, and you need the mentality to accept those pitfalls. But I guess if you've got enough nerve to keep getting back on the rollercoaster, the thrills can be memorable.”

And surely the good days, all those photos on the wall, redress the disappointments?

“I think that's true in life,” Betz replies. “But I don't know that you do this for those kinds of things. You do it because this is what you do.”

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Speakers and Itinerary Announced for TOBA Breeding Clinic

The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association will be hosting a Breeding Clinic on June 3-4 in Lexington, Kentucky. Attendees will learn about a variety of topics pertaining to the breeding side of the Thoroughbred industry while visiting five central Kentucky farms and hearing from experts in the field.

The clinic will include tours of Godolphin's Stonerside Farm, Spendthrift Farm, WinStar Farm, Mt. Brilliant Farm, Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, and Summerwind Farm.

Topics and speakers at the Breeding Clinic include: Breeding For the Athletic Thoroughbred and Conformation in Foals, presented by Gerry Duffy, Stonerside and Raceland Farm Manager; Tour of Spendthrift Farm/Stallions and Breeding Procedures, presented by Ned Toffey, General Manager of Spendthrift Farm; Matings and Stallion Conformation, presented by David Hanley, General Manager of WinStar Farm; and more.

Registration is available online, until May 31, at: toba.memberclicks.net/seminars-clinics.

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