Jim Mulvihill: Thank you to all of you in the media for joining us today. Well, we’re in the thick of the racing calendar right now. All the top horses in every division are training and pointing to important Grade 1 stakes. We’re only 12 weeks away from the Breeders Cup World Championships and now is really the time when we start to understand who the serious contenders are for those races as well as for year-end honors. A lot of that clarity will come from this weekend’s important Grade 1 event. We’ve got some of the top turf horses in the world traveling to Chicago for the Arlington Million, the Beverly D. and the Secretariat; not to mention the $400,000 American St. Leger. At Saratoga, we’ve got one of the year’s most prestigious three-year old filly stakes, the Alabama, as well as another premier turf event the same afternoon as the Million, that’s the Sword Dancer Invitational. And at Del Mar, three-year old fillies are on the turf in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks.
Before we get to today’s guests, I’ve got a few reminders for everybody. The Alabama and the Sword Dancer will be featured on Saturday’s latest installment of Summer at Saratoga on NBC’s Sports Network, that’s 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern. The Arlington Million will be live on WGN from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Our friends from HRRN, that’s the Horse Racing Radio Network, will also be covering the Million live; that’s from 4:30 to 7:00 Eastern and that’s over the air in Kentucky as well as on Sirius Channel 93, XM Channel 209 or online at horseracingradio.net.
One more reminder, the Jockey Club Round Table transcripts as well as the archived video from Sunday’s conference are available online at jockeyclub.com.
Now, without further ado, let’s get to our guests. Later on in this call we’ll have Dale Romans, trainer of defending Arlington Million champ, Little Mike, as well as Larry Murray, trainer of Colonial Turf Cup Winner and Sword Dancer hopeful, London Lane. We also could, but no promises, we could have a Ken Ramsey appearance if he can fit us in between flights. He has a layover and he’s going to try and call in.
First though, let’s welcome in Ed Stanco. Ed Stanco is the principle partner in King of Prussia Stable. He’s also the CEO of White Mountains Insurance Group in Pennsylvania where he lives. Ed has been a fan of racing since he was eight years old drawn in by a fascination with numbers that also led him to become an actuary. King of Prussia’s Kentucky Oaks and Coaching Club American Oaks winner, Princess of Sylmar, is the likely favorite in Saturday’s 133rd running of the Grade 1 Alabama.
Ed, you are on with Jim Mulvihill in New York. Thanks for joining us.
Ed Stanco: Thank you very much, Jim. I really appreciate you having me on. One—just one point of clarification.
Jim Mulvihill: Yes, please.
Ed Stanco: I noticed the website says “White Mountains on the (inaudible) of another reinsurance company called Tao Reinsurance Company of America, and that’s in Morristown, New Jersey.
Ed Stanco: Tao Reinsurance Company.
Jim Mulvihill: All right. Well, let’s talk about Princess of Sylmar. I want to ask you about, you know, one of the most memorable themes that we’ve had at Saratoga so far this meet and that was the Winner’s Circle after the Coaching Club of American Oaks. All of your partners, everybody in the Winner’s Circle was chanting for you – Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. What was that moment like for you?
Ed Stanco: It was just great. You know, it was the culmination of a lifetime experience. When I first got into racing—well, I fell in love with racing when I was a little kid eight or nine years old and then, you know, I remember I used to drive up with my uncle and go down Nelson Avenue by the harness track on the way to flat track and I’d be crossing the street and it was just great, a great thing to see and I just fell in love with those horses and that old—in the old track and old flat tracks. And then to go from there to actually handicapping horses and then, eventually owning horses, winning a race at Saratoga and then to have—win a Grade 1 that Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago was just overwhelming how exciting and how fulfilling it was. Literally the fulfillment of a life-long dream. And everybody that was with us there, I think we had about 120 people come up from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, I had two people come in from Tokyo, colleagues of mine, and, you know, with everyone there and just having it all come together, it just—it was just so rewarding. Hard to describe.
Jim Mulvihill: And for the filly, for Princess of Sylmar, what kind of statement did she make with the win that day?
Ed Stanco: Well, you know, for me it was—I mean it was a validation, I guess. I suppose that’s the way to put it for me personally. I mean for us we always believed in her and we planned out her campaign very, very carefully. Really starting back on when she won the allowance race in December in New York. I mean it was a terrific race. And so from there we said, “Let’s just go easy with her and let her build. She’s small and she needs weight and we’ll just take our—very much our time and wait.” And so then of course, you know, everybody knows the story, (inaudible), where she really pushed through a wall of horses on her own and then she won the Buscher and at that race everyone said, “Well, you know, it’s a New York field. They’re not that good,” although I have to think that if you go back now in retrospect maybe that field was actually a little better than what everyone thought. But in any event, and she went up against Close Hatches and the Gazelle…
Ed Stanco: And that was a tough race. And that was probably the best experience of the entire campaign. I said to Javier that we learn more from that race that she’s really a come-from-behind horse and has one kick at the end, and so that actually worked out. Then we went to the Kentucky Oaks and she came from behind she used the exact same move that was in the allowance race and it was in the Busanda and also in the Buscher, and so it wasn’t really a surprise. So, everyone—I know a lot of people thought, well she’s a long-shot. The race was a fluke and all that business. But then when she turned around and won the Oaks the way she did, at the Coaching Club, Oaks that is, it just proved to—you know, it was validation to everyone in the community and I thought it was a strong performance, and quite frankly, I was surprised how strong of a performance the media thought it was.
Ed Stanco: I thought it was a good performance but I didn’t really—I didn’t know it was that good, and then the 104 Beyer came out and it was great.
Jim Mulvihill: Yes, 105 Beyer is what we see here. Now, it seems like she’s really thrived at Saratoga. Trainer Todd Pletcher said this week, I believe it was in the NYRA press notes, that she’s trained brilliantly since the last race. That’s his word ‘brilliantly.’ What are you hearing about how she’s coming into this race?
Ed Stanco: She’s great. I tried to get over to the barn whenever I can to see her in the morning and talk to everybody in the barn about her, except for Todd because he’s always so busy. I don’t like to disturb him. The way I look at it is, let the doctor do his work. I’ll just go around the—behind the sideline. In our last—in the workout that she had the week before, Jake Nelson, her workout jockey said, “He had to stand in the irons and really hold her back the entire time and she still breezed very, very well.” And this week it was very, very good too when Todd’s been using words in text messages to me about how excited he is about her that I’ve never heard before. Todd’s a very conservative guy, as you know, and he doesn’t exaggerate, let me put it that way and he seems to be very excited and she’s training great. So, you know, we just hope that we’ve got four days I think and four and a half hours to go and hopefully she can stay as happy and healthy as she is over that little time period.
Jim Mulvihill: Great. That is a very encouraging report. Thank you for that. I’m going to step aside now and throw it back to Michelle and see if any of the members of the media have any questions.
Jennie Rees: Yes, Ed, I’m just curious, you’re part of a very deep arsenal of three-year old fillies in that barn and just want to look into the Oaks at least in probably the public opinion desk (ph) chart, you were maybe like fourth or maybe even fifth. And when you’re the owner of that horse and you see that horse everyday, what’s that like? And then what’s it like when (inaudible) just in the barn let alone the country?
Ed Stanco: Going into the Kentucky Oaks, I told a lot of people at that point in time, I thought she was of third there, the way I studied it and handicapped the race, I thought Dreaming of Julia was a cut above everybody. And then there was the next tier of about four horses, where I felt we originally fit, especially if there would be early speed. I went into that knowing that it was a very tough decision to decide whether we wanted to go there and the Black-Eyed Susan, when we were there and she had a morning line at 20 to 1 and I thought it would go down because it was Todd—one of Todd’s horses. I thought maybe it would go down to 15 to 1 or so and when I was sitting in that paddock and looked up and saw her at 38 to 1, I looked over at my wife and I go, “Oh, I think I have a problem. I might have made a mistake,” and I said to Todd when he came into the paddock that day, I went over to him and I whispered to him, I go “Todd, do you really think we belong here?” and he said “Absolutely, there will be speed and she’ll close at the end.” So then when she won and she won the race it was just terrific. And then now when we won the Coaching Club it’s just been an explosion of emotion. I mean this is something that obviously I’ve never experienced before and probably never will again and it’s a phenomenal feeling and now going into the Alabama I know she’ll probably be close to being a favorite that my view on it is, ‘Oh God, just please stay healthy and have a nice trip,’ and we’ll see what happens.
Jennie Rees: How are—the feeling of watching her win the Oaks, how did that compare with the Coaching Club outfit at Saratoga? The two sensations…
Ed Stanco: But there were two different things. I think I can explain that. If you go back to the Kentucky Oaks, as you know when you watch from the Grandstand, the boxed seats there, there’s a lot of interference with the seats. With the buildings in the inside, so you’re sort of flipping back and forth from watching the race and watching the video. And I always watch the race pretty closely from my binoculars, and so I was watching the race and I don’t—I didn’t hear anything, I knew where she was, you’re in the moment and I didn’t think about anything. And when she came through and she got to the last hundred yards or so when Mike touched her with the right hand and she started to explode, I thought, well good. We’ll get third—maybe we’ll get third. And then when she pulled ahead in the last 50 yards, I thought, oh my God, please, please God, let her stay on top. So that was all a completely different kind of feeling.
Now in the other race when we go to the Coaching Club when she was back it was her normal style, I was looking through the binoculars again and I thought, you know, she’s right where we need to be but I’m just really frozen on the race. However, when she got into the far turn and she was really over in the 6th path and they were four wide but she was far out there and I watched so many horses at Saratoga way outside wide just not getting around the turn, I thought, oh, that was the first time I really was worried. And then she powered on and I was really quite frankly surprised how strong she pushed forward into the stretch and later on that evening I talked to Todd about it and I said, “Todd, you know, I don’t know, I thought it was her stride was tightening up a little bit at the end. I was a little surprised by that,” and he said “Well, you know, the track was very, very deep that day but that isn’t a problem.” So we don’t think we’ll have any problem getting the distance in the mile and a quarter but you know the fillies you never know what’s going to happen.
Danny Brewer: How’s it going today, Ed?
Ed Stanco: It’s great. It’s great. I haven’t slept all week. The rain just stopped up here at Saratoga. I can’t wait for her to get back out on the track tomorrow morning.
Danny Brewer: I’m sure. Now I know if it is a mighty big word but if things can go the way you want in the Alabama and she wins, could she be the best three-year old in the country regardless of gender?
Ed Stanco: All I look at are the charts and as Todd has always said to me “All of this business it’s so much fun to talk about obviously. That’s what makes our sport such a great sport. We all have our opinions but as Todd always says to me “It all gets settled on the racetrack.” And if she does well here then she’s really—she has actually beaten all of the tough fillies in the country. So that to me is—it’s just shocking to me, I mean how far she’s come and how good she is and it’s terrific, it’s a blessing.
Danny Brewer: Talk about the job that Todd Pletcher has done. Given the fact that he does have a lot of these top fillies but what kind of attention has he given to your horse and how is he made her so much better?
Ed Stanco: I’ve been with Todd for, I think it’s 12 years, always one at a time and I have always felt, I know Todd has all the big horse—or the big names and all that but he has always paid, him and his assistant, have always given us as much attention as any other horse he’s ever had. I just feel it from not only my own thought but actual experience with him all the time. And he—she was very, very good off the farm and when I sent her to Todd last July we thought Ronnie and Betsy Howe on the farm always thought she was a very special filly, certainly maybe the best they had and how she—how balanced she was, how she covered ground over the track and so when I sent her to Todd I said “Look, Todd, one of the problems is a lot of people that own two-year olds try to push them too far and too fast. I don’t want that. I know that’s what happens” and I said, “I want you to take as long as you possibly can. I want her perfect when she goes to the track. I don’t have to make the Saratoga meet. I don’t care if doesn’t even start until she’s three years old. You just wait until you think she’s absolutely perfect” and his response was “I know, she’s a handcrafted filly.” Which she is. She was my first bred and I wanted to take care. And so he planned out. It was our view, we wanted to plan out a campaign where we would make it relatively easier, not easy, but easier for her to win, and so what we did was we picked our spots, we started out as you know out of Penn National. She is PA bred. Take advantage of it. The economics are as good as the maiden special in New York and we’ll see how she graduates but let’s take it easy once step at a time. And Todd, he understood what my goals were and what my needs were and how I approach it and so he designed the plan to do just that and it’s worked out great for us. I mean it’s really been just an A-plus terrific ride.
Danny Brewer: I hope it will continue working out well for you and I wish you the best of luck.
Ed Stanco: Thank you so much.
Danny Brewer: Right, thank you.
Ed Stanco: It’s been a lot of fun.
Carol Holden: Basically every small breeder’s dream and you mentioned that you had something like 125 friends with you. I’m wondering if any of those 120-odd friends are so inclined to perhaps get in the business seeing your success?
Ed Stanco: You know, I’m not sure about that. A lot of people have come to me, you know, over the years and said “Gee, one, we would love to, you know, we’d love to get in, we’d love to join us and the kid or something,” and my reaction isn’t ‘great idea.’ My reaction is just the opposite. It’s, look, unless you’re really passionate about horseracing, you’ve got to be passionate about thoroughbreds and if that’s first on your mind, it always was for me, then I would encourage people to go in. On the other side of it, there are a lot of people that think ‘Wow, this is really exciting. It’s fun.’ and there’s a—and they’re getting—they get into something they really don’t understand, they’re getting into it for their own thrill, their own action and they don’t think about the horse first and it’s a very sad situation. And so you get a lot of things, you get a lot of syndicates that get started up and they don’t work out and they burn out. And there’s the other half. I mean there’s paying all the bills and dealing with all of it, dealing with everything in a professional manner and it takes a lot of time and effort and most people don’t have a very good return and you can’t—you almost can’t even look at it as a small guy as achieving a return. It’s—yes, it’s a business but you’d better be prudent at it and it seems to have worked out well for us.
Carol Holden: Were you involved in any partnerships or did you just go in on your own?
Ed Stanco: No, I was involved—how it happened for me, I had studied owning a thoroughbred for about five years before I did. I read a lot of—I asked a lot of questions, I thought about the economics, I really, really studied it and spent a lot of time and a business partner of mine, Mike Cassio, had sold MadCap stable and so he gave me a lot of pointers and he was one of the Todd’s very, very first two or three clients. And so I felt if I could get involved I would get involved—ever I would get involved with the people that really knew the right connection, and so we owned a horse together and was right with Todd, as I said, 12 or 13 years ago and then the second horse after that I was in a syndicate that Mike already had, also MadCap stable and we had Capside Lady who was a multiple-graded stakes winner and went to the Breeders Cup. So we had a pretty good experience right from the beginning but I had very, very good advice getting into it. And I would suggest to new owners if they were going to go in, they would want to go in probably in a syndicate format. I think it’s a great format for the little guy to get in providing he knows who he’s dealing with and what the expenses are of getting in.
Carol Holden: Thank you and I wish you the best of luck because the Alabama’s one of my favorites.
Ed Stanco: Oh, absolutely. When I saw Questing race a year ago, I mean this is a funny part of the story. When I watched Questing blow away the field and Alabama’s been a favorites of mine forever, and I saw that, you know, when she won I think by six or 10 lengths, I can’t remember, I thought this is an incredible experience and just to think that, we’re going to be in that same race a year—just a year later, I never, never could have imagined this would happen. It’s great.
Jim Mulvihill: Eddie, one more question. You mentioned that you’ve always had One At A Time since you’ve been with Todd. This is the only horse you have in training right now?
Ed Stanco: No, actually it’s not. We retired Storm Dixie, who was the mare and another one that Kitty’s Joy after an injury several—a number of years ago. And so we have the two mares, we have Princess, you know, obviously at the track, we have a two-year old that’s going to Todd maybe this week called Queen To Be that’s a Flatter out of Raise the Kitty who looks very, nice filly and then we have a yearling, Storm Dixie, E Dubai yearling, and then we have a foal with Raise the Kitty and we have a Storm Dixie foal with Petionville. I think there are seven in total now.
Jim Mulvihill: Wow, fantastic. All right. We’ll look forward to seeing some of those start soon and most especially we’ll look forward to seeing Princess of Sylmar on Saturday. We wish you luck and appreciate you being with us today.
Ed Stanco: Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it, thank you. Bye-bye.
Jim Mulvihill: All right. Thank you so much, Eddie Stanco. He’s got Princess of Sylmar in Saturday’s Alabama, and I’m told that we do have Ken Ramsey on the line. So let’s welcome him in right now since I understand he’s at a layover. Ken, are you there with us?
Ken Ramsey: Yes, just now tuned in. I’m on the way from Saratoga now in the Albany airport.
Jim Mulvihill: All right, thank you. Well I won’t go through a long Ken Ramsey introduction. I’m sure most of the people on this call are familiar with you. But let me run down how well represented you are this weekend. You’re in most of the major races around the country. You’ve got Real Solution in the Arlington Million, Big Blue Kitten in the Sword Dancer, Artemus Kitten in the Beverly D., Amen Kitten and Admira; Kitten in the Secretariat and then Dark Cove in the American St. Leger, and of those only Dark Cove is not a Ramsey home-bred. I barely know where to start with all that but maybe I’ll ask you if you can share which of those you personally are most excited to see run this weekend?
Ken Ramsey: You left out the Gold Rush Futurity at Arapahoe Downs going to Colorado..
Jim Mulvihill: I should’ve known, I should’ve known.
Ken Ramsey: We home—have a home-bred but (inaudible) that one.
Jim Mulvihill: Of course you do.
Ken Ramsey: Well I guess I’ll start with being unexcited. I’m unexcited about the fact that a horse that would have probably been a 2 to 1 in the Beverly D. Stephanie’s Kitten, had to miss because she had a little hitch in her rear end…
Jim Mulvihill: Right.
Ken Ramsey: But they did a nuclear scan on her and everything yesterday and there’s nothing wrong with her rear end. The only thing was she had—one of her left-hand ankles bothered her so they’re doing an x-ray and all that so I don’t think it’s going to be anything serious. But instead we’ve got a 20 to 1, Artemus Kitten, filling in for her, which I don’t think that’s probably going to get the job done, but nevertheless we’re in there. Other than that, I’m really looking forward to the Arlington Million because the horse that was 2 to 5 in the Italian Derby but ended up with a pretty bad lung infection after the race, Real Solution. Chad Brown is pretty high on him. He’s been training well up here at Saratoga. So that’s my big hope, that and knock off the Arlington Million and if we can get the Europeans. I understand there’s several of them coming over.
Jim Mulvihill: Yes, I believe there—I think there’s a half dozen of them.
Ken Ramsey: So I (inaudible) European. But I’m trying to make an impression on the people over there with my sire, Kitten’s Joy. We’re running also—we have—I went to Australia and he’s getting to be running in France this weekend and then we’ve won a couple or three races over in Ireland. And anyway, we’re well represented overseas also.
Jim Mulvihill: I’m getting this. All right, well I’m going to turn it right over to the media since I know you’re time is limited. Let’s get right to them and see what questions people have…
Ken Ramsey: I probably have—probably got 10 or 15 minutes. I just started out about five minutes ago (cross talking)…
Jim Mulvihill: Great. All right, thanks for the heads-up. We’ve got 10 minutes with Ken Ramsey, so Michelle, let’s see if any of the members of the media have questions.
Jon White: I was wondering, Ken, why Real Solutions started off in Italy.
Ken Ramsey: Yes, he won his first three races over there, and probably I guess my dad would turn over in his grave, I had a bona fide offer of $2.5 million for this horse, but I was thinking the smart thing to do would be to take him over to Royal Ascot undefeated and that was the year that I had Black Caviar and the Frankel was going in so I thought it would get a lot of media hype three undefeated horses coming in and how him having won four in a row. He developed a ung infection. We didn’t go so the $2.5 million was naturally withdrawn, so it could turn out that it could be a sire if he wins the Arlington Million. So maybe I have played it right after all if our dream comes true this weekend.
Jon White: But why did he start in Italy and not in the United States?
Ken Ramsey: Well, I had this fellow named John Villaluca (ph). I mean I’m saying—mispronounced his name. My Italian’s not too good. And John Luca (ph), Vianconni’s (ph) his name, and I was introduced to him. He’s a top trainer over there in Italy. A gentleman named John Villamato (ph), very good friends with one of my wife’s doctors. He was one of the correspondents over there in Italy. So anyway, if I decide to try to return the f