2018 Eclipse Awards: Team Justify

Justify’s bandwagon simply kept growing as the colt streaked in his meteoric fashion toward the Triple Crown. On the ownership line in the program on Belmont Stakes Day, that bandwagon was driven, in alphabetical order, by China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners LLC, Starlight Racing, and WinStar Farm.

Kenny and Lisa Troutt’s WinStar Farm won the Eclipse for outstanding owner in 2010 and standout breeder in 2016. The operation’s Maverick Racing moniker, in partnership with China Horse Club, appeared on the $500,000 sales ticket for Justify at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale. Also involved in the purchase was SF Racing, overseen by executives from George Soros’s investment firm.

The China Horse Club, founded in 2013, is the brainchild of Malaysian billionaire Teo Ah Khing, the Harvard-educated architect whose company designed and built Meydan, home of the Dubai World Cup. The operation began partnering with WinStar several years ago, spreading the risk and expanding the opportunity for both.

After Justify won his first start impressively on Feb. 18, the bandwagon needed more room. While SF Racing retained its breeding rights in the colt, it sold its racing rights to Sol Kumin’s Head of Plains Partners and to Jack and Laurie Wolf’s Starlight Racing in deals completed in March. Kumin, who owns shares in several other Eclipse Award finalists, focuses his wide-ranging Thoroughbred investments on horses who have already proven themselves on the racetrack.

Meanwhile, 10 partners from Louisville were involved in Starlight’s share, and Justify made them the first Louisville residents to own a Kentucky Derby winner since Old Rosebud, campaigned by H.C. Applegate in 1914.

:: 2018 Eclipse Finalists: Profiles and photos for all categories