Trainer Tsagalakis planning career change

ARCADIA, Calif. – California trainer Mark Tsagalakis is switching careers.

Tsagalakis started his last horse last Sunday at Santa Anita and is in the process of launching a consignment business for yearling and broodmare sales in Kentucky, he said Thursday.

Tsagalakis and business partner Terry Nickell will operate Endeavor Farm, and Endeavor Sales, from a farm in Midway, Ky.

“I decided to make a change,” he said. “It felt like time. About five years ago, we bought a farm in Kentucky. My business partner out there – Terry Nickell – we board mares and foals and we breed.

“It’s a new direction and I’m looking forward to it.”

Tsagalakis, 55, said the partnership will focus on yearling sales at Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland in Kentucky through the summer and early fall.

Tsagalakis had a small stable in California. He won 38 races from 287 starters and had his first winner at Hollywood Park in 1993.

Tsagalakis had two stakes wins, both in spring 2015 on the hillside turf course at Santa Anita – Get Happy Mister in the Grade 3 San Simeon Stakes that April and Oliver’s Tale a month later in the minor Siren Lure Stakes.