You never know how one simple event can change your entire life.
I made an awful lot of money in the horse racing business....but it sure took a while.
I had my checklist of dreams as a youngster that changed, as I grew older.
At 6 years old I wanted to be a baseball player (who didn’t).
At 18 years old I got into medical school (really).
At 23 years old I studied for an MBA.
At 25 years old I opened up a successful chain of retail food stores.
At 28 years old, I got trained by The Amish to become a horseman.
How did that get in there?
Growing up, my only experience with the equine community was brief and forgettable.
When I turned seven my parents convinced themselves, while trying to assure me, that I would love riding lessons.
I was reluctantly presented to my instructor Mic, who then introduced me to my politically affiliated named horse “Bay of Pigs”.
Not knowing what to expect, I envisioned that we would race or gallop through the woods like you see in the movies.
I was wrong.
He had me stand up and sit down in the saddle for hours at a time, while going less than 3 miles an hour, inside a circular track that was no more than 30 feet in diameter.
Sightseeing involved staring at a barn that looked like it should be thermoluminescence dated, and cantering next to various organic biological functions.
For real fun he tried to teach me how to jump some four-inch pieces of wood.
To keep me interested, my parents entered me in a horse show.
All I remember was running over the judge, but still getting some sort of ribbon in futility.
I just wanted to play football and baseball, and notified my parents that at 8 years old, I was officially retiring from the horse business.
20 years later an unlikely series of events re-introduced me to the equine world.
I had never been to a racetrack, and never thought I would own my own stable.
An Amish friend from Lancaster, PA had bought retired racehorses to pull his buggies, and decided to use some as broodmares.
A few had racing pedigrees and dropped foals that looked like they may be capable at the track.
His supposed innocuous lifestyle changed when some of his babies became successful, and his name started appearing in the racing program.
The Amish Church didn't like the community exposure and threatened expulsion if his involvement continued.
He asked if I would put some of the stock in my name. In exchange, I would get to purchase horses well below market value.
I only needed to give him $5,000, and I was in the racing business!
Owning a racehorse is not for the faint of heart. It’s sexy until the bills start to pile up.
Normal Vet and training costs can be over $6000/month.
Most horses bred for racing do not make it to the track.
Multiply this by 15 horses for 12 months a year, and you can get into substantial debt.
The purchase price of a horse is merely the "down payment".
The old horseman's line still works:
"The best way to make a small fortune in the horse business is to start with a large one."
You can get lucky, as I did, but for most, the biggest financial benefit is as a tax loss.
My first was a filly named “Miss Forty”.
At one time her sire had a track record for the mile.
Hopefully his genetics would be passed on to his daughter.
After a year and a half of schooling and conditioning we trained this filly down to a respectable time and were getting ready for her first race. I had a good trainer and a naive optimistic outlook.
Everything was in place for my first trip to the winner’s circle, but bad things started happening.
First, she kicked a fence and needed stitches, then bowed a tendon and needed rest before training again.
For added financial inconvenience she had a flipped palate repaired, and one of her eyeteeth removed.
Finally, after 9 more months, and $7,200 in vet bills, my trainer “dropped her in the box”.
But we had another problem that was incurable.
She wasn’t fast.
She did finish 3rd once.
Unfortunately, there were only 3 horses in the race.
This does get lots better.
My 2nd, was named “Walton”.
This gelding was one of the smallest horses you’ll ever see on a track, so we decided to start him at the lowest level, a State Fair.
I couldn’t attend his inaugural start and didn’t think it would matter.
Later that day I called the racing secretary to see how we had done.
He wasn’t very articulate, and with little inflection let me know that I had won the race.
My 50% take after paying the rider and trainer was $440.
I could win every race at this level and still lose money.
Two weeks later we raced in another State Fair.
I was working, and again couldn’t watch.
I called up this week’s racing secretary for the result.
He made the last sound like Dale Carnegie.
Our phone conversation:
“Hi, this is John Rothschild, can you tell me how Walton did?”
“Yup”
“Well, where did he finish?”
“In front”
“Did he win?”
“Yup”
“How much did he win by?”
“Lots”
I was getting excited, wanted a little more information, and a response longer than two words.
I didn’t know anything about track times but asked:
“Did he go fast?”
This answer he really embellished.
"Yup, set a new track record”.
Walton’s next race, still at the State Fair level, was the following week.
I now considered myself an accomplished winning horse owner, and wanted to see my talented stock perform.
I picked up my future wife, who is a ballerina, and who at the time had no interest in sports or horse racing.
That was changing.
We still had no understanding of class, and no idea that we were competing one notch above the hobbyhorse level. We climbed into the grandstands completely over-dressed, and sat between an older Amish man who looked like his picture should be on a potato chip can, and a poorly dressed individual who needed to shower and brush his tooth.
Prior to the race, the Amish man struck up a conversation with my wife, and asked where we were racing next, meaning which state fair. She ambitiously told him “Belmont” which is one of the most prestigious tracks in the country, and the site of this week's first leg of The Triple Crown.
He was pretty sharp, started laughing, and asked if the carousel horse behind us would be in the next Kentucky Derby!
Well you never know, miracles can happen. 
That horse actually made it to The New York circuit, winning his first nine starts.