Kentucky Derby Museum offers special tours at Churchill Downs
The Kentucky Derby Museum offers a variety of tours on different topics at Churchill Downs Racetrack. Here’s a sneak peek.
- This year’s Kentucky Derby horse owners range from first-timers to seasoned veterans.
- Several ownership groups are partnerships, sometimes with as many as 10 individuals involved.
Jockeys help guide thoroughbreds to the finish line. Trainers help prep the horses for raceday.
But owners foot the bills. Without their investment, hopes and dreams of Kentucky Derby glory would be just that — aspirations instead of reality.
Here’s a look at the owners lineup in this year’s Run for the Roses, listed in alphabetical order by horse’s name (those with multiple Derby entrants are grouped together):
Owner: Junko Kondo
What to know: Kondo, in her Derby debut as an owner, is the widow of the late Riichi Kondo, who The Sydney Morning Herald once noted was “one of the Japanese racing industry’s biggest players.” Junko bought her Derby entrant, Admire Daytona, for $480,276 at the Japan Racing Horse Association Select Yearling and Foal Sale in 2022. Its name is a nod to Riichi — all of his racehorses had the “Admire” prefix. One of his most well-known horses was Admire Moon, which was the Japanese Horse of the Year in 2007.
Owner: BC Stables (John Bellinger and Brian Coelho)
What to know: This is the second time in the Run for the Roses for Bellinger and Coelho, who owned 2024 Derby entrant Just Steel. The pair hopes for a better showing this time around, as Just Steel placed 17th in the 20-horse field last year. American Promise’s trainer is the legendary D. Wayne Lukas; he also trained Just Steel. That’s no coincidence.
BC Stables‘ founding is due in large part to the Hall of Fame trainer.
“I met Wayne probably seven years ago through a mutual friend, Dr. Charlie Graham,” Bellinger told Thoroughbred Daily News in 2022. “Charlie is a good racehorse veterinarian and he and Wayne are close friends. He introduced me to Wayne. … I thought if we are going to do this, we have to do it. My wife agreed and Brian (Coelho) is a friend. I introduced Brian to Wayne and Brian was interested, so we moved forward together.
“It is all because of Wayne. He is a very special person.”
Coelho is president and CEO of Central Valley Meat Company, which is based in Hanford, California. According to Thoroughbred Daily News, Bellinger and his wife own multiple companies, “the biggest of which is a laboratory business that tests food products.” Per Equibase, BC Stables ranked 80th in earnings for North American thoroughbred owners in 2024, winning slightly more than $1.4 million. But BC Stables still is in search of its first graded-stakes victory. Its best finish: four runners-up spread across Just Steel (twice), Saratoga Secret and Summer Promise.
Owner: Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners (Aron Wellman)
Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners is 0 for 4 in the Derby. Its best Derby finish is third, with Danza, in 2014. With more than $20 million in earnings and numerous graded-stakes victories, Eclipse consistently finds itself among the most successful ownership groups in North America. Wellman, Eclipse’s founder and president, graduated from UC Santa Barbara, where he played four years of Division I soccer. Eclipse’s website traced Wellman’s career path, starting at the age of 8, when he “convinced a local Southern California trainer to allow him to tag along to the backside of Del Mar. From 4:30am the next morning until he graduated from Law School at the age of 24, Wellman worked every summer for trainers” before eventually working his way up to ownership.
Owner: Whitham Thoroughbreds (Janis Whitham)
What to know: Whitham Thoroughbreds isn’t only Burnham Square‘s owner. It’s also his breeder. This will be Whitham’s second Derby starter; she also owned McCraken, which finished eighth in 2017. McCraken had been Whitman’s most successful gelding … before Burnham Square came along. McCraken earned almost $870,000 in 14 career starts (6-1-3 win-place-show), with a trio of graded-stakes wins. But Burnham Square now has won nearly $978,000 in six career starts, punctuated by victories in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park. Whitham and her late husband, Frank Whitham, owned Hall of Fame mare Bayakoa, which won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff in back-to-back years (1989 and 1990) and was the Eclipse Award Champion Older Female in both of those seasons. Whitham Thoroughbreds also won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Fort Larned. Frank and Janis’ son, Clay Whitham, assists in the day-to-day running of the stable’s racing and breeding operations.
Owner: Terry Stephens
What to know: In 15 years as a sole owner from 2006 through 2024 — which includes four years (2008-10, 2013) without starting a race — Stephens earned approximately $513,000. This year alone, Stephens has won nearly $350,000. The lion’s share of that money has come from Chunk of Gold, his Derby entrant. Though Chunk of Gold hasn’t won in 2025, he’s placed second (three times in as many races). Stephens’ most successful horse to date is O Besos, which finished fourth in the 2021 Derby and notched five victories in 17 starts (5-3-2 win-place-show), earning more than $760,000. (Stephens owned a stake in O Besos along with Bernard Racing LLC, Tagg Team Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds.) Stephens is the president and founder of Stephens Pipe & Steel, a manufacturer and distributor of fencing products based in Russell Springs and established in 1974. Per the company’s website, Stephens Pipe & Steel “employs more than 1,400 people in 19 locations,” spread across 16 states.
Owners: SF Racing (Gavin Murphy), Starlight Racing (Jack Wolf), Madaket Stables (Sol Kumin), Stonestreet Stables (Barbara Banke), Dianne Bashor, Determined Stables (Matt Dorman), Robert Masterson, Tom Ryan, Waves Edge Capital (Gregg Slager), Catherine Donovan
What to know: Kumin (of Madaket Stables) and Wolf (of Starlight Racing) were co-owners of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. That same duo also teamed up as co-owners of 2020 Derby victor Authentic.
Kumin is a businessman, working as the co-president of Leucadia Asset Management LLC. He previously was the CEO of Folger Hill Asset Management. He serves on the boards of Johns Hopkins University, The Fessenden School, Boston Children’s Hospital and Team Impact, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the Belmont Child Care Association Board. Aside from his horse racing ownership, Kumin is an investor in the Premier Lacrosse League.
A Louisville native, Wolf founded Starlight Racing in 2000 along with his wife, Laurie Wolf. A former professor, Jack Wolf went on to start an Atlanta-based hedge fund, Columbus Partners. He remained with the fund until his retirement.
Per the Breeders’ Cup’s official website, Murphy (of SF Racing) “has been involved in the equine industry all his life,” first as an equestrian growing up in Australia, then becoming a breeder. In 2008, he launched SF Bloodstock, an international breeding and racing operation.
Banke, who owns Stonestreet Stables, boasts two of the most successful racehorses of the millennium in Curlin and Rachel Alexandra. Banke also is the chairman and proprietor of Jackson Family Wines, which was founded by her late husband, Jess Jackson.
Bashor got into horse racing ownership along with her late husband, Jim Bashor; after going on a blind date, they were married for nearly half a century until his death in January 2018. The Bashors were co-owners (along with Halo Farms) of Danzing Candy, which finished 15th in the 2016 Derby.
A Maryland native, Dorman (of Determined Stables) told BloodHorse he got into the sport through his father. “As I got older, I wanted to get into it more, so when I could actually afford it, I bought into a low-level claimer,” Dorman told BloodHorse. Then in 2020, he expanded his industry interests beyond racing and into breeding. “I had a company for 20 years that I started, grew and got it to the right level, so I cashed out a good chunk of it. It’s just good timing,” he said.
Masterson grew up in New York, developing his passion for the sport attending races at Belmont Park. His ownership career started in Nebraska, where he competed at the since-closed Ak-Sar-Ben race course. According to America’s Best Racing, Masterson “is a retired CEO of several worldwide computer services corporations.” Perhaps the most interesting tidbit about Masterson is his nickname, “Bat.” Per Equibase, the nickname is taken from “Bat Masterson, the legendary gambler, lawman, saloon keeper and journalist in the Wild West and title character of a popular 1950s TV series.”
Ryan is the managing partner of SF Bloodstock. According to the Breeders’ Cup website, Ryan “has overseen the acquisition and management of shares in top northern hemisphere stallions and has been instrumental in developing the careers of Lope de Vega, Pioneer of the Nile, Constitution and Good Magic, among others.” Born in Ireland, he began working in his home country before gaining more experience in Australia and Japan. He’s lived in the U.S. since 1999.
Slager founded Waves Edge. The company’s website notes Slager has more than three decades of experience in finance, “having worked on over 500 financial transactions including acquisitions, recapitalizations, restructurings, IPOs, preferred stock offerings and convertible debt offerings for corporate and private equity acquirers.”
Donovan is a retired attorney in New York, who moved to the States from Australia in 1992 alongside one of the other co-owners in this group: Murphy, her husband. Aside from working with SF Bloodstock and a pair of Australian farms (Amarina and Newgate), Donovan is a board member of Pro Bono Net, which harnesses technology to try to assist poor and underprivileged people in the U.S. in need of legal services.
Owner: Norman Stables (Robbie Norman)
What to know: No owner in this year’s Derby has a story quite like Norman’s. Which he recounted to Trainer Magazine earlier this year. He got his start in the business 14 years ago. After he had just gone through a divorce. “I was flipping through channels on TV,” he told Trainer. “On TVG, they were doing a story about Union Rags (2012 Belmont Stakes winner). I said, ‘You know what? This divorce stuff is negative. I’ve got to do something to get out of this.’ I watched that story.” From there, it became his motivation. He learned everything he could about the industry. Then he bought his first horse. An Alabama grocer, he focuses on buying horses in what he calls “the regional market.” Louisiana. Oklahoma. Texas. While Norman has carved out a solid career for himself — Norman Stables has finished among the top 100 in wins among owners competing in North America each of the last four years, and six times since 2016 — it’s closer to a mom-and-pop operation (like the grocery store he founded alongside his brother in Thomasville, Alabama, that’s now grown to eight locations) than an international colossus like Godolphin or Juddmonte. Yet Norman Stables will be on even terms with those two titans come Derby Day, with Coal Battle giving him his first entrant in the Run for the Roses.
Norman likes to keep things in perspective, though.
“What horse racing does is vacations,” he told Trainer. “We go to Lone Star Park or we race in Houston and go down to Galveston. We like to go to the Ocala Breeders Sales and we stop at the beach. We know all the best steak houses. We’re simple people, but we thoroughly enjoy it. You’ve got to take the good with the bad. It is a roller coaster of emotions.”
Owner: Godolphin (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum)
What to know: A seven-time winner of the Eclipse Award for outstanding owner — including each of the past five years (2020-24) — Godolphin is annually among the most successful entities in the industry. Godolphin, which owns 2025 Derby entrants East Avenue and Sovereignty, has ranked among the top two in earnings in North America five straight seasons, placing first the last four (2021 through 2024). It’s tracking as another banner campaign in 2025, as of April 15, Godolphin ranks first in earnings, with more than $3.1 million, nearly double its closest competitor. Despite Godolphin’s global reach — it is run by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai as well as vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates — it has found Triple Crown triumphs hard to come by. It has never won the Derby in 12 attempts. (Its best finish is third, via Essential Quality, in 2021.) Godolphin also hasn’t placed first in the Preakness Stakes. Its lone Triple Crown win: Essential Quality crossed the line first at the Belmont Stakes. Neither East Avenue nor Sovereignty likely will be viewed as a top contender for Godolphin to end its winless drought in the Run for the Roses. Sovereignty is tied for sixth (110 points), while East Avenue (60) is 12th on the Road to the Kentucky Derby leaderboard.
Owner: Juddmonte (Fahad bin Khalid)
What to know: Dating back to 2000, Juddmonte has ended outside the top 15 yearly in North American owner earnings just six times (2005, 2007, 2010-12 and 2015), finishing 16th in 2005 and 2010, per Equibase. Juddmonte was founded in 1980 by the late Prince Khalid bin Abdullah. The international horse racing and breeding enterprise now is run by his son, Prince Fahad bin Khalid. Juddmonte has had a Derby entrant six times, winning once, with Mandaloun — though that victory came via the disqualification of Medina Spirit, which reached the finish line first that year.
Owners: Two Eight Racing, Berry Family Racing LLC and Kaleta Racing
What to know: Two Eight Racing, led by former professional baseball player Jayson Werth, is back in the Derby for the second straight year. In 2024, Werth was a part owner of Dornoch, which went on to finish 10th in the Run for the Roses. Two Eight Racing takes its name from the number Werth wore during his 15-season MLB career.
Berry Family Racing is helmed by Jeff Berry, a former sports agent who now works in the San Francisco Giants‘ front office. His official title: senior adviser to the president of baseball operations; that means Berry answers to former Giants great Buster Posey. Berry is no stranger to the Bluegrass State, as he hails from Owensboro. “I always had a great affinity for horse racing,” Berry told America’s Best Racing. “I always had it in the back of my mind to own a horse someday. I was talking to Jayson about it and he said, ‘Let me show you how.’ And that’s how I got into it.”
The third prong of the ownership trio, Kaleta Racing, is headed up by Shawn Kaleta, a real estate developer in Florida.
Owner: Repole Stable (Mike Repole)
What to know: Year after year, Repole Stable, (led by the eponymous Mike Repole) is among the best in the sport. Repole Stable has finished among the top 45 in earnings every year since 2008 — ranking in the top 10 on six occasions (2010-13, 2023 and 2024). But victories in the biggest races have been harder to come by. Repole Stable has a pair of Breeders’ Cup wins, both in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (2023 with Fierceness, 2010 with Uncle Mo). Repole has one Triple Crown win: Mo Donegal captured the 2022 Belmont Stakes, winning by 3 lengths in an eight-horse field. Mo Donegal also gave Repole Stable its best Derby finish, placing fifth in 2022. Repole vies for its first victory in the Run for the Roses, with this year marking the stable’s ninth attempt.
Owners: Bridlewood Farm (John and Leslie Malone), Don Alberto Stable (Liliana Solari Falabella and sons: Andrea and Carlos Heller), Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners (Aron Wellman), Elayne Stables 5 LLC and Robert LaPenta
What to know: All five parts of this ownership quintet is yearning for its first Derby victory.
As previously noted, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Wellman, the sole owner of Built and a co-owner of Journalism, has come up empty in four prior Derby appearances.
Bridlewood Farm is owned by the Malones. Per Bridlewood’s website, John is the “largest land owner in the United States. He is the chairman of Liberty Media Corporation. The couple bought Bridlewood Farm in 2013. The stable was founded in 1976 by Arthur Appleton. Bridlewood owned a share of 2017 Derby entrant Tapwrit, which finished sixth that year.
According to America’s Best Racing, Solari Falabella founded Don Alberto Stable in 1987 along with her sons, Andrea and Carlos Heller, developing not only a thoroughbred farm but “their Bethia brand, which includes a dairy, winery, milk transportation and trucking, and more.” Journalism has been the stable’s most successful horse aside from Battle of Midway, which won nearly $1.3 million and took third in the 2017 Derby.
Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners is 0 for 4 in the Derby. Its best Derby finish is third, with Danza, in 2014. With more than $20 million in earnings and numerous graded-stakes victories, Eclipse consistently finds itself among the most successful ownership groups in North America. Wellman, Eclipse’s founder and president, graduated from UC Santa Barbara, where he played four years of Division I soccer. Eclipse’s website traced Wellman’s career path, starting at the age of 8, when he “convinced a local Southern California trainer to allow him to tag along to the backside of Del Mar. From 4:30am the next morning until he graduated from Law School at the age of 24, Wellman worked every summer for trainers” before eventually working his way up to ownership.
This is the first Derby appearance for Elayne Stables, which is an affiliate of The Herrick Company, an investment firm.
LaPenta is the most seasoned Derby entrant in this faction, with 10 prior appearances in the Run for the Roses. He narrowly lost the 2010 Derby, with his starter, Ice Box, taking runner-up honors to Super Saver. But LaPenta has plenty of victories elsewhere, including two in the Belmont Stakes (2008 with Da’Tara and 2017 with Tapwrit) and multiple Breeders’ Cup events. He has a longstanding friendship with former Louisville and Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino. Yet for all the talented horses LaPenta has owned over the years, none is closer to his heart than Dr. Saikali. Though it’s yet to place in the money in two career starts, both of which ended with fourth-place finishes, the colt is named after the doctor who saved LaPenta’s life.
Owner: Koichi Nishikawa
What to know: According to Equibase, the Derby will be the first time a Nishikawa-owned horse will compete in the United States. Luxor Cafe enters the Run for the Roses off a 5-length win in its most recent outing, the Fukuryu Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse, on March 29. Nishikawa also owned Cafe Pharoah, which ranked first on the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby points list in 2020. (Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 Derby was postponed from May to September.) But Nishikawa decided not to send Cafe Pharoah to the States to compete in that year’s delayed Derby.
Owner: Flying Dutchmen Breeding and Racing (Travis Boersma)
What to know: Boersma made his money in coffee. In 1992, he co-founded Dutch Bros along with his late brother, Dane Boersma. Now, Travis is among the richest people in America. According to the annual Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people, he’s the second-richest person in Oregon — trailing only Nike’s co-founder, Phil Knight — with a net worth of approximately $4 billion. Per The Oregonian, Travis became a billionaire after Dutch Bros went public Sept. 17, 2021. He is the company’s executive chairman and remains its largest stockholder. BloodHorse reports the “Boersma family has been involved in racing and breeding in Oregon for several years and has recently expanded their operations to Kentucky.” Travis’ son, Payton, not only will graduate from the University of Kentucky in May but he also serves as Flying Dutchmen’s chief operating officer. If that’s not enough, Owen Almighty is named after another one of Travis’ sons, Owen. In the two years of data available on Equibase for Flying Dutchmen, it has slightly more than $1 million in earnings. Flying Dutchmen’s career win-place-show rate is 52% (11-10-3 in 46 starts), but Owen Almighty boasts its only graded-stakes victory, crossing the line first in this year’s Tampa Bay Derby, a Grade 3 race.
Owners: Gus King; Estate of Brereton C. Jones
What to know: Neither King nor Jones’ estate has had much luck as sole owners. But they’ve made hay in partnerships.
Publisher is King’s best horse (in terms of earnings), entering the Run for the Roses with more than $400,000 in winnings. The only thoroughbred ahead of Publisher for Jones’ estate is Stay Hot, which earned approximately $413,000 and won the Grade 3 Cecil B. DeMille Stakes at Del Mar in 2023.
While King still is aiming to make more of a mark as a thoroughbred owner, he’s among the most well-known breeders of Tennessee Walking Horses. King, the owner of Alabama-based Colormasters LLC, earned the distinction as a “master breeder” of Tennessee Walking Horses, bestowed upon him by the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association.
Jones also had a name that resonated outside the horse racing industry: He was Kentucky’s lieutenant governor from 1987 to 1991, then the governor of the commonwealth from 1991 to 1995. Jones played football at the University of Virginia. His farm, Airdrie Stud, bred three Kentucky Oaks champions and two dozen Grade 1 stakes winners. Jones died in 2023 at the age of 84.
Appropriately, Airdrie Stud bred this year’s Derby starter, Publisher.
Owners: D.J. Stable (Leonard Green), St. Elias Stable (Vincent Viola), West Point Thoroughbreds (Terry Finley) and CJ Stables (Charles Sonson).
What to know: St. Elias and West Point hope they’ll combine for a winning partnership once more. The groups were part owners of 2017 Derby champion Always Dreaming. D.J. Stable has one prior Derby appearance, placing seventh in 2021 with Helium. This is the first Derby for Sonson (of CJ Stables).
In 1973, Green founded The Green Group. Per the company’s website, The Green Group “specializes in client services of closely held businesses, family businesses, thoroughbred businesses, entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals and their families.” Green has published a book (“The Entrepreneur’s Playbook: More than 100 Proven Strategies, Tips and Techniques to Build a Radically Successful Business“) and served as a professor at Babson College. The most successful thoroughbred owned solely by Green is Wonder Wheel, which won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies race at Keeneland in 2022.
Viola owns the NHL’s Florida Panthers. He considers Pitino a close friend, and the college hoops coaching great joined Viola and the rest of Always Dreaming’s ownership group in the Churchill Downs Winner’s Circle eight years ago. A billionaire — Forbes assessed his net worth just shy of $6 billion — Viola had inauspicious beginnings. Forbes notes he was the “son of a truck driver from Brooklyn.” Viola started the electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial in 2008, taking the company public seven years later. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and in 2003, he founded the Combating Terrorism Center at his alma mater.
Finley, the president and CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, wrote his own biography on the company’s website. “Married my high school sweetheart, Debbie, six months after graduating from West Point (we were not allowed to be married while cadets; one of my classmates got married during our junior year in Vegas in the little white chapel on the strip and came back to West Point for a few days — to complete his OUTPROCESSING),” Finley wrote. Not surprisingly given the opening to Finley’s self-written bio, it’s a family affair at West Point Thoroughbreds: His wife is the business development executive, while the couple’s daughter, Erin, is the company’s COO and racing manager.
Sonson, who jumped into thoroughbred ownership in recent years with his operation CJ Stables, hasn’t owned a horse on his own that earned more than $100,000, nor won a graded-stakes race. But thanks to this four-way partnership, Sonson now owns a share of one of this year’s Derby favorites, Sandman.
Owners: WinStar Farm (Kenny Troutt), China Horse Club (Kit Ng) and Cold Press Racing.
What to know: Regardless of what happens, WinStar Farm and China Horse Club’s place in history is secure: They were part of the ownership group of the most recent Triple Crown winner, Justify, which accomplished the feat in 2018. WinStar, which was Justify’s majority owner, has one other Derby win, with Super Saver running to victory in 2010. China Horse Club boasts no other Derby triumphs but owned 2017 Kentucky Oaks winner Abel Tasman. This is the first Derby appearance for Cold Press Racing, which, per Equibase, hasn’t had sole ownership of any racehorse since 2021. It has, however, been part of multiple ownership groups, with its most successful horse to date (aside from Tappan Street) being Pursuit of Liberty, which earned more than $140,000 in eight career starts.
Owners: Winchell Thoroughbreds (Ron Winchell), Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith.
What to know: In terms of Derby experience, it’s hard to top this consortium. Combined, this group has appeared in the Run for the Roses a whopping 59 times. This will be Winchell’s 13th time in the Derby, still seeking his first win; his best finish was in 2022, when Epicenter placed second (as the 4-1 favorite). Tabor leads the way with 21 prior Derby appearances, followed by Magnier (14) and Smith (12). Magnier, Smith and Tabor were part of a six-way ownership group last year, all with a stake in Sierra Leone, which narrowly lost to Mystik Dan in a photo finish.
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
