Thoroughbreds a Family Affair for Hornings
Thoroughbreds a Family Affair for Hornings
Future Looks Bright for Maryland Breeder-Owners
LAUREL, MD – On the final weekend of historic Pimlico Race Course’s recently concluded Preakness Meet, Mike and Debbie Horning enjoyed the kind of day every small breeder-owner dreams about when Eyeplayeveryday and Debbie’s Tude swept both Maryland-bred stakes on the Maryland-Virginia Breeders’ Day program.
It was the biggest day ever for a family whose involvement in the thoroughbred industry goes back decades, on both sides. Horning’s father is late breeder-owner Larry Horning and his brother, Larry Jr., has been a licensed trainer for nearly 30 years. Debbie Horning is a daughter of longtime Maryland horseman Bill Komlo, now 82, who trains both Eyeplayeveryday, winner of the $75,000 Find Stakes, and Debbie’s Tude, heroine of the $75,000 All Brandy.
“Believe it or not, I had a feeling that it was going to be our turn. I bet on both of them, I can tell you that,” Mike Horning said. “I feel so blessed. I’ve been given much in this world and I feel like it was our day. It was our turn.”
Eyeplayeveryday is a 5-year-old son of Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Jazil out of Gimme the Gold, a winning Touch Gold mare trained during her racing career by Larry Horning Jr. A 5-year-old daughter of Aptitude, Debbie’s Tude is the third foal out of the winning Silver Charm mare Debbie’s Diamond. All three foals to race have won, including If I Was a Boy, a 3-year-old Jump Start filly owned by the Hornings and trained by Komlo.
And there’s more. If I Was a Boy’s full sister, Jumpstartmyheart, is one of the Hornings’ six 2-year-olds training for debuts that could come this fall at Laurel Park, which opens its 24-day summer stand on Friday, July 1.
“I’m really excited about the babies. Not only do we have these older horses that are really starting to perform on the track but I’ve got some young stock where the mares are proving themselves,” Horning said. “My plan was to try to prove the mares, racing their foals myself, and eventually I’ll probably sell some of them. I told my wife I can’t keep all of them; I’ve got to sell the fast ones. Unfortunately that’s the way it goes.”
Horning, 58, graduated from John Carroll University with an accounting degree and for the past 23 years has been chief financial officer at two property and casualty insurance companies. He is also a member of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association board of directors, where he serves as treasurer and co-chair of the finance committee.
Horning and his wife went on their first date to Pimlico in 1981, and have been married for 34 years with three adult children – Michael Jr., 31, Christopher, 27, and Kimberly, 25 – each of whom were in the winner’s circle for the June 25 stakes presentations.
“We had our first date at Pimlico and we made money, actually. We hit an exacta. She had the favorite and I had the long shot with Charlie Cooke on him. We sat up in the clubhouse in the dining room and had lunch and handicapped the races,” he said. “My family had horses and her family had horses, and we both thought we knew more than each other. It was just a common thing that both of our families really love.”
It wasn’t until they began to think about life as empty nesters that the Hornings considered breeding and racing horses. Debbie’s Diamond was the first horse they purchased, for $50,000, at Keeneland’s September 2005 yearling sale. She went on to win two of 20 starts and $70,550 from 2007-09.
“We said, ‘What are we going to do when our children are grown?’” Horning recalled. “I had a little money. She wanted to get a horse and she also wanted a new engagement ring with more diamonds on it. I said, ‘I can’t get you both, so which would you like?’ She preferred the horse, so went down to Keeneland.”
The fall sale has become an annual pilgrimage for the Hornings, who live in Potomac, Md. and race as M & D Stables. Their silks feature the yellow, black, red and white of the Maryland state flag, and the stable name is a tribute to both their initials and the postal abbreviation for their home state.
“She wanted it to be D & M with her initial first, but I said we can’t do that because I want the silks to be the Maryland flag colors and the M has to come first to be Maryland. We wanted to bring all our Maryland roots into play,” Horning said. “People ask me, ‘Is your dream to win the Derby?’ I tell them no, my dream is to win the Preakness Stakes with a horse that I bred. The Preakness is my Kentucky Derby. If I have a horse that’s that good, I’m going to point them for the Preakness.”
Last fall, the Hornings purchased three horses at Keeneland: Perennial, a filly by Flower Alley out of the Medaglia d’Oro mare Retraceable, for $75,000; Lemon Drop Kitty, a Lemon Drop Kid filly out of the Tale of the Cat mare Worthy Cat, for $120,000; and Sue Me, a colt by Blame out of the Woodman mare Sue’s Good News, for $100,000.
Their other 2-year-olds are Mike the Tiger, a Wilburn colt they bred out of Gimme the Gold who isn’t expected to run until 2017, and Celebrating, a daughter of City Zip out of the Lemon Drop Kid mare Deborah’s Moment purchased for $112,000 at Timonium’s 2-year-old in training sale in May. Laurel Park-based Jason Egan trains Perennial and Lemon Drop Kitty, while Komlo has the remaining four 2-year-olds.
“We have a whole system when we go to Keeneland,” Horning said. “For us, it’s breeding first. Our goal is to get well-bred fillies, race them and then bring them to Maryland and breed them and have Maryland-breds. That’s the goal of our program.”
The Hornings’ broodmares and younger horses reside at Jerry and Laurie Calhoun’s Summer Wind Farm in Libertytown, Md. Jerry Calhoun used to work for Jim and Eleanor Ryan’s Ryehill Farm at a time when Maryland-bred Caveat became the second of late Hall of Famer Woody Stephens’ record five consecutive Belmont Stakes winners in 1983.
M & D Stables had its own Triple Crown experience in 2009 when stakes-placed Tone It Down, a horse they purchased for $100,000 as a 2-year-old at Timonium, ran 12th of 13 behind Hall of Fame filly Rachel Alexandra in an historic Preakness.
“The next day there was a picture of the horses breaking from the starting gate. We were No. 12 and Rachel was No. 13, and I told everybody that that’s as close as we ever got to Rachel Alexandra right there,” Horning said. “[Former Maryland Governor] Martin O’Malley came back to the barn before the race because we were the Maryland connection and it turned out he knows my family. My brother was his counselor in day camp. It was really special.”
Larry Horning bought his first horse in 1968 and died in 1991 without ever having a stakes winner. The family’s first stakes victory came in the 2004 Taking Risks at Timonium with Captain Chessie, a horse bred and owned by Horning’s mother, Carol Horning-Woerhle, and trained by Larry Jr.
M & D Stables earned its first stakes victory with Do It for Don in the Oh Say Stakes on June 29, 2013 at Delaware Park. Horning said the stable’s latest stakes success was particularly gratifying for the entire team.
“I think we don’t get a lot of respect around the racetrack; not that we need respect but my father-in-law is an extremely proud man. They’re nice people. They’re the most kind people in the world. They’d help anybody. I was so happy for him when we won those races. I know he was happy for us for what we invested in this business but I was so happy for him, especially the people that work for him,” he said. “He deserved it as much as we deserved it. I couldn’t have been happier. Maybe we’ll get a little respect now.”
