Wasabi Ventures Stables Enjoying Recent Hot Streak
Wasabi Ventures Stables Enjoying Recent Hot Streak
Maryland Native Heads Successful Fledgling Ownership Syndicate
LAUREL, MD – As founder and managing partner of Wasabi Ventures Stables, Tom Kuegler’s focus is on eliminating risk and increasing excitement for members of what the fledgling syndicate calls its ‘Co-Owners Club.’
Kuegler, a wealthy 47-year-old venture capitalist from New Hampshire who grew up in Essex, Md., takes care of the risk part himself, paying all bills and covering any losses, so the only financial outlay for partners is their initial investment.
The excitement part Kuegler leaves to the horses and, especially lately, there’s been plenty to get excited about.
Racing along the East Coast from Delaware to South Florida, Wasabi uses Maryland as its primary base of operations. Its horses won four consecutive starts at Laurel Park between July 1 and 8, three of them – Nancy R., Uhwarrie Sky and Cannon’s Roar – trained by Pimlico-based Dorothy Worton. The fourth, Charming Emmy, runs out of Delaware for trainer Jesus Cruz.
Wasabi’s next Laurel starter is set to run Saturday with Worton-trained Feel Proud, entered in a one-mile starter allowance for 3-year-olds and up on the All Along turf course.
“Nothing’s better than winning. You put horses in good spots and they reward you most of the time,” said Kuegler, who goes by his initials, ‘TK.’ “We’ve been pretty successful for the last year and a half, actually, but four in a row is four in a row. That’s pretty cool. It’s been like living a dream, it really is. I’ve been wanting to build a world-class racing stable since I was probably 5 years old. Being in a place where I can finally do it, and do it in a smart way, is great.”
Kuegler grew up about a half-hour east of legendary Pimlico Race Course and 40 minutes northeast of Laurel, listening to tales spun by his late great-grandfather, P.J. Lacoste about he and younger brother, A.J. Lacoste, both of whom worked their ways up to being trainers in Maryland.
“My great-grandfather was a child of the depression,” Kuegler said. “He and his little brother grew up in New Orleans, and they came home one day when my great-grandfather was 12 and my great grand-uncle, I guess, was 8 and there was a sign on the door that basically said, ‘Good luck.’ The family deserted them. So, they went and lived basically the only place they could live, which was the backstretch at Fair Grounds racetrack.
“They started off as hotwalkers and exercise boys and grooms and over time became trainers. I got to hear my great-grandfather’s stories. He lived into his late 90s, so I was in my late 20s by the time he passed away,” he added. “I heard the stories, romantically fell in love with the game and always was a fan. None of the generations between them and me had anything to do with racing. I always said when I get enough money at a certain point in life, I’m going to start a racing stable and that’s what I did.”
There was college first, at what’s now known as Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, and a failed 1994 run for a seat in the Maryland State House of Delegates during his senior year that ultimately led him to start his own internet company and find Chris Yeh, who co-founded Wasabi Ventures with Kuegler in 2003.
“When I ran for the state legislature I lost by 5.8 percent. It was close,” Kuegler said. “But, I met a guy at a loser’s party, one thing led to another and here we are.”
Wasabi Ventures – whose name comes from the founders’ love of sushi – is what Kuegler calls “the most active venture capital firm in the world,” with 150 employees in five office locations – Baltimore; Manchester, N.H.; Phoenix, Ariz.; San Mateo, Calif. and Donetsk, Ukraine. It specializes in co-founding, investing in, incubating, building and advising early stage technology companies.
“I brought a bunch of that thinking to what I wanted to do in racing, which was attract new fans. The biggest thing that racing needs is new fans,” Kuegler said. “I used to call it attacking the bookends. As long as you get more owners and you get bigger handle – those are the two bookends – everything else will take care of itself.
“I attacked the owner thing and thought, ‘How can I do that?’” he added. “Before I started Wasabi, I joined about 15 different syndication groups around the country. I watched what they did well, what they didn’t do well, what worked and what didn’t work. I took a little bit from here and a little bit from there and I built my own thing and that’s what Wasabi is. I wanted to attract brand new people to the game.”
Also New York Times best-selling author of all three editions of the book ‘Web Advertising and Marketing,’ Kuegler’s model offers an affordable alternative to horse ownership. Members choose a horse and pay a percentage up front for as much or as little as they care to invest, which is marketed as low as $25.
All profits from purses or claims or sales of a member’s interests goes directly to them; any losses are absorbed by Kuegler.
“Seventy-eight percent of our members are brand new to racing. More than 60 percent of our people have never been to a racetrack. Our average age of our members is 36 years old, so we’re very young, too,” he said. “I take care of all of the ongoing bills. There’s no chance of a downside. If a horse loses money and we settle up at the end, I eat all the losses so there’s no bills at the end. There’s no hidden upcharges. I built this business not to make money; I built this business to attract fans, and it’s worked really well.”
Wasabi Stables’ first win came with its first starter, Slick William, in a Feb. 26, 2017 starter optional claimer at Laurel. It finished 2017 with a record of 8-6-8 and purse earnings of $169,414 from 58 starters. This year, the stable already has 11 wins with 12 seconds and six thirds and $230,230 in purses earned from 65 starters.
To date, Wasabi’s top horse has been Feel Proud, a 6-year-old Proud Citizen gelding they claimed for $5,000 last Aug. 27 at Laurel that has gone on to earn nearly $76,000 in purses for the stable. Three starts after joining Wasabi, he ran third in the Maryland Million Turf Starter Handicap.
“We keep moving up. This is where my startup thinking comes into play. You start at a level, and you make mistakes, so you do things at a place where you can learn and if you make a mistake it’s not fatal. That’s what we’ve done,” Kuegler said. “We have seven 2-year-olds that we bought this year. You buy 2-year-olds because you’re hoping they move up. We will buy between 10 and 15 yearlings in the fall here. Our group grows every day. We’re adding five or six people every single day now. You keep doing that math and you’ve got a couple thousand people a year from now.
“I have some people in my group that have much deeper pockets, so they want better horses. I’ve got some people that, candidly, spending $150 is about the extent that they can spend,” he added. “We’ll always keep horses at different levels, because I want that. That’s how you attract different people, and it gives everybody a chance to be a part of it.”
