Little Red Feather Collecting for Hometown Breeders' Cup

“Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot.”

Well, that got your attention, didn't it? Devotees of a certain spoof disaster movie may recall the spinning front-page story–but few will be aware that it may yet, in a roundabout way, lead to genuine headlines at the Breeders' Cup.

Bret Jones of Airdrie Stud was at a dinner a few years ago when someone passing behind his seat overheard him saying how much he enjoyed Airplane!

“I was in that movie,” said Billy Koch.

On the face of it, it seemed unlikely. Airplane! came out in 1980, and it was plain to Jones that this guy could only have been a kid back then. But Koch explained that the film was produced by his grandfather Howard, who had asked to borrow a picture of young Billy.

“My second-grade picture,” recalls Koch, shaking his head. “My hair was a disaster. I had cut it myself. But I didn't even know what it was for, so I gave him this picture.”

Next thing he knows, he's gazing out of the newspaper as the face of an unusually hungry boy. Naturally Koch protested that he would have provided a much better picture, had he only known what it was for. But that, of course, was precisely the point of not explaining. And by now Koch is glad to accept and enjoy the notoriety-especially as the incidental benefits include a friendship that itself contained, with no greater calculation, a latent opportunity for shared professional success.

Three years ago Jones approached Koch, who operates Little Red Feather Racing with boyhood buddy Gary Fenton, about four Airdrie yearlings that had fallen short of their reserves. Jones was confident they would prove nicer than the market had recognized, not least a colt from the first crop of Collected out of GI Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can (Proud Citizen). Sure enough, with Madaket having also come in for a third, last year Phil d'Amato trained Conclude to win the GII Del Mar Derby and this time round the GII Del Mar Mile.

Suitably encouraged, last fall Little Red Feather and Madaket entered a similar deal for four Airdrie graduates-including another by Collected, a filly out of stakes winner Creative Thinking (Creative Cause), duly named Thought Process. She joined d'Amato, where her neighbors included a Collected colt bought from Airdrie at the September Sale, for $130,000, by Little Red Feather's regular bloodstock agent John Dowd. He was named for Koch's pal, baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., as Iron Man Cal.

Both Thought Process and Iron Man Cal broke their maidens at the Del Mar summer meet, where Little Red Feather ended up leading owners. (Madaket, evidently enjoying their partnership in the other horses, bought a minority stake in Iron Man Cal after his maiden success.) And a few days ago, both added graded stakes on the same Santa Anita card.

Some advert, for a $10,000 sire! “I can't speak for everyone else, of course,” Koch says. “But the Collecteds we've got all have really great minds. They're so smart. You can have a really good racehorse that might just be fast, right? But these horses have class, as well.”

D'Amato is now preparing Thought Process and Iron Man Cal for the juvenile turf racing at a Breeders' Cup staged at Little Red Feather's spiritual home-potentially the biggest thrill for the program since its breakout success, with the bargain Singletary, in the Mile at Lone Star in 2004.

“This game is a rollercoaster,” Koch says. “We know that we're going to have highs, and we're going to have lows. But it so happened that we had an outstanding summer at Del Mar. We really do point for that meet. Our pre-opening day party is a real highlight of the summer. We like to say that LRF stands for Little Red Family, our clients all know each other and everybody loves to get together at Del Mar. I mean, they wear flip-flops and shorts, they just relax and have a great time. So when you have a memorable meet like that, it really makes your year.”

Fenton explains that much of their 400-strong clientele is drawn from the vicinity.

“Generally, and this goes for a lot of partnership groups, it dissipates as you get farther from the racetracks,” he says. “Half of our partners are in California and the rest are spread through Oregon, Washington, Denver, Arizona. So we set up our year for Del Mar, and keep our fingers crossed. And this year we hit it in every which way you could: with a sales purchase, with a European import, and especially with this partnership with Bret, which has just knocked it out of the park twice in a row.”

Fenton admires how Jones put together a package that could work for all parties. “I think maybe one reason we get along so well is because Bret's doing some of the things that Little Red Feather did 20 years ago,” he reasons. “Partnerships weren't really the thing when we first started. It was the Sport of Kings, and you owned your own horse. But gradually the communal experience has really taken over as the best way to own a racehorse. So just as we were bucking the trend back then, Bret is continuing to think in a very forward-thinking way.”

These juveniles, moreover, can look up to a real senior pro on the program. This summer Gold Phoenix (Ire) (Belardo {Ire}) became the first triple winner of the GII Del Mar Handicap, and now returns to the GI Breeders' Cup Turf after his longshot fourth last year.

“He's an amazing creature,” enthuses Koch. “No horse has ever won the same stake at Del Mar three straight years, so the Breeders' Cup will be his home turf. He loves it round there, and it's so exciting for our group to head into it with an old warrior like him.”

And then there was the horse of the meet, Iscreamuscream (Twirling Candy), a $145,000 OBS 2-year-old who was one-third cashed out (at a $1 million total valuation) through a Fasig-Tipton Flash Sale.

“After the [GII] San Clemente, we got with Boyd Browning and our friends at TaylorMade, and decided just to try out a digital sale and see what we could do,” Koch explains. “We want to be financially savvy with our partners. Listen, does it change anybody's life? No. But is it the responsible thing to do, sometimes to take money off the table? Absolutely. And Mark Martinez, a good friend of ours from Agave Racing Stable, bid $330,000. Then two weeks later she went out and won the Del Mar Oaks, so his investment proved very smart. To have a Grade I winner at Del Mar and win horse of the meet, that's the pinnacle for us.”

As chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, however, Fenton does not confine himself to a parochial perspective. He's an ardent evangelist for the past, present and future of Californian racing, while candidly acknowledging its current problems.

“We love hosting the Breeders' Cup and welcoming the world to our amazing racetracks,” Fenton says. “Sure, California is under pressure. Purses are becoming a little more competitive in other states and we're falling a little behind. But the leaders in California have been actively looking for ancillary revenues, the same way that Kentucky found it, the same way that New York found it. Yes, Golden Gate closed last year. But we're working on consolidating the industry. We believe that instead of a north and the south, one circuit incorporating both could fuel better purses for all the horsemen.”

Naturally he appreciates the suggestion that the rest of the American industry cannot detach itself from California's issues. After all, it was not so long ago that Santa Anita found itself in the front line, in terms of our sport's exposure, and responded with astounding improvements.

“I think people realized in the last couple years how important California is–not only for American racing, but for their bottom lines as well,” Fenton remarks. “Kentucky is capped out, unless they're going to use some of that money to build racetracks and add races. If California doesn't get better, then everybody's going to contract. People recognize that. I get calls almost every day: 'What can we do to help?' So I believe people will come together and make sure that California stays around for a long time.”

And that, he believes, will be true even if the elephant in the room-the value of Santa Anita as real estate-gets up and leaves.

“We have a beautiful racetrack run by a nonprofit down in Del Mar, on state-run property,” he says. “They have a long-term lease. We already run basically the second half of the year at Del Mar. So we're prepared to run more dates there, hopefully with high enough purses to attract a lot of Midwest and East Coast trainers.”

But nor should Little Red Feather itself be viewed in isolation as any kind of narrow, local program. They prospect in Europe as well as America, and in recent years have also developed a pinhooking portfolio for about 60 partners. This has proved something of a revelation.

“When we first started, we thought we would say that this should be your business money,” Fenton explains. “Racing is supposed to be your fun money, this would be more about your savings; about trying to do the same as the markets or better, with a little more risk, a little more reward. What we didn't anticipate was the hammer falling on one of our very first pinhooks, a $100,000 Broken Vow colt, at $1.2 million. And the euphoria, striking it like that, was like winning a stakes race.”

“Now we were not just providing healthy returns, on a consistent and annual basis. We were also providing a fun and unique experience, involving our people in the whole process: picking a yearling, developing it over the following months. It's become something that mirrors the thrills that go along with the racing side.”

With Tom McCrocklin's help, Little Red Feather has pinhooked seven horses for $700,000 or more; and six that have gone on to either win or place at graded stakes level.

“We want people to look at us and say, 'We can buy good stock from them,'” Fenton says. “The Amestoys, who finished second in the [GI] Futurity at Del Mar [with McKinzie Street] had a maiden winner the same day, and both of those horses were pinhooked by us. That's something we really take a lot of pride in, and hopefully that kind of relationship continues.”

Perhaps it's no coincidence that both Koch and Fenton first worked in Hollywood before reverting to the obsession they had shared as kids. Koch had started out in the family trade, working on his father's production team for Wayne's World before starting Little Red Feather in 2002; while Fenton, who came aboard in 2005, started as an attorney with the William Morris Agency. In other words, they were fully immersed in the daily functioning of the Hollywood economy, before transitioning to a parallel challenge on the Turf: making sure that the machinery will sustain the magic.

“My father's a producer, my grandfather's a producer, and I was on that path,” says Koch, whose sons have inherited a flair for the world of performance respectively as actor, editor and musician. “But I just had something inside of me that said, 'Be in the horse business.' My grandfather used to take me to the races when I was five years old. I mean, that's almost 50 years now, so I have a lot of historical perspective. I always just loved the sport, and I love the people.

“Maybe I didn't love the people in the entertainment industry! They just weren't my style. Perhaps I might have been too honest for them, but it's a choice I made. And I really thank my lucky stars. I've been really blessed. Put together a great crew: brought in Gary; Phil has been amazing, as trainer; John, as bloodstock agent; and then Tom McCrocklin, who's one of my favorite humans on earth. My dad always said, 'Put people around you who are smarter than you are, and they'll make you look smarter too.' And I think I've done that.”

And, really, the process is analogous: all the morning trackwork being rehearsal for the day the curtain goes up.

“Oh, absolutely,” Fenton agrees. “But in the morning, when our partners are there, again it's all about servicing that partner-just like I did at William Morris. Whether you were servicing an actor or writer or director, your job was the same: to make their lives better. And it's the same, with these horses. Our job is to provide a first-class ownership experience.”

“I think there's a lot of pride,” adds Koch. “There's an adrenaline rush with this sport you don't get elsewhere. Whether it's bidding on a horse, or watching a race, my heart will go 1,000 miles an hour. We do fractional shares, so we're going to have 12 to 15 people in a partnership. They bring their family, they bring their kids. So when we win a big race, you say: 'Oh my gosh. Look at these people. Look at their joy.' And that's what this sport does. It can bring that kind of energy, and that's what I feed off.”

But however dynamic the vibe, it needs a stable base. And that's where all these relationships come in: whether with the partners, or within the management team, or with men like Jones who share the imagination to turn a world of challenges into one of opportunity.

“It's very special to do these things with people like Bret and Ben Henley at Airdrie,” Koch says. “Just good people. That's hard to find. I mean, there's some interesting characters in this sport. Let's leave it at that. But I can tell you that Bret is a very good man, a kind man who really cares about his horses and his team.”

But he has no highest compliment than to describe his friend as worthy of the legacy developed at Airdrie by his late father, Brereton C. Jones.

“He was a genius at what he did,” Koch says. “I went to his celebration of life, and it was so moving. He was so loved. When you leave something like that, you just look at yourself, you look inward, and say, 'Okay, how can I be a better person?'”

And it's that kind of attitude that underpins the whole Little Red Feather culture. These guys know the business: they understand that streaks like the one they have enjoyed this year won't last forever.

“We like to sleep well at night,” Fenton says. “Horses may win, horses may lose. Our partners have to leave the track losing 80 percent of the time. But 100 percent of the time we want to make sure they have a great experience.”

“We know this game is very, very difficult,” Koch agrees. “And it's hard financially, as well. So we're going to try to give these people the best possible experience we can. If we can't always be successful on the racetrack, we damned well better be successful off it.”