By Steve Sherack
LOUISVILLE, Ky – Books aren't the only thing that Len Riggio has been making headlines selling these days.
The Barnes & Noble founder has also accumulated quite the collection of broodmares over the past decade or so and will have his name listed in the program as a breeder at Saturday's GI Kentucky Derby via GII Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby hero Tapwrit (Tapit).
“I look at it as a privilege to be able to have the means to breed horses that can compete at this level,” said Riggio, who built his aforementioned Fortune 500 company from just a single college bookstore back in 1965. “For the size of our operation, if we get one Grade I or one very good one a year, we're doing great.”
Tapwrit, a $1.2-million Fasig-Tipton August yearling purchase by Bridlewood Farm, Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Robert LaPenta, is out of the Successful Appeal mare Appealing Zophie. Riggio's My Meadowview Farm went to $1.1 million to acquire the 2006 GI Spinaway S. heroine at the following year's Fasig-Tipton November Sale.
“We probably raced 25 or so like Tapwrit and then we sold him,” Riggio, who primarily breeds to race, said with a laugh. “That's just the way it goes.”
The 76-year-old continued, “He was the first horse of that value that we ever sold. You never know with these horses. It's like catching lightning in a bottle.”
Tapwrit, a very good second behind McCraken (Ghostzapper) in Tampa's GIII Sam F. Davis S., heads to Louisville for trainer Todd Pletcher off a fifth-place finish after a slow start in the GII Blue Grass S. at Keeneland Apr. 8.
“We'll be rooting for him,” Riggio said. “We own the mare–I hope he wins everything.”
Appealing Zophie's 2-year-old colt by Candy Ride (Arg) brought $375,000 from John C. Oxley at the recently concluded OBS April Sale. Barren for 2017, Appealing Zophie is also represented by a Speightstown yearling colt and is currently in foal to Frosted on a Feb. 24 cover.
Riggio's broodmare band is headed by the 20-year-old Oatsee (Unbridled), the dam of GI Preakness S. hero Shackleford (Forestry), GI Alabama S. heroine Lady Joanne (Orientate) and two other graded winners. The 2011 Broodmare of the Year was purchased by Riggio for $1.55 million while in foal to A.P. Indy at the 2008 Keeneland November sale. The resulting produce Stephanoatsee carried Riggio's hunter green-and-camel silks to a win in the 2012 Barbaro S. at Delaware Park and a pair of graded-stakes placings.
Oatsee also has an unraced 3-year-old filly by Frankel (GB); a 2-year-old filly by Distorted Humor; a yearling colt by Malibu Moon; and a Ghostzapper colt, just foaled Apr. 17.
“Oatsee is our prize,” said Riggio, who splits his 30 or so broodmares between Kentucky and his farm on Long Island. “She's almost been like a factory, producing winner after winner.”
He continued, “[Kern Thoroughbreds President] Lincoln Collins is our manager and Alan Porter helps Lincoln and I in making selections for the matings. You spend all this time being conscientious and you make an informed decision… And then you pray. And if you're lucky, three percent of the time, you're right.”
Riggio's broodmare band also includes: GISWs Funny Moon (Malibu Moon) ($2.3 million '11 FTKNOV); Love theway youare (Arch) ($1.45 million '12 FTKNOV); Miss Shop (Deputy Minister), the dam of the promising MGSW Tin Type Gal (Tapit); as well as the multiple stakes-placed half-sister to leading sire Tapit, Overandabeauty (Grand Slam) ($750,000 '06 KEESEP); and the stakes-winning My Meadowview homebred Marion Ravenwood (A. P. Indy).
“We have a horse farm on Long Island in the Hamptons–that's where we have our New York-bred program, which produced Samraat (Noble Causeway),” Riggio beamed of the 2014 GIII Gotham S. hero and GI Wood Memorial S. runner-up. “And that, of course, was a big thrill for us. You just don't see championship-caliber horses being born and bred out there.”
The late Noble Causeway (Giant's Causeway), a $1.15-million KEESEP yearling purchase in 2003, gave Riggio his first taste of competing on the big stage. The 2005 GI Florida Derby runner-up–unplaced in that term's Kentucky Derby and GI Preakness S. for Nick Zito–went on to sire Samraat, who began his career with five straight wins, including a trio of stakes victories.
Trained by Rick Violette, Samraat reported home a respectable fifth behind two-time Horse of the Year California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) in the first leg of the Triple Crown. He was a close second in last year's GII Suburban H. at Belmont.
“We were very fortunate, one of the first horses that we bought was Noble Causeway,” Riggio explained. “We kind of got spoiled right at the beginning.”
Riggio–one of 16 members of the New York Racing Association's Board of Directors–always had an interest in racing while growing up in Brooklyn, but it wasn't until 2001 that he began putting together his stable.
“It started quite by accident,” Riggio explained. “My wife and daughter love the show horse world and they would be buying a horse every year or so and I finally said to my wife, 'Hey, is it OK if I buy one to race?' It really started out as innocently as that.”
Riggio's wife Louise is on the board of directors at the Maker's Mark Secretariat Center, a reschooling facility and showcase for adoptable Thoroughbreds located in the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. His daughter Stephanie is a nationally ranked hunter jumper.
“Ultimately, we got the bug to have our own breeding operation when 'Noble' became a sire,” Riggio said. “We bought a bunch of mares for him and then we kind of got, I want to say, addicted.”
And addicted for all the right reasons.
“Being able to watch the horses being born, get on their legs for the first time, and seeing them go through the paces of growing into adults–all of that, I must say, is more thrilling than the race itself,” Riggio concluded. “With every one of them, you're just full of hope and you really get to love these magnificent creatures.”
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