RACING KINSHIP – Paul Manganaro’s Belladonna Racing provides partners thrills, family environment.

RACING KINSHIP – Paul Manganaro’s Belladonna Racing provides partners thrills, family environment.

September 24, 2024 Jennifer Coleman Comments Off

By LENNY SHULMAN / Photos by ANNE M. EBERHARDT

FOR PAUL MANGANARO, the Thoroughbred industry has always been a family affair. His grandfather, father, and uncles gambled on racehorses and owned them around the New England leaky roof circuit, enthralling Paul at an early age. It was as natural to share family time at the track as it was diving into pasta together around the dinner table.

That is precisely the environment Manganaro has sought to replicate with his Belladonna Racing partnership, which he established in 2019. A couple dozen associates, friends, and friends of friends invest each year in a package of young horses and enjoy racing at the highest levels, plus the fringe benefits of behind-the-scenes visits to see their horses, concierge experiences at racetracks, and an insider’s look at horse sales.

But what they also receive is a sense of family that Manganaro tries to keep as close as possible to what he grew up with. And the affable 60-year-old Manganaro has succeeded, introducing the sport to new owners and investors in a way that delivers entertainment and excitement and the feeling of belonging to an organization that cares about keeping them informed and giving them access to the stable’s principals.

Listen to Belladonna partner Craig Taylor, an energy and utilities services executive based in Houston, as he describes watching stable star Vahva win the Derby City Distaff Stakes (G1) at Churchill Downs on 2024 Kentucky Derby Day. “I was carrying on to the point where people were videoing me, and that footage wound up on social media. Watching her come home that day was absolutely one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.”

That vibe is exactly what Manganaro felt 50 years ago when his relatives would take him to the racetrack Saturday mornings and he got to feed carrots to the horses in the barn and watch them in workouts.

“My grandfather was a plasterer; came over from Italy and started a business with my father and uncles,” said Manganaro. “When he reached his 60s, his sons convinced my grandfather to retire and enjoy life, but the only thing he liked doing was going to Suffolk Downs or Rockingham Park.

They started claiming horses, and then by the late ’70s they went to a horse sale in Ocala. “It was always a family affair, and by the time I was in high school I started chipping in and buying horses with them. Eventually, I fell in love with the breeding end of the business.”

Manganaro’s father, John, had the good fortune of meeting John Williams at the Keeneland July Yearling Sale in 1978. Williams, who earned his sterling reputation as a horseman in the Bluegrass while managing Spendthrift Farm, did some bloodstock work for clients on the side.

“Paul’s father and his uncle Frank followed me when I left Spendthrift and set up my own little farm,” recalled Williams. “I only had three clients, including them and Patrice and Louis Wolfson of Harbor View Farm (owners of the great Affirmed). Frank, John, and I owned a couple of mares together, and eventually that morphed into Paul and I.

We had pretty good success with $50,000 mares, and Paul is now one of my closest friends.” Agent George Blackwell advised the Manganaro family to purchase an Our Native yearling filly who would be named Stunning Native. She placed in multiple graded stakes events, earning $155,312. The Manganaros then bred stakes winners Giggletree and Native Stalwart out of her, and in 1987 at the Keeneland July yearling auction, they sold her Raja Baba colt for $560,000.

“That kicked off a family breeding operation for us,” noted Manganaro, who at that time was playing football at the University of Massachusetts with Ned Toffey, who would go on also to manage Spendthrift.

Those two decided to spend a summer in Lexington, where Paul took classes at the University of Kentucky and Toffey served an internship with Manganaro’s father.

“I was like a kid in a candy shop,” Toffey noted. “Paul was a huge help in terms of meeting top people in the industry, getting exposed to the big farms, and looking at stallions, mares, and foals. I’m not sure anyone got more out of an internship than I did that summer.”

Although Manganaro began working at the family subcontracting business following college, it took only a few years for him to realize that his passion and love lay with the horse business. He left the construction operation in the hands of his younger brother David and began buying broodmares and stallion shares with Williams’ counsel.

Manganaro Stables bought the Seattle Slew mare Leo’s Lucky Lady at the 1988 Keeneland July yearling sale and bred group stakes winner Gaudeamus out of her. Gaudeamus would go on to produce Golden Sixty, the Hong Kong Horse of the Year from 2021-23 who won 26 of his 31 races. Takesmybreathaway was bought as a broodmare prospect at the 2001 Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale (the ticket signed by Toffey because John Manganaro wanted to give him the experience of bidding on a horse). The Manganaros bred multiple graded stakes winner Frost Giant out of her.

Adoradancer was nabbed by JMJ Stables (shorthand for Paul’s dad John Manganaro Jr.) at the 1998 Keeneland November auction, and the Manganaros sent her to A.P. Indy and bred graded stakes winner Saint Anddan (whom they sold as a yearling for $1.85 million) from that mating. The family also cobred graded stakes winner Chimichurri, who would go on to be the second dam of Canadian Horse of the Year Wonder Gadot and grade 1 winner Hard Not to Love.

Buying stal lion shares has proved to be Paul Manganaro’s bread and butter, affording him the capital to fund his racing partnership. Again, Williams was the key cog in pointing the family toward investing in stallions.

“Paul’s father asked me what the safest part of this game is, and I told him, ‘Unquestionably, the stallions. Because by the time they prove they’re no good—and most do—you’ve got your bait back,’ ” said Williams. “They’ve done really well with stallions. Paul has a portfolio of them, and he’s good at it. He’s an impressive, big palooka.”

After years of being asked by friends to partner on horses, and years of putting them off because he realized the financial risks involved, Manganaro finally relented and began working on Belladonna.

“By 2019, my friends were emptynesters who had been successful in business and it was the right time to share the excitement and the competition of racing,” Manganaro said. “I had built up a relationship with David Ingordo through keeping mares at Lane’s End, and we met up at an OBS sale that year. I told him I wanted to buy a couple of 2-year-olds for myself, and then we sat down and developed a plan for getting my friends involved with me in a partnership.”

Belladonna Racing was thus hatched with a half-dozen 2-year-old filly purchases because fillies have more inherent residual value and 2-year olds are closer to getting to the races than yearlings.

“I didn’t know if it would last one year or 10 years,” recalled Manganaro, “but we’re currently in our seventh year and going strong.”

Partners got a taste of highend excitement right off jump street. Bayerness, a Bayern filly purchased for $350,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale in 2019, became a two-time stakes winner, taking the 2021 Shine Again at Saratoga and earning $433,823. She was sold by Belladonna in 2022 at Keeneland’s breeding stock sale for $300,000. Coastana, a Kitten’s Joy filly plucked from the 2019 Ocala Breeders’ Sales’ 2-Year-Olds & Horses of Racing Age Sale for $290,000, became multiple graded stakes-placed on turf, making back $248,513 at the track before selling at Keeneland November in 2022 for the same price for which she was purchased. Belladonna’s philosophy shifted once it got off the ground. Today, Belladonna mostly buys yearling colts and fillies, which offer a better choice and more value. The hits have kept rolling in.

The stable’s greatest triumph to date has come courtesy of Vahva, a Gun Runner filly brought into the fold for $280,000 from the 2021 Keeneland yearling auction. As a 3-year-old, she took the Raven Run Stakes (G2) and Charles Town Oaks (G3), and returned in 2024 to deliver Belladonna its first grade 1 score in the Derby City Distaff. She backed that up with a victory in the Chicago Stakes (G3). She has made $1,732,810 to date and is being pointed to the grade 1 Ballerina at Saratoga.

“I have always admired (legendary UCLA basketball coach) John Wooden, who developed his pyramid of success,” noted Manganaro. “So, I developed one for our racing program. We wanted to start off our foundation with a strong team of professional, knowledgeable people, and were fortunate to have David Ingordo as our managing member. We added Cherie DeVaux, who at the time was an unknown quantity. But I realized she was a serious talent, and she has since proven it and trains all our horses. “Our goal in 2019 was to win a maiden special weight and an allowance.

By 2021, we wanted to have a listed stakes winner, and by 2023 a graded stakes winner. In 2024, we wanted to win a grade 1. And we checked off all those boxes on time, which is a credit to the hard work of the Belladonna team and the support of our partners.”

Ingordo, who made his name purchasing superstars Zenyatta and Flightline for clients, is married to DeVaux, and they take a financial stake in each Belladonna package.

“Our plan was to take our strengths — buying and developing horses—and combine that with an up-and-coming trainer,” Ingordo said. “I always joke that it’s our job to find talented horses and people—not necessarily in that order— and then create a team approach.

“I learned a lot in California watching how Bobby Frankel, Bruce Headley, and Jerry Hollendorfer did it, and those guys owned part of the horses. There’s no money in the day rate, so we’ve been fortunate making the purse money and then selling the horses later on. We’ve been able to make it work on all levels.” Belladonna is set up so that each partner owns a piece of every horse, unless they choose to concentrate solely on fillies or colts. Today, the outfit typically buys between a dozen and 20 yearlings each season, many in the $300,000- $500,000 range, which, according to Manganaro, “gives us the ability to obtain the quality we need to compete at the highest level.” Approximately 20 partners are in on each horse, and Manganaro estimates that 80% of the current partners began with Belladonna at its inception.

“We think it’s important to keep the number of co-owners reasonable because we want to provide a five-starlevel concierge service,” Manganaro noted. “I enjoy it when they come to the races and especially the sales, where they can spend time with us as we identify prospects. Everybody knows everyone else’s name and they can get as much out of the experience as they want.

Joe Veasey and his wife, Pat, have been involved with Belladonna since its second year. They began in horse ownership a dozen years ago when, as a birthday present, Pat bought Joe a piece of a racehorse with West Point Thoroughbreds.

“David and Paul do more of a niche thing,” said Joe Veasey. “It’s closeknit, with a small group who show up at the races. The racetrack experience is a big part of it for us. We went out on the Keeneland turf course to get our picture taken with Vahva after the Raven Run.

Churchill Downs on Derby Day was magical. We watch the races in nice places like the Saratoga Room or the 1863 Club at Saratoga. You meet nice people. The big thing is it’s an enjoyable time. David, Paul, and Cherie devote a lot of time to the partners and let you know what the plan is.” Belladonna offers several perks to its partners, most of whom make sixfigure investments in the annual package of horses.

First, there are no mark-ups passed on to the clients. “We want to keep it fair and give people the opportunity—if we get lucky—to make money,” Manganaro noted. “No added fees, hidden fees, or mark-ups. It’s dollar-for-dollar as we go on the purchase price and expenses. “Also, we’ve learned from good accountants and lawyers to structure our program as a co-ownership. That allows people to be more active in the decision making, and it is easier to justify this as a business as opposed to a syndication. It’s the best way to write off expenses.” Also, when Belladonna horses are entered in races, they often carry multiple ownership names because some partners want to see their names in the program. Partners are kept abreast of the latest happenings with their horses via a website and social media work done by Julia Rice and Amy McLean.

Casey Klein, whose family has a rich history in horse ownership, serves as liaison between the partners and the training staff and helps with financial work. Importantly, Manganaro, Ingordo, and DeVaux keep themselves as accessible as possible to the partners who seek information.

Manganaro and DeVaux hold a monthly Zoom call with partners during which the trainer goes over each horse. “The experience is paramount,” Ingordo stated. “The partners are choosing to spend their money getting involved in this, and it needs to be fun. We want them to learn as much as they want, and we promise to give them as much of our time as we can to make it a good experience.

A number of our partners are first-time horse owners. It’s great when you can get them going with Saturday/ Sunday horses. They have been performing by giving us the budget we need to get those kind. It’s a true partnership.”

As the calendar turned to summer, Belladonna maintained a sizable presence in DeVaux’s barn, with nearly 20 2-year-olds, 14 3-year-olds, and eight older horses. “Belladonna really got my career going,” noted DeVaux. “From the first group of six fillies, we got five winners and two stakes runners. That helped get my name out there.

“With Vahva, I’m as excited for the clientele as I am for myself. Many of them are new to the sport, and to provide them the excitement of having a filly like her is really important.” Although the Belladonna partners enjoyed the thrill of experiencing a grade 1 victory at Churchill Downs, Manganaro was not among them.

“I am famous for not being there to watch our horses,” he said. “I enjoyed it on TV. I love knowing that the partners were going wild and having a great experience and the opportunity to stand in the winner’s circle. The fact we achieved a goal we set, and the people who supported our vision and believed in us were able to reap the rewards—that’s where I get my enjoyment. My only worry is we set the bar too high now. “My thrill comes from going to the sales and working the 12-hour days there scouting the athletes.”

Joining the next Belladonna partnership will be Manganaro’s cousin Nick, who is the grandson of Paul’s uncle Anthony. Anthony Manganaro had grown the family’s construction business and expanded it to Maryland, moving his branch of the clan there. “He used to tell us, ‘Only crazy people get into the horse game,’ ” remembered Paul. Anthony Manganaro wound up buying and developing a showplace farm near Paris, Ky., that he named Siena, which has become a successful breeding and ownership outfit. “When he did that, I told him, ‘Only crazy people buy farms,’ ” Paul said, laughing. “We shared ideas and have remained a tight family.” Anthony Manganaro died in 2023, making Nick’s involvement all the more special.

Family. The great recurring theme in the Manganaros’ involvement in the Thoroughbred industry. “The first horse my grandfather, father, and uncles claimed in 1973 was named Common Bond,” Manganaro said. “It’s such a meaningful name, because with them, and now with me and my kids and friends, the one common bond we have is the horse. Common Bond was a sign of things to come. And I still have his picture up on my office wall.”

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