Partnership Party

Charlie at the Meadowlands playing Tioga Downs

I got an email around 6PM tonight: " I bought a share for some friends as a Christmas gift, and bought a few for myself as well.  Now I can say I'm a thoroughbred and standardbred owner, and thoroughbred horseplayer."

The email was from a thoroughbred friend who was introduced to the harness races just this past August. The seller of the shares was Frank Antonacci (story on the partnership here), who on Facebook, Twitter and all those new-fangled mediums offered out an $11,000 trotting yearling, to 100 people at $500 a pop. Bills, stakes payments - the whole she-bang are included so the share owner does not have any further liability.

According to Frank, this was done to "get some new people involved who have never owned a harness horse".

From that point on, the infection of owning horses started - emails back from me, because Charlie would not know a Bettors Delight from Turkish Delight and I was stoked to fill him in on harness breeding - and from Charlie, who was stoked to own a harness horse.

It turns out this partnership is expanding, according to Charlie. Two more yearlings have been added, and in my opinion, they look like they have a shot. One is a Bettors Delight and another is an American Ideal. Both are first foals of dams by Artsplace and Life Sign respectively.

Like the partnership up here that Woodbine Mike Hamilton mentored, this one makes me smile. I could not wish Charlie and the other shareholders more sincere best wishes.

Note: Charlie wrote on the Horseplayers Association of North America site about his first trip to the harness races in August. "What's the difference between a trotter and a pacer" was a question he asked at that time. Now he owns a piece of one of each. To read Charlie's take on harness racing as a first timer, click here.