Wide Open: Wasabi joins region’s stallion game as 2020 breeding season approaches

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From January 2020 Issue

Written by Joe Clancy

Venture capitalist, Loyola University professor and racing fan TK Kuegler dove into the Thoroughbred industry with the creation of Wasabi Ventures Stables in 2017. Less than three years later, more than 400 people call them-selves members and own anywhere from 0.5 to 4.99 percent of at least one racehorse.

With the growing roster of customers, and horses, Wasabi’s racehorse business is off and running at the track, at the sales and on the farm with an expanding group of broodmares.

So what’s next?

A stallion. Kuegler and Wasabi will be a complete Thoroughbred entity in 2020, involved in virtually every aspect of the industry with the purchase of Force the Pass for stud duty.

Big Time: Lojeski, Servis win MD Million Classic with Pennsylvania-bred Forest Fire

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From December 2019 Issue

Written by Joe Clancy

Shirley Lojeski called her Pennsylvania farm between Philadelphia and Allentown “a small operation,” which makes sense in October. When she’s in the midst of foaling season, helping 25 or so mares deliver, the place feels anything but small.

“Foaling season is a long time and, no, it doesn’t feel small then,” she said. “I’m the night watchman and the day watchman too.”

The work pays off sometimes, especially with a horse like Forest Fire. Foaled at Lojeski Farms in Emmaus, the 4-year-old son of Friesan Fire won a race-long battle with Prendimi to take the $150,000 Maryland Million Classic at Laurel Park Oct. 19. The feature race on the 34th edition of Jim McKay Maryland Million Day, the Classic attracted a big field of 11 but was a two-horse race late.

Hotshot

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From September 2019 Issue

Written by Cindy Deubler

Maximum Security wins Haskell in delayed scorcher

It’s a bizarre world for this year’s 3-year-old crop. The adventures continued for the 52nd running of the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.
Kicking off the second half of the season with a division still seeking a leader – after the first six months saw disqualifications, loose horses, and champions and classic winners falling by the wayside – the Haskell drew a solid field of seven, led by the most talked-about 3-year-old of the year, Maximum Security.
The Haskell had been moved up one week and a day from its traditional Sunday to accommodate NBC television coverage – as luck would have it, the new date, July 20, was a day of near triple-digit heat and high humidity that shut down every daytime track in the northeast, save one.

True Grit

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From October 2019 Issue

Written by Vinnie Perrone

Hardships endured, the Merrymans
hold fast at Anchor and Hope Farm

Watermen knew the perils. Even then, the 1600s, rocky shoals downriver on the Susquehanna left no safe passage to the Chesapeake Bay. The goods they ported, the whiskey, lumber, coal, could be discharged at Creswell’s Ferry, wagoned along bumpy roads and born again to barges on the deep.
Ceding valued freight to offhand agents trundling unsure pathways, sailors thus described the trading gamble: anchor and hope. On a granite bluff above the river, the Creswells built an estate in 1682 and named the stretching acreage Anchor and Hope Farm.