Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Stewart's stable has six in on Pegasus program . . .
HALLANDALE BEACH - At this time last year, John Stewart’s Resolute Racing was in the early stages of becoming a work in progress. In the 12 months since, Resolute – though far from a finished product – has emerged as a major player in the worldwide Thoroughbred industry.
Resolute Racing was a couple of weeks away from its first career start prior to last year’s $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park. When the ninth edition of the World Cup is held Saturday, Stewart and partners will be represented by six runners on the program, three of them in graded stakes. A seventh, Brown Sugar, is entered in a race on Sunday.
Stewart, 55, grew up in the small Kentucky city of Jamestown, and rose from a line worker to executive positions in 18 years with Toyota. He changed careers, moving to private equity in 2007 and was the co-founder of MiddleGround Capital in 2018. MiddleGround is based in Lexington, Ky. and has $3.5 billion in assets under management.
After many years as a racing fan, Stewart bought one filly in 2022 – Shiloh’s Mistress, who is entered in Saturday’s $165,000 La Prevoyante (G3) presented by Stella Artois – but made a huge investment in the fall of 2023 when he spent over $25 million for bloodstock.
He bought 13 yearlings at Keeneland’s September Sale and continued that spree in November when he purchased two-time champion Goodnight Olive, who had just repeated in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1), for $6 million; Pizza Bianca, the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) winner in foal to Into Mischief for $3 million; and Puca, the dam of 2023 Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Mage and 2024 Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Dornoch, for $2.9 million. Among the many horses he bought last year was the 2023 South African Horse of the Year, Princess Calla, who has been retired to the broodmare band.
Resolute runners, young stock and already established horses Stewart acquired in sales and private purchases, began competing in 2024 and turned in strong results in high-end races. Equibase statistics show Resolute won 14 of 63 starts and earned just over $1.9 million in North America. Including partnerships, Stewart and Resolute earned another $1.1 in purse money in North America. Stewart also purchased an interest in Goliath after he won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1) at Royal Ascot, and the German-bred gelding won the Prix de Conseil de Paris (G2) at Longchamp and was sixth in the Japan Cup (G1).
“Our first year was tremendous,” Stewart said. “It was better than I ever anticipated that we would have.”
In North America in 2024, Resolute had 18 runners and another four in partnerships. Stewart bought into Didia after her victory in the $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf Invitational (G2) last winter, and she subsequently won the New York (G1) at Saratoga.
“We won three-and-a-half million [dollars], including partnerships,” Stewart said. “We won a Grade 1 and won two Grade 3s, a Group 2 in Europe, then multiple other stakes races; 12 first-place stakes wins.”
It’s fair to say that Stewart and Resolute caught people’s attention during its debut season on the track.
“I put a lot on the team in the first year,” he said. “I won't even tell anybody how much I actually invested in horses, in racing and in my farm, and building the farm out and all the work I've done on the farm. I bought the Shadwell farm in Midway, then I bought the farm next to it, with the idea of building a state-of-the art training center to target international turf racing with a complete replica of the Royal Ascot uphill straight so that we can train to go and win at that race this year.
“We've got 230 Thoroughbreds now. For every one I buy at auction, I buy four in private sales. I'm very active, especially buying fillies and turf. I do buy some dirt for trying to win the Classics, but 80 percent of my program is turf and I have just been really focused on it,” he added. “That part of it has gone better than anticipated.”
Stewart’s breeding and development operation is rolling. He said that he has 53 newly turned 2-year-olds, expects to have 31 foals arrive in the coming months and will have 60 mares bred.
The Resolute runners are handled by a number of very prominent trainers, a list that includes Hall of Famers Bill Mott and Mark Casse, multiple Eclipse Award winners Chad Brown, Ignacio Correas IV, Mike Maker, Kenny McPeek and Brad Cox.
In the $500,000 TAA Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational (G2) presented by SirDavis American Whiskey, Resolute will have two-time Grade 3 winner Pounce trained by Casse, and Dona Clota, a very successful Chilean-bred who will be saddled by Correas for her first start in the U.S. Stewart had hoped to watch Didia repeat in the Filly and Mare Turf, but an injury that he said could lead to her retirement will keep her out of the race. He completed his purchase of Dona Clota, a two-time Group 1 winner over males, to replace Didia. Dana’s Beauty and the Australian-bred Tutta La Vita are entered in the $100,000 South Beach overnight handicap and the French-bred gelding Evade co-owned with Qatar Racing, is headed to the $100,000 Carousel Club overnight handicap, both on the all-weather Tapeta course.
Since his entry into racing, Stewart has been aggressive with public and private acquisitions of international runners.
“I don't ever do anything halfway, so when I decided last year to start getting in in a bigger way, I kind of viewed myself as behind everybody, and I just needed to catch up,” he said. “I wanted to be competitive. We were in the top 15 of stakes-winning owners in 2024. I think, with the roster of horses that I have this year, I think we could be top five.”
Stewart has been very open about his intent of competing in the world’s premier races. Alone and with partners, he has already had entrants in the Kentucky Derby, the Breeders’ Cup, the Japan Cup and on the Arc de Triomphe program.
“I'm not interested in running horses in claiming races,” he said. “You’ve got to start them out in allowance races. But I tell all of my trainers I don't care if I paid $2 million or $5 million for a horse. If they don't think you can be competitive at the stakes level, I'm either retiring it and breeding it or moving it on. I'm not trying to recoup my money by just running in allowance races and things like that. I'm in this to be at the highest level. I want to compete all around the world. I want to take the top horses from America, and I want to go win in multiple categories at Ascot. And you’ve got to train for that.”
Earlier this month in his quest for international bloodstock, Stewart purchased a dozen yearlings at the Magic Millions sale in Australia. That group was led by a pair of top-priced fillies. He went to U.S. $1.128 million for a daughter of Written Tycoon and $1 million for a daughter of I Am Invincible. Stewart said he intends to race the fillies in Australia, breed them to Australian stallions and then import them to the U.S.
“We don't have enough Danzig in the bloodlines in America anymore,” he said. “War Front is probably the last of the great Danzig sons that's breeding here. Danehill was really more popular in Europe and in Australia. We bought a bunch of double Danzig-line horses. I think Danzig is very influential to stakes-winning horses. I want to bring those horses up here and help the genetics of the horse industry.”
Stewart recently purchased the Australian site, Pedigree 360.
“It's a site that I've been using for a while, and I liked it enough that I bought it and am investing in it,” he said, “to try to make a fulsome solution for horse owners and trainers, for planning races with horses and just trying to optimize using technology to take the sport to the next level.”
Stewart said fan engagement is a high priority for him. He is very active on social media, hosted fans at the Breeders’ Cup and will do it again at the Pegasus World Cup program and the Kentucky Derby.
“I'm bringing fans in to give them a VIP kind of experience,” he said. “Just trying to engage with people on horse racing, and try to take down some of the veil between the fans and the owners and the breeders, the jockeys, the trainers that some people just don't know how to access.”
Resolute Racing is the presenting sponsor of the Eclipse Awards dinner on Thursday at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla. During that annual event, Sue Finley, CEO and Publisher of the Thoroughbred Daily News will receive a Media Eclipse for producing the multi-media coverage of Stewart’s rescue of horses headed to slaughter.
“The thing I'm most proud of is the horses I've saved in aftercare,” he said. “The TDN, they won an Eclipse Award for the story they did about our saving of horses. I'm as proud of that as if I won an Eclipse Award.”
The horses that Stewart has rescued now live at his 1,000-acre Resolute Farm.
“On our farm, I run things little different,” he said. “Even though it's a breeding facility, every horse comes up, every day. Every horse gets groomed. Every mare. My mares don't have sweat stains on them.
“I’ve got $6 million Goodnight Olive and I want her to look like a $6 million horse. My mandate to my farm is, no matter if the horse cost $6 million or was a rescue, they all get the exact same treatment. They get the same medical treatment. They get the same food. They get the same care. We don't just take rescues and leave them in a field. They all have stalls. They come up for exactly the same treatment. That's what I'm most proud of, is just because you're really making a difference in those individual horses’ lives.
“I tell my team, ‘I can't save all of them,’” he added, “but they sure try.”
Though Stewart has made it clear that turf racing at the international level is the main priority for his operation, he does invest in some bloodstock with dirt pedigrees. He said he has a few Triple Crown series prospects for this year, but that they have to start earning their way to get to that level.
In 2024, he bought into Just a Touch after the colt broke his maiden. Just a Touch was second in the Gotham (G3) and the Blue Grass (G1), but ended up at the back at the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field. He did not compete again after finishing second in the listed Iowa Derby but is back in training with Cox.
“I know that people have different grades of accomplishment,” Stewart said. “Even just having a horse in the Kentucky Derby – the 150th Kentucky Derby – who I thought had a legitimate shot, got a bad trip, but had a legitimate shot, that was an accomplishment for me and my team. We were happy. Of course, we wanted him to run better, but that's horse racing. You can have the best horse. There are so many variables that go into it and that's what makes it so difficult.”
And Stewart said that watching horses succeed and reach greatness is especially gratifying when you are involved in the sport.