BY SARAH WELK BAYNUM

The journey to Brad Kinsell and Kelly Mahoney’s racehorse ownership business began shortly after the 2022 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve (Grade 1).

It was at Churchill Downs that day when Mahoney experienced the thrill of Thoroughbred racing for the first time, as he watched 80-1 longshot Rich Strike pull off one of the most shocking upsets in Derby history.

Mahoney found himself completely hooked. The adrenaline, the roar of the crowd, the sheer unpredictability of the sport—it all ignited something in him. 

Moments later, he picked up the phone, called up his friend Kinsell and declared, “I want to win the Kentucky Derby!”

Despite being from the Ocala area, Kinsell blew off Mahoney’s idea for several months, since neither of them had experience with Thoroughbreds. But Mahoney kept at it, finally convincing Kinsell.

They set up a meeting with David O’Farrell at Ocala Stud, since Kinsell had known O’Farrell through their daughters’ volleyball teams.

 

O’Farrell made sure they aware of the risks in the Thoroughbred business, but when he saw they were serious, he told them to meet him at Keeneland for the November Breeding Stock Sale in 2022.

“We bought four broodmares at the Keeneland sale in November of 2022. We started to get excited about creating our own bloodlines and breeding program,” Kinsell said. 

As if by fate, the partners already had a farm for their new horses. 

“I’m an apartment developer by trade, but an old horse farm in Ocala came on my radar that was kind of an opportunistic purchase,” Mahoney said. “I was kind of looking at it as a real estate deal initially to resell. But then, once we went to the Kentucky Derby, I got kind of nostalgic about it. After Brad and I got with David, we decided to revive it as a real horse farm, now named Victoriam Farm.”

By 2023, Kinsell and Mahoney started getting the itch to have a horse that could race that season. Advertised as a broodmare prospect, Stone Silent, a Florida-bred daughter of Ocala Stud’s Adios Charlie, had recently come off the racetrack but was not pregnant yet. Kinsell and Mahoney’s advisors told them the filly probably still some run in her and that she had originally been pulled from the track due to a minor medical issue. 

“They convinced us to run Stone Silent at Gulfstream that December—only a month-and-a-half after we purchased her,” Mahoney said. “We were joking that we just didn’t want her to get last place and embarrass us. Sure enough, she ended up winning [the $125,000 Abundantia on Dec. 31, 2023]— we won the very first race we were ever in. She proceeded to win the next two races [the $115,000 Ladies Turf Sprint on Feb. 11, 2024) at Gulfstream and the $114,000 Captiva Island on March 10, 2024]. That basically got us hooked on horse racing.”

 

O’Farrell told Kinsell and Mahoney just how lucky they were to have such immediate success and not to get their hopes up for prosperity with every horse. The partners buckled down and really focused on the bloodline selection for their first crop of foals. Stone Silent retired from the track last November after finishing third in her last start in the Grade 2 Franklin at Keeneland on Oct. 13. She has since joined the partners’ broodmare band at Victoriam Farm. 

“The horses we bred are yearlings now and are running next year, so we’re super excited about that. We’ve got about six horses in training at Ocala Stud,” Mahoney said. 

However, they were still adamant about finding their next Stone Silent to race and attended the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.

“We decided to buy a filly named Just a Care (Ire), and her first race was Dec. 28. And sure enough, just like Stone Silent, she won [the $105,000 Abundantia],” Kinsell said. “We were pretty much in hysteria at that point, saying we don’t understand what’s going on, but we are super fortunate to have such a hot start. Our early success has certainly caused us to accelerate our breeding and horse purchasing program faster than we would have.”

However, this is only the beginning as they contend they’re in the racing industry for the long haul. 

“We don’t know how many horses that we’re going keep and how many we’re going sell or run in the future. But most of them, I think that we’re going to hold on to and race.

“Our long-term plan is to keep building a good breeding program and a business that’s sustainable so that we can enjoy the racing. We want super high-quality broodmares,” Mahoney said. “You can always buy a sire, but we believe building a solid broodmare program is what’s going to make us sustainable. We’re certainly not pinhookers or wanting to just try to get lucky quickly. We know it takes a longtime and we have very good advisors. And hopefully, it’s something our children and grandchildren will be involved in, too.” 

Kinsell and Mahoney have enjoyed Florida in particular for their racing business because of the climate and overwhelming support they’ve received in the community. 

“Our group of friends and work associates come down here in the winter when the weather’s nice and everybody gets to have a good time and really rally behind us at the races,” Kinsell said. “We were a little concerned getting into this business because we could lose money quickly since we didn’t know what we were doing. But we’ve got really amazing advisors here, and we’ve met a lot of really great people here in Florida and everyone’s been very inviting and informative.”

Return to the February 25 issue of Wire to Wire