BY SARAH WELK BAYNUM

Katie Miranda and her family have been in the Thoroughbred business for generations. Today she runs the horseologyinc.com and HorseOlogy Encore programs. 

Miranda was introduced to the racehorse world at birth, although she didn’t become involved in the business at first. 

“I had almost no involvement in it other than my parents were involved in it. My dad was a jockey before I came along, and growing up, he managed a farm. My mom owned and he trained racehorses at a training center in Ocala, so I grew up spending the summers or the weekends there,” says Miranda. 

While Miranda’s sister rode the racehorses, she preferred to retrain Thoroughbreds after they were done on the track. 

“I really stayed on the show horse and hunter/jumper side of things. I saw the horses when they were done with their racing career, and then I retrained them to do something else. But I stayed pretty distant from the racing side of it for a long time,” Miranda said. 

After graduating from college, Miranda spent a year in Lexington working for veterinarians before moving back to Ocala around 2014.

“That’s when I started working with my dad a lot more, doing training and assistant type stuff as well as working with the babies. Then, I started galloping for him. I haven’t really looked back ever since,” Miranda said.

In 2019, Miranda decided to go out on her own before merging her business with Jena Antonucci, the first woman trainer to win a Triple Crown race, the Belmont Stakes.

“I started doing the two-year-old sales and consigning there with just a handful of horses that I had started. Shortly after, Jena and I started working together. We started out selling two-year-olds for her and her clients, and then we just kind of merged everything into what her and I have now which is HorseOlogy,” Miranda said.

Today, Miranda and Antonucci do a little bit of everything at the farm, from breeding and foaling, to starting, rehabs, layups, and retirement. They even formed a nonprofit, called HorseOlogy Encore, for rehoming and retirement after the track.

“I think it’s so important to set these horses up for a successful career not only as a racehorse, which obviously is the biggest goal, but also to ensure they have great foundation on them in case the racetrack doesn’t work out. It’s our responsibility, because we’re breeding these animals, and we need to make sure we take care of them in the end,” she said.

When the homebreds she produces are successful at the track, that has made any success all the more special for Miranda.

“Jena and I have a Florida homebred filly named Whatintheliteral who was very quirky. She’s now a stakes-placed horse, and she won the Astoria Stakes during Belmont week. That was so cool, and it’s always more special when it’s a homebred. You put all the hours into picking the breeding, and we foaled the mare at the farm here in Ocala. To put all that time and energy into it and to see it come to fruition of what you hoped it might be, I think that’s the really special part,” Miranda said. 

Currently, Miranda has around 25 yearlings. 

“Those horses will be going to the two-year-old sales next year, or to the track. On the racing side, Jena’s got a big group of two-year-olds at the track that did come from our farm. We’ve also got a Florida homebred for a client by Khozan, and his name is Joey Muscles. He’s been a lot of fun to watch. He raced really well down in Gulfstream—he stakes placed down there. Now, he’s up in the Northeast running [Saturday at Belmont, Atlantic Beach Stakes],” Miranda said.

It’s also been important to Miranda to support local Florida sires.

“We’ve got a couple Colonel Liam foals, and we’re really excited to see what they look like. The two we have here now are just fantastic for one of our clients! We want to keep that Florida sire power strong, and it’s exiting when a new freshman sire comes in. I think people just need to lean into that more, and support Florida Thoroughbreds in that manner,” Miranda said.

Return to the October 29 issue of Wire to Wire