Interview with principal Jack Wolf and daughter Elinor, who talk to Amanda Duckworth about their well-known partnership operation after two decades at the top end of the sport
When Jack and Laurie Wolf first got into horse racing, they were not expecting to stay in the sport long term. They had a set budget, and when that money was gone, so were they.
Then, one of the first horses they bought turned out to be a multi-millionaire, and now, more than 20 years later, they run one of the most well-established partnership groups in the game.
The Wolfs started Starlight Stables and competed on their own before making the decision two years later to turn their operation into a partnership group called Starlight Racing. Two decades down the road, the partnership maintains small numbers and focuses on a luxury experience over a high volume of owners.
“Laurie and I started buying horses in 2000, and we got fortunate enough to have a couple of good horses in the first couple of crops,” said Jack Wolf. “We’d had a hedge fund-type thing, and we decided we wanted to try something else, so we went and found a bloodstock agent and started buying yearlings.
“I told our bloodstock agent, ‘Here’s X amount of dollars, and once that’s gone, I think that we will be gone. We are out of the business.’
Off to the races
“He had enough sense to tell me that once we bought the first seven horses that if we were serious, we needed to pinhook one or two of them. We did pinhook one, and he brought a lot of money. In the first crop, we had a horse we pinhooked for $700,000 and Harlan’s Holiday, so we were literally off to the races.”
The Wolfs purchased Harlan’s Holiday as a yearling for $97,000 in July of 2000. He would go on to earn $3.6m during a racing career that included victories in a trio of G1s, the Florida Derby, Blue Grass Stakes and Donn Handicap. Additionally, he was the first Kentucky Derby starter for the Wolfs, and he also took them halfway around the world where he finished second in the Dubai World Cup.
“Everybody was telling me, ‘You better quit now, you will never get another horse like Harlan’s Holiday,’ but, knock on wood, we have,” said Jack. “He is still my favorite horse though. Look what he did racing and what he’s done as a stallion. Everybody forgets he is the sire of Into Mischief.”
In 2002, the Wolfs bought a yearling Saint Ballado filly for $170,000 for the newly formed partnership group Starlight Racing. Named Ashado, the dark bay runner earned $3.9m on the track, won two Eclipse Awards, and took numerous G1 contests, including both the Kentucky Oaks and the Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
When she retired in 2005, Ashado was offered for sale, fetching $9m from Godolphin. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid for a racing or broodmare prospect at auction. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.
Besides the tangible accolades she amassed during her racing career, Ashado also charmed the Wolfs’ young daughter. Now an adult, Elinor manages Thoroughbred Country in Ireland and also works in the family business as the marketing and partnership relations manager for Starlight.
Full circle
“I obviously grew up in the industry due to my parents, but Ashado was one of my first favorites,” said Elinor. “She was such a sweet, sweet filly. I will never forget that Angel Cordero put me on her back in the stall once. Being a little kid, that was so magical. When my parents sold her, I was, like, ‘how could you?’ Having her go to Godolphin ended up being full circle for me though.”
Having decided she wanted to work in the Thoroughbred industry, Elinor completed the Irish National Stud course in 2021 and graduated from the Godolphin Flying Start program in June.
During her time on the Flying Start, Elinor got to work with Ashado, as well as multiple G1 winner Octave, another major early runner for Starlight. In 2022, Ashado delivered her last foal and has since been pensioned.
“I was there for her final foaling last year,” Elinor said. “Thanks to the broodmare manager, Danny Mulvihill, I actually got to bring my dad down to go see her and her new foal, a colt from Bernardini’s last crop. It was a really emotional thing. I still actually have a picture from that day pinned on my Twitter.”
Through the decades, Starlight has continued to find the winner’s circle. As owners, over the course of 20 years, the group has been in-the-money 51% of the time and has a win average of 22%.
Beyond the statistics, it has been involved with racing’s major days in a big way. Since Ashado, they have campaigned more than 30 Graded stakes winners, including two-year-old champion Shanghai Bobby.
Starlight also partners with others in the industry, and it has owned a part of such horses as 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify and 2020 Horse of the Year Authentic. This year, Starlight was part of the ownership group of Preakness winner National Treasure, who also finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in a dramatic photo finish with Cody’s Wish.
Not surprisingly, winning the Kentucky Derby first with Justify and then Authentic, who is a grandson of Harlan’s Holiday, was meaningful to the Wolfs. Starlight has had entrants in 14 editions of America’s most famous race, but that has come with its own learning curve.
Learning process
“Obviously Harlan’s Holiday belonged, but then we ran a couple of horses who qualified, but they ran dead-last,” said Jack. “It was a learning process. We have since had horses who have qualified, and we decided not to run them because we didn’t think they could win. It is how my thought process has evolved. It’s fun for the experience, but it’s not fun when you get all excited and run last.”
Both Justify and Authentic were trained by Bob Baffert. Churchill Downs originally banned Baffert for two years following Medina Spirit’s medication positive in 2021, and the track announced this summer it had extended the ban into 2024.
“When Churchill wouldn’t let Baffert run horses in the Derby, the first year we switched trainers to run,” said Jack. “I think our attitude this year is that even if we have something good enough to qualify, we will just skip the Derby and skip switching trainers.”
The Wolfs have added two other separate partnership opportunities to their Starlight stable over the years. StarLadies Racing, which was formed in 2013, is a partnership group for women, and it only purchases fillies. The next expansion came in 2020 when Starlight Australia was launched; that group buys in with the Newgate Colt Syndicate, which is managed by Henry Field.
“Starlight I would say is a luxury partnership/ownership group,” said Elinor. “We keep small numbers. We are based in the United States, but we have the international capability for our partners to either travel or do racehorse ownership elsewhere. We just got started with Starlight Australia when Covid happened, but some of our partners have made it to Australia and really enjoyed it down there.”
Unlike some syndicates, the Starlight partnerships do not sell percentage shares of a single horse. Instead, every year they sell units for the full crop of yearlings. For Starlight Racing and StarLadies, new partnerships are formed each year from May to July; for Starlight Australia, the buy-in season opens from November-December and closes in January.
“I think our partnership is pretty unique as far as how it is formed,” said Jack. “It is structured as a general partnership. The way we do distinguish ourselves is we have a relatively small number of partners; this year we put together 14 units for Starlight Racing.
“We have our own money invested, and we don’t get any returns on our investment until the partners get their money back on a particular horse. The profit incentive for Jack and Laurie Wolf is to have enough luck, enough horses, and enough success to have stallion and broodmare prospects at the end of their careers.”
Industry involvement
Throughout their time in the horse racing industry, the Wolf family has also been heavily involved in giving back. In 2011, Jack helped orchestrate the launch of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA) and became its first president.
He is also a past board member of the Thoroughbred Charities of America (TCA) and Race For Education, while Laurie is also a past board member for the Race For Education and the Backside Learning Center (BLC).
“I can’t believe it has been almost 13 years since TAA launched,” said Jack. “I haven’t been actively involved for a while, but good for them for the work they continue to do. They wrote a check recently for $3.8m. To be a little critical, if I can be, I think at this stage that $3.8m amount would hopefully be larger than that.
“I think perhaps we need to have mandatory fees paid at the sales,” he added. “It’s voluntary now, and it’s relatively small. I wish we could have a situation where there are certain steps in the process from foaling a horse to buying a horse to racing a horse to retiring a horse or running a horse in a claiming race where there would be significant mandatory fees that have to be paid.”
In 2013, Jack received the Warner L. Jones Horseman of the Year Award in recognition of his numerous contributions to the sport, and in 2015 he accepted a special Eclipse Award on behalf of the TAA.
It should come as little surprise, then, that the quality retirement of Starlight runners is something the family is focused on, and Starlight was one of the founding donors for New Vocations' Mereworth Farm.
“For us at Starlight, the welfare and the aftercare of the horses is number one,” said Elinor. “We want our partners to have a great time and attend the Derby and attend Grade 1 races, but at the end of the day, the horse is what comes first and our partners are 100% behind that. We work really closely with New Vocations and the TAA to ensure that our horses who do retire to something other than a breeding career are rehomed.
“My dad is a Louisville native, and he was born on Kentucky Derby day. He was a Derby Day baby, and I am one of those people who believes in fate. It is only fitting that after he retired from the hedge fund business, he got involved in horse racing.”
• Visit the Starlight Racing website
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