NEW MARYLAND-BASED “NINETY NORTH RACING STABLE” SEEKS TO EXPAND THOROUGHBRED RACING AUDIENCE

Twenty-six year-old Justin Nicholson’s syndicate now offering affordable ownership opportunities and unparalleled access; Experienced team to race in Mid-Atlantic and along East Coast

BETHESDA, Md. (April 25, 2012) – Justin Nicholson is passionate about horses and thoroughbred racing; it’s pretty much all the 26-year-old Bethesda resident has known during his young life. And it’s this same unbridled enthusiasm Nicholson is intent on conveying to a new audience as he looks to grow the sport through the recent launch of his Maryland-based Ninety North Racing Stable (www.90northracing.com).

Nicholson – one of the nation’s youngest syndicate owners – has his boutique ownership group off and running with a quintet of horses ready to rumble in 2012. His goals with Ninety North:

• Provide owner experience to a larger audience

• Do it with integrity and work to build a product that shows how the sport can be sustainable

Integrity. Affordability. Opportunity.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of racing syndicates – organizations that offer shares of thoroughbreds and a slice of the action.

Nicholson’s approach to the syndicate business is to emphasize not just success on the track, but also integrity and transparency in all phases of the business.

In pursuit of this goal, Nicholson’s first move was to put trainer Jimmy Toner – a highly respected and experienced horseman – at the helm. A New York native, Nicholson and his family have campaigned horses with Toner for more than 20 years, and in this time Nicholson says that Toner “has shown himself to be both a trainer and a person of the highest quality.

“Jimmy has won many of the sport’s biggest races, including a Breeders’ Cup, and he’s done it all without compromising the care he takes for each horse,” said Nicholson. “In all the years we’ve worked together, and all the races we’ve run, I’m confident we have never put a horse on the track that was not physically prepared to run, and get back to the barn safely.”

The other main focus for Nicholson is to remove the two barriers to entry that typically prevent people from getting into the racing business: cost and awareness of the opportunity.

The cost barrier is addressed by nature of the syndicate model itself. With Ninety North, people can choose to purchase shares as low as 2.5 percent of the total value of the racehorse.

“My goal is to appeal to people with a wide range of options in terms of purchase price,” said Nicholson. “We have shares that will start under $1,000, but some will go up into the five-figure range for serious racehorses. So far, we’ve run exclusively in stakes, among them a Kentucky Derby prep race, a race in Dubai, and the Grade 2 Red Smith at Aqueduct, in which we placed second. We want our owners to experience the best this sport has to offer, and that means running in the best races as often as possible.”

The awareness barrier, though often overlooked, may be even more significant than cost.

“The reality is that many people don’t know that syndicates exist, and when presented with the idea they’re usually pretty excited about it,” Nicholson said.

Ninety North at Virginia Gold Cup and Preakness

To overcome this obstacle, Nicholson aims to launch an aggressive, event-based marketing program in 2012 that is to include a Ninety North information tent at the Virginia Gold Cup (May 5), a series of area introductory cocktail receptions (beginning May 12), a current-and-prospective-client Clubhouse Turn Sky Suite at the Preakness (May 19) and a series of lectures on ownership throughout the Mid-Atlantic and New York areas later in the year.

“My goal is to bring horse racing to the public’s doorstep, especially in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic,” he said. “I want to be able to bring a group of people into a room, look them in the eye, and tell them that racing is neither a sport only for the super-rich, nor a sport full of cheaters and wrongdoers. That message is best delivered personally rather than through platitudes on a website.”

Prime Locations. Race Day Experiences.

Nicholson has hit the ground running, purchasing a barn at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. – home to Kentucky Derby winners Barbaro (2006) and Animal Kingdom (2011) – that will serve as one of the homes for Ninety North’s roster of horses beginning in April. Other locations where Ninety North will maintain stables include Belmont Park, historic Saratoga (N.Y.) Racecourse, and Palm Meadows (Gulfstream) in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

“By establishing ourselves in these terrific locations, we are perfectly positioned to not only enter races at nearby tracks, we also are offering our owners unparalleled access to visit the horses and meet with our trainer and staff,” said Nicholson.

Clients can bring their families and friends to watch the horses train in the mornings, feed them carrots, and learn more about the sport and its animal athletes. On race days, clients enter the paddock before the race and meet with the other owners in attendance as well as the jockey and trainer before their horse enters the starting gate to compete. With luck, the whole group will reunite again in the winners’ circle to have their picture taken and leave the track with a memory that will last a lifetime.

For additional information, please visit: www.90northracing.com

Media Contact:   
Matt Amodeo
Publicity Matters
matt@publicitymatters.net
301-385-2090

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