William H. Lawrence

William Lawrence is CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Meridian Capital Partners. Lawrence, who grew up in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Latham and started attending the races at Saratoga at the age of 12, was introduced to frequent partner Seth Klarman of Klaravich Stables by a mutual friend.

Lawrence has run horses in his own name but has been downsizing his personal stable.

Most, but not all of the Klaravich-Lawrence runners are given names with a financial angle. Among the graded stakes winners they have campaigned are Flexibility, Pricedtoperfection, Takeover Target, Balance the Books, Sum of the Parts, and Currency Swap. Since Klarman is a baseball fan and a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, he and Lawrence have raced stakes winners Fenway Faithful and Yawkey Way.

The partnership won a pair of Grade 1 races in 2016 with Practical Joke, who ran third in the Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile. He finished second in both the Fountain of Youth Stakes and Toyota Blue Grass Stakes to qualify for the 2017 Kentucky Derby, where he finished fifth.

Practical Joke didn't run in the Preakness Stakes but the partnership's Cloud Computing did, and he rallied late to defeat Classic Empire and win the second jewel of the Triple Crown.