Taylor Kingsley was in the midst of a smoky drive home from Delaware Park, where the races had been canceled due to poor air quality caused by Canadian wildfires, when her phone rang.
“What are you up to on Monday?” her former boss, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott, asked.
“Not much,” Kingsley replied. “Probably just breezing some horses at Fair Hill [Training Center in Maryland].”
Stephanie and Kosta Hronis fell in love and were married in 2013. She had attended one race to that point. Kosta and his brother, Pete, had established their own racing stable in 2010, one that was on its way to national prominence.
Before sunrise, the backside at Albuquerque Downs belongs to the horses.
The shedrows begin to stir, the feed carts begin to rattle and the horses begin to get restless. Exercise riders gather and climb aboard Thoroughbreds bound for another morning of training.
Among them is Bryce Bourdieu.
The 23-year-old moves through the barn with the practiced confidence of someone who has spent his entire life around racehorses. He helps saddle horses, talks through the morning set list with trainer Andres Gonzalez, then swings aboard and heads toward the track.
Standing in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby. Walking the shedrow to visit your horse. Examining morning workouts alongside the trainer.
For decades, those moments were largely reserved for racing’s wealthiest participants.
Today, increasingly, they are not.
There was a time when owning a racehorse felt like a distant dream reserved for the well-connected or the deeply embedded insiders of the sport. Today, that perception is shifting and not just because access has widened. It’s because the very meaning of ownership is evolving.
