Al and Bill Ulwelling experienced the highs and lows of life in a span of just minutes: their 3-year-old colt Mansetti won the King's Plate, the first jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown, by 2 ½ lengths, and as the family headed to the winner’s circle, patriarch Bill suffered a cardiac issue, cutting short a celebration, his survival giving new meaning to the word victory.

Transition From Fan to Owner

The Ulwellings, who own A & B Welding & Construction Inc. in Elk Lake, Minn., started their journey to the King’s Plate 40 years ago on opening day at Canterbury Downs.

“My father just loved betting on the horses and then, when I was a little kid, obviously, he would take me to Canterbury. We were there opening day,” son Al remembered. “And ever since then, we would go back to Canterbury to bet on the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont [Stakes]. And then we ended up meeting a guy at the bar, a buddy of ours, who had a horse. And we, obviously, at that point, we had a little bit of money, and we wanted to just get our toes wet, so to speak. And we bought a horse at a bar.”

2025 King's Plate winner Mansetti. (Michael Burns Photos)

The pair bought into a horse with friend Bob Wizcek, a gelding named Diplomatic Storm, and though he never quite found the winner’s circle, father and son managed to enjoy their first foray into ownership.

“One time he ran, like, fourth place in Iowa [at Prairie Meadows] and I think we got six-hundred bucks, roughly,” Ulwelling shared. “Then we drank that six hundred at the bar. We were just so happy that he ran fourth.”

Wizcek eventually got out of racing, but the father-son duo stayed in, their company’s success giving them the means to continue to invest in racing.

Over the next two decades, they expanded not only their stable but also their bloodstock interests. The Ulwellings have about 30 horses in training, split between strings in both Canada and the United States, and a half-dozen broodmares at Winchester Equine in Kentucky. Each year, they breed their mares to Kentucky stallions and then send them to foal in Ontario in order to take advantage of the province’s benefit programs. The King’s Plate is one of those: the race is restricted to Canadian-bred -3-year-old Thoroughbreds, another incentive for the owners to continue sending their mares north.

“We don't breed to sell. We breed only to race,” Ulwelling shared. In addition, the pair, along with bloodstock agent Clay Scherer, will shop sales like the Ocala Breeders' Sales Co. Spring 2-year-olds in training sale and are active claiming horses. “We will claim. We do look at the PPs every single day but just haven't seen a lot lately that looks really good to us.”

Their Canadian string is entrusted to Kevin Attard, who broke Mark Casse’s string of 13 straight Sovereign Awards for outstanding trainer last year. Attard’s banner 2024 season included a win in the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf with Moira, who also gave the trainer his first King’s Plate in 2022, and a win by Caitlinhergrtness in the King’s Plate. The Ulwellings’ American string is split between Bill Morey at Turfway Park in Kentucky and Gary Scherer at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. They got their start at Canterbury Park near their Minnesota home, but the pair prefers to race at Woodbine.

Al Ulwelling meeting Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Edith Dumont. (Michael Burns Photos)

“The facilities are literally world-class,” Al Ulwelling said. “You have a large outer turf course, an inner turf course, and then you have the big track with Tapeta [all-weather surface], which allows them to race from middle of April until the end of December. And by that time, the horses are going to need a break anyways.

“We had a booth up at Canterbury, and we had one TV on at Woodbine all the time, betting on it. I kept seeing these facilities and seeing how massive it was. I caught on a few years before I contacted Kevin. We were winning a lot of races at the Midwest tracks. I kept seeing this name up there, Attard, Attard, Attard,” he remembered. “He didn't know me, and I didn't know him – but seeing that he was getting some claimers and he was winning with them, I thought, well, if we could just get a few horses up there, we can watch them and manage them and still visit and stuff.

“Long story short, I called Kevin after we ran a horse called Pumpkin Rumble up there. I said, ‘Hey, Kevin, my name is Al.’ And I think he thought that I wasn't serious or something because I didn't hear from him for a couple of weeks. Then he called me back and goes, ‘Oh, I guess you weren’t kidding.’ And that's how we started with Kev. After the first or second year up there, we knew that we wanted to run in the largest races up there because that's what we did at Canterbury.”

The partnership between Attard and the Ulwellings has been a fruitful one. Together, they have won two Prince of Wales Stakes, the middle jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown at Fort Erie, with Haddassah in 2021 and with Velocitor in 2023. The owners’ graded stakes wins have also come with Attard: Pumpkin Rumble took the Grade Valedictory Stakes in 2018 and 2019, and Shakopee Town won the Grade 3 Whimsical Stakes in 2019. Mansetti gave them another graded stakes win in June in the HPIbet Marine Stakes at Woodbine and his victory in the King’s Plate Aug. 16 is the team’s highest profile win to date — the memory of the highs and lows of that day linger as they look toward the Prince of Wales Sept. 9.

A Day to Remember

The Ulwellings had not immediately pegged Mansetti, a son of Collected out of the Sky Mesa mare Gidget Girl, as a King’s Plate contender. Bred by Jim Rome’s Jungle Racing and foaled in Ontario, he was part of Eddie Woods’ consignment at the 2024 OBS Spring 2-year-olds in training sale, where Clay Scherer spotted him and identified the colt as a candidate for the Ulwellings.

“We liked him. We liked his work. We liked everything about him,” the younger Ulwelling shared. “And Clay gave me a target price, and we got him for $40,000.”

Mansetti getting a bath at Woodbine. (Michael Burns Photos)

They gave their new acquisition a name that was near and dear to them: Mansetti. “Mansetti’s is a pizza place by our house. My wife and I have four kids, and to get her out of the house, if I could sense that she needed a little break, she and I would go to Mansetti’s for an hour,” he shared. “When you have a lot of horses, it gets hard to name them. So, we always try to name them after something we like. And we like Mansetti’s and their pizza, and that's how he ended up with the name.”

At 2, the colt won his six-furlong debut in late September and then took the Clarendon Stakes in his third start. To start his 3-year-old season, Attard shipped him to Aqueduct for Mansetti’s first try on the dirt.

“We thought he was a good horse, so we sent him out to the Jerome [Stakes], to Aqueduct. He was training really well and then when he ran [fifth] in the Jerome, we're thought, ‘This is a sprint horse.’ He won't be a Plate horse, so let's just put him away. Let's focus on Woodbine in the spring and then get him going,” Ulwelling recalled.

Returning to the Tapeta all-weather surface after his unplaced finish in the Jerome, Mansetti then won the listed Woodstock Stakes at six furlongs.

“I'm like, Kev, still think he's just a sprinter? Because he won pretty easy.”

Two starts later, Mansetti won the Marine Stakes by a length at 1 1/16 miles.

“After that race, I said, ‘Kev, let's just take a shot. We talked about the Plate Trial [Stakes], but then he wanted six weeks to just train right up to the [King’s] Plate. We wanted a fresh horse with as much air into him to go as far as he can because we knew he was tactically fast. He's already showing that. That's when Kevin started training him and liking him more and more. And obviously, he just peaked at the right time.”

The Ulwellings entered Mansetti and Faber, their gelding by Improbable, for the 1 ¼-mile King’s Plate.

“We felt like Faber had zero problem getting the distance, and he had had some really rough trips. So, we knew that a) he could get the distance, but b) he needed the right trip,” the owner shared. “And we felt like Mansetti, the mile and a quarter was going to be questionable.”

But Attard’s father, fellow trainer Tino, picked the Collected colt over his stablemate and told the Ulwellings that the morning of the Plate.

“I never even got a chance to ask him if he wagered on him,” Al laughed.

Jockey Pietro Moran celebrates King's Plate win on Mansetti. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Watching the race from the winner’s circle, Al Ulwelling and wife Gabriella “saw :23.47 [for the opening quarter-mile], and I'm thinking, ‘We're not even going to get a piece of this.’ I said, Faber is going to come because he can run all day. So, I started looking for Faber thinking Mansetti was possibly going to stop almost. Then I see the 1:12, and he was still kicking on, and [jockey] Pietro [Moran] really wasn't asking much. And I started yelling for Mansetti. He surprised us.

“He's a really fun horse to have. I think he's getting good. He's getting better every race.”

Right at the moment that the Ulwellings were hitting a classic high, life interceded. As Al and Gabriella headed toward the winner’s circle, they were looking for father Bill, who was nowhere to be found.

“I was trying to hold them up for my father. I thought maybe he was just talking to somebody. And then my wife got a call on her phone from our friend. And then I heard our last name over the EMS guys’ walkie-talkie. And I'm like, this can't be good.”

As he headed down the steps to Woodbine’s apron to join the festivities in the winner’s circle, the elder Ulwelling had a heart attack, his pacemaker jolting his heart enough to keep it beating as paramedics attended to him. They were able to stabilize him for a ride to a local hospital. Once they returned home to the Minneapolis area, “his hospital, his cardiologist, called him and said, ‘We need to see you right away. You're lucky to be alive. Your heart stopped beating five times.’

“My father has an electrical issue with his heart, and it's happened before,” Al explained. “When we won the Prince of Wales, that's when he had his major issue with his heart. That's when he got that [pacemaker] put in. Then we went to the [King’s] Plate, and it happened again. So no more live racing for him until they get a good fix on that.”

Mansetti and jockey Moran at Fort Erie. (Fort Erie Race Track/James Culic)

With their patriarch on the mend, the Ulwellings are counting down the days until Mansetti and Faber compete in the 1 3/16-mile Prince of Wales Stakes on Sept. 9. After an eventful King’s Plate, the younger Ulwelling is looking forward to a more predictable – if one can call a Canadian Triple Crown classic such – day at Fort Erie.

“It's going to be a fun day, I think. Both of our horses are healthy, and we get another chance to do it. I think Faber is going to run really good. Like Mansetti, he's my favorite horse right now, but I think Faber is doing well, so I'm excited for it.”

The American father-son tandem has found success at the highest level at our northern neighbor’s racetracks, and the family looks to continue that for years to come.

“We've gotten lucky up there, that's for sure,” Al Ulwelling said. “The good thing is, is we're going to keep the pedal down and try to win more of them.”

Ideally, with everyone happy and healthy and together in the winner’s circle.