Partners Finding They Can Bond With the Bonds

Given the increasing popularity of racing partnerships, a new venture can struggle to find its niche and stand out in a crowded field of competitors.

It's certainly not easy, but sometimes a perfect storm of events can create a tremendous opportunity.

As an example, there's trainer James Bond and his wife, Tina, and their Bond Racing Stable. They faced overwhelming adversity last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet through some wise business decisions and the help of some highly beneficial television advertisements, those dark days ultimately led to the bright reward of prosperity for them and created a platoon of new racehorse owners for the sport.

"COVID-19 made us change our whole operation," James Bond said, "but the stars aligned perfectly for us."

The 63-year-old Bond has been training since the 1970s and over the years, while compiling 1,177 wins and earnings of $46.1 million, his 007 trademark has been affixed to the likes of $4.5 million earner Behrens , Travers Stakes (G1) and Whitney Handicap (G1) victor Will's Way , and grade 1 winners Devious Course , Val's Prince, Mongoose , Buddha , and Tizway .

In 1994, Bond moved his operation to Saratoga Race Course and become one of the first top New York Racing Association trainers to move away from Long Island and settle in the horseplayers heaven of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Over the years, the Bonds have become well-known and popular members of the community. In 1998, he bought space across the street from the racetrack on Gridley Avenue where he constructed 40 stalls for his horses, and his stable is usually at its best while racing at the Spa. A year ago, while competing at one of the sport's richest and most competitive meets, Bond registered 12 of his 23 victories in 2020.

"The world is watching when you race at Saratoga, so it encourages you to do well," he said. "It's very special to us. It's home. We have a lot of hometown friends rooting for us, and the good fresh air and water is great for people and horses," said Bond, a member of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders board of directors.

But over the course of those two decades, most of Bond's top owners either left the sport or passed away. In response, James and Tina tried to expand the stable on their own in 2005 by running horses under Tina's name.

In 2015, the Saratoga-based couple started Bond Racing Stable, which initially had a small group of local friends and neighbors come on board.

Then came 2020 and the horrific COVID-19 pandemic that forced a shifting of the Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearling Sale from Saratoga to Kentucky and left the Bonds in a tenuous spot with their 11 homebred yearlings.

"Without the Saratoga sale, we were left with the option of sending our yearlings to the Kentucky sales and we probably would have taken a financial beating, losing about 40 cents on the dollar in terms of prices," James Bond said. "Most likely those horses probably would not come back to New York State, either, and we would not receive our breeders' awards."

In response, the Bonds decided to keep the yearlings and eventually race them while creating an intriguing partnership structure. Their plan was to retain at least a 50% ownership stake in each horse and then offer five 10% shares of each horse with no management fees, constructing a small, well-knit ownership group.

The next step was publicizing what they were doing.

That fell in place after talking with NYRA's chief revenue officer and president of NYRA Bets Tony Allevato and people from NYRA's popular live racing shows on FOX Sports. A television ad for Bond Racing Stable was created and airtime purchased, and when it started running on the show last spring on a regular basis the family's phone began to ring off the hook—and they were not robocalls.

"It was scary last spring but we believed in ourselves and had an amazing group of yearlings," said Tina Bond, the managing partner of Bond Racing Stable who is also, as James describes it, the glue that holds everything together. "We reinvested in ourselves and did the ad with the FOX Sports show. At the time, everyone was home and watching on TV, and they wanted to be a part of something so we started getting a lot of calls. People liked our model because we have a lot of skin in the game. They like the trainer and his family being involved in the game financially and having less partners than other partnerships. They feel they are a bigger part of the experience and have more access to everything. It's a unique setup and people are enjoying the experience."

James Bond said the partnership now has about 70 members, most of whom are either new to ownership or had only a minor fling with it in the past. They own shares of approximately 40 horses that are trained by Bond with his two sons, Kevin and Ryan, serving as assistant trainers for the family operation.

That influx of new owners has built the Bond stable up to nearly 60 horses in training, with 40 at the family stable in Saratoga and about 17 at Belmont Park with Kevin Bond, who handles the downstate string. 

"The response from the television ads has been huge," James Bond said. "I think some people like us because we are small. Some didn't like other partnerships where they were one of 30 or 40 people who own the horse. They like being in the paddock with a small group and that we have a private barn (in Saratoga) so we can accommodate visits. We're bringing new people into the game, and it's great and a lot of fun."

Though the partnership involves New York-breds, Tina Bond has been amazed at the response from people all across the country to their offerings.

"It had been a word-of-mouth group before with local Saratoga people. Now we have people in Florida, California, Michigan, New Mexico, Tennessee, you can't believe it," she said. "They like that we have a lot invested in each horse. It's attractive to them. The numbers have exploded because we have a big inventory so we have a lot of choices for prospective partners."

Craig Allen has been a friend of the Bonds for about a decade and is one of the new faces the partnership has brought to the ownership rolls. He owns All Star Wine and Spirits in Latham, N.Y., where the Bonds, who often name their horses after a wine, are regular customers and a few years ago was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

Allen owned a small share of a racehorse 20 years ago and vowed that if he could return to good health, he would finally buy another horse. After he was pronounced cancer-free following radiation and chemotherapy in 2018, Allen reached out to Bond about purchasing a share of one of his horses.

What he was told confirmed all of the respect Allen has for Bond and his family.

"I told Jim I wanted in and he told me to come to the barn whenever I wanted, but that I should take a year before I get involved. He wanted me to make sure I wasn't doing it purely out of emotion," Allen said. "Jim and Tina wanted me to think about it and that shows why they are such great people. They didn't want to take advantage of me. It wasn't all about business to them."

A year later Bond acquiesced to Allen's offer and sold him a 10% share of Rinaldi , then a 3-year-old New York-bred son of Posse  out of the Dynaformer mare Dynamite Cocktail bred by Barry Ostrager. Rinaldi was originally bought by Bond for $5,000 from Pope McLean's consignment at the 2016 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Fall Mixed Sale.

After finishing third in his June 6, 2019, debut, Rinaldi reeled off two straight New York Stallion Stakes Series wins. The following year, Rinaldi captured the West Point Stakes at Saratoga for state-breds and this year the gelding has reached even loftier heights, winning the open Forbidden Apple Stakes (G3T) July 16 at the Spa for Bond's first graded stakes win since 2012 and pushing the 5-year-old's earnings to $429,990.

Inspired by his success with Rinaldi, last year Allen bought a 10% share of Giacosa , a New York-bred daughter of Tizway out of the Smart Strike mare Smart Engagement bred by Bond's Song Hill Thoroughbreds and Roderick Towle.

Giacosa was an allowance winner at Saratoga in 2020, and last Friday she gave Allen an unforgettable day at the Spa when she prevailed in an allowance optional claimer six races before Rinaldi's graded stakes win.

"Can you imagine someone like me winning two races like that on the same day at Saratoga? I'm just a guy who owns a liquor store. People are in this game for years and spend millions of dollars and they don't win a graded stakes and an allowance race on the same Saratoga card," Allen said. "I am having a great time, and I'm actually making money. It's such a great experience. You can really bond with the Bonds."

Since moving to Saratoga in 2005 the Bonds also bought Song Hill Thoroughbreds, which now covers 177 acres in the nearby town of Stillwater, N.Y., and is home to about 35 broodmares, 20 of them owned by the Bond family, and horses receiving a freshening.

The farm is also where you can find Bond's retired runners in a noteworthy show of the family's commitment to aftercare for Thoroughbreds. Once one of the partnership's horses is retired from racing, the Bonds assume full financial responsibility for it and either find it a new home or career or send it to live at Song Hill. 

"One positive the partners like is how we handle aftercare," James Bond said. "Aftercare is important to us. We want to do the right thing for our horses."

Reflective of that commitment to caring for horses during and after their racing careers, Tina Bond played a crucial role in last month's passing of a groundbreaking bill in New York outlawing the slaughter of racehorses and breeding stock. 

It all started in 2019, when Queens State Senator Joseph Addabbo Jr. visited Bond's barn and Tina spoke to him about the need for better aftercare and protection of retired Thoroughbreds. The conversation was an eye-opener for Addabbo and led to his sponsoring of the anti-slaughter bill.

"It was Tina who spoke directly to him about how we have to change things to protect these horses when their racing careers are over. Somehow she got through to him and that started the ball rolling," her husband said.

For Tina, a member of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association board of directors, aftercare is a vital part of the industry that cannot be ignored.

"We're all in with racing and our horses and it's brought us so much joy," she said. "Horses have taken us all around the world, and we want to leave it in a good place for our children so the sport is there in a good place for generations to come. That's how strongly we feel about it."

Given the family value among the Bonds it is not surprising that they have such a deep love and affection for their horses. Aside from Kevin and Ryan working as assistants for their dad, with Kevin at Belmont Park and Ryan caring for the Florida string in the winter when he's not in New York, Kevin's fiancé, Grace Bobo, handles video and social media for the partnership and also helps with administrative details while Ryan's wife, Emilie, also lends her support to a true family business that calls Saratoga home.

"Why we are as successful as we are is because we are a family operation," James Bond said. "I'm so proud of my sons. They are college educated and got their degrees and decided to make racing their career. They are good, hard-working boys. We have lively dinner conversations but being able to share this with my family and be with my family, I wouldn't trade this for a billion dollars."