Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Elect Manfredi President

A Thoroughbred breeder and owner at her Ascoli Piceno Farm near Kennett Square, Pa., for the past 20 years and a member of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association board since 2016, Deanna Manfredi has been elected president of the PHBA, the association announced May 21.

Most recently secretary of the association, Manfredi succeeds Gregory Newell, who served as PHBA president since 2019. She is the first woman to serve as president of the PHBA.

"I haven't been a very political person, which is why this has been a long time coming," Manfredi said. "I don't have a political bone in my body. Unfortunately we find ourselves now where our whole future, our whole program, the sport essentially, has become a political issue.

"I've been joining (executive secretary) Brian Sanfratello and Greg Newell—it's been wonderful to shadow them—as we've been running to Harrisburg and meeting with senators. We're trying to get their ear for a few minutes and educate them about the importance of what we're doing," she continued. "It's really high stakes right now. We have these great stories to tell. Land preservation … all the jobs … the secondary jobs. It's a compelling story but there's so much noise (in Harrisburg)—is it going to be heard?"

Manfredi, 57, has been self-employed for 20 years as an independent contractor working in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, and has cut back to devote her attention to her new role with the PHBA.

Growing up on her parents' breeding farm, Manfredi knew she wanted to breed horses of her own. She became a celebrity when she signed up for the horse racing reality show, American Dream Derby, on the Game Show Network in 2004, and won. The California-based show offered prize money and eight Thoroughbreds, which she chose to take and had them shipped to Pennsylvania. One of the runners, Sharp as a Fox, became one of her first broodmares, and a stakes producer.

Manfredi bred and campaigned the filly Je Suis Enchantee , a multiple stakes-placed runner on dirt and turf of $104,065, who was a close second in the 2014 Penn Oaks Stakes.

"She lost the Penn Oaks by a neck," Manfredi recalls. "That was her stakes and she was 4 pounds over (the winner). So I say it's like she won."

As a broodmare, Je Suis Enchantee produced Manfredi's first stakes winner, Crisper  (Tapiture  ), who won back-to-back Pennsylvania stakes last year, including the black-type Alphabet Soup Handicap on the grass at Parx Racing.

Something high on the list of her priorities is horse stewardship. She prefers to pension her own horses and keeps her farm numbers manageable, "because losing control of something you've bred and raised is not fun," she relates. "So that's kind of where I am now, keeping the numbers real tight so I can keep an eye on them."