Louisville's Bloch Party Ready for Kentucky Oaks

The excitement level of owning a starter in the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1) gets a little extra jolt if you are also a Louisville native. Just ask local Randy Bloch, who along with his wife, Kathy, and Brad Stephens' Six Column Stables will watch Champagne Anyone make her way to the starting gate May 3 at Churchill Downs.

"The fever is going," Bloch said. "I promised my friends, family, and partners that we'll stay calm, but you can ask Kathy, I probably slept about two hours."

Champagne Anyone, a 3-year-old daughter of Street Sense , is trained by Ian Wilkes. She's a morning-line 6-1 shot based on her half-length score in the March 30 Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2).

While the team of Wilkes, the Blochs, and Stephens is tight-knit, they're pretty loose around the barn.

Bloch, a partner and executive vice president of Horsemen's Track and Equipment in Louisville, has been down the Oaks path before, albeit 16 years ago.

He was part owner of My Boston Gal, who finished fifth behind Bird Town in 2003, with partners Phil Milner and Chester Porter. Bloch's trainer was Wilkes' former boss, Hall of Famer Carl Nafzger.

"It was an incredible experience," Bloch remembered. "We'd been in Thoroughbreds for a few years, and My Boston Gal was the first horse Carl bought for us."

Bloch's foray into the sport was a bit unconventional.

"A close friend and fraternity brother of mine from UK, Hume Wornall, who owns Beech Spring Farm in Paris, Ky., was stupid enough to go to New Orleans with me about 18 years ago," Bloch said. "Hume got sick at the airport, and we ended up staying in a really bad hotel in a very dangerous part of town. We heard ambulances and gunshots going off quite a bit that night. That should have been an omen to high-tail it back to Kentucky, but we stuck with it.

"We bought a horse that ended up being no good, but we turned the horse over to trainer Clint Goodrich. When he decided to retire, he handed us over to Carl."

The Blochs met Brad Stephens, a regular at Churchill Downs, at the 2006 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1). They later became close friends, then forged the Thoroughbred partnership that is bringing them to the sport's biggest weekend.

"Brad used to come to the track with some buddies, and they would just get general admission tickets. Our box is on the third floor near the finish line, and a couple of beers later, we just started talking," Bloch said. "The next year, Brad was there for the 2007 Derby (won by the Nafzger-trained Street Sense). One year he said he wanted to get into owning horses. I told him, 'Here's what we do. Here's some ideas.' It's all worked out, and we've become close friends."

The pair, along with some other partners, have been on a pretty good roll with graded stakes winners Island Town, Thatcher Street, and grade 2-placed Sweetgrass. Last year, they won the grade 3 Groupie Doll Stakes with Champagne Problems.

"Randy is a great manager," Nafzger said. "Randy wanted a program, and we worked with him and we've adjusted the program to fit Randy, and basically it follows Jim Tafel's program. He races, he breeds, he buys, he sells—he's everything racing needs at this particular time.

"He puts up with all the BS that goes on," Nafzger said. "He wants to build another business in the game. So many of the other people in it want to have fun, want to enjoy it and play in it, but it's not the same as someone who wants to work at it. He's everything that you want as an owner, except he ain't rich enough."

Stephens' Six Column Stables gets its name from the University of Missouri's iconic Academic Hall. Stephens and his wife, Rachel, are big supporters. Based in Dallas, Stephens previously worked for a hedge fund and is in the process of starting a new venture.

"I grew up in Central Illinois, and I used to deliver horse feed to the tracks in the summer in Springfield," Brad Stephens said. "At one point they had the fastest harness track in the world, and everybody would bring their horses to the Illinois State Fair to run over that hard Illinois summer clay and try to set a world record for breeding. I would go with my dad and thought one day if I ever have an extra buck or two, I'd buy a horse.

"I just did my inventory report the other day. I currently have (parts of) 44 horses," he said with a laugh.

The Stephens have breeding and racing stock on their own and also partner with Rusty Jones' Turf Stable and Bourbon Lane Stables. Their broodmares are with Chris Baccari's Seclusive Farm.

Champagne Anyone, who is out of the Ghostzapper  mare Lucevan, was bred in Kentucky by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings. Partner John Seiler signed the ticket for $70,000 out of the 2017 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

"Primarily, we're looking the first week of the sale," Bloch said. "We're not likely to get anything out of the first book, but you have to be prepared just in case. We're value-type buyers, but we also bought (grade 3 winner) Champagne Problems for $270,000 in 2015 (Seiler Racing signed). She ran in the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), and we sold her for a nice price in November (at The November Sale for $950,000).

"Carl has taught us that if you have success with fillies, sometimes they make good broodmares for you, but sometimes they're so valuable that somebody else needs to take that chance. Over the years, that has kept us in business."

As for Champagne Anyone, there was an issue with a knee at the auction.

"Ian looked at her and liked her, but said she had a knee he was a little worried about," Bloch said. "We had Dr. Jim Morehead go look and he X-rayed her, did an ultrasound, and he wasn't concerned about it. Carl came up the day of the sale and he said, 'If Doc's OK with it, I'm OK with it, because she walks right through it.'"

"When you see 2,400 horses at a sale, you look for reasons not to buy one, and she slipped through the cracks," Stephens said. "I give all credit to Ian and Carl."

Champagne Anyone was broken and prepped at the O'Farrells' Ocala Stud.

"David O'Farrell always tells us who is the top of the class. She was always No. 1 on his list last year. We had high expectations, but she got started a little late. Ian thought she might have been a Breeders' Cup horse last year."

A maiden winner in late August at Ellis Park, Champagne Anyone won an optional-claiming allowance race in mid-October, then was fourth in Churchill Downs' Golden Rod Stakes (G2) Thanksgiving weekend. She was third in both the Forward Gal Stakes (G3) and Davona Dale Stakes (G2) before her Gulfstream Park Oaks breakthrough.

Now the team has to stay on ice until 6:12 p.m. ET Friday, waiting to pop the cork and get the party started.