Breaking News: Magers Has Bred Derby Contender

Ron Magers | twitter.com

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A good newsman is always looking for a good story, and Ron Magers has found one. It just happens to be his own.

Magers is best known for being the veteran news anchor for WLS-TV's 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. broadcasts in Chicago. His avocation is breeding horses, a field where he has combined skill and a big helping of luck to produce a number of top horses. The best, though, could be 'TDN Rising Star' Zulu (Bernardini), a colt Magers bred in partnership with Robert Marcocchio. The runner-up in the GII Fountain of Youth S. could give Magers his first crack at breeding a GI Kentucky Derby winner, a phenomenal achievement considering that the broodmare line that has been the cornerstone of his success all stems from a $16,000 claim he made in 1991.

Magers, 71, grew up in Yakima, Washington and got interested in racing when a small racetrack, Yakima Meadows, opened there while he was in high school. As his broadcasting career started to take root, he continued to follow the sport and frequented the tracks in whatever city he was working in. Magers broke into the Chicago market in 1981 with WMAQ-TV and that allowed him to focus his attention on racing at Arlington, Hawthorne and Sportsman's Park.

Magers had owned a few horses in partnerships with others, but wanted to branch out on his own when he discovered a filly named Lehmi Go (Lemhi Gold) running in a $16,000 claimer at Arlington. Winning a five-way shake, he claimed her, the first horse he ever owned on his own.

“I think anybody who has been in this game a while realizes that you do a ton of due diligence to put yourself in a spot where you hope to get lucky,” Magers said. “I don't think it's any more complicated than that.”

There's skill involved in the claiming game, but there's also a lot of luck. And few have been more fortunate with a claim than Magers did when he took Lemhi Go. She would retire in 1993 with $330,805 in earnings and wins in the GIII Arlington Matron H. and the GII La Prevoyante H. More importantly, she became the foundation of Magers' breeding operation and is the granddam of Zulu.

Magers intended to sell Lemhi Go after she was done racing.

“I didn't know the first thing about breeding,” he said.

Magers credits Bill Betz with talking him out of selling Lemhi Go. Betz bought a piece of the mare and promised, in return, he would teach his new partner about the breeding game.

Betz and Magers sold Lemhi Go's first goal, a filly by Gone West, for $650,000 at the 1996 Keeneland July sale. Magers kept her second foal, Temporada (Summer Squall), who would produce Zulu.

Temporada would make only $25,811 in her four-race career, but once again the whims of fortune would play a major part in the story of Magers and his mares. Temporada's second foal was a filly named Azvedo (Mr. Greeley) and Magers thought she could continue the broodmare line he was establishing and decided that Temporada was expendable. Magers sold her for a mere $26,000 at 2003 Keeneland Novermber.

It looked like a huge mistake after Azvedo died in a barn fire before producing a foal.

“When she died in that fire we were crushed,” Magers said.

Little did he know at the time that he and his new partner, Marcocchio, would essentially be able to have a do-over. Four years after she was sold by Magers, Temporada was back in the 2007 Keeneland November Sale and Magers and Marcocchio bought her back, in foal to Kafwain, for $19,000. The mating with Kafwain produced a $481,464 earner and her next foal, Banner Bill (Rockport Harbor), made $381,217.

With each success, Temporada became more valuable, which encouraged Magers and Marcocchio to go outside their normal price range and breed their mare to Bernardini. The result was Zulu.

Magers and Marcocchio sold Zulu for $400,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September sale, where he was bought by Northwest Stud. Northwest Stud put the colt in the 2015 Fasig-Tipton March Sale, where he was bought by the combination of Stonestreet & Coolmore's M.V. Magnier for $900,000.

“If you're in breeding business you're in it to sell your product as a yearling, at least we are,” Magers said. “We like to present them well, like to get what we can for them and then we root for anyone who buys them. Obviously, success on the track reflects on the pedigree, and that's the business we are in.”

Magers has already had more success as a breeder than he ever could have hoped for, but he knows that the best could be yet to come with Zulu.

“We've been fortunate enough to be living versions of the dream off and on for a long while,” he said. “We've had a lot of success along the way. I know people who have tried real hard in this business and have been in it a long time who never bred a graded stakes winner or even a horse who placed in a graded stakes. We've been able to have Illinois champions in our home state, we've been able to present high-priced horses for sale at Keeneland going back to the days of the old July Select sale. So every step of this has been part of a dream, but Zulu is obviously the most exciting part. We've been very lucky.”

 

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