Gasparelli Adds Pinhooking to his Racing Portfolio

Steve Gasparelli admits his passion is for racing, but the California native has ventured into the pinhooking realm this spring and, along with Scott Dowell, will offer a pair of juvenile fillies next Wednesday at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Selected 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. Through Tom McCrocklin's consignment, the partners have entered a filly by Into Mischief (hip 139) and a daughter of Broken Vow (hip 164).

“I'm pretty much new to it this year,” Gasparelli said of pinhooking. “I'm just kind of doing it to supplement my racing company. I've got about 25 horses in my Slugo Stable and this time of year–especially with the stuff going on at Santa Anita–there is not too much going on. So it's another way to supplement the racing budget.”

Gasparelli, who owns a medical disposable supplies company based in Chino, started his Slugo Stable just six years ago, but he has been a lifelong fan of the sport.

“My grandfather loved the track and brought me there when I was really young,” he said. “We'd go to Santa Anita, Del Mar and Los Alamitos and Hollywood Park. I always loved it and wanted to own horses, but I was always too busy. I started a company and did pretty well and I sold it to another public company. And then I had the funds to do it and I was semi-retired, so I had the time.”

Gasparelli teamed up with childhood friend Scott Dowell, who along with wife Julie, own Paymaster Racing, when the two realized their interests overlapped.

“I've been doing [racing] for six years and I think Scott's been doing it for about five,” Gasparelli said. “We just kind of hooked up about 2 1/2 or three years ago. We're from the same area and knew each other since we were young. We didn't even plan it, but he saw me and it was one of those things, 'How many horses do you have?' and 'How many do you have?' Our wives know each other and hang out, so we decided to claim a few together. Then we went to the sale last year together with Tom McCrocklin. And that was the plan going forward, that we'd have some horses for our own stable and some horses together.”

Each of the partners has a graded stakes win to their credit, with Slugo Racing winning last year's GIII Fasig-Tipton Waya S. with Estrechada (Arg) (Offlee Wild) and Paymaster Racing taking the 2017 GIII San Juan Capistrano S. with Inordinate (Harlan's Holiday). In partnership, they campaign first-out maiden winner Big Scott Daddy (Scat Daddy), who was recently fourth in the Pasadena S.

“I proposed [pinhooking] to the guys last year,” Gasparelli said. “When things get slow and it's the start of the year and we have a lot of 2-year-olds, we wanted to get just a little bit more diversified.”

Gasparelli, who purchased five yearlings last year, offered his first pinhooking prospect at auction earlier this month at the OBS March Sale where he RNA'd a filly by Mclean's Music for $95,000. The youngster had been an $85,000 Fasig-Tipton July yearling.

“I could have sold her, that was more than I bought her for, but I thought she was worth more than that, so I'm going to race her,” Gasparelli explained. “I bought two colts at Keeneland and one of them we're going to race for sure and the other we might pinhook.”

That same philosophy will apply to the two fillies the partners send through the sales ring at Gulfstream. The Into Mischief filly is out of Specification (Empire Maker), a half-sister to Grade I winner Skimming (Nureyev). She was purchased for $450,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The Broken Vow filly is out of Whirl (Curlin), a full-sister to graded stakes winner Pacific Wind and half to graded stakes winner Strike a Deal (Smart Strike). She was a $300,000 purchase at the September sale.

“These two fillies, who were kind of high-priced fillies, we are probably leaning more to pinhook if they bring good money,” Gasparelli said. “But if they don't we're definitely going to race them in California.”

Of the price tags on the two fillies, Gasparelli added, “We were at Keeneland a few days before the sale and we were going through and looking at all the horses. McCrocklin is our guy to go through and pick out horses that he thinks can, 1) and 1A), pinhook well and/or run well. And he's a really good judge of horses. We went into it eyes open. 'If we get this horse for a good bargain, we'll pinhook it. If it doesn't bring what we want, we'll race it.' Did we expect to spend that much money? Not really. But they looked like good pinhook prospects and they looked like good racing prospect as well. So they kind of had all the things we were looking for.”

Gasparelli admitted that, while pinhooking may help pay some bills, racing his stock is really where his heart lies.

“I want to race almost everything we get,” he said. “It breaks my heart [to sell]. I get attached to the horses pretty easily. Mike Puype trains all of my horses and he obviously doesn't want to pinhook anything, he wants to race everything. But financially, it's a way that, if you can get the home run, if you can pick a filly or a colt out as a yearling and they look like they have upside and it turns out you can get good money, you do it.”

Gasparelli's love of racing isn't limited to horses. He also drives and owns Top Alcohol Funny Cars on drag racing's National Hot Rod Association circuit.

“I own a race team,” Gasparelli confirmed. “My father did racing when I was a little kid and I started driving in 1997. I'm still doing that.”

Asked if he finds similarities between racing cars and horses, he said, “I think the whole thing is competition. I can't bet on my cars, but it's the competition that drives me to do it. I think horse racing is a little more expensive at the level I'm doing it, but the rewards are bigger, too–if you're successful. But it's not about the money anymore, it's more the competition.”

The under-tack show for the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale will be Monday, beginning at 9 a.m. The sale will be held Wednesday in the Gulfstream paddock, beginning at 2 p.m.