(Photo: Partner Keith P. Luke captures Sixby Hanover (#5) in the stretch drive of his win at First Tracks Cumberland on May 5, 2023.)
Our partnership purchased Sixby Hanover in a private sale in April 2022 for $8,500, and Sixby just competed in his sixty-fifth race with our partnership yesterday afternoon at the Topsham Fair.
Sixby was a 4-year-old gelding pacer in Ohio when we purchased him, and he's a son of the record-setting pacer Pet Rock and the dam Singnoevil Hanover.
Each of our partnership's 20 co-owners initially paid $600 for a 5% ownership stake in Sixby, and that buy-in included the sales price and helped fund a $3,500 reserve fund that (hopefully) complements Sixby's purse winnings each month to cover the costs of Sixby's training and care. Since Sixby arrived in Maine about 27 months ago, each of us 20 partners have paid an additional $367.50 to fill in a couple gaps in Sixby's reserve fund.
When we purchased Sixby in April 2022, it was the culmination of a months-long process that included stalking the online auction site OnGait and watching replay after replay (after replay). Our trainer Mike Graffam--a third-generation race horse trainer based in Falmouth, Maine--not only frequently refreshed OnGait and race replays like we did, but he also called trainers and drivers to learn more about potential prospects who fit our budget and would (hopefully) fit the Maine harness racing circuit.
Since Sixby made his debut with our partnership at First Tracks Cumberland on May 7, 2022, he's raced 65 times at six different Maine tracks. We've joined Sixby in the Winners' Circle nine times at three different tracks in Maine, and he's at least earned a purse check (i.e., a Top 5 finish) in about 70% of his races.
Sixby is a quirky, little pacer who's aloof--but never unpleasant--off the track. He's missed only a few race weeks between April-December due to health over the last couple years, so we've generally able to benefit from the weekly rhythm of race day anticipation and enjoyment during Maine's 8-month season.
We have a large enough sample size to have a pretty good idea when Sixby will likely be an above-average pacer in Maine's average class of competition, compared to a below-average pacer in Maine's above-average class of competition.
Our partnership is built on the idea of building a high-performing stable from the ground up. As a reliable pacer on the Maine circuit, Sixby is our foundational pacer who's given us enough thrills, enough disappointments, and enough curveballs to provide the many lessons required to navigate a really tough sport.
One unexpected development was in July 2022, when our veterinarian diagnosed Sixby with anhidrosis after our trainer Mike Graffam noticed Sixby hadn't sweat much during a recent race. There hasn't been much of a concern about the condition since it was first diagnosed and treated, but our trainer often mixes Guinness with Sixby's grain during the summer as a precautionary treatment.
Being an owner of a race horse builds thick skin, because most pacers' performances and results produce more bouts of disappointment than they inspire bursts of celebration. That's just the statistical reality of a sport that emphasizes competition and seeks parity.
But we've learned over the last couple years when we should temper our expectations on certain race days, and when we should be more optimistic on other race days. Regardless of how we tune our expectations, though, any trip to the track that doesn't result in a trip to the Winners' Circle (and a celebratory Guinness) still yields the sting of defeat.
The thrills, of course, are Sixby's nine wins--especially these five wins:
Our partnership's first-ever win, which was Sixby's third race after joining our partnership in Maine. Don't sleep on driver Nick Graffam's acknowledgement of our partners in the last paces of the race.
"You can't catch catch the rabbit, it's Sixby Hanover. Pillar to post!"
It's one thing for your pacer to win a race, but it's another for your pacer to win a race with a memorable race call--even it's just the twenty of us partners who remember the call.
This race had a number of firsts associated with it as well: Our first dominant win, our first win outside of the friendly confines of First Tracks Cumberland, our first win with driver Aaron Hall, and the first time we needed to wait about a week before we could (finally) share a digital version of the race replay.
Sixby's most recent win, a dominant performance that almost had him pacing off the screen.
April 21, 2023
Probably no race encapsulates our partnership more than Sixby's win on April 21, 2023, when he completed a close-from-the-clouds, first-to-last drive at 49-1 odds:
Our partnership is aspirational. We want to always remain involved in Maine harness racing, but we also want to compete at the highest levels of our sport.
Fortunately, horse racing is one of the only open sports in the United States, and being a multimillionaire or a billionaire isn't a necessary prerequisite for opportunity like it is in our country's closed sports.
And no image captures both where we are and where we want to go than this image:
A sulky, driver, and a trotter figurine from a now-closed track in Gorham, Maine is in the foreground; a print of Bob Coglianese's iconic photo of Secretariat racing in the 1973 Belmont Stakes is in the background; and framed Win tickets are perched between those two artifacts.
Two of the Win tickets are for Sixby's races in Cumberland on May 7, 2022 and on June 11, 2022. The other two Win tickets are from the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes run on the same two dates. More specifically they are Win tickets for Mo Donegal, who finished fifth in that year's Kentucky Derby and of course won that year's Belmont Stakes.
One of our partners Keith Luke was a co-owner of Mo Donegal with the horse racing partnership Donegal Racing, the partnership whose generosity has influenced our own partnership more than any other. Past, present, future, Maine, America, modest levels of competition, towering levels of competition, and the romantically realistic degrees of separation connecting those various threads--they're all there in that image.
In the meantime, we can't understate the importance of Sixby Hanover serving as our partnership's proof of concept.
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