Growing up watching Standardbred racing with his father, 'action junkie' George Sharp has been captivated by horses most of his life. After moving to California in the late 90s, Sharp attended races at Los Alamitos Race Course and eventually claimed his first Standardbred. Sharp had around 14 horses when Standardbred racing popularity in Southern California waned and he decided to focus on growing his career.
Now, Sharp is the president and CEO of Forwardly, a company that specializes in investments, medical devices, energy, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. In 2015, he discovered his love for Thoroughbred racing and never looked back. Sharp has nearly quadrupled the size of his stable in the past year and has no plans of slowing down. With almost 60 horses spread across multiple trainers and race circuits, he is set on making his mark on a national scale within the industry.
Sharp spoke with BloodHorse MarketWatch to discuss his passion for the sport and plans for buying, selling, and racing this year, as well as what the future holds for him and his expanding stable.
MarketWatch: Tell us about your interest in the industry—how did you get involved with Thoroughbreds?
George Sharp: My father owned cheap Standardbreds in Northern Ontario when I was a young boy. I used to go to the track to watch them race, and I always enjoyed that. My dad took me on a semi-regular basis to the races with him. When I got older, I'd go to the races on occasion by myself. In those days I preferred Standardbreds. I moved to California and they had Standardbred racing in Orange County and I'd go to the races there. Los Alamitos had racing and I enjoyed going there as well. One day, I bought a horse privately which then allowed me to claim other horses. I had as many as 14 Standardbreds in the late '90s and early 2000s.
Standardbred racing disappeared from Southern California so I took a hiatus from owning horses. In 2015, I bought my first Thoroughbred to race at Del Mar. I had a number of Thoroughbreds... three or four at a time. It was not as time-consuming as it is now for me. A year and a half ago, I started focusing more on building my stable. I bought a few in California, and I bought my first high-priced Thoroughbred at the Fasig-Tipton Sale last February when I purchased Hello Hot Rod for $335,000. I went to my first Keeneland meet and got really hooked and claimed a pile of horses. I got so enamored with Kentucky that I actually bought a condo there just for the race season so I didn't have to stay in hotels.
Once I started accumulating more horses, I began racing on the Oklahoma/Texas circuit with Shawn Davis as my trainer. I sent a few to California as well to trainer Tim Yakteen. Last summer I bought my highest-priced horse ever, Front Run the Fed, and began racing at Saratoga. I paid $440,000 for him with the idea that I was going to the Breeders' Cup with him. Unfortunately, the horse just missed out on the qualifiers and needed some time off for some minor injuries. I always give a horse time off when necessary. He's been in Florida but he's almost ready to go back into training in Kentucky with Caio Caramori. We'd like to have him ready for Saratoga again.
MW: Some of your top horses thus far include Popular Kid, Golden Curl, and League of Shadows. What are your plans for them this year?
GS: Popular Kid is pointed to the March 19 Essex Handicap and then to the Oaklawn Handicap (G2), assuming everything stays on course... He's a gelding so he'll race and he'll tell me when it's time to retire. He will retire in my name and never have a claiming tag on him again. He loves to run and win races and I'll let him do it for as long as he can, and eventually he'll be a pasture puff somewhere.
Golden Curl is expected to run in the March 12 Azeri Stakes (G2). I am getting a lot of inquiries as to whether I would be interested in selling her as a broodmare. They wanted me to send her to the breeding shed this spring, but I decided to race her one more year because it's hard to get a mare as good as she is. I claimed her for $40,000 last spring and I've already turned down a quarter of a million. If I can get a couple more graded stakes wins out of her, she's liable to bring much more money. She'll likely be sold at the Night of the Stars sale (The November Sale) in the fall at Fasig-Tipton.
League of Shadows is my pet. I've had him since he was a yearling. He's gone through health issues and I'm probably the only one who would've done what was necessary to keep him racing. I probably saved his life. I race him when I can. He's got a lot of will, a lot of ability, but he's fragile and tough at the same time. He's had issues but he always comes back from them. I love this horse because he's such a tough horse. I've been through hell and back with him and when he won an allowance at Del Mar, I wept. He's probably in the last year of his career. I'll run him in the occasional allowance race until it's time to retire him. When we trained him as a 2-year-old we thought we had the steal of a century. Then he developed two abscesses in the same foot, which were as bad as the vets in California had ever seen. He also coliced at the same time and they suggested that it might be time to put him down because it was going to cost a lot of money and he was unlikely to survive. But I didn't care because I care for the animals.
I've always been about the health of the animals. If a vet tells me to turn out a horse for two months I'll likely turn them out for four or six.
MW: What determines where you sell and race your horses?
GS: It depends on where they're training. The babies (2-year-olds) are mostly in Ocala, Fla. right now. A couple will be in the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale at the end of March and some will be in the Ocala Breeders' Sale in April.
In the fall I started accumulating yearlings, I got to 23. So I have 23 2-year-olds now. I've probably got around 60 horses (in total).
The idea I had was to be able to sell enough of the 2-year-olds so I can pay for the ones that I keep. Whether that works out or not remains to be seen.
I'm also racing a few in Florida right now. Those will move to Kentucky when Keeneland opens. I do quite a bit of racing in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as at Oaklawn Park and in Southern California. Whatever doesn't work out in Southern California or Kentucky moves to the Texas circuit, and I've had a lot of success doing that.
I manage my own stable; I keep a full spreadsheet recording everything. I probably spend about two hours a day managing my stable.
MW: Are you interested in pinhooking and breeding or more focused on racing?
GS: Pinhooking is not really something I want to do... I'm going to sell a couple of 2-year-olds this year in hopes of paying for the others that I purchased in the fall, but it's not something I'm going to do on an everyday basis like a professional pinhooker would do. We'll see if my plan works out.
I also have three broodmares. In fact, I became a father again two days ago: League of Shadows has a new brother by City Wolf . I own the mare, Siberian Song. I have another broodmare that gave birth to her first foal last year and she just recently got bred again to Mr. Big. My third broodmare was a racehorse that I retired named Sunriser. She's a big, beautiful, well-bred thing and she got bred to Bolt d'Oro this week. But again, breeding is just an offshoot for me like pinhooking is; it is not my purpose in the business. My main purpose in the business is to win races.
MW: Along with Shawn Davis, how many trainers do you currently use?
GS: Right now I've got four trainers. I'll probably expand to six or seven in a couple of years. Currently, I use Shawn Davis, Caio Caramori, Tim Yakteen, and Jim W. Glenn Jr.
MW: Tell us about what you do outside of the industry.
GS: I began a number of years ago as an advocate for shareholders in microcap companies, also known as penny stocks, because there was a lot of fraud ongoing in these kinds of companies. I started out exposing bad actors in the stock market to the point and became well enough known to the point where the stock market hired me as a consultant to help them shore up their compliance requirements. That gave me the cache I needed to consult for public companies who wanted to stay onside of the regulations. I also began shepherding mergers and acquisitions. Forwardly was given to me to get back on track as it was an accounting and regulatory mess. I spent a lot of my own capital to bring it into compliance. We're heavily involved in the energy, medical devices, cryptocurrency, and blockchain industries. Forwardly is well diversified and hopefully shareholders will benefit from advancements in those technologies. Right now I'm a huge advocate of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, a reversal from my opinions of two years ago.
MW: What has been your favorite part about being in racing?
GS: The action, the excitement. The feeling you get when you get your picture taken in the winner's circle. It doesn't matter if it's a stakes race or a claiming race. Tim Yakteen calls me an action junkie. I've had the opportunity to meet some amazing people, and make lifelong friends in this business.
MW: What does the future look like for you?
GS: I'm hoping to retire from my corporate businesses in about two years and then reach a stable of as many as 100 horses. An owner's stable is always in flux. Owners lose horses, sell horses, and retire horses, or they get claimed away. Conversely, they accumulate horses through breeding, buying, and claiming. My stable is rarely static. My problem is that I fall in love with my animals. I know you have to say goodbye to them occasionally and look at them as a business rather than owning a bunch of pets. I also love dogs, which is why I don't foster them. I'd end up owning 85 dogs. I fall in love too easily.
