New York native Victor Bahna grew up in the shadow of Belmont Park and was first exposed to horse racing during high school, but his career as a tech executive brought him to Seattle. Bahna continued to pay attention to the industry but more as a passive observer rather than as a bettor in the gap between the closing of Longacres and the opening of Emerald Downs.
The desire to get involved became an itch that had to be scratched. Bahna attended an owners seminar at Emerald Downs in 2005. He reached out to one of the presenting trainers—Tim McCanna, the track's top conditioner in 2000, 2004, and 2010. McCanna agreed to help Bahna find a claimer and became the horse's trainer.
Now racing under the Royal Victory Thoroughbreds banner, Bahna and his partners are elevating their efforts to accomplish bigger wins on the track.
That's not all Bahna is up to these days.
He recently became a published author with the release of "Heliacal Star," a thriller has Thoroughbred horse racing providing the backdrop.
Bahna discusses racing, his passion for aftercare, and the book with BloodHorse.
BloodHorse: Was there a horse, pre-ownership, that you really found yourself drawn to?
Victor Bahna: Risen Star would be my horse back in his Triple Crown days. That's the first year (1988) I had gone to the Kentucky Derby, and he was my choice for the Derby, he finished third that day. I thought he had a chance to win that race. I went to the Preakness that year, too. Went back with Risen Star again, where he won the Preakness, and then I went to the Belmont, where he won the Belmont pretty convincingly.
BH: You have runners under Royal Victory Thoroughbreds, and you recently claimed one of them, one of the horses that you had in the partnership under your name as well. And it's been a couple years since you've had one run under your name, correct? Tell us about the partnership as well as your plans to have runners going forward.
VB: I started a partnership to get a few friends involved in racing, but also to sort of test the waters to see if horse racing syndication and being the managing partner partnership was something that I would be interested in doing, a second career for myself. ... It's a small partnership, about 10 partners. It's easier, just from a business perspective, for me just to offer all the horses that I purchased, make them available through the partnership. Those partners that are interested may take a 10% share, and those that are not, they could just wait for the next one that they might be interested in. And so that's pretty much how the partnership works. I would be interested in expanding it, but I don't necessarily want to get too big. I want to keep it really sort of that niche, more personal type of partnership. Would like to see us move a little bit out of the claiming ranks into the allowance and stakes racing, which would need a bit more investment. I just purchased a 2-year-old at the (Fasig-Tipton) Midlantic Sale, a Liam's Map for $75,000. The intent going forward is to be a little bit more competitive at the higher level. And as far as racing in my own name, I don't think I'm going to do that unless I wish to dissolve the partnership.
BH: You've also gotten into breeding. What has that journey been like for you?
VB: I got into breeding when one of my mares ended up having an issue with her throat, and we just thought it was going to be too much for her to continue to train and race. So you've got a mare, and you're like, 'Okay, what am I going to do? Let's breed her.'
The experience as a breeder, it's even more rewarding and more nerve-wracking than it is as just an owner. ... You're just much more connected in that whole sort of birth-to-racing-to-retirement cycle that you go through. And sometimes you might get a little bit too attached.
But it's super rewarding when you see one of your horses that you actually bred, crossing the finish line first and entering the winner's circle.
BH: Now, let's talk about your book. How would you describe the story that you crafted? What would be the sort of elevator pitch for your book?
VB: The elevator pitch would be that there's a unifying theme throughout the book, which is the name of the horse, whose name is Heliacal Star, and you get to see Heliacal Star from his birth through the auction ring, and you get to see elements of his racing career. Then you could see what happens potentially after his racing career as well. And I would say my inspiration for starting the story was after reading about Ferdinand and thinking about a horse that won the Kentucky Derby, and you think about other horses that probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions, perhaps, are spent on in an auction as a yearling, and they end up on a van or a truck to a slaughterhouse. It's like, how can it happen?
I started the book back in 2017, so the environment and the mood was starting to change about then, maybe even a little bit before then. But there still seemed to be a lot of potential for losing horses in that way. So I wanted to start out with a story that kind of showed that life cycle of a horse. But you can't just tell a story about that, in my opinion. So what I did is I weaved this whole sort of narrative around that baseline of the story. And that includes this guy who is a former bookie. He ends up living a really clean life for the last several years, pretty quiet, but he likes going to the races still, and he overhears a conversation that involves this horse and he's pretty disturbed by what he hears in this conversation. And then he's got to face a dilemma with regard to, what does he do about this information that he hears? Does he do anything? Does he tell the racing authorities? And in his sort of plight to make that decision, he runs into a young, attractive female trainer who is just trying to get a name for herself as she's getting started. And this is all happening at Belmont Park. They end up dealing with his past as a bookie working for this organized crime family, because that happened to be the connection back to the conversation that he had overheard accidentally. The story kind of takes off from there with regard to how are the two of them going to stay ahead of the bad guys, so to speak.
BH: You dedicated the book to retired thoroughbred horses, and you named one of yours, Rooster City in particular. Tell me about the relationship you have with Rooster City.
VB: He retired about 10 years ago from racing. I had actually lost him to a claim at Hollywood Park for $62,000 and then came back a year later, and raced for $20,000 and I claimed him back. It was John Sadler's 2,000th victory when he won that race. So he's got his name in the history books from that association. After he retired, I decided I wanted to make sure—he was great for me as a racehorse— and I wanted to return the favor to him and ended up bringing him out to Redmond (Wash.), which is close to where I live, and decided to take care of him myself. And so Rooster and I have been together now for about 10 years. Since his retirement, I've been working with him a couple times a week, grooming, lunging, walking, riding in the arena with him, and he's taught me quite a bit about horsemanship, but he's also actually reminded me a lot about what matters in life, too. So his relationship and mine has become a really special one for me.
BH: You're obviously passionate about aftercare. What efforts do you make to contribute to that?
VB: In addition to supporting the various charities that do aftercare for Thoroughbreds, and there's been so much more going on there in the last 10 years, which is really, really good to see all of the racetracks and all the associations about getting behind aftercare and bringing much more awareness. We're seeing far fewer horses today ending up in a bad place than what we had seen five, 10 years ago. For my part, I want to make sure I work with people who have the same values as I do. One of the first conversations we have is we're going to make sure that regardless of what happens if we end up retiring a horse, if he doesn't get claimed from us, we're going to make sure that that horse ends up in a good, safe home.
I also personally make sure that with any sale I make of a horse after they're retired, that we sign a document that gets notarized that says that they're never going to end up in a kill pen or with a kill buyer, just as an extra added insurance, regardless of where they end up.
BH: Have you paid attention to the reviews?
VB: I have, yeah.
BH: The book has gotten very good reviews from both professional reviewers as well as people who are buying the book. I know it's not a big sample size, but I think there were four or five reviews on Amazon, and they're all five stars. So how does that make you feel that you're getting that kind of feedback?
VB: A little surprising, because I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Having it being a first book for me, I would say it's equally rewarding to see non-horse or non-equine readers giving really positive feedback, as well as the equine readers themselves, or folks that are in the in the racing business. Honestly, I wasn't quite sure how the racing industry was going to receive the book because I do go into some dark areas. Let's call it that. The whole book is fiction, obviously, but you've got to create characters, and you've got to create conflict, and you've got to create some drama, and in that context some bad things are going to happen. The racetrack is an area where these bad things just happen to be happening, and where a few bad people happen to be. ... I'm really thrilled at how well received it's been in both the racing community so far, as well as from the non-racing and non-equine folks. It tells me that a good story will translate whether it's something that someone's a subject matter expert on or not, and a lot of the folks that are not racing people have personally told me that they feel like they actually learned quite a bit about racing that they didn't understand or know before. And then they'll start asking questions. 'Does that really happen?' And it's like, 'Well, no, not necessarily.' You've also got to make the story interesting.
BH: What was the experience like for you to write the book? You mentioned that you started seven years ago.
VB: One lesson I learned for sure is that it's probably not hard to write a book. It's really hard to write a really good book. There were a lot of rewrites. I ended up doing the first version of the book that I thought was good. If I look back at that today, I would probably just throw up all over it. It's probably horrible compared to what it ended up being. And so that experience itself in terms of just recognizing that it's best just to get your ideas out there, let the book write itself, and then you can go ahead and you can always make changes. You can always edit it. You can always revise it. You can always add things. You can pull things out. I didn't have anybody give me feedback on the book until it was rewritten by me at least six or seven times. That's what took me so long to write it. At the same time, I'm working full time still, and the time I have to spend in a sort of creative mode is compromised by the full-time job that I've got, plus the fact that when you're writing, you have to also be in that right mindset.
BH: Is there going to be another book?
VB: I think so. I'm still working full time. For how long? We'll see, but the plan would be to start writing another one probably next year.
BH: Would it be related or not?
VB: I think that's going to be based on some of the feedback I hear. If the readers come back, if you came back to me and said, 'Victor, you got to write a sequel to this.' And if a few other people compelled me to do that, I would be inclined to do that. I'm also thinking of other potential plot lines that I can use and write a different story, perhaps. So I'm still on the fence if this is a part one or do I just pick up something else and write about something else?
