Marvin Katz: Challenge accepted

More than 60 years after tagging along with his father to Greenwood Raceway, standardbred breeder, owner, philanthropist and now Hall of Famer Marvin Katz still has a white hot passion for harness racing.

by Dave Briggs

If there is one thing that motivates Marvin Katz, it’s a challenge. It’s a word that defines his career as a Toronto real estate developer, as one of harness racing’s elite owners and breeders, and as the man that created the Breeders Crown Charity Challenge that has raised $2.4 million over seven years.

Tonight (July 5), Katz will officially be inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in Goshen, NY. But he wants you to know it hasn’t all been million-dollar races and seven-figure horses.

“Part of coming up with the phrase the Breeders Crown Charity Challenge, the word ‘challenge’ resonated to me, because it was a challenge,” Katz said in February mere hours before being feted at the Dan Patch Awards in Orlando, FL as part of the Hall of Fame class of 2026. “To be in the business for decades is challenging, and you have to accept that there are going to be challenges, and you have to be able to work your way through that. It’s part of the sport. Anybody who’s in the sport will acknowledge that it can be very challenging.”

Katz’s passion for the sport was first stoked tagging along with his father to Greenwood Raceway on the shores of Lake Ontario in downtown Toronto in the days when the dearly departed track was packed.

“It could reach as much as 20,000 [people] and you couldn’t get a seat anywhere,” Katz said. “You had to pay to enter the building. You had to pay to buy a program. I forget the amount, I was young, but you already spent three, four or five dollars before you ever placed a bet and you couldn’t get a seat. It was common that you got shut out of the betting windows… It was exciting. I enjoyed it.

“Like every Canadian kid, I was a big fan of hockey and all the other sports… but I had a passion for [harness racing] almost right away and it created a fire in me that I wanted to be part of it if the opportunity presented itself, and it has.”

More than 60 years later, that fire is still roaring.

“I’ve been asked to own a thoroughbred a number of times and I’ve never owned a thoroughbred… I just love harness racing,” Katz said. “My love, my passion, is harness racing.”

Katz was in his 20s when he bought his first standardbred. Though, it was the better part of 25 years before Katz had his first huge success – winning the 1997 Meadowlands Pace with Dream Away with partners Al Libfeld and Sam Goldband.

“In the early years, I became involved with [the sport] because of my dad,” Katz said. “As I got into my late 20s, early 30s, I was able to buy a horse, a cheap horse. The first horse I ever owned was J.M. Lassie. I paid $14,000 for her and ended up getting back about $10-12,000, so it wasn’t too bad.”

Katz then met trainer Doug Arthur, who picked out the owner’s second and third horses.

“Both of them turned out to be very good stakes horses – regional, but they had nice careers – and I was able to sell them afterwards for good money. So it was off to a good start. But, unfortunately, that momentum didn’t continue. And shortly thereafter, Al [Libfeld] became involved and Sam Goldband. I was in the business for about 10 years before they became a part of it.”

Even adding good partners, it was far from an overnight success for Katz.

“It was difficult,” Katz said. “There were times when I said to myself, ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ like anybody.

“The early years were a struggle… I was younger, and my career wasn’t where it evolved to, eventually. So, all those things combined made it tough sledding. I recall one time sitting at The Red Mile in the grandstand, way up in the grandstand, thinking to myself, ‘What do I have to do to have a horse to be able to race here?’ Forget winning, just be able to race there. Now, of course, I look back at that and that was a challenge.”

There’s that word again.

Katz said everything finally clicked into place when he met the late bloodstock expert Bart Glass.

“The seminal change was with Bart, because Bart began to explain to myself and Al the value of breeding,” Katz said. “And quite frankly, it was Al who tweaked to the breeding side of it before I did, to his credit. I was still more focused on racing, but slowly, we both began to be mentored by Bart… and learned quite a bit about it, and began to be enamored with it, and decided that was a route that we could take.

“I’ve been so blessed to have [owned] Captaintreacherous and Father Patrick and Tall Dark Stranger and Bar Hopping and Kissin In The Sand – great immortal horses, without question, many of them Horse of the Year and Hall of Fame horses. However, breeding and racing All The Time and Ariana G who won the Breeders Crown, won the Oaks two consecutive years, two full sisters. To have bred them, I don’t think it’s ever been done before, and I wonder if it’ll ever be done again. I think that’s an accomplishment. That is the pinnacle, because we bought the mare [Cantab It All], we bred her, raised the foals. It was everything. It was every aspect of it involved. And to stand at the pinnacle of the sport like that with two full sisters, that’s an astounding accomplishment… The beauty of being involved in breeding any type of livestock is the unknown and the promise each foal holds when it is born. That’s part of the intoxicating attraction of it.”

There have been 11 million-dollar standardbreds sold at auction in history and Katz has sold five of them – including the most expensive of all time: Amazing Catch, purchased for $1.85 million at the 2024 Standardbred Horse Sales Company Mixed Sale in Harrisburg, PA as part of a dispersal of stock Katz owned jointly with Libfeld.

Katz and Libfeld also bred the sport’s first million-dollar yearling, Maverick, who sold for $1.1 million at the 2019 Lexington Selected Yearling Sale.

The former partners also bred and sold three horses for seven-figures apiece at the 2025 Harrisburg Mixed Sale: mares French Café ($1 million) and French Champagne ($1.15 million) and weanling Parisian Charm ($1 million). Katz purchased all three bringing an end to his long-time partnership with Libfeld, a fellow Torontonian.

“Obviously, Al and I have separated, and I’m saddened because we were great friends for decades, and we traveled a big part of this journey together,” Katz said. “But, we had our own minds, and it was really time. He wanted his course of action, and I wanted mine. We have different personalities, and it was just time for us to do that. So, thankfully, it’s behind both of us, and clearly I wish him nothing but the best, and I certainly hope that my program continues to grow.”

As for his charitable efforts via the Breeders Crown Charity Challenge, Katz said it’s something harness racing needs to embrace with more frequency and energy.

“I could assure you that all large scale development construction companies in Toronto are engaged in philanthropic activities,” Katz said. “All industries, be it technology, Coca Cola, Amazon and everyone else, they give back to their communities because it’s the right thing to do. I think horse racing, and harness racing specifically, has to understand that we are part of these communities, and we have to be committed to giving back to them. I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching, but I think it’s good business and the right thing to do.”

In terms of breeding and racing world class horses, the partnership dispersal with Libfeld only launched a new chapter.

Katz has purchased the former property of famed Brittany Farms in Versailles, KY and renamed it Clear Creek at Brittany Farms.

“I have a great team around me — Perry Soderberg, Bobby Brady, Jimmy Glass,” Katz said. “They’ve been part of our group for a long time, and they’re some of the best people in the industry. It’s consistent with doing my development business. I try to surround myself with top-flight people and carefully listen to their input and then make what I hope are good business decisions going forward. As far as my breeding program, we’re going to breed 55 mares this year.

“[Former Brittany farm managers] Dale Hogan and Patty Hogan stayed on operating the farm. [Brittany owner] George [Segal] still has a large presence in it. That’s still a home base for a large part of his operation. George and I have become very good friends. We’ve had lunches and dinners together and so forth. So it’s a friendship that’s evolved and grown over the years.

“There have been more millionaires and more Breeders Crown winners come off that [property] than anywhere in the world. I don’t see that’s going to change. It’s the same feeding program, same piece of dirt, everything’s the same. And of course, we sell with Bobby Brady at Kentuckiana. I think it’s a superb situation.”

None of it happened overnight.

“It’s been a long journey started back at Greenwood Raceway as a young boy going with my dad,” Katz said, promising to honor his father in Goshen.

He won’t, for one second, forget where he came from and how it shaped where he ended up.