David Reid’s inspiring journey to the Hall of Fame
One of the sport’s greatest bloodstock agents has reached the Harness Racing Hall of Fame with a mixture of hard work, talent and determination.
by Dave Briggs
Blows don’t come more devastating than losing both your mother and your business partner in the span of just over a month. It was March of 2012 and, at the time, many in the industry predicted David Reid would either walk away from Preferred Equine or take on a new partner when Geoff Stein died of a heart attack at the age of 58 after going for a run.
Reid, while devastated, did neither.
What he did do is something which, in hindsight, is entirely within his character — he worked even harder and made Preferred even more successful.
Tonight (July 5), five years after Stein was posthumously inducted into the Harness Racing Hall of Fame, Reid will be reunited with him in the hallowed halls in Goshen, NY.
Going solo as the frontman of harness racing’s most successful bloodstock agency wasn’t about proving something to the industry or even himself, Reid said; it was more about keeping moving.
“I was partners with Geoff for 24 years,” Reid said. “He was the only partner I had in business. He wasn’t replaceable.
“So, we just rolled up our sleeves and kept going, because the foundation was built by both of us. It’s just hard work and you carry forward with good support from your team members. I don’t call them workers or employees.
“As we said when Geoff passed away, ‘the guiding principles will lead us forward.’ Nothing has changed from a principle point of view, it’s just maybe picked up from a transactional point of view.
“I don’t remember losing a client. It’s a credit to the clients that had faith in our system, in our company… I’m just happy it worked out for everybody.”
Today, 38 years after Stein and Reid took over Preferred Equine in 1988 — and more than 14 years since Stein died — the numbers are staggering. Preferred has sold more than 29,000 horses lifetime for a combined gross of more than $800 million.
Frank “The Elder” Antonacci of Lindy Farms, one of Preferred’s oldest friends and clients, said Preferred’s growth was remarkable, but not all that surprising. He remembers when the book on Preferred was that Stein was the laid-back, affable frontman and Reid was the extremely hard worker mostly behind the scenes. Turns out Reid could play either role.
“One unique thing about David is that when Geoff passed, David was able to really mold himself into being the front guy,” Antonacci said. “He’s a very talented guy and probably doesn’t get enough recognition for the talent he has, because he’s very unassuming. He can really do anything and he has a unique ability to get along with a lot of different crazy people, which there are in this business.
“You think of his list of clients… First of all, he had us, you know, [the Antonaccis] have a lot of different personalities. He had Joe Parisi, who was definitely a different personality. Michael Parisi, definitely a different personality. Jules Siegel, a different personality. Marvin Katz, a different personality. George Segal, a different personality. Jeff Snyder, a different personality, and he had the ability to kind of manage all of these guys.”
Some of that came from Reid’s humble, but character-rich beginnings.
He grew up on a dairy farm in Aryle, NY, 30 minutes northeast of Saratoga Springs.
“My exposure to the horses was through Saratoga Harness,” Reid said. “My family was friends with Harold Story and, at the time, he was a legend in the area. He raised that very good mare Scenic Regal… We used to go down to the harness track as a family, and that was my introduction to horse racing.
“And then The Meadowlands Racetrack — I had some uncles that used to be harness racing fans and, as a young kid, before I could drive, I would take some road trips down to The Meadowlands with my uncles and my brother.”
Reid credits much of his work ethic to his family, but also some to his high school basketball coach, Mike Cronin.
“It was a discipline, a work ethic,” Reid said. “[Cronin] would run hard practices… He just expected the best from me every day… He was the coach there for a long time after I left, but just a very influential guy, a hard-nosed guy.”
It was Cronin that convinced Reid to pursue a degree at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Morrisville.
“During a field trip to one of the junior high schools down to the Goshen area, I was introduced to Pat Waldo and made that connection,” Reid said. “I kept his contact and when I was getting ready to graduate high school, I contacted him again. He was building his farm in the Goshen area and he offered me a job.
“I went down there and started working with him in the summer of ’83 and, at the time, he was the sales operation manager for the Garden State Horse Sales Company for Phil Tully. The first horse sale I attended would have been September at the New Jersey Classic at the Brendan Byrne Arena. I went from there down to Lexington with Phil Tully’s operation, and then the Oktoberfest in New Jersey, and then to Harrisburg.”
“After that, I would have taken some time to go back home for the winter, and that’s when my basketball coach suggested that I look into going to SUNY in Morrisville. They had an animal science and a horse husbandry class and I pursued it. I started Morrisville in the summer of ’84. While you’re there, you do a lab and you take care of a racehorse at a breaking and training barn, and then the following summer you would race your racehorses at the County fair as part of the curriculum. My first drive, believe it or not, would have been at Goshen Historic Track… as an amateur. I missed the gate and started 20 lengths behind the field.”
After graduation, Reid worked at Saratoga Standardbreds.
Around that time, at a Christmas party, Saratoga farm manager Jack Lake offered to pay for any employee that wanted to take the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course. Reid was the first one to take the farm up on the offer. Not only will that course come in handy for his Hall of Fame speech, more importantly, Reid met his wife Jeanette while taking the course. They have been married 36 years and have twin daughters Brianna and Savina.
Reid’s time at Saratoga was fortuitous for another reason: It was when he first met Stein in the back of a pickup truck. It was one of those serendipitous, milestone moments Reid said he will never forget. Forty years later, three of the people in that pickup truck are in the Hall of Fame.
“[Stein] was an independent guy at the time and he was doing partnerships himself,” Reid said. “He and Hal Jones came to Saratoga to do an appraisal on the Boardwalk Associates horses that had been transferred to Saratoga for a liquidation. And that’s where I met Geoff Stein and Hal Jones. Then, later that year, Geoff would have joined Saratoga Standardbreds.”
Not long after they first met, Stein gave Reid something of a test. Stein was selling a horse and he was going to have the potential buyer call Reid for an honest appraisal of that horse.
“His friend was Hans Enggren of Meadowbranch Farm.” Reid said. “I told Hans about the horse and Geoff called me soon after and told me I must have done a good job because the guy bought the horse over the phone.”
That horse was Park Avenue Joe, who won the 1989 Hambletonian in a dead heat with Lindy Farms’ trotter Probe.
At the time Reid sold Park Avenue Joe to Enggren, Preferred Equine was part of Saratoga Standardbreds. In 1988, Reid and Stein joined forces to buy the company.
It’s been an amazing ride ever since, with many highlights.
From 1993 through 2000, Reid and Stein ran the sales at The Meadowlands for the Garden State Horse Sales Company.
During that same time, Stein and Reid became part-owners of Moni Maker with the Antonacci family and others during the great trotter’s 3-year-old season. She ended her career with record earnings of more than $5.5 million and won a slew of North American and European stakes, including the Elitlopp in 1998 and the Prix d’Amerique in 1999.
“The trips to Europe were very impactful for Moni Maker to make the connections that we made,” Reid said. “That led to being able to sell frozen semen to Europe and doing a lot of private transactions to Europe. So, that was instrumental.”
As Moni Maker’s career was winding down, Reid and Stein were approached by a group purchasing The Red Mile – the Antonaccis, Joe Thomson, George Segal, the Nigito family and Bill Perretti – to operate the Tattersalls Sale and to handle the dispersal of the famed Castleton Farms.
“I still have a letter today from [Castleton’s John] Cashman, just thanking Geoff and myself for the way that the dispersal was handled at Tattersalls for the Castleton Farm,” Reid said. “That’s a legendary farm and company.”
More than a quarter-century later, Reid said he’s proud to still be associated with Tattersalls.
“It’s a long run to be affiliated with a sales company that has operated on the highest level and has increased sales and has produced record world champions and Hambletonian winners and Meadowlands Pace winners and so on,” Reid said.
In 2005, the Tattersalls Sale merged with the Kentucky Standardbred Sales Company (KYSS) to form the Lexington Selected Yearling Sale.
Reid became the sale’s co-manager with the late Randy Manges, formerly of the KYSS.
The sale has grown exponentially since the merger to become one of the most important yearling auctions in the sport.
“Putting together those two sale companies, it was really a shotgun marriage,” Antonacci said. “It was as contentious as you think it was. It took a long time to put a lot together. Both sides had to kind of eat a little crow, but I believe David probably had the most patience in all the relationships, because… he had to get along with Randy and now he’s got to get along with [current co-manager] Bruce [Brinkerhoff], so he’s shown tremendous amount of patience and understanding to the other side, but it seems to work.”
Antonacci said Reid’s ability to work well with almost anyone has proven valuable.
“There’s been many different partnerships break up throughout the years that David’s navigated,” Antonacci said. “Those people continue to do business with him, so that shows you how fair he was to all the sides.”
In 2003, Reid and Stein, the Antonaccis and some other friends ventured into selling thoroughbreds.
“We would have met [thoroughbred trainer] Wesley Ward in about 2009 in Saratoga, and we would have raced our first thoroughbred in 2010,” Reid said. “Geoff always thought that we should have looked into the thoroughbred agency business sooner than we did, because he thought that we could have been successful because we had experience running horse sales, auction crews, consigning.”
What came next was a truly royal experience.
“In 2012, we bought No Nay Never in the fall,” Reid said. “He won [the Grade 2 Norfolk Stakes] in Royal Ascot in June of ’13. [Antonacci] had to fly back to [the U.S.] go to a friend’s wedding and I stayed. That afternoon, Wesley and myself met and sat with the Queen for 15 minutes and talked about horses.”
Today, No Nay Never stands at famed Coolmore Stud in Ireland, commanding a stud fee of £100,000.
In 2012, Reid also became a director with the Hambletonian Society. He also has been a trustee of the Harness Racing Museum & Hall of Fame since 2014, has worked with the Harness Horse Youth Foundation, and was the first president of the Standardbred Transition Alliance.
Today, Reid is also a successful stallion syndicate manager. In 2017, he became the syndication manager for Walner, one of the sport’s greatest trotting stallions.
“[Walner’s owner Ken Jacobs] approached me to help him with the sale of Walner, which subsequently turned into sales syndication that involved Frank Antonacci, George Siegel, Marvin Katz, for the initial big investors to get that syndicate started,” Reid said. “He was a great horse and, from a Preferred point of view, we’re very proud of being able to manage this stallion.”
Proving that, despite all the other industry pursuits, Reid is still a man that is, first and foremost, incredibly skilled at selling horses.
“We haven’t even talked about David’s ability as a horseman,” Antonacci said. “He’s got a great eye for a horse, and I think he’s got a great, great eye to see the potential in the horse. He’s the whole package.”
At this year’s Standardbred Horse Sales Company’s auction in Harrisburg, PA, Preferred Equine set an all-time consignor record of over $31 million, $25 million of which came from the Mixed Sale. Preferred was responsible for over 41 per cent of the sale’s total gross of just shy of $75 million.
“I’ve been lucky all my life — lucky from the family I had, to growing up the way I did,” Reid said. “Some people wouldn’t say [my childhood] was lucky, but I think it was lucky. I got a lot of core values instilled at a young age.”
Reid calls it luck. Those that know him well know better.
Many are reminded of that famous quote often, mistakenly, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
Whomever said it, it fits Reid well. Though, he’s too humble to say it.
What he will allow is that, looking back, he thinks his mother, Shirley, would be incredibly proud, while having trouble believing how far he’s come.
“[My mom] would have said, ‘How did a kid from a dairy farm in Argyle, New York have a horse like Moni Maker, and a horse like No Nay Never that won in England that allowed him to meet the Queen, and then he ended up in the Hall of Fame?’ It’s been quite a journey.”
