LIKE MANY IN THE NEW YORK RACING INDUSTRY, Bond is looking to come back from the pandemic shutdown for his 33rd Saratoga meet from both the racing and breeding areas.
H. James “Jim” Bond is one of the optimistic and well-liked people in New York racing as an owner of a racing stable and farm, a trainer, a breeder and a personality on the backstretch.
That optimism and hard work, which came from his late father through their years of training horses at Finger Lakes during the 1970s and 1980s, has brought him success and winners that include Tizway, Behrens, Will’s Way, Val’s Prince and Buddha. Though, just like with other people in the industry, there have also been challenging times.
However, when the COVID-19 (the coronavirus) pandemic forced New York horse racing to shut down for a little over two months, that may have been the biggest challenge for the 62-year-old Rochester native, especially since it was close to impacting his family’s livelihood.
“I was very nervous,” he said. “It was really hard for myself and my family. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we had earned around $60,000, compared to last year at this time when we earned over $400,000. It was shaky. If we hadn’t started racing by June, I don’t think we would have made it through July and August. We would have had to do some soul searching.”
The situation is looking better for Bond and his team as he continues to prepare and train horses for his 33rd Saratoga Racecourse meet, but it didn’t happen immediately.
Within the first eight days of when Belmont resumed racing June 3, Bond’s horses were struggling to finish in the money. Then after Queenofeverything graduated from the maiden ranks on June 12, several of his horses have followed suit with better races, including recent maiden winners Graetz and Giacosa, as well as a good second-place finish from two-time stakes winner Rinaldi coming off the near 10-month layoff.
The Bond Racing Stable, which includes his wife Tina Bond, is currently fourth in wins with three and ranked among the top 25 owners in earnings (just under $100,000) over 21 racing days of the Belmont Spring Meet that includes the end of the Fourth of July weekend. That’s a respectable accomplishment as they race against hundreds of owners, including leaders Klaravich Stables, Michael Dubb and Juddmonte Farms.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, two people have kept the Bond Racing Stable together at Belmont: Kevin Bond and Ryan Bond, Bond’s older son and younger son, respectively.
However, Ryan was then brought back to the family’s Song Hill Farm in Stillwater to work with the mares to foal on March 1. That left Kevin alone to work with the Belmont stock during that challenging period, which included trying to keep the stable clean and everyone healthy.
“Kevin has done a great job,” the father Bond said. “He has a crew that has been together for a long time. I would send him charts to look over before feed time, then put those charts on the board for training the next day.”
“It has been different,” he added. “We’ve had to have our temperatures checked. Thank God no one got sick around the barn. We run a tight ship. I like cleanliness. We have been a step ahead of everything so far.”
While Kevin Bond had been training horses and managing the barn, Jim Bond knew the restrictions and shutdown around the pandemic were eventually going to impact his son, especially being limited to the living in his downstate home and the barn for the last five months.
“We talked about five times a day,” Jim Bond said. “I heard it in his voice. He would like to come home and have a home-cooked meal. I told him we were going to give him a break before Saratoga.”
While the race horses have been coming together, Bond also has concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on the breeding industry that includes the development of horses and the sales. Since the Saratoga horse sales are canceled this year, many New York breeders are looking to go out-of-state to sell their 2-year-olds and yearlings.
Because of that, there is the possibility that some of those state-breds won’t come back to compete in New York, which means those breeders don’t receive awards from New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund Corporation.
“There is a 50-50 shot that they may never come back to New York,” Bond said. “If they don’t run in New York, you don’t get any breeders’ awards. That is devastating for us.”
One of the areas that the Breeder’s Awards help recover is the stud fee cost. In past years, Bond has usually spent from $10,000 to $20,000 per stud fee for each of his mares. However, over the last two years, he has paid from $25,000 to $35,000 for each stud fee that includes champions Goldencents, Midnight Lute, and Mineshaft, as well as multiple graded stakes winners Tizway, Sky Mesa, and Munnings.
With just over a dozen 2-year-olds and 11 yearlings, Bond has the flexibility to sell some of them and keep others to develop into racehorses, especially since he had built an indoor arena for winter use rather than having those horses run around on a frozen ground with ice.
“We are very fortunate. I’ve got some great 2-year-olds,” he said. “We decided to keep the yearlings to race next year. We are probably going to invest $15,000-$17,000 more to find out if we have race horses. We have great clientele. Over the past few days, I’ve had investors, who have never bought a horse before, now buying 10 percent and 20 percent shares.”
While these last few weeks before the Saratoga meet have been hopeful for Bond, he is still concerned about the future of his racing stable and his farm, especially if COVID-19 forces another shutdown.
“I have been blessed and fortunate,” Bond said. “However, if COVID-19 comes back in the fall and they shut down racing, then basically we might done. We can only weather so much.”
