Breeders’ Cup: Owner says Flightline’s 2023 still is undecided

Lexington, Ky.

Even though he and his brother are the lead owners, Kosta Hronis had not yet arrived for the Flightline party early this week at Keeneland.

The party actually started long before the world’s No. 1-ranked horse arrived 13 days ago to begin preparations for Saturday’s $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. A victory would stoke the celebration with an exclamation point on a perfect year. And maybe a career.

Before they could be in Kentucky, Kosta and Pete Hronis had to tend to their day job. Their all-day job, really.

“I would so love to have some days enjoying the build-up to the Breeders’ Cup,” Kosta Hronis said in a text message last week to set up a telephone interview. “But I’m a grape grower first.”

So it was that Hronis, 63, whose family has been growing grapes and citrus fruit since the end of World War II, was driving around a grape field in Central California when he took a call this week to be on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod.

“This is in the beautiful city of Delano, Calif.,” he said with a voice that sounded as bright as the sunshine bathing the other end of the call in Kentucky. “I go ranch to ranch. We’re still really busy during the grape harvest. I’m moving around just to make sure everything’s OK everywhere.”

The Hronis brothers eventually got on a plane and moved around to Central Kentucky on Thursday evening. They got to trainer John Sadler’s temporary Keeneland barn Friday, where their partners and Sadler’s staff and a steady parade of media and well-wishers have been making a pilgrimage for two weeks to see the star horse who had come from his home base in Southern California.

Flightline’s other owners – Anthony Manganaro’s Siena Farm, breeder Jane Lyon’s Summer Wind Equine, Terry Finley’s West Point Thoroughbreds and Bill Farish’s Woodford Racing – will watch their 4-year-old son of Tapit try again to live up to the hype he has received all year.

“It’s been a great journey,” Hronis said. “He seems to just keep getting better and better. Every test he has, he seems to pass. He’s had a great trip to Kentucky. He traveled well. He seems to be happy there at the barn, and he likes the racetrack, so all systems are go right now. We feel really good.”

They will feel really rewarded, too, when Flightline goes to stud. Whether that happens sooner or later will be determined by that big group of partners after the Classic. Will Flightline be raced as a 5-year-old? Will it be for a full year or only just, say, the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) in January at Gulfstream Park? Or will they stop at just the six starts he will have had through this weekend?

“I’m in a partnership this time,” Hronis said, differentiating between now with Flightline and four years ago with Accelerate, whom the Hronis brothers owned by themselves. They eventually decided to race in the Pegasus before Accelerate went to stud at Lane’s End, the same farm where Flightline has been ticketed.

“I’m going to be a good partner and listen to everybody,” Hronis said. “I’m probably going to go along with the experts like Bill Farish and Jane Lyon and Siena Farm. They actually do the after-racing careers. They’re experts at that, where we’re pretty much racing. … The team will get together, and I’m sure we’ll do right by him.”

If one were to handicap the owners to try and guess what their decision might be, Manganaro, Lyon and Farish might be seen as leaning toward breeding right away. Finley, whose operation is more about racing than breeding, could be the voice who would say stay in training. Again, the key word in that paragraph was “guess.”

“If he was just ours, I probably would,” Hronis said when asked if he actually had a preference one way or the other. “But since we’re in a partnership, the Hronis family is going to be very respectful.”

Another key word on any decision with Flightline is money. He cost $1 million at a yearling sale, and so far he has earned $1,394,800. That total would rise more than three times on Saturday with the first-place money from America’s richest race – and maybe another $1,755,000 with a win in the Pegasus.

As nice a pile of cash as $6,289,800 would be, it would be nothing compared with the fees Flightline would command at stud. If money talks, it might speak loudest in the decision of whether to breed now or keep racing. At least the cynic might say that. Hronis did not sound like such a cynic.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Like I said, we haven’t discussed it. We’re not going to discuss it until after Breeders’. It really, really hasn’t been a topic of conversation. I’m kind of a karma, mojo kind of guy. I told everybody, ‘I’ll talk to you on Sunday.’”

The partners will grow Monday, when West Point offers a 2.5 percent share of Flightline during the Keeneland November breeding-stock sale. The winning bidder will get a piece of the breeding action as well as whatever racing might be left for the undefeated colt who was voted No. 1 in the world by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. That honorific came after Flightline’s 19 1/4-length win two months ago in the Pacific Classic (G1) at Del Mar earned a staggering 126 Beyer Speed Figure, according to Daily Racing Form.

“That’s just … that’s breathtaking,” Hronis said of being the best in the world. “I’m really proud of Flightline and the team to achieve that. We made No. 3 with Accelerate, and that just made our heads spin. We got to go to London to the Longines (world’s best racehorse) event. To be rated No. 1 in the world is like something you don’t imagine happening.”

To be No. 1 just in the Breeders’ Cup Classic is the only thing Hronis said he was focused on right now. Business decisions and another trip to London for a fancy banquet this winter can wait. Hronis just wants to see Flightline stay in tip-top shape both before and after Saturday’s race. And, of course, to hold a Classic trophy for the second time and take it back to the house that grapes built in California.

“I’ve got a little trophy room at the house,” he said. “Breeders’ Cup kind of has its own little area. We’ve got one, and we’ve got plenty of room there.”