With a Strong Team Comes Success

California owner/breeder Keith Abrahams immediately embraced the challenge of breeding Thoroughbreds when he got involved in the sport right out of college in the mid-1980s. The native of South Africa came to the United States when he was 21 and attended the University of Southern California on his way to becoming a certified public accountant. Now 63, he is a co-founder and principal of a real estate development company in Los Angeles named Brentwood Real Estate Group. He also has been extraordinarily successful as an owner/breeder. Owning no more than three to five mares in any given year, he has produced 23 winners that include graded stakes winners Taste of Paradise, Selcourt, and Kirstenbosch. His homebreds also include graded-placed stakes winner Constania (a half sister to Kirstenbosch) and graded-placed winners Skukuza, Kentan Road, and Llandudno. His horses bear the names of places in South Africa, with his most recent graded stakes winner, Kirstenbosch, named after Cape Town's Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, which is one of the world's top 10 national botanical gardens. Kirstenbosch is expected to make her next start in the March 11 Beholder Mile Stakes (G1) with trainer John Sadler. Abrahams' best-homebred runner, Selcourt, is named after the town he grew up in near Johannesburg. MarketWatch: Let's start at the beginning. How did you become interested in horse racing? Keith Abrahams: I was exposed a little bit when I was young and living in South Africa. My grandfather loved to go to the track, but I really didn't get a lot of exposure. I rode horses back in South Africa. I lived in a small town and most of my friends were farmers. It was just pleasure riding. MW: So why did you move to California? KA: My mother's brother had been in America for many, many years. My brother always wanted to come to the States and went to college at USC. In those days, you could get green cards through relationships like that, so when my brother was close to graduating, he wanted to stay and my mother put in for a new green card because he had established residency. It came through 10 days before I turned 21. In South Africa, you can get a green card through a parent until you turn 21, so I had 10 days to decide if I was going. I had just come out of two years in the Army, for which service is mandatory, and I had been to university, but I talked to my parents and decided the worst thing is that I don't like it, and I just come back. I did not want to give up the opportunity. I came here and never looked back. MW: Then how did you get involved in Thoroughbreds? KA: Early on in my working career, I met someone who was involved in a foal from a small breeder; actually, it was her family and they gave away the foal. I took that foal, raised it, and tried to race it. That is how it started. The filly never made it to the track, but I got the bug. I started trying to breed. I also ended up taking over a small lay-up facility in Bradbury, near Arcadia, and that is how I was able to pay for my habit. I started with a few breedings and made plenty of mistakes. MW: Why start out trying to breed your own racehorses? The time and expense required before you ever know if a horse is going to make it to a racetrack is more than most new owners are willing to take on. KA: I think it was just fascinating to me; the whole challenge. That is what excited me the most, just thinking you could make these decisions and have the potential to produce something; maybe something not very special, but a horse that could win a race. I was infatuated with the challenge. Also I love animals, and I love horses and I love being around them, so maybe that also played a large part into it; that I could be around these babies and watch them develop. MW: Clearly, you've blazed a successful path in breeding and racing. What was the first step down this road? KA: I actually picked up one or two mares just through relationships that we had from the lay-up facility and through work. I bred to local stallions... and I bred horses that did nothing, but I was trying to learn. Within a year or two of that, I then got connected with (bloodstock agent) Kathy Berkey. Around that time my father-in-law was interested in getting into the game, and we ended up asking Kathy to buy us two mares. I can be really involved so we spent a lot of time at the Keeneland Sale in November. One of those mares was Tastetheteardrops, which became the dam of Taste of Paradise. That is when I started my Kentucky breeding program. MW: Taste of Paradise won the Vosburgh Stakes (G1), so you got a grade 1 winner out of one of the first mares you bought with Kathy. What has allowed you both to keep the momentum going? KA: Ninety-five percent of the horses I race, and in the beginning it was a very limited in budget, so you're trying to get the most in terms of quality for the dollar. I lean more toward a mare's pedigree than I do her race record, which is reflective of any mare I've bought. The emphasis is on pedigree versus racing and then on conformation; it is the best I can afford. On the breeding side for stallions, my philosophy has always been, because I'm breeding to race, to look for racehorses that have the conformation which complements the mare. MW: So physical compatibility is the most important? KA: Absolutely. That is paramount. For certain mares, I won't consider a stallion, even if it is an A nick, if the physical doesn't match. MW: Kirstenbosch is a second-generation homebred. You got involved with her family through a mare named And Guess What. Do you remember what was appealing about this mare when you bought her in 2001 at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale? KA: She had a California pedigree and I like (her sire) Kris S. I look at the broodmare sire statistics, and he is a really solid broodmare sire. Those types, like Belong to Me and Dehere, are attractive to me. MW: Belong to Me is the sire of Llandudno, who is the dam of Kirstenbosch. What of Llandudno do you see in Kirstenbosch? KA: She's a decent-sized mare, so as size goes maybe she is stamping them a little bit. As far as Kirstenbosch, she is by Midnight Lute, so she is taller and lighter, though she is starting to fill out. Llandudno had a colt (Storms River) for her first foal, also by Midnight Lute, and he was almost the exact opposite. He was full-bodied and a beautiful horse. I was partners with Kosta Hronis, who bought him from me at the sale and I ended up keeping 10% of him because I really liked him. His last race, he ran an 8 on the Sheets. He was fast and had a lot of talent. Like Kirstenbosch, though, they take their time. MW: You got your start in racing and breeding from the ground up and developed some extraordinarily long-term relationships in the business. You've been with Kathy Berkey and John Sadler for more than 25 years, so what is your advice to people getting started in this business? KA: I also have been with Columbiana Farm (near Paris, Ky.) for more than 20 years and Bill Wofford (Rimroc Farm) in Lexington for probably 10-15 years. I'm blessed to have these people around me. These kinds of relationships are hard to find, but they have allowed me to stay in this industry and to have survived. You have to surround yourself with the right people; that is paramount. Find people with experience that you can trust and, most importantly, the people that will tell you when you don't have something. It doesn't matter what I paid or what the stud fee was, whatever, tell me the horse can't run, tell me if there is something you don't like about it, tell me all you see because that allows me to make the right decisions. Then you can take your losses and find good homes for the horses because that is most important.