Phillip Shelton, a former middle school teacher, found himself in the center of horse racing royalty when Medallion Racing's Porta Fortuna captured the June 23 Albany Stakes (G3) at Ascot Racecourse. The racing manager for Medallion since the beginning, Shelton has helped the Taylor Made Farm partnership reach meteoric heights since its formation in 2016. Medallion Racing has competed and won numerous graded stakes at the highest levels around the country and prides itself on securing top-quality athletes for its wide base of partners.
BloodHorse 'Going Abroad' columnist Shelton spoke with BloodHorse MarketWatch about acquiring Porta Fortuna in Ireland, the beginnings of the Medallion Racing partnership, and the "indescribable" experience of winning a race at Royal Ascot.
MarketWatch: The Medallion Racing partnership just won the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot with Porta Fortuna. How did you first discover her?
Phillip Shelton: It’s kind of a crazy story. We were looking at the horses that finished second and third in maiden special weight races to take out to Del Mar to break their maiden at the 'Ship and Win' meet. And our plan was we were looking at all these early-season 2-year-olds in England and Ireland. So we were going to buy something, run it back in a stakes or graded stakes with a goal of hitting Ascot if it worked.
We initially looked at the second- and third-place runner in Porta Fortuna's maiden race but we just ultimately decided that she was the one we wanted to pursue. Visually she looked great, she absolutely exploded, and the sire (Caravaggio) is a bit underrated in Europe. Coolmore stood him in America, stood him in Europe, and then sold him to Japan, but he’s actually done pretty well and done well in America, which are all things we look for.
I work with a bloodstock agent in Europe, Mark McStay of Avenue Bloodstock, and we basically look over all the 2-year-old races beforehand to see who we would be interested in and who would even be for sale.
We actually just bought one to fulfill the mission of going to Del Mar, a 2-year-old filly named Watery, who recently finished third at the Curragh. We’re always looking.
MW: How many horses do you have in Europe? Was buying into Porta Fortuna a unique business venture for the partnership?
PS: We’ll buy between 10 to 12 horses for Medallion Racing. The vast majority of them will be in North America, but it’s a very high-level focus on quality and so we want to try to have around 20% of our stable be sourced in Europe. We found (horses in Europe) have a greater propensity to compete at this high level.
The economics on dirt horses is also very difficult. We’re buying proven racehorses. If this filly (Porta Fortuna) had done the same thing she did at Keeneland for the first time, she might’ve cost double. Our ideal goal was to run her in the group 3 at Naas (in Ireland) and if she ran well, go to Ascot. If she didn’t, we were just going to bring her to America. Obviously, she ran great, so we didn’t have to worry about it, so now she won't come to America till hopefully the Breeders’ Cup.
The Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1) in September is our intermediary goal, and the Breeders’ Cup if all goes well.
MW: What was your Royal Ascot experience like? How did it feel to win with Porta Fortuna over there?
PS: I always tell people if you’ve never been, it's hard to do it justice. We’ve been lucky to go last year and now this year. It’s so hard to describe the track. It's just completely next level, but the great thing that’s unlike anywhere else is that every race there is so important. It could be a handicap for horses rated 90-100. And some of those horses may be listed stakes horses but most of them are like allowance races. Winning one of those handicap races at Ascot is like winning a grade 1 over there. We’ve won grade 1 races before and (Porta Fortuna)’s win felt like the biggest win we ever had. There’s just nothing like the pageantry, the royal family, and the quality of the racing is just so strong. Everybody wants to be there and everybody wants to win there. Our race had 18 horses in the field.
And being Frankie (Dettori)’s 80th Ascot winner just added some special meaning to our win. If you ask a lot of our American owners and fans who’s one jockey people know from Europe, and that’s Frankie.
MW: How did the Medallion Racing partnership start?
PS: The farm bought into California Chrome as a stallion prospect in 2016 while he was still running. A lot of our Medallion Racing core partners are long-term partners of Taylor Made. And a good amount of these folks bought into California Chrome as a stallion and got to go on this unbelievable journey with him winning the Dubai World Cup (G1) and Pacific Classic (G1) and going to the Breeders' Cup. I always tell people please don’t judge me based off California Chrome; that’s like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal that’s not going to be the norm. But it was kind of the genesis to where ‘Hey, a lot of our partners enjoy the racing, we have a lot of connections, is this something we could get other people to do and how do we refine the model to be something that makes sense to our partners and for us?’ And we decided we’re going to focus on just fillies since that shrinks the financial risks.
We’re not buying too many maiden winners. We’re buying allowance or listed stakes winners. We bought Going to Vegas after she finished second in a grade 1. We primarily buy 25% so we get to participate and compete at the high level. But the horse doesn’t need to wear our silks, we don’t have to pick the trainer, a majority of the horses we buy actually stay with the trainers they're with.
Our goal was to be competitive at the graded stakes level, and since we started in 2017, we’ve had about 310 starters and almost 25% of those starts have been in grade 1s and 65% of them have been in graded stakes. And we’ve won stakes all over the country.
MW: What’s your background in the industry?
PS: So basically I was a middle school teacher and I got into horseracing 100% from gambling. I have a twin sister and a brother and my dad loved racing. And racing just became a one-on-one bond thing because as you can imagine with three kids that time became very difficult. It just became this thing where we would go to Keeneland to watch races or Saratoga simulcast.
I worked a sale for Taylor Made when I was a senior in high school and I just stayed in touch with them. I used to coach one of the Taylors' kids and I periodically worked the sale, so it wasn’t like I was a stranger. And when I decided I didn’t want to teach anymore, the Taylors said, 'Hey, we’d love to have you come to the barn and try it out,' and I got to a point where I said if I don’t give it a shot now I never will.
I started off as a groom at the farm but then two years into that the Taylors started this and they said, 'Well, you're kind of the racing guy, you're the obvious person to run it from people within the farm.'
MW: What would you say to anyone looking to get involved in racehorse ownership for the first time?
PS: I would tell them the biggest thing is that you have to ask a lot of questions. I have found that the biggest issue is a lot of people get into it and they don’t understand the cost, how the mutation ebbs and flows and it's like any other business—you just have to do your due diligence. It’s a tough game.
You want to align yourself with people who have your best interests at heart and try to ask as many questions as you can. That’s a huge thing: education. We’ll dive into horse’s pedigrees together, for example. I want people to have a good experience and be Medallion partners for life.
