DEL MAR — If racing close to home mattered, Johannes would have an unbeatable advantage in Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar. The 4-year-old colt’s owners, Debby and Joe McCloskey, live just across Via de la Valle from the racetrack.
But that’s not the unique part of the McCloskeys’ story. They’re not the first, or even the only current owners to live in the vicinity of the track.
What’s unique is Johannes is the first foal of the first horse the McCloskeys bought — at a time when they said they knew “less than zero” about the sport.
Now he’s one of the favorites in one of the biggest races of the year … at the track so close to home that, Joe McCloskey jokes, they can smell the horses.
Back to the beginning: The couple moved to Solana Beach just over a decade ago. They weren’t horse racing fans, but they lived right there, so they almost felt obliged to check out the races. They met some people who owned some of the horses and thought, why not?
They budgeted $50,000 to buy a yearling — in a sport where some horses go for 10, 20, even 40 times that amount — and they didn’t really know what they were looking for except Debby dreamed that their horse should have a heart marking. After missing out on a couple because the price was too high, another one they picked out had the bidding stop at exactly $50,000.
They named her Cuyathy — an acronym for “Call upon your angels to help you.”
It sure seems like someone was watching out for them.
As a racehorse, Cuyathy was nothing special. She won three races in four years, earned just over $100,000. But her second career has been a different story.
The McCloskeys, who have been married 46 years and have one daughter, were not content to gamble on owning horses, which people not involved in racing told them was a bad idea. They wanted to breed them, too — and as Joe said, “Track people were saying you’re even dumber if you get into breeding horses.”
“I said, Well, let’s give it a shot, because we really like Cuyathy, and she’s our namesake horse (their stable is Cuyathy LLC) so we’re not going to get rid of her,” said Joe, a retired businessman who worked mainly in the meat processing business. “We’ll give it one more shot. We’ll turn the page and see what happens.”
Cuyathy’s Johannes and jockey Umberto Rispoli, center, win the Grade II $200,000 City of Hope Mile.. (Benoit Photo via AP)
What happened was Johannes.
The McCloskeys paid a $40,000 fee to breed Cuyathy to Nyquist. Why Nyquist? Well, he did win the 2016 Kentucky Derby, but the year prior, the couple met him while visiting the barn area at Del Mar, when some of their family members were visiting from … Detroit, where the McCloskeys grew up and where Gustav Nyquist played for the NHL Red Wings.
Cuyathy’s baby was born on Feb. 16, 2020. The colt raced three times on the dirt in 2022 with no success, but on the last day of the year, trainer Tim Yakteen tried him on turf at Santa Anita.
He won by nine lengths.
He hasn’t raced off the turf in seven starts since, and he’s won six (and might have won the seventh if it wasn’t for a troubled trip). This year he is 4-for-4, with all the victories coming in graded stakes races, including the Grade I Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita and the Grade II Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar. He’s earned $510,000 to raise his career total to just shy of $700,000 — an amount that would more than double should he win Saturday (the Mile champion earns $1.04 million).
It hasn’t all been smooth — Johannes didn’t race from May 2023 until this April because of bone bruising — but the McCloskeys’ “glacial patience,” to use Joe’s term, paid off.
More patience is needed this week. As Joe said: “Even to this day, people go, ‘This is great. This is great.’ And they’ll tell me, ‘What do you think?’ And I say, ‘I’ll let you know when the gates open and the horse comes out that I was in the Breeders’ Cup. Until that time, I’m not in the Breeders’ Cup.’ ”
Owner Joe McCloskey celebrates after Johannes and jockey Umberto Rispoli won the Sept. 28 Grade II $200,000 City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita. (Benoit Photo)
There’s an outside chance Johannes won’t be their only Breeders’ Cup runner. Among their four horses in training is Sea Runner, another daughter of Cuyathy (by Gun Runner), who recently broke her maiden at Santa Anita. But she would need two other horses to withdraw to make the field for Friday’s Juvenile Fillies Turf.
It all sounds a bit like a dream, but that’s not entirely accurate. As Joe said, “Everything’s more than I would have dreamed at this point.”
Debby McCloskey said she’s feeling “excited nervousness” as the big event approaches.
Debby and Joe McCloskey live across Via de la Valle from Del Mar. (Benoit Photo)
“Seeing Johannes develop over these past four years makes us very proud,” she said. “It’s been a very long journey to get to this point. We have had a lot of ups and downs in this business, but having a horse that we bred running in the Breeders’ Cup makes it all worthwhile. We definitely thank our angels who got us here.”
As part of their gratitude, the McCloskeys are strong supporters of two racing-related charities, Laughing Pony Rescue in Rancho Santa Fe and the Race Track Chaplaincy of California.
“I think there has to be a balance between what you’re creating on the front side of horse racing and what you need to do on the backside,” Joe McCloskey said. “Balance is key, and that’s one way we do it.”