Lis Mara a champion on the track and in lifearticle from: www.HarnessLink.com
At The Rail with Carol Hodes 24-May-2007
“My view is that God sends you these tools, and you’re a vehicle to do some good in the world.” It is hard to argue with horse owner Michael Gulotta, especially when that vehicle is the supremely talented Lis Mara, the 2006 Older Pacing Horse of the Year, who is now a perfect two-for-two in 2007. (May 6th)
Lis Mara is a horse that does good when he does well. Gulotta, who is from Annandale, New Jersey, donates a portion of his earnings to build houses for the poor in Haiti and to help care for retired standardbreds.
“It’s tremendously rewarding to have such an accomplished and capable horse,” said Gulotta, who with three other partners races as MJG Racing which owns 70 percent of Lis Mara. “But you like to think the horse came to you for a reason, and you want to do good.
“We’re going to donate a percentage of his earnings to the Standardbred Retirement Foundation [SRF],” Gulotta added. “And through Food for the Poor in Haiti, we’ve built nine houses – he’s built nine houses – and they named the street Lis Mara Drive in Port O Prince. They sent us a picture of the street name.
“We’ve pledged a lifetime breeding to SRF, and we’ll pledge a percentage of his earnings,” he confirmed.”
Lis Mara, now five, has $1.2 million in earnings thanks to his 20th career victory in the $85,000 second leg of the Pacing Classic on Saturday night [May 5] at the Meadowlands. He paced the mile in 1:49 flat, three ticks off his 1:48.2 season’s opener on April 28 but quite a bit of his life mark of 1:47.3 in last summer’s Breeders Crown Open Pace at the Meadowlands.
If there is something mystical about the pacer’s prowess on the track, it carried over to the circumstances that led to Gulotta acquiring him.
“When I called Erv [Illinois-based trainer Erv Miller] to look at the horse, he was actually a few miles away from the horse in Canada,” Gulotta recalled. “He was going to leave that afternoon. He just had enough time to go over and look at the horse. Fate had him in the right place.
“He looked at the horse and called me and said, Mike, ‘you NEED to own this horse,’” Gulotta explained. “He’s never said that before. Erv is very understated, very humble and quiet. When he said you need to own this horse that was an endorsement. He liked the way he was made.”
Gulotta and his partners -- New Jerseyans John Jarka of Florham Park, James Hess of Hillsboro and Otis Ray of Somerset -- paid $245,000 for their 70 percent interest in Lis Mara while original owner, Louis “Andy” Willinger of Louisville, Kentucky, retained 30 percent.
“I was told by someone that they thought I was crazy, that I had money to burn,” conceded Guilotta. “Now he says, ‘you were right.’ It’s a calculated risk. You assess risk and reward. So this is not all that far from my business background.
“Hess, Jarka and Ray – we’ve been co-workers for as long as 30 years,” noted Gulotta. “We’re four actuaries. We met in business and got interested in the horses. We started in claiming, then went to yearling sales, and bought Worldly Beauty [who would earn $1.9 million] and bred Little Miss K [$530,000 earner]. We’ve just been tremendously blessed.”
While Gulotta, 57, places Lis Mara on an equine plane of existence above all others, he has had his share of top horses for more than a decade.
“We’ve had incredible success,” he said. “I had a horse named Island Glow that made $600,000. I had a horse named Fulfilled Dreams who made $500,000. I had a horse once named Camourous, and she won 22 races in one year.
“Breeding is a much bigger portfolio for us now,” he noted. “We have eight mares, four foals this year already, four yearlings and three foals on the way. We’ve got a bunch of two and three-year-olds and John Adams.
“Racing for us now are John Adams [now five and with nearly $370,000 banked], Lis Mara and those that are going to race, [five] two-year-olds and one three-year-old in whom we have high confidence,” he added.
That three-year-old is the unraced Modern Desire, a son of Real Desire out of Wendy M Hanover, a full sister to Western Hanover, who has already produced the $1 million earner Modern Art.
“He was just immature at two but doing very well,” said Gulotta, who owns the colt with his longtime racing partner Craig Lipka [Hill View Enterprises]. “Erv thinks he’ll be a very good horse. And Erv is usually right.”
Dan Hajjar, part of Gulotta’s team, counsels him on his horse investments and is “like another son to me.” Gulotta credits Gerry Block for finding Lis Mara, who had been racing in Ontario for Willinger, William Lambeth and the Saulsbrook Stables with William McNeil training.
Racing is business proposition for Gulotta, who is chairman of the Chicago-based Aon Consulting USA, an insurance brokerage and human resource consulting business.
“It’s profitable, even after depreciation,” he noted. “My advice [to new owners] is to diversify. We use investment principles and apply it to the horse business. And then associate yourself with great people. If you use those two principles, you’ll hit good ones once in a while. But a Lis Mara comes along once in a lifetime.
“His performance is so extreme, it is beyond good luck,” he said. “Worldly Beauty was the first entry to the stakes arena [for us], but he’s beyond superlative. It’s always gratifying to have a great horse, and they are both great.”
Gulotta and his wife, Madeline, are the parents of two children. Mike Jr. is a lecturer in communication studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia and is married to April. Daughter Elaine and her husband, Tyler, have two children, five-year-old Luke Michael and two-year-old Maya.
“My grandson loves racing,” Gulotta noted. “Lis Mara is a vehicle for passing on this legacy, this passion for harness racing.”
No one is underestimating what Lis Mara can do. He was sent off at odds of 1-5 on Saturday night and coasted to victory with a 53.4 second half, final panel in 26 seconds flat. His dance card includes the $325,000 estimated Graduate on May 19 and the $700,000 estimated William Haughton on July 7, both at the Meadowlands.
How fast he can go is anyone’s guess. He might even be able to eclipse the time trial record of 1:46.1 set by his sire, Cambest, in 1988.
“There are no words to describe it,” Gulotta said of owning Lis Mara. “You think you’re dreaming.”
The toughest challenge for Lis Mara, named for the late football Giants owner Wellington Mara, may not be defeating the competition but finding competition.
When he was entered to qualify at the Southern Oaks Training Center in Florida on April 11, no one would go with him so he put in an official workout, pacing the mile in 1:53.4 with driver Brian Sears in the sulky. Sears was back at the lines for his 1:49.1 record-setting qualifier at the Meadowlands on April 19, finishing nearly 11 lengths ahead of the 2006 Pacer of the Year, Total Truth.
In the five-year-old’s first start of the year in a $42,000 open on April 28, he toured the Meadowlands oval in a sizzling 1:48.2
“Amazingly, he was well within himself [in that race], Gulotta recalled. “Brian did not pull the earplugs. He had the ‘slower” bike on him, the Telstar. He didn’t have the Harmer bike on him. So now he has his Harmer bike, which we bought him. The new bike just got delivered on Sunday [April 29].”
With 20 wins, 11 seconds and four thirds from 48 starts, Lis Mara has now earned $1,211,521 lifetime. Most of that was accomplished in 2006 with 16 of 17 finishes in-the-money and a bankroll of $967,485. Last summer, he strung together five straight wins, beginning with the $830,370 Canadian Pacing Derby at Mohawk on June 24 and including the $500,000 Breeders Crown on July 29 at the Meadowlands. The skein ended with a second-place finish to Holborn Hanover in the $203,000 American National Final on August 26 at Balmoral Park.
He was not only the United States Harness Writers Association’s Dan Patch Award winner as Older Pacing Horse of the Year but received the same accolades from Harness Tracks of America [Nova Award] and Standardbred Canada [O’Brien Award].
“The way he acts, he could be the next big horse the business has seen,” trainer Miller was quoted as saying. “We’ll have to find out; we’ll have to let him tell us.” Gulotta would agree.
“You never know what is in a horse’s heart, but I do know what is in my horse’s heart,” Gulotta said. “He’s a very happy horse; he absolutely loves his work. And he is very, very smart.”
At some point, Lis Mara’s next career will be as a stallion.
Full article continues at: Lis Mara winnings benefit poor in Haiti
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