Jacob West a Fresh Direction for Claiborne

[Wandering Eyes]

“The first big firework that's gone off since I got here,” acknowledges Jacob West. “And I will say this: I think it'll put the other farms on notice. I think people are going to say, `woah, they're back. Not exactly a new shooter, obviously–but reloaded.'”

The new stallion seasons and bloodstock manager at Claiborne Farm is at pains to stress that the recruitment of Mindframe (Constitution) only builds on the work of his universally esteemed predecessor Bernie Sams. After all, the last stallion brought here by Sams, who's still sharing his experience round the office a couple of days a week, was Prince of Monaco–perhaps the most eagerly subscribed of the latest Kentucky intake. But just as fourth-generation president Walker Hancock took over from his father Seth, already a decade ago now, so the time was ripe last October for an equivalent transfer between generations. As such, the stallion that West did then help to land, Bright Future, could not be more aptly named.

“It's like Mr. Hancock laid the foundation and Bernie built a mansion on it,” West says. “It's my job not to let it crumble. The way I see it, I can only add on to the house. But bringing in Mindframe, I do think a lot of eyebrows have been raised. Talking to some of the biggest breeders, the sentiment has been, 'Damn, you guys, that's serious.' So yeah, couldn't be more excited. If you're looking at it as a draft, like the NBA or NFL, in my opinion he was one of one.”

As West cheerfully concedes, that opinion may be somewhat prejudiced, the GI Churchill Downs Stakes winner having been purchased as a yearling by two of his own clients.

“I'm incredibly biased because I was part of the selection team for Mike Repole and Vinnie Viola,” West says. “But he's absolutely beautiful, uber-talented, out of a Street Sense mare, and with an incredible amount of upside going forward. We had to fight for him, trust me. It isn't easy buying off two billionaires. And, quite frankly, while it wasn't hard to sell the horse's credentials to Walker and Will [Bishop, CFO], the real push was to say, 'Okay, this is a big swing–and we need to do it.'

“So it's a tip of the cap to them, because they were like, 'Listen, the reason you're here is to get things like this done.' Of course that was the same with Bernie. But this, for Walker's regime, is like: deploy the troops, go execute, get going. And actually this horse fits the mold of what's been successful here in the past, horses that Mr. Hancock and Bernie oversaw, the likes of Blame and even going back to Unbridled.”

And that, of course, is the challenge of this whole transition: how to maintain continuity without complacency, to adapt dynamically to a changing environment.

Not yet 40 himself–though doubtless somewhat aged by recent parenthood!–West has long been pals with the farm's young executives, initially around the sales circuit and then on the golf course. His recruitment was first floated a year or two back and, as it took more concrete form, it was agreed that West could continue his agency work. But whatever hats he may wear, the yellow of Claiborne will now sit uppermost.

West admits to an undiminished wonder.

“It's amazing, every day, driving in that front gate,” he says. “As a kid who was an outsider, who didn't grow up in this industry, you look over those fields and think of the history and tradition, it just blows your mind. They've been doing it longer than anybody, and I'd even venture that some of the ways they still do it today are same as 100 years ago. And remember, it's all through the horse business. They don't have a secondary line of income to fund everything.

“This position I'm in, only three people in the world have ever held: Seth Hancock, Bernie Sams, and now myself. The pressure that comes with that isn't something you take lightly. Walker told me that, just as his dad was paired together with Bernie, it would be the same for us. As I jokingly told him, that means we can only screw up. Because what they've done is truly unbelievable. But I feel like the three of us–Walker, Will, me–are the 'younger' generation, and that it's the same for the guys around the farm, that this is the new regime.”

So how do they go about making their mark, about consolidating without being afraid of change?

“Outsiders might think that Walker wouldn't be willing to step out on the ledge and take risks,” says West. “Because there's a lot of pressure that goes with what he has inherited here. But nothing could be further from the truth. Okay, so I'm probably way more risk tolerant. But it's not like he's in any way meek. He'd just be on the lower side, and then Will's probably in the middle. That makes a perfect blend.”

Arguably the very act of hiring someone like this–a complete “outcross” to the Bluegrass establishment–is itself a statement of intent. West wasn't born to the game, but nor, as a result, does he feel inhibited either by privilege or its accompanying burdens.

“I grew up in Western Kentucky,” West explains. “And Paducah and Lexington might as well be on opposite sides of the world. But I always loved the racing on TV, and when I came to the University of Kentucky, I cheated my whole way through. My name's on the diploma, but should have one of my best friends in parentheses underneath. Because I was constantly off to Churchill, Ellis, Keeneland, while he did my assignments for me.”

West graduated just in time for the 2008 crash, but got a job as a bank teller.

“The most miserable weeks of my life,” he says. “The financial world was in the dumps, and I distinctly remember this older lady standing at the counter, literally crying. She was like, 'I don't have any more money. My savings in the stock market, they're zero.' And I'm sitting there thinking, 'God, I need to get away from this.'”

Fortunately, the baseball coach he was assisting at a local high school noticed his misery, knew what really made him tick, and introduced him to a contact at Taylor Made. Little caring that bloodstock was in parallel freefall, West made his shedrow debut at the 2009 January Sale.

“The coldest sale on record, and the worst,” he recalls happily. “And as soon as I walked into the barn, that first morning, it was, 'Oh yeah, this is what I'm going to do with my life.' I'll never forget walking through the back ring holding a bucket and towel, and seeing Mark and Frank Taylor standing there. Mark said, 'You love this, don't you?' I said, 'I'm in heaven.' And Frank said, 'Well, if you love it now, just wait till it turns around.'”

They took him on, despite a hiring freeze, and put him to work with the barren mares.

“I got so lucky,” West marvels. “Because the Taylor brothers are incredible teachers. The number of guys that came through their farm, now doing other things, it's unparalleled. And I think they saw a young, unmolded mind, a blank slate. My number-one mentor was Mark Taylor. I followed him around like a puppy dog, just a sponge trying to absorb as much as I could.”

However fast a learner, it required unusual self-belief–not to say impudence–to imagine that wealthy people might now let him spend their money.

One day West suggested that he might approach Robert and Lawana Low to buy some horses.

“Mark replied, 'Absolutely not! You do that, I'll fire you!'” he recalls. “At the end of the day, I've always had a certain confidence in myself. My mom, a single mother raising my brother and me, always instilled in us that we were big, strong boys that needed to be leaders. And, like I said, I'm a risk-taker. But you know what? Mr. and Mrs. Low allowed me to make mistakes, and learn. Mike Repole, the same. For whatever reason, they entrusted me.”

West had been similarly bold approaching Repole, when Taylor Made was selling Stopchargingmaria (Tale of the Cat) and others.

“Mike had never sold a horse and I was a young kid, ambitious and aggressive,” West recalls. “So I picked up the phone and started calling this billionaire. Mike made it black-and-white: 'You appraise my horses, and if you get the price for them, you'll be my man.' And that's what I did.”

This kind of hustle is hardly old school; hardly, indeed, the Claiborne way. But that's really the point. Claiborne doesn't need help doing what it has always done so well. But if hoping to broaden its reach, maybe it can experiment a little.

“Yes, [Taylor Made and Claiborne] are two opposite ends of the spectrum,” West agrees. “And that's not a knock on how anybody does it. At Claiborne, again from conception, it's all for the race. When I look around and see the stock they have here, I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, they could sell this for fortunes.' But you run that up the flagpole, they look at you like you have eight heads!”

Claiborne duly remains one of few farms to have resisted headlong expansion of books.

“There's many ways to skin the cat,” West says. “I'm not saying we're right and they're wrong, and I guarantee they're not saying that we're wrong and they're right. Prince of Monaco is breeding 175 mares, the most a Claiborne stallion has ever bred. He could have bred 300, if we wanted, but we hope that people will come back because they know it's a limited book.”

Nonetheless, West's arrival is intended to signal a receptive mindset. He even contrived to put Repole and Seth Hancock together for lunch at the Country Club.

“You know Mike, there's no pillow fights with him,” West says. “It was full-on haymakers, and I was cringing. But it turned out 95% they agreed on. The other 5% was just old school versus new. Mr. Hancock said, 'Mike, I've been around this business a long time and that does not work.' 'Well, I can make it work.' And a year later, Mike says, 'Damn, he was right.' You could not find two more different human beings on the face of the earth. But they ended up hugging each other, brought together by their love of the industry and desire to see things done right.”

For West, like Repole, the question is whether an outsider can usefully broaden perspectives for those who absorbed traditional lore with mother's milk.

“Well, maybe that's part of it,” West replies. “But I would also tell you, I've been a lucky so-and-so my whole life!”

Whether by luck or judgement, the man who also helped to unearth Forte (Violence) and Nest (Curlin), got his first big break with Magnum Moon (Malibu Moon)–who just happened to have been raised at Claiborne.

“He was my flagship,” he says. “And this is where he grew up. So here I am, back where it all started. Listen, I can't say it enough, what an incredible honor this is for a guy like me. It's the most iconic brand in the Thoroughbred industry. I see those tours coming through twice a day and the reverence people have for this place, it's unlike anything else.”

So how on earth do you go about change, experiment, daring?

“Confidence,” he replies with a grin. “It takes a hard-headed person like myself to not be scared to make a mistake, to fail. And that's the number one thing.”

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