Bernie Sams Kicks Off New Agency in Time for Fasig-Tipton July

[Wandering Eyes]

It has taken more than 40 years in the industry to build the resume, but it's a pretty good bet that there's not a more well-rounded, experienced person at the helm of a bloodstock agency than Bernie Sams.

Sams will launch a new chapter in that storied career with the debut of BF Sams Bloodstock Advisory, which will be representing clients at a sale for the first time under that banner in July at Fasig-Tipton.

Sams has worked for farms large (Claiborne, Gainesway) and small (Wimbledon, Manchester), at home and abroad, spending two years in France. He started out as a stallion groom, worked in the stallion shed, worked for businesses like Matchmaker and the American Championship Racing Series, and agencies like Reynolds Bell Thoroughbred Services. He has created, fortified and managed broodmare bands, and overseen the careers of some of the most successful stallions in the history of the sport.

But for the first time, now he will be doing it for himself.

“I looked at different ideas for what to do when I left Claiborne, and this worked out to be the most logical,” said Sams, who will work out of the Muirfield Insurance offices. “Michael Levy was kind enough to give me some office space over here. I'm excited.”

Sams left Claiborne after 23 years on the job as Bloodstock and Stallion Manager, and said that his reception as an independent has been an enthusiastic one, and that he was prepared to help owners and breeders with everything in his arsenal.

“I would like to be able to help people with the sales,” he said. “I would like to be able to help people purchase mares. I'd like to be able to help people with matings. I would like to be able to help buy seasons and shares. And after doing the matings or if you're interested in buying shares, help with the share purchases, and I'm going to do more equine insurance than I've done in the past.”

After attending the University of Kentucky, interested in joining the racing industry, Sams worked as a stallion groom at Wimbledon Farm and Gainesway. At the latter, he met Jacques Permin, whose father owned a stud farm in France. Permin invited him to work with his family at the Haras de Roiville, about an hour south of Deauville.

“I probably learned more there than I did at the other jobs, which were just groom jobs, because his mom and dad were good to me, and his father took me to the races, to Chantilly, to the training centers, and I probably started to learn more about looking at horses, and how to care for them, raise them.”

He spent two years there before the Norman winters caught up to him. “It started raining there in around October,” he said. “And it rained until April. You'd literally spend five months walking through mud. The spring was great, and the summers were fine, but the winters could wear you out after awhile.”

He returned to Kentucky to work at Manchester Farm with Wayne Sweezey, spent two years with Bobby Powell, and another couple of years at Overbrook Farm before taking a job at Matchmaker.

“I will say, working at Matchmaker was great because I learned the business part of it,” he said. “Syndicates and shares and buying and selling seasons. It wasn't so much mating horses, but more how syndicates and stallions were managed in Central Kentucky. Then we did the American Championship Racing Series. You learned all about the racetrack. We'd leave town and be gone for week here, a week there, hustling nominations. I wouldn't have done any of that if I'd have stayed here and worked on a farm. I probably learned as much there as I had from anybody at that point.”

But a couple of years after Graham Beck purchased Gainesway Farm, Pat Payne recruited Sams to return, this time selling nominations. His first year there, Unbridled and Cahill Road were both retired to the farm. He later spent six years working with Reynolds Bell selling seasons and shares and jointly managing the Gainsborough Stallions-Elusive Quality and Quiet American–before his 22 years at Claiborne.

So what's his specialty, he was asked?

“What do I think I'm good at?” he said. “I think I'm good at managing stallions and helping to syndicate stallions and identifying young horses that I think will make successful stallions. And I think I've been good at buying mares at all levels that have gone on to be producers. So I think it is more, for me, it's probably at this point been the breeding end of it. Stallions and mares.”

Now, he's setting up an Instagram account, @Bfsamsbloodstock-or his son Bernie is doing it for him-and learning to promote himself. “My man's got it all dolled out and there's a couple of posts on there now and I was like, `wow. That's pretty impressive, bud. Thank you.'”

After all the experience and all the people he's worked for, now he's doing it for himself and his family. And it has been more than okay.

“It's been fantastic,” he said. “People have reached out to say, `congratulations, good luck,' et cetera. I've had two or three people call asking for advice about horses, I'm looking at the racetrack now to help manage placement of stallions and help with the broodmares. So it has been good. Now, it's just a matter of turning some of these phone calls into money.”

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