Alchemy in Aiken: Cary Frommer Makes Gold

Alchemy in Aiken: Cary Frommer Makes Gold

By Mike Mullaney , Photography by Gary Knoll

Cary Frommer at the Aiken Training Track

Cary Frommer, a 35-year Aiken resident, racehorse trainer and the current president of the Aiken Training Track, has mastered the art of pinhooking. This is a craft similar to flipping houses or playing the stock market, but instead of real estate or company shares, the commodities in trade are young horses, bought either privately or at auction, and then conditioned and sold in short order for as much as two, three, or four times their purchase price.

Maybe more. It’s a real-world form of alchemy, turning Thoroughbred potential into auction gold.

In March 2016, Frommer became an overnight sensation at Gulfstream Park’s Fasig-Tipton sale of 2-year-olds when she sold two juvenile sons of the terrific stallion Uncle Mo for $1 million and $1.3 million. Seven-figure sales always catch the eye, and adding to the storyline of those two horses was the fact that Frommer purchased both as yearlings the previous November for $90,000 and $150,000, respectively.

In other words, in five months’ time she turned a $240,000 investment into a $2.3 million windfall.

The next year, she and her business partner Barry Berkelhammer returned to Gulfstream and sold an Uncle Mo filly, which they had purchased for $250,000, for $1.5 million. As if to prove the team wasn’t just a one-trick pony, they validated their standing in the horsecommodity community with a $1.1 million sale there, a son of More Than Ready which they had purchased the year before for $235,000.

A horse auction is like a candy store for Frommer, and she readily tells listeners that it’s Berkelhammer, an Ocala, Florida-based horseman, who keeps her buying impulses in check. Making bids on horses can be fun, she said; it’s selling them that’s nerve wracking. “It makes the stock market look tame,” she said. Pinhooking prospects don’t come cheap, and making sure something as fragile as a Thoroughbred arrives to the sale in good condition, and that the buyers are in an upbeat mood, just adds to the stress.

Cary has been a horsewoman her whole life. She became smitten with horses as a teenager in Middleburg, Virginia, after her father, U.S. Army Colonel Alfred V. Daub, was transferred there from Hawaii, where Cary spent her younger years. She started a riding career aboard show horses. But then she discovered Thoroughbreds.

“That was it,” she said. “Racehorses changed everything for me, and galloping racehorses paid much better than riding show horses … I could actually make a living with racehorses. I never really thought about being a jockey. I was small enough but never light enough and, besides, I always liked the training aspect better than riding.” She’s been a licensed trainer since 1978. Pinhooking involves the training and conditioning of future racehorses, but that’s not all: Experience, instinct and intuition play large roles in each horse’s selection, and it takes a lot of faith in your own judgment and abilities.

“You’re speculating, you’re betting that a horse you buy for a certain amount now will be sold for a larger amount later,” she said.

“I started with $17,000 that my mother gave me and I used it to buy two horses, one of which I later sold for $70,000, the other I sold for $50,000,” she said.

“Every now and then you see young horses that have a flashing red light over their head. They walk differently … everything they do is telling you that they are something special.”

“When I look at a horse, I’ll accept a few flaws because some horses run well with a few flaws. If a horse is a little gawky, maybe it’s just the wrong time of life for him to be at a sale … just because the conformation isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that the horse won’t be able to run.” That knowledge, she said, comes with hands-on experience. “I haven’t been a pinhooker all my life,” she said. “I trained some horses, rode some horses and worked with some great people.”

Cary and Berkelhammer have been friends since meeting at a sale at the Calder Race Course nearly 15 years ago. “He’s one of the good guys,” she says. “We have the same ideals. We’ve been through the ups and downs of phases, the ups and downs of fashions. We’re educated. If the horse has the basics, if the walk is fluid, we know how to pick out the athletes.”

The two have connections throughout the industry that inform them of top prospects coming up to the sales.

“Some people go around and see horses for themselves before the sales but that’s a luxury I can’t afford,” she said.

“We go through and look at all the horses in the smaller sales like Saratoga. When we see one that stands out we mark it, take a second look, maybe sometimes a third look. Then we vet them, look at the X-rays, scope them, and decide from there.”

Despite her recent windfalls, don’t expect Cary to be behind the wheel of a Lamborghini driving along Two Notch Road anytime soon.

“Every penny I make rolls back into the business. I don’t buy fancy homes or fancy cars. Just this last year I bought a house that I really wanted. Not just a house, but one that I really wanted,” she said.

That common sense can be traced to her late mother and father, the colonel who made sure she targeted a career path after informing him that she was more interested in working with horses than in attending college.

Other influences include sage horsemen and women she met at places like Charles Town racetrack in West Virginia, the ones who kept older, pedigree-challenged, less-talented horses as happy and as fit as possible, running and paying the bills.

Her biggest Aiken influence was the Hall of Fame trainer Mack Miller. Equally well known for his gentlemanly manner and his training expertise, Miller was one of Aiken’s leading proponents in the Thoroughbred world. He trained national champions and multiple major stakes horses, including Sea Hero, winner of the 1993 Kentucky Derby.

“He worked for some great farms and owners that bred some great horses, but on those rare occasions when he purchased a horse out of a sale, they often turned out very special.”

And, Frommer would remind you, those great horses often wintered in Aiken, when the city was in its heyday in racing circles.

“This is a money-driven business now,” Frommer said. “Mr. Miller and a few other trainers had owners who allowed them to bring their horses to Aiken where they could be freshened. People don’t rest their horses anymore unless they have to, unless they are injured and being rehabbed, because they don’t make the connection that the rest they receive is actually something that will help them compete later on.”

And so Aiken’s racing prominence has declined, due also to the steady rise of its more easily accessible competitor, Ocala, which straddles I-75, between Lexington, Kentucky and South Florida, not far from I-95 or I-10. A more recent and sudden blow came in 2015 when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, whose Darley operation conditioned about 70 horses at the Aiken Training Track each winter, pulled his substantial stakes and left town.

As president of the track, Frommer readily embraces the reality that her out-of-town trips now are not only scouting expeditions for her personal business but also recruiting missions for the track and the town she embraced long ago. She knows she has a viable product to sell.

“The training track here is second to none, a beautiful combination of sand and loam that’s very kind to horses,” she said. “We take care of the track; we work very hard to take care of it, but it also takes care of itself.

“I think Aiken is the greatest place in the world to train a horse. There are seasons and a horse can grow out its coat. That’s important.

“And the town itself … I can’t say enough about it. When I first came here I was amazed how friendly everybody was. They would get genuinely excited when the racing people came back each year for the winter; they really embraced the horse industry, and the racehorse industry in particular.

“We’re having a little bit of a rebirth now, but much more needs to be done. Certainly, if pari-mutuel racing were allowed in Georgia, I think that would be a great help. And we’re working on a couple of other angles.

“For instance, we would like to market Aiken as a great place with ideal weather, a place where the cost of living is a little lower, where a young man or woman or couple can start and raise a family and have a nice life. The key is to get people here. If we get people here, they’re going to love it, and they’re going to want to stay. We’re trying to find young people who can take on some clients and fill the barns.”

For her part, she said that she’s a little worn out by full barns, that she has surpassed the goals she set long ago, and that maybe it’s time to find more time to spend with her 3-year-old granddaughter Bryleigh.

“I like buying horses [but] I’ve had too many horses lately, as many as 80,” she said. “My happy number is about 25, so if someone calls, I’m referring them to the other good trainers in town. There are plenty of them.”

August-September 2018 The Aiken Horse 43