Saratoga Joe
January 8th, 2002by Jude T. Feld
Joseph Boff has had a love affair with Saratoga since he was a kid. The Utica, New York native went racing there every summer with his grandparents. When he turned 21, Boff started to rent his own place for a few weeks during the Spa meeting.
“I’d get a place for a week or two at first,” he said. “Then we’d take a place for a month. Pretty soon it was the whole meet. Now I own a house on the lake. It’s the greatest!”
Trainer Kate Demasi, Connie Burke and Joe Boff at The Spa with Rachelle’s Numbers and Jorge Chavez
A. Coglianese Photo
The 45-year-old, Naples, Florida real estate developer and his fiancé Connie Burke, a lawyer from Louisville, Kentucky, decided it was time to enter the world of Thoroughbred ownership and turned to the Pewter Stable of Kate and Greg Demasi.
“Connie and I really wanted to win a race at Saratoga,” Boff stated. “A couple of years ago, I was reading the Bloodhorse and I saw this ad in the back for Pewter Stable. So I gave them a call. It probably wasn’t the smartest way to get in the business, but it turned out great for us.”
Greg Demasi runs Pewter Stable, whose primary business is pinhooking partnerships. He selects the horses and his wife Kate trains them. It has proven to be an excellent formula for success.
“We put up $9,600 for 12% of three horses,” Boff shared. “We sold two and kept one, making a few dollars in the process, but I was craving some action and thought about claiming a horse.”
“Greg discussed all the pitfalls of claiming with me,” he continued. “How you can’t vet the horse out, so you don’t know if it has any physical problems and all of that. But I really wanted to race, so Greg suggested that I claim a young filly, so that I could get at least part of my investment back by making her a broodmare if she didn’t pan out on the track.”
In May of 2001, Kate Demasi dropped a claim slip for Queen Ding, on behalf of Boff and Burke.
“We claimed her for $25,000 at Colonial Downs,” Boff said. “I wanted to win at Saratoga and I was afraid she would get claimed, so we ran her for $50,000 claiming there. Greg and Kate thought it was too tough, but that’s what I wanted to do so they agreed to run her.”
Her seventh-place finish taught Boff a valuable lesson.
“My kids were there and a lot of my friends,” he said. “We were all pretty excited before the race. I should have listened to my trainer. It wasn’t that exciting after she ran. My only excuse was that I was new to the game.”
Queen Ding managed to finish in the money a couple of times for Boff and Burke before being claimed away, but a new horse was just around the corner.
Right after the events September 11, Greg Demasi found a yearling filly by Polish Numbers that he really liked at the sales. He convinced Boff to bid on her, the hammer falling at $20,000.
“I named her Rachelle’s Numbers after my daughter,” Boff said. “Kate did a great job of getting her ready and we decided to debut her at Saratoga. The maiden special weight races are so tough up there, we decided to run her for $75,000 claiming.”
“Again, with my kids and my friends, we went to the races filled with anticipation,” he continued. “Kate said the filly was training great and she was right.”
Rachelle’s Numbers went right to the front, led at every pole, responded gamely in the stretch and posted a neck victory.
“We were screaming and yelling and hanging from the chandeliers,” Boff said. “It was our first win at Saratoga and Kate’s first win there too. We were going nuts.”
Immediately following the winners’ circle ceremony, Boff found out his stable star had been claimed.
“I was crushed,” Boff stated. “Even though we had made a lot of money on the filly, she had made a dream come true. I wanted to keep her forever. I walked around in daze for four or five days. I didn’t even want to pick up the check.”
Luckily for Boff and Burke there was another star waiting in the wings.
Dave Reed, who buys a lot of nice horses for Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel found a horse at Lone Star Park in Texas that he thought was the real deal. Go Go Baby Go had broken her maiden impressively at first asking for $20,000 and could be purchased for $50,000.
“Since I already had Rachelle’s Numbers, I asked my business partner if he wanted to go in with me on this filly,” Boff said. “He reluctantly agreed and now he’s glad that he did.”
Unable to find a suitable spot at Saratoga for Go Go Baby Go, Kate Demasi shipped her to Monmouth Park, where the Oklahoma-bred daughter of Marked Tree went wire-to-wire, defeating a solid group of allowance fillies.
“We watched the race from Saratoga,” Boff said. “We were pretty excited to win, but it wasn’t the same feeling as when you are right there. I was hoping to run her back at Saratoga, but she bucked her shins in the race at Monmouth, so we gave her some time off.”
Boff and his partner were offered $90,000 for Go Go Baby Go after her Monmouth performance but they flatly turned the offer down.
“I know you have to operate this as a business,” he said. “And making a nice profit was tempting, but we think this filly has a lot of potential. She could be a good horse for us next season. It would be hard to replace her.”
Although relatively new in the game, Boff is already looking for ways to give back to racing.
“I am really interested in being a mentor for The Greatest Game,” Boff said. “I was lucky enough to find a good trainer who tries to stop me from doing stupid things. I know other people might not be so lucky. I would like to share my experiences so that more people can enjoy our sport.”
“We’ve met so many great people at the track,” he continued. “Connie and I went to charity dinner during Saratoga and we were dancing on the same floor as Bobby Frankel and Elliott Walden. For us it was like being in Hollywood. For me it was better than meeting Tom Cruise. Those guys are my heros.”
