Stuck With Luck
January 16th, 2002by Jude T. Feld
It is hard to believe that the brother and sister team of Rodney and Kim Nardelli, who have been in the horse business since their youth, had never raced a Thoroughbred, until Amsterdam (G2) winner Listen Here came along. It proves the old adage that, “good things come to those who wait.”
The Nardelli’s operate Springwood Farm in Lexington, Kentucky where they breed and raise horses primarily to sell at public auction. “In an ideal world, we’d race ’em all,” says brother Rodney. “But we are a working farm and there is no way we could afford it.”
Listen Here Wins The Amsterdam
Adam Coglianese Photo
Kim Nardelli has been a horsewoman all of her life, competing on the hunter-jumper circuit in her native North Carolina as a young girl and gradually working her way to the Thoroughbred business. “I got involved as her indentured servant,” Rodney joked. “Then, Kim and I started to work the sales. When I graduated from college we started to buy a few yearlings to resell.”
Listen Here is a product of the Nardelli breeding program. “Kim owned the mare with some of our partners and bred a stakes winner out of her by A.P. Indy,” Rodney stated. “I bought in after that.”
Failing to reach his reserve at the 2000 Saratoga Yearling Sale, Listen Here also RNA’d at the 2001 Calder Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale. So as luck would have it, the Nardelli’s got “stuck” with him and were thrust into the racing business.
“Bill Mott had seen him as a two-year-old and liked him,” Rodney said. “He advised our partner, Mr. Lakin, to purchase 50% of him.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Under the Mott shedrow, the son of Gulch has won four of 10 lifetime starts, including the Nashua Stakes (G3). With the $90,000 he earned in the Amsterdam (G2), the colt has amassed a bankroll of nearly $300,000.
“We had a great sale at Fasig-Tipton in July,” Rodney shared. “We sold a Mazel Trick colt that we bred for $192,000 and a Scatmandu colt that we pinhooked for $150,000, but nothing beats the feeling of watching a horse that you own, win a nice race like that.”
“Kim and I are very involved in our product,” he continued. “Our money is at stake along with our client’s. The proof of your success is when your horses go out and win. We were lucky enough to be at Saratoga for the Amsterdam. It was a huge thrill.”
The Grade 2 victory also considerably enhanced the Kentucky-bred’s value as a stallion.
“It was a great victory for Wintergreen Farm too,” Rodney shared. “Mr. Greely bought in to Listen Here as a stallion prospect after we won the Nashua last year. Kim and I are greatly appreciative for everything he is doing to improve the industry.”
The King’s Bishop (G1) at Saratoga on August 24 is the next spot on Listen Here’s dance card and a big performance there would cement him as a top contender for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Arlington Park. Is that what you would call “beginner’s luck”?
