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Fox Fire

by Jennifer Morrison | Canadian Thoroughbred August/September 2007

Morgan Firestone finally achieves his Plate dream with homebred,
Mike Fox Morgan Firestone finally achieves his Plate dream with homebred, Mike Fox.

Julie Firestone stepped away from her husband’s wheelchair as the field for the 148th Queen’s Plate were sent on their way by starter Drew Brown at 4:37 p.m. on June 24. Firestone, knowing how desperately her ill husband Morgan wanted to win the Plate, also knew she would cheer hard for their homebred colt Mike Fox – so hard her fists and arms would be flailing.

And, in the final half dozen strides of Canada’s most famous horse race, with riding sensation Emma-Jayne Wilson pushing and whipping Mike Fox and dozens of Firestone’s family members screaming, the dream became real. Mike Fox won the Plate with a final, victorious surge over Alezzandro, owned by the family of the late Steve Stavro.

As tears streamed down his face, Firestone was helped from his wheelchair to an awaiting golf cart that proceeded to take him and a dozen family members across the main track to the infield winner’s circle.

“I knew he was overcome with emotion when he went to the winner’s circle with us,” said Julie. “The most important thing was to get all his family around him to cheer on Mike Fox. With his health the way it is I just wanted to rally the troops, especially when we felt Mike might have a chance to win.”

For a colt that many gave a longshot chance to upset the big favourite Jiggs Coz, winner of the Plate Trial, Mike Fox was a generous 16 to 1 at post time despite being in the smallest field, just eight runners, in 30 years.

The fascinating part of Firestone’s first Plate victory was not just that Wilson became the first woman jockey to ride a Plate winner but that the owner has spent decades buying yearlings at auction, yet won the race with a homebred.

Firestone comes from a long line of horsepeople – racehorse lovers and fox hunting types with a few show jumping enthusiasts mixed in. His mother, Dorothy, was co-owner of the famed Darby Dan Farm in Kentucky with her husband John. The Darby Dan operation is responsible for such world class horses as Ribot, Chateaugay, Proud Clarion and Roberto. Firestone himself got involved in owning racehorses in the early 1980s while creating successful businesses in construction, plastics and motor homes. He is now retired from his high profile company, Glendale International Inc.

While married to his previous wife Benta, Firestone raced grass stakes winners Shiny Key and Jalaajel and his horses were trained by Al Quanbeck.

“When I met Morgan he had some good runners and a couple of mares,” said Julie Firestone. “But his pride and joy was a mare in foal to Deputy Minister who was at Windfields Farm. She had a breach birth and then died herself and he was devastated. I told him maybe he should take a break from the business and he did for a couple of years.”

After Firestone and Julie were married, he slowly returned to horse ownership through the yearling sales.

“Oh, he never lost interest,” said Julie. “He’s always just wanted to have racehorses. He’s very competitive. It didn’t take him long to get fired up again.”

It was Mike Byrne, of Park Stud in Orangeville (where Firestone kept many of his horses) who would bring Mike Fox into Firestone’s life. In 1999, Byrne and the Firestones went to Europe to look at some racing fillies and settled on an Alzao three-year-old miss named Alexis.

“We bought her for racing but also with the hope that she would have some residual value,” said Julie.

Alexis, trained by Mac Benson and then Cliff Hopmans Jr., was a listed winner in her homeland of Ireland. She came overseas and immediately took to the E.P. Taylor turf course, winning four times including the Grade III Dance Smartly Stakes in 2001. She also won the River Memories Stakes and was sixth, beaten just 2-1/2 lengths in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes, the penultimate race of her career. Alexis earned over $369,000.

Upon her retirement, the Firestone team selected the fancy stallion Giant’s Causeway as first mate for Alexis. A colt was born in 2003 but he died early after fracturing his skull in a paddock accident.

In the months before Alexis’ first foal died, Morgan Firestone was diagnosed with a rare degenerative disease, not unlike Parkinson’s, which has left him in the wheelchair and without speech. But that didn’t slow him down from continuing to build his collection of racehorses.

“He was starting to buy horses at sales like Imelda Marcos at a shoe sale,” laughed Julie Firestone. “I’m not really sure what kind of strategy he was using. Then again, I didn’t know much about racing at the time. But when he was the highest bidder on a horse he was so excited, saying that he ‘won’. I said ‘yes dear, but we still have to pay for it’”.

In 2004, Firestone and Byrne got together to make a sizable investment into Coolmore’s Tomahawk, a stakes winner by Seattle Slew, and bring him to stud duty at Byrne’s Park Stud. The same year, Mike Fox was born. As the racing and breeding business grew, Julie Firestone realized that she and her husband were going to need some help managing the horse population, in particular the runners.

“I knew I didn’t know enough and was never going to know enough about the business. I ride horses and love them but I was out of my league and I needed help.”

Hugh Graham, an Olympic equestrian who had coached and ridden with the Firestones over the years, was soon hired to be the family’s racing manager.

Mike Fox, a giant bay with a crooked white stripe down his face, was a handful as a young horse but his trainer at the time, Reade Baker, had high hopes for the colt. Baker sent him out to win his debut at one mile and 70 yards in September. He then finished third to eventual juvenile champion Leonnatus Anteas in the Cup and Saucer at 1 1/16 miles on the turf. In two more starts as a juvenile, Mike Fox was seventh in the Coronation Futurity but then won his finale, an allowance race at seven furlongs, on the last day of racing.

“Mike Fox started out with a bang last year but then he just didn’t have it,” said Julie. “I don’t know what was going on with him. Reade took him to Florida but Hugh felt the colt was just too excitable and wanted to teach him to relax.”

Graham felt the quiet surroundings of the Nelson Jones Training Centre in Ocala, where he and Hopmans trained the Firestone horses, would suit the colt better.

“He figured it was something like maybe he had not been broken properly. He wanted to work with him so he took him up to Ocala. He figured him out, taught him to rate and listen.”

While Baker visited his star colt in Ocala, a move was being made to hire Graham’s longtime friend Ian Black, who had recently started a training career after 30 years as farm manager for Kinghaven Farms.

“Spending that time in Ocala was the turning point for Mike. Some horses just need a little more time and time is not always available in this game. Ian was hired and he has known Hugh for 30 years.”

While Mike still gets sweaty and very washy before his races, he progressed from a troubled allowance start at Tampa Bay Downs to a seventh in the Queenston Stakes and then a win over older horses in an allowance race, the second time Wilson climbed aboard the colt. The Plate victory was the colt’s fourth in his eight races and kept the Firestone phone ringing for many days later.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” said Julie a week after the Plate. We were having fun with the horses before but now it’s really fun.”

The Firestone broodmare band numbers just three; Alexis, Hollywood Ending and recent purchase, Annie M., but Julie Firestone predicts it could grow.

“I’m hooked now, I’m going to keep the racing business going. I fell into this but as long as I have a good team around me I want to keep it going,” said Julie.

Her husband continues to attend the races when his horses are in action.

“He enjoys going to the races, it’s a social thing for him and he loves the Woodbine buffet – it’s the best anywhere that’s for sure. He can’t talk anymore but he loves being around people, he likes a challenge, he’s very competitive and he’s not adverse to risk.”

Julie says her husband still gets teary-eyed when someone mentions Mike Fox and that thrilling Plate victory.

“He is such a proud Canadian (Firestone applied for a Canadian citizenship) and he wanted to win the Plate more than any other race in the world. Now I know that he will die a happy man.”

 

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