With a name like Mulligan and an operation called Leprechaun Racing, Michael Mulligan must be one of the many Irishmen in the Thoroughbred industry, right? Well, sort of.
Mulligan was born near Prospect Park in Brooklyn and grew up in Flagstaff, Ariz., but he is of Irish descent. His grandfather an Irish immigrant. Perhaps it is that heritage that planted a deep-rooted love of the horse in his body, that inner feeling that led him to the racetrack, farm life, and now, a highly successful pinhooking operation.
But perhaps there is the absence of one Irish term that has helped Mulligan and his wife, Britt, quickly move up the ladder in the Thoroughbred industry. He lacks blarney.
"He and Britt are very honest, very hands-on, and are great communicators," said Bill Heiligbrodt, a partner in several Leprechaun pinhooking ventures. "They have a plan and they stick to it."
It has taken years, however, for the Mulligans to arrive at their present station in life, one that is full of hard work and constant demands but contains many enjoyable rewards.
Michael Mulligan had riding horses while growing up in Arizona, where his father worked in the newspaper business. He attended Arizona State University and began working for Hertz rental car company, later following a member of management to Budget. He also spent time walking hots on the Arizona fair circuit.
Transferred to Jacksonville, Fla., he purchased a small horse farm outside of town but remained in the rental car business. For a dozen years, Mulligan worked in that industry, becoming Budget's New England regional general manager. But he always knew he would leave and enter the horse business full time.
"I've always loved horses," Mulligan said recently, a simple answer to why he would leave corporate America for a much riskier lifestyle.
With a couple of mares, an occasional pinhook, and a few cheap horses racing at Tampa Bay Downs, Mulligan moved to Ocala in 1994. There he met Britt Wadsworth, who sold him a horse.
As fate would have it; or perhaps in this case it was a leprechaun that led Michael to Britt; the horse won, with Britt as trainer. Soon thereafter, the two became a couple, marrying five years ago. Michael's son from a previous marriage, 12-year-old Patrick, lives with them.
Britt is a ninth-generation Floridian who was born on the east coast of the state in St. Augustine. Her father, Lewis "Lew" Wadsworth, was in the lumber and roofing business and raced horses for many years. She attended Louisiana Tech University, where she received a bachelor's degree in animal science and a master's in zoology.
Familiar with Thoroughbreds, Britt worked for a time with show horses and Arabians before switching back to racing stock. She remembers the day a mutual friend, Dan Morgan, sent Michael to a farm she was leasing at the time near Lakeland. She remembers more selling him a horse, and that it "was a winner," she said laughing.
For several years after they met, Michael and Britt traveled a racing circuit, the winters at Tampa Bay, the rest of the year at places like Delaware Park. Britt was training the horses, while they also dabbled in pinhooking and broke horses for themselves and others.
Michael's son was 2 when the couple started that routine, but when it came time for him to start school, they decided to settle down. Michael had bought out his future father-in-law's interest in a 62-acre farm Lew and Britt owned and Leprechaun Racing was launched. They have since purchased 140 acres across the road, and have a half-mile track with a five-eighths-of-a-mile chute and 73 stalls on the property.
"When Patrick started school, it was time to stop going to the racetrack," Michael said. "We were doing some minor pinhooking, but when you pinhook you want to be at the top of the game. Pinhooking was more profitable than racing at the lower end of the game. We decided to make a stand."
The couple really had the perfect combination to launch their venture; Britt had the hands-on experience of being a trainer, and Michael had the business acumen. And they both possess the most important ingredient, a true love of horses.
"Yeah, we've mucked plenty of stalls together," a chuckling Michael said.
But it really is a partnership, evidenced by the praise they lavish on each other.
"She is the real horsewoman," Michael said. "She runs the day-to-day breaking and training."
"This has been primarily Michael's deal," she said in return. "He's the best at it. He's the seller; he's the partnership man."
Of course it also helps if one of you is part horse. One day at a Fasig-Tipton sale, Michael said the sale company's Bill Graves said about Britt, "She's part horse."
Laughing, Michael said Graves might be right.
"She's like Dr. Doolittle," he said. "She has an uncanny ability one-on-one with a horse, she has a keen sense about them. When we take horses to the sales, she knows each of them very well."
"Well I do live, eat, and breathe horses," Britt said. "I think he (Graves) thought I had a good sense about horses, that I could get in their heads a little bit. You really can forge a relationship with them."
But she has learned not to get too attached, because ultimately they must be sold.
"It's like summer camp with kids; you get attached to some, but you send them back at the end of the summer. You always dream of keeping a good one; wouldn't it be nice to have one of these; but that is not our business."
Good Partners
For several years, they put together various pinhooking partnerships, but four years ago decided to implement a formal structure to the deals. "We felt like we wanted to establish a partnership with a mutual fund type of approach with a diversified risk," Michael said. "Use a strength in numbers kind of philosophy."
Now, units are sold for $100,000, with the Mulligans retaining 25-40% each year. They prefer no investor own more than four or five units.
"The concept is safety in numbers. We're not the partnership to put in $100,000 and try to make $500,000, hit the long ball on one horse; that's not our deal," Michael said. "Our deal is to take your hundred and spread it across a bunch of nice horses."
That is exactly what Heiligbrodt, his wife, Corinne, and their son, Hagan, like about the Leprechaun partnerships.
"Hagan had some money to invest and we saw this as a way to increase his return from a bank offering 3-4%," Bill Heiligbrodt said. "He's always made a nice return." According to their stats, Leprechaun partnerships have averaged a profit of 27% the past three years.
"Mike has a special knack for a certain price-range horse; he has a very good program; he is very consistent in his program, and at the end of the year you're done with the program."
That last point is especially important to Heiligbrodt.
"With a lot of partnerships, I think where they get in trouble is when they buy back horses. Now they have horses in training or have to come up with a new plan. With Michael, at the end of each year, the partnership ends.
"If there are a few left at the end of the year, the partners have the opportunity to buy them. If not, Michael will buy them."
"We try to sell them privately, but the way the partnership is structured, all horses must be sold; there is no racing strategy," Michael said. "That is another appeal; the partners want finality. That is how you see some in the Leprechaun colors. We've bought them from the partnership and are campaigning them to be sold at a later date."
Those few in training are with either Steve Asmussen or Scott Lake.
Of course, the best advertising for any consignor is to sell someone a good horse. Heiligbrodt purchased a filly from the Mulligans at the 2001 Fasig-Tipton February auction for $335,000 (an $82,000 pinhook). Goodness (Hennessy - Darby Shuffle, by Darby Creek Road) won two small stakes and earned just under $100,000. Last November, the Heiligbrodts sold her first foal, an Unbridled's Song filly, for $340,000.
"I watched him at the sales and I liked the way he operated," Heiligbrodt said. "We were buying a lot of the same kind of horses. I thought he had a good team...he had some Texans with him."
Heiligbrodt and his wife live near Houston, and Mulligan is one of just a few Floridians consistently buying and selling in Texas.
His team is one reason, Michael Mulligan said, that he believes they have been successful. The group includes Lesley and Barry Dolan, who work at the Florida farm where Barry is the assistant trainer and Lesley is the sales manager. Another integral person at the farm is Everado "Nacho" Ignacio, who assists with the training and this past year joined the group preparing the short list of horses to consider at auctions. In Texas, the team includes Gerald Rich and Michael O'Quinn, the latter a weanling-to-yearling pinhooker who handles the day-to-day operation of the Leprechaun consignments at sales in Texas and California. When the team is at a sale, the farm and continued training of the horses are under the watchful eye of operations manager Fernando Vergara.
"What is working for us is we have a system, a large spotting team that looks at a lot of horses," Michael Mulligan said. "We vet a lot of horses to find those that will fit our criteria from a physical standpoint in some market.
"We have a lot of pride in working together to pick out a good horse. When they succeed in the sale ring or on the racetrack, I don't take the credit. It's a team effort. You've got to have key people."
However, when it comes time to cull the short list, or decide when to make one more bid, that type of decision is made by Michael Mulligan.
"I'm the one that answers for the end results, so I might as well be the one that gets us into it," he said.
But the opinions of the team members are very important.
"Michael and Britt appreciate your input," Lesley Dolan said. "Every weekend before we breeze, we all sit down and talk about how we will breeze them."
"They are great to deal with because they know what it takes to resell a horse," said O'Quinn, who ran his father's farm in Ocala before returning to Texas when that state passed pari-mutuel wagering. "Mike has developed a very good eye and he has a background in dealing with people, and Britt has a good background on getting them fit and ready to run."
In what spare time there is, Michael fishes on the farm and collects Winchesters; his oldest gun was made in 1883. He and Britt are also avid Texas hold 'em poker players. The couple also owns a dozen broodmares of their own.
Michael is very involved with the National Association of Two-Year-Old Consignors, currently heading both the advertising and futurity committees.
"We thought we weren't being fairly represented with a unified voice," Mulligan said of the group he helped found. The past few years, with the success of the graduates, the negative talk is virtually gone.
"We were better suited to have a unified marketing voice. It is better to talk about the 2-year-olds in general rather than individual consignors or consignments."
With the success they are enjoying, more people may be talking about the pot of gold consignments of Leprechaun Racing. - Courtesy of the Blood-Horse
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Britt and Michael Mulligan
We constantly keep all the owners
and partners up to date on what we are doing, letting them know when and where the horses are running and dealing with our trainers in various parts of the country."
Britt and Dr. Lokai of
Central Equine, examining
a recent purchase.
With a bachelor's degree in animal
science and a master's in zoology,
she's well equipped for her role in taking charge of the farm's horses.
Friendly Card Game
A Team Effort
the staff of Leprechaun Racing
Britt Instructing Riders
"As we've grown I don’t have as much
time as before to gallop the horses," she says, "but I still gallop them from time to time. It’s a good way for me to get a
feel for how they are going."
Leprechaun Racing's
Excercise Riders are some of
the Finest in the Business
Sales Manager Lesley Dolan
Watches the Morning Works
His team is one reason, Michael Mulligan said, that he believes
they have been
successful.
"We have a lot of pride in working together to pick out a good horse.
When they succeed in the
sale ring or on the racetrack,
I don't take the credit.
It's a team effort.
You've got to have key people."
"I've always loved horses,"
Mike Mulligan on leaving a corporate career behind for a life in the horse business.
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