Uriah St. Lewis has only won eight races this year and his win rate is 7%. He will never win the Eclipse Prize and no one will send him to the sales to buy six- and seven-figure horses. But, when it comes to the bottom line, there may not be another coach in the sport who does more with less.
At the $250,000 Iselin S. GIII Saturday in Monmouth, the competition included horses from the stables of Todd Pletcher, Jerry Hollendorfer and Chad Brown, two Halls of Fame and a future Hall of Fame. St. Lewis, who is based in Parx and has 27 horses in his stable, has been sent Lots of information (Bodemeister), a 14-1 hit, who lost nine in a row. In theory, Informative doesn’t look like much and most coaches would pick an easier position. But St. Lewis is not like other coaches. He’ll make a 14-1 shot, he’ll run a 140-1 shot, he’ll run them in places where it doesn’t seem like they have a victory prayer.
“If you’re not in it, you don’t stand a chance,” he said.
That’s what he does. He continued to throw his horse into places that seemed impossible. But in this day and age, where there are so many small fields, he often walks away with a check. Case in point: News runs Thursday and last in GI Hill ‘n’ Dale Metropolitan H., but St. Lewis walked away with a check for $40,000. And if you deposit large enough in the big races, you will sometimes win and earn even bigger checks.
St. Lewis got into the sport as both a fan and a bettor. He got his first job in racing at the NYRA circuit as a technician for AmTote. His wife encouraged him to give it a try and he took the job under the direction of a trainer named Robert Hayes. St. Lewis won his first race in 1987.
Along the way, he discovered that you don’t have to win 150 races a year and have a high win rate to make money. He says his stables make a profit every year and are his only source of income. After making $150,000 with an Iselin win, St Lewis’s Minn-Brook Stable made $814,325 for the year.
St.’s biggest win. Lewis is the Jockey GI Club Gold Cup 2018, which he won Secret lover (Repent). He finished twelfth in the GI Woodward, but did not shame himself by finishing third in the GI Whitney S. and GII Suburban H. He won 45-1 in the Gold Cup, which he He won by neck, beating horses trained by Pletcher, Brown, Aidan O’Brien and Saeed bin Suroor. Discreet Lover ended his career with $1,452,735 in earnings.
Information is 4-for-35 lifetime with earnings of $527,040. Another of his graded bets win was in the GIII Salvator Mile S. at Monmouth last year, which he won at 79-1 odds.
The other star in St. Lewis this year is Forewarned (Spread). He’s a 7 of the year, but won the Excelsior S. and has made $147,500 in 2022 and $909,883 in his career.
St. Lewis is from Trinidad (Trin) and his wife, Amanda, is from Brooklyn (Brook). He has no outside owners and family members make up the majority of his staff. He says that is a big reason for his success, albeit in his own way.
“We got into it to make money,” he said. “If you do the right thing, treat the horses well and take advantage of some of the opportunities you can make money. We can take the chance because we own all the horses. A lot of coaches can’t do that. It is working for us. This will be difficult for other trainers as they do not own their own horses. I have coached others. It was a real pain because they said ‘don’t go there, I don’t like this place, I don’t want to be embarrassed.’ I ran Discreet Lover in the Mile and he finished fourth. I made $80,000. I’m not ashamed to have made $80,000. But a lot of coaches won’t run him in that race.
For his system to work, he had to do it with cheap horses. He paid $10,000 for Secret Lover, $25,000 for information, and $40,000 for forewarning. He bought nearly all of his horses at the age of 2 at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale.
“We went to the shop in Timonium and we sat there for two days and looked at each horse,” he said. “You have to take your time. I’ll pay $3,000 for a horse, I’ll go up to $60,000. It all depends on the horse and how much I like them.”
St. Lewis has yet to decide where Informative will run next, but he says a Breeders’ Cup race is definitely on his schedule. He wasn’t sure if he would attend the GI Breeders ‘Cup Dirt Mile or the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic. In both races, Informative will probably be 50-1, possibly higher. A 50-1 hit in the race where the horse looks completely overpowered, which is exactly where St. Lewis is the most dangerous.
Nest is special
Now that the race is in the books, you can’t fault the owners for running Nest (Curlin) in GI Alabama S. instead of against the boys in HOLD Runhappy Travers S. Alabama has a purse of $600,000 and is one of the most prestigious races on the calendar for 3-year-olds. It was a race she probably couldn’t lose while for her Travers would be a tough place.
With the win, they won the Eclipse Award for the sport’s best 3-year-old. With wins in Alabama, GI Coaching Club American Oaks and GI Ashland S. and a second-place finish in GI Belmont S., she’s done more than enough to claim the year-end title. With so many top stallions out there, Nest probably won’t be named Horse of the Year, but you never know.
For her, it is certain that GI Breeders’ Cup Distaff will be the main target for the rest of the season. Then let’s see what she can do as a 4-year-old and if her team can do it yet again in beating men. Let’s hope that they do. With another big year, they can start thinking about the Walk of Fame.
