FAQs

To our partners and potential partners, we offer three distinct partnerships that you may buy into: 1) Starlight Racing, 2) Starlight Australia, or 2) StarLadies Racing:

Starlight Racing

This is our founding partnership. Starlight Racing contains horses owned 100% by Starlight, as well as a percentage of multiple other horses. Starlight Australia is a spinoff syndicate that we own in partnership with industry peers.

Starlight Racing has campaigned such notables as Harlan’s Holiday, our multiple Grade 1 winning colt with $3.8M in earnings; Ashado, our two-time Eclipse Award-winning mare and Hall of Fame inductee with earnings of $3.9M; and Shanghai Bobby, our Eclipse Award-winning, undefeated 2-Year-Old champion with earnings of $1.8M.

In addition, we own horses in conjunction with some of our favorite industry peers. These include champions such as Justify, winner of the 2018 Triple Crown, and Authentic, winner of the 2020 Kentucky Derby, Breeders’ Cup Classic, Horse of the Year, and 3-Year-Old-Male.

Visit our division pages to read more about these exciting new segments of Starlight Racing.

Starlight Australia

This is Starlight’s newest, international endeavor, and it is a truly unique and innovative syndicate-experience. We feel fortunate to be at the forefront of it and have enjoyed the start of this new segment developing champion colts and high-level commercial stallion prospects for the international arena.

Within our first year, purchased in 2020, we have had immediate success. From our first horses to hit the track in Australia, we have had several winners including Captivant, Tiger of Malay, and Volcanic Rock.

StarLadies Racing

We think of our standalone StarLadies Racing division as possibly our most exciting and fun-filled segment that we created just for the ladies and they just race fillies. This division has owned such notables as our champion Eskenformoney ($757K in earnings), and Firsthand Report ($351K in earnings). Visit our StarLadies Racing page to read more about this exciting, all-women segment created by one of Starlight’s own managing partners, Laurie Wolf.

A number of our partners are members of both Starlight Racing and StarLadies Racing!

The first step is to read through our site and see if we are a good fit for you!

If you resonate with our partnerships, our pricing, and do indeed wish to participate in the sport at its highest levels while enjoying an intimate atmosphere of camaraderie with like-minded individuals as passionate about racing as you are, let us know of your interest in joining us.

Once you reach out to us, we’ll meet with you to discuss any concerns or questions you may have. We are happy to receive a verbal commitment from you at any time of year, and we will finalize contractual agreements and gather a financial commitment from you in August.

Starlight Racing keeps their membership volume quite low (especially if compared to other horse racing syndicates). The reason we do this is because Jack, Laurie, and the Starlight and StarLadies team, wants Starlight and StarLadies partners to feel like they’re a part of a family when they join, and we also want our partners to be truly immersed in the experience of owning and competing these elite equine athletes at the highest levels of the sport.

This is a model that our partners have embraced, and one that allows you to truly own a piece of a stable as opposed to a piece of a tail!

We are unique amongst syndicates in that rather than selling percentage shares of a single horse, we sell units (each year) for our full crop of yearlings. We feel that when partners buy into and own a part of each year’s crop, it gives our partners a better chance of finding success, and mitigates our individual partner’s level of risk in terms of participation. Our strategy mimics the large and historic private stables of our sport: not every horse in a large stable is a stakes horse, but every year, a few of them likely are. We want you to be able to go to the big races every year as an owner, and we've been successful in making that happen.

This is an amenity we always deliver to our partners. Yearly fluctuations in performance is a risk factor syndicate models must figure into the equation, and we do that. As owners, our 20-year, 51% in-the-money, and 22% win average is, quite frankly, impressive. In 2020, we finished 58% in the money, and 27% win average.

We know that we’re unique and we believe that uniqueness is part of what gives us a competitive edge in terms of performance. It is also what keeps our partners coming back year after year.

Small membership numbers

Jack and Laurie take pride in the intimate camaraderie and lifelong friendships many of their partners have found through joining Starlight and StarLadies racing, and keep the partnership numbers low for that reason.

Thoroughbred horse racing is a very capital intensive sport.  Starlight and StarLadies Racing is a partnership for individuals of high net worth that have a passion for the tradition of the Sport of Kings. Partners will buy in on a yearly basis. Starlight has chosen to raise between $3 and $5 million for our yearling class of 2020. For StarLadies, we will be raising between $500,000 and $1,500,000 for our yearling class of 2020.

On average, Starlight Racing accepts about 14 partners per yearling class, and StarLadies accepts even fewer than that. In terms of numbers, that makes us quite exclusive, but our partners buy in knowing that they are building lifelong connections. Whether they’re celebrating a winning champion or rallying in support over a disappointment, they know they’re valued like family, and participating in an immersive experience: the thrill of thoroughbred ownership at the most elite levels available in the industry.

We’re in the business of making champion race horses

We’re so serious about consistently competing and winning in the elite Grade 1 sphere of thoroughbred racing that we’ve made it a part of who we are. We make graded stakes champions, and we do everything we can to make sure our champions go on to have successful careers in breeding. In fact, many of our Starlight-StarLadies champions continue to influence both the sport and the breed even years after they’ve retired from their competitive careers.

Our leadership has a material stake in every partnership, every year

Unlike other partnerships, our managing partners, Jack and Laurie Wolf, put their own money into the partnership every year. In every business deal, every win or loss, and every event, they actively participate not only with the expertise they bring to the table, but also with their material share in the outcome. Because they take on the same level of risks and rewards as their partners, rest assured, if something is important to our Starlight and StarLadies partners, it is important to Jack and Laurie.

Payout and fee structures that benefit our partners

Other syndicates charge fees throughout the life of their partnerships. We don't do that. Starlight and StarLadies managing partners only receive a base fee during the first two years of a partnership's lifespan (average lifespan of 3-5 years.) We have also developed a payout structure for our partners that is profit motivated. Our priority return kicks in only after the sale of a horse, and it is not paid until the accumulated returns exceed the acquisition costs of the horses and management fees of a particular partnership.

Unlike other partnerships with management that receives monies upfront, during, and after a partnership ends, our payout and fee structures are built to put our partners first.

No markups, and active management

Another outstanding feature of Starlight and StarLadies Racing is that we do not mark up our horses. Our model is so successful that we haven’t had to!

Our managing partners are actively involved in our day-to-day operations. Through the relationships Jack and Laurie have established over the last twenty years, they’ve been able to attract and hire the industry experts Starlight and StarLadies need to streamline operations and eliminate inefficiencies. This limits unnecessary overhead while creating value through both their brand and their star-studded roster of equine athletes. That’s a benefit they pass directly to Starlight and StarLadies partners.

We love to share the details of how we carefully curate and then develop our consistently award winning roster of horses, and we love to talk about how we’ve thoughtfully created a partnership model that always puts our partners first.

To do this as consistently and successfully as Jack and Laurie Wolf have for two decades with Starlight Racing, it shows just how dedicated the Starlight team is to the sport, to our horses, to our partners, and our fans, and we are proud to share with our Starlight and StarLadies partners, as well as our fans and respected industry peers, these accomplishments:

• 7 Eclipse Awards, including 2 Horse-Of-The-Years
• A Triple Crown winner (Justify, 2018)
• 77 stakes victories and counting
• A Hall of Fame induction (Ashado 2014)
• 2 Kentucky Derby wins:
  • Justify 2018
  • Authentic 2020
• A Kentucky Oaks Winner:
  • Ashado 2004
• 3 Breeder’s Cup World Championships Wins:
  • Ashado, Distaff 2004;
  • Shanghai Bobby, Juvenile 2012
  • Authentic, Classic 2020

(And this is just the shortlist! So please visit our Portfolio of Champions to explore our full list)

After 20 years of consistent, award-winning performance at the most elite levels of the sport, we still believe we are nothing without our star-studded cast of horses. With seven, million-dollar earners and more than thirty stakes champions, at Starlight and StarLadies Racing, we are our horses:

• Harlan’s Holiday Our standout colt that started it all: multiple Grade 1 winner and 2003 Dubai World Cup runner-up with $3.6M in earnings. Sold to WinStar Farm. In 2012 Harlan's Holiday was America's Champion Juvenile Sire, posting an all-time record for two-year-old earnings for a North American stallion.
• Ashado Our multiple Grade 1 winning, two-time Eclipse Award winner for 2004 Champion Three-year Old Filly 2005 Champion Older Mare, and 2014 Hall of Fame inductee with $3.9M in earnings. Sold to Sheikh Mohammed for $9M, making her a world record holder for a broodmare prospect!
• Justify Eclipse 2018 Horse of the Year, 2018 winner of the Triple Crown. Undefeated. Multiple Grade 1 winner. Earnings of $3.8M. Undefeated.
• Authentic Eclipse 2020 Horse of the Year, 2020 winner of the GI Kentucky Derby and the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Also winner of the G1 Haskell Invitational, G2 San Felipe Stakes, and Grade 3 the Sham Stakes earning him the 2020 Eclipse for 3-Year-Old male.
• Octave Our multiple Grade 1 winning filly, and 2007 Kentucky Oaks runner-up with $1.7M in earnings. Sold to Sheikh Mohammed for $4M.
• Take the Points Our multiple Grade 1 winning colt with earnings of $943K. Standing stud in Saudi Arabia.
• Hilda’s Passion Our multiple graded stakes winner and winner of Grade 1 Ballerina Stakes, with $740K in earnings. Sold to Katsumi Yoshida for $1.2M
• Shanghai Bobby Our 2012 Eclipse Award winning and undefeated 2-year-old champion with $1.8M in earnings. Sold to Coolmore North America/Ashford Stud.
• Audible NYTB 2018 Champion Three Year Old Male, Grade 1 winner of Florida Derby. Earnings of $2.1M
• Improbable Multiple graded stakes runner, Grade 1 winner of the Los Alamitos Cash Call Futurity. Earnings of $920K
• Neolithic The highest earner by Harlan’s Holiday. Neolithic is a multiple graded stakes earner. $2.3M in earnings. Sold to Pleasant Acres Stallions.

You can read more about our trainers' spectacular accomplishments here.

We keep the majority of our Starlight horses in training with Bob Baffert on the west coast, and Todd Pletcher on the east coast. We also have Starlight horses in training with Al Stall, Jr. and Rodolphe Brisset, based primarily in Kentucky.

Our Starlight Australia horses are trained by Peter & Paul Snowden, Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott, John Moore, Richard & Michael Freedman, and Team Hawkes.

For Starladies, Todd Pletcher trains our U.S. based horses, and Anthony Freedman trains for StarLadies Australia.

We feel fortunate to be working with each of these highly regarded, winning, and accomplished trainers. We consider each of them to be expert horsemen and year after year, they play a major role in the successes of our stables!

With a fresh yearling crop each year, the number of horses we have in active campaigns at any given time is variable, however we do always have horses competing throughout the year.

From our yearlings to our 3-year-olds and up, our full Starlight-StarLadies’s stable-roster tends to average between 70 and 80 horses. Our Starlight horses on active race campaigns, average 30-35 head in a given year.

StarLadies is more exclusive in terms of their demographic requirements. StarLadies’ stable-roster averages approximately 5 fillies and mares from year to year.

No. Because we are not breeders, Starlight and StarLadies Racing prefer to partner with a handful of farms that we employ at various stages of our horses’ development.

We also strongly believe in running sound and healthy horses and we make every effort to catch emerging physical weaknesses in our horses early on. This means we are not afraid to give our horses a holiday to freshen up or go through the physical therapy regimens they require when our trainers and consulting veterinarians believe they need it.

The majority of our horses spend their competitive careers stabled at the racetrack with our trainers. For the remainder of our stable-roster, we retain relationships with several well-regarded farms and training centers. After purchasing our yearlings they are sent to one of a couple of farms that we use while they mature (one in Lexington, Kentucky, the other in Ocala, Florida). When they are ready to be backed for the first time and begin the early stages of their training development, they start their training with J.J. Pletcher and Eddie Woods (both have training centers in Ocala, Florida), and then, when an individual is ready, he or she is sent to the racetrack (predominantly to Todd Pletcher or Bob Baffert.)

With a slogan like “Reach for the Stars”, we’ve set the bar high for ourselves! As you can see from our roster of Starlight and StarLadies champions, we feel we've succeeded in that lofty goal!

None of that would be possible without our carefully curated team of experts. From our leadership and staff, our trainers and veterinary experts, and our advisory team that keeps us on track, we recognize that our accomplishments can’t be achieved without their individual contributions.

You can read more about our Management and Advisory Team, our Training Team and our Young Horse Development Team on our individual team pages for them. We also mention their accolades throughout our site.

It is our mission to consistently deliver a world-class level of service to both our partners and our fans, and we are always happy to provide you with further details on how our exciting partnership works and how you can be a part of Starlight and StarLadies Racing.

For more information please contact us.

Among our partners and the organizations, we partner with, we welcome new entrants and hope to always inspire a sense of community, sportsmanship, and prestige.

At the industry level, we inspire an environment of integrity, tradition, and ongoing performance at the highest echelons of our thrilling sport of horse racing.

We accept verbal commitments all year round, but your intent to commit must be formalized by July with no money due until August.

For partnership inquiries, please contact us.