By Warren Eves

Joseph Gadoury is living a dream.

Trust me! You’re not going to believe his story.

“When I was a teenager I watched the Derby, the Preakness and the Triple Crown,” says 57-year-old Joseph Gadoury whose claim to fame is building 16 schools all over the state of Texas. “Secretariat was the most awesome athlete I had ever seen. At the time I was 16 years old. I always wanted a horse.”

A lifelong association with jockey Dan Sorenson is how we came across this story. More on Sorenson and his ranch in Whitesboro, Texas later.

Gadoury currently has a soon to become nine-month old thoroughbred colt named Kash.

Four years ago Gadoury’s wife Pamela was talking about getting a couple of horses. It had to have something to do with her husband’s adoration of the great Secretariat. She had no clue what was really involved in racehorse ownership or how many hoops one has to jump through to get into the process. That’s where this story got life.

“She asked me what’s a Secretariat?” Gadoury recalls. ”I told her to watch the movie.”

So Joseph comes home from work one day. His wife Pamela tells him she’s found a horse for him. ”She tells me about this horse in Palm Beach, Florida,” begins Gadoury. ”It’s an 11-year-old mare. On one side this mare’s grand sire was Secretariat.” On the other side of the mare’s bloodline was Seattle Slew.

“So Pamela says why don’t you call these people up?” says Joseph. ”So, I called. This guy tells me there were eight people interested in this retired race mare and the asking price was around $20,000 or $30,000.” Gadoury told him he didn’t have any money. ”But I asked him to put my name on the list anyway,” says Joseph. That, in itself, seems a little odd. He has no money and for some reason tells the owner to put his name on the list.

A couple of weeks went by. The Gadoury’s get a call from the wife of the man who owns this retired race mare. ”She asked me why do you want this horse?” relates Gadoury. ”So….I explained to her the story about how I loved watching Secretariat as a young man. We e-mailed back and forth, and I didn’t hear anything from them for about six weeks. I figured it was a dead issue.

“Then I get a call from the guy in Florida and he asks do you want that mare?” says Gadoury. “He tells me that his wife likes me. That she wants me to have this mare. He asks me? Do you have $10,000? I say “no sir.’ Then he asks, do you have $5,000? I say ‘no sir.’ Then he asks me if I have $2,500 to ship the horse? And I said ‘yessir!’ The deal was made.

So the mare, whose name is Gabbywearsgucci, arrives in Texas. ”She’s a little underweight, maybe 100 pounds. For a year the Gadoury’s kept her at a friend’s place in Kileen, Texas.

“Gabbywearsgucci was eleven years old when I got her, says Joseph. ”She had never been bred. I had her there for two years and the second year I bred her. So I started looking closer to home for a place where I could keep her.”

Valor Farm enters the picture. Clarence and Dorothy Scharbauer, the late owners of the Pilot Point, Tex., farm, also had a keen interest in horse racing when they were alive. Mrs. Scharbauer’s father was Fred Turner, Jr., the owner of 1959 Derby winner Tomy Lee. Indigo Mountain, a son of A P Indy, is the stallion Gadoury wanted to breed to. “They paid $600,000 for Indigo Mountain as a yearling,”says Gadoury. So I called their manager Ken Carson. I told him I want to breed to Indigo Mountain. The fee was $5,000. I told him I had no money. He asked me the name of my mare, and when I told him he said, I know that mare. Then he asks me. Can you pay $3,000? I said ‘no sir.’ Can you pay $2,000? And I said no sir. Then he got down to $750. I said yessir.”

When February came Gadoury shipped Gabbywearsgucci to be bred to Indigo Mountain. ”They bred her and she stayed there about a month,” he says, ”then he sent her back to me and I put her in the same paddock with a mule and a painted horse”

When it came time for Gabbywearsgucci to foal, Gadoury shipped her to Valor Farm. “And they took care of that for me,” says Joseph. ”I left her and the foal up there for about a month. When it came time to wean them I don’t have a place to put her.” This is where this story takes another strange turn.

Gadoury goes to lunch in Sherman, Texas. He’s introduced to the guy who runs the feed store. ”I tell him my story and he said he’d try and find me a place to put my horses,” says Joseph.

“So I get this call.” A woman named Kimberly tells Gadoury he can take the horses to “our place.” Kimberly tells him that her husband was a jockey. That his name was Danny Sorenson. She gave me their address and I called the next day. I went out there and Danny opens the door. We hit it off right away.”

Kash is a March foal and spends his time on Sorenson’s Ranch with two of his pals. ”We have called this colt Kash since he was foaled,” says his owner. “It wasn’t meant to signify money in any way. My daughters are named Kayla and Ashley, thus: K ayla.”

Gadoury called Kimberly Sorenson one day. ”I wanted to thank her for everything,” says Joseph, “but she turns everything around. She told me that ever since Danny retired from riding, something was missing in his life. Because of Kash there’s a new spark in his life. The first time I met him I was blown away with all the trophies he had. And here he was texting jockey Gary Stevens. That was awesome. When I first met him I had no idea he was that prominent. His home is beautiful. The inside is immaculate. His barn is about as nice a barn as I’ve ever seen. Everything has it’s place. He’s a perfectionist.”

Not long ago they submitted the following names for Kash to the Jockey Club: Got No Kash, Kash, K P Lindy, Indygo Kash and Kash Money. And just recently Gadoury sent in the DNA samples of Kash’s mane and tale to a California lab.

Kash is already pretty much a celebrity in North Texas. Gadoury lives only about 35 miles from what Facebook calls Sorenson Ranch Texas. ”Everybody keeps asking how is Kash doing,” says Gadoury.

“Kody is his mentor,” says Sorenson who has broke many a young horse for the racetrack. ”He loves the two guys with him. I’ll turn him out in a round pen here pretty soon. He already follows me around and leads well. By the time I get through with him he’s not going to fear anything that happens. We’ll have his teeth worked on and make sure there are no issues when he gets a bit in his mouth. He’s growing like a weed and it’s fun to watch him develop.”

We’ll be following Kash’s progress on Twitter. He’s got his own hastag #Kash. It looks like he may wind up going to trainer Charles Haverkamp who races at Remington Park for most part. One thing’s for sure, when and if that day comes when Kash is led over to race, he’s going to have quite a following if he avoids injury and makes it to the starting gate.

Joseph Gadoury had one way back when he was 16.

Kash is keeping that dream alive in Texas and we’re going to follow his progress on Twitter.

So keep on dreaming. You never know.

Notes scribbled across my official program—The winners just keep coming for Ken and Sarah Ramsey. Just reviewed the second race on Dec., 6 on the lawn at Gulfstream Park. Smokem Kitten, a son of their great sire Kitten’s Joy, won huge despite post 14 and making his first pari-mutuel start. He was wide the opening stages, still three-wide entering the turn where he took charge. Smokem Kitten set all the pace and once in the lane he roared home to post as final fraction of 6.15 on the grass course. We also liked the effort of Call Me Crazy who raced seventh early, drafted down the backstretch, then when set down in the lane he ducked to the inner portion of the course and was second best beaten 5-1/2 lengths…………….You have to love the way Graham Motion brings his stock around. Saw a nice Giant’s Causeway filly nearly break her maiden in her second start at Gulfstream on Dec., 11. Giant Crystal saved ground all the way, eased to the outside and her long strides nearly got there. There were three noses on the wire and the last fraction was 6.0……………I like columns like the one Candice Hare wrote for Danonymous Racing.com “Five maidens who could make an impact on Kentucky Derby Trial.” She mentions Tradesman, a Street Sense colt trained by Thomas Albertrani as follows: :Hammered at the windows and finished second despite breaking a touch slow and fanning six-wide into the stretch. Tradesman’s second outing was won by the other half of his entry Frosted, who has since gone on to impress in the Remsen.” Good stuff. We used to grade all the sophomores but last year gave that taxing task up to the younger generation………………The only thing I suggest in watching the run for the roses is to look for colts who are not trained by Todd Pletcher. Year after year he’s proven my point. He cannot do justice to so many colts. The value, and the edge, goes to smaller outfits who can manage a colt a lot better while having no conflict with other threes in the same shed

This entry was posted by Warren Eves on Wednesday, December 17th, 2014 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Warren Eves: Price Horse Central. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.