THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Not just horsing around — Longtime horseman Hussa, fellow former Kellogg High basketball buddies own a piece of a Triple Crown race winner

Ray Hussa and a couple of his high school buddies were winners a couple of weeks ago at the Preakness.

Of course, so were nearly 2,600 others, when Seize the Grey won by 2 ¼ lengths at Pimlico in Baltimore.

Hussa is a longtime member of the horse industry. He helped form Green Hill Stables in Coeur d’Alene years ago, though now he operates out of an office in Sugar Land, Texas, as a bloodstock agent, evaluating horses and trying to find potential winners for some of the top horse racing people in the industry.

Hussa, now 75, has picked winners before.

Lately, he’s been doing it as a partner with MyRacehorse, which offers racehorse ownership to anyone, with shares as low as less than $100.

In 2000, he bought into Authentic, who won the Kentucky Derby that year, and later that year, won the Breeders’ Cup. 

Before that, there was Lane Way, a graded stakes winner with five career victories.

Most recently, he bought into Seize the Grey, which won the Pat Day Mile as part of the Kentucky Derby card in Louisville, Ky., on May 4.

He also talked a couple of his teammates from the 1966 Kellogg High state boys basketball championship team, Randy Haddock and Tim Olson, into buying in to Seize the Grey.

Haddock was a longtime insurance agent in the Coeur d’Alene area before retiring recently. Olson was a star on that Wildcats team.

So all three had more than just a casual interest in the second race of the Triple Crown on May 18.

“And you know what? They’re a hoot,” Hussa said of Haddock and Olson also owning a part of Seize the Grey. “Tim and Randy, they have a lot of fun with it. They don’t care what they’re getting back.”

HUSSA became involved with MyRacehorse years ago through he and Caren English’s son, Desmond, who played football at USC.

MyRacehorse owns Seize the Grey, as well as some other horses. Folks, like Hussa and Haddock and Olson, can opt to become shareholders, putting up as much or as little as they can. 

And if you go to the race, who knows — you might end up meeting D. Wayne Lukas, the famous 88-year-old horse trainer, or Bob Baffert, a just-as-famous horse trainer.

“It’s a brilliant concept,” Hussa said of MyRacehorse. “And me, as an older guy in the sport, people made fun of me — ‘Why are you going in on that horse … ?’

“I think I won the Kentucky Derby,” Hussa tells them.

“It’s a lot of fun, but it’s affordable for guys that have an interest in racing, but don’t have the bankroll … you just put a few dollars and you get to have just as much fun.”

SO WHAT did Hussa see in Seize the Grey?

“That's one thing I’ve got from my experience from doing this for 40 years,” he said. “It wasn’t the pedigree; if you start talking about statistics, pedigrees too much, you get lost.”

He mentioned some advice he once received from a veteran in the horse racing industry.

“He said, ‘If you buy a horse … if you want to buy a good horse, or bet on a good horse, you have to think like a woman. You have to use your instinct,’” Hussa was told.

Also …

“Objectively, I liked the sire Arrogate, because he was the leading earning horse in American history,” Hussa said.

Arrogate won the Travers Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup in 2016. 

He later went to stud, and started slowly, Hussa said, before siring some winners. He died in 2020 at age 7.

Arrogate sired Seize the Grey.

“I think this horse has a chance, because he might be the fastest son on dirt of Arrogate,” Hussa said of Seize the Grey.

Hussa, Haddock and Olson all watched the Preakness from afar. Hussa watched on the big screen at the Sam Houston race track. 

“I think Randy was on the golf course,” Hussa joked.

“We were a 9-to-1 outsider,” Hussa recalled of the race, which was run in the mud. “I noticed the track was muddy and sloppy, and the horses that got on the lead were running better, because they’re throwing mud back. When you’re in that position, and you’re getting mud thrown in your face from other horses, there’s a tendency to back up. I said, ‘I wonder if Wayne (Lukas) is going to send that horse, and his jockey listened exactly to what he said, and rode on the lead and never looked back.”

HUSSA SAID Seize the Grey is “being pointed” toward running in the Belmont Stakes, coming up this Saturday in New York. 

He said he and Caren might go watch Seize the Grey run in person.

One thing’s for sure …

“He’s already a special horse, but to compare him to Authentic, or say he’s going to be a champion … you can’t do that,” Hussa said. “This is only May; there’s a lot of races to be run.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.

    Courtesy photo Caren English

 JULIO CORTEZ/Associated Press Jaime Torres, atop Seize The Grey, reacts after crossing the finish line to win the Preakness Stakes on May 18 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.