Couple turns love of horses into Derby racing, glass collection

May 4, 2019 | 3:12 am

Updated May 4, 2019 | 12:28 pm

Bill and Sally Helwig display several of the trophies won by horses the Helwigs have owned. | Photo by Marlys Mason

Upon entering Bill and Sally Helwig’s farm on Veach Road, the first noticeable building is a barn to the right of the drive. It is a working barn where the Helwigs have stabled their own horses and friends’ horses.

The Helwigs’ love for all things horses started long ago. In 1973, the Helwigs were in the infield at Churchill Downs watching the Kentucky Derby. Because of the crowded infield, Sally was on Bill’s shoulders.

“I kept telling him the jockey with the blue and white checks was in the lead,” Sally said.

Of course, that famous jockey silk was being worn by Ron Turcotte who was riding Secretariat and would become the 1973 Triple Crown winner.

Looking back on a $5 bet that paid out “something like $6.50,” Bill said he wished he had been able to keep the winning ticket, but needed the money so he had to cash out.

In 1982, the Helwigs bought their first horse, Lynn’s Ace.

The decision to get into horse racing was sort of a whim, Bill said. He just happened to be with two friends, one of whom was a veterinarian, on the way to Rowe Harper’s farm when he asked Paul Truitt, the veterinarian, about buying a horse.

The second horse he bought he studied in the Daily Racing Form, a newspaper that publishes the past performances of racehorses as a way to scout horses. That horse was Falcon Blue.

“It’s always such a gamble,” Helwig said of buying a horse. “Horse racing has the tendency to make billionaires into millionaires.”

After writing letters to Churchill Downs to request a box for the Kentucky Oaks and Derby for three years, the Helwigs were able to purchase one in 1995 for the Oaks and Derby days and have kept the box each year after.

“You have a greater chance of getting a box if you own thoroughbreds,” Bill said.

The Helwigs have a collection of Derby glasses that date back to the 1940s. | Photo by Marlys Mason

At one Derby, they sold their box and reserved a table in Paddock Plaza, which provides a view of the paddock and also is closer to where the jockeys go in and out of the building.

As jockey Javier Castellano was walking by, Helwig asked him if Stacy Foster Meeks was his mother-in-law. Castellano was surprised by the question but said yes, and Helwig went on to explain that she had gone to high school with both Bill and Sally at Owensboro High School.

This conversation created a relationship that has carried on through the years at Churchhill Downs and at Keeneland as well.

Currently, Bill Helwig owns eight horses, five of which are racing this season. The other three are broodmares that are being used for breeding.

This year, the Helwigs gifted their box to their children for both Oaks and Derby, but Bill will be heading to Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., where the horse he co-owns with Brent Gasaway, All Right, will be running.

Bill said that he travels “more than he should” to watch the horses run and that after his retirement from Dahl and Groezinger at the end of the year, he will continue to follow the horses.

With Kentucky’s four traditional race tracks — Churchill, Ellis, Keeneland, and Turfway Park — and Kentucky Downs, which is unique and more like a European grass track, Bill will not have to travel far.

“The tracks are not open for the whole week because there aren’t enough horses to go around,” Helwig said. “Racehorses need six weeks off between races.”

The Helwigs see their interest in horses as an investment.

“Why not enjoy what I am doing and make a little money?” Bill said.

Bill said the horses they have had at their barns have not been good racehorses, but Bill said there is a rule that all thoroughbred owners follow.

“If you’re breeding, breed the best to the best and hope for the best,” Bill said.

As he continues to invest in the horse industry, he said that he has to have some education and has to study some, but that “betting on a horse is just a bad bet.”

Sally, however, said that no one can pick a longshot better than Bill.

And, in the 2016 Kentucky Downs race where All Right had 44-1 odds, he was the longest shot on the board. But co-owners Bill Helwig and Brent Gasaway and All Right’s trainer decided to enter the horse.

And it was a more-than-All-Right decision. Hopefully, this weekend’s Monmouth Park’s race will keep Bill “dreaming of the big one.”

May 4, 2019 | 3:12 am

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