Then last year, Rick Stevens-Gleason, and his wife, Helen, of Middletown, owned shares of Mage, who stunned the Derby crowd with a thrilling victory at 15-1 odds.
Now LaPierre is back in the saddle.
She owns a few shares of Seize the Grey, the winner of this year’s Preakness Stakes and who raced in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course.
For LaPierre, investing in the risky world of horse racing seemed to be in her blood. Her father was a horseman and she was in the saddle before she could walk, she said.
Ironically, it wasn’t until years later when LaPierre, faced with serious medical issues, decided to purchase shares in a thoroughbred.
In 2018, while living in Middletown, she felt sharp pain in her abdomen. She called the life squad and one paramedic told her “you don’t look sick.”
Looks can be deceiving.
Her abscess busted and four days later she woke up in the intensive care unit. She didn’t know where she was. She asked an Atrium Medical Center nurse what time it was. She was told it was Thursday.
After LaPierre, who worked at TVMiddletown and was active in the arts community, was released from the hospital, her son convinced her to move to Radcliff, Ky., to be closer to him.
One Saturday afternoon, while watching the televised broadcast of the horse races from Churchill Downs, she heard about myhorserace.com, a company that allows people to purchase all-inclusive shares of horses.
She was going through radiation treatments for breast cancer and needed an outlet to “brighten things up,” she said.
She bought one share. She was hooked.
LaPierre said her grandmother always purchased her stocks for Christmas with the advice to reinvest the dividends. If it worked with stocks, LaPierre figured it would work with racing.
She bought more shares of other horses, including two shares that cost her $200 of a foal who was sired by Arrogate out of the Snart Strike mare Smart Shopping.
After a national naming contest, the horse was named Seize the Grey.
She takes no credit for investing in a Triple Crown winner, a horse that has 10 career starts, four wins and $1.8 million in career earnings.
“It’s a crapshoot,” she said when asked about the horse racing industry. “You can have the best pedigree in the world. But the horse has to have the will to win. You can’t put that spirit upstairs. It has to be there.”
Seize the Grey is trained by Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas and ridden by Jaime Torres. Throughout the horse’s career, LaPierre said the owners get emailed updates about the horse’s progress.
On May 18 when Seize the Grey posted a gate-to-wire, 2 ¼ length victory in the Grade Preakness, LaPierre said she practically “flew out” of the chair.
“I didn’t need the chair lift that day,” the 77-year-old said with a laugh.
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