University of Miami grad Ramiro Restrepo living the dream with horse in Kentucky Derby
A man who considered South Florida’s thoroughbred tracks his “playground” while growing up hopes to fulfill his childhood fantasy on Saturday — winning the Kentucky Derby with a horse he owns.
The man is Ramiro Restrepo. The horse is Mage.
And if the chestnut colt with the big kick hits the wire first at Churchill Downs in the 149th running of the Derby, it will complete what has been a life-long journey for the University of Miami graduate.
“This is everything to me,” Restrepo said.
Restrepo, 44, grew up in a family of racing enthusiasts. A grandfather rode and trained horses in Colombia. Two of his uncles hot walked horses — including the legendary Secretariat of 1973 Triple Crown fame — on the New York racing circuit.
When Restrepo’s parents moved to Miami in the 1980s, they would take him to the track, even though Florida law at the time prohibited minors from being inside the premises. His parents figured out a way around the restriction.
“We would park on the first turn at Hialeah, outside the fence,” he said. “I’d sit on the hood of a red Volvo, watch the races, and my parents would take turns going in to place bets.”
In 1988, when the ban was lifted, Restrepo — then 10 years old —showed up at Gulfstream Park the very first day children were allowed in.
“They invited all the children to come down to the winner’s circle after the first race to take a giant group photo,” Restrepo said. “I’m in the photo. Every time I’d go to Gulfstream’s Hall of Fame foyer, I’d look at the picture. It was like standing on a podium with a gold medal. You stay chasing the winner’s circle feeling.”
After graduating from UM in 2000, Restrepo worked the nightlife scene on South Beach for 14 years. Eventually, though, Restrepo could not resist the pull of horses, and for the past eight years has made the buying and selling of thoroughbreds his career.
“As an individual, I’ve been trying to raise my profile as a bloodstock agent, a purchaser of horses,” he said. “The last couple of years, myself and Gustavo Delgado Jr., we’ve been going to the sales, both here and internationally, and buying three to five horses a year.”
Restrepo said he’s not a big shot in the sport of Kings.
“This is a game where you have successful people with a lot of capital who are buying in bulk at the highest ends,” Restrepo said. “It feels like I have a musket and they have a machine gun. What we’re buying, we cannot miss.”
It was at a sale of unraced 2-year-old horses in Maryland last year that they spotted two that they liked. One was a filly, Mimi Kakushi, who ended up selling for $250,000 to another bidder and is racing Friday in the Kentucky Oaks. The other was an unnamed colt sired by Good Magic, who finished second to eventual Triple Crown winner Justify in the 2018 Kentucky Derby.
“He just struck me as being so much like his father,” Restrepo said of the young colt. “He’s a clone. We ended up buying him for $290,000 — a little bit above our budget.”
Restrepo and Delgado each retained a 25 percent “leg” of the colt, whom they named Mage, and sold the rest to other investors. They then turned the colt over to Delgado’s father, Gustavo, a South Florida-based trainer, to ready him for competition.
Mage, the son of Good Magic, made his racing debut at Gulfstream on Jan. 28 on the undercard of the $3 million Pegasus World Cup, the richest race in Florida. Mage won impressively, defeating a field of fellow “maidens” by nearly four lengths. Five weeks later, Mage returned in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, a race for budding 3-year-old standouts, and finished fourth behind Forte, the nation’s champion 2-year-old of 2022.
Next up was the Florida Derby, one of the premier preps for the Kentucky Derby. With a new jockey, Luis Saez, Mage dropped back to last in the field of 12 and remained there up the backstretch. But as the field was nearing the final turn, Mage took off, passing horses in a sudden burst. One of those was Forte, the heavy 3-10 favorite.
“Mage begins to rolllllll from the back!” exclaimed track announcer Pete Aiello as the field turned into the home stretch. “Mage got the jump on Forte!”
Mage briefly gained the lead. But he tired late, perhaps the victim of a premature move by Saez, and was ultimately overtaken by Forte. Forte is co-owned by Florida Panthers owner Vinny Viola
“What he didn’t know — and what we didn’t know — was that when he pushed the button, the horse would have that burst of acceleration,” Restrepo said in defense of Saez. “He inhaled the field. It caught everybody by surprise — the jockey and us.”
Despite the defeat, Mage’s eye-catching performance convinced Restrepo and the rest that the colt deserved a shot at the Kentucky Derby. After all, Forte is the presumptive favorite for Saturday’s race, and they had only just lost to him narrowly, officially by one length. Mage is 15-1 in the program and will be ridden Saturday by Javier Castellano.
Restrepo will be in the stands at Churchill Downs on Saturday, and if Mage happens to win the roses, posing inside the winner’s circle for photographers, like that smiling 10-year-old more than three decades ago.
