By Jason Shandler
Vinery jumps into New York breeding, stallion businesses
Tom Ludt does not consider himself a visionary, but he does understand the horse racing industry very well, and that is why in late 2010—just a few months after the drawn out process to build a casino at Aqueduct Racetrack finally came to a happy conclusion when it was green-lighted by lawmakers—Ludt made a major decision to expand Vinery operations to New York.
Along with Adena Springs, which had moved stallions to New York a year earlier, Vinery became one of the first major Kentucky-based farms to make a major commitment in New York (Spendthrift Farm has followed). As president of Vinery, Ludt thought bringing stallions to New York was the right move at the right time. His thinking was simple: With 5,000 slot machines projected to generate $44.8 million per year in additional purse monies for the New York Racing Association, and another $6.9 million per year slotted for the New York State Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund, racing was about to get a big boost in the Empire State.
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