Remembering Bob Reeves

The National HBPA Foundation extends heartfelt gratitude to the estate of Bob Reeves for their generous donation. The contribution will make a significant impact on our motto, “Horsemen Helping Horsemen”. Bob Reeves’s legacy of compassion and generosity will continue to assist Horsemen everywhere as we work towards the Foundation’s mission. We appreciate honoring his memory in such a meaningful way.

For more information about the National HBPA Foundation, or to make a donation, click here.

Following is an article from the Winter 2023 issue of The Horsemen’s Journal remembering Bob Reeves.

Friends and colleagues remembered Bob Reeves in many ways and words after learning of the death of the longtime Ohio owner and breeder and staunch horsemen’s advocate this past autumn in Nashville, Tennessee.

They called him affable, analytical, empathetic, generous, gifted, kind, pleasant, sharp, trustworthy and witty. In a federal lawsuit against Reeves and his colleagues involved with a horsemen’s organization formed to negotiate simulcast and advance deposit wagering contracts with racetracks, adversaries gave him a nickname that he perhaps enjoyed most of all.

“In complaints, they always referred to us as the ‘national ringleaders,’ ” said Frank Petramalo, the longtime executive director of the Virginia Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and a fellow defendant in a lawsuit filed by Churchill Downs Inc. “Bob, Wilson Shirley and I were the national ringleaders. Bob always got a kick out of that when he saw it in the complaints.”

“Principally, he believed and thought that the horsemen’s associations had a fiduciary responsibility to owners,” said Shirley, a racing consultant who worked with Reeves at the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Group (THG). “And since they were the authorized representative of horse owners, both contractually and in lobbying, he believed that they had a responsibility to represent and further the interests, economic and otherwise, of owners.”

Shirley remembered Reeves as “kind, empathetic and witty, with a really good sense of humor.” He also recalled a serious businessman who always had the interests of horsemen in mind, whether Reeves was working on behalf of the THG or in his many roles with the National HBPA, the Ohio affiliate and the Ohio Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners.

“That was part of his unique gift; he knew the horsemen’s side, the trainer’s side of the business,” Shirley said. “He knew it inside and out. He was a longtime supporter of the horsemen’s organizations in Ohio. Everybody trusted him. They knew he was one of them. They knew he was on their side. He wasn’t a shill for the racetracks, he wasn’t in it for himself, and he knew the business from their point of view. They trusted him.”

Reeves served as president of the THG, along with being a longtime member of the Ohio HBPA board of directors, former executive vice president of the Ohio HBPA and chair of the National HBPA’s wagering committee.

A third-generation horseman and successful owner and breeder in his native state, Reeves also came to racing with decades of executive experience in the health, insurance and venture capital fields. He served as president of the Ohio Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners, and he and his surviving wife, Sarah, are gold members of the organization.

“He was on the board when I got here 17 years ago,” said Dave Basler, executive director of the Ohio HBPA. “He was instrumental in helping me to learn about the simulcasting end of the business. One of Bob’s major pushes was to make sure horsemen received a fair share of the export revenue, and he was instrumental in the formation of the THG, the group that attempted to receive a fairer share of export revenue nationwide.”

Basler, who serves on several National HBPA committees including medication, model rules and wagering and alternative gaming information, also remembered Reeves in capacities far from official.

“He was an extremely generous man,” Basler said. “When he was resigning from the board, he wanted to do something to help our horsemen going forward. We discussed various ways he could do that, and we set up together, with his money, a scholarship program that he fully funded. He did not want his name on it, and it went in the Ohio HBPA’s name and supported the child of a trainer in the state to have a full ride to Ohio University. He did that for a number of years. That was obviously a significant gift of over $100,000 for each student he sponsored. That was the kind of guy he was.”

Reeves won nearly 200 races as an owner from late 1999 to early September 2023, including the 2011 Royal North Stakes at Beulah Park with his homebred mare School Lass. He also campaigned the five-time-winning Ohio-bred mare Heavenly Mine, a daughter of Discreetly Mine purchased for $37,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September yearling sale who went on to earn $107,032.

Reeves enjoyed his best season as an owner in 2015 with 12 wins and $221,353 in purses earned. He also won 13 races in 2017. Reeves’ first winner came in December 1999 with Fratman, a 3-year-old homebred son of Private School in a 6-furlong $10,000 allowance at River Downs. Reeves enjoyed a longtime association with trainer Mark Thomas, and the last two winners for them in tandem came in August at Belterra Park—Cat Corn in a $23,700 maiden special weight and Sly Wink in $9,100 maiden claimer. Among the other runners bred and/or raced by Reeves were Beautiful Lass ($97,414), Almighty Adversary ($89,929), Mae Hap ($86,000), Curious Ruth ($85,896), 12-time winner Diamond Lad ($83,809) and Don’t Get Me ($80,191).

Joe Santanna, the former president of the National HBPA and Pennsylvania HBPA, met Reeves when the two were serving their state horsemen’s groups and remembered his passion for the Buckeye State’s breeding and racing programs.

“He believed in the Ohio horse racing program very avidly,” Santanna said. “He loved Ohio racing. It’s a claiming state, a lot like Pennsylvania. We were claiming racing states, and he loved that.”

Santanna served the National HBPA during the 2000s and into the 2010s and counted Reeves among his closest advisors and friends.

“He did everything in a very understated way,” Santanna said. “If Bob didn’t have anything to say, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to be heard in the room, but when Bob spoke, everybody paid attention. … The HBPA arose from being a player but not being recognized as one to being recognized, and Bob played a critical part in that.

“Bob was a pleasure to be around; you wanted to be around him,” Santanna continued. “In your lifetime, you learn certain things from certain people, and it was like, OK, I can be serious but I can have fun and I can enjoy life and the people around me. He was the guy that was in a subliminal way teaching you that. It was remarkable. People flocked to him. He didn’t want any recognition. He just wanted to be one of the guys.”—Tom Law