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BY EMILY SHIELDS
California breeding finds just the right Nishes
Kevin and Kimberly Nish would have every reason to think the game of horse racing is easy, but they aren’t fooled. Just because they found their way to the Breeders’ Cup winner’s circle a mere 15 months after getting into the game doesn’t mean they aren’t aware of the struggles involved with breeding top Thoroughbreds. They’re also clear that their journey sounds like a fairytale.
“We started quick and went straight up to the top of the mountain, basically,” Kim said. That’s where they are working to stay.
Kimberly and Kevin Nish are finding themselves in quite a few winner’s circles with their Cal-breds
The couple met working at Kimber Insurance in 1985 and were married two years later. Kevin recalls being a racing fan and bettor while in college during the 1970s, but realized relatively recently that “if I wanted to own a racehorse, I could.”
They found the website for Victory Rose Thoroughbreds in Vacaville and met owner Ellen Jackson.
“We bought small percentages in a couple of horses Ellen had,” Kevin said, “but we wanted to do more.” That was August 2011.
They found bloodstock agents Alex Solis II and Jason Litt, who helped them buy some broodmares that November. In December, Litt had a client who wanted to sell his interest in six racehorses. One of them was stakes winner and multiple grade 2-placed Mizdirection, who a year later won the first of two Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprints (G1T).
“It seemed like it was easy, which is a dangerous way to start,” Kevin said.
Mizdirection earned $1,719,621 and was sold for $2.7 million at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton November sale.
“With the money from the sale of Mizdirection, we rolled it back to buy a piece of Shared Belief,” Kevin said.
At the time, Shared Belief was a juvenile who had won his first two starts.
Cal-homebred Apache Princess wins grade 3 Sweet Life stakes in February at Santa Anita
“They advised us against buying him,” Kevin recalled. “We would have had to pay too much. But it was one of the best decisions we ever made.”
Shared Belief won 10 of 12 races, earned $2,932,200, and is widely considered one of the top horses of the last decade. He won five grade 1 races and was thriving at the time of his shocking and unexpected death from colic in 2015.