Share This Article
When she was in 2nd grade, Kristy McDermott showed up at the Peter Noyes school dressed as a jockey. “My teacher said I was too tall to be a jockey,” she recalls from her home in Ocala, Florida. “And I hate being told I cannot do something!”
Kristy always loved horses. She quickly graduated from the My Little Pony dolls that were popular in the early 1990s and began taking riding lessons at Red Acre Farm Equestrian in Stow, a birthday gift from her parents when she was 8 years old. “Mitch and Kathy Steege gave me a great foundation. They were excellent horse people, teaching me hunter and jumper skills. I also learned about horse shows and horse racing. I was always fascinated by horse racing.”
A graduate of the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, where she was given the freedom to hone her interests (the school had a horse barn where she gained invaluable skills), find the courage to seek her passions, and “learn life skills”, Kristy moved to Ocala, Florida and lived with Mitch and Kathy Steege’s daughter, Casey, who managed thoroughbreds. “That’s where I got the first taste that yeah, I could do this.”
She soon enrolled at UMASS Amherst and rode horses both for her alma mater and for Mount Holyoke. With a degree in Comparative Anatomy Equine Sports Medicine – one she cobbled together herself through the university’s BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration) program – she returned to Ocala and started riding race horses.
Kristy’s bet on herself has now come full circle. On May 3rd, a horse Kristy and her boyfriend, Kristian Villante, “pin-hooked” (raised), will be in Louisville competing in the Kentucky Derby!
“We bought Flying Mohawk when he was ten months old, after he was fully weaned,” she explained. “We have a small farm – maybe 3-8 horses at a time. Most commercial breeding farms have hundreds of horses so we are small. We find horses with the shape and look we like, ones that just need a little extra attention but that we think we’ll be able to sell once they are big and strong enough. We teach them how to do everything except accept a rider.” This is where her degree in equine medicine and years immersed in horses really pays off: Kristy gets horses comfortable with being handled by humans, to tolerate a bath, and to feel the weight of a saddle on their backs. “This particular horse was pretty standoffish when he came to us. It took a while to even get him to eat, but he grew 10” during his stay.”
Flying Mohawk caught the attention of a potential buyer early on. “He asked if he could purchase him as soon as he was old enough,” Kristy said. And while the buyer is new to horse ownership, he knows a few things about athletics and recognizing championship material: he’s Jayson Werth, a former MLB outfielder who won the World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies.
“We got lucky. Kristian is a native of Philly and we were in a bar and he was wearing his Phillies hat. Jayson saw him, came up to us, and our relationship took off from there.”
“Kristian is a bloodstock agent,” Kristy explained (think stockbroker but for horses). “He manages client relations and handles buying and selling. I try to stay more with the horses. I couldn’t do it without him.”
Once Flying Mohawk “graduated”, he was sent to the Travis Durr Training Center in St. Matthews, South Carolina where he got his “early miles” before being taken on by D. Whitworth (Whit) Beckman, a well-respected trainer out of Louisville. After spending the winter at the New Orleans Fair Grounds, last month Flying Mohawk shocked everyone by coming in second in the Jeff Ruby Stakes Kentucky Derby Qualifying Race (watch the race here – Flying Mohawk is #5.
“After he ran the race we were so happy!” Kristy exclaimed. “I was born to run horses in the Derby. And we are actually going to have a horse in the Derby this year!”
Flying Mohawk’s jockey is a newbie as well: a young Joseph Ramos, native of Puerto Rico, will be making his Kentucky Derby debut. “Joseph has done well riding for Whit, and riding Flying Mohawk. He’s what got us there. Others would find a top jockey, but we want to stick with the people that got us there and he got us there.”
Kristy said there is a lot about thoroughbred horse racing that is misunderstood, but perhaps the biggest myth is that it’s a sport simply about privilege. “Other equestrian sports come in with generational wealth for success, but in the horse racing industry that’s not necessarily the case at all. For example, Whit’s assistant is an immigrant from Mexico with a fifth grade education. This is an industry where if you wake up and work hard every day you can make it.”
While 3-year-old Flying Mohawk faces long odds, Kristy doesn’t count anything out. “The finish line is the great equalizer.”