Keeping the horses in the race

For most of the race, Dacita lagged behind the nine-horse pack.

When the filly rounded the final turn of the 2015 Ketel One Ballston Spa Stakes, Dacita was in eighth place. Anna Cambron looked on as her daughter asked, “Mom, what if she comes in last?”

Anna, and her husband, Tim Cambron, Legates of the Lexington Chapter, owned a stake in Dacita. Anna assured her daughter the horse wouldn’t finish last. But privately, she prayed for the Chilean-bred filly to at least beat one horse that day at the Saratoga Race Course in New York.

“I just didn’t want her to come in last,” Anna said.

Pays to be a ‘closer’

With one last furlong (220- yard distance) to work with, Dacita found another gear and galloped past the field, just narrowly defeating a wellregarded horse named Tepin to win the race.

Dacita “was a closer. A race didn’t start for her until the home stretch,” said Tim Cambron, who recalled the pageantry and carnival-like atmosphere at Saratoga, which were magnified that August weekend by the presence of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

“We really had no big expectation whatsoever. We were just there to see it all happen because we were brand new,” said Anna, who added that the August 2015 race was the first time she and Tim had been to the race track in Saratoga.

“We hadn’t experienced racing outside of Kentucky,” Anna said. “It was a great experience, something that we have continued to enjoy experiencing from this business venture.”

“We honestly didn’t know what to expect,” Tim said. “But things turned out way better than we thought it would, I’ll put it that way.”

Thoroughbred sign

Their winning experience at the Saratoga Race Course was an affirmation for the Cambrons’ decision to enter the world of thoroughbred racing. Both grew up in Kentucky, in the heart of “horse country,” but neither had ever thought about entering the racing business until a friend encouraged them.

“Our kids were on their own. Anna and I were looking for something we’d be interested in,” Tim said. “We don’t golf. We don’t do a lot of stuff. We just wanted to find something we both would enjoy.”

In the last five years, Tim and Anna Cambron, as minority owners with a shared stake in several horses, have seen their thoroughbreds compete in the Breeders’ Cup and win several races. They have tasted the winners’ champagne enough times for a recent industry magazine article to say they were blessed with good luck.

“In that article, they only talk about winning, but there’s plenty of times you lose too,” Tim said. “While we’ve had a little bit of luck, we’ve had plenty of bad luck too.”

Faith permeates all

Tim and Anna Cambron, who are members of Legatus’ Lexington, Kentucky Chapter, grew up with horses, including when they were high school sweethearts in the Bluegrass State’s “Holy Land” region, a pastoral countryside with some of the earliest Catholic settlements in North America.

The couple grew up in a distinctly Catholic environment. From the very beginning of their courtship, through 34 years of marriage and three children, the Catholic faith has been a central part of their lives, their relationship, and their family.

“Really, everything we do revolves around our faith,” said Anna, who added that she and Tim always make it a priority to attend Mass when they’re away on trips, whether it be for vacation or horse racing.

“Even when you’re traveling and you’re in a different church, when you go to Mass, it feels like you’re home,” Anna said.

That Catholic sensibility also translates to how Tim and Anna run their business, the Ruggles Sign Company in Versailles, Kentucky. Anna’s grandfather founded the business just after World War II. Next year, the company will celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Tim and Anna began working there more than 30 years ago, and together they bought the company in the late 1990s.

“The rest is history,” Anna said.

Adapting for people and products

In 2020, their business faced many of the same challenges that other companies have dealt with this year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Still, most of the employees never missed a full paycheck, even if they worked fewer hours. The Cambrons even set up programs to provide workers with online skills training.

“We just felt like it was our duty to both take care of our people,” Anna said. “Tim and I made a commitment that we were going to try to keep our people as long as we could just because we felt that, morally, it was the right thing to do.”

The company has also adapted to the COVID-19 landscape. Over the last three to four months, the Ruggles Sign Company has shifted manufacturing operations to produce plastic barriers, shields and “sneeze guards” for retailers, schools, banks, and sporting venues.

“The demand for the barriers is still pretty high because a lot of schools and venues are trying to open back up,” Tim said. “We’ve also gotten a lot of orders from the restaurant sector as well.”

Fun with horseplay

When it came to entering the world of thoroughbred racing, the Cambrons decided to invest in that kind of business, which can be financially risky, by going into fractional ownership where other entities own larger shares of the horses and the racing operation.

“We personally are not big partnership types of people. We don’t get involved in partnerships because they usually don’t work out very well,” Tim said. “But on the flip side of the horse business, that’s the only way we would do it because if you own all of one horse, you own everything. If it’s a bad horse, you own all the vet bills, the boarding, all that stuff.

“So to be able to spread your risk out a little bit to five, ten, or 15 partners makes it a lot easier for us to do this,” Tim said.

“We wanted this to be something that while we’re investing hardearned money, we wanted to make a good decision while having some fun with it along the way, and that’s what it’s been,” said Anna, who gets weekly status updates on their horses.

When they travel to thoroughbred races across the country, Tim and Anna usually visit the barns where the horses are staying to talk to the trainers and their assistants, and to get to know them a little better.

“We’ve got several runners right now, but we’re trying to figure out how successful they can be,” said Tim, adding that one of the horses they have an ownership stake in, Engage, was set to run in early October at Belmont Park in New York.

Risky business, with healthy limit

Meanwhile, Dacita is now retired and living near Lexington, Kentucky, where she recently gave birth to her second foal.

“We’re kind of anxious to see how her offspring does on the racetrack,” said Tim, who added that he and Anna plan to continue with their limited investment in the horse racing industry for the foreseeable future.

“This is a sport that can sink somebody in a heartbeat,” Tim said. “It’s a pretty risky business, but our mindset is to have fun and not try to get rich with it. If we can have a little fun and break even, that’s a good thing.”

BRIAN FRAGA is a Legatus Magazine staff writer.