Page 118 - February 2016 Speedhorse

At the age of 19, Jorge won his first race with his first horse, a Thoroughbred named
Gran Salvador, on Nov. 20, 1987 in Mexico City
As a child, Jorge Haddad loved animals - particularly horses. Fast horses. In fact, he bought his first racehorse while still in his teens and spent weekends watching it and others
run in Mexico City. Around that time, he met Kitty, now his wife of 25 years, while visiting a potential Mexico City business site. Soon
after, that first horse, a Thoroughbred named Gran Salvador, won Jorge’s first race
on Nov. 20, 1987. That win served as the catalyst for Jorge to set out after what he’d wanted all his life. “My dream as a child was to have a horse ranch.” he said.
Jorge won his first stakes race in February 1993 while still in Mexico,
with North Star Special, a Special Effort son he bought in Oklahoma and raced almost
exclusively in Mexico City. “He was a super horse,” Jorge says. While running his other businesses in Mexico City, Jorge branched out from owning to training.
Then in 2005, he left his business and real estate interests behind and moved his family to the United States. He bought Allen and Jeanette Moehrig’s ranch in Seguin, Texas, the breeding place of the 1981 Ruidoso Triple Crown-winning 2 year old, Special Effort, and set to work
trying to establish his own breeding program. “I think success is in the water,” Jorge jokes of the Moehrig ranch that also produced the 2000 All American Futurity winner Eyesa Special.
These days, 48-year-old Jorge, Kitty and their three children – 21-year-old Jorge Jr., 14-year-old Emiliano and 12-year-old Giuliana - work together to build on the dream that led them to Texas.
SUPER SIRES
Jorge now stands two 9-year-old sires at
Haddad Ranch: 2015’s Leading First Crop Sire and 2016’s Leading Sire of Money Earners,
The Louisiana Cartel (Corona Cartel – The Louisiana Girl, by Seattle Slew TB son Louisiana Slew); and Haddad homebred Ragazzo.
Owned and trained by Jorge and only raced as a 3 and 4 year old, The Louisiana Cartel, or TLC, earned a 50 percent win record (10-5- 1-2) and $127,941 in earnings on the track. The multiple graded stakes winner won his maiden trial in the Manor Downs Maiden Colt and Gelding Allowance and its final as a 3 year old. Then at 4, he took the Bank of America Challenge Championship and the Sam Houston Classic Handicap Stakes, winning a Remington Park Invitational berth where he was a finalist.
116 SPEEDHORSE, February 2016
Jorge Haddad left Mexico City to pursue his racehorse dream by Diane Rice