When Ivan Dalos came to Canada from Hungary 60 years ago, he didn’t even know horse racing existed.
Now the owner of Tall Oaks Farm is a finalist for the Sovereign Awards for both top owner and breeder thanks to an outstanding 2015.
Ivan Dalos did not even know horse racing existed when he came to Canada from Hungary at about the same time E.P. Taylor opened the new Woodbine Racetrack in 1956. In fact, he calls his introduction to the world of the thoroughbred at the dawn of the 1980s a “fluke, an accident.”
There has been nothing accidental about the rise of the Toronto businessman’s self-made bloodlines that have been 30 years in the making and the 73-year-old is as determined as ever to improve on what is already one of the best broodmare bands in the country.
“I am still working on it,” said Dalos. “It’s been a long time, some 37 years, but I am trying to get my name out there as a legitimate breeder.”
That may sound funny coming from the same man who bred the only Canadian-bred winner of the legendary Belmont Stakes (Grade 1), Victory Gallop, in 1998, but in recent years, Dalos has proven to be more than a one-hit wonder.
The 2015 racing season proved to be one of the most satisfying for Dalos as his runners earned over $1.2 million in purses, a record for his stable, while homebreds he sold earned another $600,000.
Dalos is nominated as Outstanding Owner in Canada and his Tall Oaks Farm, co-owned by his wife Irene and three daughters, is shortlisted for Outstanding Breeder at the April 8 Sovereign Awards at Woodbine racetrack.
One afternoon in the late 1970s at the Dalos flooring and construction business, a sub-contractor sat with Dalos in his office awaiting a cheque to be signed.
“The guy was really fidgety, so I asked him if he was in a hurry,” said Dalos. “He said he was, he had to get to the racetrack.”
“I thought he meant dog racing, I had no idea they raced horses. The only time I ever saw a horse was pulling the milk or ice wagons at home in Hungary.”
Dalos tagged along with the co-worker, Les Meszaros, and within a month, had put up about $10,000 to claim a horse with his new friend.
“In the first race, I was looking all around for this horse and couldn’t find her. She was so far back in last place,” Dalos said.
Dalos was not deterred by that first experience and was immediately enamored by the beauty of the thoroughbred.
“I started reading everything left, right and centre,” said Dalos. “Every breeding book, system, and pedigree. I wanted to learn everything I could about it.”
While he continued to dabble in the claiming game in the early ‘80s with Meszaros, brother-in-law Andy and trainer George Bankuti, Dalos became more interested in creating his own racehorse, so he bought a filly to breed.
Silly Billie, who showed some ability on the track for owner George Ledson in ‘89, would be the first of two life-changing purchases by Dalos.
“She was a granddaughter of Buckpasser and I had read that he was a top broodmare sire. Since I didn’t have much money to spend and could not afford a Buckpasser mare, this seemed close enough.”
From his hours of reading racing texts and periodicals, Dalos knew Buckpasser blood crossed well with Northern Dancer lines. Since that Big Daddy was well out of Dalos’ price range, he found the affordable Ontario sire Alwasmi for Silly Billie’s first mate.
“My wife thought I was nuts. Well, she still thinks I’m nuts,” Dalos said. “I started the stable Tall Oaks for the family – I don’t own a farm – and wanted to try and breed my own.”
From the Alwasmi–Silly Billie mating came a filly Dalos named Sybelle Ami, made up from the letters in the sire and dam’s names.
A fast filly, Sybelle Ami was too fast for her legs; she fractured one knee and was operated on, then fractured the other one.
“So I kept her, looked around for a Mr. Prospector line stallion because he goes well with Northern Dancer. I found Secret Claim [at Windfields Farm] and the result was Secret Ami, the best horse I would breed up to that point.”
Secret Ami was stakes placed at Woodbine in ’98 and earned just over $120,000 before she entered the Dalos broodmare band to continue what would be the family’s most powerful bloodline.
Before the “Ami’s” took hold at Tall Oaks, Dalos had made a trip to the Canadian yearling sale at Woodbine in 1990 to purchase inexpensive fillies to race and breed.
It was the year after Silly Billie settled in as the first official Tall Oaks mare and Dalos wanted to buy two or three for not more than $10,000 each.
“George and I had 50 to look at. We narrowed it down and I bought two,” said Dalos. “George went home. I stuck around.”
While watching the sale and chatting to other onlookers, Dalos noticed a daughter of Vice Regent in the ring. One of the country’s top sires, Vice Regent was standing for a fee in the range of $50,000, but this filly was not getting much interest from the sales crowd.
“She was going up in increments of $1,000 — $22,000, 23, 24… I asked a guy beside me what was wrong with her. He didn’t know. So I put up my hand at $25,000 and it stuck. A bit later someone walked up to me and told me that the filly would never race because she was quite offset at the knees.”
But Victorious Lil, as she was named, didn’t know about her knees and went on to became a stakes winner of over $170,000 while trained by Ericka Winkelmann, one of the owner’s new trainers when Bankuti left to take over Gus Schickdanz’s barn.
When Victorious Lil was finished racing, Dalos kept to his plan of finding a bargain stallion and settled on the blue-collar stud Cryptoclearance, a long-winded racehorse that won the Belmont Stakes in ’87.
As the herd continued to grow, Dalos began selling any colts that his mares produced. When Victorious Lil produced a plain-looking bay colt, he went to auction and brought a modest $25,000.
That colt became Victory Gallop who finished second in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes to Real Quiet before his unlikely win, by an inch no less, in the Belmont.
“That horse, he was a fluke,” said Dalos. “I thought he could be okay but I never expected he would be that good.” Victory Gallop is a member of the Canadian Horse racing Hall of Fame and the sire of three of Dalos’ broodmares.
“I want to make the name well known, get my horses some recognition,” said Dalos when asked about the dozens of Ami-named horses that have exploded onto the Canadian racing scene in the last few years.
In 2001, Secret Ami was, naturally,
bred to Victory Gallop, producing Victorious Ami, and again in 2005 to
get Galloping Ami.
Victorious Ami won the Princess Elizabeth Stakes as a 2-year-old, the biggest race for Canadian-bred fillies and is the dam of 2011 Breeders’ Stakes winner Ami’s Holiday, the first classic winner for Dalos. The owner’s exciting 3-year-old filly of 2016, Ami’s Mesa, is the fourth foal for the mare.
Galloping Ami, who never raced, is the dam of stakes winner Aragorn Ami, graded, stakes-placed Ami’s Flatter and the unbeaten 2-year-old of 2015, Ami’s Gizmo.
Dalos has started working on other lines of breeding as well. Keen Victory, another unraced daughter of Victory Gallop, is off to a profitable start as a broodmare. Her first foal Keen Gizmo (Giant’s Gizmo) has won almost $200,000 for Dalos and the 2-year-old, Conquest Enforcer, sold by Dalos for $210,000 (U.S.) at auction, won last year’s Cup and Saucer Stakes. The yearling filly by Court Vision topped last year’s Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society sale at Woodbine at $150,000.
Even Dalos’ daughter Colleen got in on the fun when she purchased Gambling Girl, a daughter of Secret Claim, as a yearling in ‘94. That filly won over $200,000 and was a stakes winner before Dalos bought her from his daughter. Gambling Girl is the dam of the family’s graded stakes winning 2-year-old of 2015, Gamble’s Ghost.
A rare mare purchase half a dozen years ago by Dalos, Recollect, is the dam of the owner’s 3-year-old stakes winner of 2015, Elusive Collection. Recollect, a daughter of El Prado, produced the first foal of 2016 for Tall Oaks, a colt by Bodemeister.
“Really, I have too many horses right now,” said Dalos. “I have 13 2-year-olds coming up, 16 yearlings and about two dozen mares.”
He also has a stallion, the unraced Gambler’s Exchange, who has one foal, a yearling of 2016.
He hopes his stable and his homebreds can continue to compete in the big races and has high hopes the stars of 2015 that he owns will head to the Queen’s Plate and Woodbine Oaks.
“I do this because I love it, I love the animals,” said Dalos. “And I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, picking it up from nothing. It’s a constant study, but the horses are all I think about 24/7.”
