THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS AND THE BELMONT CURVE

With the Bell Curve, the highest point on the curve, or the top of the bell, represents the most probable event in a series of data. Putting an equine spin on that definition, a trio of partners have established The Belmont Curve and they will be joining the HMDC group as new partners.

Corey Leslie hopes to keep running in Ohio...with the HMDC team.

Who would know better about runners, than a runner? Cory Leslie, was a standout athlete from his early days in Ohio an had illustrious collegiate career at Ohio State, where he earned first team All-American honors in both the Steeplechase and the Distance Medley Relay and lays claim to four track records with OSU. He went on to be ranked In the top 8 at the World Cross Country Championships and won a Bronze Medal in the Pan American Games. Cory is a professional track and field coach for Under Armour and is currently training some of the best distance runners in the world.

Every company has an origin story, usually driven by a crazy idea or a revolutionary insight, theirs looks a little different. Sparked as a result of the barren sports world created by the 2020 pandemic, their interest in thoroughbred racing had steadily increased over the years. And while this fascination seemed arbitrary at first, a brief consideration of their backgrounds provides some explanation. Having both run in professional track and field, “run fast, turn left” has been woven into their souls for their entire lives and now they’ve found horse racing to be no different. With their interest peaked, they founded The Belmont Curve in 2021 with the goal of becoming further involved in the sport of thoroughbred racing.

Jackson Lewis adds another dimension to the group as Computer Science major with specialties in computer vision and machine learning. He has developed software to extract, process, and clean biomechanical data from video. He extracted data from 500+ two-year-olds purchased for $100k+ at Spring OBS sales and Performed initial, surface-level investigation into the efficacy of using biomechanical metrics to improve two-year-old evaluation.

They are currently working on expanding their dataset to 5000+ two-year-olds from various sales, allowing for enhanced statistical analysis of the intricate relationships between various metrics. They continue to explore opportunities to biomechanically track thoroughbreds in training, with a special focus on how a horse progresses throughout a training regimen.

Brent Leslie, Corey’s cousin and a fellow runner, is the CFO of a major national development group and brings a strong business acumen to the program. His professional experience has given him the recognition of the advantages of partnerships. “Like anything you go into for the first time, you don’t want to into it by yourself. You want to find good partners and people who know what they are doing and have already put in place the infrastructure. We stumbled upon HMDC and started a conversation with George (Dr. Sikora DMV) about what their vision was in partners and I can’t say enough about George, about how much time he spent with me and Corey explaining the strategy, the vision, coming to the farm, going to the stable and we just became immensely impressed. We understand the risks associated with the sport and George has done a great job explaining that to us.” Corey is applying his professional experience to their aproach.

“In my day job there are a lot of partnerships in what we do. There is a lot of value in partnering with people who have expertise in areas where you are not as strong,” continued Corey. “George and his group’s knowledge in the industry of the animals and the infrastructure that they’ve built would be very difficult to create on your own.”

“It’s taken me a while to learn, but patience is a great character trait to have. So it looks as though we’re not chasing money here, we’re looking for good partners that we want to be with in this for the long run. That’s been the stratagy all along. We didn’t want to get in and get out, we’re pretty committed to this partnership and will see where it goes. We want to win and do well, but we’re going to have fun along the way.”

“There’s nothing that replaces going to one of the Ohio tracks, and watch your horse run, that’s also very much appealing. Born and raised in Ohio, live in Ohio and we like the Ohio Program.” “When I sarted talking to George I was almost looking for a reason for us not to do it and after spending some time talking to George, I couldn’t find a good reason not to.”

“We’re going to be patient and learn that’s really the objective of the partnership, fitting into the partnership, find out where we can add value and learn from George and the rest of the HMDC partners.” With their sound business principles at play, we have to believe this “Curve” will turn into a hit for the entire team.