Somewhere, in another world, Ben Cohen is chomping on a cigar and telling a story about racing luck. Good, bad, it'll land on you. Cohen owned Baltimore's Pimlico Race Course and a stable of Thoroughbreds good enough to compete on the national stage.
In the 1980s, testifying in the Maryland state legislature about reducing the state's share of the pari-mutuel takeout, he called himself a four-time loser to make his point that track ownership needed to retain a larger share of the wagering taxes. "I bet horses, I breed horses, I race horses and I own a racetrack. And if you guys didn't make me come up from Florida early yesterday, I would have had the triple in the last race at Gulfstream."
Years before that, Pimlico general manager Chick Lang ran by Cohen's office like the place was burning down.
"Where are you going?" Cohen yelled.
"I think there's a fire in the grandstand," Lang replied. "I'm going to meet the firemen."
"Wait, wait, can you hold on a couple minutes?" Cohen said. "I think I'm alive in the double."
As Cohen's grandson, John Davison, said this spring, "That's probably a true story."
So is Davison's tale of selling Romeo for $2,500 as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's fall yearling sale in 2024, then watching him win a stakes and go for $1.7 million at Fasig-Tipton's July sale in Kentucky. Whether you knew him or not, you can almost hear Ben Cohen telling Davison that sometimes stuff like that happens in racing.
The next sentence would be something about not losing faith.
"He had a lot of success, but I think he used the words 'broke even' when he was in his 80s," Davison said in June. "He was a character, had a gruff exterior but if you got to know him, he was a sweet man. He was a wonderful mentor and friend."
Cohen and his brother Herman bought Pimlico in 1952, adding it to interests in Ohio tracks Thistledown and Cranwood Park and Charles Town in West Virginia -- all backed by the brothers' success with a building/construction business. Ben Cohen was more than a racetrack owner. He invested in the other sides of the business as a Thoroughbred owner/breeder and a bettor.
As the story goes, Cohen and his wife Zelda would spend a few weeks in Florida every winter for the warm weather, the social scene and the racing action. One February, he went to a yearling sale and bought two horses, presenting them to Zelda as a Valentine's Day present with a declaration.
"I finally got you a gift you can't return -- a colt and a filly."
And just like that, the Cohens were Thoroughbred owners. They won the 1965 Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes with homebred Hail to All, won major races on big stages with Bet Big, Skip Trial and others, enjoyed a long association with trainer Sonny Hine, and kept horses at their Halycon Farm off Greenspring Avenue.
They passed a love of racing down to daughter Rosalee Davison, who became a breeder and an owner. Her homebred Guilty Conscience won 14 races, topped by the Grade 1 Vosburgh in 1981, and an Eclipse Award as champion sprinter. Hear Us Roar was a homebred Maryland-bred champion. John Davison followed his mother and grandfather into the game. He won stakes as an owner with Mystic Love, bred and raced three-time winner Super Love, pinhooked yearlings to 2-year-olds, and even trained six winners in the 1990s while balancing a career in the family's property-management company.
"In our conference room at the office we have Hail to All's Belmont photo displayed," he said. "It's a wonderful family legacy to have. I'm the one in the family who has kept it going to a third generation like a piece of Americana. My grandfather bought his first horses in 1950 and within 15 years he had bred a classic winner."
And it's all still going, even as Davison rides the ebbs and flows of the Thoroughbred game. Not all pinhooking ventures work. Not all broodmares produce stars. Not all racehorses win. Sometimes, a horse you sell cheap ends up selling for seven figures to a bloodstock agent making multiple big splashes for Libyan clients.
Davison sold Romeo because it made sense given the circumstances -- a family he knew plenty about, some negative veterinary reports, and other horses to raise. One, Romeo's half-sister Constituent, didn't live another month.
"She broke down in the second start of her life, fractured her shoulder, that was devastating," Davison said of the daughter of Constitution, who was injured in a Keeneland maiden race in October 2024. "She had a lot of personality and I got a little attached to her. It was heartbreaking. I'll keep a few horses here and there because it's in my blood and I love it, but to be in it fully is very difficult."
His grandfather probably told him that.
