The Lumber Guy and John Velazquez

The last time Barry K. Schwartz, former CEO and co-founder of Calvin Klein Inc., won a Grade 1 race was in 1999.  His trainer, Michael Hushion, had never won one.

On Saturday at Belmont Park, Schwartz had two rooting and one betting interest in the Grade 1 Vosburgh Invitational Stakes. A three-year-old colt that he bred at his Stonewall Farm, The Lumber Guy, was making his first start since May, when he’d finished sixth in the Grade 2 Peter Pan Stakes, following a win in the Grade 2 Jerome Stakes in April. Sean Avery, a six-year-old gelding named after the former New York Rangers left wing and owned in part by Schwartz and his wife Sheryl, was also entered in the Vosburgh, and under New York’s racing rules, the two horses were one betting entry.

Though injury-prone, Sean Avery had finished out of the top three only once in his 11-race career. On the strength of his record, he was made the 2-1 favorite by bettors, and as Sean Avery’s odds went, so, too, because of the coupled entry, did The Lumber Guy’s.

But it was The Lumber Guy beating his more-fancied entrymate, winning the race by a length and a quarter and beating Sean Avery by more than seven lengths.

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