For Foster, Planet Clare a win that meant a little more * The Racing Biz

For Foster, Planet Clare a win that meant a little more

April 19 victory packed a punch

Teresa Genaro
May 11, 2026

Mike Foster is one of those people who grew up on the backside of a racetrack, the one at Finger Lakes in Central New York. He was born in 1988, and five years later, his mother bought her first horse.

“My parents always loved horse racing,” he said. “They were always watching it on TV, and they decided they wanted to get into ownership.”

They gave their first horse to trainer Ed Perdue, and as Linda, Foster’s mother, was working part-time, she spent a lot of time on the backstretch.

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“She was a real hands-on owner,” said Foster. “She spent so much time back there helping that she decided she wanted to do it for a career.”

The family moved to Aurora, NY, which is about an hour from Finger Lakes, to Phelps, NY, about a five-minute drive from the track, where they bought a farm, with Linda earning her trainer’s license. Foster spent every summer working there, sometimes and not exclusively for his mother, who insisted that he get experience working for other trainers. He started walking horses at the farm when he was barely a teenager, and he was leading horses to the paddock soon after that. Unsurprisingly, he intended to follow his mother to a career at the track.

*Planet Clare won on the turf at Laurel Park April 19. Photo by Jim McCue.*

“My parents told me that was a ‘no’ for me,” he said. “I was just a kid, and I didn’t really realize the struggles of working on the backstretch. They told me that I had to go college.”

Reluctantly, he did, heading to St. John Fisher College (now University), where he earned bachelor’s degrees in psychology and sociology. But, in a gesture that Foster calls “not a great idea on his part,” his father gave him his college money when he matriculated.

Foster had other ideas.

He took the money and claimed a New York-bred at Tampa Bay Downs for $5,000, infuriating his father. To make matters worse, when the horse got off the van at the family farm, he was, in Foster’s words, “dead lame.”

Fortunately, there was a trainer in the family, who did a quick inspection and then announced, “This is a colt. You claimed a gelding. They gave us the wrong horse!”

They did, indeed. The van company corrected their mistake and soon Rocket Booster was part of the family shedrow. Then a 5-year-old gray by Cape Canaveral, he made it to the winner’s circle won only once for Foster but had 7 top-three finishes and earned over $30,000. Easy game, right?

“I was pretty happy,” said Foster. “But my father didn’t speak to me until the horse won.”

There was no family discount on training bills, and no short cuts; Foster’s mother said that if he wanted to own a horse, he had to do it the proper way, to learn about ownership and expenses.

Foster still had plans to work at the track after college…but once again, family matters thwarted him. His father had founded a pest control business the year Foster was born, and his uncle was the company’s office manager. The uncle died suddenly when Foster was a sophomore in college, so instead of working at the track that summer, he joined the family business to help out his father.

“I’d never done anything like that,” he said, referring to the office manager position. “I wanted to work at the track, but my father told me, ‘If you want me to pay for college, you need to run the office so that we have money for it.’”

Though disappointed at first at the disruption of his plans, Foster realized that he had skills perfectly suited to his new position. He created systems and protocols, and when his father decided to sell the business in 2015, Foster bought it, taking advantage of what he calls “the friends and family discount.” His father died the following year.

By the time his mother Linda died in 2022, All Seasons Pest Control didn’t require as much of Foster’s attention, and he pondered next steps.

“I was just trying to figure out what to do,” he said. “It was a period of reflection. I had built up the business and didn’t really need to be there. My wife is a teacher and her district was looking for a counselor, so I decided to shift careers.”

Foster still owned the business, and he still owned horses, neither of which stopped him from adding a third commitment when he became a school counselor at Waterloo High School in which his wife Ashley worked. The man who didn’t even want to go college returned to school to earn a fourth degree, this one in educational leadership.

“The leadership program is what made me realize that I didn’t want to be a principal,” he said. “So I stopped working in schools after three years and focused more on the horses.”

Foster has owned and raced horses since 2008; one year, he made just one start, and in others, his horses raced a couple of dozen times. Though he’s still based in Central New York, living in the Finger Lakes area, he started working with trainer Keri Brion, based at Fair Hill, last year, and it was she who suggested that he bid on a 4-year-old filly named Planet Clare in the December Fasig-Tipton December digital sale.

Hopes were once high for Planet Clare; bred by WinStar Farm, she’s by Constitution and out of the multiple graded stakes placed mare Room for Me. She was an RNA at $225,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale, selling as a 2-year-old at the Fasig-Tipton Timonium sale for $62,000. She raced 10 times for trainer Keri Brion, compiling a record of 1-4-1 at various Midlantic tracks for

Last year, her ownership group transferred her to Jena Antonucci, who raced her five times in Kentucky and Indiana, never finishing better than fifth, her last start before the December digital sale in November at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

After Foster purchased her for $22,000, he and Brion gave the mare some time off; in April, they brought her back to the races at Laurel Park, a track over which she had run seven times without winning.

That losing streak ended on April 19, when, first off the layoff, Planet Clare stalked the pace under jockey Martin Chuan and drew off to win by two lengths in her first start for her new owner. She earned $21,000, just shy of her purchase price, in the claiming event run on firm turf.

Foster of course was happy; the win made a big dent in recovering what he paid for the mare, and it’s a good day when your horse makes it to the winner’s circle.

April 19 was also the fourth anniversary of Foster’s mother’s death, and he posted a moving message on Facebook about it:

Four years ago today, I lost my mom. She was the one who introduced me to horse racing and who cheered louder than anyone every time I won.

It feels especially meaningful that Clare found the winner’s circle on this anniversary, for a female trainer. Huge thank you to Keri Brion for picking her out and having her ready to fire off the layoff, and to Martin for all the hard work in the mornings and a great ride today.

I can’t help but feel like my mom had a hand in this one.

“Keri knew she had a lot of potential,” said Foster. “We weren’t sure that she was going to win, first time off a layoff, but how awesome is that?”

Foster watched the race from Finger Lakes.

“It was pretty emotional because my mother was always the first person to call me after a win,” he said. “I was screaming and yelling at the TV.”

In addition to her four starts on turf, Planet Clare has also raced on a synthetic surface (once) and dirt (10 times). She’s entered on Sunday in a dirt race at Churchill Downs with a morning line of 8-1.

Foster owns 15 horses in training, some with Brion at Fair Hill, others at Finger Lakes. He’s traveled to Aqueduct, Parx, Penn National, and Gulfstream to see his horses run. He hasn’t made the trip to Louisville yet to watch one, but he was certainly watching last Saturday when Cherie DeVaux became the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner.

“I wish my mother had been there to see that,” he said. “I wish that she’d been here to experience that. It was all about female power and just very exciting.”

Foster is doing his part to pass an appreciation of horse racing to the next generation, and his young children Amelia and Nolan so far share their father’s excitement. They have plenty of opportunity to experience that excitement first-hand, given their proximity and commitment to Finger Lakes.

Foster has run at least one horse every year since 2008. He’s never given up the game, but he did cut back after Linda’s death.

“It was our thing,” he said.

It’s still their thing, even if Foster can’t talk to his mother every race. It’s still there in the family name in the program. It’s still there in what Michael learned from his mother. And it’s still there every time one of his horses crosses the wire, even away from their home track.

“You win stakes at Laurel, you run third at Churchill, that’s a big deal to Finger Lakes trainers,” he said. “That’s a big deal to us.”