Alex Foley
Executive Director
[email protected]
Lifelong Louisvillian Alex Foley became only the second permanent executive director of the Kentucky HBPA in history when hired in November, 2023. He replaced Marty Maline, who served for almost 47 years until his retirement at the end of 2022.
Foley is the younger son of veteran trainer Greg Foley and the grandson of the late owner-trainer-breeder Dravo Foley. Alex Foley graduated from Bellarmine University with a degree in business management (and four years on the golf team) and from the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law with his Juris Doctor.
Foley had been serving as an assistant trainer to his dad, including overseeing the stable’s Ellis Park division throughout the spring, summer and into the fall. His brother, Travis, is also an assistant trainer to their father and their aunt Vickie Foley is a trainer.
“He was interviewed by our search committee, and they were impressed by him and his credentials,” said Kentucky HBPA President Rick Hiles. “He’s a young man, he’s got a history in racing from his dad and grandpa. He knows everybody on the backside. He has a law degree. We thought he could get in that position and have some longevity.”
Asked if he thought he’d make 47 years like Maline, Foley laughed and said, “I know I have some pretty big shoes to fill.”
Foley said the combination of being part of a racing family and his law degree made the Kentucky HBPA executive directorship appealing.
“The horse-racing industry and my legal background, I’ve always wanted to do both but didn’t have the avenue,” he said. “This job provides that. The connections I have on the backside — whether it’s horse trainers, gallop boys, assistants — I’ve known so many people that it was a perfect fit and something I’m passionate about.”
Asked if he thought he’d make 47 years like Maline, Foley laughed and said, “I know I have some pretty big shoes to fill.
“Marty said he’d mentor me. Rick Hiles has been great in the transition. I think we make a good team. I think being younger brings a different light to everything.”
Sara Toomey
Executive Assistant
[email protected]
Originally from Buckner, Ky., Sara Toomey is a graduate of the University of Louisville’s Equine Business Program. After graduating from Louisville’s Mercy Academy, Toomey spent a year at William Woods University in Missouri to study barn management and western-seat equitation, two more years at the University of Kentucky with a large animal pre-veterinarian curriculum and then— landing at U of L. “Because I came out of a science major into business, a lot of my credits didn’t transfer,” said Toomey, who attended night school at U of L while working full time. “So I actually graduated with seven minors because of how many extra credits I had.”
Terri Burch, the program director for U of L’s equine program, helped Toomey get hooked up in a part-time position with the Kentucky HBPA as benevolence coordinator in 2008. Six months later, she was promoted to office manager and executive assistant. It was not exactly the career path she’d envisioned growing up riding quarter horses.
“Once I got in the industry, I realized how passionate the trainers are about their horses and how they really do care about their well-being,” she said. “From there, I got on board and actually ended up with my own thoroughbreds along the way.”
Toomey acquired her off-the-track mare, Lady Wynne, from Kentucky HBPA board member Buff Bradley and owner-breeder Nelson Clemens. Lady Wynne showed in hunter-jumper classes around Indiana and Kentucky. She currently is retired on Toomey’s property. Sara also owns off-the-track thoroughbred City Connect, trained by KYHBPA board member Rick Hiles and previously owned by Ron Geary. She plans to show City Connect in western classes.
Outside of her long standing service to the KYHBPA, she has also served on multiple state USA Weightlifting Boards and is a certified technical official, as well as on animal rescue and rehabilitation boards.
Shannon Ross joined the KYHBPA in 2024 after two decades on the fringe of the racing industry. She grew up just down the road from Buff Bradley’s Indian Ridge Farm in Frankfort; and befriended the family of one of the trainers there as a teen. Liz and Ackel Hebert were Shannon’s home away from home where she developed a passion for show dogs and racehorses. After years of wistfully visiting & loving their horses, she was gifted her first horse (naturally a retired racer!) and has only owned OTTBs since that day.
Today, Shannon lives in picturesque Corydon, Indiana on a growing 20-acre farm she shares with her 23-year-old daughter Jayda, a second-generation equestrian. Jayda is a full-time trainer and instructor at the neighboring hunter/jumper facility, Maelstrom Farm. Shannon’s current mount is a Second Stride graduate, Polar Bear, originally trained by KYHBPA President Dale Romans.
William R. Connelly
Field Representative
[email protected]
Second-generation horseman Bill Connelly began training in 1980, winning more than 1,278 races before retiring in late 2019. His stable averaged about 20 horses has included multiple stakes-winners Sweet Cassiopeia, Heart’s Song, Hungry Tigress and Henny Jenney. Stabled at Churchill Downs and Turfway Park, Connelly races year-round in Kentucky, but also throughout the Midwest.
Known as one of the hardest workers at the track, the long-time Kentucky HBPA board member also spent more than 15 years serving on the Turfway Park Backside Committee, working diligently to improve backside living conditions and benevolent, stable-area conditions and monitoring and maintaining purses and the Polytrack surface. Connelly is a graduate of Shelbyville (KY) High School, where he was an overachieving member of the football team.
Jennie Rees
Communications Specialist
[email protected]
Jennie Rees is a communications and advocacy specialist in the horse industry who spent 32 years covering horse racing for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal before taking a corporate buyout. In addition to handling communications for the Kentucky HBPA, Rees is Kentucky Downs’ publicity director and serves as a consultant to the National HBPA. Other projects include the Preakness Stakes, Indiana Grand’s Indiana Derby Week and work for various HBPA affiliates and horsemen’s associations.
Rees was a 2014 inductee into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame’s Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor and earned five Eclipse Awards while with The Courier-Journal. She is a recipient of the Louisville-based Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners’ Warner L. Jones Horseman of the Year Award and has been honored for career achievements by the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters, Kentucky HBPA, Kentucky Thoroughbred Association-Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders, the Maryland Jockey Club and Kentucky harness horsemen. Rees, a two-time Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year, is an Indiana University graduate who grew up in Lexington, Ky. She is married to former Kentucky trainer Pat Dupuy, for whom she walked hots.