Glade Knight founded nine public companies that have made $5 billion. He also owns Slate River Ranch, a leading cutting horse breeding farm in Weatherford, Texas.

The Richmond-Times Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia, home of Knight’s Apple REIT Companies that own 200 high-end hotels in 31 states, featured an excellent article about Knight, his businesses, and his horses in the Monday, May 10 edition. Click here to link.

“I don’t know if there is anything more exciting than to be able to show your mares’ babies like that,” Knight told me after a galvanizing ride on Playin N Fancy Smart, who he showed as non-pro reserve champion of the 2010 Augusta Futurity Classic Challenge.

Playin N Fancy Smart, earner of nearly $300,000, is just one of eight $100,000-plus lifetime money earners owned by Slate River Ranch and being ridden this year by Knight, Slate River Ranch manager and trainer John Mitchell, and outside trainers Kory Pounds and Sean Flynn. Of the eight, six are mares, including two half-siblings to Playin N Fancy Smart, by Slate River Ranch’s top sire, That Sly Cat, also sire of Slate River’s Catmas with $123,000. Another Slate River-owned 2010 competitor by That Sly Cat, 4-year-old Candy Cat, is the earner of more than $50,000.