Nick J. Hines aka The Sarge

MyGen Profile GeneratorRacing background: My father, Mike, was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marines and an attorney with a practice in Las Vegas, Nevada. My family lived on a 15-acre farm, which was home to a variety of horses along with a menagerie of animals that included Bengal tigers, bears, monkeys, emus, 54 dogs and all sorts of wild creatures. My mother, Ingrid, who was a former dancer in the Follies Bergere, loved caring for all of the animals and helping the ones who could return to the wild.

J.K. Houssels, Sr., the owner of the Tropicana and the Showboat Casinos, and a friend of the my father, gave me the opportunity to partake in the thoroughbred industry. I could read the [Daily] Racing Form when I was only eight. And when I was in the sixth grade, I was called up to the principal's office for having gambling material in the classroom.

My dad shipped his horse One Eyed Tom to Kentucky to run in the Derby, although the horse was still a maiden. Out of the gate, he took a U-turn. That's what initiated the earnings rule still in effect today. Jim Bolus wrote about it in his book 'The Run for the Roses.' They call it 'The Hines Rule'. In 1979, my dad owned Good Lord, who was the Horse of the Year in New Zealand two years in a row. That horse won the Eddie Read at Del Mar, and he was trained by Charlie Whittingham and ridden by Bill Shoemaker. I literally grew up in this business.