Racing isn't a business we entered. It's the one we were raised in.
Alex Solis II never had a plan that didn't involve horses. His father is a Hall of Fame jockey; his grandfather, Bert Sonnier, trained Nodouble and Meadowlake; and from as early as he can remember, horses were all he thought about. He wanted to ride like his father; his frame decided otherwise. He enrolled in school to become a veterinarian, the better to train racehorses one day, then switched halfway through to a finance degree, expecting to own a few horses in the future and enjoy the game as a hobby.
The game had other plans. As a sophomore at Cal Poly, he was spending weekend mornings at the racetrack working for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella and weekdays interning at a brokerage firm — until a colleague at the office asked him to purchase a few racehorses for him and his friends. He agreed. He had worked the sales alongside Bruce Headley and had a good handle on racing from all the time he had spent at the racetrack.
The first group of horses he purchased for them included Grade 1 winner Daytona (IRE). Then came Life At Ten, The Pamplemousse — an early favorite for the Kentucky Derby — and Mizdirection. The hobby had become a career.
Before it was a bloodstock agency, it was a friendship.
Alex met Jason Litt in Del Mar in the summer of 2005, just a few months before any of this began. Jason was at Three Chimneys selling seasons and doing a bit of bloodstock, and he carried the same ambition Alex did: to buy top racehorses.
The conversations started almost immediately — several times a week, about everything in racing. By the September sale, the talking had turned into buying. It was the beginning of a partnership, and a friendship, that would take them around the world.
The foundation of that partnership was trust. In a business where judgment and loyalty are tested every day, Jason brought the qualities Alex valued most: honesty, steadiness, and sound counsel. He became both a mentor and a partner. As their work together grew, Jason left Three Chimneys, and Solis Bloodstock evolved into Solis/Litt.
Then, in 2012, came a defining call from the Roth Family of LNJ Foxwoods: an invitation to build a complete racing and breeding operation from the ground up. It drew on everything they had learned, and it remains some of the most fulfilling work they have done. That operation's runners would come to include Covfefe, Olympiad, and Country House.
The calls continued. Gainesway Farm brought Alex on as its Director of Bloodstock — three years that added the farm side of the business to his ledger — and Mike Repole later asked Solis/Litt to take over the management of his operation.
The firm was built on the belief that carried them there: an owner deserves an advisor whose only interest is the owner's — disclosed, accountable, and honest about what no one can know for certain. Everything since — the Derby winners, the Breeders’ Cup wins, the Eclipse Awards, and graded winners around the world — grew out of that.
