Greg Goodman has been selected by the Board of Directors of the Thoroughbred Club of America as the 2026 Honor Guest, Club President W. Chapman Hopkins announced today. "The Thoroughbred Club of America is pleased to name Greg Goodman as our 2026 Honor Guest," said Hopkins. "The breadth of Mr. Goodman's involvement in breeding, racing and land conservation efforts has left an indelible mark on the industry on the national and international stage. His impact on the Thoroughbred industry is matched only by his generosity in important philanthropic support, and we are honored to name him as our 2026 Honor Guest." Goodman will be honored by the Club at its 95th Testimonial Dinner, which will be held at Keeneland on Saturday, September 26th.
Greg Goodman has been immersed in Thoroughbred racing his entire life, spending nearly three decades as an owner and breeder. A native Houstonian, he attended the University of Texas at Austin and earned his degree from the University of Houston. His path into the industry was set early — his late father, Harold V. Goodman, owned Brazos T Farm in Brookshire, Texas, where he stood the stallion Manzotti, was named TOBA Texas Breeder of the Year three times, and played a key role in bringing pari-mutuel betting to Texas. Goodman traces his own passion for the sport to a defining moment: a Seattle Slew yearling that sold for $2.9 million at the 1990 Keeneland July Sale and would go on to become the legendary A.P. Indy. His father bought into the colt as a racehorse partner — an experience Goodman has said made his future in the business feel inevitable. When his father passed away in 1996, Goodman inherited five shares in A.P. Indy, then at stud, laying the foundation for the breeding program he would build at Mt. Brilliant.
Mt. Brilliant has been owned by the Goodman family for 30 years and is now composed of 1,400 acres. In 2002, Goodman acquired the neighboring Faraway Farm, home to the historic stallion barn where Man o' War once stood, and later restored the barn to preserve it as a living piece of Thoroughbred history. In 2023, he added the adjacent property where the legendary horse was originally buried and where his statue stood before its move to the Kentucky Horse Park — reuniting the original acreage of Faraway Farm and restoring Man o' War's story in Kentucky.
Today, Mt. Brilliant's broodmare band includes 32 mares, 10 of which are graded stakes performers and dams of six recent or current graded stakes horses. The family's horses train across three continents — with Michael Stidham in the U.S., Sir Mark Prescott in Europe, and Gai Waterhouse in Australia. The breeding program traces back to Desert Air, a homebred son of Manzotti bought for just $8,000 from his father's estate, who won the GIII Razorback Handicap. Since then, Mt. Brilliant has bred Grade I winners Creator (Belmont Stakes) and Gaming (Del Mar Futurity), three-time graded stakes winner Private Mission, and graded stakes winner Extra Anejo. The farm's roster has included graded stakes-placed Secret Someone and Frankly My Dear, along with graded stakes winners Boom Town Girl, Desert Demon, and Justenuffhumor.
Goodman is involved in every facet of the Thoroughbred business — stallions, broodmares, sales, and racing. He has served on the Breeders' Cup Investment Committee and Racing and Nominations Committee. He is a founder and current Treasurer of the Fayette Alliance, a land-use advocacy group he co-founded in 2006 to protect Kentucky's Thoroughbred farmland from development, reflecting his belief that the region's farmland is a finite resource worth protecting.
An avid polo enthusiast, Goodman hosts the Bluegrass International Cup each year at Mt. Brilliant, a fundraiser benefiting the Fayette Alliance and the UK Markey Cancer Foundation. A true philanthropist, his charitable work spans education, the arts, the environment, healthcare, and equine welfare — and his contributions to the industry have been recognized with the Robert N. Clay Award (2022), the William T. Young Humanitarian Award (2023), and the Allaire du Pont Leadership Award (2024).
He is also a member of the Mt. Brilliant Family Foundation and has previously served on the boards of the Markey Cancer Foundation (as Vice Chair), TOBA, the Texas Thoroughbred Association, the Thoroughbred Research Institute, Sayre School, the University of Texas Health Science Center, Cleveland Clinic, Goodman Global, and Southwest Bank of Texas.
Goodman spends as much time as he can in Kentucky with his wife of 43 years, Becky Goodman, his four children, and 10 grandchildren.
