Arianna Brown not only senator's daughter, she's a horse owner

To most of the country, Syracuse University freshman Arianna Brown is known as the youngest daughter of newly-elected U.S. Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts. But  the 19-year-old pre-med student is known as an owner-breeder as well as accomplished equestrian.

 

The Brown family is close friends with Plainridge Racecourse owner Gary Piontkowski, who convinced her in March of 2008 to become a partner in an 8-year-old Ohio-bred trotting mare named Sugar Free. Although Piontkowski has since sold his interest to trainer John Mattero, Sugar Free won seven times and more than $18,000 since Brown came aboard.

 

“I had show horses before I bought the racehorse,” Brown told The Horseman in an exclusive interview. “I did the hunter jumper series around New England but decided to give that up for a little while and get into horse racing.

 

“We were pouring so much money into the equestrian world and not really getting anything back, we thought it’d be an interesting investment. Not to make money, but for me to have something to do. As long as she (Sugar Free) could pay for herself it was something I could manage financially.”

 

Brown said she had been going to the races at Plainridge and had begun going to the barn a little bit to help with horses owned by Piontkowski before she decide to become an owner herself. She said she became even more hands-on when she had her own horse.

 

“(Mattero) let me come and walk the horse, not much of anything else. Eventually he let me learn more and when I started to show I really wanted to do it, he let me help with my horse and the other horses,” she said. “Eventually I was there every day and people hired me to paddock their horses.”

 

Sugar Free has not raced since May 2009, and is now in foal to Florida sire Wewering. Brown said she plans on returning to her work on the Plainridge backstretch when school recesses this summer, and she also hopes to drive in a celebrity race as her father did in 2006.