Hans and Ana Maron are the TOBA March Members of the Month.

Owners Hans and Ana Maron rounded out 2023 on a high. In partnership with Pine Racing Stables, the Chandler, Arizona-based duo’s Saints or Sinners sent out Watsonville to his first graded stakes win. On Dec. 26, the son of Jack Milton scored by a nose in the Mathis Mile Stakes (G2T) at Santa Anita Park. Just a few races earlier, the Maron’s Beef Winslow won an allowance race on the same card.

“We’ve been going for probably 15 years now and I’ve been going to the races for 45 years,” Hans shared. “I go back to Golden Gate Fields. But as a young buck, I used to drive down to Santa Anita every year for a week, so Santa Anita’s kind of always been my special track. To win on opening day—and win with your own horse and then win with a partner horse in a grade 2—is amazing.”

In 2019, the Marons decided to form an LLC. Hans had one mandate: that his name wasn’t included. Ana noted, “Well, Hans is the youngest of four siblings—I think his mother just threw all the saints at him.” The English translation is “John Peter Paul,” so Ana chimed in. “I said, ‘Oh my God, so like a saint! You’ve got a saintly name.” Ana herself is from a Catholic family; her mother was studying to be a nun, while her father was in the seminary to become a priest. She shared, “So, I said, on the other hand, in my family, everything was sinful. There was no gambling. There was no playing cards. There was nothing like that growing up. Everything was sinful.” Thus, Saints or Sinners was born.

Watsonville’s road to success has been full of twists and turns. First, the Marons bought him for $240,000 at the April 2022 Ocala Breeders’ Sales of Two-Year-Olds in Training. “When we purchased him from OBS,” Hans shared, “we brought him back to California and he got a sinus infection—well, basically, a cyst in his sinus—and then he had surgery and got really, really sick after the surgery and kind of barely made it through that. He lost, like, 150 pounds.” From there, it took about six or seven months for Watsonville to recover and return to fighting-fit shape. “He was always a really strong individual and he always seemed very smart, and he was very calm. He just had this really great demeanor about him, and he never lost it, even when he got sick and everything” Hans said.

He added, “When he started training, [trainer] Mark Glatt was always very high on him. ‘We just need to be patient and take our time with him.’” The chestnut colt didn’t start working until his sophomore season. “It was because of the surgery and then losing all the weight afterwards and trying to get some weight back on him to start training,” Hans explained. “So, he’s never had any physical issues besides the cyst in his sinus area, but he had a pretty big nasty L-shaped scar.”

Watsonville broke his maiden on July 29, annexing a Sept. 4 optional-claiming allowance event next time out. He finished sixth in the Nov. 4 Twilight Derby (G2T) and fourth in the Dec. 2 Hollywood Derby (G1T) before winning the Mathis Mile. “We just gave him a break,” Hans said. “He had been in training pretty much since February, March of last year. We ran three really tough races—maybe four tough races—in a row, so we just decided to give him a month off or six weeks off and then just get fresh for the March-April stakes program at Santa Anita.” One 2024 target is the May 27 Shoemaker Mile (G1T) at Santa Anita.

Saints or Sinners has 28 horses, with an additional 20 in partnership (including grade 1 winner Gold Phoenix, as well as O Besos). Multiple graded stakes-placed O Besos took his owners, and trainer Greg Foley, on the ride of a lifetime, competing in the 2021 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve (G1). “The journey with O Besos was special. We had met some great partners and just made that year so special and there’s nothing like that walk down the track, ‘My Old Kentucky Home,’ and just being present and participating in it,” Hans said. So that was super-special. And actually, when he turned for home, I thought he might hit the board. I mean we did run fifth and got disqualified to fourth, but he was really the only horse that was making up ground in the stretch and I was pretty excited.”

Saints or Sinners has 10 newly minted three-year-olds (five in California, five in Kentucky) ready to run. And with its burgeoning broodmare band boarded at Upson Downs Farm near Goshen, Ky., the operation has a bright future ahead.