Briana Mott, owner of Fashion at the Races, has been named director of client relations by Team Valor International President Barry Irwin.
Mott, 25, succeeds Megan Jones, who recently was promoted to vice president of the company.
A New York native, Mott obtained animal sciences degree from Penn State and following graduation, she enrolled in KEMI (Kentucky Equine Management Internship), where during her course she worked at Ashford Stud in Versailles, Kentucky and at the prestigious equine veterinary firm of Hagyard, Davidson McGee.
Mott also worked for trainer Nick Zito's stable, where she rode the pony taking horses to and from the racetrack, as well as grooming and hot-walking. Her resume also includes working for Australia's Windsor Park Stud, which is operated as a division of Coolmore, and experience at Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton sales.
While in Australia, Mott observed the transformation in Australia achieved by a group of clever promoters that lifted the decaying racetrack atmosphere out of the doldrums by introducing fashion as a means of increasing involvement of women attending the races. The addition of dress-up days in Australian racing is credited with not only increasing attendance of women at the races, but ratcheting up the crowds overall to current record levels.
With that in mind, Mott started her own company named Fashion at the Races, designed to do for American racing what a similar enterprise did for the sport in Australia. For the last couple of years, she also has produced a calendar featuring well-dressed models with Thoroughbreds and marketed them to the public.
Both Mott and Jones share an interest in promoting that idea and Team Valor anticipates some symbiosis of the two companies in years to come, especially with the Valor Ladies LLC racing partnership.
"Briana is a sharp cookie," noted Irwin. "She believes in this concept and over the last two years has devoted a lot of time and energy to her pet project. And it has just begun to pay off, too, as this season at the Kentucky Derby (gr. I), Preakness Stakes (gr. I) and Belmont Stakes (gr. I), Briana will serve as the representative for Triple Crown sponsor Longines. She will be on site doing her best to promote the high-end Swiss-based watchmaker and her own company Fashion at the Races.
"Briana is doing her best to return the experience of going racing in an elegant manner to today's sport," Irwin continued. "It is interesting to note that fashion is an integral part of important race days in many parts of the world, including Australia, South Africa and Dubai. Team Valor and its partners can only benefit from this type of focus on fashion."
"Important to our company is the fact that Briana has a good understanding of international racing, because Team Valor plans to make some incursions in Australia, where Animal Kingdom now spends half of his time. We plan to race a small stable of select runners in Oz."