Cornacchia, co-owner of 2 Ky. Derby winners, dies.
June 27, 2011NEW YORK (AP) - Joseph Cornacchia, co-owner of Kentucky Derby winners Strike the Gold and Go For Gin, has died. He was 78.
The New York Racing Association, Inc., announced Monday that Cornacchia died on Sunday in New York of natural causes.
Cornacchia, a New York native raised in Queens, made a fortune manufacturing the popular board game Trivial Pursuit. He founded The Games Gang, which also produced Pictionary and Balderdash.
He partnered with B. Giles Brophy and William Condren to buy Strike the Gold as a 2-year-old in 1990, and won the Derby a year later.
Cornacchia and Condren won the 1994 Derby with Go For Gin and the 1996 Preakness with Louis Quatorze.
He served on the NYRA board of directors from 1998-2008.