For the love of the game

Words - Bill Heller

Justin Evans, Jeff Radosevich and Tim Hamm are three of a kind, three terrific trainers rarely in a national spotlight because they work at tracks in Ohio, Arizona and Washington, not New York, Kentucky, California and Florida. “The way this business is, if you don’t have the stock, you stay where you belong,” Radosevich said. “I’d rather win a race at a smaller track than be second or third at a bigger track. No matter what, wins are wins.”

          They’ve had boatloads. Collectively, more than 7,400. Their horses have earned more than $115 million. They’ve won numerous training titles.

“We don’t get much publicity,” Evans said. “Not even when I was third in the county in wins (in 2014) and when I won my 2,500th race this year. It bugs me a little bit. That was a big accomplishment to me.”

It was and still is. More are likely to follow for all three. No matter who’s paying attention.

Justin Evans, now 43, has been a horse owner since he was two. That’s right. Two.

His father Robert, a trainer, explained: “We bought a Quarter Horse at a sale, and he was eligible for one of the futurities. I put Justin’s name on him as the owner. They said, 'Who's that?’ I said, "He's my son.’ ‘Well, he has to be licensed.’ There wasn’t anything in the rulebook about age. He had a big, black cowboy hat on and they took his picture. He’s had a license ever since.”

Evans recalled, “There were newspaper stories. It was really cool. Growing up around the racetrack, I was never one of the shy kids. They coached me really good. I remember doing one interview on TV,  I knew all the right answers. I did a lot of those when I was a little kid. I liked talking to older people, I think it really helped me along the way.”

When Justin Evans was just a couple months old, his family moved from California to Chino Valley, Arizona, 100 miles north of Phoenix and eight miles from Prescott Downs. From Kindergarten until the fourth grade, Justin was excused from school to help his family’s horse operation. “I would miss about the first eight weeks,” Justin said. “After Prescott Downs got done running, we went to all these little towns in Arizona, Holbrook, St. John’s and then to Yuma. After Yuma, we’d go home and start with the young horses, breaking babies and starting with some of the older horses that we had turned out. Prescott would run from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so I spent every day at the racetrack. As a kid growing up, I’d just dread going back to school and couldn’t wait to get out. Sometimes, my parents would let me out a week early to go to Prescott Downs. I couldn’t wait to get out of school to go to the racetrack. I spent every waking minute there, going with my parents at five in the morning and staying all day long.”

His father said, “He was around horses day and night. Feeding. Doing leg wraps. I showed him how to do bandages. He was learning everything.”

Growing up, he idolized Bob Baffert, long before he became a Hall of Fame trainer: “He was an Arizona guy for a long time. I used to read the Form and watch his work patterns, and try to pattern my horses like that. We remain good friends to this day. He’s great to me and my family.”

On the first possible day he could get a trainer’s license, his 18th birthday, he did at Prescott Downs. “He had four or five horses,” his father said. “He’s never looked back. He’s a talented trainer and he knows how to pick out horses. He’s good at claiming.”

But it took time. “I struggled a little bit,” recalled Justin. “I had cheap horses at Prescott Downs. I called my mom two weeks in and said if things don’t work out I’m coming home. Three days later, a guy from Turf Paradise, Arnie Fullerton, the stall man, called me and said, `I’m going to do you a favor. In barn K4, there’s seven stalls you can have. There’s only one tack room, so you’re going to have to make do with it.’”

“I thought it was like early Christmas. I said, `Oh, man, thank you. I’ll never forget it. Back then, K4 was the high-rent district. I mean you had Jeff Mullins, and R. Kory Owens. You had some good trainers down there. I was like the Jeffersons. I was moving up, man.”

  He made the most of this opportunity. “I was like the 10th leading trainer in the standings my first year at Turf Paradise - I was 18 years old, it was really huge.”

When he shipped to Lone Star Park, he did some work for Steve Asmussen. “I helped Steve a lot and we got to be good friends, I mean I’ve always been one of those guys not afraid to ask a guy like Steve or Bob, `Hey, what do you think about this.’ Because why wouldn’t you? They’re the greatest in the game, so you know if you can get an answer from those guys, then you’re way ahead of the ballgame for sure.”

He'd like, eventually, to be in the same game as Baffert and Asmussen. “To be at that level one day, absolutely, it’s my main goal to try to achieve.” 

In 2014, he was as good as any trainer, finishing third in victories (272) while posting career highs in earnings ($3,607,260) and starts (1,022), one of five years he finished 11th or better nationally in victories. He completely dominated in New Mexico in 2014, becoming the first trainer to win every meet at New Mexico’s five tracks, Sunland Park, Zia Park, The Downs at Albuquerque, Ruidoso Downs and Sunray Park. “They couldn’t beat me, I claimed a lot of horses.”

Evans won six titles in seven years at Sunland from 2013 through 2020, then shifted his focus to Turf Paradise, where he won his fourth consecutive title with 43 victories, 17 more than anyone else. His victory margins the previous three years were 30, 23 and 28. 

 In 2023, Evans raced in Emerald Downs in Auburn, Washington, near Seattle. He led all trainers in victories and in earnings in 2023 and 2024 by wide margins. Midway through this year, he’s tied for first in wins and second in earnings.

His top earner was African Rose, a multiple stakes winner for two-thirds of her career from 2011 to 2017. She finished with 18 victories, seven seconds and six thirds in 46 starts with $586,757.

Evans’ son, Austin, may be following his father’s career path. His proud grandfather, Robert, shares the story: “My grandson is 12, and he went to the sales in Kentucky. Justin had the catalog and they went by one of the stalls. Austin had a cap on, and the horse took his cap off. Austin said, `I want that horse.’ They bid on him, got him and named him Austin’s Ace. They put him in training, he ran second, then first at Sunland Park. The track announcer knew Austin real well and he was going nuts. He said, `Austin’s Ace won the race and Austin is going to the winner’s circle.’ There were a zillion people in the winner’s circle.

“He’s at the barn all the time. It won’t be long. He’ll be doing the same thing. He’s a little horseman. He loves horses.”

That sounds about right.

*******************************************

The breadth of Jeff Radosevich’s horsemanship is vast, and nobody knows more about it than Thoroughbred owner William Spitler. On November 23rd 1990, Radosevich rode Spitler’s (and his long-time best friend Rick Spicer’s)  King of the Nile to a three-length stakes victory at Beulah Park. Nearly 29 years later, August 11th 2019, Radosevich trained their horse Verissimo, who won the $75,000 Horizon Stakes on grass by a neck at Belterra Park.

“I don’t think too many people have done that,” Radosevich said.

Spitler, a retired director of tourism and trade for the United States Department of Commerce, is deeply appreciative: “We can’t say enough good things about Jeff and his family. He and his family are great friends of ours and have been forever. He works really, really hard and he gets on virtually every horse that he trains. He maximizes the potential of every horse he trains.”

And his family’s been with him every step of the way. The J line: his grandfather Jake, father Joe (a Quarter Horse trainer who passed away three years ago), mother Jackie, brothers Joey and Jake, sister Jill and late nephew Joshua, Jake’s son, a promising jockey who suffered a fatal accident on the track at the age of 16 in November, 2005 at Beulah Park. “He was really a special son to them,” Spitler said. Joshua’s younger brother, Jacob, became a jockey, winning his first race at Beulah Park in January 2011. Jeff and his wife Yvonne’s three adult children together are named Justin, Josie and Joshua.

The Radosevich family had more in common than the first letter of their first names. All are horsemen. “I didn’t really plan on all J’s,” Jeff’s mother, Jackie, recalled. “I named the first child (Joey) after my husband and Jeff for Jeffrey Hunter (a movie star). I thought I would pick short names because people couldn’t say the last name.”

She talked about the beginning of the family’s involvement with horses: “We started out horse showing. My husband started that. We had a barrel horse. We were greener than green. He ended up winning. So then we started racing Quarter Horses, then Thoroughbreds. With Quarter Horses, the big purses were for two and three-year-olds. There were no claiming races. The kids always had ponies, horses. The kids would help in the barn.”

Jeff’s father, though, became a steel mill worker in Joliet, Ill., while he was training. Those memories helped determine Jeff’s future. “He was getting horses, then more horses. Me and my older brother Joey, we were five and six, and he sat us all down in the living room, all the kids and Mom. He asked us, `Do you want me to work with horses or stay in the steel mill?’”

The kids didn’t wait long to answer their father. “We all, of course, were kids and we wanted to be with the horses. That’s how he ended up quitting the steel mill.”

They dabbled with barrel racing, and pole bending. “There wasn’t much money in that. “Then we raced Quarter Horses. We went to Oklahoma, Denver, Nebraska. We all started working with him when we were 10 and 11. We were galloping and exercising horses for them. It was fun. It was all fun.”

He said his father “got a little bored with Quarter Horses. There was a lot of traveling. Then he started buying Thoroughbreds in 1980.”

Jeff wanted to ride them, but his father mandated he graduate high school first. “I graduated early when I was 16 ½ because I wanted to ride, to be a jockey,” Jeff said. “I graduated from Joliet East and started riding Quarter Horses.”

He did well. “They’re like speed cars. Get out of the gate and go as fast as you can.”

Her mother wasn’t surprised that he did well: “Jeff has always been known as a hard worker. He would ride a bike through the barns and get on trainers’ horses. He was up early and he was reliable and honest. I’m very proud. I told him, `Just because you’re at the racetrack, you don’t lose your manners or your morals.’”

Jeff rode his first Thoroughbred when he was 19 at Commodore Downs, and won his first Thoroughbred race at Thistledown on November 9th, 1980. “When we went from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds, you had to be a good gate person,” his mother said. “He knew how to get his horse away from the gate, get in position.” 

In 1990, he got into a good position with Spitler and Spicer, starting a relationship that’s still going strong 34 years later. He rode their King of the Nile and won a maiden race at Thistledown by 12 lengths in his third career start, November 4th. Nineteen days later, he won the $25,000 Beulah Park Sales Futurity on him by three lengths.

While Jeff made it initially as a rider, his brothers wound up turning to training. “All the boys wanted to ride,” Joey said. “My dad told me and Jake that we need to be trainers. He was right. Jeff could make weight.”

Joey trained horses in Florida, New York and Ohio. “Jeff rode races for me and won races for me. I've got a lot of win photos with him. I wanted to ride, but I was always too heavy.”

Jeff trained in Florida before turning to pinhooking and breaking horses. He and his wife bought a farm in Oklahoma: “I like doing the farm life better. I like baling hay, putting in a garden. I have cattle, I do the weanlings.”

Jill rode a saddle pony and became a clocker.

Jake trains horses in Kentucky. Through mid-June, 2024, he’s won 1,259 races and $8,773,787. His daughter Jamie is married to jockey Brian Hernandez, who won the Kentucky Oaks and Acorn Stakes with Thorpedo Anna and the Kentucky Derby with Mystik Dan.

Jake’s son, Joshua, seemed headed to a glorious career when he began riding at the age of 16. In a little more than a month, he won five races at Mountaineer Park and 14 races at Beulah Park. In November, 2005, his mount in a $3,500 claimer snapped his leg and Joshua died of a broken neck. “It was hard on all of us, but it was hardest for his dad,” Jeff said.

Eleven years later, on December 17th, 2016, Mobil Sky captured the $75,000 Joshua Radosevich Memorial Stakes at Mahoning Valley Race Course. The horse was trained by Jeff and ridden by Joshua’s younger brother Jacob. Jacob rode through 2020, winning 319 races and earning $4,494,006.

Jeff Radosevich was the leading jockey at Thistledown in 1988. He stopped riding after breaking his leg in 1993. “I was fighting weight a little bit. I rode for 14 years. Broken arms, broken back, broken leg”.

He won his first race as a trainer on December 10th, 1993, at Thistledown.

“I struggled a little bit the first five, six years, from 1994 to about 2000,” Radosevich said. “Then things started turning around. I started picking up some clients. I got more horses.”

His win total jumped from 11 in 1999 to 34 the following year. His horses topped $1 million in earnings for the first time in 2004 and his number of victories and earnings kept on rising. He has finished in the top 14 nationally in wins nine times, including eighth-place finishes in 2016 and 2019. 

In 2008, he had 45 horses at Thistledown, 20 at Presque Isle and 20 at Mountaineer Park. On one crazy day, he won races at all three tracks thanks to their staggered starting times. “That’s a pretty busy day. I called it the Bermuda Triangle.” He had five horses at Thistledown for afternoon racing and won two. He drove an hour and 20 minutes to Presque Isle for twilight racing and won one there. “Then I got in my truck and drove an hour and a half to Mountaineer. I won one there. I got home at 1:30 or 2 in the morning. Couple hours sleep and back to work. I was at Thistledown the next morning at 5.”

Why? “Because I like watching them run,” Radosevich said. “I had clients there, and the clients like to see the trainer there. I just made all three places.”

By then, he had married his former fiancé, Yvonne, who works at FedEx. “We ran back into each other 15 years later,” Radosevich, now 54, said. “We got married in 2007.”

Radosevich has dominated in Ohio. He’s currently battling Hamm – they’re one victory apart through early September - for what would be Radosevich’s ninth title at Thistledown in the last 13 years. He’s been second three times and third once.

Radosevich has dominated in Ohio. He’s on target this year for what would be his ninth title at Thistledown in the last 13 years. He’s been second three times and third once.

At Mahoning Valley, he’s won five titles with a second and a third in the last seven years.

In 2016, he was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame which celebrated him as “the first and only horseman” to prevail as a champion as both a jockey and as a trainer.

He has ventured into Florida twice: “I was at Gulfstream Park for half a season, but I didn’t have the stock. I did have some horses at Tampa for a short bit. You’ve got to have stock.”

So he does the best where he’s at, piling up victories, titles and the respect of his rivals for the unique course of his life, a two-way champion who is one of the very few jockeys who transformed into successful trainers.

**************************************

Like his father, Ed, before him, 54-year-old Tim Hamm trained horses as a second, simultaneous career. “I learned a lot about Thoroughbreds from him,” Hamm said. “Actually, the only teacher I really had was him.”

Eventually, Hamm convinced his father to leave General Motors, where he was in lower management, to work full-time with him on horses.

“My dad said, `I want to retire one of these days and I said, 'why don’t you retire and we’ll work together on our horses?’ So he did it and he just loved it.”

Hamm’s childhood was filled with other-breed horses. “We raised Arabians when I was a young kid. Then I worked at a farm that had Saddlebreds when I was 11 or 12. I worked under a guy I credit with a lot of my horsemanship to Grey Barrun. He was nearly 90 at the time. He was one of the gurus in Saddlebreds. I did hay, put oats in feed bags and cleaned stalls. He taught me how to ride Saddlebreds.”

Hamm decided to get more hands-on: “I bought a parade pony that no one could ride. They said he was too mean to ride. He’d throw me about 20 times a day, but I finally got to where I could ride him. Then I started breaking Saddlebreds for Grey, and he saw I was capable. Once I got into high school, I was doing sports and I got a car, and I stopped doing that.”

He was good enough at football to play in college at Youngstown State, where he graduated in 1989 with a business degree. And he was mighty busy. “My schedule was 6-8 a.m. football, classes until noon, football in the afternoon, night classes and working at Wendy’s from 9 until 3:30 in the morning and start over the next day. It was insane. I looked at my buddy and said, `I will never flip another burger. I need to get into the construction business.”

He started his own construction company, Hamm Company, in Warren, near Youngstown, immediately after college.

Meanwhile, his father raced eight to 10 Thoroughbreds at Mountaineer Park in West Virginia, 40 miles from their home in Lordstown, Ohio. He would win nearly 100 races while still working at General Motors. “I learned a little bit about Thoroughbreds there. I lived there. I ate there. I did the stalls and helped them jog the horses.”

   With Hamm Company doing well, Hamm bought his first horse, Willowy Proof, for $13,000 at the 1994 Ocala Breeders’ Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training. “My business plan was I want to train horses. I said I have to go out on my own. Then if it grows enough, you can bring in partners. The plan kind of worked. But when I bought her, I tell you I was just so green. Somebody said you bought a Penn-bred, and I said, `What is that?’’

After hearing that meant his new filly was bred in Pennsylvania, Hamm said, “It sounds like I’m going to Philadelphia Park.”

And that’s exactly where Hamm and Willowy Proof went. In Hamm’s first start as a trainer, Willowy Proof won a filly Pennsylvania-bred maiden special weight by 9 ¼ lengths, July 25th, 1994. “It seemed easy, but I didn’t know anything,” Hamm said.

He knew enough to keep his filly. “The breeder, Daniel Ljoka, comes up to me after her first race and wants to buy this horse,” Hamm said. “He said, 'I'll give you $75,000.’ I said, 'She's really not for sale.’ He said, "I'll give you $100,000.’ I said, `It doesn’t matter what you offer, I’m keeping her.’”

After her debut score, Willowy Proof finished last in a $46,000 stakes race. Her next victory was in a $10,000 claimer. She finished seven-for-46 with seven seconds, six thirds and earnings of $64,007.

Hamm returned to the Ocala 1996 Two-Year-Old Sales and purchased two more fillies and two colts. Every one won a stakes. He was aided by his brother Tom, who became Hamm’s assistant trainer.

With an ever-growing number of horses, Hamm decided to buy property in Ohio and began Blazing Meadows Farm in 1995. A year later, Hamm opened a second Blazing Meadows Farm in Florida.
He said he considered leaving his construction company in 1999, but didn’t pull the trigger until 2003. But it took time to walk away. “It took me a year and a half to get everything closed down.”. 

Good timing. At the 2004 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, he purchased Wait a While, a daughter of Rubiano out of Rose Colored Lady, one of the four two-year-olds he’d bought in Ocala in 1996, for $50,000. He then offered Wait a While at the 2005 OBS Select Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training, and got $260,000 for her. She was worth the money. Trained by Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, Wait a While would be named the 2006 Champion Three-Year-Old Filly.

In 2005, Hamm debuted the gray colt Too Much Bling in the $40,000 Hoover Ohio-Bred Stakes. He finished second. Dropped to maiden company at Thistledown, Too Much Bling won by 19 ½ lengths. Stonerside Stable then bought a three-quarter interest for $450,000, and Too Much Bling won three graded stakes for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert.

“You hope everything you’re doing can be validated,” Hamm said. “It at least lets you know if a good horse comes into your hands, you can get that horse to the pinnacle of the game.”

Leona’s Reward, a home-bred, didn’t seem like she’d reach any pinnacle, beginning her career zero-for-11. Hamm never gave up on her, and she rewarded his patience, becoming Hamm’s first millionaire with 10 victories, 10 seconds and six thirds in 55 starts, earning $1,000,556.

At the other end of the spectrum, Dayoutoftheoffice, a filly Hamm owned in partnership with her breeder, Siena Farms, was spectacular as a two-year-old, following a debut maiden victory by taking the 2020 Grade 3 Schuylerville at Saratoga by six lengths; winning the Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park by two lengths, and finishing second by two lengths to Vequist in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland. As a three-year-old, she was second by a length in the Grade 2 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs and a close fourth in the Grade 1 Acorn at Belmont.

A knee injury derailed her career. “There was so much scar tissue,” Hamm said. “We sold her for $2,850,000 and she went to Japan (Shadai Farm).”

Hamm has remained stabled in Ohio, even as his stable has grown to 130 horses. 

He had to struggle to get past his father’s death in November, 2022: “It was a shock to us. It happened all of a sudden, and a big part of what we do was all of a sudden missing.”

            Despite regularly taking on Jeff Radosevich, Hamm has won the 2021, 2023 and 2024 training titles at Belterra Park, and the 2023 title at Thistledown. He and Radosevich are 1-2 so far in 2024. Hamm has also won the 2013 and 2022 training titles at Presque Isle. He has 1,820 career victories and more than $44 million in purses.

He’s had seven Ohio-bred Horses of the Year and 70 divisional championships, and he’s as much in love with horses and horse racing as ever. “I love the challenges. What I love about the horses the most – obviously, the animals are beautiful – you meet every person from every walk of life, from hot walkers all the way up to billionaires. Literally, I’ve got friends on all aspects and I can relate with every one of them very well. And I love that. I was heavy into sports, and it’s competitive. Horses fill my competitive nature. I love being outdoors.”

And he hasn’t stopped learning: “You never conquer it. Financially, it’s a challenge. There are always new things to learn. It’s competitive. To win races is not an easy thing. You’re always trying to breed a better horse, put a better partnership together. It keeps your mind fresh. You’ve always got to think - to stay ahead of what’s going on in the game.”

No matter how many are watching. 

Eric Kruljac eyeing up the cup

Words - ED GOLDEN

Joseph Eric Kruljac might have been a contemporary of Dick Butkus save for a twist of both fate and knee, so instead of perhaps joining the Hall of Fame linebacker in the National Football League circa 1970, Kruljac became a thoroughbred horse trainer.

It was an appropriate transition in waiting.

At 71, Kruljac (call him Eric) has enjoyed virtually every moment under the shed row, currently guiding the bountiful fortunes of a six-year-old gelding named The Chosen Vron, a California-bred son of Vronsky that has won 19 of 25 starts including streaks of eight and six in a row, highlighted by back-to-back Grade I wins against open company in the 2023 Bing Crosby Stakes and again last July 27 at Del Mar.

Only two of his 25 races were less than incipient, finishing fifth each time while uncharacteristically failing to make or challenge for the lead.

The current ultimate goal is the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar on Nov. 2. The speedy chestnut was fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita last year but has an affinity for Del Mar, with six wins from eight starts at the seaside oval. His career earnings stand at $1,571,678.

Favored at 1-2, The Chosen Vron lost by a neck to Doug O’Neill trainee Raging Torrent in the Grade II Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 10, taking the lead by a head entering the stretch of the seven-furlong race but failing to overtake his stubborn rival who was on the rail and in receipt of seven pounds,125 to 118.

After the Pat O’Brien, Kruljac had considered running in the Grade II Santa Anita Sprint Championship at six furlongs on Sept. 29 before the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, but put the kibosh on that. Odds-on favorite Straight No Chaser won the Santa Anita Sprint by 6 ¼ lengths in impressive front-running fashion.

“We ran in two tough races (winning the Bing Crosby July 27 before his second in the Pat O’Brien) close together,” Kruljac said, “so he’s been just jogging and galloping since. We’ll go in fresh.

“You have to listen to your horse, especially early on in their career. We had to stop on him after we had run a couple times, then we gave him extended time off, and now we’re being paid for it in bushels, because we gave the horse a chance to get over his problems and mature.

“We didn’t ask him for a whole lot after we gave him a break and it worked out well because he just turned into a machine. A trainer has to stay at the ready when it comes to a horse’s health.

“You have to check them every day, because they’re like strawberries: they can spoil overnight.”

Fortunately for Team Kruljac, it is enjoying the fruits of The Chosen Vron’s labor, and how sweet it is.

“Every horse is different even in some minor ways,” Kruljac said. “Depending on how the horse is handling training, you might back off if he isn’t cleaning up his feed after a workout. Others might be very resilient and eat a hole in their feed tub after a stiff work or a tough race, whereas lesser doers, as we call them, might need more time and have to be treated differently.

“You can tell when a horse likes his feed and it agrees with him if they bury their head in the feed tub after a workout or a race. You’ve got to read the horse.

“The Vron likes what he’s doing. He eats a hole in the bottom of his feed tub every morning. It’s horses like this that make people want to be owners and trainers to come to the barn in the morning. A horse like the Vron is all I need. I just have to keep him together.”

The solicitous Kruljac owns 20 percent of The Chosen Vron along with Sondereker Racing, LLC (40 percent), Robert Fetkin and Richard Thornburgh (each also 20 percent).

“John (Sondereker) is a prince of a man and was at the (Keeneland) auction in Kentucky with me when we bought The Chosen One’s dam (Tiz Molly) as a yearling,” Kruljac said. “He worked the sale with one of my sons (Mack) and I, and that was the beginning of The Chosen Vron.

“Tiz Molly showed a lot of run at the sale, won her first couple outs, then hurt herself, so we formed a partnership, started breeding her and we hit gold. Her second foal wound up being The Chosen Vron.”

Sondereker, 81, principal owner of The Chosen Vron, has enjoyed his days in racing since he started innocuously at the age of 15, mucking stalls and walking hots at tracks near his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. “Nothing serious,” he said with a chuckle. “Just a dollar-an-hour job. I doubled that now at two bucks an hour collecting social security, so I’m doing a lot better.”

He's doing a lot better in no small part thanks to The Chosen Vron, an unanticipated success story that prospective young owners might enjoy should good fortune smile on them. 

John’s tip to them for full gratification: get in on the ground floor

“Mine is a familiar story,” said Sondereker, who grew up around horse racing. “My dad took me to the track when I was young, so I got the bug. I loved the horses, went to school, went into the Service and worked for Wells Fargo for 40 years. I was in finance, traveled for them extensively with operations all over the country and spent five years in Latin America. 

“I had a couple of cheap horses when we opened Prairie Meadows back in the late 80’s but I always liked to live on the West Coast and wanted to see what I could do in racing and have fun with it when I retired, because it was my passion. Now I live on the West Coast, have a home in (Las) Vegas and one in Del Mar where I spend the racing season.

“I’m a realist and I never expected to have a Grade I winner, since I never had one during my first two or three decades. I never expected one this late, and when I saw Vron right after he was born at Harris Ranch, I had no clue this cute, crooked-legged little horse would develop into what he has. He was still around his mom when he was a few weeks old and wouldn’t let me get near him.

“I couldn’t get close to him until he was taken to Arizona where they broke him, then he came back and it looked like he had some potential against California-breds. That was all good, and the next thing you know, we couldn’t stop him from being successful.

“Everything kind of gelled together and I’m blessed because we have an outstanding groom who works with him—he has a three-part Mexican name but I just call him Herlindo. He’s been with Vron since he was a baby and is a major part of the horse’s success.

“Vron’s regular rider, Hector Berrios, stops at the barn almost every morning to see him, so it’s a caring team, but there’s a lot of luck involved, too. Everything came together and I’m just happy to sit on the sidelines.”

Sondereker offers this advice for rookie horse owners: “What makes it fun for me is for the most part I have learned to buy my own horses at the sales, although I haven’t bought any in the last year as I’m getting older and cutting back. I’ve got ‘Vron’ and that’s enough for me now, but the sales aspect of it means so much.

“When you’re confident enough to buy your own horses at a grassroots level, even though there’s more disappointment than there is success, you’re into the whole process. 

“Otherwise, you’re outside of that experience, pay bills and don’t know what’s going on. It’s fun to go to the races when one of your horses is running, but it’s a lot more fun if you bought it and are in it from the start, although it takes some capital to do that, obviously.

“That’s what has kept me in the game, going to the sales and learning my way around. Eric taught me a lot about buying horses. I didn’t understand it well until I started going to Keeneland with Eric.

“Early on I thought I knew it all, and you can make a lot of mistakes, but it’s really a treat to go to a place like Keeneland or Saratoga for their sales. You don’t have to buy anything, because mostly when I go, we’re the underbidder.

“That’s my nickname. I answer to The Underbidder,” Sondereker said, laughing. “But seriously, you get involved in the sport, meet wonderful people, most very cordial. They don’t care if you have a budget of $60,000 or five million, they treat you right. It becomes a passion for you.”

That’s what The Chosen Vron has become for his entire team.

“The horse is just all class, at the barn and on the race track,” Kruljac said. “He’s a gelding, so that reduced some of his heat. He’s quiet until you put a saddle and a bridle on him. He thoroughly relishes training and running in races. Around the barn we just call him Vron, because he’s Vron of a kind.”

The Chosen Vron’s partner in his last 17 races has been Berrios, a 37-year-old native of Chile who began riding at 17 and became a star in his native country, coming to California for the first time in 2011. He has ridden the gallant gelding in his last 17 races, winning 14.

“He breezes him, too, whenever we breeze,” Kruljac said. “Hector’s like a lot of the South American riders. They’re all true horsemen. They’re not just jockeys. They were born to sit on the backs of horses.”

Kruljac had a football scholarship at Arizona State when he suffered a knee injury, dashing hopes of blitzing the likes of the late, great Walter Payton. “I was basically just a target after I got hurt,” said Kruljac, who was 6’1 and 237 pounds in his sophomore year. He’s a svelte 210 today.

“I still walk with a limp to this day,” he said. “As time goes on, old injuries come back and haunt you.

“I had a massive tear in my meniscus. It was bad, but I was still practicing,” continued Kruljac, who left college a semester early and started a private investigators agency in Phoenix, expanding it to 10 before entering racing as an owner, with his brother, Edward, training. Eric sold his business and started his own stable in the early 1990s.

Before attending Arizona State, he spent winters in Phoenix and summers in California as a youngster. His grandfather, Walter Markham, a cattle rancher and a horse owner, employed eventual Hall of Fame member Buster Millerick as his trainer. Kruljac caught the bug and never lost it.

Millerick began training in his twenties, and shortly after Santa Anita opened in 1934, was hired to condition horses for Charles Howard and would work under head trainer Tom Smith when the stable in 1936 acquired Seabiscuit, who would become a global phenomenon.

“Millerick was a very good young trainer,” Laura Hillenbrand wrote in her 2001 multiple award-winning book ‘Seabiscuit, An American Legend’, “but for his new yearlings and the hundred-grander-caliber horses he planned to have soon, Howard wanted the best. In 1935, he went looking for him.”

That man would be Seabiscuit’s taciturn trainer, Tom Smith.

Millerick, reticent bordering on being irascible in public, trained Hall of Fame gelding Native Diver, winner of 34 stakes from two through eight, including three straight editions of the Hollywood Gold Cup. He was the first California-bred to earn $1 million, but the recalcitrant Millerick avoided the limelight like a plague. Louis K. Shapiro, a Millerick client, is quoted as saying, “You never saw him in a winner’s circle photograph.”

“My grandfather used him as a trainer and they were really good friends,” Eric said. “Buster didn’t like owners but he loved my grandfather because he was a cattleman and also a produce broker. He was very outgoing to me and would always give us his box for the races, but he was very tough around the barn.

“An owner would come in without making an appointment and he’d tell him to get the hell out. He’d send his dog, Buttermilk, after him.”

Meanwhile, Joseph Eric Kruljac, one of racing’s good guys, soldiers on, remaining a sedulous stone in racing’s floundering foundation.

One might say The Chosen Vron is Kruljac’s Seabiscuit.

“I’m on the last leg now,” he said philosophically. “The Chosen Vron has just kept me going. It’s so unusual to have a horse like this allowing me to experience all these great things in the twilight of my career. It’s just a blessing. It defies description. I think he’s going to have a good shot in the Breeders’ Cup

“With the exception of this horse, I probably would have bowed out a year or two ago. You take the worst of the game and hopefully live with what’s left of it.

“I’m basically down to one horse, The Chosen Vron, with seven horses total at Los Alamitos which I’m using as a starting point for them, but only three or four are racing right now. 

“I’m way down on stock. This might be my last hurrah, but I’m thoroughly enjoying having a horse like this in the barn.

“For me, I just try to make the horses as comfortable and sharp as we can,” Kruljac said when asked about his training philosophy. “When you see they don’t clean up (their feed) or drink their water, little things that are just different, it’s a signal.

“Once you’ve had a horse for a period of time, you can read them when they might be off their feed a bit or have sore muscles. For great, big, powerful things they sure change at a moment’s notice.”

Eric has four children, one of whom, Ian, 36, is also a trainer currently supervising 12 horses in Southern California. Eric also has two other children, Chance and Meghan, in addition to Mack and Ian.

“Ian’s career started with a bang,” Eric recalled. “The first horse he  ever trained won the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita in 2016 when he was just 28.”

That was Finest City, a four-year-old daughter of City Zip sent off at 8-1. It was one of only two wins for Ian that year.

Obviously, Ian was delighted with the victory, but was mature enough not to fully bask in its glory.

“I realize it takes a small army to succeed; it wasn’t just about me,” Ian said. “To win, everything has to go right, including the timing. But the hardest part is finding the horse. Then when you do, your entire staff has to be moving in the right direction.” 

Both father and son adhere to the adage ‘patience Is a virtue’ in developing successful thoroughbreds.

“One of the most important things my dad taught me was give a horse time when needed,” Ian said. “That’s what I did with Finest City. She didn’t make the races as a two-year-old but it certainly paid off when she won the Breeders’ Cup.

“We just have to do what’s right by the horse and hopefully racing will benefit in the future. These horses were bred to run and if they’re treated right, they will, and that’s what racing needs.

“My Dad’s my best friend,” Ian continued, speaking on behalf of the entire brood. “He’s a great father to all his kids. I learned a lot from him on how to take care of horses and about life.

“He’s a great man.”

D Wayne Lukas - Doing It His Way: Passion & Purpose Keep D. Wayne Lukas Coming Back for More

In his signature white Stetson hat and sunglasses, the white-haired gentleman made his way from his grandstand perch through an undulating crowd toward the infield winner’s circle. The veteran horseman moved purposefully through the fray, his cane his only concession to his age. His peers, many of them decades younger, clasped his hand in congratulations as the masses parted for this icon. Under a gray sky, beside a glossy gray horse draped in yellow and black, D. Wayne Lukas reaped the rewards of his passion and perseverance as he collected another record: at 88 years old, the oldest trainer to win a Triple Crown classic. 

As an elder statesman of the sport, Lukas is a man of contrasts. He grew up on a rural Wisconsin farm cultivating an innate love of horses and then pursued that passion while he developed his leadership skills working as a high school teacher and basketball coach. That legacy carried over to training Quarter Horses and then Thoroughbreds, his nickname ‘the Coach’ carried over from the court to the racetrack. As the ultimate visionary in racing, he built a career innovating the sport while staying committed to simplicity, even eschewing the now-ubiquitous smartphone for its understated cousin, the flip phone, and continuing to supervise both the horses and the people in his charge daily. Successes from the grind of earlier decades have afforded him opportunities that few get: the chance to continue doing what he loves on his terms and his timeline, simultaneously unhurried and ambitious. 

At an age when most might have already called it a day, the Wisconsin native continues to find joy in rising before the sun, mounting his pony, and overseeing the collection of current and future stars in his barn, including Preakness winner Seize the Grey. In his decades on the racetrack, Lukas has filled a multitude of roles – from trainer of equine athletes to teacher of generations to ambassador for the sport he loves – and he has done it all his way. 

* * * * * * * *

To say that Lukas has won only two Triple Crown classics plus a Kentucky Oaks since 2013 is a statement about the impact that he has had on the sport nearly fifty years after switching from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds full time. His resume is familiar to the generations that watched him at the track or on television during his most dominant years in the 1980s and 1990s, a tally of achievements that make his enduring drive all the more extraordinary. 

Since 1978, D. Wayne Lukas has won the Kentucky Derby four times, first with Winning Colors, the third and most recent filly to win the Run for the Roses, in 1988; the Preakness Stakes seven times, from Codex’s victory over Genuine Risk in 1980 to Seize the Grey’s gate-to-wire win in 2024; and the Belmont Stakes four times, including dual classic winner Thunder Gulch in 1995. The trainer was on the cusp of the Triple Crown in 1999, the same year he was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, after Bob and Beverly Lewis’s Charismatic won the Derby and the Preakness and then was on the lead in the Belmont stretch before an injury ended both that bid and the horse’s career. 

In addition to his success in the three-year-old classics, Lukas has trained five Hall of Famers (Lady’s Secret, Winning Colors, Azeri, Serena’s Song, and Open Mind); had former assistant Todd Pletcher join him in the Hall of Fame in 2021; and then was inducted into the Quarter-Horse Hall of Fame in 2007. He claims a record 20 Breeders’ Cup victories, four Eclipse Awards for leading trainer, and nearly fifty Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred champions, numerous graded stakes winners, and a multitude of fans from the kids he pulls into the winner’s circle to names like MyRacehorse’s founder and CEO Michael Behrens and journalist Christina Bossinakis, co-author of Lukas’s 2019 book Sermon on the Mount. 

His latest Preakness win with Seize the Grey is his third graded stakes win of 2024 and his second with the son of Arrogate, who also took the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on the Kentucky Derby undercard. Lukas also enjoyed success with Secret Oath, a daughter of the late Juddmonte sire with whom the trainer got his fifth Kentucky Oaks in 2022. “I've had such good luck with the Arrogates,” the trainer reflected. “Boy, that's tragic that we lost him because he was destined to really be a good one.”

Seize the Grey is part of Arrogate’s last crop of foals, bred by the late Audrey “Tolie” Otto’s Jamm Ltd., and purchased by MyRacehorse for $300,000 at the 2022 Saratoga Yearling Sale. When it came time to choose a trainer, Michael Behrens, founder and CEO of the microshare syndicate, thought the colt would be a great fit for Lukas’s program. 

“I saw his success with Secret Oath, and that was an Arrogate, and that got him back in my purview and watching and just being a little bit more cognizant of what he was doing down in Oaklawn. Watching the success that he was having at a later stage in his career, I was impressed,” Behrens shared. “This horse was built like a horse that we thought would do well in his program. We know that Wayne is not afraid to run a horse, and that's one thing that we love to do is race. With his strength and physical attributes, he just felt like a horse that we thought would thrive in that type of environment.”

Additionally, Behrens knew that bringing Lukas on was going to create a special connection for each person that paid $127 to buy a share of Seize the Grey. Even before the colt made his first start, having the Hall of Fame trainer attached was an irresistible opportunity for potential owners. “To say, I own a horse with D. Wayne Lukas, [became] the reason they bought the horse,” Behrens shared. “It didn't matter what the horse looked like, the walk, the pedigree. So many people come to me and say, ‘I bought in because of one reason: I just wanted to own a horse with the Coach.’”

Lukas understands the significance of his part in the Preakness win for those owners. After his first reaction to the colt’s victory – “Well, I did it again” – the trainer knew that “I had just made 2,570 people happy. I didn't realize how happy, but they were really happy.” The winner’s circle was filled with just a fraction of the men and women who had treasured the possibility of winning with D. Wayne Lukas enough to invest their money with no promise of a return. When it comes to the Hall of Fame trainer, though, nothing is outside the realm of possibility. 

Seize the Grey is the first horse MyRacehorse has sent to Lukas; Behrens and company has since added two more to his barn. The Hall of Famer has become “an ambassador of MyRacehorse, which has been great. He'll say things like, ‘I got to go check with the 2500 owners first before we make a decision,’” Behrens laughed. “Everybody loves it. It's great for us. It really reinforces all the time that this horse is fundamentally owned by the people. It's given our brand just a lot more awareness. It's given it more clarity, which has been helpful.”

Seize the Grey gave Lukas his 15th Triple Crown classic victory. That number is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the Wisconsin native has achieved since he started training Quarter Horses full-time in 1968 and then switched to Thoroughbreds a decade later. 

* * * * * * * * *

Lukas’s resume puts him on par with legends like “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons and Ben Jones, both of whom were private trainers for the sport’s largest owners in a time when a singular home base was the norm. In his time as part of a sport deeply rooted in tradition, Lukas turned that on its head and molded racing’s previous business model into one all his own. From the paddock on race day to the backside every day, he has left no aspect of his operation untouched by his vision and influenced the practices of many other trainers in the process. 

“When I first started with the Thoroughbreds, I came to the paddock a couple of times, and I didn't have the right blinkers. I did have some of the things I wanted, the pommel pad and so forth. So, I thought, that's a simple fix,” Lukas remembered. “We got these bags made, big shopping bags, and we put our stuff in there. Do you know that within, I'm going to say two weeks, almost every trainer on the backside had their shopping bags made up?” 

In the early days at Santa Anita, “we'd bed deep on straw. Everybody then was pulling a drag sack, where they threw everything on it and dragged it to the bin. And so, I thought this is not the way to go,” the trainer shared. “I went right down to the maintenance guy, and I said, ‘I want you to make this big wide wheelbarrow. It just barely fits through the doors of the stall [and] go at least three quarters in. Just put a nice big tire on it and everything.’ He made, I think, four or something like that. Guess what? Soon everybody else had one, too. Two months later, Western Saddlery mass-produced them and sold them all over the country.”

His innovations went beyond his California base and spread coast to coast. Building on Jack Van Berg’s multiple divisions, Lukas had four barns coast-to-coast, each staffed by a star-studded list of assistants, and supported multiple racetracks rather than focusing on one or two. “He didn't have 200 horses at one location. We ran at Monmouth, we ran at Belmont, and we ran in Kentucky” former assistant trainer Kiaran McLaughlin recalled. “Today, Todd and Chad would have over 100 horses at Saratoga trying to be the leading trainer, but Wayne never really did that. He kept the horses at different locations and helped each racetrack that we were stabled at.”

The former educator and basketball coach translated his experience managing players and students into mentoring his employees, especially his legion of assistant trainers, as he taught them to do it his way. “As a head coach, you have to delegate responsibility in some of the teaching or training. And that came out real strong with me,” Lukas shared. “Every one of those four divisions that we had were not any different. You could go to any one of them, and you would absolutely know exactly what the policy was.” 

That background extended to the horses in his barns, as the trainer placed his charges where they would perform best, giving each one a shot in the right conditions rather than focusing on a chosen few as other trainers would do. “When we first started out, I said, ‘You know what you need to do here is we need to grade these horses. And then after we grade them, we need to decide where they can compete effectively,” Lukas explained. “Can these four horses or five horses or six horses, can they compete at Turfway? Or are they a better set of horses that we can take maybe to Monmouth.’ And we started grading those. We started grading three levels. Pretty soon we had four because we got so many horses.”

In the late 90s and early 2000s, as clients like William T. Young’s Overbrook Farm and Gene Klein passed away and other owners got out of racing, Lukas had progressively fewer horses to work with. That change meant the Wisconsin native had to adapt. His stable gradually transitioned from four barns to one. The same practices are there, but on a different scale. Lukas maintains that “the only thing I've changed, I think, is that I read into the horse a little bit better.” He still marks his training chart after each day’s session. He talks with assistant trainer Sebastian Nicolls, listens to feedback from his employees, “and then I sleep on it. The next morning, I walk in there and maybe say, ‘You know what? That filly, she's only had seven days’ rest, and she's going to run back in three weeks. I think I'll give her two more days.’” 

At the core of his ability to adapt are the skills that brought him the most success: his innate relationship with the horse. “I think, fundamentally, he was practically born on a horse. He certainly grew up on horses. He wasn't exposed to the greatest of horses when he was a very, very young man. He really learned all the basics of horsemanship from the ground level,” co-author and friend Christina Bossinakis observed. “I think he also been able to create a system and a discipline within his operation that has been proven to be successful.”

In addition to the day-to-day work with his current charges, Lukas finds the possibility of what’s next inherent in yearling sales as thrilling as a Grade 1 win. “At this period of my life, I probably should have somebody look at them and make a short list and give me the short list. But I don't do that. I get right in there and go barn to barn. I'll have a score on each,” the horseman shared. “I look at everyone there and enjoy the whole process.”

His ability to pick out future athletes is one part of the process that has propelled Lukas from high school basketball coach to horse trainer. That fresh blood motivates him to look forward to the next race, the next season, giving the restlessness that comes from his indomitable drive an outlet. Yet if observers imagined that he has another Kentucky Derby win or another Breeders’ Cup victory motivating him, Lukas makes it clear that is not what drives him. Rather than the big picture, this horseman’s focus is simpler: “My goals are daily. My goals, they fall in there. Here's the way I live my life: Every morning when you wake up, you or me, I want you to try this. You have a few seconds of an attitude adjustment. Now, I wake up and I say, ‘look, I'm tired. I know I'm tired.’ But I wake up and I say to myself, ‘I've been blessed by God to have a talent that is unique. I'm not going to waste it today. I'm going to use this talent today to get better than I was yesterday.’ And with that, will come a Derby or a Preakness.” 

“I wake up with the idea that I need to give my clients a fair chance to succeed. And it's not easy with every horse, but I think that it's very important that I go to work trying to give them a chance to succeed,” the Hall of Famer shared. “If any client moves a horse tomorrow, I wouldn't worry because I feel comfortable that I at least gave it every chance to succeed.”

Never one to rest on his laurels, Lukas strives to get the best out of his horses, his employees, and, most of all, himself each day. His passion for what he has done since his youth and the success he has cultivated from his skill set both propel him forward and free him to enjoy the journey there. 

* * * * * * * * *

Seize the Grey’s Grade 1 wins are a reminder not only of what the man conditioning him has accomplished, but also the horsemanship that brought him multiple graded stakes wins nearly every season for the last 46 years. “We're such a result-oriented sport, like most things are,” MyRacehorse’s Behrens observed. “The reality is that it's these big wins that bring everything back to everybody's memory. It’s nice for him to have the acknowledgement again of his success and his expertise.” 

The Preakness shows who the Hall of Famer truly is as his barn and his business has changed. How does he still do it at age 88? “I mean, it's simple. He has a recipe. He has optimism, and he has the work ethic,” fellow trainer Ron Moquett, who has known Lukas since the 1990s, said. “If you believe you can do something, and you're willing to work it doing something, then you can do it. And he's proven it over and over. Age doesn't matter. He believes he can do it. He's willing to put forth the effort to do it, and he shows everybody he still can do it.” 

“He's just always been a very driven human being. Very driven. He likes perfection. He likes success. He likes accomplishment. He likes to get things done,” Bossinakis shared. “When we were working on the book, he would call me early, like super early in the morning. And then maybe I might not answer, and then I'd call him back at 8:00. And he would say to me, ‘What? Why? You're still sleeping? You've missed half the day!’”

Even with fewer horses, both Secret Oath and Seize the Grey show that this coach still knows how to find the best in his charges. As McLaughlin observed, “a good coach needs good players, and he's capable with good stock. And he used to buy the best of horses, and that has slowed down some, obviously, because he doesn't have that many owners to buy for. He went from buying maybe 50 horses to 8 or 10. So that's all just different. But he's still a very capable trainer and a great horseman, and as long as his eyesight is good, he can train.”

The only change evident in Lukas is his age. Everything else about the 88-year-old edition mirrors his earlier iterations, from his rise and shine time to his attitude about his work in his latest decade. He may have one barn and 40 horses rather than four with 150 head, but he remains the same trainer, supervising his equine athletes while advising his staff and mentoring his contemporaries. “With winning comes a certain amount of passion to keep you going,” the trainer reflected. “But also, when you win and you win consistently, those guys that are coming behind mind you, the younger ones, they're watching.” 

That competitive drive makes this Hall of Famer ageless and fuels him to continue moving forward, as wife Laurie noted. “It's just the passion for it. I mean, I have a lot of passion for the horse business and for horses, but I can't match [him]. I don't think anybody can match his passion. I've never seen anything like it.”

“He's very proactive. I think that's part of just his makeup. But I also think it's what keeps him driven to keep accomplishing and doing more,” Bossinakis echoed. 

That passion not only drives Lukas to the barn every morning, his 35-minute commute a chance to reflect on what he can do with his day, but it also moves him to share a lifetime’s experience working with equine athletes with his younger contemporaries. 

* * * * * * * * *

Lukas’s childhood in Wisconsin provided the foundation for two essential aspects of the man: his love for horses and his drive to teach and to develop. First, he spent nearly a decade as a high school teacher and basketball coach, using his summers to train Quarter Horses on the side. His eventual shift to training full-time did not diminish his joy in coaching as he used those skills with his employees as he had done with his students. Early on, when he was building his stable and making a name for himself, he was focusing his mentorship on those working under him, trainers like Kiaran McLaughlin and Dallas Stewart.

“He was a fabulous coach and teacher. Not that many of us spent every day with him, but we spoke to him, and we knew what he wanted every day, and we acted as though he was there with us in our daily work,” McLaughlin remembered. “He was a great example of being at the barn at 4:45 in the morning every day and calling back in the different operations or his assistants. In the morning, he would talk to everybody. He was a very organized person, and he was great to learn from and work with.”

Stewart spent a dozen years working for Lukas during the 1980s and 1990s, when the trainer seemed to be everywhere, winning everything. “It was a different level. People had a lot of nice horses, and we learned how to handle the intensity,” the Louisiana native remembered. “You always followed his lead, but he was there every day. I mean, I wouldn't want it done in any other way. I feel fortunate that I worked for him.”

When Moquett first met Lukas at Del Mar, he noted that the famed trainer was “very sharp, very intense, and I thought he held himself like a businessman and horseman. The reputation, the aura was huge, right? And it was all I could do to muster up the courage to ask if he had any horses for sale. But I figured out after about five seconds of talking to him that he's very much on principle, and based on the way I was raised, I related to that very quickly. We made fast acquaintances, and as intimidated as I was to go see the man, it was that quick that I was just enthralled with just listening to him.” 

While he works with his own horses on the backside at Churchill Downs or Oaklawn Park, the lifelong horseman does not miss a chance to share his experience with those around him. Whether he is watching a gatework or sharing his perspective on a common experience, Lukas is there ready to chime in with advice. “The other day, we were at the gate, and they were trying to load this one horse, and he kept turning his side into the gate. I said, ‘If you were just turning the other way, walk up there and turn him the opposite way, he's going to walk right in,’” Lukas remembered. “Everybody looked at the horse, and said, ‘What do we got to lose?’ Walked right up, turned him the other way, and he walked right in.”

Lukas’s counsel extends beyond working with equine athletes; his reputation as a sharp-dressed professional in high-quality suits demonstrated his understanding of perception and how that can help your business as a trainer. He shares the benefits of that attention to personal details where he can. “He told me that the only thing that separated me from everybody else that's doing this job is the fact that nobody else has the opportunity to wake up and decide what I wear. And I'm there to represent the horse, the owner, and my employees. So, if I'm representing them, then I can't show I'd go up dressed like a mucksack,” Moquett shared. “That lit a fire into me. How can I expect anybody to respect me with their investment in a horse? And how can I expect the people in my barn to respect me if I'm dressed like a groom?”

With all that he has achieved in his career, why then does the lifelong horseman feel this pull to mentor? “You walk around the backside and people say, ‘Horsemanship is gone. It's lost.’ A lot of it is that horsemen are not there and being developed and so forth,” he reflected. “There's a lot of truth to that because the young people that come to the backside to train, you know where they come from? McDonald’s or someplace. They wake up and say, ‘I'd like to be a horse trainer.’ They say, ‘I'll walk hots.’ And then they walk hots. The next thing you know, they're grooming. And then they're an assistant. Next thing you know, they got a trainer's license.” 

“I feel obligated to share, and I can't help myself,” the horseman shared.

“That's just the way he is, and he is one of the best of all times at doing what he's doing,” McLaughlin said. “If anybody ask a question, he's happy to answer it. He's mentored many of us on and off the racetrack. He was very influential to all of us.” 

The trainer’s habit of pulling young people into winner’s circle photos is another way of imparting his enthusiasm for the sport to a new generation and creating new fans in the process. He keeps a folder of letters from those who reach out to him, some of whom report keeping that photo in their office or parlaying that experience into further investment in racing. 

“He is very good with his fans in terms of keeping drawing people in. And I say to this day that the reason I'm in racing today is because of him. And that's true. And not only from that first experience of having met him, but also even later on in the later years,” said Bossinakis. “He started off as my idol, and then became more like a mentor.” 

“I've picked up a lot of things that he is really well known for and incorporated them into my own life. He always speaks in terms of ‘we.’ He doesn't say I; he says ‘we,’” his co-author shared. “Very much team oriented. The people around him, the importance of that, I've picked that up.”

As Moquett observed about his friend and peer, “as good as a horse trainer as Wayne Lukas is, and he's one of the best that's ever done it, he's even more going to be known for a motivator.” 

* * * * * * * * *

When Oxbow went gate-to-wire in the 2013 Preakness, a performance echoed in Seize the Grey’s in 2024, Lukas had not won a classic since Commendable’s Belmont Stakes in 2000. The trainer had not stopped the same grind that had earned him a spot in the Hall of Fame but faced a transition: as the owners he had his biggest successes with passed away or left racing, the horseman had to compete with rising stars like Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher among others for new clients. That meant fewer horses and fewer opportunities to use the skills he had built over a lifetime. 

He could have stepped away then to parlay his boundless drive into other efforts. “In the last 10 years, I think people feel that maybe I would be thinking that way. And I've had opportunities to take, I'm going to say, an administrative situation, managing something,” Lukas shared. Instead, the Wisconsin native prefers to ply his trade, professing that “I get too much joy and satisfaction out of dealing one-on-one with those good horses. And I don't think I would ever go that way. Selfishly, I don't have any other interests.”

With his 89th birthday coming in early September, any talk about this Hall of Famer hanging it up is quickly quieted. Lukas is not about looking back and exudes optimism about the future in each conversation. “Like he says, I'm not really working on my resume anymore,” wife Laurie Lukas observed. “He's just going on pure love of the horse and the sport.” 

“At 89 years old, I want to keep them all in front of me so I can be hands-on, as they say, train each horse individually and be responsible for each choice. Now, I have an outstanding system that really makes it easy,” he shared. “Obviously, with forty head, I've got less clients, too. But I've got a couple of real strong, powerful clients in John Bellinger and Brian Coehlo of BC Stables.” 

Lukas and assistant trainer Sebastian Nicholl split the year between Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, both deliberate choices for the trainer who formerly had stables from coast to coast. “Through the '80s and '90s, we were Californians, with Hollywood Park and everything. But during that era, Marge Everett told me that California was going to have trouble holding on to the industry. I thought, ‘Well, if it all goes to hell in a handbag, where will it be the last one to go?’” the trainer recalled. “It's going to be Louisville and Lexington. They'll fight and claw to keep it going. So, I picked up and moved back here.”

Now at home in Arkansas and Kentucky and soon Saratoga, where stars like Winning Colors were launched, D. Wayne Lukas has shown once again his determination to do things his way. His life away from the barn is populated with his family, including wife Laurie, grandson Brady and granddaughter Kelly and their spouses, and his two great-grandchildren. “He loves his family. He's very committed to his grandkids and their spouses, and now his great grandchildren. It is hard, as he talks about it, it's hard to balance that. But I think as he's gotten older, and maybe since I've come in the picture, he also really embraces my family,” Laurie shared. “I just think that's a side the public won't see of him, his sensitivity and the importance of helping people and helping.”

At the barn is Seize the Grey and a few two-year-olds that remind the trainer why he rises before the sun and makes that drive to the backside. As often as his age comes up, the Hall of Fame trainer shows that he is steadfastly himself. 

“He hasn't changed that much over the years. Obviously, he went from managing over 100 horses down to 30 or 40, but he still has a great eye for a horse,” McLaughlin observed. “That was something that was just a given talent to him. He's great at purchasing yearlings and looking at horses, and he still has it in buying horses, and he still gets up at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, and he works every day, gets on his pony, and so he loves what he's doing.”

“I think the core of him is the same. At the core, that intensity, that drive to win, that positivity, he’s always had that. Wayne is not a looking behind guy. He's very forward-thinking,” Bossinakis shared. “I will say the biggest change that I've seen in him personally, he's become – I don't even like me saying this – a little bit softer around the edges, which I love. I think there is a level of him that's an emotional guy, that's a sentimental person. I think he's always been that. He probably just never really showed it.”

Master horseman, innovator, and mentor, D. Wayne Lukas not only focuses his prodigious energy on those closest to him, enjoying his role as husband and patriarch, but also on the promising young horses now hitting the racetrack, their potential as exciting as that scene in the Preakness winner’s circle. “Our two-year-olds are very, very good. And I can see it coming. I can see what's about to happen. I get up every day and I know. And I think, ‘oh, boy, here we come.’”

Danny Gargan - the trainer of 2024 Belmont Stakes winner - Dornoch

Article by Bill Heller

Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito didn’t have a horse in either the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes at Keeneland April 5th nor the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes the following day. But he hoped for a personal daily double of those races with two of his protégés, Jorge Abreu and Danny Gargan, saddling a top contender in each race - Abreu with Jody’s Pride in the Ashland and Danny Gargan with Dornoch in the Blue Grass. 

Zito didn’t get what he wanted. Jody’s Pride ran out of gas in the Ashland and is getting a freshening before resuming her three-year-old campaign later this summer. Dornoch finished fourth in the Blue Grass and is now all systems go for a run in the Kentucky Derby.

Come the first Saturday in May, Danny Gargan will remember his first Kentucky Derby runner, Tax, who he claimed for $50,000 in his second career start in a maiden claimer at Keeneland on October 21st , 2018. Tax took Gargan to the 2019 Kentucky Derby, when he finished 15th, beaten 15 lengths at odds of 35-1.

Tax went on to win the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga and the Grade 3 Harlan's Holiday Stakes at Gulfstream Park and in the process became Gargan’s highest-earning horse with $1,102,160. “He’s my favorite,” Gargan said.

Gargan did his homework to nab Tax, a son of Arch out of the Giant’s Causeway mare Toll. “I watched his video in his first race,” Gargan said. “He’s a really well-bred horse. He looked beautiful in the video. He sprinted that day. I was in New York, looking around for horses. He popped up in the entry box at Keeneland. I flew from New York to Kentucky to claim him.”

When he did, he called two of his owners, Randy Hill of R.A. Hill Stable and Dean Reeves of Reeves Thoroughbreds. “He called me up and asked me if I wanted in on Tax,” Hill said. “I said yes. Obviously, that worked out well. Danny’s one of my favorite guys, Danny’s a very good trainer. He’s finally gotten a chance to work with some good horses. He’s a terrific guy, he deserves this.”

Reeves said, “We had a lot of fun with that horse. It was a great run. Winning at Saratoga especially a big race up there.”

Gargan loved Tax: “He was a wonderful horse to be around, big and beautiful, just a kind soul in the barn. You loved seeing him there every day. He had a long career. He stepped into a grate and got his ankle caught. He missed more than a year.”

Tax came back off a 16 ½ month layoff to win a $100,000 stakes at Delaware on July 9th 2022, an outstanding feat by Gargan. “He was a pretty cool horse,” Gargan said.

Gargan has now trained three sons of Good Magic and all are now stakes horses. First up was Dubyuhnell who in 2022 Gargan thought might take him back to the 2023 Kentucky Derby after he captured the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes in his final start as a two-year-old. Instead, he finished 8th in the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis and 11th in the Grade 1 Florida Derby.

Now in 2024, Gargan has two sons of Good Magic in the Kentucky Derby. Dornoch, who finished fourth in the Grade 1 Blue Grass and Society Man, who finished second in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at odds of 106-1.

Dornoch looks as talented as his full brother, Mage, who won the 2023 Run for the Roses. “They look opposite,” Gargan said.

“My horse is a real big bay. Mage is a medium chestnut. They don’t look the same, but they both have big hearts. You can’t breed that.”

Dornoch, was bred by Grandview Equine and sold for $325,000, $90,000 more than his full brother Mage, at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. 

Last November Mage and Dornoch’s dam, Puca, went through the ring at Keeneland and was sold privately for $2.9m. This year, on April 4th, Puca produced her third colt by Good Magic who like his esteemed brothers all share an April birth date.

Dornoch’s name is intriguing, referring to the Royal Dornoch Golf Club in the Scottish Highlands where golf has been played for more than four centuries.

Born one year and four days after Mage was foaled, Dornoch spent his early days at historic Runnymede Farm in Paris, Kentucky.

For his early education, Dornoch was sent to Raul Reyes at King Equine in Ocala, Florida. Reyes detected that Dornoch wasn’t moving comfortably in his behind and discovered that one of Dornoch’s testicles hadn’t descended. The testacle was removed, and Dornoch showed vast improvement immediately.

Reyes called it a 360-degree turnaround in a story in Blood-Horse. Gargan thinks Dornoch will offer him a different experience if he makes it into the Derby starting gate. 

“Tax got us there. We were lucky enough to do the walk-over. This is different. This horse can win it. I’m happy to be a part of it. He reminds me of Louis Quatorze (the 1996 Preakness Stakes winner trained by Gargan’s former boss, Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito). I’m hoping Dornoch can win a Triple Crown race. I’m preparing him the same way Nick did with Louis. Just keep moving forward. In horse racing, you have to hope you have a great day. In the past, we were just happy to be there. Now we have a horse that could win it.”

Zito, has been a fan of his protégé for a long time: “Danny was probably the best one I ever got along with. He read my mind. The guy actually read my mind, which I loved. He wants to win so bad. He communicates with horses so well. He said Dornoch resembles Louis. It shows his remembrance of great horses. That’s what I admire about Danny Gargan. Danny’s not taking a back seat to anybody at the Derby. He’ll have his horse ready to run.”

If Dornoch or Society Man win the Kentucky Derby, it will come 51 years after Gargan’s father, also named Danny, rode Bag of Tunes to win the 1973 Kentucky Oaks.

Unfortunately, Gargan, a native of Louisville, was just four when his father died. “I was so young, I don’t remember that,” Gargan said. “I grew up on the backside of Churchill Downs. I loved it from the start. It’s just something in your DNA.”

Asked how he got onto the Churchill Downs backstretch, Gargan said, “It was 30 years ago. Back then, they let everybody in.”

He worked for Nick Zito off-and-on for several years, eventually becoming his assistant. “Me and Nick are real good friends to this day,” Gargan said.

Gargan, though, came to a conclusion: “It takes a lot of money to be a horse trainer.”

So he switched careers, becoming a jockey agent. “I did it for a few years,” he said. His clients included Pat Valenzuela, Brian Hernandez Jr. and Jesús Castañón.

He called his jockey agent days “a lot of fun,” but he eventually became bored with it. He hooked up with owner Merrill Scherer on a few horses and, after two real good meets at Saratoga in 2011 and 2012, Gargan, decided to begin training on his own. He credits P.J. Campo, the racing secretary and then vice- president for racing of the New York Racing Association, for pushing him in that direction.

Gargan began a modest-sized stable in 2013, broke the $1 million mark in earnings in 2015 and has had at least $1.8 million in earnings every year since. “I race at Gulfstream Park and New York,” he said. “I don’t train a ton of horses, eight in New York and 22 in Florida. When you get so few young horses, it’s a blessing to have one,” he said. “It’s not every year. I’ve been lucky to have some nice horses in the past, and you have to be just thankful.”

Tax was not his only great claim.

On May 15th , 2017, Gargan claimed Divine Miss Grey for $16,000 for R.A. Hill and Corms Racing Stable off a three-quarter length victory as the 1-2 favorite.

Divine Miss Grey turned into a star for her new connections, finishing second in the 2018 Grade 1 Beldame at Belmont Park and capturing the Grade 2 Chilukki Stakes at Churchill Downs. She finished her career 12-for-26 with six seconds, one third and earnings of $934,172. “You get lucky sometimes,” Gargan said. “The good thing about what she did for me, was she brought me Dean Reeves and Randy Hill. They are the ones who probably brought me to train Dornoch. They wanted me to train younger horses. Without those two supporting me, I might have never made it to this point.”

Hill is one of many partners on Dornoch. Reeves is not.

When asked about his success, Gargan said, “I’m pretty lucky in that I trained for some good people, like Dean Reeves and Randy Hill. They want the horse put first. Always put the horse first. I’m blessed for having them. I don’t have to work the horse or race the horse. When you have owners that understand that stopping and doing the right thing for the horse is the most important thing, that’s great. That’s what’s changed for me the last four, five years is to be able to always put the horse first.”

He knows what he’s up against: “This game can be tough. You try to keep them happy, keep them healthy and keep them racing. It’s something we’ve always believed. With the young horse, it’s a tremendous factor. You watch other trainers and learn. Nick was a big fan of giving a horse his first race. Bill Mott does that, too. They don’t have to win first time out. They’re going to get better with racing. That’s our philosophy. Who knows if I’m right or wrong. That’s what we believe.”

Dornoch lost his maiden debut at Saratoga, too, finishing second. He finished second again, in the Sapling Stakes at Monmouth, before breaking his maiden at Keeneland and, just like Dubyuhnell, took the Remsen by a nose, defeating a potential Kentucky Derby rival, Sierra Leone. 

Racing on the lead on the rail, Dornoch set a pressured pace, opened a two-length lead in the stretch and then was confronted and passed by a fast-flying Sierra Leone. But Dornoch wasn’t done. He gamely fought back and re-took the lead just before the finish line. Like Gargan said, you can’t breed heart.

Winning his three-year-old debut in the Fountain of Youth pushed Dornoch to the front of many Derby contender lists. He was fourth to Sierra Leone in the Grade 1 Blue Grass, but he didn’t get his preferred trip pressing or making the pace. 

“We wanted to train him to sit behind horses,” Gargan said. “Sometimes, they have to experience things to get educated before they can improve. That was the first time he had dirt in his face and he fought it the first three-quarters of a mile.”

Dornoch is owned by West Paces Racing, Belmar Racing and Breeding, Two Eight Racing, Pine Racing Stables and R.A. Hill Stable. Gargan offered a piece to Reeves Thoroughbreds, but Reeves declined. “He asked me to buy into the horse,” Reeves said. “At the time, it just didn’t work. I passed. Too bad. I’m happy for those guys. I’m pulling for those guys. I hope he can get it done. He’s a great horse.”

Larry Connolly, who began West Paces Racing, mostly with his golf buddies in Atlanta in 2019, grew up in Rye, New York, and frequented Saratoga and Belmont Park. In 2012, Connolly sold his company, Connolly LLC, the largest global-recovery auditing firm, freeing up capital to buy Thoroughbreds. “It was a good time to jump in the deep part of the pool,” he said.

The final push into ownership came after five years of visiting Cheltenham races in England with his friend Lawrence Kenny, a retired steeplechase jockey. “After five years at Cheltenham, the racing was so good and the people were so nice,” Connolly said.

“We used to go to the pubs and see a lot of horsemen. I said, `Wouldn’t it be great if we could pool our resources together and get into a big race?’”

Connolly got involved with two partnerships, Donegal in 2014 and then Starlight. Connolly was able to enjoy the winner’s circle after Donegal’s Keen Ice upset Triple Crown Champion in the 2015 Travers Stakes at Saratoga.

Connolly said Royal Dornoch is his favorite golf course in Scotland. One of his partners on the horse is retired baseball star Jayson Wirth, an outfielder who played 15 seasons with the Blue Jays, Dodgers, Phillies, and Nationals.

Asked about Dornoch’s Derby pursuit, Connolly said, “It’s just super exciting. Every day is like Christmas Eve. What gets me excited about Dornoch is, he looks the part: size, grit, determination.”

West Paces Racing, Gargan and GMP Stables LLC are the owners of Society Man, who was stepping up to graded stakes company in the Wood off an impressive maiden victory. Three starts back, Society Man was eighth in the Grade 3 Withers. “He had a rough trip in the Withers,” Gargan said. “We’ve always liked him. He’s a nice horse.”

Gargan said Dornoch is bigger than Society Man, another son of Good Magic out of You Cheated by Colonel John. ‘They breeze together a lot,” Gargan said. “He worked with Dornoch for the Remsen.”

Asked about Society Man’s jump up in class in the Wood, Gargan said, “Sometimes you roll the dice and it works out. He’s improving at the right time and he can get the distance.”

Dornoch’s work tab was modest as he prepared for the Blue Grass Stakes on April 6th. “We just wanted to keep him healthy and sound,” Gargan said. “He’s a big colt. He can be playful. A little rambunctious. He’s not mean. He’s a big strong horse, just under 17 hands. He’s just under it.”

After his Fountain of Youth victory, Gargan told a TV interviewer that he guessed he had Dornoch at 85 percent for his three-year-old debut. The obvious goal is 100 percent on the first Saturday of May. “I don’t think we’ve seen the best from him,” Gargan said. “He’s going to be fun for a long time.”

Todd Fincher - From Sunland Park to Saudi Arabia

Article by Ken Snyder

Ask Todd Fincher how he got Senor Buscador from Remington Park to Riyadh and the $10 million dollar Saudi Cup winner’s purse, and you won’t get an answer; you’ll get a bunch of answers.

“There’s honesty. There’s hard work. Being able to evaluate horses and place them in the right spot. The feeding program. Your help. Not cutting corners. All that stuff.”

Got it, Todd. Now, what’s the formula for blending all of that? If it could be quantified and applied, we’d all be Thoroughbred trainers. Todd Fincher can’t tell you exactly how he arrived in the winner’s circle after the Saudi Cup. But there may be a reason why. 

“You celebrate in the winner’s circle and then you walk out of there. You have your mind on other things, other responsibilities.”

At the post-race press conference, it was obvious he really had left any whooping, hollering, and hugging back in the winner’s circle. Maybe he smiled once as jockey Junior Alvarado and owner Jerry Peacock fielded questions. There’s pre-occupation and then there’s Todd Fincher pre-occupation. His mind was already on “other things,” specifically Sunland Park in New Mexico and his string of 90 horses.

He “came back immediately” from Saudi Arabia, which might have meant a red-eye flight that night. He came to Saudi Arabia as he departed, with no days or hours wasted with idle time.  

“I didn’t go over until a couple of days before the race,” said Fincher. Instead, he sent assistant Oscar Rojero with Senor Buscador on the 13th of February for a race run on the 24th. Want to know about Saudi Arabia? Rojero, not Fincher, is your man. 

An assessment of Fincher as a classic “big fish in a small pond” is subject to re-examination only partially because of the Saudi Cup win. Last year he shipped Senor Buscador to Del Mar to win the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap and finished second with two other horses--Flying Connection and Bye Bye Bobby in graded stakes at Del Mar. All total, his horses hit the board in graded stakes in four out of six races in San Diego. It’s not hard to imagine Fincher duplicating the success he has achieved in New Mexico in racing’s big ponds—Keeneland, Santa Anita, Saratoga, Belmont. Add to that an eye-popping 24% career win rate.

Looking back at Del Mar he understates his success considerably. “That’s starting to compete at the top level. Not Bob Baffert yet, but, you know, with the few numbers we have of those type of horses, I think we’ve done pretty well.”

Take note of that word “yet.” Fincher has thoughts of setting up a division at Del Mar in the future and is venturing into Oaklawn this year with “a few. But not a full string,” he added. Yet...

“Big farms aren’t going to look my way because I’m in New Mexico and I understand that, but I will eventually, maybe this year, start running two separate barns,” He added that he will "keep New Mexico going.”

Fincher is a defender of New Mexico racing and pointed out the state has produced both a Kentucky Derby winner in 2009 (Mine that Bird) and a Kentucky Oaks winner in 2011 (Plum Pretty).

“We got a lot of people in New Mexico who are great horsemen. You can develop a horse through our stakes schedule with good purses.” 

If it’s a long way to Saudi Arabia from New Mexico, getting to Kentucky may be more manageable with more promising two-year-olds than ever in his barn.

“Last year when I broke babies, I had two Kentucky-breds. Two fillies and one colt.

“This year I had some people step up and fill my barn a little more. We broke fifteen yearlings this year that are Kentucky-breds or Louisiana-breds.

“It’s just very rare for me to get that many,” he added.

Roots in New Mexico run deep for the 52-year-old Fincher. His grandfather, Albert, was a trainer stabling at the old La Mesa Park in Raton, New Mexico as well as at Sunland. Albert’s son, Leroy—Todd’s father—also trained Quarterhorses and Thoroughbreds after a jockey career. As if that isn’t enough pedigree, Todd’s mom Leslie trained Quarterhorses and Thoroughbreds.

It is said that half of life is just showing up. Fincher has had only the other half to figure out. The major lesson he got from family was “Show up every day to work. That’s  basically what I derived from my family.

“I worked in the barn. We had jobs at the barn. I would do the water buckets and he would do the hay bags. We were in charge of holding horses for the baths and raking the shedrow. I’m talking from an early age—probably nine, ten years old.”

New Mexico racetracks were also a playground for the Fincher boys. “Your parents would be working, and you’d be running around the grandstands walking back to the barn screwing around and just running loose basically.”

“Play” also included putting down a bet or two at the betting windows with mutuel clerks who knew the Fincher boys. “I could barely reach up to the window. I‘d put my two dollars up there and bet at an early age. That was illegal, but back then everything was a little quieter. “

Fincher’s dream was to follow in the family bootsteps and become a jockey. The lanky, six-feet tall averaged a respectable 14% win rate before waving the white flag to weight after ten years of riding in 1997 and immediately hung up his own shingle the next year. Fincher never worked as an assistant but started with eight horses, the most expensive of which was $5,000.

Transitioning from jockeying to training might have been the equivalent of a family doctor performing brain surgery. “The one thing that really shocked me about training is how much I didn’t know.

“You’ve heard jockeys don’t make good trainers. That’s basically because they’re two completely different jobs.

“There’s a lot of jockeys that don’t know horses. They just learned how to ride a horse and that’s all,” he added.

He believes his time on the ground grooming as an adolescent and teenager for his dad taught him the importance of understanding a horse. When it came time to sit astride one and break from the gate, that experience was invaluable…to a point.

“I could get on a horse and tell you everything about it…evaluate the horse. 

“As a trainer watching, it was a brand new thing. It took a long time to be able to watch a horse and differentiate certain things about a horse—how good they looked when they were running, if they’re just average. Watching the horse move was the biggest challenge, I think.

“You learn from there, then the next year you get some more horses, and every year from then on. It’s grown, and we’re pointing for the quality and not the quantity. We kind of have both now.”

Fincher says 90% of his horses come to him as yearlings. “If I have somebody bugging me to claim horses, we will, but I really have no interest.

“You claim a horse, odds are you pay twenty-thousand dollars, and you got a twenty-thousand dollar horse.

“We’re looking for the home runs to develop a horse into a classic-type horse or stakes winner—the top level.”

Mission accomplished. They don’t get any more top level than Senor Buscador and the Saudi Cup and Fincher knew it.

He was confident the horse could beat the best in the world if he got an honest pace.

“As far back as he gets, he can get himself in a lot of trouble,” said Fincher. True to form, Buscador was far behind the field by as many as six lengths, loping along next to Japanese starter Ushba Tesoro. Entering the stretch, Senor Buscador fell in behind the Japanese entry then popped out from behind him to the outside. Again, true to form, he spotted Ushba Tesoro as much as three lengths in the stretch before cruising by ten horses, including his Japanese runner by a nose at the wire.  

“I think he just lets them get after it first and enjoys running by horses. That’s exactly what it is. He’s got enough speed. He can go to the front if he wanted but he refuses.”

For Fincher, with his total focus, it’s not hard to believe that “validation and vindication” for Senor Buscador meant more than the purse. “Everybody talks about the purse, which is outstanding. For him to beat the best horses in the world was much, much greater for me than the value of the race.

“I’ve been making excuses for this guy for a long time knowing how good he is.”

Adapting to the horse rather than the other way around might have been still another  additional factor in the win. “If I really tried, I guess I could probably change his running style, but I think it would be detrimental to him.

“The ability is there, and I think he’s the best horse. I don’t question that.”

Fincher’s abilities as a trainer sort of mirror Senor Buscador’s performance in the Saudi Cup. All the horse needed was a clean trip. All that Fincher needs is the opportunities. Racing has probably not seen the last of him at center stage like the winner’s circle at King Abdulaziz Racecourse, but you’ll have to hurry to catch him before he’s gone. 

Other things. Other responsibilities.

Todd Fincher would amend lyrics to an old song from the 1950’s movie Cinderella "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" to “A Dream is a Wish your Hands and Feet Make.”

The dots don’t connect between Sunland Park and Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico and King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Saudi Arabia and Meydan Racecourse in Dubai…unless you’re Todd Fincher. 

A win in the $20 million Saudi Cup with Senor Buscador and a third place showing in the Dubai World Cup (earning a mere $1.2 million) are dreams most trainers wouldn’t ever entertain. 

For those who know him any length of time, it is no surprise to hear him say on reaching the highest of heights in racing, “I’ve always been planning on it and hoped to get there. Those are goals that I set. I hope we can reach some more goals pretty soon.”

Gulp.

At first you might not take him seriously until you consider that, well, he did it once, and yes, he did it based in Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Asked what he did after Saudi Arabia and Dubai, the laconic cowboy simply said, “Came home and went back to work. That’s what we do. Go to work every day.”

And make dreams come true.

Whit Beckman trainer of Belmont Stakes contender - Honor Marie

Article by Bill Heller

Trainer D. Whitworth Beckman grew up around horses but had never made the connection his parents did. His father, David, is a vet. His mother, Diane, rides and shows horses.  “I was around them, but I wasn’t really interested, horses weren’t even on my radar.”

He spent two semesters at the College of Charleston. “I partied a lot,” he said. “I didn’t have any purpose. I was aimlessly floating around on alcohol. After two semesters, I figured I was wasting my time and wasting my parents’ money.”

His life got worse after dropping out from college. “I got pretty heavily involved with drinking. I hung out with a crew. A little wild. There was nothing that gave me purpose. I was a selfish kid.”

Eventually, he began helping his mom take care of polo horses and old show horses. And then he met his mom’s most difficult horse, a cantankerous Thoroughbred named Black Pearl. “I still have him,” his mother said. “We call him Blackie. He was a kook. He couldn’t be trained. He took off with his rider every morning, constantly switching leads. Whit taught himself how to ride on that horse.”

She still can’t believe it.

Beckman had found his purpose. “What I found with this horse was a new connection,“ he said. “He taught me a lot. You can lie and cheat with people. With a horse, it’s 100 percent honest. They do all the crap we ask them to do. They don’t lie or cheat. I think that’s refreshing. We should learn from them.”

He still is, and he doesn’t preclude learning from people, too. He worked for Todd Pletcher, Eion Harty and Chad Brown. Sandwiched in between, he trained in Saudi Arabia.

In 2023, only Beckman’s second full year on his own in the United States, he posted 13 victories, 13 seconds and four thirds in 102 starts with $1,468,695 in earnings, more than double what he earned the previous year. He recorded his first stakes victory and, soon afterwards, his first graded stakes. His stable grew from one horse to 26.

He had help, especially from his best friend Kristian Villante, a bloodstock agent who trades under the name of Legion Bloodstock. They became friends when they both worked for Todd Pletcher. “We have very similar personalities,” Villante said. “We became friends and it kind of grew.”

Villante helped Beckman grow his stable. “We said we’d give him the push,” Villante said. “You can open the door for someone, but then, it’s up to him what to do with it. You can provide the opportunity. A lot of credit to Whit.”

It’s been a journey. His mother said, “He doesn’t give up and he always shows up.”

“He didn’t get lucky,” Harty said. “He conducts himself in an exemplary fashion. He’s a good communicator. He’s a very good person. He inherited it from his family. I got to meet them a couple times. You can tell where he got it from.”

But his family didn’t see it coming.

“If you would have told me when he was in high school that he’d get up at 4:30 in the morning to take care of horses, I’d say you’re crazy,” recounted his father, David. “He’d go to a variety of farms with me and he didn’t seem to like it at all.”

His parents sure did. David and Diane Beckman met in a barn. “I was just out of college and I ran a barn in Goshen,” Diane said. “David came to the barn one day. He’s like Whit, very quiet. I thought he was very good-looking.”

David, who had just graduated from veterinary school in 1979, asked her to a University of Kentucky football game. They both went there.

Diane was smitten: “After a couple of months I said, `I want to marry him.’ His character … we’ve been married 42 years and I’ve never known anyone I respect more. He’s been a great father. He works every day. He’s kind. He was on call 24/7.”

The Beckman’s have four children. Whit is the oldest. “When the two boys would get in trouble and David wasn’t there, I’d say, `You’re going to go with your dad and work on weekends.’ I think that’s what turned Whit off on horses – for a while.”

Beckman explained, “She’d say you’re going to work with him. I associated being bad with horses.”

Whit seemed isolated growing up. “He struggled,” his mother said. “He was so shy. He was a kid who lived in his imagination. We sent him to college when he wasn’t ready for it. The College of Charleston put him in a hotel because the dorms were full. It wasn’t a good fit. He came home, and at that point he was really lost. He didn’t have the straight path in life. He met his struggles and has worked through them. Whit was a late bloomer.

“I have always been proud of the person Whit is. He’s trustworthy, and he’s always going to do the right thing, like his father. He’s never going to say anything unless he means it. He’s going to be honest. I’ve always been proud of him because he had the roughest road. He willed himself to where he is today.”

It took a decade and a half and many, many miles. After working with his mother’s horses, Beckman began working with Walter Binder at Churchill Downs and Louisiana Downs. Beckman returned to Kentucky in March, 2006, and his father helped him get a job with Alex Rankin at Up and Down Farm. “It was a great place to learn,” Beckman said. “It gave me a lot of experience. I developed horsemanship.”

He continued to develop that working with Dave Scanlon and Danny Montada getting Darley two-year-olds ready for sale at Keeneland.

Beckman was fortunate to meet trainer Eoin Harty, who reached out to Todd Pletcher for him. Later, Harty would hire Beckman to be his assistant.

Beckman began working for Pletcher at the 2007 Saratoga meeting. “Towards the end of the meet,” Beckman said. “You go to Kentucky. You see the routine. At that time, I could just wake up every morning and say, `How cool is this? I’m working for the top trainer in the country.’”

Pletcher was glad to have him: “He was always a very top-level assistant. Good horseman. Good demeanor around the barn. I’m not surprised to see him doing well.”

After working for Pletcher, Beckman journeyed to Saudi Arabia, an experience with mixed blessings. “At that point, I had just turned 30,” Beckman said. “It was an opportunity to go on my own. I thought it would be a cool thing to go to the Middle East. A rich tradition of horses. We won some races, but it was an extremely different environment. They bring you over, but they don’t listen. They say, `God’s will.’ Religion and their faith take precedence. It was sticky.”

In 2014, Beckman learned his girlfriend was pregnant. He returned to the U.S. and took a job with Harty. “He was already a qualified trainer by the time he got to me,” Harty said. “He was looking for a job and I was looking for an assistant. It worked out immediately. I showed him the way I like things to be done. He was a huge asset. He deserves nothing but the best.”

With a daughter on the way, Beckman returned to Saudi Arabia. He then returned to America to be there for her daughter Violette’s birth on December 23rd, 2015, three days after his 34th birthday. “When she was born, it was the best thing in my life,” he said.

Yet he was ready to return to Saudi Arabia a few days later. “I got to the jetway,” Beckman said. “I was standing there. I couldn’t do it. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to be home with my daughter. I turned around. I felt great about it.”

He felt even better when Charlie Boden, then with Darley, told him Chad Brown was looking for an assistant, as if Beckman was being rewarded for staying with his daughter.

Beckman began working with Brown on April 4th, 2016, and stayed until the summer of 2021 when he ventured on his own with the full support of his sister, Lindley Turner, who had been doing their fathers’ bookkeeping since 2008. Now she does both. “When Whit decided to train on his own, I offered to handle all the financial and the bookwork,” she said. “Not fun stuff, but necessary to keep the business going. Whit was away for 20 years. I wanted to see what he spent 20 years doing. It’s really cool to watch.”

She really liked what she saw from her brother: “He did all aspects of the job. He put a lot of time in everywhere. He had a very clear vision of what he wanted his stable to look like. As a money person, I said, `I believe in your vision.’ We put in basically everything a top barn would. He knew how he wanted to take care of his horses. How his shed row would look. He did the digging. He raked it out himself. From the very start, he put in the system he knew. He told me if you do this now, it will pay off. He was exactly right. It’s come to life, even though we started with one horse.”

She vividly remembers when that first horse, Truly Mischief, an unraced two-year-old owned and bred by Newtown Anner Stud, arrived, September 11th, 2021: “I remember the horse coming to me, and feeling bad for him because he was the only horse in the barn. I said, `We’re going to get you some buddies.’ It was really exciting, just watching Whit train his own horse. He’s very hands-on. It’s not a number thing with him. It’s about the individual.”

It always will be. “There are 20,000 Thoroughbreds bred every year,” Beckman said. “We have to do everything we can to make them reach their potential, no matter what level they’re at. Keep them happy; keep them healthy, get them fit to run. It’s funny, you constantly learn things. You show up every day. Get there early. Make the adjustments that have to happen for the individual. You’ve got to be passionate about it.”

His buddy Kristian Villante knew that he was: “I think he genuinely has a passion for it. It’s more than just a job. It’s a craft. There’s an art form that goes into racing. It’s not just the x’s and the o’s. There’s not really a playbook. What makes great trainers great trainers is they can make adjustments.”

Truly Mischief needed them. He was sixth in his debut, December 1st, 2021, then raced five more times before finally breaking his maiden at Horseshoe Indianapolis on September 28th, 2022, a year and 17 days after he arrived at Beckman’s barn. On February 26th, 2023, at Tampa Bay Downs, Truly Mischief finished fourth and was claimed for $25,000.

Beckman’s neighbor and friend at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Chip Montgomery, sent Beckman his second horse, a two-year-old filly named Think Twice. She didn’t do much, finishing fifth in her debut, then seventh when claimed for $30,000.

Legion Racing’s four-year-old filly Sabalenka, Graham Grace Stable’s five-year-old gelding Harlan Estate and Ribble Farms’ three-year-old colt Honor Marie have been Beckman’s first three stars.

Sabalenka has two wins, two seconds and two thirds from nine starts with earnings of $427,498. She finished third in the 2023 Christiana Stakes at Delaware Park, July 15th, and second in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs, September 3rd. She is the most talented horse Valante helped him land. “They always had my back,” Beckman said. “She was the first one, as far as a nice horse, that gave me a little exposure. She was just a nice filly.”

  In between those stakes placings, Harlan Estate, sent off at 37-1 in the $500,000 Tapit Stakes at Kentucky Downs, delivered Beckman’s first stakes victory – after surviving an inquiry. Far back in the field of 11 early, Harlan Estate won by a length and three-quarters under Declan Cannon. “The horse came from Canada, Beckman said. “We were looking for a turf horse who could compete in open company. She filled all the criteria. Everything blossomed. I knew we were on the right track. It was an awesome day.”

Also rallying from last in the field of eight, Honor Marie captured the $400,000 Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes by two lengths under Rafael Bejarano, earning 10 qualifying points for the 2024 Kentucky Derby. Honor Marie, a $40,000 purchase at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, has two wins and a second in three career starts. “From the time he came in, he was a quality horse,” Beckman said. “He needed to mature on a physical level, but I knew I had a good horse in my hands. We knew two turns would help him. I wasn’t surprised, but it was awesome. We got to see what he did in the morning, materialize in the afternoon.”

Of course, he’s on the Kentucky Derby trail. His next start will be in the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at The Fair Grounds. 

Beckman’s stable has grown to 26. His momentum is considerable. “I’m really proud of him,” Beckman’s father said. “He is my oldest child of four. He got a little lost. He’s overcome a lot. Horses saved his life.”

Villante’s father, Joe, who sells trainer products, is a big fan of Whit: “Whit is fantastic. He’s really good at communication and he doesn’t think he’s splitting the atom or inventing the game. I really appreciate that.”

He shared this: “About a year ago, we were at Tampa Bay and training horses were coming off the track. Whit had a low-level horse. He asked the rider what he saw the whole way back to the barn. He wrote all these notes. That’s attention to detail. It’s a moment that stuck in my head. I have friends for 20, 25 years. They don’t ask questions. They think they know everything. I was very impressed. This kid is going places.”

He already has. And he’s only just begun.

Jena Antonucci - trainer of the star 3yo of 2023 - Arcangelo

Words - Ken Snyder

In the media avalanche surrounding Jena Antonucci, after her summer to remember, there is both rich irony and something very telling in one of the three “things you didn’t know” about her that escaped attention: she competed in shotgun shooting events. Those close to her who didn’t know this might say, “That figures,” or “I’m not surprised.” Shooting takes focus and concentration, both of which are in Antonucci’s DNA.

The next thing they would say is probably “I bet she kicked ass.”

Her parting words in an interview on YouTube the morning of this year’s Belmont? “Let’s go kick some ass.”

She does not fit the mold of a Thoroughbred trainer. If “focus” and “concentration” could be scored and put into some kind of competition, she’d likely kick ass in that too. 

The two other “things you didn’t know”: she is in her own words a “very good golfer, but without much time to play.” The third thing? She is hesitant to admit that “she doesn’t drink coffee.”

Mold breaker might be an apt description of Antonucci in her handling of success. The example is her response as a small- to medium-size trainer.

“Our number one goal is always wanting to be in the thirty- to thirty-five range, and that’s where we’re focused on staying,” she said. In a purely commercial sense, that’s saying no' to a flood of potential new business in the wake of Arcangelo’s success. 

Were there calls from prospective owners after the Belmont and Travers? 

“There have been conversations, but it’s been a ‘onesie, twosie,’ here and there, kind of thing.

“We’re not looking to be a stable of 150 horses. It’s not who we are. It’s not who I am.”

Antonucci is a horsewoman who rode show horses from age three into young adulthood and then gained not just experience but the right experience with Thoroughbreds. Her first foray was breaking and galloping them at Padua Stables in Ocala, Florida, where she now lives. She was then a veterinary assistant for four-and-a-half years, which gave her valuable horse knowledge on the ground. Exercise riding after vet work gave her knowledge up top astride a horse. All-important management experience, a necessary skill in any racing stable, came through her Bella Inizio Farm she opened in Ocala. (“Bella Inizio,” incidentally, translates as “nice start” in English.) 

As if that’s not enough, she operates HorseOlogy with co-owner Katie Miranda, a Thoroughbred training and ownership organization that spans raising, training and racing while also offering bloodstock advising, pinhooking, micro-investing and more. 

Her start in training was at Tampa Bay Downs in 2010, a year that maybe wasn’t the “nicest.” She won two of eight races and had two second-place finishes. Things began to take off in 2013 with 288 starters and earnings of $1,067,303. This year, of course, Arcangelo has vaulted her into the stratosphere with his $1.7 million in earnings.

“We’ve kind of been the ‘little stable that could’ for a long time,” looking back at her previous ten years of training.

“One thing I’ve always been very proud of is horses who have been claimed off of us or who went to a different barn [and] haven’t gone on to become big flourishing horses. I think a lot of mid-size trainers deserve to be evaluated in that manner, and it’s something I think we fail in the industry to do.”

She has, perhaps, a more realistic take on win percentages for trainers and how she believes they are misinterpreted by not factoring in stable size. Her website even has a section entitled Statistics Aren’t the Only Indicator of Success. “I think you can have somebody at 20 percent if they have 200 horses and can put a million-dollar horse in to get the win.” 

Arcangelo broke his maiden third time out at Gulfstream Park and has been undefeated since then. “I think we get stuck in the headlines of ‘Oh, won first out!’ It’s atypical. It is likely that less than a single-digit percentage of the horse population annually wins the first time out. We set owners up for failure.

“I think we do a consistent job across the board. I’ve had to make a lot of chicken soup out of chicken poo; and with that, I think I have the reputation for being a good horsewoman who is thorough and is trying to find the missing piece or what we can to find a horse’s success level.”

The missing piece for Arcangelo was careful parceling of his potential Horse of the Year talent. Antonucci’s racing campaign gave the horse more time between starts than other trainers might have given the son of the late Arrogate.

“I give a lot of credit to John [Ebbert], his owner, for allowing this horse to have space. I would say most, if not all owners, who saw this talent coming would want a pretty aggressive schedule. I give John a lot of credit for allowing this horse to have the breathing room that he needed and not pressuring me and the horse to pick up races on a tighter schedule.”

Antonucci uses an open-door policy to both involve her team of workers and parcel her own insight and skill as a trainer throughout her string. “It’s impossible for me to be able to put a hand on every leg, every day,” she said. The solution is a barn where everyone—whether foreman, groom or exercise rider--is encouraged to speak up if they feel anything has changed with a horse. 

“So many exercise riders that come to work for us—it’s such a relief for them to be able to come and be able to tell what they’re feeling. So many trainers and assistant trainers don’t want to hear it. A rider may not know exactly what it is, but if they’re communicating that something feels different, that’s all we need to know. 

“I think having a riding background and coming from that avenue into this and not racing per se—and riding for so long—I can see what they’re feeling.

“We don’t ever tell anyone that we don’t want to hear what they have to say.” 

There are nuances also in Antonucci’s relationships with owners. “I don’t think we want our clients to go, ‘Whatever you say,’ but I think there’s a balance with the people that believe in us. They know Fiona [Goodwin, assistant trainer]. They know it’s ‘horse first.’ And we’re going to make the best possible results with who we have in our hands.

“I don’t have a problem with owners being tough, but you learn to find a balance with people believing in the program and what we do.” 

The intensity she shows to the public in interviews surprisingly isn’t carried into the barn and her help. 

“I know she’s focused, and I know that she’s passionate,” said Goodwin, “but she really isn’t intense.” Goodwin has worked for Antonucci from the start of her training career. “You’re running a business, and you’ve got a job to do, so it’s not all fun and games, but we’re light-hearted in the barn.”

Input and an open-door policy might be only one factor in the success of the stable. “Balance” is a word used often by Antonucci to describe her management of people. She uses Goodwin as an example.

“I want my assistant to be able to have balance in her life. It’s what provides us with our life and lifestyle, but I don’t want her here till eight o'clock at night, seven days a week. 

“I don’t want the crew run ragged either. When we get to lean in and do what we do in a responsible manner and enjoy the experience and relationships and the personality of the horses, I think we do our best work.”

Goodwin confirms Antonucci’s approach. “She doesn’t want the work to consume us to where we get sour and resentful of the job and industry.”

Arcangelo, personality-wise, is a piece of work himself, Goodwin said with a laugh. “He likes to be ‘cheeky,’” an expression from her native Ireland. It means “playful.” “He’s fun to be around. He’ll take a chunk out of you every now and then if you’re careless around him. He thinks that’s fun—a love bite.”

In one aspect, his personality also parallels that of his trainer, “But when it’s time for him to go to work, he’s very focused and serious about his job,” Goodwin added.

Her advice for other trainers who burst onto the radar with a “big horse,” is to “turn off the white noise, keep doing what you’ve been doing and stay focused on that. Make sure you’re surrounding yourself with the right people and not a lot of people.”

While quantity intentionally will be maintained in her barn, quality is another matter. “Having some opportunity with a higher pedigreed horse or horse that comes in with a little bit more of an ability, our job will be to nurture that and grow that. Hopefully, we will have more talent to hit the track from those opportunities.”

The task will be the same with any future high-priced, impressively pedigreed Thoroughbred—the same as it is for the least expensive horse in her barn; and it is what drives Antonucci: find the answer.

 “I don’t believe people will view me as a ‘one-hit wonder.’”

For those like Goodwin, who has been with her the longest of anyone in the barn, it won’t be a surprise to see her back in the spotlight at some point in time, probably sooner than later.

“If she were in any other business, she would be a success and probably at the top,” said Goodwin. “She knows what she wants, and she goes after it. She does the job right. It’s always her goal to do better, be better, and win races. If you’ve got the horses, you can do it.”

The horses would be the question, as it is for any trainer, large or small. Arcangelo sold for $35,000 at the 2021 Keeneland September yearling sale—a small fraction of the price for top sellers annually at this premier sales event.

She got a fair amount of attention from those at this year’s sale and recognizes she is a banner carrier for many women in general, but especially in racing. “I’m very grateful for what it means to them and their journey. From an old hard boot to a young female, it’s pretty remarkable.”

For Antonucci, it’s competition with no thought about gender. “Who can train a horse better than the next person?” said Goodwin. “I think Jena thinks of it that way. We’re not intimidated by any other trainer, male or female. We’re here to win, and that’s it.”

Goals? Antonucci may have something to offer the entire world with this: “I think goal setting should be on how you want to live your life and the accomplishments that come with that.”

Opportunities afforded by Arcangelo come second to his life. “Whatever opportunities it provides me will be secondary to stewarding him through his career.

“My goals are to continue to work with great people, foster relationships that are around me, have a healthy growing business in HorseOlogy, have a healthy business at the racetrack, and make sure that the relationships with the people around me are thriving. Everything else becomes secondary.”

And oh yes, another thing: kick ass.

Fiona Goodwin - Jena Antonucci’s assistant trainer

Much of Fiona Goodwin’s Irish accent has been worn away by 27 years in the U.S. Laughter, however, is without accent and nationality; and you hear it often with Goodwin.

It’s probably more often than usual in the wake of Arcangelo’s success. 

She has been the assistant trainer to Jena Antonucci for 15 years from Antonucci’s first day as a trainer.

There was poignancy in Antonucci’s attention to Goodwin’s place in win photos after the Belmont and the Travers. It appeared important to Antonucci that her assistant was in a prominent place in the photo and indicative of a close relationship beyond boss-employee.

“We were first friends in the beginning, and we have remained friends,” said Goodwin. “I would say I’m as close as anybody to her.”

The “business relationship” in the barn is also a close one. “We’ve been doing this together so long, I know exactly how she trains, what she expects and what she expects of me.”

Goodwin and Antonucci first met at Saratoga when Goodwin was in James Bond’s barn where she had worked for 10 years as a forewoman. Before Bond, she worked in the barns of Nick Zito, Mark Henning, Eddie Kenneally and Linda Rice. And those are only the ones she can recall, she added with a laugh.

“On the racetrack, you work for everybody.” 

Goodwin comes from a horse family in County Kerry and is one of sixteen children—ten brothers and five sisters. (She is fourth in the birth order.) Her father was a showjumper, and the family always had horses for that event. A brother is also a showjumper, and two others are jockeys—one in Ireland and the other in England as well as Sweden, Italy and Norway.

Surprisingly, Goodwin had no interest in Irish racing growing up. “I was more into show horses.”

That changed when she visited a brother working at a horse farm in Franklin, Kentucky, near Kentucky Downs. The visit became permanent when she started riding at the farm. When her brother left to go to the Fair Grounds in New Orleans and a job with trainer Eddie Kenneally, she went with him. 

“You can’t go anywhere alone when you’ve got ten brothers,” she said with a laugh.

“I’d never been on the racetrack. He was going there, and I thought, just let me go along. I actually started grooming, which I wasn’t a huge fan of.” Shortly after, she exchanged her rub rag for reins and exercise riding. “Been on the racetrack ever since.”

Today, she shuttles back and forth between Antonucci’s stable at Saratoga, Gulfstream and Antonucci’s Ocala, Florida operation. Currently, there are twelve horses at Saratoga and “sixteen, maybe seventeen,” she said, at Gulfstream. Arcangelo is already at Santa Anita, the site of this year’s Breeders’ Cup where he will run in the Classic.

The Antonucci stable is a family affair, of sorts, for Goodwin. Her husband, Robert Mallari, is an exercise rider and is Arcangelo’s regular workout rider and has worked for Antonucci almost as long as his wife.

More articles from this issue include:

Barry Schwartz

Article by Bill Heller

What is more exciting for an owner and breeder than a two-year-old colt with talent? Former New York Racing Association Chairman of the Board and CEO Barry Schwartz’s New York-bred colt El Grande O certainly gives him reasons to dream. Off a head loss in the Funny Cide Stakes at Saratoga on August 27th, El Grande O dominated five rivals on a sloppy track at Aqueduct September 24, scoring by 8 ¼ lengths as the 3–5 favorite in the $125,000 Bertram F. Bongard Stakes under José Ortiz. Linda Rice trains the son of Take Charge Indy out of Rainbow’s Song by Unbridled’s Song who has two victories, three seconds and one third from his first six starts with earnings of $204,000.

El Grande O is Schwartz’s 26th Thoroughbred to win more than $200,000—a list that includes his top earners Boom Towner, Voodoo Song, The Lumber Guy, Kid Cruz, Princess Violet, Three Ring and Fire King. All of them earned between $700,000 and $1 million.

Now 81, Schwartz and his wife Sheryl still reside at their farm, Stonewall Farm, in northern Westchester County, with a second home on the ocean in California. Schwartz keeps busy playing the markets and running his horse stable.

The Calvin Klein years

It seems like forever since he and his childhood pal Calvin Klein, took Calvin Klein Inc. from a $10,000 initial investment to a global operation, which they sold for $430 million smack in the middle of Schwartz’s four-year reign at NYRA.

Schwartz and Klein, who both lived in the Bronx and had fathers who owned grocery markets in Harlem, went into their first partnership when they were nine, reselling newspapers and collecting bottles. “We’d go to the newsstand when the papers came in early evening,” Schwartz said. “We bought them for a nickel and sold them for a dime. We’d go to all the hotels, especially in the summer. On a good night, we’d make $3 apiece. That was a big deal then.”

When they began Calvin Klein Inc., they rented room 613 in the New York Hotel in Manhattan. The front door was open and faced the elevator. Calvin had the six women’s coats he had manufactured with Barry’s investment. 

One morning the elevator stopped on the sixth floor. One passenger walked out while another noticed the coats and got off. That passenger was Don O’Brien, the general manager of Bonwit Teller, one of New York’s most fashionable stores. 

Schwartz was home when Klein called him with great news: “You’ll never believe this. I got a $50,000 order from Bonwit Teller!” Schwartz replied, “Who’s Bonwit Teller?”  

He figured it out, and Calvin Klein, Inc. went onto incredible success.

The NYRA Years

In the four years Schwartz served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of NYRA from October 2000, to October 2004, racing in New York reached a pinnacle, a shining example of how racing should be operated—when fans and bettors mattered; when the right people in the right positions made the right decisions. 

It didn’t last. When Schwartz departed out of utter frustration from battling politicians and their inept decisions, racing in New York was never the same. It was almost like it was a mirage—a wonderful mirage.

But it was real. It was Camelot at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga.

That he did this while he continued to operate Calvin Klein, Inc. is remarkable. To do it, he had to commute 30 to 45 minutes through New York traffic every morning. And he did NYRA pro bono.

Why? Because he cared deeply about racing, specifically New York racing. Schwartz’s goal at NYRA was straightforward: “to make New York racing No. 1 in the world.”

Schwartz, who had been a member of the NYRA Board since 1994, was approached by acting CEO and Chairman of the Board Kenny Noe, who had decided to retire in the fall of 2000. “I was excited to be asked,” Schwartz said. “I was flattered. My two biggest supporters were Kenny Noe and Dinny Phipps (head of the Jockey Club). Dinny pushed for it. I was kind of flabbergasted, but I was thrilled. I got really energized. It gave me purpose, something to sink my teeth into. I went gangbusters, all in.”

Klein backed Schwartz’s decision. “The best thing that happened was that there was a long time before I took over,” Schwartz said. “I could work out the schedule I’d have to use. I spoke with Calvin about it. He thought it was a good idea. He always said, `If you’re near a phone, what’s the big deal?’”

So he did both. “At NYRA, my first two years were wonderful,” Schwartz said. “My first two years were a honeymoon. The next two years were just horrible.”

On the first day Schwartz took over NYRA and the three racetracks it operates—Belmont Park, Saratoga and Aqueduct—Schwartz went on NYRA’s new website, which had been designed by his son-in-law Michael, and asked fans and bettors what changes they wanted NYRA to make.

Then he made the changes, empowering fans, bettors and handicappers because he has always been a fan, a bettor and a handicapper.

This was a seismic shift in racetrack management, giving the people who support racing with their hard-earned cash every day a chance to impact the process. 

“On the website, we asked fans what they wanted,” Schwartz said. “We did that several times. Everybody loved that. The bettors could participate in the process.”

Bettors had never been asked that.

“It was genuine,” Bill Nader, former NYRA senior vice president, said. “He cared. He knew they cared. They shared the passion. It was a mind-blowing experience. It was exceptional, and I thought it was great that he heard their voice, that he gave them a seat at the table. He listened to what they said. He wanted to grow the business. He wanted to improve the business. Without consulting the customer, how do you do this?”

That initial fan survey on NYRA’s website received more than 4,000 responses. Schwartz responded by immediately making changes. Uniform saddle cloth pads—the 1 horse is red, the 2 horse is blue, etc.— made it easier to follow horses during a race. Claims, when someone purchases a horse that had just raced, were announced to the public. Barry also instituted a shoe board displaying each horse’s shoe type before every race.

A couple months after those changes, Schwartz said, “It really is true: talking to the fans is important. I’m going to continue involving the fans as long as I’m here. Without them, there’s no sport.”

On his first day, he promoted Bill Nader from Simulcast Director to Senior Vice President of Racing and watched Nader become one of the most respected racing officials in the world, serving as director of racing in Hong Kong for 15 years before becoming the president and CEO of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, June 21, 2022.

Schwartz said, “Bill was grossly underpaid. I didn’t want to lose him. When I reviewed the personnel and salaries, this guy was so underpaid; and I wound up signing him to a three-year contract. I wanted to make sure that he stayed. He was really close to me. When I got my people together, Bill was clearly the smartest guy in the room. He was the best guy I had.” 

Nader told Schwartz, “Wow, I’m thrilled, but I’m surprised.” Schwartz responded, “No, I’ve been watching.”

Nader’s appreciation of Schwartz’s support and impact hasn’t subsided more than 20 years later. “From day one, he just got behind me. That’s a huge amount of trust. He made me. He was the one person that changed the course of my life, providing me with the opportunity at NYRA. Six years later, the door he opened for me at NYRA led me to Hong Kong. He changed the path of my life, and I will be forever grateful.”

Schwartz didn’t take long to help all his employees in the first year. “NYRA got $13 million from Nassau County because NYRA had been overbilled for taxes,” Schwartz said. “I gave everybody a five-percent raise and a five-percent Christmas bonus. It was a big deal for the employees. They had never gotten a Christmas bonus.”

There was a new vibe at NYRA, and you could feel it. “What differentiated Barry was Barry was a New York guy,” top jockey-turned TV commentator Richie Migliore said. “He created his success through hard work. He was as comfortable shooting pool in the jockey room as he was in the boardroom. I remember him beating Jorge Chavez, who thought he was a really good pool player. Barry smoked him.”

Breeders’ Cup 2001

There were many shining moments during Schwartz’s four years, perhaps none more important than supervising the 2001 Breeders’ Cup at Belmont Park just weeks after the tragedy of 9-11 had left a city and a nation broken.

Like every other person in America, Schwartz remembers vividly the horror of 9-11 unfolding: “I was home in New Rochelle, getting dressed and ready to go to the farm. We were building our house there. It was in the very beginning. I saw the first plane hit. I told Sheryl, some idiot just flew his plane into the Trade Center. A few minutes later, I’m driving to the farm, and we hear about the second plane hitting. We spent the whole day at the farm. It was a safe haven at a very scary time. Sheryl’s brother got my kids out of the city.”

Belmont Park, in Elmont, Long Island—just 12 miles from “ground zero”—had already been selected to host the 2001 Breeders’ Cup on October 27, less than two months later; and no one was quite certain if that was still going to happen. “We had conversations with everybody,” Schwartz said. “I was in the same camp as Dinny. I thought it was very important to show New York was alive and well.”

Breeders’ Cup President D.G. Van Clief Jr. issued a statement saying, “Obviously, on the morning of Sept. 11, the world changed, and it certainly changed our outlook on the 2001 World Thoroughbred Championships. But it is very important for us to stay with our plan. We’d like it to be a celebration and salute to the people of New York.” 

Schwartz leaned heavily on Nader to get it done. “It was challenging,” Nader said. “We literally worked 18 hours a day. There was the normal preparation. Then the security side. Nobody minded the extra hours. We wanted to be sure we didn’t miss a thing. It was the most rewarding race day of my career because of what it meant. We were beat up. We were sad. We were down. There was a clumsy period of what to do. What is appropriate? The uncertainty of running the Breeders' Cup at Belmont? For horse racing fans, it meant a lot that they could return to the track and feel good, feel alive. I believe it was the first international event held in New York after 9-11. For me, I’m not sure there has been a better day of racing than that.”

On October 11, Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum’s private 747 arrived at JFK International Airport from England. On board, were three of Godolphin Stable’s best horses including Arc de Triomphe, Juddmonte International winner Sakhee and major stakes winner Fantastic Light. They were accompanied by two FBI agents, four customs agents and three carloads of Port Authority police. There were no incidents, and the European horses settled in at Belmont Park. 

The day broke sunny. There were shooters on the roofs of many Belmont Park buildings carrying AKA assault rifles. “They were very visible,” Schwartz said. “We had sharpshooters on the roof. I went up to the roof, and the guys were just laying down with rifles. It was scary.”

Nader said, “Seeing the snipers on the roof, I thought, how are people going to handle this? Once the races began to flow, it became one of the greatest events I’ve ever been involved in.”

At the opening ceremonies, dozens of jockeys accompanied by members of the New York State Police and Fire Departments lined up on the turf course, each jockey holding the flag of his country. Following a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace,” Carl Dixon of the New York State Police Department sang the national anthem.

Hopes for an all-positive afternoon disappeared before the first Breeders’ Cup race, the Distaff, when Exogenous, who had won the Beldame and Gazelle Stakes, reared and flipped while leaving the tunnel, slamming her head on the ground. The filly was brought back to Hall of Fame trainer Scotty Schulhofer’s barn but died several days later. Her death was only two years after Schwartz lost his brilliant filly Three Ring when she fell and hit her head in the paddock and died in front of Schwartz and Sheryl before her race.

The climax of the day was the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Classic matching the defending champion, Tiznow, against Sakhee, European star Galileo and Albert the Great. In the final sixteenth of a mile, Sakhee took a narrow lead on the outside of Tiznow, who responded by battling back to win the race by a nose. Announcer Tom Durkin captured the moment beautifully, shouting, “Tiznow wins it for America!”

America had won just by running the Breeders’ Cup as planned. That made NYRA, Schwartz Nader, and the rest of their team, winners, too.

Breeders Cup 2022 – the pick-six scandal

A year later, a day after the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Arlington Park in Chicago, Nader’s quick actions saved racing from further embarrassment when three fraternity brothers from Drexel University were not paid on their identical six winning $2 Pick Six tickets worth a total of more than $3 million.

Nader hadn’t even attended the Breeders’ Cup that Saturday, but he was at Belmont Park the following morning when he noticed something strange about the Pick Six, which had just six winning tickets from a single place, Catskill (New York) Off-Track Betting. “I asked Jim Gallagher to get the configuration of the tickets,” Nader said. “I looked at it, and I said, `Oh, man, this is a real problem. This is a scam.’ Catskill had made up just one-tenth percent of the Pick Six pool. The tickets were the same ticket six times. And the singles were in the first four races with all the horses in the last two.

“Back then, you didn’t get paid until the weekend ended. I called Arlington Park. I begged them not to pay it. The guy said, `Okay, Bill. I won’t pay them until you tell me.’ Then I called the TRPB (Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau).”

The tickets had been altered after the fourth race to list only the winning horse. Subsequently, investigators found that the fixers had tested their scam twice before the Breeders’ Cup. Additionally, they also had been successfully cashing counterfeit tickets of uncashed tickets all over the East Coast. The scam had been exposed before the cheaters got paid.

Racing’s image took a big hit from this, but it would have been much worse if Nader hadn’t acted. “It meant a lot,” Schwartz said. “If it came out after it was paid, it would have been disastrous.” 

Backing José Santos

Seven months later, Hall of Fame jockey José Santos, who had won the 2002 Breeders’ Cup Classic on 43–1 Volponi for Hall of Fame trainer Phil Johnson, also won the 2003 Kentucky Derby on Funny Cide. A week later, the Miami Herald broke just about every journalism standard there is, alleging that Santos had used a buzzer to win the race from a single phone interview with Santos, whose English was pretty good but not 100 percent; and a single photo the Herald deemed suspicious. This created national and international headlines that Saturday morning, and Santos learned the bad news that morning at Belmont Park, when he was having breakfast with his son, José Jr., at the backside kitchen.

Schwartz responded immediately for NYRA. He got the “suspicious” photo blown up, and it showed conclusively that what looked like an object in Santos’ hand was just the view of the silks of Jerry Bailey riding Empire Maker behind Funny Cide. Besides that, Santos would have needed three hands to carry his whip, the reins and a buzzer.

“NYRA defended me 100 percent as soon as it came out,” Santos said 20 years later. “They did everything to clear my name.”

A hearing in Kentucky two days later confirmed how ludicrous the allegations had been—mistakes the Herald paid for in Santos’ successful lawsuit against the paper.

Schwatz’s legacy

Schwartz’s biggest contribution at NYRA was lowering takeout—the amount of money taken from people’s bets—which, in turn, increases handle, allowing corresponding increases in purse money. Schwartz’s simple logic, which he had used his whole life at Calvin Klein, Inc., dictated that if products aren’t selling, you lower the price. That couldn’t penetrate many of the blockheads in the racing industry who still have failed to grasp this simple concept. When Schwartz left, the takeout was increased and handle declined.

“He came in with a different lens than anyone before him,” Nader said. “He looked at it as a retail business. How do I grow the business? That was retail sales. In our business, it was betting. I think that’s why he really connected. He came in as an owner, breeder and fan. That was the added dimension he brought. That was something we had never seen before. Suddenly, the business was growing.”

The numbers showed that. When bettors get more money returned in payoffs, they bet more—a simple process called churn.

Through intense lobbying, Schwartz got the legislature to reduce the takeout on win bets from 15 percent to 14—one of the lowest in the nation; from 20 to 17.5 percent on two-horse wagers, and the takeout on non-carryover Pick Sixes from 25 percent to 20 and then to 15. “It took a long time to get the bill passed,” Schwartz said. “It passed 211–0. I personally lobbied in Albany to explain how lowering the takeout was good for everybody. Once I convinced them, they endorsed it. It passed both houses, and Governor Pataki signed it. I had a good rapport with him. He’d come to my house at Saratoga every summer. I got along very well with him.” 

The impact of lower takeout was immediate. It began at the 2001 Saratoga meet, and handle rose 4.9 percent to a record of $553 million. Attendance at the 36-day meet broke one million for the first time. At the ensuing Belmont Park Fall Meet, handle rose 28 percent. In its first full year with lower takeout in 2002, handle increased at NYRA by $150 million when compared to 2000—the last full year with higher takeout. Schwartz felt it was just a start. 

“My goal is for this to be so successful I can keep lowering it,” Schwartz said in a 2001 article by Michael Kaplan in Cigar Aficionado. “With a 10 percent takeout, the size of our handle will become enormous.”

Such thinking was revolutionary to how business had been done at America’s racetracks. “Business got tough, so racetrack operators all over the country raised their takeouts,” Schwartz said in Kaplan’s article. “You don’t do that. Where I come from, you lower your price when business is bad.”

In 2023, Schwartz was asked why racetracks around the country haven’t lowered takeout: “The people who run racetracks just don’t understand the sport.”

Schwartz certainly does.

George Weaver - Champagne still flowing!

Article by Bill Heller

Eight years removed from his first unsuccessful starter at Royal Ascot, trainer George Weaver was already a winner when his two-year-old filly Crimson Advocate stepped onto the track to contest the Gp. 2 Queen Mary Stakes June 21. That’s because his love, his partner and his best friend, his wife Cindy Hutter, was able to accompany him and their 20-year-old son Ben to England nearly one year after her gruesome injury on the Oklahoma Training Track at Saratoga Race Course. A horse she was galloping suffered an apparent heart attack and collapsed on her, causing severe brain damage and multiple injuries—changing their lives forever.

Imagine their joy when a photo finish showed that Crimson Advocate and Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, had won the Queen Mary Stakes by a fraction of a nose, making Weaver just the third American trainer to capture a race at England’s most prestigious course, in a field of 26. “It was very, very emotional for us,” Weaver said. “ It was kind of miraculous—a beautiful experience much more than winning a race at Ascot. It was kind of spiritual.”

Cindy said after the race, “It was kind of like a dream come true.”

It happened 12 days short of one year after the nightmare at Saratoga.

Weaver was walking back to the barn with another horse when Cindy went down. “By the time I got there, the ambulance was there,” he said. “She was unconscious. She was bleeding. It was a bizarre day. It was a very scary day. It was a very stressful time. We didn’t know if she was going to regain consciousness. We didn’t know what the future would hold.”

Cindy had suffered broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a lung injury besides bleeding on the brain. Though seemingly unconscious, she was able to give a thumbs-up sign after hearing a voice command from a doctor. There was reason for hope.

Hope can go a long way. No one envisioned Weaver and Cindy standing in the winner’s circle at Royal Ascot less than a year later. “We’ve been doing this our whole lives,” Weaver said. “It was an exciting day for us.”

Weaver, 53, was born and raised in Louisville and knew at a very young age that his life would involve Thoroughbreds. He thanks his father, Bill, for that. “My dad took me to the track and told me how to read the Form since I was very little—less than a year old. It was exposed to me early on, and it stuck with me.”

His brother, Scott, went to the track with him, but after working briefly with horses, he turned to business and works for a computer company. 

Weaver has never left the business. “I was never really in doubt about what I wanted to do,” he said.

He worked on a farm briefly for Kenny Burkhart but didn’t take long to know he wanted to work at the track. While still in high school, he began walking hots for trainer John Hennig in the summer. “I was 17,” Weaver said. “I told him I didn’t want to be a hotwalker. I wanted to learn. He took me to Philadelphia Park. He taught me how to be a better hotwalker, how to groom and horsemanship.”

When Hennig left to work for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas at a training center in California, Weaver was given a choice in 1991: go to California and work for Hennig or travel to New York to work for Lukas’ New York operation under Jeff Lukas and Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher. 

“Working for Wayne, he had some very, very nice horses,” Weaver said. “It was a source of pride to come out of that program, learning to train horses. It’s a lot of trial and error. That was my schooling as opposed to college. I went to the University of Wayne Lukas.”

Lukas remembers both Weaver and Cindy fondly: “The two of them were both working for me at the same time. It was a treat to have them in the shed row. Both excellent horse people. I never doubted for a second they’d be successful. He’s an articulate, good horseman. I’m very proud of him. I saw him on TV at Ascot. It was a treat to see him over there. If George doesn’t do anything else, he married smart.” 

  Cindy, a native of Romansville, Pennsylvania, began riding at an early age and began working for Bruce Miller when she was 16. She galloped horses at Delaware Park and, in her early twenties, began working for Lukas in New York.

It was not love at first sight. They knew each other for years before they began dating. They’ve been together ever since. His respect for her horsemanship is considerable: “She could be on her own… attention to detail…perfectionist. Over the years, she could help a horse who was nervous or a head case. She was always our go-to girl. She’d fix them. I can’t tell you how. She has a great instinct for a horse. She’s a great rider. She’s one of a kind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like her.”

When they learned Cindy was pregnant, they decided to go on their own in 2002. “It was time to make a go for it,” Weaver said. “It was time for me to give it a go: come together as a family and see how it went. Luckily, we’ve had a lot of success over the years. She managed the barn so I could focus on our clients. We’ve always worked well together and done well.”

Always? A husband and wife together 24/7? “I won’t lie to you; she has strong opinions,” Weaver said. “Obviously, you have clashes. But we have a mutual respect. It starts with that. We both have the same philosophy: keeping the horses happy.”

Cindy agreed: “We keep horses happy. We do little things like take them to the round pen, let them graze, let them walk and do things before they even go to the track. I think little things make a difference. And we do well together. He gets to do more with the owners and the PR part. I’m more the worker with the horses. We both have our say, and it seems to work that way.”

They didn’t take long to find success. After winning one of eight starts in 2002, they topped the million-dollar mark in earnings in 2003 and have been over a million every year, including this year, already, thanks to a solid career win percentage of 15.

His top earner and best horse was Vekoma, whose six-for-eight record included victories in the 2020 Gr. 1 Metropolitan and Gr. 1 Carter Handicap. He earned $1,245,525 and is now standing at Spendthrift Farm.

In 2015, Weaver took a shot at Royal Ascot, sending over Cyclogenesis to contest the Gp. 1 Commonwealth. “He was three-for-three at the time,” Weaver said. “A big heavy horse. He was a nice horse. It just wasn’t his day over there.”

Cyclogenesis finished 14th.

His performance did nothing to diminish Weaver’s appreciation of the experience: “When you get there, it’s clear how special the racing is at Royal Ascot. I was amazed at the place. It’s a hard place to win. I thought when I left in 2015, how cool it would be to win a race there. It’s like a bucket list.”

Crimson Advocate ridden by John Velazquez claimed the narrowest of victories in a thrilling climax to the 2023 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The filly who would bring him back was Crimson Advocate, a daughter of Nyquist out of Citizens Advocate by Proud Citizen. Crimzon Advocate was purchased for $100,000 at the Ocala Breeders October Yearling Sale by a large ownership group led by Randy Hill, who owned Vekoma and has been sending Weaver horses for 20 years. Other owners are St. John’s University’s new basketball coach Rick Pitino, New York Giants senior personnel consultant and New York Racing Association Board of Directors Chris Mara, Reagan Swinbank, Bill Daugherty of Black Ridge Stables and Jake Ballis of Black Type Thoroughbreds.

Crimson Advocate would make her debut at Keeneland on dirt April 26, well after Cindy had made major strides in her recovery—something she continued after four months in a hospital. 

An unending outpour of support and prayers, especially from horsemen, certainly helped. “It’s a tight-knit group,” Weaver said. “We’re motivated by our love of horses. You can’t do this without loving horses. When she got hurt, it’s a hard thing to go through. It was scary for quite a few months. So many people reached out. It felt good to have the racing community reach out and pull for us and let us know how much support we had out there. It’s been a tough road. We couldn’t have done it without help. There’s a lot of love on the racetrack, and we really appreciate it. This happened a year ago. We’re fortunate that Cindy made a good recovery. She’s still Cindy. We take things one day at a time.”

Crimson Advocate finished an okay third in her 4 ½ furlong maiden debut on dirt at Keeneland. Her next start, her turf debut at Gulfstream Park, was in the Royal Palm Juvenile Filly Stakes. Through a unique partnership between Gulfstream Park and Ascot, the winner of that stakes and the Royal Palm Juvenile Stakes became automatic qualifiers for the Royal Ascot two-year-old stakes race and $25,000 in traveling expenses.

Weaver won both stakes. Crimson Advocate won the filly stakes wire-to-wire by 3 ½ lengths. No Nay Mets, whose ownership includes Houston Astros star Alex Bregman, captured the colt stakes. He raced at Ascot the day after Crimson Advocate and finished 9th  in the Gp. 2 Norfolk Stakes. 

With two starters at Ascot, Cindy had added incentive to make the trip, if she was up to it. “We went to Aspen before Ascot,” Weaver said. She handled that and headed to England with her family.

Crimson Advocate’s new rider would be Velazquez. In a field of 26, his expertise and experience were paramount.

Watching a field of 26 two-year-old fillies racing five-furlongs on a straight course is an interesting experience. There were two distinct groups during the race far away from each other on the course. How a jockey can make judgment calls with that challenging perspective is a skill itself. Fortunately for Velazquez, he was in a sprint with two-year-olds. She would go as fast as she could.

She broke from the rail nearest the grandstand, and Velazquez hustled her to the lead. She seemed in good shape as her group seemed ahead of the other group. But then Relief Rally came flying at her late. They crossed the wire together. 

“I didn’t know if I got it or not,” Velazquez said afterwards.

Weaver, as his custom, assumed the worst: “Usually, when it’s that tight, I assume we got beat, just to prepare myself. After that, I watched a slo-mo replay. While watching that, I thought she might have gotten the bob.”

She had. Her number was posted first on the toteboard. “We were just out of our minds, hugging, kissing, on cloud nine,” Weaver said. 

Hill told Bob Ehalt of Blood-Horse, “It was great. It was so emotional. Cindy was there, and she was crying. I couldn’t get over it. I am so glad for George. We’ve been together for so long and have won some big races together. I know how much this meant to him.”

Just getting to Ascot meant a lot to Weaver and Cindy. “She saw a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while,” Weaver said.

Cindy said, “I had to really try hard and be strong to try to make this trip,” she said. “I was just hoping that she wound show up and run a good race.”

While waiting out the results of the photo finish, she said, “If she was second, it was okay. I knew she gave her best.”

So did Cindy.

Walter Rodriguez

Article by Ken Snyder

We see them every day in the news—men, women and children trudging north across Mexico, searching for a brighter future in the best bet on the globe: the United States. For most Americans, we don’t foresee them winning that bet like our ancestors did generations ago. The odds against them are huge. 

But long shots do come in. 

Walter Rodriguez was 17 years old when he pushed off into the Rio Grande River in the dark from the Mexican bank, his arms wrapped around an inner tube to cross into the U.S. The year was 2015, which differs from 2023 only in scale in terms of illegal immigration. He crossed with two things: the clothes on his back and a desire to make money he could send home. How he ended up making money and yes, quite a bit of it at this point, meant overcoming the longest odds imaginable and, perhaps, a lot of divine intervention. 

Getting here began with a long six-week journey to the border from Usulutan, El Salvador, conducted surreptitiously and not without risk and a sense of danger. 

His family paid $5,000 to a “coyote” (the term we’ve all come to know for those who lead people to the border). 

“They would use cars with six or eight people packed in, and we would drive 10 hours. We’d stay in a house. Next morning, they would drive again in different cars, like a van; and there would be more people in it.”

Three hours into a trek through South Texas brush after his river crossing, the border patrol intercepted him. He first went to jail for several days. After that, he was flown to a detention center for illegally migrating teenagers in Florida with one thread tying him to the U.S. and preventing deportation: an uncle in Baltimore. After a month there and verification that his uncle would take him in, Walter flew to Baltimore and his uncle’s home in Elk Ridge, Maryland. From El Salvador, the trip covered about 3,200 miles. 

He worked in his uncle’s business, pushing, lifting and installing appliances, doing the work of much larger men despite his diminutive size. More than a few people marveled at his strength. Ironically, and what he believes divinely, more than a few people unknowingly prophesied what was to come next for Rodriguez. Particularly striking and memorable for Walter was an old man at a gas station who looked at him and said twice. “You should be a jockey.”

For Walter, the counsel was more than just a chance encounter with a stranger. It is a memory he will carry his whole life: “This means something. I think God was calling me.” 

Laurel Park just happened to be 15 minutes from where Rodriguez lived in Elk Ridge.  

Whether by chance or divine intervention, the first person Rodriguez encountered at Laurel was jockey J.D. Acosta. Walter asked in Spanish, his only language at the time, “Where can I go to learn how to ride? I would like to ride horses.”

He couldn’t have gotten better direction. “I’ve got the perfect guy for you,” said Acosta. That was Jose Corrales, who is known for tutoring and mentoring young jockeys—three of whom have won Eclipse Awards as Apprentice of the Year and a fourth with the same title in England. That was Irish jockey David Egan who spent a winter with Corrales in 2016 before returning to England. He piloted Mishriff to a win in the 2021 Saudi Cup. 

 “This kid—he came over out of the blue to my stable,” recalled Corrales. “He said, ‘I’m so sorry. Somebody told me to come and see you and see if maybe I could become a jockey.’”  

Corrales sized up Rodriguez as others had, echoing what others had told him: “You look like you could be a jockey.”

The journey from looking like a jockey to a license, however, was a long one; he knew nothing about horses or horse racing.

Perhaps surprisingly for someone from Central America, where horses are a routine part of the rural landscape, Rodriguez was scared of Thoroughbreds.

He began, like most people new to the racetrack, hot walking horses after workouts. Corrales also took on the completion of immigration paperwork that had begun with Rodriguez’s uncle.

His first steps toward becoming a rider began with learning how to properly hold reins. After that came time on an Equicizer to familiarize him with the feel of riding. The next step was jogging horses—the real thing.

“He started looking good,” said Corrales.

“I see a lot of things. I told him, ‘You’re going to do something.’”

Maybe the first major step toward becoming a jockey began with the orneriest horse in Corrales’ barn, King Pacay.

“I was scared to put him on,” said Corrales. In fact, the former jockey dreaded exercising the horse, having been “dropped” more than a few times by the horse.

Walter volunteered for the task. “Let me ride him,” Corrales remembered him saying before he asked him, “Are you sure?”

Maybe before the young would-be jockey could change his mind, Corrales quickly gave him a leg up.

“In the beginning, he almost dropped him,” said Corrales, “but he stayed on and he didn’t want to get off.  He said, ‘No, I want to ride him.’”

“It was like a challenge I had to go through,” said Rodriguez, representing a life-changer for him—a career as a jockey or a return to his uncle’s business and heavy appliances. 

The horse not only helped him overcome fear but gave him the confidence to do more than just survive a mean horse.

“I started to learn more of the control of the horses from there.”

Using the word “control” is ironic. In Rodriguez’s third start as a licensed jockey, he won his first race on a horse he didn’t control.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just let the horse [a Maryland-bred filly, Rationalmillennial] do his thing. I tried to keep her straight, but I didn’t know enough—no tactics, none of that. We broke from the gate, and I just let the horse go.”

Walter Rodriguez receives the traditional dousing from fellow jockey Jorge Ruiz after winning his first career race at Laurel Park, 2022.

It was the first of 11 victories in 2022 in six-and-a-half months on Maryland tracks and then Turfway Park in Kentucky. Earnings were $860,888 in 2022; and to date, at the time of writing not quite halfway through the year, his mounts have earned a whopping $2,558,075. Most amazing, he led Turfway in wins during that track's January through March meet with 48. He rode at a 19% win rate.

Next was a giant step for Rodriguez: the April Spring meet at Keeneland, which annually draws the nation’s best riders.

He won four races from 39 starts. More significant than the wins, perhaps, is the trainer in the winner’s circle with Rodriguez on three of those wins: Wesley Ward.

How Ward came to give Rodriguez an opportunity goes back to 1984, the year of Ward’s Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice. One day on the track at Belmont, he met Jose Corrales. On discovering Corrales was a jockey coming off an injury and battling weight, Ward encouraged him to take his tack to Longacres in Seattle. The move was profitable, leading to a career of over $4.4 million in earnings for Corrales and riding stints in Macau and Hong Kong.

The brief exchange on the racetrack during workouts began a friendship between Corrales and Ward that continued and is one more of those things that lead to where Rodriguez is today as a jockey. 

Corrales touted Rodriguez to Ward, who might be the perfect trainer to promote an apprentice rider. Ward’s success as a “bug boy” eliminates the hesitation many of his owners might have against riding apprentices. 

He might be the young Salvadoran’s biggest fan.

“I can’t say enough good things about that boy.  He’s a wonderful, wonderful human being and is going to be a great rider.”

He added something that is any trainer’s sky-high praise for a jockey: “He’s got that ‘x-factor.’ Horses just run for him.”

Corrales, too, recognizes in Rodriguez a work ethic in short supply on the race track. “A lot of kids, they want to come to the racetrack, and in six months they want to be a jockey. They don’t learn horsemanship,” said Corrales. “You tell Walter to do a stall, he does a stall. You tell him to saddle a horse, he saddles the horse. He learns to do what needs to be done with the horses.

“He’s got the weight. He’s got the size. He’s got a great attitude. He works hard.”

Ward was astonished at something the young man did when one of his exercise riders didn’t show up at Turfway one morning: “He was leading rider at the time but got on 15 horses that morning and that’s just one time.“ Ward estimated Rodriguez did the same thing another 25 times.

“He’ll do anything you ask; he’s just the greatest kid.” 

Ward recounted Rodriguez twice went to an airport in Cincinnati to pick up barn workers flying back to the U.S. from Mexico to satisfy visa requirements. “He’d pick them up at the airport from the red-eye flight at 4:30 in the morning and then drive them down to work at Keeneland.”

Walter on Wesley Ward’s Eye Witness at Keeneland.

With Rodriguez’s success, talent is indisputable, but Corrales also credits a strong desire to reach his goal combined with an outstanding attitude. Spirituality, too, is a key attribute developing in extraordinary circumstances in his home country. 

When Rodriguez was three years old, his father abandoned him and his mother. As for her, all he will say is, “She couldn’t raise me.” His grandmother, Catalina Rodriguez, was the sole parent to Rodriguez from age three.

He calls his grandmother “three or four times a week,” and she knows about his career, thanks to cousins that show her replays of his races.

Watching him leave El Salvador was difficult for her, but she saw it as necessary to the alternative. He credits her for giving him “an opportunity in life. Otherwise, I would be somebody else, doing bad things back at home.”

Surprisingly, her concerns for her grandson in the U.S. were more with handling appliances than 1,110-pound Thoroughbreds.

“When I was working with my uncle, she wasn’t really happy; she wasn’t sure about what I was doing.

“But I kept saying to her, let’s have faith. Hopefully, this is going to be okay. Now she realizes what I was saying.”

His faith extends to the latest in his career: riding at Churchill Downs this summer. “One day I got on my knees and I said to God, ‘Please give me the talent to ride where the big guys are.’“

Gratitude is another quality that seems to come naturally for Rodriguez. After the Turfway Park meet at the beginning of April, he flew back to Maryland to provide a cookout for everybody in Jose Corrales’s barn. 

He also sends money to El Salvador, not only to his grandmother but to help elderly persons he knows back home. During the interview, he showed pictures of food being served to people in his village at his former church. At least a significant portion of that is financed by Rodriguez’s generosity.

“I love to help people. It will come back to you in so many ways. I’ve seen how it came back to me.”

According to Corrales, there have been discussions about a possible movie on Rodriguez, who just received his green card in June of this year.

“These days with immigration, crossing the border and all the trouble we’re having—to have somebody cross the border and have success, it’s a blessing,” Corrales said.

A blessing, for sure, but one that was meant to be. Walter encapsulated his journey and what happened after he went to Laurel Park with a passage from a psalm in the Bible: “The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord.” 

Brittany Russell - the trainer of Met Mile contender - Doppelganger

Article by Ken Snyder

“I hear people say win percentage doesn’t matter. That’s almost like saying batting average doesn’t matter.” So said trainer Brad Cox, assessing the performance of trainer Brittany Russell, a former assistant. 

Russell, training on the mid-Atlantic circuit, is, at the time of writing, winning at a 27% rate. Just as impressive for Russell if not more so, is consistency in her horses hitting the wire first. 

Starting in 2020, her first year of saddling more than 100+ starters, her average for the three years is a sky-high 25%. If you translated that to a batting average, I’m not so sure she might be equaling Ted Williams’ .406 record.

Amazingly, 25% would constitute a “down year” for Russell. In 2020, her horses won at an astonishing 29% rate with purse earnings of over $1.6 million—her first year surpassing the seven-figure mark. 

Has any other trainer begun their career with this kind of success? A look at last year’s top 10 in earnings will surprise you. In their first three years of 100+ starters, the entire list, with the exception of Brad Cox, ironically, doesn’t top Russell’s career start. 

When asked if she tracks things like win percentages, the affable Russell responded quickly with “No. I just try and do the barn and then go home and take care of my kids,” she said with a laugh.

Juggling a 40-horse barn at Laurel Race Course currently with another 30 horses stabled at Delaware Park plus raising a three-year-old and a seventeen-month-old, might be the most extraordinary accomplishment, however.

It is family that brought her to the mid-Atlantic circuit and her husband Sheldon Russell, a jockey on the circuit, who has kept her there. 

“I made a decision to come back home to be close to my family [in Pennsylvania],” she said. “Sheldon and I were always good friends through the years, and we started seeing each other again. We knew pretty far into it that I was staying in Maryland, and we were going to get married.”

Family, both literal and figurative, has been part of both her profession and her personal life as a mom. 

“The track opens here at 5:30, so I try not to be any later than the second set, which goes at 5:50. 

“Sheldon and I get up, we get the bags packed, and get everything ready for the kids.” The Russells then head to the home of her assistant Luis Barajas’ mother, who lives only five minutes from Laurel Park. Barajas was Russell’s first hire and is considered a part of her family. 

“Every day is a different schedule,” said Russell, adding that pickup time for the kids can be as early as 10 a.m. or as late as noon.

On Thursdays and Fridays, which are race days currently at Laurel along with weekends, the children stay at home with Sheldon’s mother, who lives with the Russells.

On race days on weekends, the Russells sometimes bring their children to the races.

Already, the oldest child, Edie, wants to be a jockey like her dad.

“He’s ‘super dad.’ Our daughter thinks he’s the best thing ever,” said Russell.

Brittany Russell’s introduction to horses and racing was much later than Edie’s. At age 12, she was on a field trip with a school class to a Thoroughbred horse farm near her hometown of Peach Bottom Pennsylvania. It was life-changing. “I saw it one time, and I wanted to work there,” she recalled.

Russell contacted the owner who put her to work where she learned the “hard work,” mucking stalls and cleaning buckets and other tack. The groundwork for her career was when she learned how to ride on the farm. “I learned horses through the racing side right away. I was cheap labor,” she added with a laugh.

Riding connected her too, perhaps, the biggest luminary in Russell’s career—Jonathan Sheppard, who trained near her home. “I galloped for him. I actually went to Keeneland for a short time for him between my farm days and college.

“He had a really unique style of training; he’d change it up.

“Some of these horses he’d send out over hurdles. One day, randomly, you had to be ready to pivot. If he sent you down to ride the hurdles, you did it.”

A key lesson learned from Sheppard that has impacted her training career was that good horses don’t all want to do the same thing every day. 

Exercise riding was her entré into racing but not, however, the “safe route,” as she termed it, to be around horses. She pursued an associate’s degree in a veterinary technology program. “I thought maybe I’d work in a clinic or something and just be around horses.”

She was close to earning her associate’s degree when the lure of the racetrack was too much for her. Trainer Tim Ritchey at Delaware Park offered her an opportunity to come and gallop his horses. Not long after, she was traveling to Oaklawn Park where she met Brad Cox and Ron Moquett—trainers who would figure prominently in her career.

It didn’t take long for exposure to training Thoroughbreds to replace any thoughts of becoming a jockey. “I loved riding, but it was never the lifestyle I wanted. I saw how hard it was to be a jockey and the battles with weight and all that.

“I definitely took to the training side of it,” she said. “Tim handed me responsibility pretty quickly because he probably realized I could do more than just gallop horses. 

“He threw me into an assistant’s role, and it was sort of what I thrived on.”

Stints with Cox and Moquett followed. With each, as with Sheppard, she learned valuable lessons.

“There is a lot I picked up from Brad. He knows where to place horses. His care of horses is great.

The most critical quality she saw in Cox, which is far more difficult than it sounds, was assessing his stock. “He just knew what he had,” said Russell of what she said is Cox’s uncanny ability to figure out the possibilities and limitations of each horse.   

“I think that’s such a key to success. You can’t just learn that. You have to probably just have it.

“If I hadn’t gone out on my own, I hope I’d still be there. He did a good job. He was so good to work for.”

Moquett, like Cox, imparted attention to detail and a goal of perfection. “They just take fantastic care of the horses,” she said. “The very best feed. The best vet care. The shedrow is immaculate.”

Moquett was instrumental in helping Russell hang her own shingle. “He decided to send a small string to Maryland, and I oversaw that.

“I wound up owning a few of my own that trickled in.”

Leaving Moquett and going out on her own, Russell almost immediately had a sizable stable with 23 horses—20 of which were from one owner. Unfortunately, that owner lived up to a reputation as someone who switched trainers often.

“He pulled them all. Boom.”

“We were in tears, watching these horses leave. I’m going, ‘Oh my God, I’ve put all eggs in one basket.’  I’m thinking, ‘I’ll never build this back up.’”  

“We just kept our heads down and kept working.”

“I was fortunate I still had some good connections. [Bloodstock agent] Liz Crow was awesome, sending me horses. I had 10 Strike Stables sending me some. Mike Ryan [an owner], literally kept my head above water for those first few months before I had more horses come in.”

Hello Beautiful

One of them was a filly named Hello Beautiful. “I think I had five horses, and Hello Beautiful just launched me,” Russell said. “We actually owned half of her.”

The horse had an impressive win percentage of her own comparable, relatively, to her trainer. She won half of 20 starts, stringing together three straight wins twice in stakes races, and earning 100+ Equibase speed figures in eight of her 10 wins. She earned $587,820 in her career. 

As important as the purse earnings was the attention she gained for Russell with other owners.

The obvious and, to a large degree, unanswerable question is what Russell does to produce amazing results. “We go day to day. You can make a hundred wrong decisions, but tomorrow’s a new day. 

“I think you have to make some mistakes to learn the right thing as well—maybe not where we place them, but in the general standpoint of training. We have to try different things to see what works. You’re probably going to make a lot more mistakes before anyone notices that you made the right decision.”

Another obvious question is if a bigger stage than the mid-Atlantic circuit is somewhere in her future. She just recently won her first Gr.1 race—the Carter Handicap at Aqueduct with Doppelganger—the longest shot in the race at 18-1.

“I’m not looking past Maryland. Most of my business is built around Maryland. I have a full barn because we’re winning here and doing well here. People are sending me horses that fit here. 

“You want to be bigger and better, go to bigger racetracks and win bigger races. Obviously, those are goals. But for the time being, I’m just trying to stay very grounded. I’m trying to do well where I am right now.”

“Well” as in win percentage. Wow.

BRITTANY’S BIGGEST FAN!

Brad Cox might be Russell’s biggest fan outside her family.

“Focus, attention to detail—basically the stuff it takes to be a good trainer; she’s on top of it. I could see it in the barn the first day she started working for us. 

“We just were always kind of on the same page. If she was riding a horse, I always felt like maybe I was seeing what she was feeling in regard to the particular horse she was on.”

Cox credits Russell for a major move in his career: New York. “Having her gave me the confidence, I would say, to go there. She played a big role with us getting our foot in the door in New York and obviously, staying there. She was the one that really kind of got things going for me in New York.”

“I’m very proud of what she’s accomplished,” he added.

He also doesn’t think her success is attributable to being in Maryland. “I don’t think it really has anything to do with being in the mid-Atlantic. I think she’d be successful if her main base was New York or Kentucky. She gets it. That’s the bottom line.

The “it” he refers to is the intangible that a trainer either has or hasn’t.

Cox was emphatic in providing an anecdote of what he means: “Print this: I woke up this morning, and I had two horses I had marked to enter at Keeneland. I marked these races for these horses weeks ago. Today is the day of entry, and guess what? I’m not feeling it. We’re not running.

“I can totally understand where owners could be, ‘Well, what happened?’ Listen, they just don’t have it today. I’ve done this enough to know.”

Russell has stayed on the “same page” Cox talked about with her approach. “I think you have to trust your gut,” she said. “If I start second-guessing things, and I don’t know what to do about a certain scenario, you just have to trust your instincts. 

“You get these feelings about horses, and you just have to go with them. It’s hard to explain.”

Hard to explain, but easy to see. Just look at the win percentage. 

Ben Colebrook - raising the stakes

Article by Frances J. Karon

Ben Colebrook spent his 45th birthday eating a slice of pizza alone on a Friday night in Brooklyn. He was in New York on an overnight trip from Kentucky for a show the next afternoon in which his Raise Cain was given odds of having little more than a walk-on part.

Despite expecting a strong performance, Colebrook didn’t stay for the closing curtain.

Once he’d given José Lezcano a leg up in the saddle, Colebrook headed out of the track’s front gate, where an Uber was waiting for him. The car idled long enough for the trainer to get a live view of the field leaving the starting gate. He watched the rest of the race on his phone, and that’s how he saw his 23-1 shot win the Gr.3 Gotham by 7½ lengths, guaranteeing Raise Cain enough points to qualify for a start in the Kentucky Derby.

As the Uber drove from Aqueduct to Kennedy International Airport and maneuvered traffic less eventful than Raise Cain’s stretch run around Howgreatisnate, who’d thrown his rider at the start, the bay son of Violence was joined in the winner’s circle by only his jockey, groom, and a barely visible valet. Colebrook began to receive texts. “Are you OK? What happened?”

Colebrook was fine. He’d ducked out early because he didn’t want to miss his flight to Cincinnati, just across the Ohio-Kentucky state line from Turfway Park, where he had Scoobie Quando, also on the prowl for Derby points, entered in the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes later that night.

His runners didn’t pull off the stakes double. Scoobie Quando was second in a field of 12—a good effort in only his third start. The original plan was to keep the colts, both owned by Andrew and Rania Warren, apart for their next races; but when Scoobie Quando had to scratch from Turfway’s Gr.3 Jeff Ruby Steaks for a minor issue, it meant he’d need to connect a Hail Mary pass to score a Derby saddle towel. The Gr.2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct and the Gr.1 Toyota Blue Grass at Keeneland on the same day had enough points up for grabs, and after weighing their options, they decided to stay home and enter Raise Cain and Scoobie Quando in the Blue Grass. Colebrook would gladly have taken a win in either race, but as he says, “The Wood Memorial would be great to have on your resume, but I’m a Keeneland guy.”

Indeed.

Ben Colebrook trains out of Keeneland’s year-round Rice Road barns, on the other side of the street from the main facility. “Keeneland’s part of the reason why I’ve had, if you can call it a successful career, it’s been because of being stabled at Keeneland. It’s probably the major reason why I’ve gotten horses. People want to have their horses here, and there’s only so many stalls down there on Rice Road.”

The son of now-retired farm manager John, who trained a few horses on the side and compiled a record of 18 wins in 140 starts from 1991–1995 and 2007–2012, and Mary Jo, Colebrook is the oldest of two sons. By the time his father was yearling manager at Don and Mira Ball’s Donamire Farm in Lexington, Ky., four-year-old Ben would get on the pony and ride around the farm’s private training track. But as he grew older, Colebrook considered taking a different direction with his life. “I was trying to get away from horses.” He laughs. He paid his own way through a few years at the University of Kentucky, pursuing a business degree while getting on horses around his class schedule. “Burning the candle at both ends,” he says.

“Horse racing gets in your blood. It’s sticky. I tried to be normal and have a normal life…” After a pause, he adds, “It didn’t really take.” The allure was too great. He left college without graduating.

“Sometimes,” he says, “you wish you just would have stayed in school, but I don’t know. There’s good days and bad days, obviously. But then at this stage, you’re pretty much committed anyway. Literally committed. Or,” he jokes, “should be committed.”

Most folks entrenched in a precarious 24/7/365 business can understand the latter sentiment, even if it’s meant tongue in cheek. In an alternate reality, Colebrook, true to his easy going personality, would have liked to be a “ski bum” in Colorado. “I’d have to be doing something outside. I’d go postal working in an office.”

Instead, his office is his pickup, the track rail, and the Keeneland grandstand. It’s not the Rockies, but it sure beats a cubicle—and he still makes time to go skiing every winter anyway. His “assistant,” Cash, a five-year-old black Lab, keeps morale high from the backseat of the truck. “He’s excited in the morning. At 4:30, he’s all, ‘Come on, let’s go!’”

Colebrook came up under numerous good horsemen, including Bill Harrigan, Fred Seitz, Hall of Famer John Veitch, and Christophe Clement.

Harrigan liked what he saw in young Colebrook, who juggled getting on Harrigan’s horses while going to the UK. “Ben’s kind of a family member of ours; that’s how we feel,” says Harrigan, who broke and handled the pre-training of Horses of the Year A.P. Indy and Mineshaft and currently has a two-year-old homebred in Colebrook’s barn. “He always got along great with horses, was very interested in it, and was a super guy to have around because of his personality. Those are the kind of guys that go on to make it. They’re happy in their job, and they’re interested in their job and they like to work.”

In 2002, Colebrook traveled to Saratoga with a steeplechaser for Harrigan and farm trainer Mark McEntee. McEntee was friends with Clement from the time both worked for trainer Shug McGaughey, so when one of Clement’s riders got hurt, Colebrook got on some horses to help out McEntee’s old friend. Colebrook and Clement stayed in touch, and by 2007, Clement convinced him to join his team. “I never really wanted to go to New York, so I was kind of reluctant,” says Colebrook. “When we talked about it more, I said, ‘I like central Kentucky, and this is where I want to be.”

Clement set up his new assistant at Keeneland, sending him two-year-olds and lay-ups. Colebrook says, “Christophe really liked the synthetic track for the babies because he didn’t have to miss any time for the weather. You’d ship horses to Saratoga, and it would rain for weeks and he wouldn’t be able to get a line on his babies, so it worked out really well for him here.”

He oversaw a Kentucky division for Clement for nearly five years. By then, says Colebrook, “It got to the point where it was time for me to do something on my own. And Christophe was good about it; he helped me out.”

Things began to fall into place.

The Ball family’s Donamire Farm was among Colebrook’s first owners, and to this day their support has been unwavering. For two decades, Katherine “Kay Kay” Ball, who’d met her husband Mike through John Colebrook, trained many of their horses herself, but she was ready to give Colebrook his shot. “I was always asking Ben when he was going to start training,” Ball says. When he called to tell her, she said, “Can you come to the barn?” Ten minutes later, she was showing him a filly, asking him if he wanted to train her. He did.

Colebook prepared to take his trainer’s test. The day he walked into the racing office, his former boss John Veitch, by then a Kentucky state steward, was sitting in there. Veitch asked, “Did you read the book? Did you study? Are you going to pass?” Colebrook said, “I think so.”

Veitch told him, “Go in there and get your damn license.”

This was during the era when the main track at Keeneland was a synthetic, all-weather surface, and not as many people were willing to train over it full time, so Colebrook was allocated space on Rice Road after another trainer was suspended and lost his stalls. “I snuck in. I was so lucky,” he says.

Colebrook started off slowly with his own stable—paying tribute to his mentor by training, Clement-style, in quarter sheets—while keeping a few horses for Clement. He made one start in 2012 and two late in the spring of 2013. But by autumn, he was better prepared; his first horse to hit the board was Donamire’s Holiday Stroll, third in a maiden at Kentucky Downs in September. In October, he saddled his first starters at Keeneland, breaking his career maiden with Mt Tronador for Darrell and Lendy Brown and English Estate. Colebrook’s runners also came in second twice and fourth once that month, from all his starters at the meet.

“I had four runners at Keeneland, and they all ran good. I’m thinking I’m like the big man on campus there until [Keeneland’s then-director of racing Rogers] Beasley called me into his office one day. He said, ‘How many horses did you run?’ I said, ‘Four.’ He said, ‘You have 15 stalls. Do you think that was enough starts?’ I called Christophe afterwards and I said, ‘Man, I’m going to have to hustle and get some horses here after the talking-to I just got.’ And the next meet at Keeneland, I don’t know how many horses I ran—anything with a mane or a tail—and I won a race. The next fall, I won the [Gr.3] Valley View [at Keeneland], and after that, it was pretty good with Beasley. I didn’t blame him. Those stalls are gold.”

Keeneland has been the scene of Colebrook’s milestones: in 2013, his first win; in 2014, his first Graded win, in the Valley View with Sparkling Review, who later won the Gr.2 Mrs. Revere at Churchill Downs; and in 2018, his first Gr.1 win.

He doesn’t love to talk about that Gr.1 winner, Knicks Go.

Colebrook trained Knicks Go for the Korea Racing Authority during the colt’s two- and three-year-old campaigns. They won Keeneland’s Gr.1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity by 5½ lengths at 70-1 and were a 40-1 second in the Sentient Jet Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

“I was probably a little naïve with him. He was so fast and so hard on himself in the morning, and I just kept thinking, ‘You’ve gotta get this horse to relax.’” 

Knicks Go made six starts, five in stakes, in a five-month span as a two-year-old and eight times—seven stakes—from February to November at three. Colebrook kept advising the owners that the colt needed a break, but they wanted to keep going. “He just lost his confidence and I…” he pauses, “I started to lose my mind.”

After his final start at three, Knicks Go—who was Horse of the Year at five—was switched over to Brad Cox. “He ran one big race with Brad [at allowance level], and then he got hurt and got more time off. Brad had a fresh horse and just got to send him, and that’s probably what he always wanted to do. But it is what it is.”

Limousine Liberal, ridden by José Ortiz, leads the field down the home stretch to win the 2017 Churchill Downs Stakes on Kentucky Derby Day.

Colebrook is happier to talk about the Ball homebred Limousine Liberal, who ran in Kay Kay Ball’s colors and won or placed 22 times in 27 starts, from 2015-2019. “The coolest thing about him is you didn’t need to worry about him; you didn’t worry if he was going to run his race today. You never know when you bring a horse over if they’re going to show up, but he always did. He was like an ATM machine,” he says.

The Successful Appeal sprinter set track records at Ellis Park and Keeneland, notched three Gr.2 races and a Gr.3 among his six stakes wins, and was second or third in 13 other Graded stakes—four of them Gr.1’s. He made his stakes debut in his third lifetime start, finishing second behind eventual champion sprinter Runhappy in the Gr.1 King’s Bishop at Saratoga.

Limousine Liberal was on the board—including a second by a nose, a second by a neck, and a third by a nose and a neck—in seven of eight tries at Keeneland; but he only won there once, in an allowance optional claimer. After one of those narrow losses, Mira Ball—the matriarch of the Donamire family—pulled Colebrook aside to tell him that the farm is “cursed” in Graded races at Keeneland. “Your horse ran awesome today,” she said. “I’m really proud of you, and I just want you to know it’s not your fault.” 

For his part, Colebrook was just as proud to give something back to the Ball family. “Donamire hadn’t had a good horse in forever, and Mike and Kay Kay had never really had a good one on their own, so Limousine Liberal definitely put the wind in everybody’s sails again. Kay Kay’s all in all the time, but you know, when you’re not having any luck, it’s not any fun.”

He also trained Edward Seltzer and Beverly Anderson’s Gr.3 Arlington Classic winner Surgical Strike, as well as the LNJ Foxwoods filly Fancy Dress Party, whose five wins in six starts include the Gr.3 Beaumont at Keeneland.

The Limousine Liberal years were a particular high point for Colebrook. “When I got Cash”  (that’s his dog; he and wife Marina also have a mini-Aussie, Luna),“I knew I was in for a dry spell,” he says. “Limousine Liberal won the [Gr.2] Belmont Sprint Championship, and I picked Cash up—I got him from a breeder in New York—and got on a private plane with Kay Kay and flew back home. I don’t think you could have a much better day than that: get a new dog, win a Graded stake, and fly back on a private jet. I knew that I’d be paying for that, with the highs and lows—that there would be some big lows.”

That’s the natural cycle of the business: an abundance of lows relative to the highs—more so for a trainer with a small-to-medium stable, which, in Colebrook’s case, is by choice. He hopes simply to maintain what he considers a manageable stable of 50—his “sweet spot.”

He says, “Any more than that, I can’t find the help to do it. Right after Sparkling Review, I got a lot of horses. It all happened so fast, and suddenly, I had 70 horses. If I could have them all in one place it would be different, but I don’t want to have all these strings everywhere and a bunch of assistants. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

“But in saying that, it’s hard to maintain a medium-sized stable. If you limit your size, you’re going to get less good horses, and then you hit dry spells where you don’t have any good horses. I could have taken that next step and tried to get 100. Horses are probably the easy part,” he says. “It’s getting the good horses in the barn that’s the hard part. I think also numbers erase mistakes, so if you have 100 horses and you make a couple of mistakes with some good three-year-olds or two-year-olds, they don’t get noticed. But if you don’t have that many and make some mistakes, you don’t have any horses. It’s a numbers game after all, unfortunately.”

Raise Cain

Colebrook has done enough right with Raise Cain that, all being well, the colt is poised to become his first starter in a Triple Crown race. Although he was only fifth in the Blue Grass, he ran wide and covered a lot of extra ground to put in an encouraging closing move, clocking the final eighth faster than any but the first two home. Scoobie Quando finished ninth, ending all hope that Colebrook and the Warrens would have two in the Derby; but in this numbers game, one Kentucky Derby starter is more than most people get in their lifetime.

Although the Warren surname is well known in association with 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam and 2018 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner City of Light, those horses ran for Andrew Warren’s parents, William Jr. and Suzanne. This is only Andrew and Rania Warren’s third crop of three-year-olds under their banner: in January, Scoobie Quando became their first stakes winner, while just two months later, Raise Cain was their first Graded stakes winner. They’d been introduced to Colebrook by veterinarian Greg Fox, a former trainer who’s now the U.S. representative for the Australian company E-Trakka. Heart rate, speed, stride lengt, and other data from all the Warren trainees is monitored using E-Trakka pads during their breezes, as a complement to what the trainer sees visually.

No data is required to recognize that Colebrook’s profile is on the ascent again, but he’s been grinding long enough to know that moments like this are not the norm. On freezing winter mornings, the rail on the all-weather training track at Keeneland is a lonely place. With a laugh, he says that his goals are to “make payroll, pay bills.”

Of course he has loftier aspirations than that, but the reality is that while such modest goals may seem self-deprecating, it’s a reflection of the state of the industry, which relies heavily on its being a labor of love at every level. He says, “The horse business and horse racing have gone two separate ways, and it’s become too much of a business and not enough of a sport and a passion for people.”

It’s not getting any easier.

With the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) in place now, one uncertainty moving forward has replaced the previously existing uncertainty moving forward. Colebrook approaches government oversight with an open mind. “I went to all the meetings about the Horse Racing Integrity Act, so I would say I was a supporter of it for sure, but when it launched, I just felt like there was a big disconnect,” he says.

“I felt like they were listening to very few voices. I talked to [HISA chief executive officer] Lisa Lazarus, and to be honest, it set my mind at ease a little bit that they are starting to realize that maybe they don’t know everything, and that trainers aren’t all Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. The industry has done a terrible job policing itself, but I think that now they realize that the more voices and the more people that you can listen to is a good thing. They put people on there that were also anti-HISA, so I think that’s good because if you’re just going to be a sounding board for it, that’s not really what they need to hear. Everybody sees the world through their own point of view, and if you’re only looking at it one way, you’re probably going to miss a lot. And if you take a lot of vantage points and put them all together, you might get to the actual issues and what needs to be changed.”

One thing he would like to see differently is other areas of the industry taking more responsibility for problems created before the horses even reach trainers. “It’s fine to have us change everything we’ve done,” he says, “but I think we need to look at how we’re raising and breeding horses. What has more of an effect on soundness: breeding a mare that made one or two starts to a stallion that made one or two starts, or the fact that that stallion ran on Lasix? Whether you’re pro-Lasix or anti-Lasix, it’s the one thing that divides everybody. I think they could agree on 99% of the other stuff. Nobody wants cheaters. Everyone wants horse welfare, aftercare. All these are things that if you don’t agree with, why are you in the horse business?”

As for Colebrook, well, there’s no great mystery as to why a kid who started out riding a pony around a farm track just a few miles down the winding back roads of Keeneland is in the horse business. That he should end up where he is now, making a name for himself so close to where it all began, is his success story.

Years ago, when he first ran a horse for Donamire, someone asked one of the Balls, “Who the hell is Ben Colebrook? Why’d you send him a horse?”

Regardless of what happens in the Classics this year, by now, no one needs to wonder anymore.

Irishman Brendan Walsh Strikes Gold in America

Article by Ken Snyder

The expression “luck of the Irish,” strangely, originated in America from the seemingly uncanny ability of Irish and Irish-American miners to strike it rich in the 19th-century California Gold Rush. 

Irish trainer Brendan Walsh from County Cork has also “struck gold” on racetracks throughout America and lots of it. His proteges in 2022 earned $8.3 million after 2021 earnings of $7.5 million. Here’s the real motherlode of surprises about those totals: his previous best year was 2019 when his horses earned a relatively paltry $3.8 million.

The soft-spoken trainer modestly dismisses his personal “gold rush” with a simple and ironic “I got lucky.”

Luck and being Irish had nothing to do with it, of course. The reality with Walsh can be summed up, not in a myth, but in an accepted truth: luck is the residue of hard work. 

Walsh’s success began not with a promising two-year-old, a typical route to the stratosphere of trainer earnings, but with a $10,000 claimer. There is maybe some luck there, but keen judgment is the “residue” of hard work. It takes a willingness to closely watch Thoroughbreds— another trainer’s horse or horses. And that’s more than just watching race replays. It’s morning workouts surreptitiously watching a prospective claim, getting good looks at conformation in paddocks and stable areas, poring through past performance for strengths and weaknesses of another trainer with a specific type of horse, knowledge of pedigree, and more, all to find a hidden gem. 

Cary Street was the prize jewel for Walsh. “I owned half of him for most of his career. He paid a lot of bills, won a couple of stakes, and he got me noticed. No matter how many decent horses I’ve trained since, I probably owe more to him than I do any other.”

That a horse running in a $10,000 claiming race could achieve what this one accomplished demanded extraordinary foresight. Walsh believed that a different direction was all the horse needed to realize potential. “I thought he was an out-and-out two-turn horse, and he was sitting on a win. We just worked on him and gave him a lot of time.”

Walsh missed the two-turn prognosis by one turn. In 2014, Cary Street won the Las Vegas Marathon Stakes at Santa Anita, a mile-and-three-quarter Grade 2 race by a whopping nine-length margin…going three turns. Roughly three months earlier, Cary Street won the Greenwood Cup Stakes, a Gr. 3 mile-and-a-half affair at Parx Racing in Philadelphia after only one win in allowance company. Not surprisingly, he was a 28-to-1 long shot. 

Both races were stellar performances—the Philly race earning a 107 Equibase speed figure and a 108 in the Las Vegas stakes race. 

“If Cary Street hadn’t come along, who knows?” said Walsh with a shrug. “People that don’t make it, a lot of the time it’s not for their lack of ability. You just have to get the breaks.”

“Breaks'' don't account for spotting what turned out to be an extraordinary route runner who earned $381,515 in purses. One factor in Walsh’s success has been exposure to racing globally. Starting at the National Stud in Kildangan in his native Ireland, racing has taken him to Dubai, the Orient, and Arlington Park with Godolphin; and to England and Newmarket where he got his first assistant trainer’s job under Mark Wallace. (Godolphin was to figure prominently later in Walsh’s career.) 

His training career in America began when he met countryman and conditioner Eddie Kenneally while on vacation in the U.S. Kenneally invited him to come back at any time to work for him. Walsh took him up on the offer and spent more than three years with him.

It was at Palm Meadows in Florida where Walsh decided “my time has come. I started with six horses. I had a bridle and saddle. I got six stalls at the track, and away you go,” he said with a laugh. 

Not just experience, but the right experience was the best teacher for Walsh. “He [Kenneally] had all kinds of horses—some very good ones—and he dabbled in claiming horses as well. It was a very good education as opposed to going with someone who has a huge barn. You learn about all aspects of training, which was very important to me.”

Oddly, as a native of horse-mad Ireland, American racing always intrigued him. Two summers with Godolphin galloping horses at Arlington Park planted the seed. 

“Adjustment-wise, when I came to train in the U.S., it was a whole different ball game. The dirt. The speed. Especially on the dirt, you have to be more aggressive in your preparation, especially young horses starting out, or else you’re going to get buried.

While Ireland is a nation of only 4.9 million, it is surprisingly the largest producer of Thoroughbreds in Europe and third largest behind the U.S. and Australia globally. Another measure of Ireland’s prominence is in Thoroughbred breeding; six out of the current top ten stallions in Europe are Irish-bred, double that of England, the second in the standings for stallions. Despite the wealth of horses, entry into Irish racing is not without obstacles for someone wanting to train, according to Walsh.

“It was very hard for me to have an opportunity to get going in Ireland. There you gotta have a yard. You have to have the backing, and the prize money is not that great.”

The open door with Kenneally opened his eyes to opportunity in this country. “I thought, maybe this is my chance to have a go myself,” he said. 

Walsh, who hung his shingle here in the U.S. in 2012, is a repository of insight on both the differences between Irish and American racing and also how similarities have evolved in training methods between the two countries. 

Despite repeated success in global events, particularly in the Breeders’ Cup, Walsh believes his countrymen have gone to school on American methods. “When Wesley Ward went over there initially, his horses were hitting the gate so quick and rolling. They were so well prepared. I think it’s actually changed things in Europe a little bit. I think the Europeans may be starting to be a little bit more aggressive with their horses, especially when they have Ascot in mind.”

In Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, many horses no longer get an automatic four-month turnout as has been customary. “That’s changed in Europe now with so many more all-weather tracks,” he said, noting that people are becoming conditioned to year-round racing. “If a horse is sound and he’s doing well, why stop on him for the winter or whatever?”

Still, Ireland has twenty-six racetracks in a country which, in land area, would fit within Texas’ borders twice. Yet, Irish horses won six of the fourteen 2022 Breeders’ Cup races. (U.S.-breds won seven.) 

Despite this year’s success of Irish-breds in the Breeders’ Cup and long-standing success with turf races over the years, Walsh sees a change in American horses. “There’s huge improvement with the standard of turf runners compared to ten or twelve years ago. The standard of turf racing in the United States is a lot higher than what it used to be.”  

In addition to Ward, Walsh points to trainer Chad Brown as someone producing fantastic turf horses in the last few years. “Bobby Frankel kind of started it,” he added. Brown, perhaps not surprisingly, was an assistant to Frankel before launching out on his own.

As for Irish horses and the Breeders’ Cup, Walsh said, “It’s not a ‘penalty kick’ anymore to bring a horse from Europe,” referencing a high-percentage soccer goal where a single player faces the goalkeeper. In the past,” he added, “a horse bordering on ‘listed class’ in Europe [just below Gp. 1, 2 or 3 races] would win Gr. 2 or 3 races in the U.S.

“It’s not a ‘gimme’ anymore.”

Ireland produces what it does, in part, due to calcium-rich soil much like Kentucky’s—a temperate climate; but perhaps most important, Ireland is a nation where most of the sports focus is on horse racing.

Walsh recalled in his youth that “everybody in Ireland knew somebody who had a horse.” Today, he said, “It’s a little bit like Australia where everybody watches the Grand National. With Cheltenham, everybody has just gone nuts,” said Walsh of the four-day racing festival in southwestern English that pits Irish horses against English-breds and others from continental Europe. “Everybody is in the betting shops during Cheltenham betting on something or other.”

With a smile and probably unable to resist, Walsh observed, regarding Irish versus English horses, “We’ve been wiping the floor with them for a long time.”

Walsh’s exposure to horses came through his father and trips to Cork Racecourse in their home county, engendering in him “from the start” a desire to be a jockey. However, by the time schooling was over, jockeying no longer interested him. Thoroughbred breeding instead became an interest, and he got a spot in Ireland’s National Stud in County Kildare. However, his size and riding background got him started as an exercise rider. “Kildangan used to break and re-train all of Sheikh Mohammed’s and Godolphin Stables’ yearlings and two-year-olds before going on to trainers.”

Walsh was selected in his first year at Kildangan to go to Dubai with Godolphin to gallop the stable’s two-year-old horses. There he got to know Saeed bin Suroor and Tom Albertrani, bin Suroor’s assistant at the time.

“I was lucky enough when I worked for them to travel all over Europe and run horses. I brought horses to Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. You can’t put a price on that.

“Since Kildangan, you’re probably talking twenty-five years that Godolphin has had an influence on my career.”

Success with Walsh’s horse Plus Que Parfait in the UAE Derby in 2019 was a career changer attracting the attention of the globally prominent Godolphin stable. “They came along when I came back from Dubai that year.”  

Did they ever? Included in the first crop of two-year-olds sent to Walsh was Maxfield, winner of eight out of eleven starts including five Gr. 1 wins and purse earnings topping $2 million. A significant part of ’21 earnings was Maxfield contributing approximately $1.5 million to the bottom line.

As an incredible 2021 has been topped by an even better 2022, a question arises: does he envision getting to the heights of Todd Pletcher, Steve Asmussen, et al. “That would be great. It’s nice to be even thought of as being up to that standard. They’re very good trainers, and they have fantastic horses. A lot of it is the stock and managing it.”

As for managing 200 horses at multiple racetracks around the country like the aforementioned trainers, Walsh is ambivalent. “I don’t know that I would. If you’ve got the team and the owners, you can manage it.” He added: “I’ve got a great team right now.”

Despite the resources to possibly return to Ireland and train there, it is not something that is top of mind. “You do miss certain things. 

“The world is a small place. I can get on a plane in Boston and be home in six hours. I come from a family of seven. All of them are in Ireland except one of us--a sister who lives in Jersey [the island in the English Channel and not the state].

“No one else in my family is in racing, but they follow it. They’ve gotten hold of Equibase so they’re keeping up with it pretty good. I go home at least once a year. I don’t stay for too long—five or six days—because I get antsy about what’s going on back here.”

Aside from family, Walsh jokes that other Irish “probably look at me as being an American.”

A win in the Breeders’ Cup—an event followed closely by Ireland’s racing fans (and justifiably so considering 2022 success)—would put him in the spotlight back home, he said.

Santin was a prospect for this year’s event after a win in the 2022 Gr. 1 Arlington Million but was saved for the Clark Handicap after a disappointing finish in his next start in the Coolmore Turf Mile.

Walsh has perhaps become “Americanized” when asked which he would prefer between a win in the Breeders’ Cup or Kentucky Derby. “That’s a hard one to call. When you’re in this country long enough, everybody wants to win the Derby.”

Obviously, the training ability is there with Walsh as well as the trust of racing outfits like Godolphin that can provide him with the best Thoroughbreds. 

Luck of the Irish? If there really is such a thing, Walsh won’t need it.

Alfredo Marquez: Raised at the Racetrack

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

Being “raised at the racetrack” takes on the true meaning of the phrase when one is referring to trainer Alfredo Marquez. The California conditioner, now 75, was introduced to the backside of a racecourse when he was just a month old. 

Article by Annie Lambert

The old Agua Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico, has tethered Alfredo Marquez to Thoroughbred racing and his roots in Mexico for a lifetime. He spends off days from his California training barns at his home in Tijuana, a gated community literally built in an area where Caliente’s old barns once stood.

“That’s where I still live,” Marquez affirmed. “I still live basically in the barn area. We have a gated community where they tore out like six barns; there is a fence between the other barns and our homes. Most of the old barns are still there. They got bears, lions, tigers, elephants and a few Andalusian horses…all the barns are occupied by different kinds of animals.”

The “old” Caliente hosted Thoroughbred horse racing between late 1929 until the early 1990s, a golden era for the racecourse. Greyhound racing seven nights a week now satisfies the live racing obligation needed to continue their simulcast signal.

But, how did wild animals come to replace racehorses in the old stable area?

Jorge Hank Rhon was raised in Mexico by his wealthy, powerful German immigrant parents. Before taking over the Agua Caliente track in 1984, he moved to Tijuana from Mexico City where he had been an exotic animal trader. Rhon owned nine pet shops, six veterinary clinics and a dolphin show.

Before moving, he sold his businesses—many of which were paid for in part with exotic animals: rhino, leopards, cougars, panthers, tigers and even the Andalusians. During the evening horse races, Caliente spectators were able to watch some of the menagerie roaming on the infield.

Rhon still owns Grupo Caliente, Mexico’s largest sports betting company.

What does Rhon do with the animals? “Feeds ‘em,” Marquez said with a laugh. “It’s like a small private zoo for the owner of the track. He’s an animal lover.”

Rearview Mirror

The Marquez family has been a part of Caliente’s storied history—as well as California tracks—for several generations; nearly every Marquez family member is or has been a racetracker. They worked at tracks like Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Golden Gate, Bay Meadows and mostly Del Mar “because it’s only a jump from Tijuana.”

Marquez’s brother, Saul Marquez, is currently a jockey valet for Juan Hernandez (current leading rider at Santa Anita), Franklin Calles and Ricardo Gonzalez at Santa Anita. Saul’s son, Saul Jr., was a jockey agent for a long time and worked sales at horse auctions. He now runs his own business as an independent trucker. A nephew, Victor Garcia, is the son of former jockey Juan Garcia and is also a trainer at Santa Anita.

“A lot of my Tijuana family, most of them, worked at the track,” Marquez said. “They were grooms, trainers, assistant trainers, pony boys, exercise riders and jockeys.

From an early age, Marquez,  worked within the Thoroughbred racing industry in many capacities. His one wish from the beginning was to own a racehorse. 

“My main goal was to own horses,” Marquez said. “That was it from day one, since I was born. I had a horse when I was young. My dad bought me a horse for my birthday when I was seven. I sold it when I was eight. It was a riding horse, a filly. In those days [in Tijuana], there were no cars. You walked to school, which was not too far from home, and you walked to the racetrack.”

 Marquez claimed his first horse for $1,000 in 1964, at the age of 16. He took a horse named Social Book off Wes Cain and the owner, Mrs. Morton. Those connections claimed the horse back just three weeks later for $1,400.

“They sent him up north, and he made like $50,000,” Marquez said of Social Book.

His second claim was Cahill Kid, trained by then leading trainer, C.L. Clayton.

“That was a very, very nice horse—a stud,” Marquez recalled. “I ran him six times and had four wins, a second and a third. I lost him for $1,600. I think all together I made about $7,800 in three months, which was a lot of money then and a lot more nowadays.”

“I bought a Chevrolet Impala in Mexico with the money,” Marquez added. “I also bought property—a lot that I built apartments on later—like in 1968, I finished building.”

While he was claiming his first horses, Marquez worked for trainer L.J. Brooks until he was “17 or 18,” before going to work for a smaller trainer with only a couple of horses. Marquez remembers one really nice gray horse he handled, The Roan Clown—a two-time winner at Pomona.

Motivos & More

The English translation for motivo is “a reason for doing something, causing or being the reason for something.” Motivos was a horse perfectly named to become the young trainer’s favorite horse—a horse he owned himself.

“I had Motivos, a Mexican bred,” Marquez explained. “He ran twice in California, then I took him back to Mexico, to Tijuana. In one year, he was Sprinter of the Year, Miler of the Year and Horse of the Year. In the 1980s, he took everything—running from 5 ½ furlongs, a flat mile, a mile and an eighth and mile and a quarter.”

“What I admired about that horse was, when he goes short, he goes to the lead and they never catch him,” the trainer added. “And when you go a mile or more, he breaks on top, and he lays back second or third; he doesn’t go past, then he makes a run. He’s just like a human. I’ve never seen any horse like him, ever. He was amazing—amazing—and he was so smart.”

Motivos even ran second in the $250,000-added Clásico Internacional del Caribe (Caribbean Derby), the most important Thoroughbred black-type stakes race in the Caribbean for three-year-olds. The Caribe is for the best colts and fillies from the countries that are members of the Confederación Hipica del Caribe; the race rotates between those countries each year.

In 1988, the Caribe was held at Caliente. Marquez ran Don Gabriel (MEX) and Joseph (MEX), both colts owned by Cuadra San Gabriel. “Don Gabriel won it, and Joseph ran second,” Marquez said. “Nobody had ever run one-two before.”

With Equibase earnings of $8,384,323, Marquez has trained multiple graded-stakes winners over the years.

Melanyhasthepapers (Game Plan) was purchased as a yearling for $40,000 out of the Washington sale at Emerald Downs by owners Ron and Susie Anson. They named the colt after Melanie Stubblefield who handled all the registration papers at Santa Anita for decades.

Melanyhasthepapers

“I bought the colt off the Ansons for $40,000 when they retired from owning horses,” Marquez remembered. “He ended up being a stake horse.”

Melanyhasthepapers earned $311,152 between 2003 and 2006 including five wins; the horse won the Cougar II Stakes at Hollywood Park, ran second in the All-American Handicap (G3) at Golden Gate and third in Santa Anita’s Tokyo City Handicap (G3).

Tali’sluckybusride

The Ansons also purchased Tali’sluckybusride as a yearling out of the 2000 Washington sale for $23,000. The Delineator filly went on to win the Oak Leaf Stakes (G1) and was third in both the Hollywood Starlet Stakes (G1) and Las Virgenes Stakes (G1). She ultimately earned $245,160.

Ron Anson obviously had an eye for a runner. “Ron was pretty good at claiming horses and buying them privately,” Marquez said. “He died last year.” 

Marquez-trained stakes horses include: Martha and Ray Kuehn’s - Irish (Melyno (IRE)) that won the Bay Meadows Derby (G3); Anson’s - Irguns Angel (Irgun) topped the A Gleam Handicap (G2), ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye; and their gelding, Peach Flat (Cari Jill Hajji), was triumphant in the All-American Handicap (G3).  

 “We claimed Peach Flat up north at Bay Meadows for $20,000—his second start,” Marquez pointed out. “We won seven races with him.”

Tali’sluckybusride

The Border & Beyond

Marquez used to check on sales yearlings at Gillermo Elizondo Collard’s Rancho Natoches in Sinaloa, Mexico. In 1989, between inspecting sales yearlings, he spotted a mare with a baby at her side that caught his eye.

“It’s a big, beautiful farm,” Marquez pointed out. “I’m checking those horses, and I see this mare with a little baby—probably five months old. The owner bought the mare at Pomona in foal to La Natural; this is that baby.”

When Marquez inquired about buying the La Natural, the owner informed him that the colt was Mexican-bred, not Cal-bred. The trainer wrote a check for what had been paid for the mare – he thinks $6,000 – and asked that the baby be delivered to him at Caliente as a two-year-old.

“I waited almost two years,” Marquez said. “I got him and two other horses [for training] delivered to quarantine at Caliente Racetrack. I broke him at Caliente along with the other two.”

The La Natural colt, named Ocean Native, made his first start for Marquez at Del Mar in 1991 in a $50,000 maiden-claiming race with Kent Desormeaux riding. The dark bay gelding won going away first time out. Less than three weeks later, Desormeaux rode him back for a second win in the Saddleback Stakes at Los Alamitos.

After running up and down the claiming ranks, Marquez lost Ocean Native on a win for a $25,000 tag at Del Mar in 1993. The durable gelding was hardly finished, however. He ultimately ran fourth in his last race with a $3,000 tag in 1999 at Evangeline Downs. Ocean Native ran 77 times, won 12 races and earned $155,194.

One of the babies that arrived at Caliente with Ocean Native was a Pirate’s Bounty named Tajo. Marquez remembered the colt as “a really nice horse that broke his maiden at Del Mar; and he also won an allowance at Hollywood Park second time out.” 

The Anson’s Lord Sterling (Black Tie Affair [IRE]) took his connections on a two-week trip to Tokyo, Japan, for the very first running of the Japan Cup Dirt (G1).  

Lord Sterling

In late 1998, Marquez claimed Lord Sterling from Jerry Hollendorfer at Golden Gate, in just his second out for $50,000. The horse had run second his first out there in a $25,000 maiden claimer. 

Over the next two years, Lord Sterling won four additional races for Marquez including a listed stake at Santa Rosa. In October of 2000, the horse finished second in the Meadowlands Cup Handicap (Gr.2) as the longest shot on the board. That effort punched his ticket to Japan.

 “We were invited and almost won the race,” Marquez recalled with enthusiasm. “[Lord Sterling] ran a big, big third in a $2.5 million race. We went back the following year with another of Anson’s horses, Sign of Fire.”

Sign of Fire (Groomstick), a graded-stakes placed runner, unfortunately bled and ran out of the money. 

“Tokyo is like five racetracks in one,” Marquez said. “They got turf, dirt, a bigger turf and steeplechase. They only ran Saturday and Sunday. But, like on Friday, you see hundreds of people sleeping on the sidewalk so they can go into the races. They limit it to, I think, 100,000 people. They gamble, and I mean they really gamble…

“You know what’s really amazing? When the horses come out of the gate, everybody gets quiet until the race is over; it is total silence.”

Love & Compassion 

Marquez commutes between his Tijuana home and Southern California tracks—roughly a three-hour drive to Santa Anita. He spends a few days each week in Mexico, depending on his schedule—a routine that has sustained him for 40 years.

He and his wife, Angela, a certified public accountant, have four children. His son and three daughters were not encouraged to pursue racetrack careers, according to their father. The kids are smart, educated and on the road to bright futures.

“I wanted them to buy property instead of horses,” Marquez explained. “Real estate—that’s where the money is. Horses are fun, and when you race, you enjoy as much as possible; but you can’t win every time.”

Marquez’s son Jonathon graduated from San Francisco State University. He and Angela  recently traveled to Boston to see Jonathon receive his Masters Degree in speech therapy. Their daughter Brenda graduated from Grand Canyon University of Phoenix with a Masters in Education and is teaching. Daughter Georgette teaches in San Diego and another daughter, Yvette, evaluates autistic children. 

Although Marquez encouraged his children to pursue education and positive careers, he loves “everything racetrack,” especially training and owning horses. He also takes compassionate aftercare of his trainees.

Marquez claimed Starting Bloc (More Than Ready) in the spring of 2018 for $50,000 out of the Richard Mandella barn. The colt ran 15 times for Marquez, picking up 11 checks, including three wins. 

When his horses show signs of being at the end of their careers, Marquez has a solution.

“We’ve still got Starting Bloc up at the ranch in Nevada,” Marquez said. “My owner, Robert Cannon’s son, Michael, has a big, 5,000 head cattle ranch up there. [Retired horses] have a whole big field. It’s their home for life.”

Lil Milo (Rocky Bar) is another of Marquez’s horses headed to the ranch for life. “He won the Clocker’s Corner Stakes the last time he ran,” the trainer pointed out. “His owner Dr. [Jack] Weinstein died right after the horse won, like a month later.”

Most of his career, Marquez trained a barn of 40 to 45 horses. Most of his owners became like family; and as they aged and drifted out of the horse business or passed on, Marquez also slowed down.

“When they retired, I retired,” he explained. “Right now, I’ve got the smallest barn as possible—only six to eight horses. But I’m going to stay in business until I drop. You have to have your mind working all the time. I don’t want to stop.”

Marquez recalls all of the many great horses he has trained with enthusiasm and can rattle off stories of every one. As he says, “I’ve been so lucky to own horses. They are still in my memory, in my heart.”

John Sadler - Trainer of superstar racehorse Flightline

Article by Annie Lambert

Trainer John Sadler has aimed at a career in the equine industry since he was a small child. His resolve landed him exactly where he needed to be.

Who knew that a little boy’s encounter with horses in a field adjacent to a family’s summer vacation home would set a course toward a lifelong career with horses? That young boy was California-based trainer John Sadler. 

It was Sadler’s connection to horses that kept him on course to become a successful horseman. “I always wanted to work with horses,” he recalled. 

The trainer’s equine experiences evolved from simple riding lessons to appease his mother, to showing hunters and jumpers and then, on to a natural progression within the Thoroughbred racing industry. Each chapter of Sadler’s equine journey has been fruitful.

He was an outstanding rider in the show ring and now sits among the best trainers in the racing industry. As of October 11, 2022, Sadler has amassed earnings of $141,058,895. Horses like Accelerate, Stellar Wind, Switch, Higher Power and current superstar Flightline have greatly enhanced his coffers.

While Sadler seems a humble guy, his accumulating milestones are worth boasting about. The kid attracted to horses at first glance is definitely making the most of his passion.

Lessons Learned

John Sadler - jumping - mr cove

Sadler was born in Long Beach, California, but was raised in nearby Pasadena. His family was summering at a house near the beach in Palos Verdes when his equine passion bloomed.

“We spent one summer at the beach, and some people had horses in their backyard,” Sadler recalled. ”I told my mother I’d like to ride the horses, but she told me I had to take lessons if I wanted to ride. So, when I was very young, I took riding lessons in Palos Verdes.”

When summer ended, the new equestrian wanted to keep up with his lessons and found himself riding at Flintridge Riding Club in La Canada, in the shadow of the Rose Bowl, all through high school. Riding with Jimmy A. Williams, a renowned horseman, helped Sadler excel at riding show horses.

Dianne Grod, a respected trainer and rider of Gran Prix jumpers now retired and living in Ocala, Florida, remembered Sadler’s ability. “He rode hunters well, he rode the jumpers well and he equitated well,” Grod said. “And back then, everybody did all three divisions on the same horse.”

 During his high school years, Sadler competed for a position on the United States Equestrian Team during their West coast screening trials held at Foxfield Riding School at Lake Sherwood, outside of Los Angeles. 

During Sadler’s show jumping era, his parents became involved in Thoroughbred racing on a small scale.

“My parents had a fractional interest in a couple of racehorses with a group from Pasadena and San Marino,” Sadler explained. “Impossible Stables, Inc., was a fun group of people who were social friends. I would go out to the track with my parents and watch the horses run, so I got involved with the track early.”

Sadler admits the years have somewhat run together, making exact dates hard to recall, but during a couple of high school summers he found himself walking hots at Del Mar.

His racetrack career had begun.

Racetrack Basics

With his family spending a couple summers near Oceanside, Sadler headed to the track and a job walking hots for now retired trainer Tom Pratt, (Chiapas, Mexico). Pratt was a stepping stone on Sadler’s career path.

“He was a good and talented employee,” Pratt offered. That was high praise for a teenaged hotwalker learning the ropes. 

Once he graduated high school, Sadler headed to the University of Oregon in Eugene. The Liberal Arts/English major self-admittedly that he “was not really a focused student.” He did, however, confess to taking half of the fraternity house to Portland Meadows racetrack one day, which was “a good trip.”

It was not hard to believe that the young horseman made a beeline back to the track following college. His learning was more focused around the horses, and he began studying the industry from within.

Sadler went to work as an assistant to veterinarian Dr. Jack Robbins during the 1970s. Robbins, who passed away in 2014, remains an iconic figure in the history of racing.

“I was his assistant for a couple of years,” Sadler said. “I always credit him a lot; I learned a lot from him. He was a great guy…a successful owner, a very successful veterinarian and he was one of the founders of the Oak Tree Racing Association. Not only did he have the veterinary knowledge, he had a good overview of the whole game.”

Sadler did not give serious consideration to becoming a veterinarian, but he did learn a lot from Robbins and the doctor’s top tier clientele. 

“It was just fun to go into all these barns, every single day,” Sadler reminisced. “You’re talking about names like Noble Threewitt, Lester Holt, Joe Manzi, Ron McAnally, Gary Jones, Warren Stute, John Sullivan, Buster Millerick…I mean, all the guys that were kind of the backbone of California. I always tried to take something from all of them—all of those great trainers.” 

The Conditioner

After working for Robbins, Sadler went to work for David Hofmans as an assistant trainer for a year or more. “There is no nicer person than Dave,” Sadler recalled. The boss also appreciated his assistant.

“He was great—a real help to me,” Hofmans said of Sadler. “Working with Jack Robbins gave him an overall picture of what was going on [with veterinary issues]. Dr. Robbins worked for many people, so John got to learn and understand medications and stuff. John was a very smart guy, very astute, and he paid attention to detail. He was great, and I was sad to see him leave.”

In about 1978, Sadler had the opportunity to oversee the late Eddie Gregson’s Northern California string—his first job training on his own.

“Eddie had a lot of horses at that time and was looking to have a trainer up north,” Sadler explained. “He proposed the idea of me going up there on his behest; I trained up there for a year or a year and a half.”

Tom Pratt decided to retire about that time and kindly offered Sadler an option of taking over a few of his horses.

“Pratt said he had four or five horses that I could train,” Sadler said. “I came back to Southern California and of the 30 horses I had up north, about four or five were good enough to come down here, so that’s how I got started here. These guys were all so good to me.”

Pratt’s trust in Sadler was evident.

“When I quit training, I turned over most of my clients to him,” he recalled. “I also bought a few horses with partners and gave him those to train. I had confidence in him and was happy to give him a big leg up to what has become a very successful career.”

Keeping Course

His first year as a licensed trainer Sadler ran Gregson’s horses as well as a few starters of his own. His 1978 Equibase records showed four starters with one running third and earnings of $2,700. But, that was just the beginning. He currently has 2713 wins, and counting.

Sadler’s first winner was Top Taker (Top Conference). His record has grown exponentially over the past 44 years as a trainer. As he put it: “As the years progressed, I got better stock, obviously. It’s been kind of a natural progression.”

That progression included a slew of graded stakes winners. Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky)—the top earner to date with $6,692,480—was the Eclipse Award 2018 Champion Older Dirt Male. His accolades include winning five Gr. 1 races and the 2018 Breeders’ Cup Classic. The stallion now stands at Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky. Sadler has several of his first crop two-year-olds in training.

“I’ve got four or five nice ones,” he revealed. “One ran third the other day; they are good looking prospects.”

Stellar Wind (Curlin) was a star for Sadler—being his second highest earner to date with $2,903,200. Owner Hronis Racing sold her through the 2017 Keeneland November Mixed Sale for $6 million, going to M.V. Magnier/Coolmore. Trainer Chad Brown ran her in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes (G1) the following January. The mare finished out of the money after a bobbled start in her final race.

Switch (Quiet American) earned $1,479,562 for owner CRK Stable. She was twice second and once third in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint between 2010 and 2012. She was sold at the 2012 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Mixed sale for $4.3 million to Moyglare Stud Farm.

“She almost beat Zenyatta one day at Hollywood Park,” Sadler recalled. “She lost narrowly, by a head or something. One of the times she ran second at the Breeders' Cup, she was beaten by Musical Romance, who was ridden by my assistant trainer, Juan Leyva.” 

Higher Power (Medaglia D’Oro) added $1,594,648 to the Hronis Racing coffers. He won five of his 20 lifetime starts, including the 2019 Pacific Classic (G1) as well as running third in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Classic. The bay now stands at Darby Dan Farm in Kentucky.

Sadler currently has Flightline (Tapit), arguably the best dirt horse in the world, and ranked globally a close second to champion British turf star Baaeed (Sea The Stars (IRE). Flightline is (at the time of writing) five-for-five and a likely starter in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The colt, owned by Hronis Racing, Siena Farm, Summer Wind Equine, West Point Thoroughbreds and Woodford Racing was a $1 million yearling purchase. And, he was more than worth the price.

Flightline has proven his prowess with amazing ease so far; competitors are not able to touch him. With Flavien Prat, his only jockey to date, the four-year-old won his first three starts, last year, by a total of 37 lengths. 

In June this year, he won his fourth start in the Metropolitan Mile at Belmont by six lengths. His most mind-boggling win came when he dominated his rivals with a nearly 20-length victory in the Pacific Classic (G1) at Del Mar, effectively extinguishing doubts that he could go the mile and a quarter. Prat looked over his shoulder when he couldn’t hear hoof beats behind him and eased his colt to the wire.

Admirers calculate he has won his five races by a total of more than 62 lengths. Let that sink in.

Flightline may have dominated the 2021 Triple Crown series had he not been injured while being started as a two-year-old. The colt was in Ocala when the latch on a stall door compromised his hind leg.

“I wasn’t there, but it was at least six to eight inches,” Sadler said of the wound. “It was pretty deep, pretty ugly. That was one of the reasons he didn’t get to me until later.”

Flightline’s effective stride probably has a lot to do with his effortless proficiency over the racetrack. But with all his talent, the colt is not a piece of cake to train. His personality could be called cheeky, exuberant or brazen on any given day.

“He’s a very tough horse to gallop,” Sadler said. “In the barn he’s not a pussycat—he’s all horse. He’s all man, that’s for sure.”

“He really does have a big stride,” Sadler added. “He’s just one of those exceptional horses that comes along very rarely in the Thoroughbred world. I’m just trying to enjoy him every single day, because he’s that special. It’s really exciting; I feel very blessed to have him.”

Flightline’s future will be determined following his run in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. According to Sadler, the ownership group is an agreeable lot. Upon retirement, he will stand at Lane’s End Farm.

“The decision will be made after the Breeders' Cup,” Sadler confirmed. “You want to see where the horse is after that race. And it’s not like anybody has a closed mind, one way or the other. We’ll wait and see what happens.”

It seems obvious that Sadler truly enjoys horses and particularly training racehorses. His barn is a well-oiled machine, with some employees that have been with him 20 and even 30 years. His barn is a team, a group effort.

“You want to like your employees because you spend so much time with them out here at the track,” he said. “I’m really pleased—I’ve got a really good crew; I’m blessed that way. Horses are hard; there are no cutting corners—no way to take two days off. It doesn’t work that way. I think a lot of guys like the routine. They know what’s expected of them; and if they like to work, it’s a great job.”

Sadler is not a man who toots his own horn. Hofmans remembers him as “a quiet guy” who always paid attention. John Sadler’s modesty seems refreshing in such a competitive industry.

A Fast Match

California-based trainer John Sadler has many accolades to his credit. One event that has gone fairly unnoticed through the years is a match race that took place in 1991.

The race was an idea that spun out of the racing office at the time. They wanted to match the three-time Quarter Horse 870-yard champion Griswold with a Thoroughbred sprinter. 

“They proposed matching a really good half-mile horse from Los Alamitos, which really dominated over there,” Sadler said. “At that time, I had three or four really good sprinters. I thought I had the right horse for it—a horse called Valiant Pete.”

The race, boasting a $100,000 winner-take-all purse, was held April 20 at Santa Anita. The race was run at a distance of four furlongs (880 yards) and is remembered as “thrilling” to the few who remember it.

An obituary for Griswold (Merridoc), who died at the age of 25 in 2011, described the action:

“…the pair raced neck and neck throughout, with the Thoroughbred leading all the way to a world record-tying clocking of 44 1/5 seconds.”

Griswold later found revenge by beating Valiant Pete in the Marathon Handicap at Los Alamitos.

Celebrating breeders - Tom Egan - the owner breeder of NY bred superstar - Red Knight

Words by Bill Heller

Winning a stakes race, let alone a graded stakes, is a thrill for any Thoroughbred owner. But what if you also bred that horse? That’s special—literally choosing the mating, then deciding to keep him rather than sell him at auction, and waiting a year or two to race him.

Now imagine—with just 151 career starts as an owner of 14 Thoroughbreds—that horse was the last one you own after 50 years of loving, working with and racing horses. 

Like every other owner, 75-year-old Tom Egan was told never to fall in love with his horses. He couldn’t help himself with Red Knight, a remarkable eight-year-old gelding who returned from an 11-month layoff to capture the $156,000 Colonial Cup at Colonial Downs and the $694,180 Gr. 2 Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes at Kentucky Downs by a nose. 

“Red is my last horse,” Egan said. “I’m very close to him.”

He just wishes his wife Jaye, who died December 30, 2016, at the age of 53 after a brave, 17-year battle with breast cancer, was with him to enjoy Red Knight’s success. “Racing isn’t the same without her. Marriage isn’t the same. We accomplished so much more than we could have hoped. My wife was such a beautiful person. Shared joy is better than joy.”

They met in July 1990. “I took her, with much trepidation, to Saratoga,” he said. “I thought, `Is she going to like it? What if she thinks it’s silly?’”

She thought it was wonderful. “Man, she loved it, she wanted to get there before the first race and stay until after the ninth.” 

Egan’s interest in Thoroughbreds traces back to his father, Lester, an attorney in Hartford, Connecticut, who loved gambling and horse racing. “My dad was primarily a tax attorney; to me, it was too boring.”

Egan, who now lives in Ocala, also became an attorney after attending the University of Hartford and Quinnipiac Law School. “I did personal injury, criminal law and eminent domain.”

Asked if he enjoyed it, Egan said, “There were only two things wrong with the practice of law: judges and clients.”

Mostly retired now, he said he’s a “recovering attorney.” A couple of long-time clients still use his services.

Egan’s first visit to a racetrack came in 1971 at Rockingham. He then attended Suffolk Downs before visiting Saratoga and Belmont Park. In 1976, he took a job working as a hot-walker and groom at a farm in Massachusetts, then with John Russell, who was training for the powerful Phipps Stable.

But he didn’t stick to racing, attending law school and beginning a career.

His first horse was a pleasure horse, Rebel, in 1970. “I rode him on weekends. He did what I wanted him to do: run fast and true.”

Egan’s first Thoroughbred was Shadow, a grandson of Forward Pass. Egan began riding jumpers with him. “I got up to 3-foot-3. Shadow could jump 4-9.”

More than 30 years later, with the love of his life in hand, he plunged into Thoroughbred ownership—modestly. He decided to race and breed under the name of Trinity Stable, even though there is no stable nor farm. The 250-year-old Trinity Church behind his house was his inspiration.

In 2003, the Egans purchased the dam Isabel Away, a daughter of Horse of the Year Skip Away, at the Keeneland Sale, for $60,000. “My wife saw the mare and said that we just had to have her. I think the first thing she liked was her color, but upon closer examination, she really liked her an awful lot. When I saw her in the back walking ring before she went out to the sales ring, she was just very classy and composed. At that point, I said, `Yeah, sounds good.’”

Though she won just one of 11 lifetime starts, she would produce two New York-bred geldings who have combined to win more than $1.8 million. And Red Knight isn’t done racing. 

The following April, the Egans were at Keeneland for the spring meet. “We  met a trainer, and he said, `Ninety-five percent of owners get involved because of status.’ My wife calmly looked at him and said, `We’ve been here three days. We had no seats; we don’t know anybody, and we’ve had a lovely time.’”

Ten years later, the older of the two brothers, Macagone (pronounced Ma-ka-gon), a speedy son of Artie Schiller, took the Egans on quite a run. After being claimed away from the Egans for $40,000 on June 27, 2018, Macagone continued racing until the age of nine, finishing with 11 victories, six seconds and eight thirds from 47 starts with earnings of $654,981.

Identifying Macagone was easier than pronouncing his name correctly. “Tom Durkin, the greatest race caller ever, even got it wrong. I had a couple of friends talk to him about the pronunciation. He couldn’t get it. I was in downtown Saratoga at an Italian designer’s shop one morning and I was admiring one sports jacket. The owner of the store said he had made it for Tom Durkin, and he was picking it up the next morning. I put a note in his jacket with the horse’s name. Tom pronounced it correctly every time after that.”

Egan called Macagone “...a cool horse; he reminded me of Sonny Liston in the paddock—a bay with no white markings. He had that look about him: `I’m here, I know what I’m doing, and I’m going to kick your ass.’ He beat some very good horses.”

For the Egans, Macagone captured the stakes named for his sire, the Artie Schiller at Aqueduct, by three-quarters of a length at 34-1. Announcer John Imbriale made the call, “A son of Artie Schiller wins the Artie Schiller at 34-1!” Macagone also won consecutive runnings of the Danger’s Hour Stakes at Aqueduct before finishing third in it. After he was claimed, Macagone set a then track record at Saratoga, winning a one-mile New York-bred allowance in 1:33.13 on the Inner Turf Course.

Red Knight, a son of Pure Prize trained originally by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, put together a successful career in his first four years of racing, taking the 2020 Gr.  3 Sycamore at Keeneland  and finishing second by a half-length a month later in the Gr. 3 Red Smith Handicap at Aqueduct. 

Egan, acting on a tip from a friend, found out Red Knight loved raw, sliced sweet potatoes. “They’re palatable to the stomach of a horse,” Tom said. “A friend of mine suggested it.”

At the age of seven last year, Red Knight finished second in the Gr. 3 Louisville at Churchill Downs but didn’t hit the board in five other starts.

Egan decided to give him a long break and switch trainers. “It took him 11 months to get healthy,” Tom said. “I called Mike Maker. I said, `You don’t know me, but you might know my horse, Red Knight.’ He said, `Oh, yes I do.”

Maker has obviously done a splendid job with Red Knight, who in two starts has made 2022 Tom’s highest single-season in earnings. Red Knight’s success gave Egan a problem, a good problem to have: should he supplement Red Knight to the Gr. 1 $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf for $100,000?

“I’m never going to have that problem again,” Egan said. 

Either way, Egan has already been working with his good friend, Laura Fonde, a hunter-jumper rider, to transition Red Knight to a successful and meaningful second career. “He’s never going to be happy just standing out there in a field.”

He knows his horse, who has 10 victories, eight seconds and one third from 29 starts with earnings of more than $1.2 million. Earlier this year, he knew his horse wasn’t done racing at its highest level. If not, he would have retired him. “I could tell that he still had it in him.”

Tom Egan knew. Maybe Jaye Egan did too.

What's happened to Jerry Dixon Jr. since the Kentucky Derby?

Article by Ken Snyder

There is always someone absent from the post-Kentucky Derby press conference presenting the winning owner, trainer, and jockey to the media.  If you consider the missing person is the individual closest to the winning horse who spends the most time with them, it doesn’t make sense. It also carves away from reportage a beautiful dimension to horse racing. Absent this year, as is always the case, was the groom. Jerry Dixon, Jr. had work to do: lead Rich Strike to the test barn and then to the horse’s barn for a bath and feed. 

Today, four short months later, Dixon is absent from Derby-winning trainer Eric Reed’s barn. He mucks stalls now for trainer David Wilson, Jr. at Belterra Park in Cincinnati, 107 miles northeast of Louisville and Churchill Downs and eons away in terms of racing prestige. The last horse Dixon took to a paddock at the time of writing was for another Belterra trainer in a $5,000 claiming race. The reasons for Dixon’s departure from Reed are undisclosed, private, and depending on whom you ask, likely to be disputed.  

It’s the racetrack.  

The sport of racing demands resilience to disappointment and occasional heartbreak. Ask Steve Asmussen, maybe the hardest working trainer on the racetrack, who is the all-time leader in wins but winless with 24 Derby starters. The very best trainers like Asmussen see roughly only one out of five of their horses winning. Horses purchased for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and occasionally seven figures, flop as racehorses or worse—suffer an injury. Many never make it to the racetrack at all. As for horse owners, there’s an old joke that you can become a millionaire owning racehorses…if you start out as a billionaire. It’s a tough sport. But it has a soul.

That soul is manifested in people like Jerry Dixon, someone who, in less than half a year, has gone from the highest of highs to, well, Belterra Park. 

Whatever may have happened with Jerry, there’s no denying in the opinion of many that he gave Rich Strike all of himself. Lindsy Reed, Eric’s daughter, perhaps overstated it only minimally when she said in the wake of the Derby that “Jerry didn’t let that horse out of his sight” during the two weeks the horse was stabled at Churchill Downs before the big race. Horse and groom adopted the same rest schedule, and Jerry slept on bags of wood shavings with his head in Rich Strike’s stall. He would also lie down in the stall. Waking up was left to Rich Strike who, Dixon said, would drop hay or drip water on him to wake him up. 

In all sports, there are relationships between teammates, player and coach, and competitors—the best example being jockeys who are de facto guardians of each other’s lives. But horse racing, all by itself, offers animal and human relationships with discoveries that, if they don’t touch you someplace in your heart, they should. There is a unique bond not duplicated between humans. Grooms and horses develop their own language—a kind of telepathy that no other person shares. A good, if not great, groom like Dixon (and he falls more to the latter of those two adjectives) is the protector, caretaker and “interpreter” for the horse, reading the body, the behavior and most importantly the changes that tell a groom first, and subsequently a trainer and others, how the horse is doing and what might be expected. Dixon did all these things in the crucial two weeks leading up to the astounding triumph of an 80-to-one longshot. 

Breaking the bond has not been easy for Dixon.

“I think about Rich Strike every day. I go through my phone and look at pictures. I even look at the Derby still.”    

Dixon’s pairing with Rich Strike and the relationship that followed was not happenstance but one that was carefully considered and thought through by Eric Reed and others, given the already apparent talent of the horse well before the Derby. 

Lindsy Reed introduced Dixon to Rich Strike at her family’s training center after her dad claimed him out of a race at Ellis Park. “’I’m going to leave you and Richie alone,’” Lindsy told Dixon and, without another word, walked off, leaving Dixon befuddled and a tad fearful. He knew of the horse’s potential and his importance to the stable. Whether it was a test for Dixon isn’t known but likely. 

“So, he didn’t eat you alive,” Lindsy said when she returned to Dixon and Rich Strike. The horse had stood quietly, allowing Dixon to pet him, prompting her to say, “He likes you.” She said nothing more.  That may have been when he won the job of the groom for Rich Strike. Before this introduction, trainer Eric Reed had seen what he called a “soft touch” with horses in Dixon that he felt might suit Rich Strike.

The choice of the relatively young Dixon, 31, who has worked on the racetrack for several trainers (including Shug McGaughey), proved to be a good one. Horse and groom established a bond that was relaxing to the energetic, if not high-strung, three-year-old.

Dixon laying down in the stall became Rich Strike’s cue to lay down as well. 

Some waking hours were not so easy, however.  

A few days before the Derby, Dixon needed to jog Rich Strike in front of the state veterinarian as required. “I was trying to jog Rich Strike, and he kind of just wanted to walk. Once I smooched to him a little bit to jog, he wanted to put his two front hooves in my pockets.” Rearing up in protest provided a clear message:  “I’d rather not jog—maybe another time.

“I was watching the way he was training every morning. He got better and better every day; that was the biggest indicator [of coming performance]. He would bow his neck every morning while he was going. It didn’t matter if it was the day after we breezed him.” Fast recovery from a prior-day breeze or timed workout seemed to have no effect. It was what impressed Dixon most about Rich Strike before the Derby. 

Watching a horse and knowing what you are seeing are two very different things. Dixon knew what he was seeing, and it pointed to everything coming up roses, as in the garland draped over Derby winners.  He was confident the horse could at least hit the board in the Derby, and the win was not a total shock.  “He loved the racetrack.” 

A win belongs first to the horse and jockey and, of course a team—starting with the owner who writes the checks, the trainer, the groom, down to the hotwalker.  

As for the post-Derby press conference, Dixon had a job to do, which he had done hundreds of times:  get his horse back to the barn after a race. It’s hard to imagine this quiet, extremely polite young man, who liberally sprinkles “sirs” or “ma’ams” in his conversation, seeking or enjoying the spotlight. He was where he wanted to be: with the horse.  

There were tears and a lot of them for Dixon in the wake of Rich Strike’s Derby victory.  

There were tears, too, when the relationship between Dixon and Rich Strike came to an end.  Psychologists might say Dixon is going through the stages of grief. Whatever the reason Dixon said, “it’s probably going to take a while to jump back in the stall and feel like I’m doing right for a horse.

“I know I still have the eye for it and the talent for it. It’s all about wanting to do it.”

In the meantime, he bides his time raking out soiled straw from stalls, pushing it in a wheelbarrow to a collection area, and spreading fresh straw. It is menial and mindless, but it keeps Dixon home in Cincinnati with his wife and daughter.

The Triple Crown trail, with its excitement and attention from the media and racing world, was “living the dream,” usually expressed sarcastically but true for Dixon. But it had a downside.  

“It’s hard to have a family. You have to be all the way in or not at all,” said Dixon. All is demanded of every racetracker who wants to succeed in racing, from trainer to hotwalker. “My wife and daughter missed the family time they wanted to have with me while I was chasing my dream.  

“Stepping away from grooming has given me downtime with my family.”

The racetrack itself is also family for Dixon. A lady in the racing office at Belterra has talked to him daily, telling him over and over, “’Don’t forget. You’re a part of that horse winning the Kentucky Derby.’ 

“She’s making sure I’m all right. I know where it’s coming from. It's not people just being kind.” 

History is unerasable no matter what is going on in the present or what may come in the future. Dixon obviously heeds the encouragement of the lady in the Belterra racing office. “He won the biggest race in America. That solidifies his greatness. I’m part of the history with the horse.”  

Jerry is a fourth-generation horseman, but he and he alone accomplished something no one in his family ever did or likely ever will do. Forevermore, he will be pointed out to generations of Dixons that follow: that Jerry Junior was a groom for a Derby winner.

On a recent muggy summer morning at Belterra as Jerry mucked stalls and spread new straw, an aged hotwalker passing by stopped to ask if I had ever interviewed a Derby-winning trainer (yes) or jockey (yes). “Have you ever interviewed a Derby-winning groom?” he asked with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, knowing the answer as he pointed to Jerry Dixon, Jr.  

Racing, again, has its ups and downs, but the triumphs are permanent.     

A Kentucky Derby is what people around the world see. What’s not seen is the day-to-day that gets a Derby starter and all other horses down to the cheapest claimer to the starting gate.  

For grooms, days can begin as early as 4:00 a.m. in pitch-black darkness, of course, with bathing horses, tacking them up, and readying them for workouts. In Jerry Dixon Jr.’s case, past roles in various barns included coating legs with medication, then applying bandages or wraps, and sending a horse out under an exercise rider. The process is repeated on a second horse while the first is out on the track. When horses return, they must be bathed, their legs medicated, or simply wrapped again and fed. The merry-go-round of horses going out and coming back in from workouts, and the work needed for each horse, is virtually non-stop through 10:30 or 11 a.m.

The day, however, isn’t over. There’s an afternoon feeding, and on race days, there’s taking a horse to the paddock before a race, getting them back to the barn, bathing and feeding. During racing at Turfway Park just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, which has night racing, the day begins at 5 a.m. for Dixon and can end as late as 10:45 or 11 p.m., if one of the horses in his care runs in the last race. “I don’t get home till midnight,” he said.

His hours during racing at Belterra are only marginally better. He has to be at the track at 4 a.m. and be there at least through feed time at 5:30 in the afternoon. A horse in the last race of the day means an extra hour at the track.  

The job is a tough one and getting tougher all the time as not just most, but all racetracks have a shortage of barn help. The shortages, according to Dixon, are going to mean “somebody is getting cheated.” Something as obvious as a missing horseshoe can be overlooked in the rapid-fire process of getting horses out for workouts in the morning. “There are so many horses and so few people with a limited amount of time to get things done.” 

There are other issues related to an individual trainer’s style and the regard with which they hold grooms. “Sometimes it feels like people look at the grooms as if they’re just workers and not in the aspect of being a part of the organization to have some knowledge to be able to give back to the trainer, the assistant, or whoever. Like I’ve said, we spend more time with the horse than anybody else does.  We’ll see something before the trainer will. I’ve been in barns where you don’t see the trainer. It’s more of a phone type of deal.”

It’s not uncommon for grooms to sometimes double as assistant trainers, managing the barn for stables—something Jerry did at Turfway. “If we had horses in, I’d make sure I was in contact with the vet. I’d get the Lasix, or, if we had any problems, make sure we got any medication needed for the horse, take them to the races, cool them out, load them on the trailer, unload them—everything,” he said. 

Races were, of course, after a full morning. “I would get there and do the stalls, do the groundwork, get the horses out with the exercise riders—find out how far we would train the horses each day. 

Days off are two Sundays a month…maybe. 

Dixon credits Eric Reed and his daughter Lindsy; other trainers; Reed’s groom Benito Luna, who now cares for Rich Strike; and members of his own family—his father and uncles he describes as “great horsemen”—for mentoring and helping him in his career.

It is a career that is not over. He plans to take the test for a trainer’s license and hang his own shingle perhaps as early as later this year.  

Rob Atras - the 'up and coming' NY based trainer in profile

Words - Bill Heller

Trainer Rob Atras wasn’t born into racing; he was into racing before he was born. His mother didn’t let her pregnancy at the time prevent her from visiting the winner’s circle after her horse won a race at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg. 

“She has the win picture,” Rob laughed. “She said, `You were in my stomach when the picture was taken.’ When I was old enough, I went around the track with her. I was probably five or six. ”

Three decades later, Rob is a rising star in New York—a young conditioner steeped in old school horsemanship with an uncanny knack of claiming horses. He was good enough to finish tied for seventh with Brad Cox in the 2021 Saratoga Meet, when he won his first Gr. 1 stakes, the Coaching Club American Oaks, with Maracuja. At the current Belmont Park Summer Meet, he is tied for sixth with David Donk. Rob’s earnings grew from $1.8 million in 2019 to $2 million in 2020 and $3.9 million in 2021. He’s already topped $2 million in the first six months of this year. Rob, who is 37 years old, ranked 37th nationally in earnings last year and is 37th this year through the end of June.

He is strengthened by his wife/assistant trainer/best friend Brittney, who is proud of Rob’s horsemanship. Asked why he is successful, she said, “I think because he treats each horse individually. It’s so true—how they train, how their legs are wrapped. Rob is very hands-on. He’s always feeling their legs. He’s really good at reading a condition book. Rob is very realistic about the horses we have and where they need to race to be successful.”

Rob’s equine education began with his mother, Tanis, who owned a couple of horses while working at a bank. When she retired, she had all the time she wanted with horses. “She grew up always riding,” Rob said. “She owned a couple of horses with trainer Jack Robertson. We were very close to his farm. She would help him out. I was too young at first. I’d be in the track kitchen reading the Form. I had a pretty good background from my mom.”

She couldn’t be prouder of her only child, and she saw his love of horses as a child. “That was his passion,” she said. “To be that successful at the New York tracks, we’re very proud of him. He puts his heart and soul into it. He’s done that his whole life. He loves it. He’s got a great wife, and they’re a great team.”

Rob’s father, Jim, was an undercover investigator for the Royal Canadian Mountain Police for 30 years in the province of Manitoba. “Sometimes he was gone for a week,” Rob said. “He wasn’t really involved in horses, but he’s been really supportive of me.”

Still. “We never miss a race,” his mother said. “It’s so exciting for us. We love watching him.”

Rob’s journey from Portage la Prairie in Manitoba to New York had plenty of interesting stops.

He worked summers for Jack Robertson when he was 16 and 17. Asked what he learned from him, Rob replied, “All the fundamentals—taking care of the horses, the legs, keeping track of the horses.”

After he graduated from high school, he took a job in a steel factory. “I left the job, and with everything I made, I bought a horse,” Rob said. “With no plan. I went to the University of Manitoba for a year and a half.”

Then he bolted back to the track for life.

Rob began working for trainer Bert Blake. “He’s a legend up in Canada, and he had a small stable,” Rob said. “He asked me if I could work for him. I had two horses. He said I could keep them. I trained a little on my own. Bert let me do that. I worked up to assistant trainer. It was really cool.”

His next job was even cooler. He got an offer to come to Kentucky and work for trainer Rebecca Maker, whose top horse at the time was It’s No Joke, a multiple stakes winner who earned $685,612. He was eighth in the Gr. 1 Clark at Churchill Downs, but Rob still has a good memory of the race. “I was standing next to Todd Pletcher; I emailed my mom and told her, `You’ll never believe who I was standing next to.’ After Churchill Downs, Rob worked for Maker at the Fair Grounds.

“It really opened my eyes—how big the racing world is,” Rob said. “I was so green. I was a sponge and took in everything. I wanted to be there and learn as much as I could. I was 22.” 

He returned to Canada and cobbled together a stable of 15 to 20 horses. His first winner was a $5,000 claimer, Forgotten Battle, September 3, 2010, at Assiniboia Downs. Like many other trainers at Assiniboia, he wintered in Turf Paradise in Phoenix. That’s where he had the good fortune of meeting trainer Robertino Diodoro in 2014. “He sent me a couple horses to run in Canada,” Rob said. “I think I was finishing my fourth or fifth year training on my own.”

Diodoro offered him a job. “I didn’t have a ton of horses in my barn; as much as I loved Turf Paradise, it was a struggle financially. I felt like I was spinning my tires a little bit. I wasn’t really moving up. He asked me to go to Oaklawn Park. That meant giving up my horses and clients. I was going from trainer to assistant trainer, but it didn’t take long for me to decide. I’m going to take this opportunity and see where it goes.”

He has never regretted that decision. “I got along very well with Robertino; you feel like you’re working with him, not for him. We developed a friendship.”

Rob would eventually handle Robertino’s horses in New York before striking out on his own in the toughest circuit in the country. “He talked to a few people, and I wound up with six horses.” Rob said. Now he has 50.

He began on his own in the 2018–2019 winter, a calculated gamble, racing at Aqueduct while many of New York’s top outfits shipped to Florida for the winter. He knocked his opportunity out of the park, winning five races in his first nine starts.

In New York, he found a baseball team to root for, the love of his life and a goat.

“When I came to New York, I started watching the Yankees,” he said. “They had Aaron Judge. I went to a couple games.” Judge is currently leading the majors in home runs, and Rob wears a Yankees cap almost all the time.

Brittney, like her husband, was introduced to horses at a young age. “Both of my parents are horse people,” Brittney said. “My father (Larry Dixon) was a trainer and had a training center in Virginia; my mom is a vet. I grew up with horses.”

She got the opportunity of a lifetime in Godolphin’s Flying Start program, traveling all over the world. “It was amazing,” she said. “I met a lot of contacts and got to see the greatest horses in the world.”

Unsure of what she wanted to pursue in horse racing, she took a job working for Fasig-Tipton after she graduated from the University of Georgia, then worked for Bridlewood Farm. 

Her mom was a vet at Belmont Park, administering Lasix shots. Brittney decided to tag along with her and then do the same with veterinarian Dr. Michael Galvin. On her first morning with him, she met Rob.

Galvin and Brittney stopped by Rob’s barn. “I was still working for Robertino at the time,” Rob said. “Dr. Galvin asked him how one of my horses did in his race. I said, 'No good!’ Then Galvin introduced Brittney. “I said, `Hi,’ and that was it,” Rob said. “I was still pissed off about the race.”

Brittney took that experience favorably. “He had no interest in talking to me; that made me more interested.”

Fate, karma or coincidence happened the next day when Rob and a friend went to Trotters, a bar and restaurant in Franklin Square. Brittney was living with her mother, and they decided to go there as well. They sat next to Rob and his pal. “We talked for two hours,” Brittney said. 

While she was leaving, though, she slipped and fell down. “I slipped; I wasn’t drunk,” she said. “I was super embarrassed.”

She felt she had to tell Rob that, so she stopped by his barn the next morning. Then she invited Rob to join her and her mother for dinner. “We have been together ever since,” she said. “He’s literally the most kind, thoughtful person I know.” They married in September 2018.

Gilbert the goat

Then there’s the goat, Gilbert, possibly the greatest goat of all time. Or maybe the greatest Gilbert of all time. “I had never had a goat,” Rob said. “We had a wild horse, a Tapit colt, Tappin Vegas, who was very tough to manage. Someone said, `Why don’t you get a goat? They’re supposed to calm down horses.’ I asked around.” 

Rob bought three-month-old Gilbert. He was not an instant success. “The goat was wild—running all over the place, jumping up and down,” Rob said. “We tied him down between two horses’ stables.”

Gilbert wanted nothing to do with the problem horse he was supposed to calm down, Tappin Vegas. The horse in the other stall was Becker’s Galaxy, an older gelding. “He fell in love with Becker’s Galaxy,” Rob said. “Whenever Becker’s Galaxy would leave his stall, Gilbert would cry out. But Gilbert’s calmed down. Now he listens to his name like a cat or a dog.”

Does he come when he’s called? “Sometimes,” Rob said.

Rob is much better at training horses than goats. 

One of Rob’s happiest clients is Sandy Goldfarb, a long-time successful owner who had temporarily left the game. “I was with Diodoro,” Sandy said. “Then I was out of the game for five years.”

He credits Rob and Brittney for getting him back into the game. “They’re really amazing—the most down-to-earth people, and the care they give their horses is unbelievable,” Sandy said. “I just really believe in Rob, his talent, his ability. He’s done an incredible job. I have eight to 15 horses with him now. They get claimed left and right.”

Two horses they claimed gave Rob instant credibility in New York. “We claimed American Power in Saratoga for $40,000 (on July 29, 2020),” Rob said. All American Power did was win four straight, including the $145,500 Gr. 3 Toboggan Handicap, January 30, 2021, at Aqueduct. It was Rob’s first graded stakes victory.

Sandy and partners had similar success with Mr Phil—a $32,000 claim on  February 27—this year who won three straight allowance races before taking on sprint superstar Jackie’s Warrior and finishing fifth in the Gr. 2 True North Handicap, June 10.

In between those two successful claims, Rob’s Maracuja gave him his first Gr. 1 stakes, taking the Coaching Club American Oaks by running down Malathaat to win by a head last July 24. “We came in as an underdog,” Rob said. “We were hoping for second, but we would have settled for third. It was quite a thrilling race, an oddly-run race.”

Indeed.  

Maracuja (2) Coaching Club American Oaks 2021 - Atras’ first Gr.1 winner

“I would never have expected my first Gr. 1 to be at Saratoga,” Rob said.

Brittney still gets emotional talking about it nearly a year later: “Literally, I think I’m going to cry. I get serious goosebumps. It was so amazing and so beautiful. I am still not sure she won it.”

She did. And the common denominator for those two successful claims and the Gr. 1 stakes winner was the care they received from Rob and Brittney.

“You learn to train a $3,000 claimer as a stakes horse,” Rob said. “In feeding him, taking care of him. We just believe in that. The people I learned from were very good trainers. Everything matters: the type of feed, the hay in the stall, every little item. They’re going to be happy if they’re healthy.”

In terms of making claims, Rob said, “Obviously, the horse’s form is the first thing you look at. I like to look at a horse’s conditions. What level is next for this horse? I like to look at the back class. When I worked with Jack Robertson, that’s one thing he would do. A lot of times, he’d bring horses up from the states, who were off form. A lot would go on to be stakes horses up here (at Assiniboia).”

At Assiniboia, Rob was the leading percentage trainer in 2014. Now he’s in the Top Ten at Saratoga and Belmont. “It’s something I never really expected.” Rob said. “It’s a pretty cool feeling. When I was a youngster, I was watching New York racing and seeing all these great trainers. Then you get here as a trainer. It’s a different world. It really keeps you focused all the time. I don’t like to get ahead of myself. I think about this week. Never get complacent because you’re running against the best. It’s very tough, but very rewarding.”

Antonio Sano trainer of Preakness contender - Simplification

This article was first published ahead of the 2017 Kentucky Derby - when Calder was still open for training.

We’re republishing it ahead of the 2022 Preakness Stakes - where Sano will start Simplification for owner Tami Bobo.

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Antonio Sano is an early riser and according to his wife Maria Christina, not the greatest of sleepers in any instance. Up at 3:50 every morning come rain or shine, Sano can be found splitting time between his barns at Calder and Gulfstream Park. Between the two locations, he’s got roughly 70 horses in his care.

Assistant trainer Jesus “Chino” Prada

The two- and three-year-old are based at Calder, and the older horses are some 10 miles away at Gulfstream. “I like the track [at Calder] for the babies. It’s a good track, deep sand, and when it rains it drains, while over at the other place, it can take two days to clear.” Assistant trainer Jesus “Chino” Prada, who has been an integral member of the team since Sano started training in the U.S., chips in: “Gulfstream is great for racing, but here is the best for training.”

Sano might not yet be a household name across North America, but in his native Venezuela, the man’s a legend. He trained no less than 3,338 winners on his home soil, and it was only thanks to a kidnapping in 2009 that lasted longer than a month that he quit training in the country. The kidnapping -- his second -- resulted in the father-of-three doing what was best for his family, which was to remove them from the danger that his success was creating.

Sano is a third-generation trainer. “My father, grandfather, and uncle all worked with horses,” he recounts. “My father right now is 88 years old. He arrived from Italy when he was just 16 and was working with horses. They came from Sicily. In fact, my whole family is from there, including my wife!”

After graduating from college with a degree in engineering, the magnetic pull to the racetrack was too great, and Sano went to work as an assistant trainer Julio Ayala to enhance what knowledge and skills had been passed down to him from his father and grandfather.

Eventually (March, 1988) setting up on his own, Sano ended up training in Venezuela for 23 years, earning the trainers’ championship title 19 times and winning an average of 150 races annually, with three year-end win tallies in excess of 200. That’s no mean feat when you consider that racing only takes place twice a week in the major city of Valencia, where Sano was based.

In Venezuela, according to Sano, the pedigrees of the horses he trained were a little different than what he works with in the U.S., and so was the daily training regime. “I had 160 horses in my barn and worked the horses in four groups. Riders here take the horses to the track every 45 minutes and come back. There 4 sets of 40 horses each. Every rider work on 2 horses per set. I had the privilege to count with 20 riders at that time. We would take them all to the track at 6 A.M. At 6:45 A.M., the second set would be ready, the third by 7:30 A.M., and the last before 8:30 A.M.”

After first going from Venezuela to Italy, Sano and his family moved to the U.S. in March of 2010. They had visited the country before without spending any time at the racetrack, preferring the great vacationing opportunities that Florida offers with a young family in tow.

Well known for his training of staying types, Sano found the transition to training the speed-bred horses of the U.S. “Each horse is different, but I’ve learned more from others around me here in the U.S. than I ever learned in Venezuela,” he says -- modest words, perhaps, for a trainer who is a master of his game. “But my focus is always on the way the horses finish.”

Prada has been a friend of Sano’s for over 40 years. They attended trainer school together, along with Enrique Torres.

Their teaming up in Florida may never have happened had Sano decided to move to Italy after the kidnapping. “Italy has beautiful people and great food, but the racing wasn’t for me. So I went to Florida and met Mike Antifantis (the racing secretary at Calder at the time), who gave me a couple of stalls. I then had to go back to Venezuela and close shop, giving all my horses away.”

March 22, 2010, was an important date in Sano’s and Prada’s lives. It marked the start of a new chapter, when they claimed their first horse for their fledgling operation. The numbers quickly grew from there. “Two horses became four, and quickly we had 10,” recounts Prada.

The stable ended its first season with 37 winners, including two in stakes races. Knowing very few people or being known to few was probably a good thing for Sano as he and Prada quietly went about building their business. And where resentment for the new man in town could have quickly grown, friendships flourished with other trainers. “They treated me well and with respect,” says Sano.

With a successful formula in place, Sano’s stable was able to gradually improve the quality of stock. Still, his patronage remains primarily from Venezuelan or other Latin American ownership interests; he hasn’t really caught on with American owners.

In 2004, Sano started to shift his focus away from claiming horses to buying yearlings, while still using the claiming philosophy of trading up purchases. This time last year, Sano had high hopes for a then-unraced Broken Vow filly named Amapola, who he had bought as a yearling for $25,000. Amapola crossed the wire first by nearly 10 lengths in her May, 2016, debut in track record time for four-and-a-half furlongs at Gulfstream, only to lose the race in the stewards room for drifting in at the start. She turned a lot of heads that day, and Sano parted with her for a substantial profit. “I sold her for the money,” he says.

As with most buyers at sales, pedigree and conformation are at the top of Sano’s list when studying a catalogue page, but for him the stride of the individual and the horse’s eye are the main factors to determine if he is going to raise his hand in the ring -- should the price fall in his preferred buying range of $5,000 to $50,000.

In 2015, Sano made a number of purchases at yearling sales, and came home from the Keeneland September sale with a good-looking son of first crop sire and Florida Derby winner Dialed In.

The sale of that colt, from the consignment of Jim and Pam Robinson’s Brandywine Farm, must have been a rather bittersweet moment for breeders Brandywine and Stephen Upchurch. The chestnut’s dam Unbridled Rage had died about a week and a half after he was born, and the newly orphaned foal was bottle-fed until a foster mare could be found.

Sano with Gunnevera

That colt, for which Sano had the winning bid at $16,000, was, of course, Gunnevera. And thanks to him, if Dialed In hadn’t already been a particular favorite of Sano’s, he certainly would be now.

After the sale at Keeneland, Gunnevera, along with the other Sano purchases, was sent to Classic Mile Park in Ocala, where he was broken by Julio Rada a classmate of Sano and Prada’s at the Venezuelan training school in 1988.

Gunnevera was showing potential at Classic Mile and by the time of his arrival at Calder, his reputation was growing. However, the faith shown in him by those who knew him best wasn’t being shared by everyone: the first-time owner who Sano had bought the horse for eventually got around to paying for the colt...but the check bounced.

The name “Gunnevera” has no real meaning. It’s a combination of place names and words favored by his ownership interests -- Jamie Diaz, originally from Spain but now in Miami; and Peacock Racing, a partnership of Venezuelans Guillermo Guerra and Guerra’s father-in-law Solomon Del-Valle, who ended up with the horse just six weeks before his first run.

Del-Valle’s friendship with Sano is deeper than most normal friendships, as it was he who helped Sano’s wife arrange and finance Sano’s release from his kidnappers. “I told him that we bought horses at the yearling sale and this was the best one, that I’m going to make him a champion.” Sano’s prophecy looks like it’s showing some promise, and Gunnevera’s success has gone someway toward repaying Del-Valle’s generosity to the Sano family over the years.

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Fast forward to 2022 and Gunnevera stands as a stallion at Pleaseant Acres Stallions in Morriston, FL. He has earned his place in the stallion barn on the back of his race record - winning the Grade 2 Saratoga Special and the Grade 3 Delta Downs Jackpot at two. At three he won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, finished second in both the Grade 2 Holy Bull and the Grade 1 Travers and was a game third in the Grade 1 Florida Derby.

As a four year old he finished second in a pair of Grade 1’s - The Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Woodward Stakes and ran a gallant third in the Pegasus World Cup (Gr.1). At five, his third place finish in the Dubai World Cup (Gr.1) meant that he retired with earnings of over $5.5m and as such has become the highest ever earner to stand at stud in Florida.

Gunnevera was not his trainer’s first graded stakes winner; although none received anywhere near the level of acclaim as the son of Dialed In. Sano previously handled Devilish Lady, City of Weston, and Grand Tito to graded stakes wins.

Sano is the first to admit that nothing has compared to the Gunnevera success story and the national exposure he received. But how well does he react to the inevitable pressure? “I’ve never been in a situation like this before, but it’s a blessing,” he calmly says. For Maria Christina, it’s as if her husband’s life is going on just the same. “He never sleeps before any race, he’s always thinking about something.”

Come to think of it, Sano’s whole day and night seems to be taken up with work or thinking about horses. The work day often ends 16 hours after it began, giving Sano a little much-needed family time with his three children. His eldest son Alessandro is already following in the family business and now works as one of his father’s assistant trainers.

But what about time away from horses, does Sano take a vacation? “One week -- and I don’t relax,” he says. “He’s always on the phone to Chino and I say, ‘No phone, Tony, the horses won’t run faster with you not there,’” interjects Maria Christina.

“Twenty (five) years ago when Alessandro was born, I would never have thought that I would be where I am now,” says Sano.

“But Tony, you were scared to come here 20 years ago. There wasn't the opportunity we have here in Venezuela,” retorts Maria Christina.

So Venezuela’s loss is America’s gain, and this is one family truly living the American dream.

First published in North American Trainer issue 44 - May - July 2017

Buy this back issue here!

Brian Lynch - the Australian born trainer whose set to make a mark at Ellis Park this summer

By Ken Synder

“If you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,” said trainer Brian Lynch. “I’ve been blessed to do a job that I have a passion for. I have fun with it.”

“Fun” is not a word often associated with training Thoroughbreds. The job, as everyone in racing knows and as Lynch noted, “is seven days a week, 365 days a year.”  The word, however, crops up often for those who know Lynch.

“He’s fun to be around,” said Richard Budge, general manager at Margaux Farm, where many of Lynch’s horses have begun careers as yearlings. 

Dermot Carty, a bloodstock agent who first met Lynch when he came to Canada in 2005, echoed Budge: “With Brian, he just makes it fun. He makes it enjoyable through the good times and the bad. He’s one of the few true characters in the business who actually puts enjoyment into horse racing.” 

Greg Blasi, Churchill Downs outrider who knows Lynch away from the racetrack “cowboying” with him, (more on this later), expressed it most succinctly: “He’s a hoot.”

Of course, the most fun is trips to the winner’s circle, and Lynch has made plenty of those: 720 at press time and earnings just short of $47 million.

A native of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia, Lynch fits, perhaps, the profile of a stereotypical and classic “Aussie.” 

“We have more of a laid-back attitude than Americans. It’s nothing to share a few beers with each other and have a good time…helps you make new friends, that’s for sure.”

What Lynch did before coming on the racetrack may explain also why racing is more fun to him than anything. He was a bull rider back home. In fact, he came to America in 1992 to join this country’s professional circuit with big purses after learning the trade locally. “They had a local rodeo back home, and it was a big thing. Not far from the racetrack was a horse trader who had some bucking horses and some bucking bulls; and I used to hang around his place a lot. That’s where I got the taste for jumping on bulls.”

The racetrack Lynch mentioned is an unusual triangular racecourse that was across the road from his home and where he got his start, filling water buckets and learning to ride as a boy. “I could ride from a young age. It wasn’t long before I graduated to galloping horses. 

“I was always a little bit too big to be a jockey. I sort of found a lot of work helping on the wilder horses.”  Apparently, it was experience sufficient to prepare him for something bigger and more dangerous…with horns.

Thoroughbreds sidetracked Lynch when he came to Southern California and a small farm near the border with Mexico. “There was a little Thoroughbred farm called Suncoast Thoroughbreds. I got a job breaking colts for them, and it wasn’t far from San Luis Rey.”  

Lynch said he “annoyed” the stewards there till they gave him a trainer’s license. His start was with two horses at San Luis Rey.

That led to training for the Mabee family’s Golden Eagle Farm in Ramona in San Diego County.

“I kicked around California for a lot of years just with small numbers, just scratching out a living—selling, and running horses, and flipping horses. I was bringing some from Australia and moving them.” 

His big break was training at Santa Anita and Del Mar where he met some important influences. “Most say they admire the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For me, it’s Ron McAnally, Jack Van Berg, and Bobby Frankel,” he said with a laugh.

When Frankel learned the Mabee family was going to downsize their Thoroughbred operation, he approached Lynch about joining his stable as an assistant. “He was starting to get more two-year-olds than he’d ever had. That’s when Chad [Brown] and I teamed up with horses for Bobby. Chad went to California, and I went to South Florida and Palm Meadows in the first year that it opened,” said Lynch.

“Bobby certainly wasn’t a textbook teacher,” Lynch said of the legendary New York trainer who died in 2009. “He wasn’t going to walk you through everything. He was a guy that if you were around him enough and you didn’t absorb anything from him or learn anything from him, then shame on you.”

Frankel, not known publicly as being chatty, was half of a truly odd couple with the amiable Aussie. Not just the experience, but the friendship is treasured by Lynch. “He had a heart of gold. He was a great guy to train horses for and just a wonderful human being.”

Lynch’s big break came when he moved to Canada to manage Frankel’s division at Woodbine in 2005. In 2006 he went out on his own, eventually becoming a private trainer for Frank Stronach. 

Canada was very much to his liking; in both 2006 and 2007, his earnings topped $1 million before jumping to over $3 million in 2008. That year began his string of consecutive top 100 earning trainers in North America that continued through last year.

He is quick to credit owners for his success and consistency: “I’ve been very blessed to have long-term owners who like to play the game and who have always tried to work on finding the better horses.  Fortunately enough, if you look back over the list, there’s been quite a few of them.”

Quite a few indeed. Lynch trained Clearly Now, who set the Belmont record for seven furlongs (1:19.96) in that track’s 2014 Sprint Championship, earning an Equibase speed figure of 122. (To give you an idea of how phenomenal the performance was, the next year’s Sprint Championship winner won in 1:22.57.)  Other top horses include Grand Arch, owned by Jim and Susan Hill of Margaux Farm and  winner of the Gr. 1 Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes at Keeneland in 2015; Oscar Performance, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita in 2016; and Heart to Heart, winner of two consecutive back-to-back Gr. 1 stakes in 2018 at Keeneland and Gulfstream Park. Most notable outside the U.S. was a win in Canada’s 2015 Queen’s Plate Stakes with Shaman Ghost.

While many trainers get labels for being good with two-year-olds, sprinters, etc., there is an enviable trademark for Lynch’s horses: long careers. “I’ve raced two- and three-year-olds and still have them around running Gr. 1’s and winning at six or seven.” Grand Arch raced till the ripe old age of seven and in stakes company, finishing his career in the Forbidden Apple Stakes at Belmont. “Keep them in good form and you’ll have them still around when they’re older,” said Lynch who also points to “patient owners” like the Hills, willing to give their horses a break as a necessary ingredient in managing racing careers.  

If there is a label, Lynch is unaware of it. When it was pointed out that in the past five years he had started more horses on the turf than on dirt, his response elicited another Lynch trademark: humor.  “Probably because they were too slow for the dirt.

“I guess I primarily grew up training horses and riding horses to run on the turf down there [Australia], so I probably am influenced to run ‘em on the grass. I’m certainly not frightened by the dirt, by any means, but somehow, I ended up trying them on the grass. If they run well there, I’ll keep them on that surface.”

Brian Lynch with mentor D. Wayne Lucas

As intent as he is on enjoying himself and bringing enjoyment to others in the game, he is “no-nonsense” as a trainer—a euphemism not used by Carty to describe Lynch. “He can figure out in a very short period of time if a horse has or does not have any talent. He’s not one of those bull***t trainers who tells people that, ‘yes, yes, it’s going to get better’ and in his heart and soul, he knows it’s just for a day rate. He’s not interested in the day rate. He’s interested in developing and making great racehorses.”

Asked about his success and consistency, Lynch responded with characteristic modesty and self-deprecation: “One thing I’ve learned about training horses over the years is I’ve gotten very good at delivering bad news. That’s what you seem to do a lot.”

Unlike many high-profile trainers with multiple divisions and large strings of horses who are more business people than trainers, Lynch’s focus is the barn first, and then business. “It’s switch on, switch off,” said Carty. “Clients will feel good and enjoy themselves at the races with Lynch. But when he goes back to that barn and those horses, he switches to Brian Lynch who looks after the horses, making sure they’re ok. 

“He’s there first thing in the morning, and following the races, he goes over and checks every stall and goes through it. He’s not one who would just leave it to the help,” said Carty.

Richard Budge offered another perspective on Lynch. “I would say he’s unique in the fact he’s willing to roll the dice in a stakes race with a horse that may be an outsider.”

Brian Lynch with groom Juan Garcia

A case in point was a recent start by Phantom Currency (yet another Hills-owned horse) in the Gr. 3 Kitten’s Joy Appleton Stakes at Gulfstream in April. The horse was coming off a 13-month layoff. While most trainers may have looked for an allowance race tune-up, Lynch went for the gold. The horse won, earning a very impressive 114 Equibase speed figure.   

“If a horse is training well, he’ll ask, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a shot,’” added Budge.  

“That would be a huge positive. We can be a little tentative about where to place them or put them. You never know if you could have run a stakes race when you run in an allowance.

That very question faces Lynch with his first potential Kentucky Derby starter, in Classic Causeway.  

After two impressive wins—the first in the Gr. 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes in February and a month later in the Gr. 2 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby with identical and impressive Equibase speed figures of 104—the horse finished a mystifying last in the Florida Derby.

Classic Causeway, owned and bred by Clarke M. Cooper and Kentucky West Racing, is one of three foals from the final crop of Giant’s Causeway who died in 2018. 

He made his debut at Saratoga last September and blew away the competition from gate to wire over seven furlongs, winning by six-and-a-half lengths. The horse entered the Derby picture with a third-place finish in the Gr. 1 Breeders’ Futurity in October at Keeneland and followed that with a second-place finish in the Gr. 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes in November at Churchill Downs. His two wins at Tampa Bay Downs earned him qualifying points for one of the 20 spots in the gate the first Saturday in May.

Before the Florida Derby, Lynch had this to say about the son of the great Giant’s Causeway, known as the “Iron Horse” after winning five Gp. 1 races in just 11 weeks as a three-year-old. “You always hope that you come across one in your career that you can have a ‘kick at the can’ in the Derby, but fortunately this horse came into our stable, and he’s done everything we’ve asked of him. I think he’s just getting better, and we’re really excited to have him.”

louis rushlow

Whatever lies ahead, Lynch said he will “stop and smell the roses,” whether they’re draped across the withers of Classic Causeway at Churchill Downs or the figurative kind. 

He embraces a positive attitude toward racing that most of us should emulate. “Racing is a game of ups and downs. You could be dodging missiles in Ukraine. You get over a loss, have a beer or soft drink, and move on.”  

His idea of relaxation may be an indication of the kind of person Brian Lynch is. When Greg Blasi mentioned one day he and other outriders were going up to a farm east of Louisville to work cattle, the 57-year-old Lynch was quick to say to Blasi, “If you ever need some help, just let me know.”  

He’s ridden with Blasi, and the others as many times as he’s had the opportunity, ever since. “He’s just a very good horseman, whether it’s on the back of a pony herding cows—just whatever,” said Blasi. “He used to gallop his own horses. He’s come up the hard way, and he tells stories about when he didn’t have a couple of nickels to rub together. Nothing was handed to him. I respect guys like that. There are a lot of people that didn’t have to struggle to get where they are.

“He’s also a lot of fun to be around.”  Ah, there’s that word. 

For a guy who’s ridden bucking broncos and bulls, you might expect a certain fearlessness. Not so: “I have one fear in life, and that is that there’s a good time going on somewhere and I’m not in the middle of it.”