From the backstretch to the big stage - Louisiana native Lonnie Briley with Triple Crown hopeful Coal Battle in profile

Each year, the Triple Crown season features at least one underdog story, a horse that seems to come out of nowhere to make a splash in the run-up to these three classic races. This little guy may be new to the broader public, but for those who live and breathe racing, theirs is a familiar name, someone known for their passion for the horses and for the sport. Their star horse may bring new attention to this familiar face, but really, the success of that Triple Crown horse is the by-product of decades of the trainer’s devotion to their craft. 

For Lonnie Briley, the success of Coal Battle, his Triple Crown hopeful owned by Robbie Norman of Norman Stables, is the culmination of his years as the commiserate horseman. From roping horses to farm trainer to his new role as the man behind one of this year’s leading three-year-olds, Coal Battle is the result of a lifetime working with equine athletes and the end result of his training program, his emphasis on finding standout athletes at certain price points and then cultivating the individual to maximize their talents.

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For this Louisiana native, being on the Triple Crown trail is definitely a new sensation. Derby dreaming has not really been on his radar during his nearly forty-year career. “I never thought I'd have one,” Briley shared. “I mean, that was out of the picture, to have that quality of a horse.”

This storybook season has focused more attention than ever on this easygoing conditioner who has mostly flown under the radar throughout his time on the racetrack. Though he has made horses and racing his life, Briley’s background did not make pursuing the sport an inevitability. Born in Opelousas, Louisiana, home of Evangeline Downs racetrack, his father Lionel worked in the oil fields and his mother Robbie was a nurse. Even though his uncle Ronald Bradley was a quarter-horse trainer, Briley got his exposure to horses in a different forum. 

“I was into rodeoing when I was younger, and I liked to rope. So that’s, I guess, where the horses started,” he recalled. “My interest was always in horses. I liked to know what made them tick and how they thought and stuff like that. It’s been a self-taught experience throughout my life.” 

Decades later, roping is still a part of Briley’s life. His son Lance and grandson Noah were competitive ropers, and Noah went to the National High School finals. His family has even participated in the World Series of Team Roping. “Yeah, it’s just something we like to do,” Briley laughed. 

Like his father, he went to work in Louisiana’s oil fields after high school, working as a tool pusher while also breaking and training Thoroughbreds on the side. Briley’s reputation as a horseman caught the attention of John Franks, owner of Franks Petroleum in Shreveport, Louisiana. When the oil field he was working at shut down, the Louisiana native got a surprising offer. “Mr. Franks called me one night and asked me if I'd go [to work for him]. He asked me about the oil field, what I did. I said I was a tool pusher. He said, ‘Do you want to come work for me?’ I said, ‘Yes.’” Briley recalled. “Mr. Franks, he was a geologist by trade. And so, he was very familiar with the oil field. But he had, heck, 700 something mares at that time. Stallions and racehorses. He was the biggest owner in the country. So, I went. It was a good experience. It was fun.”

The oilman had entered racing in the late 1970s, buying Alta’s Lady, an unraced Louisiana-bred broodmare who went on to produce several stakes-winning foals. Franks then went all in on breeding and racing Thoroughbreds; when he passed away in 2003, he had more than 500 horses, including 120 horses with various trainers around the country. Four times he won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Owner and led North America in wins six times and in earnings five times. In addition, Franks was a nine-time leading breeder by wins in the 1980s and 1990s. He owned farms in Ocala, Florida, and in Shreveport, where Briley went to work as farm trainer in 1991.

There, he did a little bit of everything, handling stallions, breeding and foaling out mares, breaking young horses, and more. Working day in and day out with Thoroughbreds prompted Briley to add a unique feature to his office: “I had actually put a skeleton together and glued it and wired it together from a horse. Mr. Frank said, ‘What's you doing with that?’ I said, ‘Well, if the horse got a problem, I can show you where it's at.’ He said, ‘Well, you got it in the office.’ I said, ‘Well, it don't eat anything.’” Briley laughed. That skeleton is indicative of the trainer’s philosophy on horses, his goal to learn everything about horses to catch issues before they become problems and to assess each horse as an individual, watching how they move and think so he can place them in the best spot possible.

It was Briley’s eye for talent that led Franks to one of his most successful horses, Answer Lively. A colt by graded stakes winner Lively One, his dam Twosies Answer was also a stakes winner, but had not been a good producer to that point. 

“They actually had that colt scheduled to go to the Arkansas sale. I don't want to say a cold sale, but not really a strong sale. But I looked at this little colt in the past, and I foaled him out and everything,” Briley recalled. “He was really a nice colt. He was a little high tail set horse and big blaze face, but he was really athletic and everything. I called Mr. Franks' office, and I said, ‘This horse, we're going to scratch him, and he don't need to go to that sale.’ He said, ‘Well, Lonnie, his mama hadn't produced anything.’ I said, ‘Well, she did this year,’ I said, ‘This is a nice colt.’”

Briley’s instincts were right. Answer Lively won the 1998 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and then the Eclipse for Champion Two-Year-Old Colt. At three, he was second in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby and then became Franks’s third and final Kentucky Derby starter, finishing 10th behind Charismatic in 1999. 

With his long-time boss gone, Briley focused on training full-time, staying in Louisiana since he primarily had Louisiana breds and running in the state was more lucrative than going elsewhere. He had taken out his trainer’s license in his 20s, but did not focus on training full time until Franks’s death in 2003. In the two decades since, this former tool pusher has built a reputation on his eye for horses as well as his honesty, both of which have led him to newfound heights in the sport. Add in his loyal team of employees and a steadfast owner in his corner, and it becomes this newfound attention on this stalwart horseman is long overdue. 

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Since going out on his own, Briley has focused on racing in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas with occasional incursions to Keeneland and Kentucky Downs. When he struck out on his own, “I had five, six, seven horses, and I get there early in the morning and walk my walkers, clean my stalls, fix my feet buckets, and sign up my horses, and wait on the exercise rider. And I was by myself. And then I think when I got up to 11, I said, ‘Man, I got to get some help.’ But I remember them days. That was tough.”

Currently, Briley has about 30 horses divided between his barns in Louisiana and at Oaklawn Park, where Coal Battle has spent the winter preparing for the Triple Crown season. In his home state, his horses stay at Copper Crowne in Opelousas, an equestrian center that offers lay-up and rehab facilities as well as a 6 ½-furlong training track and on-site veterinary clinic. There, his team breaks young horses and prepares them for the racetrack while also caring for any horses that need a break or are recovering from an injury. 

The Briley barn has ten employees, including his assistant trainer and primary exercise rider, former jockey Bethany Taylor, daughter of the late Remi Gunn, who also rode competitively; his assistant at Evangeline Downs, Raymundo Marin; and his assistant at Copper Crowne, Daisy Cox. Each of his grooms works with about six horses, including Reyes Perez, the man in charge of stable star Coal Battle. At the heart of Briley’s program is the idea that horses are individuals; rather than using the same approach to feeding or training for each athlete, the trainer prefers to tailor routines to the specific horse. 

As Taylor observes about her boss, “he's pretty good about treating each horse as an individual. There's some trainers that have success with putting all their horses on the same routine, like a cookie-cutter operation. And that works for people. But also, he takes into consideration each horse's needs and personalities and stuff like that.”

Each will get “a little breakfast in the morning, maybe half a scoop of feed, just put something in their stomach in case a horse has a little ulcerated stomach or something,” Briley shared. “Then after that, before 10:00, I like for them to eat. Because the morning of the race, you're trying to feed them early, and then you're changing their routine. So as soon as I can feed their groceries, I'm going to feed them. And they like that because they're going to eat their belly full, and they might have one or two bites left, and they're going to go in the corner, and we leave them alone.”

When it comes to their exercise routine, Briley assesses each horse’s temperament and then goes from there. “He watches them. And so, if a horse is lazy and not really getting on the muscle or anything, he might back off of them a little bit, jog them, and let them freshen up,” Taylor observed. “He does try to keep everybody pretty much on a work schedule in that sense. But as far as everyday training and stuff or prepping them for a race, it'll 100% depend on that horse at that time and where they're at.” 

His preferred time between starts also takes the individual into account. “I think four weeks, five weeks is plenty of time, almost on the crunch of being too much, really,” Briley shared. “So around four weeks, I think, because when they're fresh and they try hard and the horses that want to win, they'll give you everything they got. If you start crushing on them too much, running them too close too many times, well, sooner or later, they're going to take a race for themselves and say, ‘Hey, this is too much.’ Because I think horses got minds and feelings, and they think, too.”

Coal Battle, for example, has had four to five weeks between starts since his debut at Evangeline in late July. To prepare the colt for each start, he will go for “those little short works, [which] you can do them closer and more often. You're opening the lungs, and that's what you want. A lot of circulation in the lungs, a lot of blood flow, a lot of air. You want room. And I usually will work mine a half mile, five-eighths. Very seldom, I'll work a horse three-quarters. Before their races, four or five days, I'll blow them three-eighths.” 

Briley’s focus for Coal Battle, as for all of his horses, is to “keep them happy, keep them fit. And he works regular, believe me. I mean, he works on a regular schedule, and all my horses do. And I tell the riders, ‘Don't be scared to use them.’ They’re fit. But that's the thing, watching your horses, because they'll more or less tell you everything if you are paying attention.”

His program has room for all horses, whether they run short or long, though he does tend to lean more toward routers. "To each his own, but I like route horses, but they have to have speed,” Briley observed. “A route horse, just a plodder, they'll just gallop all day long and don't go nowhere. I think fast horses can go far. I love to give a horse a chance to run on a turf. I love to give a horse a chance to run far. Now, if he's bred to run four and a half, five furlongs, and after that, he spits a bit, well, he ain't going nowhere. But if a horse, he works :35, going three-eighths, and gallops out in :47, a lot of them will just keep going.”

He also does not discriminate when it comes to the surface. The veteran trainer likes to put his horses “wherever they fit. I love to run turf horses, but I love the dirt, too. And I mean, I got horses like Coal Battle and Go Captain and a few others. They'll run on the gravel road. But it doesn't matter to me. It's where they're comfortable and where they like to run.”

Then, when problems arise, Briley will “address the problem pretty aggressively, whatever it is, if it's bowed tendons or ankles or knees. And then time. Horses need time to recuperate and stuff. There's different methods we use for each individual problem.” Since he is on the road quite a bit, the horses will then go to Daisy Cox at Copper Crowne to recuperate. 

Mark Norman, one of the two brothers that make up Norman Stables, Briley’s sole owner shared that the veteran trainer is “very cautious on injuries and always wants to do right by the horse by giving them the time off they need or backing off on their training. He's never going to rush one through an injury or anything. He wants to be extra cautious and make sure they heal and everything's right on the horse.”

Assistant trainer Bethany Taylor echoes that, adding “it's always disappointing when you have something go wrong in the barn. But he really does try to handle everything with patience, and he knows so much. He just knows so much. And if we ever have one that's just maybe not necessarily injured, but just done racing, they just have lost their desire to be racehorses anymore, he's got a couple of people that he'll give them to so that they can be rode and rehomed as jumpers or barrel racers or just anything to give them another home.”

Not only is he patient with his horses, but also with his employees, preferring to teach when the opportunity arises. “He is particular about how he wants things done. But, if you mess up and you don't quite understand what he's wanting from you, he'll explain it to you. He's not a very aggressive type of person. He'll sit you down and explain it to you. So, you can learn a lot from him,” Taylor shared. 

His patience also extends to preparing young horses for their jobs as racehorses, especially the yearlings they pick up at sales. “He'll bring them home and give them 30, 45 days if they need it. And then they'll start back easy jogging and stuff, and we won't even get them at the track. We won't get them in from the training center until they're ready to really start back training again. They'll get legged up at the training center before we even get them.”

Then, as Briley shared, “in September, we'll break them and start jogging them and stuff. And I'll usually jog them the first 30 days. We'll go through the gates with them as soon as we can, just walk them in and then out, so it's just another thing for them. Then we'll start galloping and usually, depending on the horse, after close to 90 days and so we'll start giving them little clips, and I'll clip them probably twice a week, like a sixteenth, and then I'll build it up to an eighth and then a quarter. And then after that, I'll go once a week and then just build them up to three eighths and a half.” 

Generally, the veteran trainer will start his two-year-olds around September. He will try them on the turf as he did with Coal Battle. After breaking his maiden on dirt, Briley sent the colt to Kentucky Downs, where he made a strong showing in the Kentucky Juvenile Mile Stakes. “He was way out of it. He'd come flying. And he run forth. When he crossed the line, two jumps, he was in front, and galloped out five, six lengths in front of the winners,” Briley remembered. “Right there, I knew there was more to the horse than what I expected from day one.”

Coal Battle is a long way from the horses that the veteran started his career with, a sign that the integrity and devotion he has been known for in his native Louisiana have brought him to a new level in the sport he loves.

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After his tenure with John Franks ended, Briley got his start with “cheaper claiming horses, $5,000 claimers, and things like that, $10,000 claimers. Then some of the breeders, they'd raise babies, and then they'd hope they'd be for charity babies to run in a little five furlong [race] for charities and things like that.”

Not quite a decade later, the veteran horseman met brothers Mark and Robbie Norman of Norman Stables. The pair were new to racing and looking for a trainer. They chose Copper Crowne for its proximity to their homes in southern Alabama and went through the center’s seven barns talking to different trainers, their goal to find the right person to start their fledgling stable with. Briley, in his characteristic joking manner, said, “They made a mistake and came back to my barn.”

“They asked me if I would buy them a few horses, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And we started from there. Started with two or three horses and ended up with 30.”

Their entry into racing came during a tough time for Robbie. “I [had] recently went through a divorce. I will say me and my ex-wife, we get along wonderfully now. She's the biggest fan of Coal Battle, so all that works out good in the end also. But you're searching for something because you really didn't want the divorce, and you're asking yourself, ‘How did I end up in this spot?’” Norman remembered. “I was actually at an apartment in downtown Thomasville trying to figure out where I was going to move next and looking for a new home. I was just flipping through the channels one night, and I think the race is wrong, so I watched a race or two. Then that documentary [on 2012 Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags] come up, and so I watched the full documentary, and it hit me right there that I'm going to buy me a racehorse. I'm going to go and do something fun and, like I say, do a little traveling and do something that you can win a victory in.” 

The brothers own a series of grocery stores in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia, fulfilling a dream that their father, a Southern Baptist minister, had as a young man. Major brain surgery in his 20s left the patriarch disabled, but Robbie followed in his footsteps after graduating with an accounting degree from Troy University. His first job in a grocery warehouse gave Norman the experience and connections that allowed the pair to start their company. Their success has enabled Robbie to pursue owning a stable with Mark, who has had an interest in horses since childhood and currently works with barrel racers. Both of his daughters are competitive barrel riders themselves while Robbie’s two sons, Drew and Nathan, root for their dad’s horses. Drew also accompanies his dad and Briley when they travel to sales around the region. 

Sales are Norman Stables’ preferred method of acquiring horses, though Robbie has bred a couple of his former mares to sires like Dr. Schivel and star Coal Battle’s sire Coal Front. “I prefer to buy. The breeding is a long-term process, and then they can have conformation issues. I truly will never be a major breeder. I really like to go and buy an athlete.”

Briley and Norman both go for sales over breeding. The experience the veteran horseman gained working for John Franks allowed him to develop an eye for the right physique. Finding that horse, though, is where the work comes in. “I love going to a sale, but I'm glad to leave. Because if you work a sale, it's a lot of work. You might look at 200 horses and then try to cut it down at three or four. It's a lot,” Briley shared. 

“I look in a book, and I love new sires, and I love first foals,” he continued. “A mare, if she ran fine, and if she didn't run, she has to have pedigree. But I love the first or second foal. First foal is my favorite. But the first five foals in a mare, if she hadn't produced a runner, her chances are slim and none. She can throw a minor stakes horse in the first five foals, and she can be 20 years old and throw a millionaire. It's just statistics. I look for genetic crosses, and then a stallion that went the route of ground but had a ton of speed. I love Grade 1 horses and stuff, but they don't have to be.” 

Whether he is at the sales with his trainer or watching from home, Robbie Norman goes for the physique over pedigree. “I'm more physical at times, and I like to see how they move, their smoothness and their moving,” he shared. “Now, Lonnie, he adds he knows more about the pedigree, and he sees things in the pedigree, and he's just got a ton of knowledge. I allow him to really take the lead. Deal with the pedigree part. I'm more of just looking for the athlete and everything.”

Additionally, Norman focuses on acquiring regional-bred horses over Kentucky breds. The reason is simple: money. “Any time we go to a sale, I'm looking for the Arkansas bred, the Oklahoma bred, that's the first thing in the book that I'm looking at, because I really want to identify and try to get the best regional bread horse that I can. Financially, that is where you can make the most money on a budget like we have,” he observed.”

“If you're in Louisiana, you can race just against Louisiana breds. In Texas, you can race just against Texas breds. And that way, it really gives you a better shot at winning a stakes race,” the owner shared. When Briley went to the Texas Thoroughbred Association Yearling Sale in 2023, he and Norman’s other trainer Jayde Gelner went looking for regional breds. Gelner came away with Secret Faith, a stakes-winning Louisiana-bred filly by Aurelius Maximus; Briley went against type and came away with a Kentucky-bred by Coal Front. 

The trainer liked the colt right away and kept coming back to him throughout the lead-up to the sale. “I liked his confirmation. He had a good walk, good shoulder, good hip, long neck on him, and really a good head on him. He was the first foal out of a mare, a Midshipman mare, which I like a lot,” Briley remembered. “I like the bloodline. And then, genetically, if you look close, in the fifth, sixth generation, he goes back to Seattle Slew six times.” Though he had three horses on his short list, the trainer shared his interest in the Coal Front colt, hip 263. 

Unable to travel with Briley, Norman bid online, knowing that “there's no other horse that Lonnie likes. I'm just clicking away thinking, $35,000, I'm going to get him. And then at 40, around $40,000, it came down, you could tell, to the Internet, which was me, and somebody else. They were pointing just at one person. And so, I just kept bidding. I said, ‘Eventually, I'm going to get Lonnie this horse.” He likes him.’”

“Next thing you know, I done bid up to $70,000, which was way over our budget, and he was not a Louisiana-bred. But at the end of the day, I guess sometimes, it's not what you plan to happen at that sale, but it's all turned out wonderful.” 

Wonderful is an understatement. Coal Battle has taken the Normans and Briley’s team to places they never expected. 

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Now on the precipice of a Triple Crown campaign for the first time, Briley and Norman find themselves in an unexpected place. After decades of racing under the radar, they are preparing Coal Battle for a stage that neither has experienced before. With the first Saturday in May right around the corner, the pair have been thinking about their approach to the five-week gauntlet that is the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.

After breaking his maiden in his debut at Evangeline Downs in late July, Coal Battle has since racked up four more victories in seven starts, including a win in the Springboard Mile at Remington Park, the Jean Laffite at Delta Downs, and the Smarty Jones and the Grade 2 Rebel at Oaklawn Park. His Rebel victory also gave Briley his first graded stakes victory – which felt “good, like going to a good rope” according to the 72-year-old trainer – and put the colt square in the conversation for the Kentucky Derby. Not only has Norman fielded offers for the colt, which he has turned down, preferring to keep things simple and leaving their current team intact, but also Briley, assistant Bethany Taylor, and the Norman brothers have had racing media knocking on their doors, a new sensation for team Coal Battle. 

“I have people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Lonnie, congratulations on all this.’ And I just shake hands and say, ‘Thank you.’ But I couldn't name them,” Briley laughed. “It's so many people more or less rooting for the little man, and you hate to let them down. It feels good.”

Taylor, who is not only Coal Battle’s primary exercise rider but also one of the people who knows the colt best, echoed her boss’s sentiments: “We appreciate everybody's support. Everybody's excited for them, and they're rooting so much for us. And we love it, and we're just like, ‘Man, we hope he lives up to everybody's expectations.’”

As they count down to the Run for the Roses, Briley’s plan for the three classics is simple. “I'd like to go early enough where I could get a couple of works of Churchill on that track before the Derby,” the trainer shared. “If he runs good, even if he doesn't win it, he runs, let's say, in the top three or something like that, he will probably still go to the Preakness and see what happens there. It's a little short, and it's usually a smaller field, about half. And then we'll see.” 

Norman, for his part, trusts his trainer’s judgement for Coal Battle’s path through the Triple Crown. “I'm never going to push for it. If Lonnie says he went through a long campaign and he gets third in the Derby and Lonnie makes that decision that he needs rest, he will rest,” Norman said. “If Lonnie makes that decision that he thinks that he can move forward from, say, a good placing in the Derby, and do good in the Preakness, we will go. And that's a relief on me, going back to Lonnie. All those decisions are one hundred percent his, and we're going to back him all the way.” 

That trust that Robbie Norman has in his trainer, one built out of a dozen years of working together as well as the friendship that Briley has built with the brothers as well as their families, comes not only from the expertise of a man who has spent his life with horses but also from the honesty that underpins every move that the trainer makes. It is his honesty and enthusiasm for the equine athletes that make Lonnie Briley easy to root for as he faces his biggest challenge yet.

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Throughout this storybook season with Coal Battle, Lonnie Briley, Robbie Norman, and the teams behind them have been thrust into the spotlight, a new sensation for all involved. Any discussion about the veteran trainer comes back to his deep knowledge of the equine athlete and his honesty as well as his good-natured approach to life. 

“Lonnie is very thorough, old-school. He doesn't let much get past him, and he'll always comment on how many bones are in the body of a horse. He knows a horse very, very well,” Mark Norman shared. “He shares a lot of information and goes over everything really good with you. Just very honest and upfront.”

After working with him for 15 years, Bethany Taylor knows her boss pretty well and will sing his praises when given the opportunity. “He's probably forgotten more stuff than most people know as far as when it comes to just knowing a horse. And you can always count on him being completely honest with you,” she observed. “If the horse isn't what you thought it was or something happens with the horse because they're just so delicate, he's not ever going to not tell you something because you might not like what's happened.” 

At the same time, while he does run a tight ship, “the energy is really light and happy, and we joke a lot,” the long-time assistant shared. “I gallop in jock boots, but I wear Western boots to the barn in the morning to work in in the shed row, and I'll go to put my jock boots on to gallop in the morning, and there'll be candy wrappers in them. He's super playful, just the same that you guys get when you're interviewing him.”

For Robbie Norman, who had enough faith and trust in Lonnie Briley to exceed his usual budget to buy what has become a springtime sensation, the trainer is more than someone he works with: he is a friend. “Number one, Lonnie's just a good person. Everybody in my family likes Lonnie. He's so nice to us. I'm his only owner at the present time. I think he likes that. That forms a good relationship,” Norman shared. “We talk every day, whether it's about $5,000 claimers or whether it's about going to the Kentucky Derby, he does let me be involved. We discuss it. Usually, we come up with the best plan possible. Ultimately, he's the decision maker.” 

Briley’s devotion to his equine athletes shows in how he conducts himself day in and day out, his focus always on the individuals in his stalls. “He's just 100% dedicated. And when Lonnie makes the comment that it's an eight-day-a-week job, 60 hours or 40 hours a day, he's not joking,” Norman shared. “At 72 years old, he's there at 4:00 in the morning, he's there at 8:00 at night. The dedication of what he's put into his craft is something very few people ever achieve in their life.”

The white-haired, soft-spoken Briley remains the same ardent horseman he was as a young man breaking babies and as a farm trainer building a horse skeleton and memorizing the 216 bones that form the foundation of these athletes. The Louisiana native almost seems ageless, his good nature and ability to crack a result of the eternal hope at the heart of horse racing. “Sometimes I say, ‘One of these days, you're going to have to retire,’” the trainer laughed. “Retire and do what? I've been on the road so long and so much, and I don't know if I can. But I guess I could rustle up a rope horse. He'd probably turn and look at me and say, ‘You're not serious.’”

In Lonnie Briley’s case, a horse like Coal Battle is all the fuel he needs to stick at it even in his eighth decade: “A good horse keeps you going. You know what I mean?”

All in the Family: Larry Rivelli Finds Another Level Thanks to Trust, Relationships

Article by Jennifer Kelly

In an era of super trainers with even larger owners behind them, the sport of horse racing still has at its foundation a legion of owners and trainers who operate on a smaller scale but nonetheless make big news on the racetrack. These are the men and women who have built their lives around the equine athletes in their care, their knowledge passed down through generations, supporting racetracks at all levels. These are breeders, owners, trainers, and many more who think of themselves as a family, one bonded by the love of horses. 

For Larry Rivelli, a third-generation horseman, family is at the heart of his barn. Lessons learned by his grandfather’s and uncle’s sides have informed his approach to his work and his relationships with owners as he takes his career to a new level. 

Windy City Boy

A Chicago native, Rivelli comes by his horsemanship honestly: his late grandfather Pete and uncle Jimmy DiVito both made their livelihoods in the sport. Pete made his life with horses, preferring his education on the track rather than in a schoolroom as early as 5th grade. He galloped horses for Bing Crosby, worked with horses during his stint in the Army, and then returned to racing in Chicago and California afterward. He trained for Louis B. Mayer, Harry James and Betty Grable, and Lindsay Howard, son of Charles Howard, owner of the famed Seabiscuit. He returned to Chicago for good in the 1960s and spent the rest of his career there. 

Son Jimmy followed him into the business as well, his home base also in Chicago. Alongside both worked Larry Rivelli, son of Pete’s daughter Julie and Jimmy’s nephew. While his mother worked, “I stayed with my grandparents a lot. And it was just racing forms and programs on the kitchen table every day. I would read them. My grandfather would read them. We would just go back to the track. The track was eight minutes from the house.” 

DiVito put his grandson to work cleaning stalls when he was nine or ten years old; later, he worked with his uncle Jimmy during school breaks, both giving Rivelli opportunities to learn the skills that would serve him when he went out on his own. The young Rivelli always had athletic ambitions at heart – “I either wanted to be a professional football player or a horse trainer,” – leading the state in rushing in his junior and senior years of high school before going on to St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. There, he played wide receiver and kick returner for the Huskies, and after graduation, found his opportunities at the next level were limited. Instead, he turned to the family business. 

“[Training] was always just something that I really was enamored with as a little kid. That's what I really wanted to do, train racehorses, and I think that's why I've been so successful,” Rivelli shared. “It's just not even a job to me. Being a horse trainer, it's just a way of life. You either got to love it or you're not going to be able to do it. You have to have a passion for it.”

With his mother Julie and stepdad Victor in his corner, Rivelli went out on his own as a public trainer, taking out his license in 1999, the year after his grandfather died. He made Chicago his base, staying close to home while building his business and his family. On the home front, Rivelli has daughter Brittany, a competitive synchronized skater, and son Dominic, a collegiate hockey player, continuing the family’s athletic tradition. 

His foundation made the transition from football to training an easy one, a natural progression for a young man who grew up idolizing his famed grandfather and uncle. 

Training Methodologies

Rivelli’s background as a football player and his emphasis on family has inspired his approach to training since he hung out his shingle as a public trainer 25 years ago. His experience as an athlete has cultivated an awareness of the relationship between how a horse feels physically and how they will perform on the racetrack. While such a correlation might seem obvious, first-hand understanding of that dynamic helped Rivelli manage his equine athletes in a manner that emphasizes both fitness and work ethic in his starters. 

“If you've been an athlete, you’ve dealt with injuries and setbacks and therapy differently than people that, let's just say, never played a sport,” Rivelli shared. “It's a sport, and horses get hurt. They want to try to work through these injuries where horses are so much bigger and heavier than humans. And they're putting all that pressure on about the size of our legs. So, if something goes wrong, I take steps back and time heals everything most of the time.”

Dr. Jean White, an Ocala, Florida veterinarian and part of the Rivelli team, describes the trainer’s approach as one where “he would rather do less and have the horse want to do more. If he doesn't think the horse can win, he doesn't want to run it. If it needs rest, let it rest. If it needs its feet fixed, fix them. If it needs us to evaluate it and figure out why, then do that.” 

“It's just like a human being. People go to the gym and absolutely kill themselves every day, and then they don't feel so great,” she observed. “It's a different style. It's a different thought process, a different mentality.”

That emphasis on fitness means the trainer is “a four to six weeks [between races] guy. Occasionally or situationally, you'll have something come up sooner.” 

“Back in the day [2002-2006], I had a turf sprinter, Nicole's Dream, and she was really, really good,” Rivelli remembered. “They had a boys race and a girls race in Chicago, and they were separated by a week. There was no other races on the planet for her for three and a half months, so I ran her back. And she won. She was an extremely sound horse, too, so it made that decision easier.”

The native Chicagoan prefers to run his horses in winnable spots so that they are not asked to give too much over and over again: “I take pride in running most of my horses. I'm a bad loser, so I won't run one if I don't think they can win, really. I'll take as much time as we need to get them to that point. We'll even stop on them and back off and send them home and turn them out and bring them back. If something's not going right during the process instead of getting ready, we're just going to stop. Horses, they only got so many races in them.”

Instead, the trainer prefers to give a horse time off and only bring them back “when they’re 100% and ready to go. And that's why he has horses that run ‘til they're eight,” White shared. “They're wanting to train, wanting to run.”

Vincent Foglia of Patricia’s Hope, one of Rivelli’s biggest owners, points out what he sees is behind the trainer’s success: “He does the same thing every day, seven days a week. He's got that set list. He's always looking at that big sheet. He's always writing down who's going to be walking, who's going to be galloping, who's breezing. It's like clockwork. His consistency, the amount of time he puts into it, is very regimented. Very consistent and meticulous. That's his approach. That's great. And he always does what's right by the horse every time. That's first and foremost.”

That emphasis on consistency and care has helped the third-generation trainer build a solid career in his native racing scene. In 2000, his first full season, Rivelli’s barn had 57 starts and an 8-7-9 record, for 14% win and 42% win-place-show percentages; in 2024, his 25th season, he had 279 starts and a record of 89-45-26, for 25% win and 50% WPS percentages. Nationally, Rivelli has been in the Top 50 by wins in 12 out of the last 15 years. His career win percentage of 26% and WPS of 56% reflects his ability to put his horses in the right spots for success. To this point in his career, much of that has been in the Chicago area.

He won his first training title at Arlington Park in 2011, and then was the track’s leading trainer from 2014 to its final season in 2021. Rivelli then shifted his stable to Hawthorne, the lone racetrack remaining in the Chicago area, and won leading trainer titles there for their 2021-2023 spring meets. This native son emphasizes his roots, saying “I'll still consider myself a Chicago trainer [even] if there are no tracks in Illinois.” 

For his winter racing, Rivelli has horses stabled in a private barn at Fair Grounds in New Orleans, one he purchased from former owner Louis Roussel, an acquisition that signaled his intent to make a long-term investment in Louisiana. “The state is thriving as far as races. They got four tracks in the state, and they're all doing their thing,” Rivelli shared. In addition, he has horses at Turfway Park near Cincinnati and then shifts back to his home base at Hawthorne the rest of the year. In addition to being on home turf there, the track’s proximity works in his favor as “it's easier on the help and on yourself,” plus “I [can] ship to Churchill, which is four hours. To ship to Keeneland is three and a half hours, three hours to Indiana. So, all these tracks around us, it's not a big deal to ship. You ship over a couple of days before or a week before. I like the fact that the horses are all under one roof.”

Staying in this area also helps Rivelli maintain the relationships that he has built with owners like Patricia’s Hope and Richard Ravin, both of whom found ample success at the Windy City’s racetracks. The bonds the trainer has formed with those two owners exemplify his approach to doing business: keeping it all in the family. 

Bonded with Success

Two ownership mainstays in the Rivelli barn include Richard Ravin and the Foglia family, the Chicago-area entrepreneurs-turned-philanthropists behind the Patricia’s Hope stable. Ravin’s investment in the sport includes both his current racing-age horses in Rivelli’s barn and the broodmares that Dr. White keeps on one of her Ocala-area properties. Both owners have been with Rivelli for more than a decade and count the trainer as more than just a partner in the sport. They are a team, and as the trainer puts it, “these are my guys, and they know that. It’s very rare that you have people like that that are in the game with you, and they are happier for you when we win than they are for themselves.”

An Ohio native who settled in the Chicago area in the 1960s, Ravin retired from the insurance business and got into horse ownership after a chance encounter with a friend who had bought into Nicole’s Dream, one of Rivelli’s earliest successes. Ravin partnered with Dare to Dream Stable in the sprinter and then expanded into breeding as well. He met Rivelli through “the four or five guys that we got together as a horse ownership group, and they're the ones that picked him. I didn't know him. I got to know Larry since we had the Nicole's Dream and a couple others when we made a couple of purchases early on, back in 2000, 2001. And I've been together with Larry ever since.” 

The Foglia family got into the ownership game after years of trips to Arlington that became bonding moments for mother Patricia and son Vincent, Jr. Father Vincent founded Sage Products, Inc., a medical supply company in Cary, Illinois. The company’s prosperity allowed the family to start the Foglia Family Foundation, which supports health care and education in the Chicago area. The younger Foglia wanted to expand their love of the sport into ownership in 2010. They met Rivelli when they wanted to claim a horse and immediately hit it off: “I knew he was winning most of the races at Arlington. That was it. I knew nothing. I got a quick introduction to him on the phone because we were going to claim a horse at Gulfstream. We just hit it off. We have similar backgrounds and are real close in age and became friends really quickly,” Foglia remembered. 

“He is like my brother that I never had. We are like two very similar people as far as just the way we are and ended up just being a great partnership and an even better friendship,” the trainer shared. That friendship led to a partnership that dominated at Arlington Park. While Rivelli was leading trainer for much of the track’s final decade, Patricia’s Hope was the leading owner. Rivelli also introduced the Foglias to Ravin, which led to the trainer and owners forging a solid partnership behind horses like Grade 3 stakes winner Jean Elizabeth and Grade 2 turf sprinter One Timer. 

Patricia’s Hope also has brought Rivelli Breeders’ Cup success. Their Cocked and Loaded was the trainer’s first Breeders’ Cup starter at Keeneland in 2015, and turf sprinter Nobals gave both their first Breeders’ Cup winner with his neck victory over Big Invasion in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita in 2023. The Foglias were also partners in Two Phil’s, second in the 2023 Kentucky Derby behind Mage. They bought into the colt, who became both the trainer’s and the owners’ first Derby starter, on Rivelli’s recommendation. 

“I'm tight with Larry. I'm his biggest investor. I'm his biggest owner. And we're very good friends,” Foglia shared. “The Sagans, who owned [Two Phil’s], they were trying to sell that horse from the sale on out. They wanted the money. I'm like, should I go in? He [Rivelli] goes, ‘Absolutely.’ I said, I'll take as much as I could get. I ended up getting 80%.” 

That trust is at the heart of Rivelli’s relationship with his owners. As Ravin puts it, “First of all, he's a very loyal guy and he just totally exemplifies honesty, integrity, and character. Those are the type of people I really want to be associated with. When you got a person like Larry, it then becomes a friendship, even more so than the partnership.” The Foglias echo that sentiment, the younger Vincent sharing that the trainer “always tells the truth. He's always working hard, and he does right by the horse, and he's honest about everything.”

That honesty translates into a trust that makes the relationship between Rivelli, Ravin, the Foglias, and Dr. White a collaborative effort where “there is plenty of room between the owners and the two of us for somebody to raise their hand and go, ‘Wait. What are we doing? Wait a second.’” White observed. “That is allowed. Every once in a while, somebody goes, ‘yeah, we need to look at the situation differently.’”

In the end, what each appreciates about working with team Rivelli is “the friendship, the team working together, being honest and direct, being upfront, it's just a tremendous experience,” Ravin shared. “My wife threw a very special 80th birthday party for me down here last year. And there was Larry flying from Chicago, coming down and being there as a surprise. So that's the person, that's the relationship, and that's as good as I can give an example of what a quality person he is.”

Rivelli echoes those sentiments whenever he talks about owners like Ravin and the Foglias. “I'm so fortunate right now that the people that I have, my main owners, I can literally say, I love these people,” the trainer shared. “These are my people. If they said tomorrow we quit, I'd say, ‘All right, where are we going for breakfast?’ These are my guys. And they know that, and I know that. And it's very rare that you have people like that that are in the game with you, and they are happier for you when we win than they are for themselves. Like me, I'm so happy for my guys, like for Vinnie and his mom and Richard Ravin and when they win, than I am for myself.”

So much of the success a trainer builds over the course of their career depends on the relationships they cultivate with racetrack officials, jockeys, veterinarians, and most of all, owners. As Dr. White shared, the dynamic between Rivelli and his owners can best be summed up with “Vinnie would just [say], ‘okay, whatever you want to do, whatever you think is best, Riv. That's what we're going to do.’”

That kind of trust, especially when Arlington closed leaving them without the site of much of their early success, led to a rethinking of their business model and one of Rivelli’s highest profile horses to date. 

A Change in Perspective 

Rivelli and team may have dominated Arlington’s last decade, but the track’s closure meant Patricia’s Hope, Richard Ravin, and their trainer needed to rethink their approaches to racing going forward. While they have found success after shifting to Hawthorne, they have changed the type of horses they want in their barn. “The game plan for the owners and myself has changed. Whether we're at Hawthorne or Turfway or Fair Grounds, that's really not important. It's all just a matter of what's running,” the trainer observed. “Focusing our efforts on buying more expensive horses, so to say, or better horses instead of filling the barn with the 20s, 30s, 8s, 12s, because you wanted to have one for each spot. Now we're looking for the best horses we can get all the time.”

That shift to quality over quantity means a multi-layered approach to acquiring horses, mostly through either private purchases or through sales like the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Two-Year-Olds-in-Training Sale. “Our thing is we really do a little bit of everything,” Rivell shared. “There's no method to this. There's no foolproof approach. If we just go to the sale every year, the two-year-old sales, we're going to get couple, of course. I bought One Timer, who has made over a million dollars, as a yearling for $21,000 on the way out of a sale just walking out. I thought I had a big budget that year. I spent a lot of money. That was the cheapest horse I bought. He was little. He's put together good, and I liked him. He looked like he would be fast. He grew up into this beauty, and he's woin over a million dollars. He's just a real nice racehorse.”

Nobals, on the other hand, “we bought him after he ran, so he was a proven horse.” Rivelli purchased the gelding by Noble Mission out of the Empire Maker mare Pearly Blue for $150,000 from owner/trainer Leland Hayes. “And then at the [2022 OBS] two-year-olds in training sale we saw Two Phil’s. The breeder gave him to me, said he wants to sell the horse. Patricia's Hope [the Foglia family] bought the piece that the guy wanted to sell.” Add in Richard Ravin’s broodmares as well as Two Phil’s now standing at stud, Rivelli and company also “breed a few. [Vinnie] will be breeding a couple because he stayed in for a percentage on Two Phil’s. So, we're going to have a lot of action. And you never know where it's going to come from.”

This new focus brought Rivelli his three most successful seasons to date, including 2023, with $4.9 million in earnings and a win percentage of 31%. “It's just a coincidence, but it's funny. The first year we decided to change the motto was the year we won the Breeders’ Cup [with Nobals] and almost won the Derby [with Two Phil’s],” he shared. “We couldn't make a wrong move that year at all. It was great.”

As his highest profile horses to date, One Timer, Two Phil’s, and Nobals are the best illustrations of the trainer’s approach to buying, preparing, and racing his horses. All three were acquired in different ways, each catching Rivelli’s attention based on their physical appearance or performance; Nobals’s lone start at Presque Isle at age two prompted Rivelli to pursue buying the gelding. After acquiring the talent comes planning a campaign. Even if the trainer envisions a specific goal for a horse, like the Kentucky Derby or the Breeders’ Cup, he still approaches the season start by start. 

Nobals was already a stakes winner prior to his 2023 Breeders’ Cup win, taking the listed Arlington-Washington Futurity at age two and following that with two black-type stakes wins at Turfway at age three, all on synthetic. Rivelli also tested him on turf: his first win at age four came in the Grade 2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs, a three-quarter-length victory that had Rivelli circling the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita on his calendar. To get there, the gelding went to Horseshoe Indianapolis and won the William Garrett Handicap; to Saratoga, where he was second to Cogburn in the Grade 3 Troy; and then to Colonial Downs for the Da Hoss, which he won by a head, before his trip out west to Santa Anita. Each start was about four weeks apart with eight weeks between the Da Hoss and his win in the Turf Sprint. With Nobals returning for his six-year-old season, Rivelli knows his sprinting star has fewer options if he wants to build toward a second try at the Breeders’ Cup: “For Nobals, for those type of individuals, there are less select races for a five-eighths turf specialist and sprinter. Wherever they're at, you got to go to.”

When Two Phil’s (Hard Spun – Mia Torri, by General Quarters) landed in his barn in 2022, Rivelli was not thinking about the Kentucky Derby trail until his Grade 3 Street Sense win over a sloppy Churchill Downs surface, his third win in five starts at age two. That 5¼-length win came around two turns, the colt’s second try at 1 1/16 miles after finishing out of the money in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland. After that, “we took a little closer order on what races we were going to run him in and stuff like that,” the trainer remembered. “Now, if he had run a third in that race, maybe I wouldn't have gone the route I went, but he won pretty convincingly.” 

Trying for the first Saturday in May “always is in the back of your mind, but when you don't have the opportunity or you don't have those type of horses all the time, it's hard,” Rivelli observed. “I’ve had one or maybe two. It's because I know what it takes to have those horses. I could have taken several horses that I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars with by running them in other races besides those races and try to qualify for the Derby, but I knew they weren't good enough, even though other people or other trainers might have gone down that road just for the fact to go down it.”

The Street Sense win showed Rivelli and the partnership, including Patricia’s Hope, that the colt had the potential for a try at the Run for the Roses. To get there, the trainer sent his colt to Fair Grounds, where he was third behind Angel of Empire in the Grade 3 Lecomte that January and then second behind Instant Coffee in the Grade 2 Risen Star four weeks later. Rivelli then sent his colt to Turfway for the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks, which Two Phil’s won by 5¼ lengths. Six weeks later, Rivelli was on the backside of Churchill Downs with a serious Derby contender and a barrage of media seeking out the chestnut colt and his Windy City connections. 

Two Phil’s and regular rider Jareth Loveberry, another Arlington refugee, entered the gate on the first Saturday of May as one of the four horses with single digit odds, fourth choice behind Angel of Empire, Tapit Trice, and Japanese hopeful Derma Sotogake. Loveberry stalked the pace set by Verifying and Kingsbarns through the first mile and then edged clear by 1½ lengths with three furlongs to go. Mage mounted his bid on their outside, building enough momentum to pass Two Phil’s in the final furlong. Though they were not victorious, “the overall day, with the Derby and with Nobals winning the half million-dollar race, that was probably the best day,” Rivelli shared. 

The trainer then broke with tradition and opted not to send Two Phil’s to Pimlico for the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes two weeks later. “We ran in the Derby, ran in the biggest, the baddest race in the planet, and we almost won,” Rivelli reflected. “What do you do now? Okay, that's done. Horse is doing great. Let's find spots where we can't lose. Not what we can maybe win, where we can't lose.”

That choice to skip the Preakness reflects this veteran trainer’s philosophy about both spotting his horses and timing their starts. The two-week turnaround makes the two races “too close, especially that caliber of race. I know they've been talking about backing it up, which I think would be a good thing.” 

Instead, Rivelli chose to follow up Two Phil’s second-place turn at Churchill Downs with a jaunt to Thistledown for the Grade 3 Ohio Derby six weeks later. “There's only so many times he's going to ask a horse to give a hundred percent of its effort,” Dr. White shared. “He's much more likely to ship to some other racetracks away from the crowd and ask them to run to 70% or 80% of their potential and leave that 100% for a spot here or there.” The nine-furlong stakes was another tour-de-force performance from the son of Hard Spun. Once again, he laid just off the pace, took over in the stretch, and finished strong, beating second-choice Bishops Bay by 5¾ lengths. 

“He was spectacular that day. We were so glad to see that he was back, and we was really looking forward to what he was going to do next,” Rivelli remembered. “We were all high fiving on the plane, drinking, partying on the way back. And then the next day, it's like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ Hit right in the gut.”

After his Ohio Derby win, the colt started showing lameness in his left front ankle. Radiographs showed that the issue was a fractured sesamoid. The injury was not life-threatening, but it was career-ending. Two Phil’s was retired with a 10-5-2-1 record and $1,583,450 in earnings. He now stands stud at WinStar Farm, with both Rivelli and the Foglias retaining shares. 

The veteran trainer was realistic about Two Phil’s injury and retirement. “The prognosis is generally not very good. His was not that bad, but it wasn't insignificant. If you gave him a year off, he probably could be fine, or you could go back to training him,” Rivelli observed. “Me, like I said, being an athlete, knowing this stuff, you could be fine, but you're going to lose a step or two or three. What will be the point? What does he need to prove? He doesn't owe us anything. You always want to do right by the horse.”

With 65 to 70 horses and 30 employees in his barns, with a close-knit group of owners and team that have helped take him to a new level, Larry Rivelli is ready for 2025 and beyond. 

The Next Thing 

For this Chicago native, the name of the game is adapting. “Life throws stuff at you. You got to adapt anyway. And that's the key to it is, if you can keep adapting, you're on good footing,” Rivelli shared. “It's like coaching a football team. You got to keep the players healthy as you can for as long as you can. Meanwhile, trying to win races and be in the right spots where you're not going to run fifth, sixth, eighth, and put miles on your horse and not make your owner money.” 

With racing in his hometown down to one racetrack, this native son hopes that Hawthorne will add a casino to its facility, which will help keep the sport afloat in Illinois as such additions have elsewhere. In the meantime, his fellow Chicagoans Richard Ravin and the Foglia family will be along for the ride with complete trust in the man caring for their horses. 

“I have never thought about calling, watching, doing, or anything else with anybody except Larry,” Ravin shared. The retired insurance executive cites his trainer’s best advice about racing – having patience – as the foundation behind his confidence: “If we're patient and care about our horses, I think we'll be rewarded both for doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, and we'll be rewarded by getting the wins that we need to get to make it a viable operation.”  

Vincent Foglia, Jr. received similar advice from Rivelli: “Don't get too excited about one start. Don't try to rush anything. Do what you think the horse can do. Stay within your limitations of the horse you have and its ability. Relax.” That perspective got the Foglias within a length of a Kentucky Derby. It is an experience that the family behind Patricia’s Hope would be willing to repeat, and they “would only do it with Rivelli. I've had people who want me to go in with them on other horses, and I will say, ‘Sure, but who do you want to train?’ Anyone that says different from Riv, I say, ‘I'm out.’”

The trainer’s 2025 does include another possible Derby contender, Murdock (Vekoma-Saucy At Midnight, by Midnight Lute), owned by Carolyn Wilson. “He won first time out by 10. He ran in one of the first two-year-old races of the year in Chicago. And he won like I thought he would,” Rivelli shared. “And then he had a couple of setbacks, and then he had a testicle up in his stomach, and we had to operate. Then he had something wrong with his foot. But he's a serious horse.” 

The year also includes another potential Breeders’ Cup campaign for Nobals, who is set to make his first start soon; and for One Timer, the new year brings a possible return to Kentucky Downs, the site of his Grade 2 Franklin-Simpson victory and a track that the gelding has run well over. 

“He [Nobals] can run in the race because he's won the Breeders’ Cup, and he's a Grade 1 winner, so he probably will get in as long as I spot his races. I probably would either turn him out for a little bit, but he was lightly raced last year, and he's doing really good. I don't think I want to campaign him from now all the way to the Breeders’ Cup. That would be one whole year of training,” Rivelli shared. 

“One Timer, I'll probably keep him on the Polytrack and then run him in a Churchill or Ellis race, places like that,” the trainer said. “He's a little different horse to train, a little different horse to keep going. So, when he's going good, we're going to keep him in action.” 

As for goals in this new year, short and long, Larry Rivelli is a realist. “Short-term goals is to wake up tomorrow,” the native Chicagoan laughed. “If you start making too many long-term plans in this game, I think it ends up biting you in the ass because you push yourself. It's like, okay, I got the next three races for this horse, and then tomorrow something happens.”

“The owners I have are great. They're not sweating, saying ‘we got to run.’ They let me do my thing, which is great. And I think that's why we've been so successful,” he shared. “It's just a pretty good team. And my help, the people that work for me. Obviously, none of this would happen if I didn't have them.” 

On race days big and small, his grandfather is never far from his thoughts, especially when Rivelli is getting his picture taken in the winner’s circle. “When I point, is actually I'm pointing to my grandfather,” this third-generation horseman shared. “I used to point up in the sky to him. That's back at him.”

For Larry Rivelli, racing is all about family, both blood and chosen, and the trust in each other that brings the successes they have all enjoyed. And he would not have it any other way.

Staying Close to Home: Cynthia McKee Continues a Legacy of Success in West Virginia

Article by Jennifer Kelly

Of the twenty-seven states that are currently home to Thoroughbred racetracks, twenty also feature state breeding programs, incentives meant to reward breeders for keeping their bloodstock close to home and owners for racing their horses in their birth state. The money generated supplements purses and enables both groups to invest more in the places they call home. 

For Cynthia McKee and Beau Ridge Farm, benefits like the West Virginia Thoroughbred Development Fund have allowed her and her late husband John not only to put down roots in their childhood home but also to flourish, building a program that has brought them success in the breeding shed and on the state’s racetracks.

Mountain Mama

Cynthia McKee’s roots in West Virginia racing date back to the opening of Charles Town in 1933, long before the breeder/owner/trainer herself was born. Her father Charles O’Bannon was a 14-year-old boy watering the horses that pulled the starting gate when the racetrack opened and worked his way up to track superintendent, a position he held for more than 40 years. For the O’Bannon family, the sport and the equine athletes were a way of life, making McKee’s lifelong devotion to both a natural progression. 

“My dad was the track superintendent, and my mom, she worked part-time in the admissions. I just grew up around horses and I liked them,” she recalled. “I guess I was five or six, and I got my first pony. My dad did a lot of stuff with the 4-H Pony Club around here.”

From there, McKee graduated to show jumping, “but I couldn't make a living with show horses. I wanted to stay with the animals and the racing was the only way to do it.” First, she galloped horses and then went to work for Vincent Moscarelli, who along with his wife Suzanne bred and raced horses in the state, their Country Roads Farm producing Grade 1 winners Soul of the Matter and Afternoon Deelites for Burt Bacharach. It was Moscarelli who gave McKee a chance to take charge of his barn when he went away for a few days. “He came back, and he said he really thought he'd leave again because I'd won quite a few races,” she recalled. “He did it again the following year. But by then, I had started dating John [McKee].” 

Raised in Kearneysville, John McKee graduated from Charles Town High School, served in the Navy, and then returned to the area to raise and breed Black Angus and Pinzgauer cattle. He started training racehorses in 1969 and bought the original Beau Ridge Farm near Bunker Hill in the early 1970s. By the latter part of the decade, he was racing in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and his home state. He met the former Cynthia O’Bannon through the racetrack when her hunters happened to be stabled in his barn: 

“He said to me one day, he said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather have your two horses on a farm somewhere and you could move your jumps out there? I'd really like to have some more stalls. They just don't have any more stalls. You could just move your horses up there and set your show jumps up in that field,’” she recalled. “I moved my show horses up to his farm and he raced horses in my stalls. And I guess that's how it started because I was up there every day taking care of my horses and riding.”

From there, John McKee and Cynthia O’Bannon were partners in breeding, owning, and training horses, making their home at Beau Ridge and taking turns traveling to tracks like Atlantic City to race their horses. They later moved to Kearneysville, where the couple built a three-furlong training track and a breeding program that has become quite the juggernaut for the Mountain State. In addition to their 170 acres, the McKee’s greatest investment to this point has been the stallion Fiber Sonde. 

A Foundation Named Fiber Sonde

Bred by Aaron and Marie Jones, Fiber Sonde is a 2005 foal by Unbridled’s Song, sire of Arrogate and Liam’s Map, out of the Storm Cat mare Silken Cat. An incident with a fence left the colt with a broken shoulder, keeping him off the racetrack; John McKee then bought the two-year-old prospect at the Keeneland November Sale in 2007 for $8,000. The couple opted not to race him and instead sent him to stud at Beau Ridge. The gray stallion went on to become a superstar, topping the state’s sire list from 2018 to 2023 and finishing second to Juba in 2024 despite the 20-year-old’s fertility issues. 

“We can only breed him once a day, and I try to be very selective with him,” McKee shared. “I don't breed too many outside mares, but the people that supported us from day one with him, I still let them breed some. Indian Charlie is a really good cross with him, so we've bought a few Indian Charlie mares over the years. Distorted Humor also is a good cross with him. Those mares are going to come first.”

The most notable successes for the Fiber Sonde pairing with an Indian Charlie mare include four of his foals with the mare Holy Pow Wow: Late Night Pow Wow, Muad’dib, Duncan Idaho, and Overnight Pow Wow. Racing for Javier Contreras and Breeze Easy, Late Night Pow Wow became the son of Unbridled’s Song’s only graded stakes winner when she took the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks in 2018 and the Grade 3 Barbara Fritchie at Laurel the following year. The mare also had five black-type stakes wins, including the Cavada, one of the nine stakes on the West Virginia Breeders’ Classic card. 

Local trainer Jeff Runco purchased both Muad’dib and Duncan Idaho for owner David Raim. The former was second in the 2022 edition of the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic and won the Sam Huff West Virginia Breeders’ Classic Stakes the same year in addition to two other black-type stakes victories. Duncan Idaho captured the WVBC Dash for Cash Stakes this past October. 

The McKees also bred Overnight Pow Wow, a 2021 foal that Cynthia convinced her husband to keep rather than sell as they had done with other Fiber Sonde-Holy Pow Wow foals. “He was more for selling than me,” Cynthia reflected. “I don't like selling them.” Her instinct to keep the filly has reaped rewards, though John McKee, who passed away in early February 2023, missed out on Overnight Pow Wow’s thrilling start to her career. The now four-year-old amassed eight wins in 11 starts in 2024, including a win in the WVBC Cavada against older fillies and mares in addition to her two black-type wins at their home track. The success of the Fiber Sonde-Holy Pow Wow’s pairing made the mare’s untimely death in late December a bitter pill for McKee. 

“The only thing I could tell you is, when that mare died, it like to kill me,” she shared. “I cried for a week. I was going to sell everything and move to Charleston, South Carolina, and retire on Folly Beach. Then I got to thinking about Fiber Sonde and our many other mares. This is home.” 

Beau Ridge is also home to five other stallions, including Redirect, another unraced prospect that could pick up where Fiber Sonde leaves off. McKee’s Direct the Cat, who has two WVBC stakes victories already, is a daughter of Redirect out of the Fiber Sonde mare Cat Thats Grey, another WVBC winner who has also become a producer for Beau Ridge: her 2022 colt Im the Director won last year’s West Virginia Futurity, and her 2017 gelding Command the Cat was black-type stakes placed. A son of Grade 1 winner Speightstown out of the Seattle Slew mare alternate, Redirect stands for the same stud fee as Fiber Sonde, $1,000. That fee remains unchanged for 2025, allowing both to stay competitive in a state where the breeding reward program is such a draw. 

“To me, the money is in the development fund awards,” McKee said. “So, the more [mares] I can get to them, the better.” 

Mountain State Racing 

The state currently boasts two Thoroughbred racetracks, Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, located near Charles Town in the state’s eastern tip, and Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort, in Chester, near New Cumberland in the Northern Panhandle. These two racetracks hosted 285 race days in 2023, with 2,300 races total and an average field size of 7.4 horses. 

Both tracks currently have casinos in addition to their racing facilities, their revenues providing more than $1 billion in funds for purses since the state legalized video lottery machines in 1994 and then added table games in 2007. The state also sets aside $800,000 in purse money for more than a dozen state-bred stakes, including the West Virginia Futurity for two-year-olds at Mountaineer, the Sadie Hawkins Stakes for fillies and mares three years old and up at Charles Town, and the Robert G. Leavitt Memorial Stakes for three-year-olds, also at Charles Town. Both racetracks write one to three races per day for accredited state-breds as well.

Additionally, the West Virginia Thoroughbred Development Fund, established in 1983, incentivizes breeders and owners to not only breed in the state, but also to race there, paying a percentage of the accredited horse’s earnings at the state’s racetracks. Each year, breeders get 60%, owners 25%, and then 15% goes to the owners of the winning horse’s sire. To qualify, the horse’s breeder must be a resident or keep their breeding stock in the state, or the sire must be a resident of the Mountain State. 

The Supplemental Purse Awards program, also known as the 10-10-10 Fund, distributes up to 10% of the winner’s share of the purse to the owner, breeder, and/or sire owner of an accredited state bred and/or sired winner. In all, the WVTDF awards up to $5 million to breeders, owners, and sire owners of state-bred or -sired horses that earn money at the state’s two racetracks. For Beau Ridge and McKee, this kind of money not only rewards their bloodstock investment in the state but also allows them to concentrate their racing there. 

“We get around a large check in February every year. If that horse makes a penny and it's by my stallion, then I make a penny. It's based on your horse versus what other horses earn,” McKee shared. “The purses come here and there, and then the development fund, you get this big chunk of change all at one time. I tried to put enough away that I could operate for five weeks without having to touch any savings. Because you know in this business, you can be on top of the world one minute and you're bottom of the heap the next time.”

In a state with a population of 1.77 million, one that has sustained racing for more than 90 years, the Thoroughbred Development Program shows that “at even one of the smaller racetracks, that you can be successful,” McKee observed. “You don't have to be on the center stage to be successful. Do we make the money they make in New York and California? No. But even the little man that's only got one horse, he's going to get that check in February, too.”

No matter the size of the operation, whether it’s Beau Ridge with their six stallions, 30 mares, and racing stable of about 35, or a smaller operation, the state wants them to breed and race there and programs like the WVTDP enable that grassroots investment that keeps these circuits going. “Most are investing it all back in the industry, and they're excited to be a part of it,” McKee said. “A lot of them pay all their bills off then. It wipes the slate clean, and we can play again.”

Between Mountaineer and Charles Town, the Mountain State will see upwards of 280 days of racing in 2025, with at least one race written for state-breds each day. In addition to the plethora of racing days and the WVTDF, the West Virginia Breeders’ Classic card provides stakes opportunities for state-breds each autumn; modeled on the Maryland Million, this special night of racing was the brainchild of the late Sam Huff, former NFL player and breeder. All of these encourage stables like McKee’s close to home rather than traveling to Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and beyond: “I haven't [raced elsewhere] much lately because of the breeding program. I mean, I almost lose money going out of state,” the trainer shared. 

John’s death in 2023 has kept the former Cynthia O’Bannon at Beau Ridge more than ever. This native daughter remains focused on the sport in her home state, putting her time and energy not only into promoting the breeding program that sustains her but also continuing the program that she and her late husband spent years developing. 

Balancing Act

When Cynthia O’Bannon met John McKee in the late 1970s, they developed a partnership that lasted nearly 50 years. By the time the couple decided to build a life together, he had purchased Beau Ridge and started investing in bloodstock, determined to breed good horses and then race them. From there, the couple would take turns traveling around the Mid-Atlantic, starting horses at racetracks in Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia. 

In later years, they consolidated their racing to their home state and brought on stallions like Fiber Sonde, building their broodmare band to capitalize on their pedigrees. The couple became involved with the West Virginia Thoroughbred Breeding Association, John serving as a past president and Cynthia now occupying the same position. John’s passing at age 83 left both his wife and his farm bereft of the guiding hand that had been at the helm for so long. 

“When he first passed away, I wanted to go to bed and pull the covers over my head. I couldn't do it,” McKee shared. “But I had all these horses. I had employees. I had to go. And thank God that I did. Because if I would have sold everything, probably two or three months later, I'd be so damn bored, I wouldn't know what to do.”

Crediting her late husband as her training mentor, Cynthia McKee continues running Beau Ridge and their racing stable, wearing the mantle of owner-operator, saying that “I just found that it’s easier if I do it myself.” She oversees 12 full-time employees between both facets of her business, which includes not only boarding many of the mares that her stallions cover but foaling them as well. She has also focused on cutting down the farm’s broodmare band: “There were 60 some mares here when he passed. I do have it down to 30. I'd like to cut it down to about 20 mares and maybe 20, 25 in training.”

Though she downplays her training skills – “I always tell everybody [John]'s a better trainer. I'm a better caretaker” – McKee had her best years as a conditioner yet in 2023 and 2024, earning $829,141 and $972,117 and finishing with a win percentage of 22% and 20%, respectively. This comes on the heels of her husband’s best years in 2020-2022, three seasons where they earned more than $1 million each year. She won two West Virginia Breeders’ Classics in 2023, with No Change taking the Onion Juice and Direct the Cat winning the Triple Crown Nutrition Stakes, and then four in 2024, with Catch the Humor, Direct the Cat, No Change, and Overnight Pow Wow. As the 2025 racing season begins, she looks forward to more from Overnight Pow Wow and Direct the Cat plus several two-year-olds, all aiming to make this year’s Breeders’ Classic night another banner night for Beau Ridge. 

“With these two-year-olds, getting them ready, you got to let them tell you, you can't rush them too much. You got to let them tell you when they're ready to move on. You might think they're ready to work, and they might not even know what that means. So, you got to work with the horse a little bit and let them know what's going on,” she shared. She aims to give each horse three weeks between starts, though “sometimes you have to do it in two, depending on how the condition books fit you.” 

With six stallions, including a life changer in Fiber Sonde and a promising successor in Redirect, standing at Beau Ridge, a band of broodmares that continue to produce runners, and a stable full of established winners like Overnight Pow Wow and up-and-coming two-year-olds, Cynthia McKee is “not ready to hang it up quite yet.” She carries on, running the show while giving her late husband his due credit for what they built together. This horsewoman, though, “just [does] it. I get up in the morning and I just go, and I do as much as I can that day. There are times that I'm glad I'm busy because there are things that happen that you just feel like going to bed, pulling the covers over your head, and crying. But I can't stop long enough to do that.” 

“The main thing that kept me going is the horses, like Fiber Sonde. I couldn't put him somewhere. I couldn't do that. He built this farm. This is his home. He built this and [Holy] Pow Wow, and Ghost Canyon. They've given us everything, and now they got some age on them. What am I supposed to do? Boot them somewhere? I just kept thinking about that,” McKee reflected. 

Instead, she keeps going, planning, and racing, proof that staying close to home, thanks to the support of programs like the West Virginia Thoroughbred Development Fund, can sustain the sport as much as deeper pockets and larger stables have. Beau Ridge and Cynthia McKee show that long-term sustainable success in the sport of horse racing takes many forms and benefits from investment at all levels, a reminder of the many ways that men and women across the country and around the world make their living caring for and competing with these equine athletes. 

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.