Jimmy Jerkens

By Bill Heller

How do you measure patience...in months waiting on a talented horse...in years waiting to go out on your own?

How about perseverance? Overcoming the loss of key clients? Fighting through heart surgery and a hip replacement? 

Trainer Jimmy Jerkens, who has enjoyed the most successful run in an already successful career the past five years, sees no other way to function. Rushing horses is anathema to him. So he does the right thing with his. “You’re forced to,” he said. “You have no choice.”

Giving into lost business or personal health issues would be unnatural to him. So he fought through both. “It’s all I know how to do,” he said. “I kept working and tried hard not to lose faith. It was hard not to. I figured I’d best buckle down.”

Green Light Go winning the Gr.2 Saratoga Special

He buckled down so well that he set personal highs in earnings in 2014, topping $4 million for the first time, and he did it again in 2015 and in 2017, when his horses earned more than $5.5 million. He’s already over $3 million this year thanks to his lightly-raced six-year-old Preservationist, owned by his long-time client Centennial Farm, and his precocious two-year-old Green Light Go, owned by Stronach Stables.

It’s hard to believe that Jerkens didn’t win a single stakes in 2011 and 2012 and went through 2011, 2012 and 2013 without a graded stakes victory. Or that his stable shrunk from 40 to 12.  

Looking forward to Preservationist and Green Light Go’s next starts in high-profile Gr1 stakes at Belmont Park—Preservationist in the Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 28 and Green Light Go in the Champagne the following Saturday— helped him get through hip replacement surgery on Sept. 23. A year earlier, he had heart surgery when stents were inserted.

Jimmy and Shirley Jerkens

Of course, his wife Shirley (they were high school sweethearts who grew apart then reconnected 25 years later) helped him get back on his feet and tried to prevent him from doing too much too soon, which of course, he tried to do.

“You want to do right for your owners,” Jerkens said. “You want to do things right. It’s seven days a week. There’s a lot of stress. That’s what’s hard about this business. There’s no downtime unless you make time for it.”

Shirley is a physical therapist for the New York State Department of Education, with a small private practice treating 8- to 18-year-old athletes. She is an accomplished rider and gallops horses for her husband every summer.

She knows and appreciates how hard he works: “He takes no vacations. He goes back to the barn three times a day. He sees how the horses are doing at that particular moment.”

Close your eyes and you can almost see his departed father—Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens—nodding in approval that his two training sons, Steve, 63, and Jimmy, 60, learned the right way to take care of their horses and the commitment and work ethic that is required before success can follow.

“I’m very proud of Jimmy,” Steve said. “He puts everything into it and he deserves any success he gets. Like my father used to say, `You got to fight it hard. You got to keep at it.’”

It’s a family trait. Jimmy and Steve have two other siblings: Jimmy’s twin sister Julie, a school teacher and author of children’s books; and their older 67-year-old brother Alan, a recently retired sportscaster for the NBC affiliate in Tulsa, Okla. “They’re all a bunch of hard workers,” Shirley said.

Jimmy didn’t spend a lot of time figuring out where he wanted to work. He knew what he wanted to do with his life at the age of 11, when he began working weekends and summers with his father and older brother. “I was a barn rat,” he said. “It was unbelievable. We worked all day. Went to the track kitchen with the other help. We worked from dawn to dusk and never gave it a second thought.”

Steve said, “We were going to the barn with my father for as long as I can remember, on weekends and summers. Always to the barn. We’ve been doing it all our lives. At an early age, we learned to take care of the horses and we enjoyed it. We loved getting horses ready for the races. It was a great life. It kept us out of trouble.”

They’d play basketball on a wooden hoop at a small farm in Huntington, Long Island, where their father kept a couple horses. “My older brother [Alan] was a pretty good player,” Steve said. My father was very competitive. We’d have touch football games after feeding behind his barn at Belmont in the parking lot. That was very competitive. Stable hands from other outfits would show up and we’d choose sides. And we all played polo at West Hills Stable. I met my wife Joan at polo.”

The first time Shirley talked with Jimmy (they both went to Walt Whitman High School in Huntington—he was two years ahead of her) was at a polo farm where she had her horse stabled. “He was there with his dad and Steve,” Shirley said. “I was 13.” They dated for five years before going separate paths. “I wanted to get out and see the world,” she said.

Twenty-five years later, they bumped into each other at a polo event in Miami. “We just got talking,” Shirley said. “I found he was split up from his wife. I was getting divorced from my husband. That was it. We had dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab. We walked through the rain. It was romantic. From then on we’ve been together.”

They married and went on a delayed honeymoon to Napa Valley, arriving on Christmas Day in 2008. “We stayed for one week,” Jimmy said. “Believe it or not, it was a little bit of downtime. The horses had shipped to Florida. It was actually a good time to go.”

He had a good time during what may be the only real vacation he’s ever taken. Shirley testified, “He did relax,” knowing how unusual that is for him.  

Shirley was surprised to see a side of Jimmy that he and his father shared: “Even with all their skills and their success, they’re very humble.”

Jimmy, though, idolized his father. “Growing up and seeing my father—he was at the pinnacle of his career. WOR-TV had horse racing on the weekends. He was on almost every weekend. I was so proud of him, seeing his horses run on television. You get so proud of it, you wanted to be a bigger part of it. My father had such devotion to his horses. He was my hero. I guess it just kind of rubbed off. I wanted him to be proud of me. I knew I wanted to do it.”

Steve saw his younger brother’s passion for horses at an early age. “He was always a student of the game,” Steve said. “He read books about breeding. He had a great memory about horses. Worked hard at it. Even galloped horses.”

One Saturday afternoon at Saratoga was one of the highlights of both Jimmy and Steve’s lives. They watched from the backstretch as their horse Onion stepped into the starting gate to tackle Secretariat in the 1973 Whitney Stakes. “That was like a fantasy,” Jimmy said. “We just didn’t know what to expect. He (Onion) was super sharp. He broke the track record four days earlier. We were hoping he’d get a check.”

But there was an obstacle for Steve and Jimmy. The toteboard blocked their view of part of the stretch. “We saw him in front, then we were blocked by the toteboard a little bit,” Steve said. “Sure enough, he was still in front. It was great—some thrill.”

Jimmy said, “We just couldn’t believe that. I’ll remember that for the rest of my life. We jumped up and down like idiots. We just beat one of the best horses to ever live with a homebred gelding. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

They celebrated…(ready for this?) By playing touch football!

Jimmy’s hoop days are long gone, but his passion for his horses continues unabated. And it served him well while working for his father and then finally, he went on his own in December 1997, two months before his 39th birthday. “It was my father’s idea,” Jimmy said. “I had just gotten divorced, and I was pretty down. He was trying to pull me out of a little funk. He said, `Why don’t you go out on your own?’ He had an owner, Peter Blum, who started my brother out. He said, `Take his six horses that I have. Maybe Mrs. DuPont will have a couple. Earl Mack possibly.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it sounds good.’ That’s what we did.”

Jimmy’s success was immediate. In his first full year on his own in 1998, he won 35 of 186 starts and his horses earned $1.4 million. Not bad for a 39-year-old rookie. He topped $1 million for 13 straight years before his stable took a mighty hit. Actually two hits.

With Jimmy as his trainer, Edward Evans’ Quality Road won the 2009 Gr2 Fountain of Youth and the Gr1 Florida Derby. That made Evans’ decision to take all his horses from Jimmy hard to fathom. Then another long-time client, Susan Moore, took her horses from him. “He went from 40 horses to 12,” Shirley said.

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Backstretch Forward

By Annie Lambert

CHRB member Oscar Gonzales, Jr, possesses the backside credentials to confidently tackle his new position.

He may have come from humble beginnings, but recently appointed California Horse Racing Board appointee Oscar Gonzales, Jr, drew from family values on and off the racetrack in pursuit of success.

Gonzales is proud of his large racetrack family, including National Museum of Racing Hall of Famer Ishmael ‘Milo’ Valenzuela. Almost every one of his relations, in fact, has worked on the backside at California racetracks.

The 51-year-old former groom worked his way through college and into corporate business and public service. Gonzales has a passion for people, which his career goals have embraced.

“I grew up in East Los Angeles where poverty rates are high, but dreams and hopes are alive and well,” acknowledged Gonzales. “That, coupled with my experience on the backstretch where the work ethic and commitment to a bigger picture, is really what got me started into public service.”

On Track

Gonzales is the penultimate of four children born to Oscar, Sr, and Yolanda Gonzales as a young couple living in East Los Angeles. 

His extended family is a complex blend of the Gonzales and Valenzuela families. Jockey Milo Valenzuela is Gonzales Sr’s uncle, making rider Patrick Valenzuela Oscar Jr’s second cousin. Milo had 21 siblings, so, plenty of family worked on the backside. A four-generation pedigree could seem daunting.

“My dad’s mom, Maria Gonzales, is the sister of the Valenzuela brothers,” Oscar pointed out. “The boys were all jockeys or trainers; the women worked a combination of jobs.”  

At 6’1” Oscar chuckled that he never had a shot at making a rider.

Oscar, Sr, was an exercise rider in his younger (lighter) years before grooming and working as a barn foreman. Grandpa Jose (Joe) Gonzales, fondly nicknamed Chelo, was a groom for Lou Carno and others. Grandmother Gonzales, Maria, sold her homemade burritos barn-to-barn on the backside.

Oscar and his brother, Alfred, followed in the shadow of their father and grandfather. Alfred spent three years grooming horses for Tom Blinco, before sadly passing away at a young age. 

Oscar, Jr, truly grew up on the backstretch; in his early teens he helped his father and grandfather whenever school afforded him the time. He often ate in the track kitchen where his mom worked. Once he secured his first license he stepped out from under the family umbrella.

Gonzales enjoyed his school days era. He was a Student Body President in high school, as well as in college - his first two leadership positions. His initial, official boss on the backside was his uncle, Albino Valenzuela in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“You always kind of start off with the family and then you find people outside the family pay just a little bit better and they don’t work you so hard,” Gonzales said with a laugh. 

Gonzales is confident he can be a bridge between individuals and groups to help resolve some of racing’s bigger challenges.

“When I first got my license in 1984 at Hollywood Park, my dad was a barn foreman for Martin Valenzuela, Sr, who had some really good horses back then,” said Gonzales. “I was able to work for some big outfits and learn the ropes. My first two full-time hot walking jobs were during the summers of 1984 and 1985 working for Joe Manzi and Dick Mulhall respectively. Those were really good experiences, great horsemen, well rounded, quality horses with good people around them all the time.”

Once graduated from Rosemead High School, just four miles from Santa Anita, he attended East Los Angeles College in nearby Monterey Park, California, before transferring to University of California San Diego three years later. 

While attending ELAC, Gonzales went to work full-time at the racetrack rubbing horses in Darrell Vienna’s barn for three years. When he transferred to UCSD he spent two years working for D Wayne Lukas and his assistant, Randy Bradshaw, at San Diego Chargers owner Gene Klein’s training facility in Rancho Santa Fe near Del Mar.

During his school years Gonzales never quibbled about the size of his paychecks. 

“I always asked for flexibility because of my class schedule and extra curricular activities,” Gonzales offered. “Everywhere I worked people were always supportive. I never asked for any other favors except to hang my tubs early so I could go take an exam or go to a meeting at school.”

“It all worked out,” he added. “Without that experience on the backside I don’t think I would have gotten through school; I’d never have been involved in public service. There were so many people that I surrounded myself with that understood that I was kind of on a mission in life to help people and to not forget where I came from.”

There was a crossroad for Gonzales once he finished his education. Training horses had always been a passion of his. He secured his trainers license at Sunland Park in New Mexico, but before he dove into that profession life circumstances drew him into politics.

“Training was always a desire of mine because it’s such an honorable profession,” said Gonzales. “It takes a lot of hard work and attention to detail. I always looked up to the trainers and their ability to straddle many worlds; they have to be competent in so many ways. It’s one of the best professions out there. The good trainers last so long because they love what they do.”

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Conformation and breeding choices

By Judy Wardrope

A lot of factors go into the making of a good racehorse, but everything starts with the right genetic combinations, and when it comes to genetics, little is black and white. The best we can do is to increase our odds of producing or selecting a potential racehorse. Examining the functional aspects of the mare and then selecting a stallion that suits her is another tool in the breeding arsenal.

For this article we will use photos of four broodmares and analyze the mares’ conformational points with regard to performance as well as matings likely to result in good racehorses from each one. We will look at qualities we might want to cement and qualities we might hope to improve for their offspring. In addition, we will look at their produce records to see what has or has not worked in the past.

In order to provide a balance between consistency and randomness, only mares that were grey (the least common color at the sale) with three or more offspring that were likely to have had a chance to race (at least three years old) were selected. In other words, the mares were not hand-picked to prove any particular point. 

All race and produce information was taken from the sales catalogue at the time the photos were taken (November 2018) and have not been updated. 

Mare 1

Her lumbosacral gap (LS) (just in front of the high point of croup, and the equivalent of the horse’s transmission) is not ideal, but within athletic limits; however, it is an area one would hope to improve through stallion selection. One would want a stallion with proven athleticism and a history of siring good runners.

Mare 1

The rear triangle and stifle placement (just below sheath level if she were male) are those of a miler. A stallion with proven performance at between seven furlongs and a mile and an eighth would be preferable as it would be breeding like to like from a mechanical perspective rather than breeding a basketball star to a gymnast.

Her pillar of support emerges well in front of the withers for some lightness of the forehand, but just behind the heel. One would look for a stallion with the bottom of the pillar emerging into the rear quarter of the hoof for improved soundness and longevity on the track. Her base of neck is well above her point of shoulder, adding additional lightness to the forehand, and she has ample room behind her elbow to maximize the range of motion of the forequarters. Although her humerus (elbow to point of shoulder) shows the length one would expect in order to match her rear stride, one would likely select a stallion with more rise from elbow to point of shoulder in order to add more lightness to the forehand.

Her sire was a champion sprinter as well as a successful sire, and her female family was that of stakes producers. She was a stakes-placed winner at six furlongs—a full-sister to a stakes winner at a mile as well as a half-sister to another stakes-winning miler. Her race career lasted from three to five.

She had four foals that met the criteria for selection; all by distance sires of the commercial variety. Two of her foals were unplaced and two were modest winners at the track. I strongly suspect that this mare’s produce record would have proven significantly better had she been bred to stallions that were sound milers or even sprinters.

Mare 2 

Her LS placement, while not terrible, could use improvement; so one would seek a stallion that was stronger in this area and tended to pass on that trait. 

The hindquarters are those of a sprinter, with the stifle protrusion being parallel to where the bottom of the sheath would be. It is the highest of all the mares used in this comparison, and therefore would suggest a sprinter stallion for mating.

Mare 2

Her forehand shows traits for lightness and soundness: pillar emerging well in front of the withers and into the rear quarter of the hoof, a high point of shoulder plus a high base of neck. She also exhibits freedom of the elbow. These traits one would want to duplicate when making a choice of stallions.

However, her length of humerus would dictate a longer stride of the forehand than that of the hindquarters. This means that the mare would compensate by dwelling in the air on the short (rear) side, which is why she hollows her back and has developed considerable muscle on the underside of her neck. One would hope to find a stallion that was well matched fore and aft in hopes he would even out the stride of the foal.

Her sire was a graded-stakes-placed winner and sire of stakes winners, but not a leading sire. Her dam produced eight winners and three stakes winners of restricted races, including this mare and her full sister. 

She raced from three to five and had produced three foals that met the criteria for this article. One (by a classic-distance racehorse and leading sire) was a winner in Japan, one (by a stallion of distance lineage) was unplaced and one (by a sprinter sire with only two starts) was a non-graded stakes-winner. In essence, her best foal was the one that was the product of a type-to-type mating for distance, despite the mare having been bred to commercial sires in the other two instances.

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Ontario Breeding

By Alex Campbell

The Ontario breeding industry has experienced a number of twists and turns since the provincial government canceled the lucrative slots-at-racetracks program back in 2013. Prior to the cancelation of the program, the once robust industry had years where more than 1,600 mares were bred in the province, according to numbers published by The Jockey Club. In 2018, that number was down to 733.

While the cancelation of the program has impacted the majority of the province’s breeders, well-known breeding operations in Ontario have experienced success through all of the uncertainty. Sam-Son Farm won back-to-back Sovereign Awards as Canada’s top breeder in 2013 and 2014, while Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs won three straight Sovereign Awards between 2015 and 2017 when they bred two Queen’s Plate winners in that time, including Shaman Ghost in 2015 and Holy Helena in 2017. 

Along with these big operations, several other commercial breeders are also experiencing success, not only in Ontario but throughout North America and internationally as well. Ivan Dalos’ Tall Oaks Farm bred two Gr1 winners in 2018, including full brothers Channel Maker, who won the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park, and Johnny Bear, who won the Gr1 Northern Dancer Turf Stakes at Woodbine for the second consecutive year. In addition, Dalos also bred Avie’s Flatter, Canada’s champion two-year-old in 2018; dam In Return, who produced Channel Maker; and Johnny Bear, which was Canada’s Outstanding Broodmare. As a result, Tall Oaks Farm won its first Sovereign Award for Outstanding Breeder in 2018 as well.

Horses bred by David Anderson’s Anderson Farms and Sean and Dorothy Fitzhenry also were big winners at last year’s Sovereign Awards. Anderson bred Queen’s Plate winner and 2018 Canadian Horse of the Year, Wonder Gadot, while Fitzhenry’s homebred, Mr Havercamp, was named champion older male and champion male turf horse. Both Anderson and Fitzhenry have also had success selling horses internationally, primarily at Keeneland. In 2017, Anderson sold Ontario-bred yearling, Sergei Prokofiev—a son of Scat Daddy—to Coolmore for $1.1 million. One of Fitzhenry’s success stories is that of Marketing Mix, who he sold for $150,000 to Glen Hill Farm at the 2009 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Marketing Mix went on to win the Wonder Where Stakes at Woodbine as a three-year-old in 2011, and captured two Gr1 victories later on in her career in the 2012 Rodeo Drive Stakes at Santa Anita and the 2013 Gamely Stakes at Hollywood Park.

For Anderson, commercial breeding is all he’s ever known. The son of the late Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee, Robert Anderson, David Anderson grew up around horses at his father’s farm in St. Thomas, Ontario. In the 1970s and 1980s, Anderson Farms was one of the biggest breeders and consignors in the province, breeding several graded stakes winners. In fact, in 1985, Anderson Farms was the leading consignor at both the Saratoga and Keeneland yearling sales.

“That’s what my father established years ago, and that’s what I grew up with was breeding and selling at all of the international sales,” David Anderson said. “We haven’t diverted from that philosophy in nearly 50 years. It’s what I learned growing up, and I try to buy the best quality mares that I can and breed to the best quality sires that I can.”

David Anderson (blue suit) with Peter Berringer

While Anderson closely watched his father build up the Thoroughbred side of the business, he got experience of his own breeding Standardbreds. After all, the farm’s location in Southwestern Ontario is in the heart of Standardbred racing in the province. Anderson said the Standardbred business had a number of success stories spanning more than a decade: breeding champions such as Pampered Princess, Southwind Allaire, Cabrini Hanover, and The Pres.

In 2010, Robert Anderson passed away from a heart attack, and the farm was taken over by David Anderson and his sister, Jessica Buckley, who is the current president of Woodbine Mohawk Park. Anderson went on to buy Buckley out of her share of the farm and took on full control. He also decided he wanted to focus exclusively on Thoroughbred breeding and racing.

“After my Dad died I decided I wanted to jump back into the Thoroughbreds,” he said. “I sold all the Standardbreds and put everything I had back into Thoroughbreds. I came full circle back to my roots, and this is where I really love it.”

It’s been a long-term project for Anderson to get the farm to where it is today. After taking control of the farm, Anderson sold off all of his father’s mares—with the exception of one—and began to build the business back up. Anderson said his broodmare band currently sits between 25 and 30, which is where he wants to keep it.

Fitzhenry, on the other hand, took a much different path to his current standing in the Thoroughbred breeding industry. Fitzhenry said his start in Thoroughbred racing came through a horse owned by friends Debbie and Dennis Brown. Fitzhenry and his wife, Dorothy, would follow the Brown’s horse, No Comprende, who won seven of his 30 starts in his career, including the Gr3 Woodbine Slots Cup Handicap in 2003.

The Fitzhenrys decided they wanted to get involved in ownership themselves and partnered with the Browns on a couple of horses. The more Fitzhenry got involved, the more the breeding industry appealed to him.

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Thoroughbred nutrition past & present

By Catherine Rudenko

Feeding practices for racehorses have changed as nutritional research advances and food is no longer just fuel but a tool for enhancing performance and providing that winning edge. 

While feeding is dominantly considered the content of the feed bucket, which by weight forms the largest part of the horse’s diet, changes in forage quality have also played a role in the changing face of Thoroughbred nutrition. The content of the feed bucket, which is becoming increasingly elaborate with a multitude of supplements to consider, the forages—both long and short chop and even the bedding chosen—all play a part in what is “the feed program.” Comparing feed ingredients of the past against the present provides some interesting insights as to how the industry has changed and will continue to change.

Comparing key profiles of the past and present 

The base of any diet is forage, being the most fundamental need of the horse alongside water. Forage quality and form has changed over the years, particularly since haylage entered the market and growers began to focus specifically on equine. The traditional diet of hay and oats, perhaps combined with mash as needed, provided a significantly different dietary intake to that now seen for horses fed a high-grade haylage and fortified complete feed. 

Traditional Diet

• 7kg Oats

• 1kg Mash – comprised of bran, barley, linseed and epsom salt

• 0.5kg Chaff

• Hay 6% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

Modern Diet – medium-grade haylage

• 8kg Generic Racing Mix 

• 0.5kg Alfalfa Chaff

• 60ml Linseed Oil

• 60g Salt

• Haylage 10% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

Modern Diet – high-grade haylage

• 8kg Generic Racing Mix 

• 0.5kg Alfalfa Chaff

• 60ml Linseed Oil

• 60g Salt

• Haylage 13% protein consumed at 1% of bodyweight

Oats field

The traditional example diet of straights with bran and hay easily met and exceed the required amount of protein providing 138 % equirement. When looking at the diet as a whole, the total protein content of the diet inclusive of forage equates to 9.7%. In comparison, the modern feeding example using a high-grade haylage produces a total diet protein content equivalent to 13.5%. The additional protein—while beneficial to development, muscle recovery and immune support—can become excessive. High intakes of protein against actual need have been noted to affect acid base balance of the blood, effectively lowering blood pH.1 Modern feeds for racing typically contain 13-14% protein, which complement forages of a basic to medium-grade protein content very well; however, when using a high-grade forage, a lower protein feed may be of benefit. Many brands now provide feeds fortified with vitamins and minerals designed for racing but with a lower protein content. 

While the traditional straight-based feeding could easily meet energy and protein requirements, it had many short-falls relating to calcium and phosphorus balance, overall dietary mineral intake and vitamin intake. Modern feeds correct for imbalances and ensure consistent provision of a higher level of nutrition, helping to counterbalance any variation seen within forage. While forage protein content has changed, the mineral profile and its natural variability has not. 

Another point of difference against modern feeds is the starch content. In the example diet, the “bucket feed” is 39% starch—a value that exceeds most modern racing feeds. Had cracked corn been added or a higher inclusion of boiled barley been present, this level would have increased further. Racing feeds today provided a wide range of starch levels ranging from 10% up to the mid-thirties, with feeds in the “middle range” of 18-25% becoming increasingly popular. There are many advantages to balancing starch with other energy sources including gut health, temperament and reducing the risk of tying-up. 

The horse with a digestive anatomy designed for forages has limitations as to how much starch can be effectively processed in the small intestine, where it contributes directly to glucose levels. Undigested starch that moves into the hindgut is a key factor in acidosis and while still digested, the pathway is more complex and not as beneficial as when digested in the small intestine. Through regulating starch intake in feeds, the body can operate more effectively, and energy provided through fibrous sources ensures adequate energy intake for the work required.

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Indiana's New "Biological Samples" Testing Law: Integrity Assured Or Invasive Overreach?

By Peter J. Sacopulos

From House Bill To Horse Law

On May 1, 2019, Governor Eric Holcomb signed Indiana House Bill 1196 into law. The statute, which took effect on July 1 of this year, directs the Indiana Horse Racing Commission (IHRC) to adopt a variety of new rules and procedures governing horse racing within the state. 

Governor Holcomb and Indiana State Representative Bob Cherry, who introduced HB 1196 to the legislature, are Republicans. However, the bill enjoyed broad bipartisan support—a rarity in current American politics. In fact, the final version sailed through both chambers, receiving not a single “nay” vote in the House and a mere three “nays” in the Senate. 

HB 1196 is something of an equine regulatory smorgasbord. Examples of its provisions include officially changing references to the IHRC’s “secretary” to “executive director,” altering the way breed advisory committee members are appointed, specifying that certain funds be directed to the Indiana-sired horses program, and the creation of new privacy protections to guard the personal information required on license applications.

Items like these, as well as several others included in HB 1196, are unlikely to cause ripples within the racing community. However, the new law also includes provisions designed to enhance and expand the Commission’s ability to detect, police and reduce the use of banned substances. And while this is undoubtedly a worthwhile cause, a two-word term used in the drug-testing language of HB 1196 has the potential to negatively impact horses and trainers for years to come, with consequences that may spread well beyond the borders of Indiana. 

Two Words, Too Broad?

The two-word term is “biological sample.” It is legally defined in the statue as follows:

“Biological sample” refers to any fluid, tissue or other substance obtained from a horse through an internal or external means to test for foreign substances, natural substances at abnormal levels, and prohibited medications. The term includes blood, urine, saliva, hair, muscle tissue collected at a necropsy, semen, and other substances appropriate for testing as determined by the commission. 

This definition goes well beyond the longstanding blood, saliva, urine, and more recently, hair, samples routinely collected from Thoroughbred competitors for analysis. It is also disturbingly open-ended. Indeed, the phrase: “…and other substances appropriate for testing as determined by the commission…”  is a definition that is essentially wide open, providing the IHRC staff the power to define or redefine a “biological sample.”

While there was discussion and temporary agreement to limit the use of biological samples to necropsy purposes, that limitation was removed from the final version of the bill that was signed into law and became effective July 1, 2019. Therefore, the Commission Staff is authorized and may elect to take muscle tissue, and other biological samples, from live animals as it deems and determines necessary and appropriate. This rule and its definition of biological sample establishes a new frontier of testing. 

Is This Risk Really Necessary?

One of the primary concerns and positions advanced in opposition to allowing biological samples to be taken from live animals is the risk of injury.

Taking saliva and hair samples from a Thoroughbred is painless and easy. And anyone who has ever been around horses knows that they are more than happy to provide all the urine you could ever want! Drawing blood from a horse is only slightly more difficult and rarely involves the use of a local anesthetic. 

However, taking “…any fluid, tissue or other substance… through an internal or external means…” is another matter entirely. It opens the door to far more invasive collection techniques that carry far greater risks for horses than blood, saliva, urine or hair sampling. To be clear, I am referring to biopsies. 

A biopsy is the removal and examination of cells or tissue from a living being for the purposes of testing and examination. Any biopsy carries risk of injury or infection. Taking a biopsy from a horse may be as simple as a skin sample from the withers or tissue from the lining of the mouth, or as difficult as removing material from the teeth or the interior of the eye; or from internal organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, intestine or colon. In the latter examples, a biopsy becomes a complex medical procedure. A procedure performed on a large, valuable animal requires sedation and may require general anesthesia to facilitate tissue collection. 

Sedating a horse is serious business. Sedatives and anesthetics carry significant risks, even when administered with care by skilled equine veterinary professionals. Those risks include allergic reactions, collapse, excitement, cardiac arrest, medical injury and post-anesthetic colic.

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Thoroughbred Sales Assessment

By Tom O’Keeffe

The Beaufort Cottage Educational Trust Gerald Leigh Memorial Lectures took place this year at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket and a host of international and local veterinary specialists and industry leaders were present to discuss the veterinary aspects of the sales selection of the thoroughbred. 

Gerald Leigh was a prominent breeder and racehorse owner until his death in 2002; and his friend and vet Nick Wingfield Digby opened the seminar and introduced the speakers. The Gerald Leigh Charitable Trust has established this annual lecture series to provide a platform for veterinary topics relating to the thoroughbred to be discussed amongst vets and prominent members of the industry. 

Sir Mark Prescott described his take on the sales process and some of the changes he has noted since his early involvement in the industry. He recalled how the first Horses in Training sale he attended had only 186 horses. In those early days, his role was to sneak around the sales ground stables late at night on the lookout for crib biters. Back then, there was no option to return horses after sale, and as a result, trainers preferred to buy horses from studs they were familiar with—a policy Sir Mark still follows to this day. 

Sir Mark went on to explain that he believes strongly that the manner in which an animal is reared has a strong bearing on their ability to perform at a later date. Sir Mark also mentioned that horses can cope with many conformational faults nowadays that would have been deemed unacceptable in his early years. He attributed this to improvements in ground conditions, such as watering and all-weather surfaces. 

Mike Shepherd, MRCVS, of Rossdales Equine Practice in Newmarket had been tasked with describing and discussing the sales examination from a veterinary viewpoint and in particular attempting to define what vets are trying to achieve in this process.

Shepherd’s key message was that the physical exam is the cornerstone of any veterinary evaluation. A vet examining a horse on the sales ground is not a guarantee that the horse will never have an issue—there is no crystal ball. Owners and trainers should be aware there are several limitations of the vetting process, and it is helpful to think in terms of a “pre-bid inspection” rather than a “pre-purchase examination”. The horse is away from its home environment, and this puts a lot of stress on the animal. In most cases, pre-purchase exercise is not possible, so conditions that are only apparent when the horse is exercising and in training may go undetected. 

Time is a major challenge, with both vendors and prospective purchasers pushing for everything to be done as quickly as possible. A busy sales vet may have a long list of horses to examine, and information on each must be transferred to their client coherently and clearly—all before the horse is presented for sale. It can be challenging  to acquire a detailed veterinary history. Previous surgeries, medication and vices displayed by the animal ought to be reported, but in many cases the person with the horse is not in a position to accurately answer questions on longer-term history. 

At Sales, ultrasonography of the heart (echocardiography) can be used to estimate heart size.

Everyone involved—the vendor, the prospective purchaser, and the auction house—wants the process to go ahead. The horse to be bought/sold and the vet can be seen as a stumbling block. Prospective purchasers may want the horse to be examined clinically, its laryngeal function examined by endoscope, radiographs of the horse’s limbs either reviewed or taken, ultrasound examinations of their soft tissue structures and heart performed. The role of the vet is to help the purchaser evaluate all this information and make an evidence-based decision on whether to purchase the horse.

Examining vets can face conflicts of interest when examining horses that are under the ownership or care of one of their clients. Shepherd explained how Rossdales, and some other practices involved in sales work, have a protocol that an examining vet will not perform a vetting on a horse in the care of one of their own clients, and will disclose to the prospective purchaser if the vendor is a client of the practice. It is crucial to avoid working for both buyer and seller as a conflict of interest becomes unavoidable.

It is also essential that the vet understands exactly what the horse is expected to do following the sale.  Thoroughbred horses in flat racing have short timescale targets and, as a result, certain parts of the examination carry more weight than others. For example, the knees and fetlock joints are commonly implicated in lameness in flat racehorses; thus particular attention must be paid to these joints when examining yearlings. Soft tissue injuries are impactful in all young thoroughbreds, but there is a particular emphasis on tendon integrity in the National Hunt racehorse because career-threatening tendon injuries are particularly prevalent in these horses. When evaluating potential broodmares, good feet are very relevant, and overall conformation is particularly important if the aim is to breed to sell. 

Vetting horses for clients aiming to pin hook their purchases places different requirements on the examining vet. These horses need to be able to cope with the preparation required for another sale, and they must also stand up to the scrutiny of vets at a later sale. The horse’s walk and conformation rank high in the foal/ yearling stage but may be judged to be less significant if the horse breezes in a fast time at a breeze up sale.

It is also critical that purchasers recognise that many of the common veterinary issues encountered in training are not detectable at the Sales stage. For example, subchondral fetlock pain (bone bruising), which is common in a large subset of thoroughbreds in training, is not accurately practicable in young thoroughbred prior entering training. 

For assessing laryngeal function, there is often concern that this may be too subjective. Dr Justin Perkins, of the Royal Veterinary College, has shown good agreement on endoscopic grading between experienced vets. However, horses’ laryngeal scores vary significantly day to day, and more worrying in the sales setting, one horse examined several times on the same day can have different scope grades. The gold standard in assessing the horse laryngeal function is an overground exercising endoscopy. This is not feasible on sales grounds, and purchasers should be aware that the limited purpose of a resting laryngeal scope is to exclude specific serious hereditary conditions and not to rule out problems which are only evident during exercise. Dorsal displacement of the soft palate cannot be accurately predicted at rest. Similarly, exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage or bleeding can be career limiting, yet once again in the juvenile thoroughbred, there is no way to predict this condition before the horse enters training.

Some conditions can affect some individuals yet be of little consequence in others. An example is kissing spines (impinging spinous processes), and whilst it can be a clinical issue in some individuals, it is commonly encountered in normal horses and therefore is very easy to over-interpret its significance.  

The Hong Kong vetting process is considered the gold standard in terms of assessing and examining a racehorse in training. Shepherd highlighted that some new rules have recently been introduced. There are now guidelines on measuring tendons, and horses with a superficial digital flexor tendon cross-sectional area of greater than 1.6cm2 are not allowed to be imported into Hong Kong because of a potential increased risk of tendon injury.

The use of medication in horses at the sales ground and early in their life is currently an area of controversy. The concern is that there may be longer-term impact. Penalties associated with the use of anabolic steroids are well documented: the horse will be placed under a lifetime ban if these drugs have been used. The British Horseracing Authority will also place a lifetime ban on horses which have received bisphosphonates.  Potentially, these drugs may have been given without the knowledge of the vendor, therefore client education and sales conditions will have to be adapted unless a sensible compromise can be reached to prevent a high-profile embarrassment for the authorities.

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Raymond Mamone and Terry Green

By Bill Heller

Raymond Mamone – Imperial Hint

Quitting school at the age of 14 might not work for everyone, but it allowed 86-year-old Raymond Mamone an early entrance into the real world. He began hauling ice and plucking tomatoes, eventually earning enough to open his own body shop and get involved with Thoroughbreds by claiming 22 horses in one year. He even tried training his own horses for a few months.

Raymond Mamone

Now he’s enjoying life more than ever, thanks to track-record breaking Imperial Hint—one of the top sprinters in the world and a horse from a mare he had given up on and sold. Luckily, he reconnected with Imperial Hint at the age of two, bought him for $17,500 and has watched with glee as Imperial Hint bankrolled more than $1.9 million. “You can’t believe it’s happening,” he said. “It doesn’t happen to many people. How many years do people spend trying to find a good horse?”

Born in the Great Depression, Mamone was the son of an Italian immigrant who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and was a tailor, too. Raymond was born in Brooklyn, where he would sneak into Ebbits Field to watch the Dodgers. His family moved to New Jersey, and Mamone quit school at an early age.

“I went looking for work,” he said. “I was an ice man—$2 a day. To make more money, I went to work on a tomato farm. Ten cents a bushel. Go down the line, bend down and pull tomatoes. I did mason work and mixed cement for contractors. I was a hustler. I moved around a lot. I went into the body shop business.”

He did well enough to open his own body shop in 1956. A trip to Monmouth Park with a friend piqued his interest. Why? “I won that day,” he laughed. “I went to the track occasionally. I decided to buy horses and get into the claiming business.”

In his first year, he claimed 22 horses with trainer Mike Vincitore. “He told me I was crazy,” Mamone said. “But I made money. I was written up in the Morning Telegraph. They wrote an article about me and Mike.”

Then Mamone began breeding horses. “I did it on my own,” he said. “Nobody really taught me anything. I have common sense. I would figure it out myself.”

He decided to try to figure out how to train his own horses and got his own trainer’s license. “I learned all this on my own,” he said. “It sounds stupid, but that’s how I did it. But I couldn’t handle the body shop and training.” So his training career lasted only six months. His involvement with Thoroughbreds has continued his whole life.

And he got lucky...very lucky. He went to look at some yearlings at the farm where he’d sold Imperial Hint’s dam. “I went down to look at yearlings and I said, `Who’s this?’ He said, `That’s your baby.’ I said, `You got to be kidding.’ He was almost two years old. They were going to take him to a sale. I bought him for $17,500. He was small but well-built.”

Mamone gave Imperial Hint and other horses to trainer Luis Carvajal, Jr., who had worked for Bobby Durso, a trainer Mamone had used. “He passed away, so I gave Luis the horses,” Mamone said. “We’re really close friends. We’re really tight.”

Carvajal is thrilled with the opportunity Mamone gave him. “It’s a good relationship—a business relationship and a friendship,” Carvajal said.

Of course, Imperial Hint’s immense success in Carvajal’s care has strengthened their bond. Imperial Hint won the 2018 Gr1 A.G. Vanderbilt Stakes at Saratoga by 3 ¾ lengths at 4-5. When he returned to defend his title in the $350,000 stakes, July 27, he went off at 5-1 due to the presence of Mitole, who had won seven straight races and nine of his last 10 starts.

“Luis didn’t want to put him in the Vanderbilt,” Mamone said. “He wanted to run in the $100,000 Tale of the Cat. I said, `No, we’re going to win this race. He said, `Are you for real?’ I said, `Yes.’ He said, `Mitole?’ I said, `Don’t worry about Mitole.’”

Imperial Hint certainly didn’t, taking his second consecutive Vanderbilt by four lengths in 1:07.92, the fastest six furlongs in Saratoga’s 150-year-history. The call from Larry Collmus was perfect: “He’s back! And he broke the track record!” That track record, 1:08.04, had been set by Spanish Riddle in 1972 and equaled by Speightstown in 2004.

Mamone said, “I didn’t think he’d break the track record. When he called that, that was unbelievable. That gave me chills.”

  It’s so much better getting chills that way than hauling ice for $2 a day.

Terry Green (Jackpot Farm) – Basin

What’s a former professional cutting rider from Gulfport, Miss., doing in the winner’s circle at Saratoga Race Course after the Gr1 Hopeful Stakes? Well, he’s posing with his first Gr1 stakes winner, Basin, a horse he purchased for $150,000 at the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I can’t explain it,” Green said, taking a break from the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. “I’ve watched the race 25 times, probably 50 times. It’s hard to believe. When we bought the colt, we thought he was nice. When I’m sitting here in this arena, and you buy him from the bottom of the totem pole... what’s $150,000 when you see these prices these horses are going for?”

Green, 67, had quite a unique introduction to horses. “As a kid growing up in Mississippi, my grandfather had some horses,” he said. “He had cattle and he would turn them loose. Back in the day, we would brand them and turn them loose in the woods. At certain times of the year, we’d round them up. I would go into the woods with my grandfather and herd cattle. I couldn’t wait to do it every time with my grandfather. It was a blast.”

After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi, Green became a developer, building houses, apartments and shopping centers—an occupation he continued when he moved to Houston in the late ‘80s. “I heard of cutting horses (a Western style equestrian competition which demonstrates a horse’s athleticism and the horse and rider’s ability to handle cattle), and I watched it,” Green said. “It was really cool—just a horse and a cow by themselves. I just enjoyed it so much.”

He enjoyed it even more when he became a cutting rider in the late ‘90s, competing in the non-pro ranks for some 15 years. In 2003, he opened 200-acre Jackpot Ranch in Weatherford, Texas, which became a leader in producing outstanding cutting horses.

Terry Green (Jackpot Farm) – Basin

By then, he’d ventured into the casino business, almost by accident. He and a friend in the restaurant business, Rick Carter, went on a day cruise out of Miami. “Everybody was in the casino,” Green said. “I said, `This would be unbelievable in Mississippi.”

Green and Carter contacted the Mississippi Port Authority and secured the rights to do a gambling cruise ship out of Gulfport. “We didn’t know anything about gambling,” he said. “We started sailing in and out of Mississippi. It didn’t work. We had too many people working in the engine room. We came up with the idea that if we could tie it to the dock, we could make it work. It got approved. I think it was 1989 or 1990. Now we own two casinos there, both in Gulfport, Miss. It’s really exciting. How did we do this? We were just a couple local guys from Mississippi.”

Thoroughbreds were next, thanks to his friendship with Mike Rutherford Jr., a fellow cutting rider. They became hunting buddies.

Mike’s father is a life-long horseman who began riding horses and working with cattle at the age of eight in Austin, Texas. He was a force in Quarter Horse racing before switching to Thoroughbreds. He purchased Manchester Farm in Lexington, Ky., in 1976, and it continues to thrive.

Mike and his father invited Green to their farm seven years ago. Green was blown away. “I said this is a great alternative,” he said. “I said I’m not going to be able to ride cutting horses forever.”

Two years later, Green and Rutherford Jr. created Jackpot Ranch-Rutherford. They purchased and campaigned Mississippi Delta. “She was a Gr3 winner,” Green said. “That really gave me a buzz.”

Green purchased some land near Lexington, Ky., to begin Jackpot Farm. “We built barns and paddocks,” Green said. “The last two years, I really got into it. I have about eight or nine horses now. I kind of fell in love with it pretty quick.”

Basin’s performance in the Hopeful did nothing to cool his passion. “Oh my God,” Green said. “It’s unbelievable.”

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My new Kentucky home - Michael Hernon - Gainesway Farm

By Jeff Lowe

My NEW Kentucky home

As much as horse racing and breeding are steeped in parts of English and Irish culture, the avenue to America has been wide open for many years in providing numerous young horsemen with a chance to branch out in establishing themselves in the Thoroughbred industry. A fascinating aspect among the driven 20-somethings who come across the pond each year to work for farms and agencies, Kentucky is the likelihood that a certain number of them will find a new home there—both personally and professionally. 

Michael Hernon

MICHAEL HERNON - Gainesway Farm

Expats dot the landscape of the Thoroughbred world in America, including a broad swath in the bluegrass. Take, for instance, Geoffrey Russell—Keeneland's long-time director of sales—and Michael Hernon, who has the same title at Gainesway, which is one of the leading stud farms and perennial leading consignors in the U.S. Russell and Hernon both arrived in Kentucky from Ireland in the same time period in the early 1980s and were roommates for a while in a Lexington townhouse. 

Hernon was just getting started working for a pedigree service, and Russell was beginning a stint at Fasig-Tipton. Within a little more than a decade, both Dublin natives had ascended many heights with Hernon taking his current job at Gainesway in November 1995 and Russell joining Keeneland as Assistant Director of Sales in 1996.  Hernon has been a mainstay under the Beck family's ownership of Gainesway and played an integral part in both the sales division and the acquisition of stallions, including leading sire Tapit and the repatriation of Empire Maker from Japan. 

Hernon also has dabbled in breeding and pinhooking for his own account and has scored some big victories on that front recently as the co-breeder of champion Monomoy Girl and Gr1 winner Zazu. 

Hernon can instantly recite the hip numbers of certain highlight horses with which he has been involved, not to mention prices and pedigree nuggets. He is a fervent admirer of Tapit, dating back to when he watched a replay one Saturday morning in the fall of 2003 of the horse's juvenile stakes win in the Laurel Futurity, which led to Gainesway pursuing Tapit's services as a stallion. 

Where pride really begins to swell in Hernon's voice is in discussing a personal milestone: becoming a U.S. citizen in August 2019. 

"I had been a permanent resident with a green card for many years, and I am very happy to say that I am now a U.S. citizen," he said. "Someone asked me last year if I was going home for Christmas and I remember replying, 'I am home.' 

"America is what you make of it. If you work hard, you will get an opportunity to make your own buck. I have had so many great opportunities here from when I first came over and was learning from the ground up. I started out doing pedigree reading, writing, composition, and one key thing we did on Saturday mornings was go around and look at stallions. I got to see the stallions I was writing about and get that perspective. A lot of them did not have perfect conformation. But if you look at a horse long enough, they will more than likely tell you who they are. You can learn so much [by] looking at them in the flesh, seeing how everything fits together, and that is something that was formative for me from when I first came over." 

CARL MCENTEE - Ballysax Bloodstock

Carl McEntee

Carl McEntee, president of the Kentucky Farm Managers Club and head of the Ballysax Bloodstock consignment, is a sixth-generation Irish horseman and came to America for good when he was 23 years old in a bit of an unusual circumstance. A graduate of the British National Stud, McEntee worked for Darley in Europe for three years before injuring his arm and needing to take off a few weeks of work. During the downtime, he decided to come and visit his brother, Mark, who was already working in the racing industry in Kentucky. 

McEntee heard about a job opening at Idle Hour Farm in Lexington and figured he should apply and see if he got an interview, thinking it would be a good experience for him. 

"I really didn't expect to get the job, but I did, and that kind of put me on an accelerated career path here in America—compared to what I would have been in Europe because it takes a little more time there, and I just settled right in," said McEntee, who met his wife, Rachel, a Kentucky native, the following year. The couple met at a barbecue hosted by Ben Colebrook, who is now a Kentucky-based trainer. The McEntees have three children. 

"Things have continuously reached a crescendo," McEntee said. "I had the chance to set up Ghost Ridge Farm in Pennsylvania, and I think we helped move the breeding industry along there bringing in stallions like Jump Start, E Dubai, Honour and Glory and Smarty Jones from Kentucky. Jump Start was the first stallion I bought, and that was kind of my entry into sales. I had never done sales before, but I figured I could sell the shares of the stallion myself, and that's what I did. I think it turned out that I am probably better at sales than any other aspect of the industry, and so that was a big discovery.” 

A stint at Northview Stallion Station in the Mid-Atlantic followed; and while attending the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, Carl and Rachel McEntee discussed their desire to return to Kentucky. 

"We had just had our third child and she was dropping me off at the sale and she said, 'If there is an opportunity for us to move back to Kentucky, I would really like that since my mom lives here and we could have some help with the children," McEntee recalled. "I walked halfway around the pavilion and bumped into Robert Hammond and his first question was, 'Do you think you would be interested in being director of sales and bloodstock for Darby Dan Farm?’ That's how I ended up back in Kentucky.

"I think that's the great thing about working in America. You are presented with so many opportunities, and from all that I've developed a well-rounded perspective to go along with what I grew up with. I've done just about everything at some point: hotwalker, exercise rider, assistant trainer, farm manager, sales, yearlings, broodmares. I've been able to have my hand in just about everything and see horses from different points of view." 

In early 2018, McEntee launched Ballysax, focusing on sales consignments.

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#Soundbites - Would creating a uniform standard for drug testing horses be good or bad?

By Bill Heller

The Horse Racing Integrity Act currently before the U.S. Congress would create a uniform standard for drug testing horses that would be overseen by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Would that be good or bad?

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Ralph Nicks

It would probably be good. It would level the playing field. We need standard medication rules.

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Rick Schosberg

The jury’s out. I think uniform medication rules are a good thing. Whether it’s the government’s job to do, I’m not sold on that. A lot of people have been working very hard in the industry to get all the jurisdictions on the same page without government intervention. But absolutely it’s important that it gets done. 

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Eoin Harty

I think it would be good. Anything that’s going to enhance the public perception of our industry would be good. I believe this is a step in the right direction. I think it’s very important to enhance confidence in our industry. I think it’s at an all-time low. Anything that would improve that is a good thing.

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Norm Casse

I’m all for uniform rules, but I’m not in favor of the government being involved. It doesn’t seem like it ever works. I think we’re an industry that should be able to regulate ourselves rather than have someone else do it.

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Tom Proctor

When is the government getting involved ever a good thing?

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Ian Wilkes

Bad. I don’t think we need Congress getting involved in our sport. I think our testing is very sophisticated now anyway. I think it’s quite good. Yes, we need uniform rules, but we don’t need Congress involved.

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Jim Bond

It would be bad, though the way it is now is chaos. It’s sad. Ninety-nine percent of the people in our business are good people. You can have all the rules in the world, but they don’t punish the people that have overstepped boundaries hard enough. Not 60 days or 90 days. Make it real. Put some teeth into it. But getting the government involved would not be good. It never seems to work.

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Tim Hills 

If it’s properly instituted, I think it would be good; but horsemen must be included on how it would be set up and how it would be implemented. The horsemen have to have a seat at the table. They would have to be included in setting guidelines. We must be included in how it’s written up. 

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Chris Englehart

I guess it all depends on what the rules were. You’re talking about uniform rules. That would be fine, unless the rules included banning Lasix. I wouldn’t be in support of that. Where would we race our bleeders? I think it would be a good thing to have uniform testing. In a lot of ways, it would be great.

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Tyler Servis - like father, like son

By Linda Dougherty

When Afleet Tizzy defeated eight rivals in winning the $100,000 Dr. Teresa Garofalo Memorial Stakes at Parx Racing August 3—one of five stakes for Pennsylvania-Breds on the Pennsylvania’s Day at the Races card—it represented the first stakes victory for young trainer Tyler Servis, the son of prominent trainer John Servis. 

And not only did Tyler Servis collect his first stakes win, but he did it two races before his father won with Main Line Racing Stable and Alexandria Stable’s Someday Jones in the $100,000 Roanoke Stakes.

Afleet Tizzy wins the Garofalo

Adding to the festivities of the day was the presence of the family patriarch Joe Servis, now in his late 80s. The former jockey and steward, who rode on the West Virginia circuit and was inducted into the Charles Town Hall of Fame, was there to celebrate a birthday but ended up having a double celebration thanks to the accomplishments of his son and grandson.

“To have (my grandfather) here to see this, at his age, was awesome,” said Tyler afterwards. 

John Servis echoed those words, saying, “It was a very special afternoon, not only because it was Tyler’s first stakes win and we both won a stakes on the card, but because three generations of the Servis family were there.”

Owned by Marvin Delfiner and George Krall, Afleet Tizzy is a five-year-old daughter of Tizway, bred by Blackstone Farm. Tyler Servis began training her earlier this year, and she was his second starter and second career winner, having won an allowance/optional claiming race at Parx May 14.

Sent off at odds of 7-1 in the six furlong Garofalo, Afleet Tizzy was piloted by Angel Rodriguez, who kept her about a length behind the early leaders, I’m the Talent and Zipper’s Hero, as they ding-donged through early splits of :21.93 and 44.78. She made her move at the top of the stretch when the taxing pace took its toll on the top two and stormed to the lead, drawing clear by a length and crossing the wire in 1:10.52 over betting favorite Sweet Bye and Bye with Trace of Grace, third.

The Garofalo Memorial was also the first stakes win for Afleet Tizzy, who had been second in her previous start, the Power by Far Stakes for Pennsylvania-Breds at Parx June 22. The $57,600 she earned boosted her career earnings to $374,646.

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Remembering Randy Romero

By Bill Heller

Hall of Fame jockey Randy Romero began winning races when he was nine years old—races at the bush tracks of rural Louisiana before hundreds of witnesses with lots of money on the line. If it was too much pressure for a little kid, he never showed it. He rode the rest of his life that way, seemingly impervious to the pressure of big stakes races and in defiance of a litany of serious injuries that would lead to life-long illness that he battled until the day he passed on August 29th.

He was 13 when he fell while working a horse and fractured his kneecap. Three years later, he had his first serious accident at Evangeline Downs. Another horse came over on Randy’s horse, who went down. Randy was trampled on by multiple horses. It punctured his lung, liver and kidney; and doctors would have to remove his spleen. He was unconscious for two days. When he awoke in the hospital, his mother begged him to stop riding. He told her, “Momma, I want to be a jockey.”

He was born to ride. When he retired at the end of 1999, he was the 26th leading jockey ever with 4,294 victories despite missing some six years from injuries. He won 25 riding titles at 10 different tracks including Arlington Park, Belmont Park, Fair Grounds and Keeneland.

What would his numbers have been if he only missed two or three years? Or if he hadn’t been nearly burned to death in 1983 in a freak accident in a sweatbox? Randy flicked off a piece of rubbing alcohol on his shoulder and it hit a light bulb and caused the sweatbox to explode. Randy suffered second and third degree burns over 60 percent of his body. Doctors gave him a 40-percent chance of surviving. He was back riding in 3 ½ months and won his first race back on a horse trained by his brother Gerald.

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