Vincent Scuderi

Born in Glen Cove, Long Island, 57-year-old Vincent Scuderi is the third-generation president of his family’s Brooklyn business, Van Blarcom Company, now known as VBC. The company’s five buildings occupy an entire city block, manufacturing child resistant closures and specialty products for the pharmaceutical and health-care industries. Incorporated on Feb. 3, 1947, VBC manufactures more than one billion closures and fitments annually and employs 300 people. “I have a good business that allows me to pay my horse bills,” Scuderi said April 22. “It’s a very hard game.”

It’s a game he loves to play. His father and uncle helped introduce him to horse racing, and he began catching harness races at nearby Roosevelt Raceway. “I started going for a few late races after work,” Scuderi said. “I was 18 or 19 back then with no money. Two of my friends and I, we used to go there and go party afterwards.”

Scuderi bought his first horse, a Thoroughbred, some 30 years back. The horse never made it to the races. Instead of giving up on racing, he claimed another. “Baby Chris was her name,” he said. “She won three or four races. I was hooked.”

Though he bred Dads Caps and still owns his dam, Seeking the Silver, Scuderi describes himself as a “most predominantly a claiming owner.” He hit a huge home run with Endless Circle, a horse he claimed for $14,000 who subsequently won two stakes with trainer Rudy Rodriguez. Scuderi also had considerable success with Uncle T Seven, a top New York-bred.

He now has six or seven horses with Rodriguez and trainer Michelle Nevin, three babies and one accomplished broodmare who has now produced a Grade I stakes winner. When Scuderi entered speedy Dads Caps in the Carter, he told Rodriguez he’d be okay with scratching him if there was a ton of other early speed in the race. “I honestly thought I could finish in the top four,” Scuderi said. “I was getting weight. It was my home track. And there wasn’t a lot of other early speed. I thought we had a chance.”

He did, giving Rodriguez, jockey Luis Contreras and Scuderi and his family, wife Deborah, son Vincent and daughter Liza, their first Grade I. “It was a surprise,” Scuderi said. “I just get such a thrill out of winning. I really do.”