Richard Mandella on the basics that make racing work

Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella is not in his tack room office between sets at Del Mar this morning. Instead, the son of a blacksmith is at the end of the long indoor barn, artfully sweeping a rasp across a back hoof of a two-year-old Storm Cat filly. When prompted, he says, simply, “The basics are what make this game work. Believe me, basic horsemanship will hold you in good stead. It's the most important thing. Knowing that a horse is shod as correct as he can be, that the blacksmith's doing a good job You? Embarrassed, he downplays his handiwork. No, I tinker around, that's all. I don't do it every day. And it doesn't make me any better than anybody else.

Frances J Karon
 (14 October 2008 - Issue Number: 10)

The Gate Crew - behind-the-scenes but in full view

On Blue Grass Day in 2008, roughly 26,000 people in the stands went crazy as Visionaire, the last to load into the starting gate, took his place in the lineup. When the doors shut behind him, it was the signal that the feature race of Keeneland’s spring meet was only seconds away, and the crowd cheered, wild with anticipation. Everything fell perfectly into place, and head starter Robert “Spec” Alexander released the field: the shrill clang and sharp burst of the metal gate springing open gets the blood flowing like no other thrill associated with horseracing.

Frances J Karon
 (14 October 2008 - Issue Number 10)

Michael Dickinson - "The Mad Genius"

By Frances Karon

Michael Dickinson is welcoming and instantly likeable, suffused with energy as he bounces around Tapeta Farm on the Chesapeake Bay in North East, Maryland. “I don’t say I’m good or great but I’m not boring,” he promises. Along that vein, the burning question is, why do people call him “The Mad Genius,” as coined by an American turf writer? Dickinson’s standard reply is that the nickname is “only half right,” without declaring which half. No relentless line of questioning will drag it out of him. “Who do you think you are, Barbara Walters?” he deadpans. “Or the guy with on CNN with the braces [suspenders]. Larry King.” What does his wife, Joan Wakefield, think? “Don’t answer that. Keep quiet! Could be divorce proceedings here!” teases her husband. She says only, “I know which half is right!” Draw your own conclusion. If he’s mad, or if he’s a genius, or if he’s both – he embraces it.

First, there is the interview. No, not this one. His interview of the writer who has arrived at his doorstep. It’s part of the process. He has made the appropriate phone calls, compiled a character reference and studied your transcript. He begins grilling immediately, disconcertingly scribbling away with the pen and paper he is never without. This is the quintessential Dickinson. The Mad Genius at work.

At heart, Dickinson is fundamentally curious. One of his many extraordinary features is his belief that there’s potential to learn something new or something better from everyone. He might not yet know what exactly that something is, but it is there, and he will find it.

The third generation horseman is from Yorkshire, England. His father and grandfather before him, and his mother after, were trainers. His father “was very low key and didn’t want the big lights. He was happy just churning out winners.” His mother, “Mrs. D” as Dickinson affectionately calls her, “was one of the best horsewomen England’s ever produced, and that’s a huge statement. She was selected to showjump for Great Britain, and she was one of the best of her time. She was a very good point-to-point rider, the best of her era. Then she started to train on her own for three years when I went to Manton and Dad was sick. She won the King George, the Queen Mother Champion Chase, the Welsh Grand National, the Whitbread. Yes, there’d been good female trainers; yes, there’d been good point-to-point riders, and there’d been good showjumpers, but nobody excelled in all three disciplines.”

Dickinson began riding over fences, and in his first season emulated his father as champion amateur jockey. He was also fifth in the overall jockey’s standings, “which was perhaps higher than I should have been. I rode five winners at the Cheltenham Festival, and there were better riders than me who rode less, so that was an achievement. Dad was a North Country trainer and I was a North Country jockey and we weren’t high profile. To have a couple of runners at Cheltenham was magnificent. We walked in ten feet tall, “oh, we’ve got arunner.” And weren’t we so pleased and proud to have a runner! If it ran well, oh, it was great. And then by the end, if we didn’t have a winner we were ready to jump off the grandstand.” He continued riding competitively for ten years. “I loved it. The only thing I didn’t like was the dieting, because I had to be 140 pounds and my natural weight was 168 pounds. The falls never worried me. You never worry about the pain, you just worry because you can’t eat all day. People, if they wanted to be kind, said I was good over a fence.” And if they didn’t want to be kind? “Well, they’d say I wasn’t very strong in a finish. That was fair comment. I was too tall and I was a bit weak because I was 140 pounds and I’d have been tired at the end.” After a fall at Cartmel left him 20 minutes from death, Dickinson traded in jockey’s license for trainer’s license. Remarkably, the whip he had used for ten years was sold at the “nearly new shop.”

“I never thought I’d be top trainer,” he concedes. “I just wanted to be consistently in the top ten every year. They like saying I’m famous for the Gold Cup, but that was just one race.” He closed out his brief steeplechase training career with three consecutive championship titles each by money won and by number of wins. There is some confusion as to whether he holds five, or “only” four, Guinness World records based on his exploits with the jumpers, primarily because he is not ego-driven. “I’ve got some accomplishments and they’re about that thick.” Dickinson neatly pinches the tips of his thumb and forefinger close together. “I’ve got another book with my mistakes and it’s that thick” – moving his hands exaggeratedly far apart – “and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about them.”

His meteoric domination of the steeplechasing segued into becoming private trainer for Robert Sangster at Manton. Though he had switched to flat racing, Michael was facing insurmountable hurdles in his new job with a yard full of backward juveniles. “One of my work riders came to me and said, ‘Michael, you’re doing too much with these two-year-olds.’ And another rider came to me and said, ‘You’re not doing enough with these horses. They’re not going to win like that.’ Who was right? Well they were both right.” That was in the same year Lester Piggott struck out as a trainer, and “the bookies were betting on who was going to train the most winners, Lester or me. At the beginning of the season, Sir Peter O’Sullevan – a great man – came, had a look around, saw the two-year-olds and saw all the new gallops which needed a bit more time and he went out and had a big bet on Lester. He said, ‘Michael, you’ve got no chance. I’ve seen the two-year-olds, and they’re all big, tall, Nijinsky-type gangly things.’ So we knew in March we were in trouble because Sir Peter, apart from being an excellent racecaller, is a very shrewd betting man.” Six months into the season, Sangster fired Dickinson. “We didn’t have enough winners. We had Golden Fleeces and Kings Lakes, which weren’t good stallions, so that was part of it. I’m not blaming Robert for that. Losing a job’s not the end of the world. Losing my reputation was.”

As is often the case with such seemingly devastating setbacks, Dickinson reflects on it as “the best thing that happened. I still love visiting England but I couldn’t have been as happy. I like the freedom in America.” With help from Dr. David Lambert, Dickinson attended the Calder juvenile sale and was in business. He set up shop at Fair Hill in Maryland that year, in 1987, and stayed until Tapeta Farm was completed in 1998 to his exact, and exacting, specifications, right down to the in-house synthetic footing.

Tapeta Farm is a culmination of a dream germinated 25 years before its inception. Dickinson still calls his summers with Vincent O’Brien at Ballydoyle in the early 70s “the two happiest of my life.” He pulls out a notebook that is so old it had cost 10 pence, filled with meticulous notes dating back to his days with O’Brien, who may have been a quiet man but has through Dickinson’s observations an eloquent verbosity. Other notebooks follow, including the one in which he chronicled his three week “vacation” in California with Charlie Whittingham during jump racing’s off season in 1983.

At Ballydoyle, “The penny dropped, and I suddenly realised whey everyone sent [O’Brien] their million-dollar yearlings, because he didn’t break them down. There were no sore horses. He ignited my passion for surfaces. Ballydoyle is a magnificent environment and Tapeta Farm is just copying what an Irishman did many years ago.” Whittingham told Dickinson, “You’ll end up going on the flat.” When Dickinson responded, “I don’t think I’ll make the transition,” the Bald Eagle rebutted, “I’m sure you will,” with confidence. “He was a lovely guy, wasn’t he? Everyone liked Charlie. But I was only with Charlie for three weeks, so Vincent had more effect on me.” Yet there was a common thread in both these great trainers, whose words laid the foundation for the Tapeta surface. The most well-worn page in his Whittingham notebook is where he jotted down Whittingham’s oft-repeated phrase: “A bad turf track is better than a good dirt track.”

Touring the farm on foot is like taking a nature walk in the woods. On the 7 furlong synthetic course, the Tapeta mixture underfoot coaxes up to a steady incline which, in the summer heat, is tiring. You begin to understand how the miracle of Da Hoss came together here well before reaching the undulating turf course, which is another product of Dickinson’s “genius” half. It is comprised of three strips of different types of grass providing ideal training ground for normal, drought and flood conditions. Earlier, Dickinson had demonstrated the quality of the “mattress” that is his turf by lying down on it. “That goes along with the public perception that I’m just a bit mad, you know, lying on the grass. They would love that, wouldn’t they?”

Near the end of the solitary hike under the searing sun and thinking of the photo shoot, I take a breather on the turf mattress and mentally play back a conversation about Da Hoss. Dickinson and his partner of 27 years – and wife of two years, Joan Wakefield – agree that their greatest day came courtesy of a win by Da Hoss in the Breeders’ Cup Mile but they squabble over a triviality: for Wakefield, that day came at Woodbine in 1996, and for Dickinson, it was Churchill in 1998.

The 1996 Breeders’ Cup brings us to an urban legend we must debunk. The popular horsemen’s sheet Indian Charlie [motto: “We Never Let The Truth Get In The Way Of A Good Story”] has made the spectacle of Michael Dickinson wearing high heels well known to all backstretch denizens.

Dickinson sets up the story. “Forty years ago I was riding in a big hurdle race, and I was dating a model who came to the race in a cocktail dress and a pair of heels. She walked around with me, bless her, and I said, ‘I’m going to come up the left-hand side.’ And she says, ‘Oh no, I’d come down on the right. My high heels go in much more on the left than on the right.’ So by accident I learned that one way to test soft ground was high heels.” Incidentally, he won.
Decades later in Canada, inspecting the turf ahead of the race, Dickinson turned to his partner and said, “This is no good. You’re going to have to buy a pair of heels.” Wakefield dutifully approached a saleswoman at a nearby Shoe Barn. “I need a pair of the highest, thinnest stilettos that you can find. It doesn’t matter what colour they are, it doesn’t matter what size they are, as long as I can get them on my feet.” Within minutes, Wakefield had bought a pair of plastic red shoes to match the colour in her face at having to wear them, and three of them began to walk the course again with what Dickinson calls “science – the penetrometer; the old-fashioned stick; and the by accident high heels. It was important. I mean, you can’t be casual about it!” None less casual than Wakefield, accompanying the men for three circuits around the track in stilettos. “She made a speech and complained and I said, ‘Marilyn Monroe had high heels and she never complained!’”

“Yes, but she didn’t walk turf tracks, either! It’s not easy walking on soft turf with high heels. The other thing was, I said to Michael, that if anybody saw me…” says Wakefield. “This was October in Toronto, and there I am in open-toed plastic shoes and I said, ‘If anybody seems me I’m going to kill you.’ So we get around, and as we’re turning into the straight all of a sudden the horses come out on the track. We’d forgotten, or didn’t know, that it was twilight racing so they were coming out for the first race, and of course they’d seen us walking the track so Michael very kindly pointed me out to the cameras, pointed at me in those ridiculous bright red stilettos.”

“They’d be worth a lot of money now, wouldn’t they, Joan? They’d have been a collector’s item. But she threw them away.” Indeed, Wakefield confesses, “They were in the trash in Toronto. I was mortified!” Nevertheless, they had served their purpose, and Dickinson drew a detailed map for Gary Stevens to follow and told him, “We know you’re a world-class jockey but it’s rained for ten days and three of us have walked the track three times, which is nine circuits, so please allow us to impart you knowledge. We’re giving you some fairly difficult instructions and if it doesn’t work I will take full responsibility.” The plan was executed brilliantly.

Bright red plastic stilettos aside, the 1996 Mile is Wakefield’s favorite. Dickinson puffs up with melodramatic apoplexy, but his wife stands her ground. “Churchill was very stressful because he’d had a lot of problems and we expected him to win. That makes it stressful.”

Dickinson counters. “Well, I thought Churchill was easy. I knew he was 100%. We had him spot on because you and Miguel and Jon-Boy did such a good job with him. I knew he was spot on, and that was it.” Dickinson dances around the room impersonating announcer Tom Durkin: “Mark of Esteem’s got a lot to do but it’s the American Da Hoss…” Wakefield: “In da mile!” Dickinson: “And Spinning World is trying to reel him in! Oh my, this is the greatest comeback since Lazarus!”

Not having raced since the Breeders’ Cup at Woodbine, soundness and fitness were a concern for the then-6-year-old gelding, and Dickinson entered Da Hoss in an allowance race at Colonial Downs. “Six weeks before the race two good vets got together and said that this horse wouldn’t make the first race, let alone the second. But he was a miracle.” Twenty-three months following his previous start, Da Hoss won an allowance in Virginia but only made first reserve on the list of 1998 Mile entrants. “I wrote to the selection committee and I said, ‘This horse is better than he’s ever been, better than he was two years ago.’ Of course they didn’t believe me. ‘How can he be?’ [Colonial’s] Lenny Hale stood up for him, because he’d seen him win.”

On the first day of every month for that entire year, Gary Stevens’ agent Ron Anderson received a phone call from Michael Dickinson. “You will ride my horse in the Breeders’ Cup, won’t you?” “Yeah, yeah,” Anderson would reply, until October, when Anderson had a different answer. “Oh no, we can’t ride. We’re riding [Among Men] for Sir Michael Stoute.” Dickinson says, “If you were Ron Anderson what would you do? The other’s just won a Grade 1 and Da Hoss hasn’t run for two years. It was the right decision by him, really.” Yet Dickinson had so much faith in his horse he suggested a Da Hoss vs. Among Men wager between him and Anderson. “I’ll bet you now $1,000, wherever we finish, whether it’s first and second, or last and next to last, we’ll finish in front of that.”

Da Hoss drew in to the mile with John Velasquez named to ride. At the press party on Thursday, Da Hoss’ head man Miguel and exercise rider Jon “Jon-Boy” Ferriday surrounded Stevens. “Big mistake!” they told him. “And Gary was beside himself because there was so much conviction in what they were saying.” On Saturday, “We went to see Johnny at ten o’clock in the morning. I said, ‘Johnny, I know you’ve got a lot of rides today but you’re going to ride a winner and it’s going to be Da Hoss.’ I was crying at the time because I was so emotional, because I knew he was spot on, and I knew he would win. I felt really proud. I wasn’t worried.” Da Hoss nosed out Hawksley Hill (Ire) with Among Men unplaced, and Anderson paid up right away. “Well what could I do?” he said to Dickinson of his decision. “We hadn’t seen your horse for two years!” Dickinson split the thousand between Da Hoss’ Miguel and Ferriday.
In contrast to the ‘ease’ of running a horse against the world’s best competition after a two year absence, Dickinson was never more nervous than before what historical annals call the “Famous Five,” a.k.a. 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup, when he saddled Bregawn, Captain John, Wayward Lad, Silver Buck and Ashley House to fill the first five places home. “I thought we might be sort of second, third and fourth but not win the race, so I was nervous as hell. And I knew my best horse wasn’t at his best.” Wakefield offers up her assessment of his nerves. “A couple of weeks before Cheltenham he’d won an award and had to go up to London. He put a suit on and I said, ‘My God, Michael, you are so skinny it’s unbelievable. How much weight have you lost?’ I mean, it looked like he forgot to take the coat hanger out because it was just pure bones.’” He’d shed 14 pounds.

Of his many amazing training accomplishments, what does Michael Dickinson consider the greatest? “Most people would say the Cheltenham Gold Cup, but the best horse only finished fourth that day, Silver Buck. He won it the year before, so I didn’t do a good job with him. I failed. I asked him to go into battle and he wasn’t at his best, and I felt guilty for it. I still do now.” He’s not lying. Here in his office, 25 years after the fact, his eyes tear up. “His owner came to me after. She had the best horse in the race and he finished fourth, but she couldn’t have been any nicer. She was so pleased for me. And you know, I was crying for her because I’d let her down. I’d let the horse down. Afterwards, it wasn’t elation. It was just…relief. It wasn’t, ‘Wow, this is great!’ It was just, ‘Thank God for that.’”
One word Dickinson uses infrequently when discussing his successes is “I.” “People,” he says, “always say you, but we had a great team. My father used to say that you can read what you want in the press clippings but don’t believe them, and Joan’s always been the same. She’s always kept me firmly in hand.” Wakefield asserts that he has relaxed in their 27 years together. “He never, ever used to sit and eat a meal. I’d put a meal in front of him, he’d take a bite, he’d get up, he’d make a telephone call, he’d wander around the house, he’d come back in, he’d sit down and play with it a little bit. He’d get up and wander off. He was a nightmare back then. He’s relaxed now to what he used to be.”

“You’ve got to have fun in your life, haven’t you?” With Wakefield, he does, and by the sound and look of it they have done from the time they began dating. They met at Wetherby Racecourse, through the cousin of a friend. “Michael always manages to find somebody to drive him because he doesn’t like driving, so Chris drove him and in between races with Michael running backwards and forwards between the saddling area and the jockey’s room Chris and six girls all stood in the middle. Michael stops and says to Chris, ‘How is it you always get all the women?’ and we got quick introductions. ‘This is Joan Wakefield. Her father builds horseboxes.’ We met for about 30 seconds. Two weeks later apparently he had got my dad’s name and called him at work and said, ‘Can you tell me where I can get hold of Joan Wakefield?’ I was obviously in the bad books that day so my father’s reply was, ‘Around the bloody neck!” which Michael thought was highly hilarious and proceeded to tell everybody in the racing world. Anyway, we decided to meet at the Wetherby roundabout at the hotel in the car park. By this time a couple of weeks have gone by.”

“We’re walking up the street there,” breaks in Michael. “I’m walking up one side of the street and she’s walking up the other and we didn’t recognise each other. I said, ‘Oh, are you Joan?’”

“So I get in the back of the car” – one of Michael’s riders was driving – “and he turns around and he looks at me and says, ‘What have you done to your hair? When I met you you had long, flowing blond locks.’ I said, ‘You’ve got the wrong one. I’ve never had long, flowing blond locks.’”

“I had six to choose from, and I chose the wrong one! Mistaken identity!”

“And how dare you ask me what I’ve done to my hair.” Dickinson had gotten aperm. “I said to him, ‘Michael, it’s bad enough looking at you with a perm, but I cannot for the life of me imagine you sitting in the hairdresser’s with all the rollers in!’ The press started nicknaming him ‘Demiwave Dickie.’”

At the end of 2007, Dickinson retired from training and put Tapeta Farm for sale. “It’s unique,” he says. “It’s easily the best private training center in America, and the only one on the East Coast between Washington, D.C. and New York, which is where all the racetracks are. It’s a great place to train. You just do what you want. If it’s raining, you can go in, have a cup of tea and play cards and wait for it to stop raining and then go and train.” The team now focuses entirely on their Tapeta surface.

Blending the first successful formula for Tapeta was harrowing. “I thought,” he says, “it would take me three months and it took me four years.” Give up? “I couldn’t.” Near the end, “we mixed all day. We started at six in the morning and stopped at two o’clock the next morning. I got up to see and it was terrible. The dream of my farm had blown up, and my ego took a beating.” They hit it on the next try, but the original mix has continued to evolve after he threw the gauntlet at Wakefield: “Here’s my product. Make it better. Learn all you can about sand, wax, fibers and rubber. And you’d better know more than anybody else, and you better be damn good at it.” The result is that they’ve gotten progressively “better every year.”

Dickinson denies being a perfectionist. “I’m old enough to realize perfection is never obtainable. It’s not worth killing yourself trying to get a ten out of ten, because it’s never attainable. So you just have to be happy with 8s and 9s out of ten.” Then why is he still fine-tuning his Tapeta surface? “I want to be better. I’m not a perfectionist because I know I can’t get there but I do the best I can.”

“There’s a big difference between training and building tracks. If a trainer is really good, and if he’s really lucky – say he has ten horses – he’ll probably do quite well with five of them, and the other five won’t do well. You’re all the time going around apologising for them. Even when you do everything right it can blow up in your face. And then trainers tend to beat ourselves up by saying, ‘If I hadn’t done that we’d have been alright.’ How many times do we say that? We all make mistakes, and very often afterwards it’s not the trainer’s fault. It just didn’t work out. But it’s not always black and white. You can’t definitely say, ‘It’s not my fault.’ It’s very easy to blame everybody else but deep down you’ve always got to take some responsibility. So I used to beat myself up and think, ‘Why did I do that?’” The self-proclaimed non-perfectionist asserts that a perfect win percentage is now possible. “If I do ten tracks, I can do ten good tracks, and I can go ten-for-ten. If it’s not a good track I’ve just got to look in the mirror. It was my fault and I go and fix it. If it does fail it’s my fault, where you could train a horse perfectly and it fails.”

Tapeta is featured at Golden Gate Fields, Presque Isle Downs, training centres such as the nearby Fair Hill, and in Dubai, England, Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. Dickinson makes a case for replacing conventional dirt surfaces. “Why is the manager of an American racetrack going to spend a lot of money on a new track? First of all, it’s safest for jockeys. Two, it’s reduced injuries to the horses, which will help fill the barn area. The horses can run more often, leading to bigger fields and a bigger mutuel handle with no sloppy tracks. Owners trying to protect their investment want to go where the horse can last its longest and where when it’s finished racing he’s got a saleable horse. And then there’s litigation. Synthetics are proven to be safer, and you’ve got to be seen doing everything you can. The last thing is peace of mind. Priceless. You’re doing everything you can as a racetrack manager, and that is peace of mind.”

The market for synthetics can be fickle. After last year’s deluge at the Breeders’ Cup led to the fatal breakdown of George Washington (Ire), “the world saw the imperfections of dirt. That can happen to any dirt track any time. It wasn’t Monmouth Park’s fault, and I’m not blaming Monmouth. Any dirt track can turn into that.” However, interest soon waned after the well-documented problems at Santa Anita, which is not a Tapeta surface. Months of silence were broken after the very public fallout afterEight Belles. “The people who were on the fence went quiet after Santa Anita in January but now they’re all back in action again.”

Dickinson’s product is more than a racing surface; his pride and passion are part and parcel of any Tapeta deal, and he often travels to check on his tracks. “My feet can tell me. I like to feel it and I like to have a little dig with my hands. I like to run on them because I can tell how they perform when I run on them. I try and go barefoot whenever I can, but I don’t do it in the winter, and I can’t do it in the summer because it gets too hot.” A barefoot man running around racetrack doesn’t always go over well with an unsuspecting security detail, which inevitably gives chase. Once, he told the guards, “If you can’t catch a 58-year-old man I don’t feel sorry for you!” Another time, running in the evening, “This guy comes over in his truck and drives along next to me, stops and comes out in his uniform and says, ‘Please tell me you work here!’” His favorite incident was in Korea. “You know, I don’t look like many Koreans. I’m running around in my shorts testing it out and the security man was absolutely freaking out. He was peddling as fast as he could on his bike blowing his whistle” – Dickinson blows an imaginary whistle – “absolutely freaking out having about three heart attacks at once.” The man didn’t speak English, and Dickinson kept on going.

With training roots in two major racing countries and the ever-expanding reach of Tapeta, where does he see our sport headed? He believes, not surprisingly, that synthetics are going to become more prevalent as they improve, and that the ProCush whip mandatory in England and U.S. steeplechases will gain popularity in North America. The Europeans exercise strict rules on overuse of the whip, and Dickinson says, “That’s the way it needs to be. No one’s ever been called up for not hitting the horse enough.” From a health-of-the-industry angle, he sees a better product in England, where “the punter has tremendous choice. Some would argue that the bookmakers take too much out of racing and don’t give enough back. However, they do a marvelous job of marketing our sport. They take it to the public, they take it to the betting offices and they started SIS. I remember when we were at school, we would start betting on the Derby and the Grand National six months before. That’s always fun to try and have a pound on a horse at 500-1 six months before the race. Contrast America with the Kentucky Derby. Of 700 horses entered in February, we can only bet on 17 of them. It’s pathetic. We did better with the quill and ink 40 years ago than the so-called computers are doing now. In America, we don’t have a good enough racing product to make it attractive for enough bettors, and that’s a big stumbling block. We are handicapped, and the racetracks have to conduct their betting with 50-year-old laws which are way outdated.

“I enjoy racing anywhere around the world,” he goes on to say. “Arc Day in France is good. I don’t think there’s anything more exciting than Dubai World Cup Day. That’s terrific. After the fourth race they have a tremendous show there – fireworks, acrobats. And they have 19 nations competing, so that’s exciting. I’d like to see the Breeders’ Cup do more to entice more people from around the world.”

With an undocumented number of high-profile racehorses on a legal steroid regiment, Big Brown has become the unwitting poster child for Winstrol. While the arguments persist on the drug’s possible healthful benefits, Dickinson’s stance is that it needs to go if for no other reason than “it’s a bad perception. The public don’t like it. We’ve used anabolic steroids for the last 20 years but it’s going to be abolished in 2009 anyhow.” His opinion on Lasix is that “it’s a kind drug, because when a horse bleeds it hurts him. They think they’re drowning. In a perfect world of course they wouldn’t need it, but the fact is that 75% of horses do bleed, and it hurts them when they bleed, so I’m not totally anti-Lasix.”

Towards the end of our conversation, he says, “I’m just a farm boy from Maryland doing the best he can.” Surely he’s joking. Surely not “just a farm boy from Maryland” – or England – is this successful jockey, trainer, miracle worker and inventor of the Tapeta footing? Surely the first thing people ask when they meet him is about the Famous Five, the 12-winners-in-a-day, or Da Hoss? Surely that’s what we’re thinking? “I prefer not to know. They’re very nice but I’m sure they realise I’ve messed up a few times, and I hope they’ll forgive me for it.” His biggest mistake? “I don’t know how to answer that. I’ll have to think about that one. I just don’t know which is my biggest mistake.” He laughs. “Anyhow, you can’t help that. We all make mistakes. The man who never made a mistake never made anything, and I’ve always been a pioneer, an adventurer.” Ah! We’re seeing through this farm boy façade now. “I’ve always tried to think outside the box, and sometimes when you do things differently you do it the wrong way. But I accept that.”

Judging by the type of horses by which he has earned his “Mad Genius” label, Dickinson could be depicted as tilting at windmills, but he is no Don Quixote. Da Hoss; A Huevo, who won the Grade 1 DeFrancis Memorial Dash at seven; former $13,000 claimer Cetewayo, sidelined by multiple injuries, a Grade 1 winner at the age of eight; and Business is Boomin, who triumphed in his first race since May 8, 1992 on May 8, 1997. Six of the latter-named gelding’s seven career wins came in that 8-year-old season. Dickinson is quick to downplay accolades. “Nobody in their right mind would have tried, would they?” At the end of the day, all he really wants is something simple: “I want to do something good, make the world a better place. I want to do all I can for racing. I want to change all the surfaces of the world. I want to repay the horse for all he’s done to me. I would like to play a part in the racing industry, a constructive part, and I hope I produce good surfaces will keep horses sounder and produce good racing.”

In the midst of a heat wave, the temperature relents and our interview comes to a close. An evening walk across Tapeta, Latin for “carpet,” is pleasant, the Dickinsonian energy that runs throughout the farm feeling like a coiled spring about to be set loose, as a storm transforms the electricity from figurative to literal. The sky is ablaze, not unlike the mind of the “Mad Genius.”

The ‘Chief' Allen Jerkens

By Bill Heller

Ask anyone in Thoroughbred racing to name the savviest trainers in the history of the sport, and you may hear: Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, Woody Stephens, Charlie Whittingham, Laz Barrera,D. Wayne Lukas, John Nerud and, certainly, Allen Jerkens.Jerkens has never saddled the winner of a Triple Crown or Breeders' Cup race, yet he's still training winners and winning stakes at the age of 79, 34 years after his induction into the Hall of Fame. At the time, he was the youngest trainer ever enshrined.Known as the ‘Giant Killer' for his historic upsets of Buckpasser, Kelso and Secretariat, and as the "Chief" for his incredible horse knowledge, Jerkens was honored by the Backstretch Employee Service Team (BEST) with a Lifetime Outstanding Trainer award at a benefit dinner in Sands Point, Long Island on May 28th this year.Rather than being passed by time, he has adapted. Though he doesn't own a computer, he has a cell phone and a website, www.AllenJerkens.com.

His beloved wife Elisabeth was asked how her husband continues to maintain a national presence. "He's very disciplined," she said. "He does everything at the same time, and his memory is excellent." Asked if he ever amazes her, she said, "All the time."

Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron recently began the country's first jockey school in Kentucky, and you immediately took in one of his students, jockey Robbie Davis' daughter. Why?

Chris just called me up. I always admired him and his riding, and he always tried to help the game, too. And Robbie Davis, I always liked him, too, and rode him. I didn't think it would hurt. She's willing to work, too. She has to get strong. She gets on two or three horses every day. She started in January.

Throughout the last couple of decades, you've repeatedly used low-profile jockeys who exercised horses for you in the afternoon in races such as Filiberto Leon, Ray Ganpath, Shannon Uske, Leah Gyarmati and Andrew Lakeman . Why?

A lot of times they started out on horses that they were taking a special interest in. They were coming back in the afternoon and taking them out to graze. Like Lilah (a top filly). Uske rode her - she was a filly that tied up a lot - she used to take her out in the evening and ride her around bareback and she got to be pretty good.
Every once in a while, I get the feeling that the horse is going to do especially good with somebody that's used to them and getting on them every day. It doesn't always happen. It's always fun to have somebody who really takes a great interest in the horse.

Leah used to ride for you, then she earned a Doctorate in Theology. When she returned to say hello at Saratoga, you got her back on a horse that day and she became a jockey and now a successful trainer in New York. What happened that morning?

Well, she had been riding a little bit. She was always one of the best in the morning, anyway. I said, "I'm going to breeze this horse." She says, "You don't want me to breeze him, do you?" I said, "You won't have no problem because he's a free-running horse. You won't have to push him or anything." (Jerkens laughed) It was a horse named Chief Master. 
He was a good horse.

You still love what you do?

Oh, yeah. We try. I always like to see horses do the best they can, naturally. And to get anybody to give you the horses to train, if they don't run good they're not going to give them to you. They don't want to hear about you being in the Hall of Fame or whatever you ever did. It doesn't matter. You just have to keep on going. If you don't keep on going, you're not going to stay in the game.
And I have to pay more attention to it than I used to. I used to play polo and everything else, take a little time off. But I have to keep reminding myself all the time: who I'm going to run and when I'm going to run. Otherwise, it gets out of your mind quicker than when you were young.
Do you still go back in the evening to check your horses and see whether or not they've eaten?

Oh, yeah. The only time I won't go is if we plan to go out later and somebody (else) wants to do it for me. It's kind of important to me. Once a week or twice a week, I'll have someone else to take care of things.

It's not only because I don't trust anybody else to do it. It's whenever you look at them it reminds you of what you had in mind. If you see one that leaves their oats that particular night, then you say, well, probably it's because the vet gave him a build-up shot that day and he's going the other way. Every once in a while, horses do change. There's always a reason why things happen.

Every once in a while, they'll just not eat. I remember Spite the Devil. I was worried about him ‘cuz' he wasn't cleaning up his feed, and I was wondering whether we should run him and he won that big race (the Empire Classic) and he won it two years in a row.

If you don't have the experience, a lot of things worry you more. If you haven't been through it for years and years and years and seen the results – both ways – then you would worry. Guys who first start training would worry more about it than I would because I know I can overcome it in some other way.
Just like training; a horse might work faster than you wanted him to, so then maybe you turn him out in the pen for two days in a row and let them relax and try to compensate for it. You can't always. But … the same thing when they work too slow. Then maybe you might go out - I‘ve done it a couple of times - even the same morning and work them a little bit again to try to have them do what you wanted.

If you don't keep reminding yourself and if you don't stay at it, I don't know how you can do it. ‘Cuz' a lot of smarter people than me, they can do it without. Well, look at these guys that have so many horses. They have to depend on other people to have the same ideas that they do. Otherwise they wouldn't able to be so successful.

You seem to always have an incredible relationship with your horses. People have even called you part horse.
Well, from the time I was a little boy, I always liked the horses. I wanted to be a jockey. Of course, naturally, I couldn't be. I rode in jumping races. Then I got to where I always thought I knew how to train them. Naturally, you make a lot of mistakes when you're young. You compensate. I mean you have to learn by your mistakes. There's a lot of trial and error.

You have to be willing to take a chance. A lot of times, modern owners think that you have to be going into a race thinking you have to be the favorite all the time. But you can't be. Every once in a while, you have to try something. If it doesn't work out, then you have to rest your horse up and try it a different way. You can't be thinking just because the figures don't show it (that you don't belong).

We won a lot of races where we had no business in the race, and a lot of times we looked stupid, too. But you've got to be able to go home and straighten it out.
If you have the kind of owner that's always going to chastise you when you don't do the right thing, it's no good for them, and it's no good for you because you're not going to learn anything.

You've had great success training first-time starters as far or even farther than the distance of their first race. Why do you do that?

I don't want them to get tired and a lot of times a slower work and going further works … I used to be successful doing that with babies that were running three furlongs. We used to breeze them half a mile in like :50, and then two days before the race, you'd send them a quarter of a mile as fast as they could go. So they would be both fit and sharp. So that's what you try to do.

If you want a horse to win first time out, you want them to be dead fit for one thing. And then you've got to sharpen them up and make sure he gets away from the gate.
But sometimes you can't go by the workouts in the paper (Daily Racing Form), because maybe you might have been intending to run him in a different race that didn't go, and then you come back to six furlongs. That's what happens a lot of times when you see the longer works. I intended to run him longer, and then that race didn't go, and then he went to six furlongs.

It worked for Society Selection, who won her first start at two at Saratoga, then the 2003 Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park in her next start, and then won both the Grade 1 Test and Alabama Stakes at three at Saratoga. Did you have second thoughts about going into a Grade 1 stakes off a maiden win?

I wasn't thinking about running her and then, I don't know what it was, maybe that a lot of people in the barn thought she could win. I didn't see that. She never impressed me that much. But then she won nice. We tried to run in a non-winners of two and it didn't go. Then, I was awful proud of that, that she could win a Grade 1 mile race the next start. It worked out. Of course, Ray (Ganpath) was riding her. We worked her one morning a couple of times coming from behind. One time it worked out just perfect. We had the two horses in front of her and she slipped through between the two of them… she beat the champ that day, Ashado (eventual 2-year-old filly champion). So she wound up being a good filly. To win the Test and the Alabama. That's really good.

Was she one of your best training jobs?

That was one of the best, I thought, when she won the Alabama. Uske was instrumental in that because we worked her a mile about four days before the Alabama and I wanted her to work even and go good at the finish. I was on the pony in the backstretch and I thought she was going to pick it up too fast. And just when I thought it, she must have thought it, too, and she slowed her down slightly, and then when she got into the stretch, she really let her go and she went the mile in 1:39 and did it the right way. It was perfect. If you see those two races (the Test and Alabama), she really had to be the best because she lost a lot of ground.Yet you haven't won a Triple Crown or Breeders' Cup race. Does that bother you?

Well, it doesn't bother me, but you just wish you have done it at least once.

You must have been thrilled when Miss Shop won last year's Grade 1 Personal Ensign at Saratoga.
We won that twice. We won another one (Passing Shot in 2003) with a horse that hadn't been a stakes horse until she won that race. We had tried to get Miss Shop stakes placed in one of those overnight stakes and she was fourth. And then she goes back to Saratoga and she wins a non-winners of two, and she comes back and wins the Personal Ensign. That was terrific.

You almost won the Alabama again with Teammate who opened a clear lead in mid-stretch in 2006.

You talk about disappointments. I thought Teammate was home the day that filly of Shug's (Pine Island) beat her. Of course, she turned out to be great anyway.

Teammate ran well in last year's Spinster then didn't fire on the sloppy track at Monmouth Park in the Breeders' Cup Distaff. What happened?

She ran good in the Spinster, but she was never a big mud filly anyway. A couple of her bad races were in the mud.

Was the track changing as the day went on?

That's what happens in modern racing. You see, years ago, when it was mud, it was just mud and that was the end of it. Now they do all the floating and the sealing. So different horses have different advantages.



What's your opinion of synthetic tracks?

I've always said I don't like it. It doesn't make any sense to me. I figure if they spent that kind of money on the track to start with, they wouldn't have any problems. Besides, if it is great, then how long is it going to be great? Between rain and all that manure from the horses and everything, it can't stay good. The thing that proves to me that it can be done is Pennsylvania and New York and a few places race all the time and they still have a dirt track. So it can be done.

What are the best tracks for horses?



Look at Calder. They race year-round on their track. Belmont is good because you have the option. Gulfstream is good since they built the new track. It's been a little hard to figure out when it rains, but most tracks are fine.

Do you use the Oklahoma Training Track at Saratoga?



No. Every once in a while, I'll take one over there and work him. We try to time it right after it's harrowed. There are so many horses on it now. It's narrower than an average track so there's more holes, more footprints, in it.



As your career continues, do you ever think back how it almost ended several years ago in Florida when you nearly died from pancreatitis?

It was 2000. You're lucky. Not a day goes by that I don't see how lucky I am. 
 

Andrew Lakeman - life after being paralyzed

By Bill Heller

Andrew Lakeman was paralyzed from the waist down in a racing accident at Belmont Park. Originally from England, Lakeman came to the United States in the mid-1990s and worked for Michael Dickinson, Hall of Famers Nick Zito and D. Wayne Lukas, Barclay Tagg and Tom Skiffington before finding a home with Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens. Jerkens, who used Lakeman extensively in the mornings and afternoons, said, "Naturally, it's tough. He has better days than others. It's got to be an awful thing to get used to." It is.
"In the beginning, sometimes I thought, 'Why me?'," said the 33-year-old Lakeman. "Now I'm handling it better."

He proved that by attending "Simply the BEST," a dinner benefitting the Backstretch Employee Service Team of New York, Inc. and honoring Jerkens with a special award as Lifetime Outstanding Trainer.

At the dinner, Lakeman was treated like a rock star. "I thought it was really cool," he said. "I haven't been in contact with many people at all. There were so many people who came over and said, 'Hi, how are you doing?' Allen spent a lot of time at my table. He's very emotional. I'll never forget one time I won a stakes for him, he cried. He said, 'Way to go Andrew.' He was crying in the winner's circle. He's amazing. He not only helps people out, he changes lives. He changed my life."



Lakeman thought he had already endured the greatest challenge of his life when he overcame substance abuse problems with the help of BEST. "I went to them for help," he said. "The Racing and Wagering Board was going to take my license away because I had problems the previous two years with drugs and alcohol."



Lakeman earned his stripes working and/or riding four of Jerkens' top horses: Political Force, Miss Shop, Swap Fliparoo and Teammate. Lakeman is especially proud of his work with Political Force.

Though he never rode him in a race, Political Force might never have finished second in the Grade 1 Met Mile, won the Grade 1 Suburban Handicap and finished third in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup without Lakeman's intervention. 

"I always had a connection with horses, just a real good connection," he said. "They're like a mirror to your soul. Because they can't speak, but they feel you."
With other stronger exercise riders, Political Force was uncontrollable. "This is when I'd just come back from rehab," Lakeman said. "One of the exercise riders, a big guy, 170 pounds, he dumped him. And two other guys. He'd rear up and they hit him."

Lakeman eventually convinced Jerkens to give him a shot with Political Force. "He said, 'What the hell are you going to do with him? You weigh 110 pounds,'" Lakeman recalled. Jerkens told him to go ahead.

 "What happened was the guy would pull the reins before hitting him," Lakeman said. "So what I did was put some spurs on and a pair of blinkers on him. When he got to the point where he'd begin acting up, I hit him. And he went good. Then I took the blinkers off. Then he really liked me. He used to go to the track and wheel. I got him on the track and gave him peppermints."

 "The Chief said, 'Now we have to work on him in the gate.'

The gate crew didn't want anything to do with him. I said, 'Don't worry about it.' I walked him toward the gate. He sniffed the gate. I gave him a candy. And he walked straight in. He left the gate awesome."

But the owners of Political Force, as well as the owners of Teammate, insisted Jerkens use a more experienced jockey in races.


However, Lakeman rode eventual Grade 1 stakes winner Miss Shop in her first two races, winning her maiden debut on a sloppy track at Delaware Park by 4 ½ lengths before finishing fifth in an allowance race. He also rode the eventual Grade 1 stakes winner Swap Fliparoo 10 times, winning a maiden and allowance race and finishing third in the Grade 2 Nassau County and second in an ungraded stakes.

In the fourth race at Belmont Park, May 25th, 2007, Lakeman's mount, Our Montana Dream, clipped heels and fell, throwing him hard to the turf. He was paralyzed.
From his hospital bed three days later, he watched on TV as Political Force finished second by three-quarters of a length to Corinthian in the Met Mile at 24-1. "He was awesome," Lakeman said. "That was my favorite thing: difficult horses. They want to run.

Allen is very good at that. He trains them as individuals. He really gets into their heads and gets the best out of them."

Lakeman is rebuilding his life with the help of rehabilitation and therapy. "At first it went really slow and I wasn't getting anywhere," he said. "I wasn't improving. But today I'm doing very good. I worked hard in therapy. I can transfer from my chair to the bed. I can shower on my own. I've become more self-dependent."

In January, he told his therapist he wanted to drive a car. "I took the lessons, 12 lessons," he said. "I did the course on a computer and the driving course right at St. Charles Rehabilitation. I got a car with hand control. Now that I'm driving again, I'll go by the track.

Allen said he wanted me to come with him and stay by him. I really want to train horses."

He knows other trainers and owners will help him, because dozens of them have already helped him get through the roughest part of his ordeal. And he takes heart in the continuing career of Dan Hendricks, the top California trainer who didn't let paralysis from the waist down suffered in a 2004 motocross accident end his career. He was back training in less than two months and developed Brother Derek, one of the top three-year-olds of 2006 who won the Santa Anita Derby.
Lakeman said, "There's no reason I can't do it, because it's already been done."

A day in the life of Todd Pletcher

THIS IS A SCANNED IN ARTICLE - FROM OUR PRE DIGITAL DAYS!

This article first appeared in North American Trainer - May 2008 - issue 8

Ed Halpern's observations on being a horse trainer

Training thoroughbred horses is a wonderful occupation. Many who quit training miss it for the remainder of their life. Why then is it that the community of thoroughbred horse trainers seems so unhappy? Even the most successful of trainers walks around in the morning head down. During training hours, if you engage in conversation with a trainer, it will most likely be a serious conversation. In trackside conversations, trainers can be smiling and engaging, but there is usually a sense that their minds are on other things. I also observe in many an anger that lies just below the surface waiting to reveal itself at the slightest provocation. Sure there is humorous repartee, but it is covered by the shadow of failure. This is a subject I have wanted to look at for a long time, but I have hesitated because it always sounds like whining.

Certainly, we have nothing to whine about. We work in some of the most beautiful settings to be found anywhere: Del Mar, Santa Anita, Keeneland, and Saratoga. We work outdoors. We work with animals. Unlike doctors or judges, our decisions are not life and death. Unlike our young soldiers in Iraq, we don't have to deal with snipers or bombs hidden along our paths. Unlike stockbrokers, our decisions are not likely to bring financial ruin or even great harm to our clients. Unlike criminal lawyers, our mistakes are not likely to end in a jail sentence for a client. The investments made in racing by most of our clients are made with disposable income. If a life is changed because of what we do, most likely it is because someone hits the jackpot or spent unforgettable moments in the winners circle. So, why the long faces?

Training horses successfully is a very difficult pursuit. I once told a friend I was going to become a thoroughbred horse trainer and he observed, "Why would you want to go into a profession that is programmed for failure?" (Some would say I have lived up to his expectations.) He was right. Very few trainers are financially successful. He was right, even that small fraternity of trainers who make a decent living face some kind of failure every day. And he was dead on right because even the superstars lose 5 or 6 times for each time they win. Even Hall of Fame trainers can lose 9 out of 10 times and do it year after year after year.

Training horses is a very demanding pursuit. Once in a great while, a trainer gets to give an owner good news, but most of the time, it is a trainer's fate to convey bad news. It is very hard to get used to doing that. One is required to get up early, work long hours, work seven days a week, forgo vacations, and give up time with one's family. The job requires attention to every detail. Because of the trainer-insurer rule, a trainer without any culpability can find himself on the wrong end of a medication violation and be subject to fines, disqualifications, public ridicule, and humiliation. In addition thereto, a trainer has to depend on the skills and loyalty of grooms, hotwalkers, exercise riders, and jockeys.  In many cases, the program that the trainer has outlined is in the hands of others and totally outside the control of the trainer. The best laid plans for a workout can go totally awry; a well-planned slow workout can go fast, and a well-planned fast workout can go slow. After months of preparation, a race can be a fiasco caused by other horses, other jockeys, or one's own jockey, and all in the course of a few minutes.

Finally, training horses is a heartbreaking pursuit. Some mornings, a shed row will resemble a hospital emergency room. Each morning brings new injuries, new illnesses, and a plethora of other problems. Even if racing or training injuries are avoided, horses have nothing to do all day but find ways to hurt themselves. Sooner or later, they usually do. It matters not if a horse is a superstar or a cheap claimer, a career can end in the blink of an eye. Therefore, it is a trainer's lot to live while always holding his or her breath, at least a little bit.

It is no wonder that, on the surface, so many trainers seem so unhappy or overwhelmed with worry. But few would give it up. Many are octogenarians before they retire. Some breathe their last breath in the barn area. There is no occupation that offers higher highs or lower lows. Ultimately, the moments of joy outweigh the hours of disappointment. There is enough happiness in those moments to make it all worthwhile. For those who dedicate their lives to the training of horses, satisfaction is found in the entire process. Catch a trainer away from the stress of the workplace for a few minutes and you are likely to find that he or she is one of the happiest people you know.


Ed Halpern
 (26 June 2008 - Issue Number: 6)

Tom Amoss - the secret behind his amazing success rate

THIS IS A SCANNED IN ARTICLE - FROM OUR PRE DIGITAL DAYS!

This article first appeared in North American Trainer - Spring 2008 - issue 7

Dale Romans - his career and his views on welfare issues

THIS IS A SCANNED IN ARTICLE - FROM OUR PRE DIGITAL DAYS!

This article first appeared in North American Trainer - Winter 2007 - issue 6

​ Spooky Mulder - winning the hard way

By Bill Heller

Came again on rail
            Dug in gamely on rail
            Dug in gamely inside
            Came again inside
            Set pace, resolute
            Resolute, prevailed
            Determined outside
            Dug in between rivals
            Between, came again
 
            Those aren’t your typical, mundane DRF comments. Then again, there is nothing typical or mundane about Spooky Mulder, who has won 31 of those 78 starts. He also has 16 seconds, four thirds and earnings topping $850,000 despite a 1-for-18 stakes record. Spooky Mulder has made his money the hard way: on the lead or pressing the pace in claiming sprint races at 17 different racetracks throughout the East and Midwest under 24 different riders. He is the ultimate claiming warrior.  From June 26th, 2002, when he won his sixth lifetime start in a $12,500 claimer at Churchill Downs, Spooky Mulder made at least one start a month for 35 consecutive months, one month short of three years.While he was most effective at six (17-for-49) and  6 ½ furlongs (6-for-11), he had four wins and three seconds in seven starts at seven furlongs and won both of his starts at one mile.

On wet tracks, he had eight wins in 14. He didn’t let chronic foot problems or a near-fatal infection compromise his career. Courage, durability, versatility and a 40 percent career winning percentage. What else is there for a Thoroughbred to accomplish?

On September 2nd, just two weeks shy of the sixth anniversary of his winning career debut at Turfway Park in 2001, Spooky Mulder shook off a 6 ½ month layoff to take an optional $50,000 claimer at Delaware Park by 3 ¾ lengths wire-to-wire in 1:08 4/5, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 103. That’s fast, especially for a nine-year-old, but nowhere near his career best of 116 “The one word that would describe him is amazing,” his current trainer Scott Lake said. “It’s the only word you can use to describe him.”

 Lake, once again battling Steve Asmussen for the national lead in training victories, knows Spooky Mulder better than anyone, having claimed him three times, for $25,000, $50,000 and $75,000, and having had him claimed away for $65,000 and $100,000. “When you lose him, you hate it,” Lake said. “You feel sick, but we were running him in spots where he could win, running him where he belongs.” Spooky Mulder belongs in the winner’s circle, and he seems to realize that. “He’s the man and he knows it,” Lake said. “If you ever see him in the morning, he struts.”

 Lake was anything but enamored with Spooky Mulder when he first saw him in the paddock at Canterbury Park in Minnesota on July 19th, 2003. Lake was running Pelican Beach against Spooky Mulder in the $48,000 Claiming Crown Express. “We were standing in the paddock in July,” Lake said. “He was sweating and washed out and I said, ‘Who is this rat?’” Then Lake looked at the Form and saw that this rat had already won nine races. “I said, ‘I have to wait for him to be put back in a claimer,’” Lake said. “Anybody who wins that many races and looks like that has to be a winner.” That afternoon at Canterbury, Pelican Beach finished second to Landler by a head, 3 ½ lengths ahead of Spooky Mulder, who rallied from seventh to finish third after breaking unusually slow.

 Most of his career, he’s been freaky fast. And while he has not acquitted himself well in stakes company, he did knock off 2005 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Silver Train in a three-horse race at Aqueduct on April 20th, 2006, when he was claimed from Lake by trainer Pat Reynolds for $100,000. Spooky Mulder won two more starts at that lofty claiming level for Reynolds before Lake claimed him back for $75,000 on Nov. 19th, 2006, at Aqueduct, another race Spooky Mulder won. He finished the year with six wins, three seconds and one third from 13 starts, earning $236,705. Not bad for an eight-year-old claimer. Asked why he claimed him yet again, Lake said, “Because he’s awesome.”

Nearly a year later, Lake believes Spooky Mulder has more victories left in him. “Knock on wood, he has a club foot and a little bit of an ankle, but other than that, he’s remained pretty sound for us,” Lake said.
A son of Brunswick out of Suana, by Jade Hunter, Spooky Mulder was bred by Jeff Allen in Kentucky. Fittingly, Spooky Mulder debuted in a $30,000 maiden claimer at Turfway Park, winning the 6 ½-furlong race by a length and a half. He made just one other start as a three-year-old, finishing a tiring fifth in an allowance race. He returned to the races the following February and began carving out one of the most successful careers a claimer has ever had.  Lake crossed paths with Spooky Mulder in the 2003 Claiming Crown, and, true to his word, did claim him later that year. But Lake waited to do so.

After the third at Canterbury, Spooky Mulder captured a starter allowance at Ellis Park, then finished a badly tiring sixth in a $45,000 claimer at Turfway Park. Trainer Don Habeeb dropped Spooky Mulder to $25,000, and on October 10th, 2003, Lake claimed him. Spooky Mulder finished second by 1 ¾ lengths in that final start for Habeeb and wasted little time verifying Lake’s wisdom in adding him to his stable. Following a game second in a $35,000 claimer at Aqueduct - his lone start without Lasix - Spooky Mulder won a $30,000 claimer wire-to-wire by 13 ¾ lengths in 1:08 2/5 at Aqueduct, November 23rd, earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 116. Spooky Mulder twice won an optional $75,000 claimer, one of them at one mile. That induced Lake to try stretching Spooky Mulder out to a mile and an eighth to contest the 2004 Claiming Crown Jewel at Canterbury. Sent off at 4-1, Spooky Mulder finished 11th by 40 lengths. He’d been sixth by 33 ¼ lengths in a previous attempt at nine furlongs.

Showing no ill effect, Spooky Mulder won his next start, a $65,000 claimer at seven furlongs at Saratoga when he was claimed by Mark Shuman. In his first start for his new connections in a $100,000 claimer at Saratoga, attempting to go wire-to-wire at six furlongs, Spooky Mulder was passed at the top of the stretch, only to surge again on the rail and defeat Secret Run by a neck in a snappy 1:09.  It was a gutsy, signature performance, one which resonated with fans, bettors and horsemen. But by the following April, Spooky Mulder was dropped back to $50,000, and one of Lake’s owners, Ben Mondello, a 34-year-old accountant in New York City, wanted to own the gritty gelding. “I had just started a business relationship with Scott, and he was on his honeymoon,” Mondello said. “I called him up and told him to take the horse for $50,000. He’s a racehorse. He wants to win. This horse doesn’t like to win unless he’s in a fight.”

Mondello and Lake couldn’t have known Spooky Mulder would immediately be involved in a fight for his life.“He had an infection is his upper hoof and it spread all the way up to his tendon sheath,” Lake said. “We sent him to the New Jersey clinic and (Dr.) Patty Hogan.” Hogan called Lake and told him she was concerned about Spooky Mulder’s life, and that any treatment might be costly. “I said, ‘Do whatever you have to do to save his life,’” Lake said. “She said, ‘That’s all I needed to hear.’ She called me at Gulfstream Park eight days later. She said, ‘I think it’s good news.’ She did a phenomenal job saving his life. Mondello agreed: “Patty saved his life.”
           

Spooky Mulder was back to the races exactly three months after the April 10th claim in a $75,000 claimer at Belmont Park. “I said to Scott, ‘What do you think?’” Mondello said. “He said, ‘I haven’t trained him that hard.’”Hard enough. Spooky Mulder won by a length and a half in 1:09. Lake tried to win a stakes race with him, but the best Spooky Mulder could do was finish second in three of them, the Icecapade at Monmouth and the Brutally Frank and Paumonok at Aqueduct. After the last one, January 28th, 2006, Lake freshened his horse and he returned two months later to win a $75,000 claimer. On April 20th, 2006, Spooky was entered in an optional $100,000 claimer. He faced two opponents: multiple graded stakes winner Silver Train and Primary Suspect.
           

 Silver Train had won the Grade 2 Jerome Handicap and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint in his final two starts in 2005, and would win the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap and the Grade 2 Tom Fool Handicap after taking on Spooky Mulder, who spotted Silver Train two pounds and went off at 9-5. Silver Train was 1-2. On the lead, Spooky Mulder was under constant pressure from Primary Suspect. Silver Train shadowed the top pair then tried pouncing on them in the stretch. Spooky Mulder refused to give in, holding Silver Train safe by three-quarters of a length with Primary Suspect a nose back in third after six furlongs in 1:09 2/5.

 “That was the day we lost him,” Mondello said. Spooky Mulder had been claimed for $100,000 by trainer Pat Reynolds for owner Paul Pompa, Jr. “After the race, an owner called me up and said, ‘You might be one of the luckiest owners ever; you just had an eight-year-old gelding claimed for $100,000,’” Mondello said. “I told him, ‘I’d rather give the $100,000 back and keep him.’ It was like losing a family member.” Pompa had discussed claiming Spooky Mulder with Reynolds. “I said, ‘I don’t know where to go if we claim him,’” Reynolds said. “He called me from the sales at Keeneland. He said, ‘There are people bidding $800,000, $900,000 on yearlings here who might never get broken. This is a ready-made horse running for $100,000. Buy him.’”

            Reynolds claimed Spooky Mulder and is happy that he did. “It turned out to be a real gratifying experience,” he said. “He was like a pet. He knew his name. If you said, ‘Spooky,’ he turned his head.”His head was fine; his wheels were not. “He had terrible feet,” Reynolds said. “One was curved and one was clubbed. And he had a history of shoeing problems. But that’s taken care of by a blacksmith. He did not throw a single shoe while I had him.” Reynolds had him for seven starts, three of them wins and one a painfully close second by a head to Around the Cape in the $75,000 Lure Stakes at Belmont. It would have given Spooky Mulder that elusive first stakes victory. “He almost accomplished something,” Reynolds said. “He got beat by a head. The horse knows how to read. If he doesn’t see dollar signs next to it (for a claiming race), he doesn’t think it’s a race.”

            Spooky Mulder’s final race for Reynolds was in a $75,000 claimer at Aqueduct, November 19th at Aqueduct. Under Eibar Coa, Spooky Mulder found himself in a speed duel for six furlongs. Stonewood, a hard-hitter in his own right, was on the rail with Spooky Mulder right next to him. Stonewood held Spooky Mulder off by a half a length through a first quarter in :22 2/5, then spurted clear by a length and a half after a half in :46. But Spooky Mulder came back for more. Then the two were joined on the outside by Morine’s Victory. Spooky Mulder was passed again on the outside by Morine’s Victory, yet came right back in between horses, winning a three-horse photo by a neck over Morine’s Victory with Stonewood just another head back in third. “He was beaten,” Reynolds said. “Anybody who saw that race, even the people who were second and third, couldn’t stop talking about it. They said, ‘If we have to lose, we don’t mind losing to a horse like that.’ Only a horse who knows what winning is would run a race like that. He was an unbelievable animal to be around.”

            He wouldn’t be around Reynolds any more. Lake had claimed him back for $75,000. Reynolds still misses Spooky Mulder. “I treated him every day like the class animal he is, and he reciprocated,” Reynolds said. “I wish I had a couple two-year-olds like him in the barn.” Re-united with Lake, Spooky Mulder won one of four starts before getting a deserved rest from mid-February to September 2nd when he resurfaced at Delaware Park in an optional $50,000 claimer. “His ankle was flaring up on him,” Lake said.

            By the time Spooky Mulder returned to the races, Mondello had claimed Spooky Mulder’s four-year-old, less accomplished half-sister, Samantha Mulder. Mondello claimed the four-year-old filly for $15,000 last June 17th, when she finished sixth in a maiden claimer at Churchill Downs. Lake gave the filly a seven-week layoff and she won her first start for Mondello, a maiden claimer at the same level, by 6 ¼ lengths at Delaware Park. She subsequently finished second and fifth in a starter allowance and $12,500 claimer, respectively.  How would Spooky Mulder fare off a 6 ½-month layoff? He was sent off at 5-1 and wired five rivals off sizzling fractions of :22 1/5 and :44 4/5. He crossed the wire 3 ¾ lengths clear after six furlongs in 1:08 4/5, his 30th career victory. “It’s unbelievable,” Mondello said. “He’s a racehorse. He wants to win. Somebody told me after the race, ‘You might be lucky enough to get to the Kentucky Derby, but you’ll never have another horse like this again.’ He’s probably right. The heart that this horse has, forget about it.”
           

In his next start, the Hockessin Stakes at Delaware Park October 6th, Spooky Mulder uncharacteristically settled in third, then gamely rallied to win by a head in 1:10, finally securing his first stakes victory. Spooky Mulder subsequently finished a tiring fifth by a length and three-quarters in the Vincent A. Moscarelli Memorial Stakes and third in an optional claimer at Laurel Park on Wednesday. November 21st, the day before Thanksgiving.
    Lake is thankful he’s gotten to train this incredible claimer. He thinks he understands the secret of Spooky Mulder’s success: “He enjoys what he’s doing. He’s happy. That’s what keeps him going.”

Jerry Hollendorfer - interview with a racing legend

By Steve Schuelein

Jerry Hollendorfer is the classic case of the big fish in the small pond. Small in stature but giant in achievements, “The Dorf” has become a training legend in Northern California. During the past 21 years, Hollendorfer has led every meet at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields. That staggering total reached 61 this year following his 33rd straight Bay Meadows title and 28th consecutive Golden Gate crown.

Since taking out his license in 1979, Hollendorfer has cranked out winners at such high frequency that he ranks fourth on the all-time list for career victories. Closing in on the 5,000-victory plateau with 4,890 at midyear, Hollendorfer trails only Dale Baird (9,379), Jack Van Berg (6,378) and King Leatherbury (6,202) in the career category. His career earnings have exceeded $90 million. But Hollendorfer, 61, is not a story of running up statistics with bottom-shelf claimers. When given the occasional horse of talent, Hollendorfer has shown his ability to shine at the highest level. He first came to national prominence with King Glorious, winner of the Hollywood Futurity in 1988 and Haskell Stakes in 1989, both Grade 1 stakes. In 1991, he won another pair of Grade 1’s, the Kentucky Oaks and Coaching Club American Oaks - with Lite Light. To prove the first Kentucky Oaks victory was no fluke, he won the prestigious race for a second time in 1996 with Pike Place Dancer.

Hollendorfer’s stable rolled along to $5-million years during the decade since and produced several more stakes winners. On the Kentucky Derby undercard this year, Hollendorfer struck again with another Grade 1 victory, Hystericalady in the Humana Distaff Handicap. Hollendorfer reflected on his career recently during an interview with Steve Schuelein.

What was it like growing up in Ohio, and how did you become interested in racing there?

      
I grew up outside Akron, where it was pretty rural. We had a few acres and a pony to ride. My father worked for Chrysler, my mother for the Baptist church. When I went to Revere High School in Richfield, I did a little wrestling at 112 pounds with modest success and worked at a market. I went to college at the University of Akron--now called Akron State--and graduated with a B.S. in business administration. I was always interested in going to the races in my younger years. I went to Ascot Park in Cuyahoga Falls and Thistledown and liked to go to the trotters at Northfield.

LeBron James grew up in Akron too. Has he done as much for basketball as you have done for racing?

I think LeBron’s got me beat a mile. Everyone from Akron is proud of LeBron.

What brought you to California and when?

After college, I visited a friend in San Francisco. I liked the climate right away. I went back, packed the car and drove out.

How did you get started in racing?

When I came out, I wasn’t working and wanted to see the backstretch. My degree was in marketing. That didn’t interest me enough, but the horses did. I was interested in finding out what was going on on the backstretch.

What trainers did you work for, and what did you learn from them?

I went to work as a hot walker for Dan Wilcher, who had a horse named Rigatoni King. I was working for him when he left for Southern California and recommended me to stay here with Jerry Dutton. Working for Dutton was a great experience. He made you work hard but you could learn, and he never asked you to do more than he would do. I worked my way up from hot walker to groom to foreman to assistant trainer and pony boy with him. Later I went to work for Jerry Fanning in Southern California and then back to Dutton in Northern California. Trainers don’t teach. You have to learn by observation. Dutton had a training pattern, and Fanning had a similar one. I do a lot of similar things. I kind of believe in keeping a horse on a schedule, something I learned from them. In addition, I always liked to see what other people do, especially the more successful trainers. I always pay attention and try to retain the good things they do. But it’s an ongoing learning process. I try to make adjustments every day to be a better trainer.

Early in your career, did you ever aspire to approach these heights?

In our barn, I just try to do what works well. You reflect back, and it’s just something that transpires. You accept more horses along the way, and the barn grows. Along with that, you have to be real lucky to get good people to work for you.

What do you remember about Novel Sprite?

She was a filly I claimed for $16,000 at Golden Gate Fields, and she ended up making over $400,000. She was named National Claimer of  the Year (in 1986) and gave me my first stakes win (in the San Jose Handicap). The first stakes winner always sticks with you. She was a very good horse. I credit her with giving me a big boost.

You’ve called King Glorious your best horse and winning the Hollywood Futurity your biggest thrill. Are those comments still accurate?

King Glorious was my first big horse, and the Hollywood Futurity was worth $1-million, a good race to win. (Chris) McCarron rode a great race, although I was a little worried about an inquiry because of an incident at the head of the lane. But he didn’t come down. I got a big kick out of it because Ted Aroney, owner of Halo Farms, has always been very supportive. Ted bought his mare out of a sale when she was in foal with King Glorious. I had him from the start. He caught everybody’s attention right away. He was a great-looking horse and very fast. He was a Cal- bred and only lost once. Aroney was offered a lot of money for him and sold him to the Japanese.

What do you remember about Lite Light and the Kentucky Oaks wins with her and Pike Place Dancer?

I began training Lite Light in the spring of her 3-year-old year after she was purchased privately by M.C. Hammer, the rap star. He was from Northern California, Oakland, and named his stable Oaktown Stable. (Track publicist) Sam Spear introduced me to him. Ted Aroney found out Lite Light was for sale and suggested I should try to buy her for him. After Hammer bought her, she won the Santa Anita Oaks with her old trainer, Henry Moreno. Then I put her on the stakes trail, and she won the Fantasy at Oaklawn Park and the Kentucky Oaks. We had a great rivalry with Meadow Star that summer. She got beat a nose in the Mother Goose but came back to win the Coaching Club American Oaks. It was quite amazing to work for a music star because of his large entourage, which included bodyguards. Everyone recognizes the star. I was able to stay in the background while Hammer did his thing. You never expect to repeat the performance of Lite Light in the Kentucky Oaks, and I was fortunate to win that race twice. I bought Pike Place Dancer at the Keeneland September yearling sale for $40,000 and was lucky to get her for that price. She was a half-sister to Petionville, a year younger than him before he became a stakes winner. I sold a half interest to George Todaro, with whom I have had a great successful partnership. She beat the boys in the California Derby before she won the Kentucky Oaks.

As good luck as you’ve had in the Kentucky Oaks, you seem to have been cursed with as much bad luck in the Kentucky Derby.

It’s the hardest race to win, and I’ve enjoyed trying. You can’t let it get you down. I’ve gotten to run three horses in it and been there with two others. Eye of the Tiger finished fifth (in 2003), and Cause to Believe and Bwana Bull didn’t run well (in 2006 and 2007). Event Of The Year had a hairline fracture in his knee after his last work before the Derby, a real good work (in 1998). Everyone was quite taken with his looks. He had a lot of media attention. He had a big chance. That one hurt. Globalize was entered (in 2000), and the next day, when the pony picked him up, he bit the pony, and the pony kicked him in the hock. He needed to be stitched (and was scratched). A lot of horses get close and don’t make it. That only adds to the mystique and aura of the Derby.

How do current graded stakes winners Hystericalady and Somethinaboutlaura rank among the better females you have trained?

They give a good account of themselves every time you put them in. They came to me quite differently. I bought Hystericalady at the Keeneland September yearling sale. She is by Distorted Humor, who I liked at the time. I bought Somethinaboutlaura privately (in February, 2006). She wins on turf and dirt, long and short, and is happy all the time.

Any other horses or races that have produced special memories?

There are so many. I enjoy the everyday contact with the horses. I enjoy winning, and I enjoy the work it takes to win.

You have dominated Northern California racing like no other. How important is it to keep the winning streak alive?

I don’t know how many more meetings I can stay on top. They’re getting closer. I won the last one by only eight races. It seems like we have to work harder and harder to stay on top. It’s getting more difficult to keep winning.

What are your thoughts on the current state of affairs in Northern California?

I’ve been here a long time and seen a lot of things. Bay Meadows going away is in no way a positive. We’re in a state of transition and flux, and I hope things work out. I hope the young guys coming up have as good a setting as I have had all these years. I’m pretty flexible. If my horses continue to fit, I’ll continue. If not, I’ll do something else. I could go to Southern California or another state. The fairs get in the way of my program during the summer. That’s why I race at Hollywood Park and Del Mar then.

Should racetracks embrace slot machines?

I think the state of California should have them because there are people there to gamble. It would help the house handle. There are a lot of slot machines in nearby states such as Nevada.

You’re fourth in career winnings nearing the 5,000 mark. What goals do you have left?

I don’t know. I would like to win 5,000. That’s an attainable goal. It’s hard to plan if you should cut back. As long as the people working with me want to keep doing it, I’d like to keep doing it. It takes a lot of dedication, but a lot of trainers keep going on. I can’t imagine a guy like Dale Baird winning 9,000 races. He must be the iron man of the world. I’m comfortable trying to compete. If I ever get uncomfortable, I will have to rethink it.

Tell us about your stable and key personnel.

I stable mostly in Northern California at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields and ship to the fairs during the summer. I have about 100 to 110 horses in Northern California plus 25 to 30 in Southern California. I have been and in-and-outer there the last few years but would like to keep a division there. I spend a lot of time at Del Mar. My wife Janet works with me all the time and is a great catalyst to make things work in my barn. She is my right hand. Janet was on the racetrack as a teenager in Southern California and I met her while she was working for Mel Stute. Andy Wilson handles my off-track horses, and Cristy Wiebe oversees the Southern California division.

What are your thoughts on the workers’ compensation insurance situation?

It has been vastly improved through the efforts of various different groups. Great progress has been made. A lot of people on the backside - both trainers and workers - are a lot happier. The AIG group has been looking after things in a more intensified manner.

Who have been and are your most important owners?

Everybody’s important to me. I have been successful building small and large partnerships. My main partner, George Todaro, has stuck with me for more than 20 years. (The Hollendorfer-Todaro partnership led California owners in wins last year). Halo Farm (Aroney) has been with me that long. Peter Abruzzo was instrumental in bringing me to Chicago two years in a row.

 
What is the origin of your nickname “The Dorf?”

Ivan Puhich, a jockey agent, started calling me that in Northern California, probably one day when he got mad at me.
What is your training philosophy?

I like to keep horses as fit and happy as I can.

Are the current medication rules fair?

My only opinion is if you want to measure anybody’s business in nanograms and picograms, it makes it very difficult. The testing procedures are correct but they measure in such small amounts, I don’t know how fair that is for somebody trying to do the right thing. But they have to have some rules.

What do you think about the new synthetic surfaces being installed?

I’m a very conservative person. To my way of thinking, I wouldn’t automatically change all the tracks. It may be the best thing, but something may come up. We’ll know in time. But they shouldn’t change them all over until they’ve done more testing.

Do you have any hobbies?

I’m just a horse trainer. That’s all I do.

In at the deep end - Mike Back, the trainer and mechanic

By Frances Karon

Fair Meadows racetrack in Tulsa, Oklahoma is sheltered under the shade of the city’s imposing skyscrapers, yet once there the eye is riveted by the busy jumble of pick-up trucks and horse trailers, cowboy hats and shiny belt buckles. The stabling area is well stocked for the mixed racing meet. Walk down the barn and pick a nose to scratch from among the heads stretched over the doors of their cedar chip-bedded stalls: Quarter Horse, Paint, Appaloosa or Thoroughbred.

One of the truck-and-trailer rigs belongs to 37-year-old Mike Back, who has hauled his filly Hard Bargain to Fair Meadows from his home in Adair – an hour away – for a half-mile workout, once around the 4-furlong “bullring” track. This is his first of two treks to the venue today for what will be a total of four hours on the road. Later, he will run Irishrunaway in the 3rd and Bagadiamonds in the 9th races on the 12-race twilight card. Back greets his rider and leans against the rail to watch as Hard Bargain skips over the red dirt surface. “He didn’t let her roll,” says Back. “Having a big, tight hold of her made her start throwing her head around a little bit, wanting to buck. I was wanting to see her set down and work. She was just doing a lot of jacking around.” He meets them at the gap, and when they get to the vacant stall he’s found for her in the barn he pays the rider, lets Hard Bargain draw some water from a bucket he has brought from home and hoses her down. Behind the barn, he surveys the eight four-horse Equicisers, chooses one and snaps the lead onto her halter. All of the walkers have two or three unsupervised horses on them already. On one, a gray Quarter Horse has stopped flat, refusing to yield to the tug on his head. He has that unmistakably ornery look in his eye, and you feel sorry for the bay attached to another arm of the mechanized hotwalker; there will be no cooling out for him this morning. Occasionally a passer-by will scoot the gray horse along, but inevitably he will stop again as soon as he’s left on his own. In a half-hour he completes three circles. On the other side of the enclosed area, Hard Bargain goes quietly, rhythmically placing her hooves on the worn path of the small circle. When her breathing has regulated and her coat has dried, Back unhooks her, loads her on the trailer and begins his long journey home.

Training horses is Back’s second career. His day job, the one that pays the bills, is as a mechanic for American Airlines, where he has worked for 18 years. “I couldn’t afford it without my job,” he says. He has taken a vacation day to shuttle horses to and from Fair Meadows today but doesn’t seem to mind. “I get excited at these races. It’s my Kentucky Derby.” He gets philosophical for a moment. “Otherwise, if you can’t do something that drives you, why go through life?”

Returning to Adair, Back turns Hard Bargain out into a pen. Except for the ones running later, his horses are lazily sunning outside. The set-up on his 160-acre farm is simple. Where possible, he has used whatever was on hand to save money, and inside his barn many of the walls are made up of sturdy wooden boards with colorful letters stenciled on them: “Mike Back for School Board.” (He was successfully elected.) There is a breeze billowing through the aisle and fans whirring over the stall doors to cut through the Oklahoma humidity. Three of the farm’s horses are in training; one is a pregnant broodmare he’s keeping for a friend; and a field towards the rear of the property houses one gelding who was badly injured during a race last month – a horse ran up on his hind tendons – and a few ex-racehorses that didn’t make the grade. “It’s a business and if one can’t run that’s fine but I won’t ship them off to the killers. I’ll find a home for them. I may have to keep them a year.” All the horses are happy and well-tended: this is not a bad place to be a horse. Training is done in the round pen, 15 minutes a day. “When you get one [fit enough] all you’ve got to do is just stand there and they’ll go 15 minutes strong. You’ll know when they’re ready for a work or for a race.” He smiles, telling a joke on himself. “I have the poor man’s Equiciser. I’m the motor in the middle. Except I can only do one at a time!” After their workout, each will be handwalked for 10 minutes before being set loose to play in the paddock.

By major racetrack standards, Back’s method is unorthodox but he is not alone in training this way: round pens have begun to appear at various racetracks. At Lone Star, he says, they “charge ten bucks to get in it, and it’s full every day. There’s a waiting list. Some people, when I tell them [how I train], they kind of frown and say that it’s hard on their knees because they’re always turning. Well it’s hard on their knees, too, when you put a 140-pound exercise rider up. Danged if you do, danged if you don’t. It works for me, and I’ve got the tracks close enough that I can take them there and blow them out.”

 
Fed by slots at local Cherokee and Choctaw owned casinos, prize money in the state is “almost double this year.” Tonight’s Thoroughbred portion of the racecard is capped by a $14,000 maiden special weight. “Oklahoma is the perfect place. Pretty good purses. Run year round, from February to December. The purses are getting better every year. Makes the competition harder, so you’ve got to have a better horse.” In Oklahoma alone, there are three racetracks within a two-hour drive of Back’s farm, though he will go as far as he needs to. “If I can win a race I’ll go across the country, if I could win a race and it was worth it. I’ll drive across the country for a minute and a half of racing! It’s ten hours to Fonner in Grand Island, Nebraska; that’s a long drive and there’s not much to see across the canvas, long and boring, but the people are great. Drove to Retama down in San Antonio a couple years ago, got there in 11 hours and they cancelled the races because of rain. That was a nice long drive back home!”

Back was introduced to racing when his father bought a racehorse for $500 in 1990. The horse won three races for them and Back had a first taste of what he would grow to love, admitting that horseracing “is just a very addicting sport.” Still, he didn’t get more involved until six or seven years ago. He had bred a few foals out of a mare and was having trouble finding a trainer. “I put an ad in the Tulsa paper, in the horse classifieds. And this guy called me, he worked the railroad and trained horses. He lived in Arch City, Kansas, so I drove up there one weekend, took the horse up and met him.” In a twist of irony, airplane and train joined together in their passion for the original mode of transport: the horse.

 
That railroad engineer, George Blatchford, trained for Back before encouraging him to apply for a trainer’s license. Blatchford had by then retired from the railroad and moved farther away to Oklahoma City, and while continuing to train horses off his farm was not always able to saddle Back’s starters, many of whom were now trained by Back in all but name. “George has been just like a dad to me. He told me I could do it myself, that I could do what he’s doing and not pay somebody $40 or $50 a day. And he was right.” When Back became a licensed trainer in October, 2005, he won his very first race, with Dr T’s Miracle. “Should have quit,” he says, full of logic but short on sincerity. “I’d have been ahead. I should have said, ‘hey, I’m 100%, what more could you want?’”

In the nearly two years since his maiden victory, breaking into the training ranks has proved a challenge. “A lot of your trainers at the track don’t give up much information. They think it’s a big secret. I kind of have to learn on the fly, you know?” But Blatchford steps in to give a hand or a push in the right direction whenever possible. “He really is a big help,” says Back. “Why do I like him?” asks Blatchford. “Well, because I know he enjoys the horseracing. I mean, it’s nice to make money with them but he does it as a sport. He does good and he tries hard. He’s always willing to learn. We’re so helpful to each other. He goes out of his way to help me and I go out of my way to help him. He’s just a great person to work with. He doesn’t have as good horses as I’ve got. You’ve got to have the horses. We’re at the bottom of the pole here, and we’re doing it because we enjoy it. Most people, it’s a business to them.”

Turning into Fair Meadows for the second time that Friday, Back heads for the two stalls that Blatchford has saved across the shedrow from his own pair of runners. As the sun sets over Tulsa, Irishrunaway settles into his stall like the veteran he is – this will be his 40th lifetime start, fourth for Back – but Bagadiamonds gets riled up. The upper half of the stalls have bars on three sides like a cage to give the horses plenty of socialization, and the sorrel Quarter Horse gelding next to her is acting coltish. Blatchford immediately pulls out one of his laid-back geldings and switches stalls with Back’s filly. The swap has helped; the filly, while still on her toes, quiets down, if only a little. Blatchford’s horse ignores the hysterics of the gelding beside him.

Blatchford’s presence at Tulsa tonight was a lucky break for Back. In Oklahoma, no one is allowed in the paddock without a license, so finding help is a chore. “You got a license?” he asks while we’re in his truck. “It’s like that, I just have to ask. If one of my buddies like George isn’t here I have to find somebody and pay them, especially if the races are back-to-back. It’s almost a nightmare, but I make it work. Once my oldest son, Taylor, turned 16 we got him a license, and that’s been a big help. He always goes with me and helps me anyway but until this year he couldn’t go in the paddock. I just kind of make do with whoever I can find.” Sometimes, he has to make do without. “A lot of times I’ll saddle them by myself just because I don’t have any help. It’s not real easy but you have to do it. I can’t do that with all of them.”

Over the course of the day it has dawned on me that when Back does his taxes there is not enough space on the “occupation” line: airplane mechanic/owner/trainer/psychologist/groom/hotwalker/van driver. It is easy to see why, for every Mike Back, there are countless people who can’t make it work. “It’s tough,” he says. “It’s a tough thing to break into, for a little person. And the politics of the track, they’ll just kill you!”
Once when Blatchford was listed as the trainer they had a horse leading the race into the last turn. “He was a dead winner,” says Blatchford – until the jockey pulled him up. Unsaddling, the rider told them the horse couldn’t breathe and Back couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I said, ‘there’s nothing wrong with that horse.’ I went to the stewards – I was so mad – the next morning I went back over there and said, ‘What do you want this horse to work?’ He said to work him 3/8’s and I said, ‘I’m going to work him a half.’ And he had a bullet work. Brought him back two weeks later and won a race with him. But if it hadn’t been for George pulling some strings I’d have never gotten anybody to ride him.”

Another of Back’s charges got a DNF not long ago. “Why? Well come to find out later the jockey had gotten thrown that morning, his back was hurting. I didn’t know that. The steward had had four complaints that day. The horse was going to run in the money. Instead, it put me on the vet’s list. I had to go work the horse, I had to take the horse in front of the vet, for nothing wrong with him. I can not afford for that to happen. So now I have a horse that’s got a DNF, and I’ve got to find somebody to ride him. What are they going to think? They’re going to think there’s something wrong with this horse.” With effort, he convinced a jock agent his horse was sound, the jockey took the mount and rode him to two consecutive third-place finishes. Back felt vindicated but the sting of what he might have lost remains. “It’s out of your hands once you put them on a horse. They could be costing me a race that I need to keep going through next week. That’s the whole killer, is they don’t realize how much I have riding on every race. It’s not a life-or-death deal but it’s a trying-to-get-by-to-next-week deal. Next week’s $200 feed bill and next week’s $150 this-and-that. It all quickly adds up.”

Back searches for new horses regularly. “I’m just looking for the next good horse that I could win a race with.” When studying claimers, he keys in on entries from “the bigger trainers, a horse that they’ve dropped to the bottom, that’s not working in their program,” but who’ve shown a little bit of ability in the past. “It’s so hard when you claim one. That could make or break you right there. You’ve got to be willing to lose your money. It’s an investment for the long term. I look for a horse that’s sour from the track, take one that’s not happy and just let him be a horse.” He singles out the gray Irishrunaway, who came to him through a trainer friend in Louisiana. “When I got him, I gave him some feed, a little TLC, a little time out, just to make him happy. He’d done absolutely nothing in his life. But now he’ll try, he’ll give it everything he’s got. I’ve run a second and a third with him in three outs.” His fondness for the horse – for all his horses – and for using his good instincts to learn what makes each one tick is plain to see.

He found Hard Bargain, a winner of three races for her previous owner, on HandRide.com, a website he visits frequently. “I called a guy and swung a deal with him. It was the only horse he had. She’d won a bit of money and won races last year but he had a new baby and he just couldn’t afford it anymore. And I said, ‘Yeah, I know what you mean!’” The married father of four (with a very supportive wife) drove to Henderson, Kentucky, looked the filly over and bought her. Back has pursued the online angle aggressively, e-mailing the representatives for many of the racehorses listed for sale, offering to train them unless he spots an obvious red flag indicating that there’s something wrong with their horses. “I’ll just shoot them an e-mail and they’ll either say yes or no. Most of them write back saying ‘you’re too far’ or ‘we’ll see what happens if we don’t get him sold.’ My ultimate goal is to be hooked up with somebody that wants to send horses that don’t fit the bigger circuits. I’m working on it. I just haven’t got that connection yet.”

Years ago, before he was training, Back was involved in the private purchase of an A.P. Indy colt out of Wayne Lukas’ stable. “He was my pride and joy. People would just ooh and aah when they’d see him at the track,” he says, and from the catch in his throat you know you don’t want to hear what comes next, that the horse died in a barn fire at a friend’s nearby farm. “I almost got out of it then, cause I just loved him. I wish I had him knowing what I know now, which is not a lot – but knowing what I know now and how I do it, I’d win a bunch of races with him.” His leather halter is hanging up in Back’s house.

Blatchford accompanies him to the paddock and helps with the saddling. At Fair Meadows the owners don’t use their own silks; the house silks match the numbered saddlecloths. The only statement Back is allowed are the crimson blinkers emblazoned with his initials in white – the color scheme of the University of Oklahoma Sooners. After putting Mario Galvan up into the saddle, Back and Blatchford join friends in the stands. They are easy to find; the cool weather and free admission have failed to attract many people, and the crowd is remarkably sparse. The regulars are surprised at the low turnout. Irishrunaway was left at the gate on his previous outing, and Back is worried tonight before the start of the 6½-furlong, $7,500 claiming event. He has the gelding’s owner, Linda Searles, on the phone to give her the play-by-play. His share of the $3,564 winner’s purse would make a huge difference to Back; he has “never had a paying owner” and Searles and Back have a purse-splitting agreement in place, where she has no out-of-pocket expenses. “It helps her out and gives me a horse to run so I can get my feet wet.” Searles, who lives in Louisiana, is the kind of person whovoluntarily offered to pay for half the gas when Back took Irishrunaway to Nebraska in May, where he was second. She says, “Mike is a hard-working young man, and he’s honest, which is very important to me. I hope he will get that big one so that he doesn’t have to work two jobs.”

 
For all practical purposes, Irishrunaway’s race is over as soon as it begins: he spots the field too many lengths at the start, and must make up ground going around two very tight turns on the bullring. The announcer gives him an optimistic call on the backstretch: “Irishrunaway is eating up ground!” His long stride carries him wide around the second turn and it almost as soon as they straighten out of it they hit the wire. With so much going against him, Irishrunaway finishes a creditable third. Back is encouraged. “When I run third I’m happy. I’m disappointed that I’ve run third but I’m just tickled to death, I’m the happiest guy in the world. I don’t like to get beat but if my horse runs hard, I’m happy, I’m satisfied.” More than that, this check will pay for fuel: oats and diesel, horses and horsepower. That genuine effort provides Back with what will be the highlight of his evening as he leads the gelding off to cool him out on the Equiciser. Hours later, in the maiden special over a mile, Bagadiamonds is a passive observer under Galvan and the bright lights. She fretted her race away in the stall, and as they walk down the track her dark coat blends into the blackness of night. Only the white of her right hind leg, star, shadow roll and tall trainer give her away. Blatchford has gone one better: the gelding who had the studdish horse in the next stall over (he finished fourth in his 300 yard dash) has run second in his race.

Irishrunaway is wound up, as though he were mad at himself for not being able to get there. He will, one day. For now, he squeals at Bagadiamonds…in the stall, through the barn, in the trailer. They leave for home; it will be close to midnight before they are tucked up in their stalls beneath the sleepy chickens and roosters perched in the rafters.

A window into the day of the trainer whose story is seldom told: to wonder why he does it is to be immune to the thrill of horses thundering into the homestretch, to not get goosebumps when Dave Johnson roars, “And DOWN the stretch they come!” Mike Back does not hesitate for a fraction of a second when asked if he would like to train horses full time: “Yes. Definitely. If you’re not getting excited about it, you’re in the wrong business.”

Meet the Cauthens - a horseracing dynasty

By Frances Karon

At the end of a shady road in Walton, Kentucky, in the land that time is just beginning to remember, sits the farmhouse that saw the scraped knees of Tex and Myra Cauthen’s three children: Steve, Doug and Kerry. As his nickname suggests, Tex is a transplant from Texas, while Myra was raised on a horse farm in Kentucky.

He was a very good blacksmith, and she was a successful racehorse trainer. On paper, the boys’ parents are as unflashy as Storm Cat is flashy, but their simplicity stops short of their minds. Those gears are always turning. Any pedigree expert will tell you that theirs is an A++ nick.

It has been 30 years since Steve garnered three Eclipse Awards in the U.S. as the first $6-million dollar man when he was still a boy and nearly that long since he rode Affirmed to win the 1978 Triple Crown. In the interim, Steve won classic after classic in Europe and was champion jockey in England on three occasions. These days, Steve owns Dreamfields Farm, a breeding and training facility in Northern Kentucky, living in removed harmony but frequently appearing to lend his support to a good cause. Doug, three years younger than Steve, is President and CEO of WinStar Farm. Kerry is the managing partner of Four Star Sales and Doug’s junior by six years. Doug and Kerry, both attorneys, also have high-profile roles in organizations aimed at improving and uniting the Thoroughbred industry.

The Cauthens are remarkably approachable, and you never would guess there was anything out of the ordinary about them from their demeanor. Walk around England with Steve, however, and you can get an idea of what it must have been like for this private family thrust into the eddy of rock star fame. Shameless bragging is not a Cauthen trait and they are reluctant to discuss their own accomplishments, but talking about each other’s successes is okay.

What are your first memories of each other?
Doug: When Kerry was first born, Dad got Steve and I cigars and said, “Smoke it.” It took three days to smoke and I’ve never had any interest in a cigarette since. That’s my first Kerry memory! I was six.
Steve: My first memory of Kerry was when Mom told us that she was pregnant. Remember when Mom said, “I’m having a baby?” And we wheeled her around in the wagon. That lasted a day.
Myra: They were going to take really good care of me, yeah. For one day! Then they forgot all about it.
Tex: The day before she had Kerry she was out in the barn up on the ladder putting up boards on the wall. We had an old boy working here and he just couldn’t understand how anybody could do it.
Myra: We finished the last stall.
Tex:  And then he was born.
Myra: It was like I couldn’t have him until I was done.
Doug: One of my great memories of Steve is…
Steve: You can’t tell the giraffe story!
Doug: This was one of many educational experiences that I got.
Steve: That’s why he went to law school!
Doug: I had gone to the zoo when I was in like kindergarten and I was all about giraffes and rhinos. So something got broken in the house and Dad’s method was, “Hey, who did this?” Steve broke it – of course!
Steve: Dad said, “I’m coming back in a few minutes. You guys decide, I want you to tell me what happened when I get back here.”
Doug: Nobody fessed up the first time and he gave us five or ten minutes to decide.
Steve: He left us down there so I said to Doug, I said, “Look, there’s no point in both of us getting whipped. Why don’t you take this one and it’ll be my turn next time?”
Doug: I didn’t want to do it, so he said, “Well I’ll give you a giraffe.” He figured that was my soft spot. I said, “Are you sure you have a giraffe?” and he said, “Yeah, yeah I’ll get a giraffe.” I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”
Steve: He took the fall.
Doug: I took the fall and I went out to look for my giraffe. I was like, “Where is it, which barn is it in?” and he says, “Oh wait, I have to go get it.” He comes back with a little stir stick…a plastic cocktail stir stick.
Steve: It’s been a great thing for us all these years. Memories…
What’s the most important thing that your parents have taught you, that’s stuck in your mind all these years?
Steve: For me, it was just to find something that you like to do and to work hard at it. They taught us not to be afraid of work.
Kerry: That’s a good one.
Doug: That’s pretty good.
Kerry: Can we all adopt that one? They gave us the best examples of how to live a good, honest life.
Steve: And to treat people like you want to be treated.
Kerry: No matter who they were, they always treated everybody equally.
Steve: To this day, when you run into people everybody knows my mom and dad. And they have nothing but good stuff to say about them.
Doug: It ties into what you said, but Dad and Mom always told us to keep busy and work hard. When things aren’t going right, when you’re down in the dumps, things aren’t going exactly like you wanted, get up and get doing something.
Steve: The other good thing is, too, that we always knew we had a home, we had a place to come back to, to heal our wounds. That’s part of growing up, things going wrong, but you always knew you had people you could talk to that would love you no matter what. One of the things that I think helped me in the Triple Crown, especially going into the last race, was that I knew whatever happened I had support from my family, whether I won or lost or even if I screwed up and lost it wouldn’t have mattered. That’s a very comforting thing, to know you’ve got a good support system behind you.
Steve talks about having a home to come back to. You still live in the farmhouse in which you raised your boys.
Myra: It was a good place to grow up. That’s why we moved here. Been here 42 years, and we’ve been working on it ever since we bought it. Tex is fixing the cellar door right now, I’m working on the flowers. We’ve still got a couple of horses.
Tex: The boys used to build these forts up there in the barn with tunnels through the hay.
Doug: And Steve fell out of a hayloft.
Kerry: Right into a wheelbarrow full of manure.
Steve: Luckily.
Kerry: So you can call him lucky. Mom didn’t miss stride, she launched herself out of a window to get to Steve.
Myra: Doug came in screaming, so it was the logical thing. That was funny, he landed in the wheelbarrow. He must have been walking on the board across the loft. He was probably about 10 or 11.
How were your life experiences different?
Doug: Steve was truly a big brother and unfortunately I lost him when he went away and started riding.
Myra: When he started going away, it was more difficult. It was…stressful. But it also was wonderful. It was good, it was very good, just a totally different life than the peaceful life here. Which was fine with me – peaceful, that is. It was a great thing, Steve enjoyed it and it was certainly nothing I ever thought was going to happen. I thought he would be a good rider, but…
Steve: When I went to New York, Dad went up with me. Of course, he still had to make a living, these guys were still growing up, he had to run the farm. So after four or five days he dumped my ass in a hotel room and said, “Bert Sonnier will take care of you.” For a month I was living like that. Then luckily Chuck Taliaferro sent his stable up there, because it’s no fun living there by yourself that far away when you’re that young. You have to grow into what comes your way. And as it was in my career things just fell the right way for me. I was lucky when I went to England; the first people that I rode for were Barry and Penny Hills and they were fantastic, they basically treated me like I was their son. Whenever you have success there is a ton of people that are involved. There’s always a lot more than one person, for sure.
Myra: Steve would get homesick for a long time but we were always going over to see him.
Doug: We’re really lucky we don’t hate him because if we did, because, “Hey, how’s Steve?” is the first question anybody asks. I think it just broadened our experiences, to get to go to England and South Africa and all different places. When I was 15 I worked in New York, we lived together one summer. I wouldn’t have gone and worked there if it hadn’t been for Steve. I’d have worked at River Downs, which I’d already done, but to get to go to Belmont Park and work for Dr. Jim Prendergast and trainers like P.G. Johnson and Laz Barrera was great. Later in England, Clive Brittain.
Kerry: This was a problem, being six years younger, they used to go on all these fun trips. They’re over in South Africa and we had the coldest wind chill in Kentucky in the last recorded 75 years. I think the wind chill was thirty below. Mom and I would go out and muck one stall then come inside and warm up for half an hour. Then we’d go back outside and muck one more stall, come back inside and warm up for half an hour.
It must have been difficult to see your oldest child leave home so young.
Tex: That was one of the hard things I had to do, trying to decide whether he should ride or go to school. It looked like he could ride some so we took a whack at that. We took some time off and spent some time with Steve and there’s many questions in choices but I stayed here and kept doing what I was doing and helped him and helped Doug and Kerry when I had the opportunity, still do. Because you can always use help, regardless of whether you’ve got a good job or a bad job.
Myra: It was hard. It was really hard. But we did go up and see him. And we talked to him nearly every day. The whole thing was hard for me. It was just, trying to keep your balance. It was unbelievable…

It’s well documented that you slept in a sleeping bag the night before Affirmed’s Kentucky Derby, Steve. How did that happen?
Steve: I don’t even think it was a sleeping bag. I just slept on the floor. I might have had a blanket.
Tex: There were two beds. Mom and I had one, Doug and Kerry had the other.
Steve: If I had wanted to sleep in the bed I think they probably would have let me but I just wanted to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t really even remember but I think it was self-inflicted.
Now, I love this, the Derby winners’ circle photo with 9-year-old Kerry in the way, taking his own picture!
Myra: That was a great day. Kerry and the camera… We had to kneel down because of the photographers and I thought, “Boy this is weird! Are we kneeling down for the horse?”
So then Kerry just walked out there and started directing everybody?
Myra: Probably!
Tex: He told Steve, he said, “Smile.”
Steve: That was Kerry back then, he was already running things. That night at the Wolfson’s dinner party, Kerry walked up to Mr. Wolfson who told him, “Kerry, we’re really proud of your brother. He sure did ride a great race for us.” And Kerry said, “Mr. Wolfson, anybody could have won on your horse.”
Kerry, I remember you telling me about Mom visiting Steve in England and Tex having to cook beans for you and Doug every night.
Kerry: What do you mean, having to cook beans every night? That was all he could cook.
Doug: Beans, or stir-fry or sardines and crackers.
Kerry: And the response, if the beans were too salty, was, “Well fine, then go cook your own.”
Doug: “If the beans are too salty, you’re the new chef!”
Do you eat beans anymore?
Kerry: About once a year or so.
Doug: But not sardines.
So Doug and Kerry, what made you go to law school?
Doug: I did a lot of the groundwork and made my mistakes – all the mistakes I made, I short-circuited so he didn’t make them.
Kerry: He wants that in print so bad! That’s what he’s been telling everybody.
Doug: I took all these different paths to make it back to the horses. The main reason that I went to law school was that I’d seen a lot of people that did other things in life but had law degrees and thought I could add a skill set to separate myself from other people that were in management, then as a safety net if the horse business went to hell it was something that I could do. Thankfully, it’s been a great training because in the horse industry you’re doing tons of deals, tons of contracts and above all else you’re trying to avoid problems. I think law school teaches you to think of the possibilities and maybe avoid deals going wrong because you’ve thought about it in advance and worked it out.
Kerry: And I followed the path of the mighty and the righteous! One of the reasons why I went to law school is, see Dad had a basic theory that he taught us all from about age 2 on probably – as soon as we could understand English he was teaching us, now, if I teach you how to muck a stall, at the very least you could earn a minimum wage and be a stall mucker all your life. So when I went to law school I figured alright, I’m raising the bar, at least I won’t have to muck stalls.
Steve: He only paid five bucks a week, too!
Doug: Four bucks!
Steve: Four bucks, that’s right.
Doug: You gave me a dollar to do yours.
Steve: I guess I had a lot of law qualities myself!
Tex: People go through the normal problems in life. Early in life people tend to start making their own choices. And they might listen to you if you say this is a terrible choice, but basically they figure it out. Doug figured out about going to law school and so Kerry followed him, and that got them to where they’re at. The getting there wasn’t as forthcoming quite as quickly as Doug thought it might be.

What do you think about where the industry has been going?
Myra: Steve’s success is a gift that was given and at the time, thank God, it did lift racing somewhat. Now it needs another lift. It needs something else. But there’s always exciting things happening in racing. I just don’t think people love their horses the way they did then. It’s so much more commercial.
Tex: I think it’s changed an awful lot, because of government, primarily, and more money that’s gotten into the business. Like always, good horses will have value and I think it’ll unfold as it should. All you have to do is realize where it is unfolding and go with it. Real good horses are hard to find. It’s a lot of fun if you get one. I think you’ve got to work out some way of what you’re going to do with the horses that don’t fit what they were bred for. And certainly some of them’d make good riding horses, jumping horses, they have a place but what could you do with the ones that don’t have a place? So I don’t know. Those things concern me but I’m convinced that it’ll turn out alright at the end of the day when they get all these brains figuring out what to do.
Steve: It changes every day. This is a tough business. I was a jockey obviously, and now I’m into the breeding side and I’ve been doing this now for almost ten years. It’s given me a great appreciation for owners and breeders, because unlike the jockey who gets off one horse and gets on the next you rely on what the mare does, you breed, you produce, and you have to try to make a living out of what you produce. I’m one of the lucky ones because I’ve got these guys, they’re both really closely involved. Doug looks at zillions of horses, and Kerry does, and they help me try to make a better decision about what to breed to and different things. But even so, you can have the greatest breeding in mind and it doesn’t work like you think it will. Obviously on the grander scale of where racing is going it’s like everything, when you get overproduction, too much supply and not enough demand, it’s tough for it to work. I’ve still got a lot of optimism that things are going to hopefully get better. I think that Kentucky racing should be the best in the country. Seems to me that the government could help try to boost up an industry that’s so vitally important to the state.
Doug: I have a lot of optimism for it to actually become a very viable business across the board if certain things happen. We have to have Magna and Churchill get together like they are at least starting to do with the TV programs and you’re going to have to be able to bet from your phone, from your computer, from wherever – you’ve got to get the product everywhere. Every person whose kid’s name is Alex should have been betting on Afleet Alex, just for the fun of it during the Triple Crown.
Kerry: There’s a lot of people out there trying to do positive things, but every time you try to make a positive step there’s 20 people who want to say you should have done it a different way. I worked on the Breeders’ Incentive Fund and you couldn’t imagine the number of fights. A lot of times people don’t realize that what they have in common is far greater than what’s not in common. It’s much easier to focus on the differences.
Doug: I’ll brag on Kerry a little bit. The Breeders’ Incentive Fund would not have happened in a positive way, I don’t think, without all the work that he put in, hundreds of hours understanding it, getting the records, creating his own database to understand how the money could and would be split up and then bringing the people together to get the solution, and there’s also his involvement in CBA (Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association) and KEEP (Kentucky Equine Education Partnership), probably the two most important organizations that have been formed in the last couple of years to get people to the table so disagreeing opinions can come up with a direction instead of just throwing arrows. He’s also on the Kentucky Racing Authority and has had to deal with all kinds of different dilemmas there. Kerry’s people skills and his ability to mediate and negotiate have been great. I’m proud of what he’s doing. A lot of it’s behind the scenes. People see him at the sales but with the workload that he’s taken on, he’s owed a huge debt because that’s a pain in the ass, especially the political side. It’s nice to be proud of your brothers. And your parents. But overall, we’re fighting so hard so we’ve got to improve our platform. It appears people that have the power to do that are trying to and if that doesn’t happen we’re in position for a real correction because there is overproduction, there is too much.
Steve: More than that is the steady decline of the whole business. You’ve got to be able to compete.
Doug: The product has to be fun and exciting. At Keeneland the product’s great. I’m happy to see the ten cent bet, I’m happy to see Trakus; Keeneland’s becoming a test market for a lot of good things and I hope they keep doing it. But even there, I’d like to see continued, different and simpler betting opportunities. In Australia, if you’ve got $20 you can bet the trifecta with that $20 split between eight horses, it’ll fractionalize the bet instead of having to have it exactly. Simple things like that are smart moves.
Tex has his own brand of sayings, or Texisms as we call them. What are your favorites?
Doug: When someone comes up and says, “Hey Tex, you are looking good,” his kidding response is, “You can’t kill bad grass.” Translation: “I’m lucky to be here.” It’s all self-deprecation, which I like about Dad. He’s done a lot, but he’s always humble, in a humorous way. A lot of his Texisms are like Yogi Berra’s – they are so obvious or even sometimes conflicting that we have to laugh about it. Like Yogi would say “It ain’t over till it’s over,” Dad comes up with similar ones, unintentionally of course which makes it a bit fun for the rest of us to tease him about!
Tex: They’re always giving me stick about the way I talk.
Kerry: I like, “You’d complain if they hung you with a new rope.” No translation needed!
Doug: If we are working on a project, let’s say raking up leaves in the yard, one of us might say, “Boy, this is taking a long time to do all this work.” Dad would respond, “It’s taking long enough to finish,” or something like that. And when someone says, “How are you, Tex?” he’ll say, “I’m on the right side of the grass!” Translation: “I’m alive and well, good to see you, too.” A lot of Dad’s phrases are really interpretable to a common theme: “I’m so lucky to be here, and I’m thankful to God.” He’s always instilled that in us. We didn’t always hear it or listen as we grew up, but we come back to it and realize how right he is. He’s a very spiritual person, really. And he’s a great role model. We are all lucky to have him, and we are thankful to God for every day he’s with us.
Of what are you most proud?
Tex: Being able to raise a good family and make a living shoeing horses, doing something that I like. I enjoyed it. And doing what I thought was the honorable thing. I’m feeling very fortunate because we’ve built a family together that works relatively well. Some of it’s from effort but sometimes you put a lot of effort into something and it doesn’t happen.

Myra: Our life has been a good life. I’m grateful. From the bottom of my toes! I am.

Neil Drysdale - Hall of Fame racehorse trainer

By Margaret Ransom

He has seen the sport of Thoroughbred racing change drastically in the past few decades. Here, he discusses some of the important issues facing his fellow trainers both in his home state and across the country.
In Thoroughbred racing, the name Neil Drysdale is first and foremost synonymous with the concepts of integrity, honor and patience. Secondly, and only a shade shy of those personal standards, are his accolades as being a member of the sport’s elite Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2000, and his guidance of such superstars of the game as Horse of the Year A.P. Indy, champions Princess Rooney, Hollywood Wildcat, Fusaichi Pegasus, and dozens of other standout stakes winners. He’s tightened the girths on the winners of million-dollar races in countries around the world, but has called California his home since taking out his own trainer’s license in 1975.

Drysdale, who began his own storied 32-year training career under the tutelage of the legendary Charlie Whittingham in 1970, is recognized among his peers as a true lover of horses and someone who always puts the well-being of the animal first.

You’ve been training Thoroughbreds for the better part of three decades. How do you think the game has changed most between when you started and now?

Well, off-track wagering and simulcast wagering has certainly increased. But there seems to be a change in marketing the sport correctly. It appears to me that on huge days, there’s big handle, bug crowds and the people come out. It’s what’s in between those days that seem to be the problem.
It doesn’t help that year-round racing has diluted the situation and effectively decreased the fan base. I’m not sure how best to go about reducing racing, but it is a diluted system today.

What are the biggest hurdles facing trainers today?

I don’t know whether there are significant hurdles, but I sincerely believe that synthetic surfaces are a huge leap forward. Now we just need marketing to complete the puzzle. If it’s not addressed there won’t be a whole lot of racing for trainers at all.

What do you think of the “supertrainer” concept? Can a trainer effectively maintain a stable of a couple hundred horses spread out over the U.S.?

In the old days it was impossible because you were limited by the number of stalls you received from the tracks. Now many trainers have different ways of approaching the sport and I don’t think any way is the wrong way. What I enjoy myself is having the horses with me and watching them personally, the old-fashioned way. At one stage I did have divisions and finished, I think, fourth in the country. But despite the outcome I didn’t enjoy it much.

What do you think of the current “bicarbonate” controversy and the testing procedures many states have adopted, including your home state of California?

The one major problem I see is dollars and sense. Is it necessary to test every horse in every race? The answer is no. It’s just not cost-effective the way things are done at this moment. There are more important things that money can be used for.
Obviously we all want a level-playing field and it’s my feeling that we, in this country, need to adopt international standards and we can start with no Lasix. I’ve raced in places where there’s no Lasix and it wasn’t a problem. But everything needs to be equal regardless of what’s eliminated.
And presumably the tests (for any illegal substances) would be more sophisticated which is a big issue that also needs to be addressed.

Do you believe that all racing jurisdictions in the U.S. should adopt uniform medication rules and regulations?

I don’t think it’s all that difficult, it’s just a matter of wanting to do it. So yes, I think so.

Do find steroids are acceptable therapeutic medications?

Yes, but it’s not necessary to race on them. They do have therapeutic value and do treat some horses with anemia or horses that have some weaknesses, but they’re not to be abused. And now we’re going back to international standards and uniform rules. In order to keep up in today’s climate where athletes in other sports are prohibited from using steroids, racing needs to catch up and that means also to abolish any racing on steroids.
All abolishing steroids will do is improve the sport’s perception in the public and the public’s acceptance of the game (as being fair.)

In your opinion, then, has medication clouded the public’s perception of the game?

I do believe all these medication issues and the fact they’re repeatedly brought up in the press are completely meaningless and does nothing but give racing a black eye. It all circles back around. It’s a simple concept; adopt uniform medication rules and international standards.

You’re at Hollywood Park where they’ve installed the state’s first synthetic surface, Cushion Track. Have your horses benefited from the new surface? And are new surfaces a positive step toward the long-term well-being and soundness of horse sin general?

Yes and in California it took a new racing commissioner, Richard Shapiro, to step up and say if tracks didn’t do it then they’d lose their license. I believe (synthetic surfaces) only increase and lengthen horses’ racing careers and in the long term it helps the sport. It may sound trite, but it’s about protecting the beauty and noblesse of the Thoroughbred. Because when you work with these animals every day you realize how unique the Thoroughbred racehorse, protecting them is obviously a very good thing.

Do you think the “Powers That Be” are doing enough to promote the sport and expand interest? Where do you see things in 10 years if things don’t improve? Will racing survive?

Obviously the sport is marketed much better in Australasia and Asia. There they market racing the way they market everything else – in a big way. If things aren’t improved here, the sport will be reduced to just a gambling vehicle and we’ll lose the pageantry and glory of Thoroughbred racing. I have no way of predicting the future, but if we can learn from tracks like Del Mar then that would be a good thing. That track is well-marketed and you’ve seen how it is there – it’s always packed with people. Keeneland is another one that does an exceptional job of marketing and has an excellent marketing team. The people go there as well. So something’s being done right there.
Both facilities run short meetings. Del Mar is seven weeks and Keeneland is six (three in the spring and three in the fall.) So you would think that following their example and reducing racing dates then interest in the sport could only increase.
Also the social aspects of the sport need to be reintroduced, which leads me back to the attendance problem. It’s a very social game and that needs to be promoted as well.


Do you have any advice for up-and-coming trainers? Will racing survive?

Racing has survived for more than four centuries. I believe that there will always be Thoroughbred racing in some context or another around the world. I don’t have any advice, but I will say I thoroughly enjoy what I do and I enjoy getting up in the mornings knowing that I get to do what I enjoy the most. And as long as I’m doing it I feel that I’m a very fortunate man.


Frank Stronach and his growing global Magna empire

WHEN Frank Stronach says he is optimistic that “down the line” his company can control “ten per cent of all the gambling in the world”, the queue of punters wanting to bet against him may be very short. He has a record of reaching his targets, and if he ruffles a few feathers along the way, so what.

Stronach reaches his 74th birthday in September, but he retains the energy and business enthusiasm that took him from his native Austria to Canada as a 21-year-old tool and machine engineer, and launched him into his own company three years later. At the age of 41 he was running a major automotive parts company, Magna International Inc., from which eventually sprung Magna Entertainment Corp. (MEC), now the biggest race-track owner and operator in the United States and the vehicle for his gambling ambitions.

In the States, MEC accounts for 11 racecourses, ranging from the glorious and historical Gulfstream Park, Pimlico and Santa Anita, through the unexpected Breeders’ Cup venue Lone Star Park, to the thoroughbred and quarter horse mix of Remington Park, and accompanying training centres. Then there are two television channels, a betting operation, and a one-third share in AmTote, the leading international totalisator systems provider that will soon become wholly owned by MEC; a plant making horse bedding, and various extensive real estate developments. The Magna empire was not always so big; it was bigger. With losses mounting, Stronach’s frantic purchase of race tracks in the late-1990s was balanced last year by the sale of two harness racing tracks, one in Canada, the other on the Maryland-Virginia axis.

In Europe, Stronach’s immediate influence is less obvious. Personally, the man who has a trophy room full of Eclipse Awards for owning and/or breeding such as the Preakness Stakes winner Red Bullet, Belmont Stakes winner Touch Gold, and Breeders’ Cup winners Awesome Again and his sons Ghostzapper, Perfect Sting and Macho Uno, has only recently dipped a toe into the ownership waters, with horses in training with Luca Cumani and Jeremy Noseda that were collected when he bought for the first time at Tattersalls in Newmarket in 2005.

Corporately, European interests extend to the Magna Racino, a 24-hour combination of racecourse and casino 20 miles south of Vienna that is Stronach’s gift to his Austrian birthplace, a betting website, MagnaBet, and a one-third share in a joint venture with Churchill Downs and Racing UK, the British racecourse rights exploiter and TV channel operator. That last project, set up earlier this year and operating from England as Racing World, is both new and still small, but it sets the tone – and may yet set the standard – for Magna’s global wagering ambitions. It brings together two great race-track rivals, covering most of the top venues in North America, a UK subscription-only racing channel that boasts the best of British racing, bar Ascot, and is pointed towards a European-based betting site, MagnaBet, which feeds all manner of foreign currency into the dollar-rich host-track pools.

Joe de Francis, Magna’s executive vice president and recently promoted to the main board, was at the forefront of negotiations to set up Racing World, and he is not immune to gentle ribbing about the amalgamation of ambitions between his company and Churchill Downs, which together provided most of the funding for the project. “There’s an internet term known as co-opetition, which sums up our relationship,” he says. “We’re vigorous competitors in some areas but collaborators in others. Global distribution of the racing and betting product is the key, and it’s the smart and the right thing for us to work much more closely on an international vehicle such as Racing World. We both have quality content, and that goes for Racing UK, so this is an ideal arrangement. “In addition, we have MagnaBet, the essentially German-language, European sister to XpressBet, our US-based, English-language internet betting site. They have developed side by side, but we are in the process of merging them on to one platform, which will be available globally, with technical expertise sitting in various places around the world.“We need local partners, who understand the idiosyncrasies of the local markets. That’s why it’s important to be with Racing UK, which knows the demands of British punters.”

Magna previously worked for a time with the other UK racing channel, At The Races, through TRNi, but the relationship was never a marriage made in heaven, perhaps because TRNi’s vision clashed with Stronach’s.
The arrangement with Racing UK is working well, says executive chairman Simon Bazalgette, who explains: “I think they are much more comfortable working with a racecourse group that understands how a betting path should operate. They also seemed to be impressed how Racing UK was managing our racecourses’ right in the UK, because they wanted to exploit their rights in the UK and Ireland. “Racing UK was already working with Magna because XpressBet was taking UK racing, but Racing World has strengthened our relationship, which will grow, especially now that we have 48-hour declarations in place in Britain.
“We are in the process of putting pari-mutuel links into the major UK bookmakers, which will transmit bets back to the US pools through the AmTote gateway.
“To distinguish themselves from the betting exchanges, and to help their margins, UK bookmakers are becoming more interested in the kind of exotic bets that overseas pari-mutuel operators provide. We see this as a growth area, especially when UK punters realise they can play the big carry-overs that US pools often turn up.”
Bazalgette, who expects the joint venture to take more UK racing to the States in the future, as the possible precursor to a fully global channel that would include other European racing authorities, sums up his joint venture partners: “Churchill Downs is the more corporate, more conservative organisation, but Magna is very driven and commercial, which reflects Frank Stronach’s business approach. He has shaken up North American racing, buying tracks when no-one else did.”

Magna will need to be commercial if it is to drive down ongoing losses and wipe out the minimum $500m of debts hanging round its neck. This year’s first-quarter net income of $2.2m was the first plus after seven consecutive losing quarters, but the second quarter reverted to recent type, and though revenues for the first six months of 2006 were up from $413m to $465m, compared with the same period in the previous year, costs were also up, largely due to servicing debt, from $433m to $488m. The red ink is back, and the second-quarter loss of around $26m all but matches the same period in 2005. Yet Stronach remains confident. He believes MEC could be debt free, or have very little debt, some time next year. “People may ask, ‘Why the hell are you in this kind of business, losing so much money?’” he said to investors on publication of the first-quarter results. “Well, it’s a huge business, and I’m optimistic that down the road, we have a great opportunity to be the foremost gambling and entertainment company in the world.”
Joe de Francis, a lawyer by profession, has 25 years’ experience in the horseracing business. His family controlled the Maryland Jockey Club, which owns Laurel Park and Pimlico, home of the Preakness Stakes, and he took over as chief executive in August 1989. He retains that position today, but under Magna, which bought 51 per cent of the company from de Francis and his sister in November 2002.

De Francis is well placed to view all sides of the MEC operation. “I came in at the tail end of the cycle of acquiring race tracks and at the beginning of the distribution of the racing and betting products,” he reflects. “I believe Mr Stronach when he talks about controlling ten per cent of global gambling. You can’t climb high unless you aim high. “Magna is both a race-track company and a wagering organisation. It believes strongly in vertical integration. First and foremost it owns race tracks, but to be successful in the 21st century you have to distribute your content as broadly as possible, and that’s where globalisation is important. It’s part of our mission statement. “To be successful, a race-track operator has to be involved in distribution businesses. I compare horseracing to manufacturing. We make the product and we distribute it.
“Since I came into the business, I’ve watched the evolution in distribution, from the days when you got in your car and drove to the track to bet on live racing. There was no simulcasting, very little off-track betting and no home wagering, and it was only about a dozen years ago that things began to change. “The challenges now are to select the best technology, distribution platforms and partners, so that you can take the product around the world. The challenges in North America, which centre on legislation, underscore the importance of developing systems to take the product to Europe, South America and the Pacific Rim.
“One advantage is that horseracing is extraordinarily popular, to varying degrees, around the world. The only comparison for passion and global appeal is football."

De Francis stresses that nailing down the distribution systems will be key to Magna’s success, with three pathways to be negotiated, in no particular order but together.“There’s the bet pathway,” he says. “Since our wagering is pari-mutuel, as opposed to fixed odds, we have to figure out the best way to transmit a bet from the customer to the race track, which is important because the pari-mutuel system allows the customer access to a range of betting opportunities, such as the exotics, that fixed odds cannot provide. “We are exercising our option to purchase the remaining 70 per cent of equity in AmTote, and that will give us control over one of the best companies in the global market. We are working actively with a number of the larger UK bookmakers to allow them to take pari-mutuel bets on our racing, which will enable them to offer exotic bets.”

De Francis is aware of Simon Bazalgette’s observation that UK bookmakers could get one over the betting exchanges from this channel, but he takes no side over the new betting phenomenon itself, saying: “The betting exchange business model is different from ours and it fulfils a market demand, but how we interact with them is a new issue. I don’t have a clear answer on how to work with or against them.”

However, he does have an unobscured view on the second distribution pathway – pictures, “which give the punter the ability to see the race live. People won’t bet as much if they can’t see the race, and that’s where Racing World is so important.” The third pathway involves data and information, which de Francis says is vital to give the punter everything he needs to make an informed wager. “Together they make up a three-legged stool,” he explains. “If one leg is not there, you’ll fall over. In North America we control all three, through AmTote, HRTV and Xpressbet, but in different markets it’s almost certain we will choose to partner others.”

Expansion remains on the cards for Magna, de Francis says, but while he is reluctant never to say ‘Never’, the US race-track portfolio appears to be full – with The Meadows harness racing venue almost sold – and there are no plans to extend beyond Austria’s Magna Racino in Europe.However, AmTote is steadily moving over; the New York Racing Association franchise, which is up for grabs next year, is being strenuously pursued, “with partners”, because “it’s an important part of the North American landscape and provides a very important piece of content,” and 500 slot machines are on standby for Gulfstream Park, as a forerunner of the model for other racecourse-casino sites.

Remington Park’s fortunes have already been transformed by the introduction of slots – much of the $12.5m, second-quarter revenue increase in the Magna’s southern US operations came from the introduction of the casino facility there last November - and de Francis points to improved revenues, better purses for owners and better quality racing as benefits that will flow from these and other developments in technology over the next five years. “There will be an enormous evolution in our business generally,” he forecasts. “We’re going to be in many more geographical markets, with much more content available in homes, so that people will be able to access the racing product like never before. We’re being presented with a unique set of challenges.”
 
THE MAGNA ENTERTAINMENT CORP. EMPIRE

Original parent company Magna International Inc. is a diversified automotive parts supplier, based in Canada and founded by Frank H Stronach, currently chairman and interim chief executive.
Stronach, born in Weiz, Austria, on 6 September 1932, emigrated to Canada in 1954 with a background in tool and machine engineering. He started his first tool and die company in 1957, branched out into automotive components and after a merger of companies MII was formed in 1973, and has grown into one of the world’s biggest of its kind.
Under reorganisation of the corporate structure in November 1999, the non-automotive businesses and real estates assets, including recently acquired race tracks, were transferred to Magna Entertainment Corp, which became a public company, quoted on Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange in March 2000. Executive office in Aurora, Ontario, Canada, but incorporated in Delaware, USA.

RACE TRACKS

USA
Golden Gate Fields: Albany, California; acquired in Dec ’99; 105 racing days.
Great Lakes Downs: Muskegon, Michigan; acquired in Feb ’00; 120 racing days.
Gulfstream Park: Hallandale Beach, Florida; acquired Sept ’99; races during winter months.
Laurel Park: Laurel, Maryland; majority interest acquired with Pimlico Nov ’02; two near-four-month meetings at either end of year split by three-week August meeting.
Lone Star Park: Grand Prairie, Texas; acquired Oct ’02; thoroughbred racing April to mid-July, quarter horse racing October and November.
The Meadows: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; acquired April ’01; year-round harness racing on 210 days; in process of being sold for $200m.
Pimlico: Baltimore, Maryland; majority interest acquired with Laurel Park Nov ’02; 8-week spring meeting includes Preakness Stakes.
Portland Meadows: Portland, Oregon; operated by MEC since ’01; races from October to April.
Remington Park: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; thoroughbred racing August to November, quarter horse racing March to June; year-round simulcasting and casino.
Santa Anita Park: Arcadia, California; two seasons, 26 December to mid-April, six-week Oak Tree meeting in autumn.
Thistledown: North Randall, Ohio; acquired in Nov ’99; races 185 days March to December.
Europe
Magna Racino (Ebreichsdorf, Austria; built April ’01; thoroughbred and harness racing from April to November; year-round gaming and entertainment.


WAGERING


XpressBet: for US-based punters only, in states where legal; launched ’02; HQ in Washington, Pennsylvania; off-track betting facilities and national account wagering business, by telephone and internet; covers pari-mutuel betting from over 100 thoroughbred, harness and quarter horse tracks in North America and races in Australia, Dubai and South Africa; offers real-time audio and video streaming; bets co-mingled with existing race track pools.
MagnaBet: European-based online, mobile phone and SMS service, for non-US customers; launched ’04; covers pari-mutuel betting on races from US, Austria, Germany and UK; offers real-time and recorded audio and video streaming; bets co-mingled with existing race track pools.

TELEVISION


HorseRacing TV (HRTV): owns and operates 24-hour network focused on horseracing; available to more than 11m cable and satellite viewers in US.
The Racetrack Television Network (RTN): one-third interest in direct-to-home, subscription telecasting service from MEC and other tracks, made available to betting shops internationally.
Racing World: one-third partner since January ’06 with Racing UK and Churchill Downs in international TV channel, currently broadcasting US racing to Britain and Ireland.

OTHERS


AmTote International: leading provider of totalisator services to international pari-mutuel industry; 30% interest bought for $3.8m in August ’03; notice given of intention to take up option on remaining 70% of equity in two stages, September and November ’06, for total of $14m.
Thoroughbred training centres: San Diego, California; Palm Beach County, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland.
Production facilities: for Streu-Fex, straw-based, horse bedding product, in North Carolina and Austria.
Real estate: two golf courses (in Austria and Canada) and related recreational facilities; residential developments in US, Austria and Canada.
Employs 5,300 through the group.

PARIMAX


Holding company formed in February ’06 to oversee development of XpressBet, HRTV, RaceONTV, Magnabet, AmTote, Racing World and PremiereWin (TV partner in central Europe).

Frank Stronach and his growing global Magna empire

When Frank Stronach says he is optimistic that “down the line” his company can control “ten per cent of all the gambling in the world”, the queue of punters wanting to bet against him may be very short. He has a record of reaching his targets, and if he ruffles a few feathers along the way, so what.

Stronach reaches his 74th birthday in September, but he retains the energy and business enthusiasm that took him from his native Austria to Canada as a 21-year-old tool and machine engineer, and launched him into his own company three years later. At the age of 41 he was running a major automotive parts company, Magna International Inc., from which eventually sprung Magna Entertainment Corp. (MEC), now the biggest race-track owner and operator in the United States and the vehicle for his gambling ambitions.

In the States, MEC accounts for 11 racecourses, ranging from the glorious and historical Gulfstream Park, Pimlico and Santa Anita, through the unexpected Breeders’ Cup venue Lone Star Park, to the thoroughbred and quarter horse mix of Remington Park, and accompanying training centres.

Then there are two television channels, a betting operation, and a one-third share in AmTote, the leading international totalisator systems provider that will soon become wholly owned by MEC; a plant making horse bedding, and various extensive real estate developments.

The Magna empire was not always so big; it was bigger. With losses mounting, Stronach’s frantic purchase of race tracks in the late-1990s was balanced last year by the sale of two harness racing tracks, one in Canada, the other on the Maryland-Virginia axis.

In Europe, Stronach’s immediate influence is less obvious. Personally, the man who has a trophy room full of Eclipse Awards for owning and/or breeding such as the Preakness Stakes winner Red Bullet, Belmont Stakes winner Touch Gold, and Breeders’ Cup winners Awesome Again and his son Ghostzapper, Perfect Sting and Macho Uno, has only recently dipped a toe into the ownership waters, with horses in training with Luca Cumani and Jeremy Noseda that were collected when he bought for the first time at Tattersalls in Newmarket in 2005.

Corporately, European interests extend to the Magna Racino, a 24-hour combination of racecourse and casino 20 miles south of Vienna that is Stronach’s gift to his Austrian birthplace, a betting website, MagnaBet, and a one-third share in a joint venture with Churchill Downs and Racing UK, the British racecourse rights exploiter and TV channel operator.

That last project, set up earlier this year and operating from England as Racing World, is both new and still small, but it sets the tone – and may yet set the standard – for Magna’s global wagering ambitions. It brings together two great race-track rivals, covering most of the top venues in North America, a UK subscription-only racing channel that boasts the best of British racing, bar Ascot, and is pointed towards a European-based betting site, MagnaBet, which feeds all manner of foreign currency into the dollar-rich host-track pools.

Joe de Francis, Magna’s executive vice president and recently promoted to the main board, was at the forefront of negotiations to set up Racing World, and he is not immune to gentle ribbing about the amalgamation of ambitions between his company and Churchill Downs, which together provided most of the funding for the project.

“There’s an internet term known as co-opetition, which sums up our relationship,” he says. “We’re vigorous competitors in some areas but collaborators in others. Global distribution of the racing and betting product is the key, and it’s the smart and the right thing for us to work much more closely on an international vehicle such as Racing World. We both have quality content, and that goes for Racing UK, so this is an ideal arrangement.

“In addition, we have MagnaBet, the essentially German-language, European sister to XpressBet, our US-based, English-language internet betting site. They have developed side by side, but we are in the process of merging them on to one platform, which will be available globally, with technical expertise sitting in various places around the world.

“We need local partners, who understand the idiosyncrasies of the local markets. That’s why it’s important to be with Racing UK, which knows the demands of British punters.”

Magna previously worked for a time with the other UK racing channel, At The Races, through TRNi, but the relationship was never a marriage made in heaven, perhaps because TRNi’s vision clashed with Stronach’s.

The arrangement with Racing UK is working well, says executive chairman Simon Bazalgette, who explains: “I think they are much more comfortable working with a racecourse group that understands how a betting path should operate. They also seemed to be impressed how Racing UK was managing our racecourses’ right in the UK, because they wanted to exploit their rights in the UK and Ireland.

“Racing UK was already working with Magna because XpressBet was taking UK racing, but Racing World has strengthened our relationship, which will grow, especially now that we have 48-hour declarations in place in Britain.

“We are in the process of putting pari-mutuel links into the major UK bookmakers, which will transmit bets back to the US pools through the AmTote gateway.

“To distinguish themselves from the betting exchanges, and to help their margins, UK bookmakers are becoming more interested in the kind of exotic bets that overseas pari-mutuel operators provide. We see this as a growth area, especially when UK punters realise they can play the big carry-overs that US pools often turn up.”

Bazalgette, who expects the joint venture to take more UK racing to the States in the future, as the possible precursor to a fully global channel that would include other European racing authorities, sums up his joint venture partners: “Churchill Downs is the more corporate, more conservative organisation, but Magna is very driven and commercial, which reflects Frank Stronach’s business approach. He has shaken up North American racing, buying tracks when no-one else did.”

Magna will need to be commercial if it is to drive down ongoing losses and wipe out the minimum $500m of debts hanging round its neck. This year’s first-quarter net income of $2.2m was the first plus after seven consecutive losing quarters, but the second quarter reverted to recent type, and though revenues for the first six months of 2006 were up from $413m to $465m, compared with the same period in the previous year, costs were also up, largely due to servicing debt, from $433m to $488m. The red ink is back, and the second-quarter loss of around $26m all but matches the same period in 2005.

Yet Stronach remains confident. He believes MEC could be debt free, or have very little debt, some time next year. “People may ask, ‘Why the hell are you in this kind of business, losing so much money?’” he said to investors on publication of the first-quarter results. “Well, it’s a huge business, and I’m optimistic that down the road, we have a great opportunity to be the foremost gambling and entertainment company in the world.”

Joe de Francis, a lawyer by profession, has 25 years’ experience in the horseracing business. His family controlled the Maryland Jockey Club, which owns Laurel Park and Pimlico, home of the Preakness Stakes, and he took over as chief executive in August 1989. He retains that position today, but under Magna, which bought 51 per cent of the company from de Francis and his sister in November 2002.

De Francis is well placed to view all sides of the MEC operation. “I came in at the tail end of the cycle of acquiring race tracks and at the beginning of the distribution of the racing and betting products,” he reflects. “I believe Mr Stronach when he talks about controlling ten per cent of global gambling. You can’t climb high unless you aim high.

“Magna is both a race-track company and a wagering organisation. It believes strongly in vertical integration. First and foremost it owns race tracks, but to be successful in the 21st century you have to distribute your content as broadly as possible, and that’s where globalisation is important. It’s part of our mission statement.

“To be successful, a race-track operator has to be involved in distribution businesses. I compare horseracing to manufacturing. We make the product and we distribute it.

“Since I came into the business, I’ve watched the evolution in distribution, from the days when you got in your car and drove to the track to bet on live racing. There was no simulcasting, very little off-track betting and no home wagering, and it was only about a dozen years ago that things began to change.

“The challenges now are to select the best technology, distribution platforms and partners, so that you can take the product around the world. The challenges in North America, which centre on legislation, underscore the importance of developing systems to take the product to Europe, South America and the Pacific Rim.

“One advantage is that horseracing is extraordinarily popular, to varying degrees, around the world. The only comparison for passion and global appeal is football.”

De Francis stresses that nailing down the distribution systems will be key to Magna’s success, with three pathways to be negotiated, in no particular order but together.

“There’s the bet pathway,” he says. “Since our wagering is pari-mutuel, as opposed to fixed odds, we have to figure out the best way to transmit a bet from the customer to the race track, which is important because the pari-mutuel system allows the customer access to a range of betting opportunities, such as the exotics, that fixed odds cannot provide.

“We are exercising our option to purchase the remaining 70 per cent of equity in AmTote, and that will give us control over one of the best companies in the global market. We are working actively with a number of the larger UK bookmakers to allow them to take pari-mutuel bets on our racing, which will enable them to offer exotic bets.”

De Francis is aware of Simon Bazalgette’s observation that UK bookmakers could get one over the betting exchanges from this channel, but he takes no side over the new betting phenomenon itself, saying: “The betting exchange business model is different from ours and it fulfils a market demand, but how we interact with them is a new issue. I don’t have a clear answer on how to work with or against them.”

However, he does have an unobscured view on the second distribution pathway – pictures, “which give the punter the ability to see the race live. People won’t bet as much if they can’t see the race, and that’s where Racing World is so important.”

The third pathway involves data and information, which de Francis says is vital to give the punter everything he needs to make an informed wager.

“Together they make up a three-legged stool,” he explains. “If one leg is not there, you’ll fall over. In North America we control all three, through AmTote, HRTV and Xpressbet, but in different markets it’s almost certain we will choose to partner others.”

Expansion remains on the cards for Magna, de Francis says, but while he is reluctant never to say ‘Never’, the US race-track portfolio appears to be full – with The Meadows harness racing venue almost sold – and there are no plans to extend beyond Austria’s Magna Racino in Europe.

However, AmTote is steadily moving over; the New York Racing Association franchise, which is up for grabs next year, is being strenuously pursued, “with partners”, because “it’s an important part of the North American landscape and provides a very important piece of content,” and 500 slot machines are on standby for Gulfstream Park, as a forerunner of the model for other racecourse-casino sites.

Remington Park’s fortunes have already been transformed by the introduction of slots – much of the $12.5m, second-quarter revenue increase in the Magna’s southern US operations came from the introduction of the casino facility there last November - and de Francis points to improved revenues, better purses for owners and better quality racing as benefits that will flow from these and other developments in technology over the next five years.

“There will be an enormous evolution in our business generally,” he forecasts. “We’re going to be in many more geographical markets, with much more content available in homes, so that people will be able to access the racing product like never before. We’re being presented with a unique set of challenges.”

THE MAGNA ENTERTAINMENT CORP. EMPIRE

Original parent company Magna International Inc. is a diversified automotive parts supplier, based in Canada and founded by Frank H Stronach, currently chairman and interim chief executive.
Stronach, born in Weiz, Austria, on 6 September 1932, emigrated to Canada in 1954 with a background in tool and machine engineering. He started his first tool and die company in 1957, branched out into automotive components and after a merger of companies MII was formed in 1973, and has grown into one of the world’s biggest of its kind.
Under reorganisation of the corporate structure in November 1999, the non-automotive businesses and real estates assets, including recently acquired race tracks, were transferred to Magna Entertainment Corp, which became a public company, quoted on Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange in March 2000. Executive office in Aurora, Ontario, Canada, but incorporated in Delaware, USA.

RACE TRACKS

USA
Golden Gate Fields: Albany, California; acquired in Dec ’99; 105 racing days.
Great Lakes Downs: Muskegon, Michigan; acquired in Feb ’00; 120 racing days.
Gulfstream Park: Hallandale Beach, Florida; acquired Sept ’99; races during winter months.
Laurel Park: Laurel, Maryland; majority interest acquired with Pimlico Nov ’02; two near-four-month meetings at either end of year split by three-week August meeting.
Lone Star Park: Grand Prairie, Texas; acquired Oct ’02; thoroughbred racing April to mid-July, quarter horse racing October and November.
The Meadows: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; acquired April ’01; year-round harness racing on 210 days; in process of being sold for $200m.
Pimlico: Baltimore, Maryland; majority interest acquired with Laurel Park Nov ’02; 8-week spring meeting includes Preakness Stakes.
Portland Meadows: Portland, Oregon; operated by MEC since ’01; races from October to April.
Remington Park: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; thoroughbred racing August to November, quarter horse racing March to June; year-round simulcasting and casino.
Santa Anita Park: Arcadia, California; two seasons, 26 December to mid-April, six-week Oak Tree meeting in autumn.
Thistledown: North Randall, Ohio; acquired in Nov ’99; races 185 days March to December.

Europe
Magna Racino (Ebreichsdorf, Austria; built April ’01; thoroughbred and harness racing from April to November; year-round gaming and entertainment.

WAGERING
XpressBet: for US-based punters only, in states where legal; launched ’02; HQ in Washington, Pennsylvania; off-track betting facilities and national account wagering business, by telephone and internet; covers pari-mutuel betting from over 100 thoroughbred, harness and quarter horse tracks in North America and races in Australia, Dubai and South Africa; offers real-time audio and video streaming; bets co-mingled with existing race track pools.
MagnaBet: European-based online, mobile phone and SMS service, for non-US customers; launched ’04; covers pari-mutuel betting on races from US, Austria, Germany and UK; offers real-time and recorded audio and video streaming; bets co-mingled with existing race track pools.

TELEVISION
HorseRacing TV (HRTV): owns and operates 24-hour network focused on horseracing; available to more than 11m cable and satellite viewers in US.
The Racetrack Television Network (RTN): one-third interest in direct-to-home, subscription telecasting service from MEC and other tracks, made available to betting shops internationally.
Racing World: one-third partner since January ’06 with Racing UK and Churchill Downs in international TV channel, currently broadcasting US racing to Britain and Ireland.

OTHERS
AmTote International: leading provider of totalisator services to international pari-mutuel industry; 30% interest bought for $3.8m in August ’03; notice given of intention to take up option on remaining 70% of equity in two stages, September and November ’06, for total of $14m.
Thoroughbred training centres: San Diego, California; Palm Beach County, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland.
Production facilities: for Streu-Fex, straw-based, horse bedding product, in North Carolina and Austria.
Real estate: two golf courses (in Austria and Canada) and related recreational facilities; residential developments in US, Austria and Canada.
Employs 5,300 through the group.

PARIMAX

Holding company formed in February ’06 to oversee development of XpressBet, HRTV, RaceONTV, Magnabet, AmTote, Racing World and PremiereWin (TV partner in central Europe).

Warren Stute - a look back at a lifetime of uncompromising standards

Shortly after his 80th birthday a few years ago, trainer Warren Stute agreed to stop galloping his horses.
“I could still do it, but I promised my family so they would stop worrying,” the wiry old-timer confided begrudgingly to a Hollywood Park publicist in his gruff voice after being slowed by a minor stroke.

That was vintage Warren Stute, a tough-talking conditioner who spent nearly seven decades on horseback before passing away in Arcadia at age 85 on August 9.

Stute, the senior half of the most famous brother training act in Southern California history with 80-year-old Melvin, left vivid memories as a top horseman with uncompromising standards.

Stute was not the easiest man to get along with, but he was respected by all and beloved by many, as several attested during a memorial service in the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club paddock attended by about 300 on August 13.

“Warren was tough, ornery and opinionated, but was the most lovable guy,” said Joe Harper, Del Mar president and CEO. He recalled his “introduction” to Stute in 1967 as a neophyte track cameraman nearly trampled by a horse Stute was exercising.

Harper would spend many mornings in the stable cafeteria at a table including the Stute brothers and the late Clement Hirsch, a track executive and owner who had horses with Warren for 50 years. “I cherished those mornings, listening to him and his suggestions at the coffee klatch,” said Harper.

Although an outspoken right-wing conservative and anti-feminist, Stute nevertheless earned admiration from a centrist veterinarian and a female trainer.

“We first saw each other in 1971--I can’t say met, because all he did was scowl,” recalled track veterinarian Rick Arthur. “The next year he wanted me fired because he said I was a hippie. He could only say liberal with disgust. I considered myself a moderate, but he thought that was liberal. He was gruff, had a temper and wouldn’t talk to you--some for hours, some for life--but for all his gruffness, he had a real kind heart,” said Arthur. “He helped his grooms when they got in trouble with the stewards and security and bailed one out of jail. He thought grooms should park in a lot near the Del Mar backside instead of owners, for which it was reserved.”
I turned a horse I owned named Guillermo over to him when he was 77 or 78 with the condition he couldn’t gallop him,” recalled Arthur of the Real Good Deal Stakes winner. “He got on him anyway and said he was the only one who could handle him.

“In 30 years, I can’t remember ever putting a horse trained by Warren down in a race,” added Arthur. “Warren knew when to stop. He didn’t try to get one more race out of a horse. We lost a good old-school trainer.”
Trainer Jenine Sahadi, no wilting violet herself, remembered a friendly truce with Stute. “He was my neighbor for 17 years (at Santa Anita),” said Sahadi. “He wanted to know why I wasn’t making eggs and bacon.
“One morning, I told Warren I was jogging a horse, and he said, ’If you want to jog those SOB’s, take them to Yonkers (a harness track).’ He said you gallop and work thoroughbreds.”

Octogenarian Jack Robbins, a retired veterinarian and president of the Oak Tree Racing Association, began on the track around the same time as Stute. “He didn’t have a lot of tolerance for owners,” said Robbins. “If anyone told him how to train, out he went.”

Yet a few owners maintained long alliances with Stute, none longer than Clement Hirsch. “As far as loyalty, if you were his friend, he was the best friend you could ever have,” said Bo Hirsch, Clement’s son who continued the family affiliation by keeping horses with Stute for seven years after his father’s death.

Stute made his first major mark in racing when he won the 1951 Santa Anita Maturity (later renamed the Strub Stakes) with Great Circle under Bill Shoemaker when it was the richest race in the world with a $205,700 purse.
Later in 1951, Stute won the Del Mar Debutante with Tonga, a race he would win again 51 years later in 2002 with Miss Houdini for Bo Hirsch. Stute spread his fame internationally earlier in 2002 when he scored the richest victory of his career with Grey Memo in the $1-million Godolphin Mile in Dubai.

There were dozens of stakes winners in between, particularly a blitz during 1969 and 1970 with South American imports Figonero and Snow Sporting and tomboy filly June Darling.

Warren and Mel formed a life-long mutual admiration society despite contrasting personalities, and each thought the other belonged in the Racing Hall of Fame.

“I might be the luckiest man in the world,” said Mel. “He’s not heavy; he’s my brother. He carried me since I was one day old. In my humble opinion, he was the greatest trainer who ever was.”
Mel conceded that his brother could be tough and stubborn, but that he came through when the chips were down. Mel recalled Warren bailing him out financially, once by paying his rent and once by buying tires for his car.

“I wanted to cancel a party for my 80th birthday and saw him 10 days before,” said Mel. “He said, ’I’ve made 79 of your birthdays and I’ll make your 80th.’ He died the morning after my birthday.”

Steve Stute, Warren’s older son, confessed that it was not easy growing up as a teenager during the 1960s. “He broke all my Bob Dylan records and threw all my sociology books for college out the window,” recalled Steve, whose father refused to speak to him for three years when he grew his hair long. “But he was honest.”

Glen Stute, Warren’s younger son and a trainer, thanked the racing community for its support. “The outpouring of love since this man has passed has blown my mind,” said Glen. “The tears in your eyes, the stories I have never heard carried me through all this.”

Steve Schuelein
 (01 October 2007 - Issue Number: 5)

Kiaran McLaughlin - a veteran who has enjoyed international success

By participating in the last two runnings of the Kentucky Derby, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin has raised his profile among casual observers of the North American racing scene. But for those who follow the sport regularly, McLaughlin is known as a veteran horseman who has enjoyed international success.

During a career that began in the early 1980’s, McLaughlin served as an assistant to North America’s most prolific trainer, D. Wayne Lukas; he handled the business affairs for the talented, but troubled jockey Chris Antley and oversaw the training of 200 horses for the Maktoum family of the United Arab Emirates.

The trainer of a public stable since 2003, McLaughlin has built his operation to 75 horses based at two locations in New York. While the Maktoum family accounts for approximately half of his stable, McLaughlin has several North American-based clients as well.

In 2005, McLaughlin came within one-half length of pulling one of the biggest upsets in Kentucky Derby history when Closing Argument, a 71-1 longshot, was outfinished by 50-1 shot Giacomo. McLaughlin returned to the Kentucky Derby in 2006, saddling fourth-place finisher Jazil for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum’s Shadwell Farm as well as 14th-place finisher Flashy Bull for the North American syndicate West Point Thoroughbreds, LLC.

McLaughlin could have had a third runner in the Derby, but he and owner John Dillon decided to pass the race with the multiple stakes winning gelding Like Now, who ran in the Preakness instead.

McLaughlin, 45, has navigated the last eight years of his life while suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, a neurological disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. He was diagnosed with the disease in October 1998, not long before he won Aqueduct’s Grade 2 Knickerbocker Handicap with Sahm, owned by Shadwell.

“When I was first diagnosed in October of 1998 I went into a depression,” McLaughlin said. “I didn’t realize it at the time but I was depressed for 30 days. I didn’t want to get off the couch. Sahm won the Knickerbocker and I wasn’t there at the races.”

At that time, McLaughlin was splitting his time between Dubai and North America. By early December of 1998 he was back in Dubai and in February of 1999, he suffered a major setback when he developed blurred vision and needed a cane to walk.

For the last seven years, he has taken a daily injection of Copaxine, a class of drug called beta interferon, which inhibits certain white blood cells and in some studies has reduced the severity and number of multiple sclerosis attacks.

“I went on medication in June 1999 and since then I had no setbacks at all,” McLaughlin said “I feel very fortunate. I have MS, but I have it in my hip pocket.”

McLaughlin is a native of Lexington, Ky., and attended the University of Kentucky before working for trainers James Burchell and John Hennig, who would later become his father-in-law, David Kassen and Tim Muckler.

In 1985, McLaughlin started working for Lukas, where he worked closely with the multiple champion filly Open Mind, and stakes winners Slew City Slew and Dynaformer. In 1992, McLaughlin and his wife Letty, the sister of New York trainer Mark Hennig, wanted to settle down with their infant daughter. So, McLaughlin quit Lukas and began booking mounts for jockey Chris Antley, one of the more talented riders on the New York circuit.

But after 18 months, Antley fell out of favor with the top New York trainers and soon left for California. McLaughlin, through acquaintances such as Helen Alexander, Anthony Stroud and Rick Nichols, was offered a position in Dubai to work for Mohammed al Maktoum’s Godolphin Racing.

“I had 100 horses to train then later I ended up breaking 100 yearlings,” McLaughlin said. “I had a lot of good help, but I was overseeing 200 horses so I was just like a European trainer with a big yard.”

 McLaughlin quickly learned there many differences between training in Dubai and America. First and foremost was the fact that medication was prohibited in Dubai.

“That was an education,” McLaughlin said. “I remember I had a filly, one of the first runners I had that was absolutely a crazy filly. She threw herself down on the racetrack more than once. I said to the vet what can we do? We’ve got to do something to settle her nerves. He said you can’t do anything to medicate here. On the track in Dubai she was perfect. So you live and learn that medication is really overrated”.

McLaughlin said the anti-bleeding medication Lasix is not overrated. It is a medication he uses on most of his horses that race in North America. “Lasix is not overrated,” McLaughlin said. “But as medication goes a lot of people think you need Bute and anti-inflammatories, and this and that, and it was proved to me that you didn’t. But Lasix is an important performance-enhancing drug because I just feel like a lot of horses bleed. I wouldn’t take a horse to Dubai that is a bleeder.”

McLaughlin was the leading trainer at Nad al Sheba in Dubai three times: 1994-95; 1995-96, and 2002-03. Among the top horses McLaughlin trained during his time in Dubai were Dumaani, who won the $1.5 million, Group 2 Keio Hai Springs Cup in Japan and Key of Luck, who won the inaugural running of the Dubai Duty Free.

``Key of Luck was probably the best horse I trained,’’ McLaughlin said. ``He won the [Dubai] Duty free by 20 lengths the night Cigar won the World Cup.’’

While McLaughlin learned about medication, he helped bring about a few changes in Dubai racing. McLaughlin helped introduce outriders to Dubai.

“They were asking my opinion on improvements for there,’’ McLaughlin said. ``When I first went over there they didn’t have any outriders. My point was if a rider went down in a race you’d need to stop the race if it was once around. And they got outriders.’’

McLaughlin also introduced the concept of keeping assistant starters in the stall with the horses. ``The starting gate was a real interesting situation when I first got there,’’ McLaughlin said. ``The first horse I had that was meant to run went in and a horse next to him flipped. The rider stepped off my horse because he was acting up and they opened the doors and had a false start. My horse went loose and had to be scratched. I said to them back them out, but they didn’t have the personnel. They’d load them and duck under the front door so they were not in with them. So there were a lot of things to talk about; the starting gate was a big issue.’’

While McLaughlin said he enjoyed the lifestyle of Dubai, something he said was akin to Disney World, he and Letty wanted to raise their two children, daughter Erin, 15, and son Ryan, 12, in America.

``It was hard to leave, it was a great lifestyle for my wife and I having a maid and a cook; we were living like kings and queens,’’ McLaughlin said. ``We opted to come back to America and raise our kids in New York. That’s where our home is and we just felt like it was the right thing to do.’’

McLaughlin enjoyed success right away in 2003. Among his stable stars were the Irish-bred Volga, who won the Grade 1 E.P Taylor at Woodbine, and the South African-bred Trademark, who won the Bernard Baruch and Fourstardave, both Grade 2 events at Saratoga.

In 2004, McLaughlin won 84 races from 462 starters and his horses earned more than $5.5 million in purse money. He won multiple stakes with the likes of Seattle Fitz, Randaroo, and Bending Strings.

In 2005, McLaughlin won 60 races from 424 starters. In addition to saddling Closing Argument to a second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby, McLaughlin also sent out Henny Hughes to a second-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile just three weeks after taking over the training of the horse.

In addition to training, McLaughlin has got involved with many of the off-the-track issues confronting racing. He is on the board of directors of the New York Thoroughbred Horseman’s Association, which is trying to get their voice heard on many issues confronting New York racing.

In New York, slot machines are on the horizon which should bring a significant increase to that state’s purse structure. There is also the issue of who will win the franchise to operate the three New York tracks: Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga. The New York Racing Association currently holds the franchise, but that is about to expire on Dec. 31, 2007.
 
``Sometimes in New York we get down that we don’t have slots and the purses aren’t where they could be. but the purses are damn good when you look around the country,’’ McLaughlin said. ``The slots would be just a huge raise for us and help us out and hopefully we get there sooner or later.’’

McLaughlin said he would prefer to remain training horses in North America for a long time. He did not, however, rule out returning to Dubai some day.
 

“Not if I’m doing as well as I’m doing now, I wouldn’t,’’ McLaughlin said. ``But I wouldn’t totally rule it out because it’s a great lifestyle. It’s just that if I’m doing well I would probably just stay here and make my lifestyle great here also.’’