Chuck Simon has a trait that equals or surpasses his concern for horses and horsemen - it’s his penchant for storytelling
/![By Charlie McCarthyIf Chuck Simon has a trait that equals or surpasses his concern for horses and horsemen, it’s his penchant for storytelling.A conversation with the former longtime trainer uncovers the time, while employed as an assistant racing secretary, he used a dead Standardbred to fill a race field.The time he got his trainer’s license without taking the required test.The time he passed through Canadian customs minus a passport.The time he trained a horse for a German spy.Those are just some of the anecdotes and stories from a 20-year training career that ended in July 2019, when Simon decided to spearhead the Gulfstream Horsemen’s Purchasing Association (GHPA), a subsidiary of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.The GHPA focused on supplying shavings, hay and feed at more affordable rates for horsemen at both Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Fla.The hope was for revenue to support horsemen’s programs, including much-needed lobbying. But the business struggled, and then was hurt greatly by the COVID-19 pandemic.“It was a new venture, and we weren’t sure it was going to take off,” said the 52-year-old Simon, who fulfilled a one-year contract. “We were in uncharted waters.“I’m happy that I did it. I experienced something new. It was a start-up company, with bumps along the way.”This past summer, Simon began hosting a podcast named Around in Circles. While other horse racing podcasts mainly stress the game’s betting aspect, Simon and guests discuss news and issues affecting the industry.Never hesitant to express himself, Simon has many opinions on the current state and future of a sport he was introduced to as a boy in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.“When I was about seven or eight years old, my dad started bringing me to the Thoroughbred and harness tracks,” he said. “It was kind of the adult world, and I had access to it.“When you’re growing up in Saratoga, you don’t realize that everyone does not have what you have. Not every place has a racetrack right in the backyard. Not every kid has access to Affirmed and Alydar.”After graduating from high school, Simon played basketball for two years at a junior college in the Albany, N.Y. area. Then, Chuck’s father showed him a brochure for a racetrack industry program at the University of Arizona.“It showed sunny pictures, girls and horses,” Simon recalled, “I said, ‘Damn, I’m going there!”Simon arrived in Arizona, holding an advantage over many of his fellow students because he had the experience of having worked at both Saratoga-area tracks. In fact, he had dreamed of becoming a groom before his parents demanded he get a college education.“A lot of the classes at Arizona were easy because I already knew everything,” said Simon, whose classmates included Todd Pletcher. “But going there helped get me connected to people outside of my New York bubble.”While at Arizona, Simon heard from a friend, who offered a summer internship at Yonkers Raceway in N.Y. He not only took it, but within two weeks became assistant racing secretary at the age of 20.Simon went to work full-time at Yonkers upon graduation. His duties included getting horses to fill cards for six and seven days of racing.On one occasion, Simon was desperate to fill the field for a certain race. He even asked superiors if they could run a short field or if the card could be reduced. Neither option was granted.“So, I find a horse that qualified three weeks earlier at Monticello and that fit the class but didn’t race again,” said Simon, who found the trainer’s phone number and called. “The guy says, ‘You sure you’re looking for me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you had a horse that qualified three weeks ago. Have you raced that horse back? I have a race here that fits.’”Seconds of silence followed before the man on the end said, “The filly, yeah, she passed away. She got colic.”“Well, who knows she’s dead?” Simon quickly asked.Although nobody outside the trainer’s immediate family and friends was aware the filly had died, Simon promised the man VIP treatment at Yonkers and convinced the guy to let him enter the horse at Yonkers.At the draw, the judge overseeing the process was informed the filly was scratched. “Reason?” the judge asked.“The horse is deceased,” Simon said.Tired of office work, Simon wanted to return to the backside. During a visit to Belmont, he saw Pletcher working for D. Wayne Lukas. The former classmates chatted, and within a short time Simon had joined Team Lukas.“I learned about the power of organization,” Simon said of his six months with Wayne and Jeff Lukas. “If things are organized, you can cover up a lot of the weaknesses or holes in the structure.”Simon left Lukas to work for Pete Ferriola, who was among New York’s leading trainers.“I learned a lot from Pete,” Simon said. “I learned you don’t have to train horses hard to still do well.”After that, Simon assisted Tom Skiffington.“Kind of like Christophe Clement—mostly turf, mostly Europeans,” Simon said. “I learned a lot from Tom Skiffington on being a horseman. He was an excellent horseman. He was as good a horseman as I ever saw.“What I was trying to do was get as many unique, different angles of how to do it. Lukas was a very regimented three-year-old picture. Ferriola was all claimers, all the time. Skiffington was all turf.”Although given a lot of responsibility by Skiffington, Simon moved on to work for Nick Zito for about three months.“I would have stayed with Zito,” Simon says, “but a job opened up with Jerkens, and jobs never opened up with Jerkens.”No. 4 on Zito’s staff, Simon would become the No. 2 man for Allen Jerkens behind Allen’s son Jimmy.“Nick told me, ‘Hey, it’s the chief. You gotta do what you gotta do,’” Simon said.Simon went to see Jerkens, who asked, “You work for all those fancy guys. Why do you want to work for me for?”“I said, ‘I don’t want to be a movie star; I want to be a horse trainer,’” Simon said. “He liked that.”Simon spent nearly six years working for Hall of Famer Jerkens.“He was totally different than anybody I’d ever worked for,” Simon said. “He would do things you’d never even considered, and it would make you feel stupid sometimes.“It’s funny because you look at his barn, and he never really cared about making it fancy. But people didn’t understand how much of a perfectionist he was with the horses. He had a way of looking at horses from an angle you just never considered or thought about.”Jerkens encouraged Simon to accept an opportunity to train for owner Ken Ramsey, who at the time was seeking to grow his stable.“My dad respected Chuck a lot. He’s a student of the game,” Jimmy Jerkens said. “Chuck is a handicapper at heart, and he made Dad see the importance in numbers. And he was very loyal to my dad.”Upon accepting the job as private trainer for Ramsey, Simon was told he would be needed to begin immediately. There was one problem: He didn’t have a license to train.“You were supposed to take a trainer’s test out of Kentucky, but they only gave it once a month and they had just done it,” said Simon, who explained his predicament to Dave Hicks, then steward of the New York Racing Association.Hicks asked Simon how long he had worked for Jerkens. When Simon said six years, Hicks replied, “Son, that’s test enough for me. Bring me workers’ compensation, and if three trainers sign for you, I’ll give you a license.”The three trainers: Allen Jerkens, Bill Mott and Shug McGaughey.“I was thinking, if those guys aren’t good enough...” Simon said with a laugh.Simon’s three years working for Ramsey got increasingly frustrating as some of the owners’ best horses went elsewhere.“We did really well for him, but he kind of got starstruck and wanted to send horses to this guy and that guy,” Simon said. “It kind of put us in a bit of a jam because we were getting all the bad horses.”It was while with Ramsey, Simon flew to Canada to watch one of his horses run at Woodbine.“I was in a rush to leave, and I forgot my passport,” Simon said. “The guy interviewing me at Customs asked me what I did, and I said I trained horses. The guy’s eyes lit up. ‘Standardbred or Thoroughbred?’ Turns out, he was a racing fan. He let me go through.”After a falling out with Ramsey over a horse named Nothing to Lose—Ramsey wanted the colt aimed toward the Kentucky Derby, but Simon believed he was a better turf horse—Simon went out on his own.He compiled a 359-360-332 mark in 2,679 career starts that earned more than $11 million.Simon’s most successful horse was Battle Won, a gelded son of Honour and Glory out of Call Her (Caller I.D.). The dark bay won the 2005 Churchill Downs Handicap (Gr2).“I thought Chuck was an excellent trainer,” Battle Won owner Jay Manoogian said. “As an owner, I felt he kept us well-informed of everything going on with the horse. I couldn’t ask for anything better. Sometimes you get trainers who aren’t very informative. He was very informative.”Simon said the most talented horse was Kentucky-bred Strength and Honor, a bay son of Carson City. The gelding went 9-1-4 in 22 career starts but won three straight races on two separate occasions.“He ran a 115 Beyer at Keeneland one day,” Simon recalled. “He couldn’t breathe a little bit. He had a bad hock, two knee surgeries. I could get three or four races a year out of him because he had so many issues.“If not for all the issues, he could have been a Breeders’ Cup winner—he was that talented.”Simon’s stable once included a filly prone to bleeding that had been racing in Europe and was owned by a German government official. The connections wanted the trainer to prep the filly for an upcoming sale.“The guy called me once, and he was on an encrypted phone; everything was on delay,” Simon said.The owner was not licensed in the U.S., so Simon attempted to submit the needed paperwork on the German’s behalf.“They said they needed his fingerprints, so he should go to the local police station,” Simon said. “I said, ‘He’s in Beijing, China! He’s a German diplomat! There’s no police involved!”A New York official told Simon the filly couldn’t run. The trainer went off.“The Queen of England ran a horse the other day for Christophe Clement, and you’re saying this horse can’t run? Well this guy is a German James bleepin’ Bond! We can’t get his fingerprints!”Simon ended up getting a temporary license for the owner to race the filly in New Jersey.During his years as a trainer, Simon helped tutor people who aspired to have their own stables.“Chuck saw that desire I had, wanting to be a trainer someday, and yet he made me start at the very bottom and work my way up the right way; and that I really respected,” said trainer Phil D'Amato, who worked for Simon for four years.“Looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. From a hot walker, to a groom, to a foreman, assistant—I went up the ladder with Chuck. He’s an excellent horseman and excellent teacher as well.”Simon’s last assistant, Sue Ditter, went on her own upon his retirement. She still leans on him for insight.“My favorite response of Chuck’s is, ‘I’m not the trainer anymore—that’s your job,’” Ditter said. “Which basically means that whatever idea I threw at him was pretty much OK.”Simon also takes pride in having had an eye for horses, such as Divine Park, sire of multiple-graded stakes winner Lady Eli.“I bought him for myself and a client for $20,000,” Simon said. “He went on to win the [Gr1] Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont.”Following a year with the GHPA, Simon was considering his career options. He hadn’t ruled out one day returning to training.“I miss the horses—seeing one doing well, figuring out what they want, what they need. Seeing them start to thrive,” he said. “But I was kind of burnt out. When you have slow horses, it’s deflating when there’s really not much you can do and you know that.”](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/517636f8e4b0cb4f8c8697ba/1596718375676-C0Q51BJUFF98MKKNPRAZ/ChuckSimon3.jpg)
By Charlie McCarthy
If Chuck Simon has a trait that equals or surpasses his concern for horses and horsemen, it’s his penchant for storytelling.
A conversation with the former longtime trainer uncovers the time, while employed as an assistant racing secretary, he used a dead Standardbred to fill a race field.
The time he got his trainer’s license without taking the required test.
The time he passed through Canadian customs minus a passport.
The time he trained a horse for a German spy.
Those are just some of the anecdotes and stories from a 20-year training career that ended in July 2019, when Simon decided to spearhead the Gulfstream Horsemen’s Purchasing Association (GHPA), a subsidiary of the Florida Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.
The GHPA focused on supplying shavings, hay and feed at more affordable rates for horsemen at both Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Fla.
The hope was for revenue to support horsemen’s programs, including much-needed lobbying. But the business struggled, and then was hurt greatly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was a new venture, and we weren’t sure it was going to take off,” said the 52-year-old Simon, who fulfilled a one-year contract. “We were in uncharted waters.
“I’m happy that I did it. I experienced something new. It was a start-up company, with bumps along the way.”
This past summer, Simon began hosting a podcast named Around in Circles. While other horse racing podcasts mainly stress the game’s betting aspect, Simon and guests discuss news and issues affecting the industry.
Never hesitant to express himself, Simon has many opinions on the current state and future of a sport he was introduced to as a boy in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
“When I was about seven or eight years old, my dad started bringing me to the Thoroughbred and harness tracks,” he said. “It was kind of the adult world, and I had access to it.
“When you’re growing up in Saratoga, you don’t realize that everyone does not have what you have. Not every place has a racetrack right in the backyard. Not every kid has access to Affirmed and Alydar.”
After graduating from high school, Simon played basketball for two years at a junior college in the Albany, N.Y. area. Then, Chuck’s father showed him a brochure for a racetrack industry program at the University of Arizona.
“It showed sunny pictures, girls and horses,” Simon recalled, “I said, ‘Damn, I’m going there!”
Simon arrived in Arizona, holding an advantage over many of his fellow students because he had the experience of having worked at both Saratoga-area tracks. In fact, he had dreamed of becoming a groom before his parents demanded he get a college education.
“A lot of the classes at Arizona were easy because I already knew everything,” said Simon, whose classmates included Todd Pletcher. “But going there helped get me connected to people outside of my New York bubble.”
While at Arizona, Simon heard from a friend, who offered a summer internship at Yonkers Raceway in N.Y. He not only took it, but within two weeks became assistant racing secretary at the age of 20.
Simon went to work full-time at Yonkers upon graduation. His duties included getting horses to fill cards for six and seven days of racing.
On one occasion, Simon was desperate to fill the field for a certain race. He even asked superiors if they could run a short field or if the card could be reduced. Neither option was granted.
“So, I find a horse that qualified three weeks earlier at Monticello and that fit the class but didn’t race again,” said Simon, who found the trainer’s phone number and called. “The guy says, ‘You sure you’re looking for me?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you had a horse that qualified three weeks ago. Have you raced that horse back? I have a race here that fits.’”
Seconds of silence followed before the man on the end said, “The filly, yeah, she passed away. She got colic.”
“Well, who knows she’s dead?” Simon quickly asked.
Although nobody outside the trainer’s immediate family and friends was aware the filly had died, Simon promised the man VIP treatment at Yonkers and convinced the guy to let him enter the horse at Yonkers.
At the draw, the judge overseeing the process was informed the filly was scratched. “Reason?” the judge asked.
“The horse is deceased,” Simon said.
Tired of office work, Simon wanted to return to the backside. During a visit to Belmont, he saw Pletcher working for D. Wayne Lukas. The former classmates chatted, and within a short time Simon had joined Team Lukas.
“I learned about the power of organization,” Simon said of his six months with Wayne and Jeff Lukas. “If things are organized, you can cover up a lot of the weaknesses or holes in the structure.”
Simon left Lukas to work for Pete Ferriola, who was among New York’s leading trainers.
“I learned a lot from Pete,” Simon said. “I learned you don’t have to train horses hard to still do well.”
After that, Simon assisted Tom Skiffington.
“Kind of like Christophe Clement—mostly turf, mostly Europeans,” Simon said. “I learned a lot from Tom Skiffington on being a horseman. He was an excellent horseman. He was as good a horseman as I ever saw.
“What I was trying to do was get as many unique, different angles of how to do it. Lukas was a very regimented three-year-old picture. Ferriola was all claimers, all the time. Skiffington was all turf.”
Although given a lot of responsibility by Skiffington, Simon moved on to work for Nick Zito for about three months.
“I would have stayed with Zito,” Simon says, “but a job opened up with Jerkens, and jobs never opened up with Jerkens.”
No. 4 on Zito’s staff, Simon would become the No. 2 man for Allen Jerkens behind Allen’s son Jimmy.
“Nick told me, ‘Hey, it’s the chief. You gotta do what you gotta do,’” Simon said.
Simon went to see Jerkens, who asked, “You work for all those fancy guys. Why do you want to work for me for?”
“I said, ‘I don’t want to be a movie star; I want to be a horse trainer,’” Simon said. “He liked that.”
Simon spent nearly six years working for Hall of Famer Jerkens.
“He was totally different than anybody I’d ever worked for,” Simon said. “He would do things you’d never even considered, and it would make you feel stupid sometimes. …
