Dates to Remember
Registration and Nomination Deadlines
September 30, 1999-California-bred
registration for foals of 1998 at $75 fee for CTBA members & $100 fee for non-CTBA
members. (October 1-December 31, 1999 $100 fee for CTBA members &
$130 fee for non-CTBA members).
TOC Seeks Prohibition of Toe Grabs
The board of directors of the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) has voted unanimously to prohibit the use of toe grabs on horses that race in this state. Their decision was based on results of a necropsy study performed by the University of California, Davis, in 1996. The study found that the odds of a fatal musculoskeletal injury were twice as high for horses who used toe grabs than for those that were shod with normal racing plates.
Toe grabs function in similar fashion to baseball cleats. They provide better traction, especially at the start of a race, as many horses have a tendency to push away from the gate and the ground breaks out from under them. Toe grabs prevent the hooves from sliding naturally, putting extra force onto bones, tendons and ligaments that may result in catastrophic injury.
Another problem with toe grabs is that they change the natural angle of the hoof. "The pastern gets extended and tilted back with toe grabs," trainer Roger Stein told The Blood-Horse. "Then, you've got a strain on the ankle and a change in conformation. Also, some horses hit their front legs with their back legs, and that causes problems."
An estimated 90 percent of the horses
currently running at California tracks are using toe grabs. According to TOC President
John Van de Kamp, they would like to install an experimental prohibition of toe grabs for
six months, from Hollywood's spring-summer meet through Oak Tree next year, to see how it
works out. Meanwhile, the TOC is recommending the rim, or queen's plate shoe, which has a
tiny elevated rim around the outside edge for traction.
"If the study is conclusive, I have no problem with eliminating them-as long as we're
all running on a level playing field," said trainer Sandy Shulman in a Blood-Horse
interview.
Tricky Creek to J. Z. Stock Farm
California horseman John Zamora has bought a majority interest in Tricky Creek and will be bringing him to stand the 2000 breeding season at J. Z. Stock Farm near Temecula, Calif.
The 13-year-old son of Clever Trick, who previously stood at Wafare Farm near Lexington, Ky., will stand the upcoming breeding season for $3,000.
Tricky Creek ranked among the nation's leading sires of two-year-olds last year and has already sent out nine stakes winners in his young career at stud. By the His Majesty mare Battle Creek Girl, he is a stakes-winning half-brother to the stakes winners Wavering Girl, Speed Dialer, Everhope and Parade Ground. During his own career on the track, Tricky Creek captured the Omaha Gold Cup, Colin Stakes, Discovery Handicap and Nassau County Handicap for a record of nine wins from 37 starts and earnings of $873,288.
Walter Greenman Undergoes Brain Surgery
Veteran trainer Walter Greenman had a tumor removed from his brain during a 1 1/2-hour operation at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla on Aug. 6. While the 59-year-old conditioner was out of the hospital and back at his Del Mar barn the following week, he may have to undergo a round of radiation to keep the tumor at bay.
"They sutured him up, took him to the intensive care unit, and I was talking to him by 8 p.m.," Greenman's son Dean told Daily Racing Form. "He could move his arms, fingers and toes. It seems that everything turned out great. He told us all to go home and get some sleep, since it had been a long day for everybody."
A former jockey, Greenman was leading trainer at Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows before permanently relocating to Southern California some years ago. His recent stakes winners include Hidden Lake, Pacificbounty, Pinfloron (Fr) and Savinio.
The Great Black Jockeys,
written by Edward Hotaling.
Published in Rocklin, Calif., by Prima Publishing Co., 1999.
380 pages, with photographs, bibliographical information and index.
Hardcover, $25.
Historians and racing enthusiasts alike should enjoy Edward Hotaling's fascinating new book, The Great Black Jockeys. Most people are oblivious to the fact that, two centuries before Jackie Robinson broke through the color barrier in professional baseball, black and white athletes competed alongside each other in what was then America's first national pastime, horse racing. They are unaware of it because the black jockeys were not only ridden out of their profession, they were written out of history as if they never existed.
Hotaling traces the story of these long-forgotten sports heroes from colonial times to the beginning of the twentieth century when black riders all but disappeared from the racing scene. Many of these riders emerged from slavery to earn riches, honor and recognition far above their station in life. In fact, one black rider, Abe Hawkins, offered to bail his former master out of debt when he heard how he had been financially ruined during the Civil War.
Charles Osgood of CBS's "Sunday Morning" praised The Great Black Jockeys as the most fascinating untold sports story in American history. Readers get to learn about the intriguing lives of these horsemen who became famous names during the nineteenth century. Isaac Murphy, one of the greatest jockeys ever, still holds the best winning percentage of anyone in the history of the sport. He was the first back-to-back winner of the Kentucky Derby and the race's first three-time winner, an accomplishment that wasn't equaled until Earl Sande captured his third Derby aboard Gallant Fox in 1930. There was Shelby "Pike" Barnes, a product of Lucky Baldwin's Rancho Santa Anita in California, who piloted Proctor Knott to a victory over the mighty Salvator in the 1888 Futurity Stakes, a contest that offered $40,000 to the winning owner. There was also Jimmy Winkfield, the last black rider to win the Kentucky Derby, who went on to an illustrious riding and training career in Europe and passed away in France in 1974.
Hotaling, an Emmy-award winning producer and writer for WRC-TV in Washington, D. C., is the foremost authority on African-American jockeys. Throughout the book, he gives his own theories about why this race of talented riders abruptly left the sport at the turn of the century-whether they had grown too big to ride at the low weights assigned to them or whether it was the growth of cities in the late nineteenth century that pushed them away from a life with horses to train for emerging sports like basketball and football. He draws excellent connections between horse racing and American history.
In all, this reviewer found The Great Black Jockeys wonderful reading from cover to cover. Especially interesting was the author's close attention to detail and his many historical anecdotes. One of these was how the concept of a dead heat in racing was born out of the era of heat racing. Races in the olden days were contested over multiple heats of two or three miles each, and the winner was the first horse who to finish first in two heats. Before the invention of photo finish cameras, placing judges would call a heat "dead" if the finish was too close to call.
The reviewer also recommends Hotaling's earlier work, They're Off! Horse Racing at Saratoga (Syracuse University Press, 1995), which is still available in print. The author grew up in the shadow of Saratoga racecourse and is no stranger to the charming little village that surrounds it. In this 368-page volume, chalk-full of historical photographs and drawings, he details the history of Saratoga Springs from days of George Washington to modern times. Both the Saratoga book and Great Black Jockeys make valuable additions to the library of any racing fan and have already proven to be valuable research guides for this reviewer.-Debra Ginsburg
Wishing Well, a California-bred champion who gained greater acclaim as the dam of Sunday Silence, died recently at the age of 24. Bred by George A. Pope and foaled at that horseman's El Peco Ranch in Madera, Calif., Wishing Well was a daughter of Understanding-Mountain Flower, by Montparnasse II.
She won 12 of 38 starts for earnings of $381,625. Her six stakes wins include the graded Gamely and Wilshire Handicaps in 1980, an achievement which also earned her the vote as California's champion older mare that year. Sunday Silence, a 1986 son of Halo, was Wishing Well's only stakes winner from six foals. He captured the Santa Anita Derby, Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Breeders' Cup Classic during his Horse of the Year campaign in 1989. Later sold to Japanese interests, Sunday Silence had been leading sire in that country every year since 1995.
Jockeys Across America Day Raises $125,000 for MacBeth Fund
Underwriters of the Don MacBeth Memorial
Jockey Fund estimate that $125,000 was raised during the 1999 edition of Jockeys Across
America Day on July 4, although final figures won't be available for another couple of
weeks.
Riders throughout North America donated a portion of their mount fees on this special day
to provide financial assistance for injured and disabled jockeys.
According to Tony DeFranco of the Don MacBeth Fund, 46 tracks participated in the event this year.Prairie Meadows racetrack in Iowa was the leading fundraiser for a second straight year. Other tracks put on their own special fundraisers to raise money for the event. There were several softball games and golf tournaments that featured jockeys and celebrities. Others staged foot races or sold T-shirts and caps. At some tracks, racing fans had an opportunity to knock jockeys and track management personnel into dunk tanks. Fred Stone also designed a specially-commissioned poster that jockeys signed and sold at some of the participating racetracks.
The Don MacBeth Fund was founded by jockey Chris McCarron, his wife Judy and actor Tim Conway in honor of the late jockey Don MacBeth who died of cancer in 1987. The fund has come to the aid of more than 900 injured or disabled riders.
10 Years Ago
Barretts Equine Ltd., a new Thoroughbred
auction company, was established at Fairplex Park in Pomona.
Gerald McMahon, former sales manager for
the CTBA and Fasig-Tipton California, was appointed president and general manager of the
new sale company.
25 Years Ago
Arizona horseman Jack Finley bought a pair of yearlings for
$9,700 each at the 1974 CTBA select yearling sale at Hollywood Park. One of these was a
Gaelic Dancer filly out of the Dumpty Humpty mare, Gemini Femme, that he later registered
as Dancing Femme. She made that purchase price look like a bargain by the time she
finished racing. Dancing Femme captured four stakes, including the grade III Ramona
Handicap at Del Mar, to compile lifetime earnings of $208,390 and be voted California's
champion older mare of 1977. Finley is still actively involved in racing and campaigned
the outstanding CTBA sale graduates and California Cup winners, Miss L Attack and Red.
50 Years Ago
The main track at Santa Anita received an
extensive facelift in preparation for its 1949-1950 meeting. The track surface was
completely rebuilt and elevated to ensure better footing and drainage in all types of
weather conditions. Gooseneck-type rails were installed and new barns were built to
accommodate an additional 200 horses. The work marked the greatest improvements to Santa
Anita Park since the plant opened in 1934.