Horse Racing Australia

May 18, 2012|By Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun

Maryland trainer Chris Grove knows all too well that racehorses sometimes take fatal missteps. It happened to one of his best horses last summer during a morning workout, and Grove likens the experience to losing a child.

To Grove, the animals’ broken bones are mostly unpredictable, unexplainable — and ultimately unpreventable.

“They’re kind of like kids — they find ways of hurting themselves,” said Grove, a Frederick resident and former trainer of Sweet Goodbye, a six-year old, Maryland-bred mare with career earnings topping $600,000. The horse shattered an ankle and was euthanized. “That was just bad luck,” Grove said.

As Saturday’s Preakness approaches, trainers such as Grove find themselves part of a national debate over industry practices regarding horses’ health and safety. Trainers were placed on the defensive by recent media reports and congressional testimony examining racehorse deaths and questioning whether the prevalence of drugs administered to the animals contributes to breakdowns.

Interviews with Grove and some of his Maryland peers expose deep-rooted philosophical differences between many trainers on one side, and critics — including lawmakers and some industry officials and veterinarians — on the other.

“The easy thing to say is (to blame) the drugs,” said Grove, who had a Preakness entry last year in Norman Asbjornson and has another on Saturday in Pretension. “I think it’s too easy of an excuse.”

While some trainers have reputations for being “clean,” reform advocates say many others are often too entrenched in their industry — and have too much invested in their horses’ performances — to appreciate the harm being done by corticosteroids and other drugs they say are routinely overused.

Veterinarian Kathy Papp likens the current environment to the former steroids era in Major League Baseball when drug use was so rampant that — according to congressional testimony and public reports — some players felt they needed to use to keep pace. Baseball didn’t begin year-round testing until 2007.

Most horse-racing drug tests are done immediately surrounding races, and Papp said racing — which is overseen by 38 state commissions with varying rules — could benefit by comprehensive, out-of-competition testing and improved security measures such as cameras in barns.

“Nobody is doing it because no one has the funding,” said Papp, who is based at Penn National racecourse in Grantville, Pa.

“Some of the trainers really try to do a good job, but then they find out they can’t compete unless they do what everybody else is doing,” she said. “I have little trainers complaining to me all the time about how the big trainers must be doing something illicit.”

The industry debate over horse deaths was intensified by a recent New York Times report that, on average, 24 horses die each week on American tracks. The newspaper said bigger purses encouraged trainers to enter unfit horses and contributed to the deaths of 30 horses at Aqueduct Racetrack. It said most of the top 20 American trainers ranked by purses won — including Doug O’Neill, who trains Kentucky Derby winnerI’ll Have Another — have been sanctioned during their careers for medication rules violations involving horses.

There is also continuing debate about whether 3-year-olds are mature enough to handle Triple Crown races such as the Preakness, and whether a national governing body is needed to ensure that race-day rules are standardized across all states.

O’Neill has denied that he had practiced “milkshaking,” slang for giving horses a concoction of baking soda and other ingredients intended to combat horses’ fatigue. He faces up to a 180-day suspension in California for having a horse test positive for an elevated level of total carbon dioxide — possibly a result of milkshaking — for a third time in the state. He’s also been suspended and fined for the same offense in Illinois.

“Swear to God I’ve never done it,” O’Neill said earlier this week outside of Barn D at Pimlico. “Who would even do that to a horse? There’s nobody we have who would do that sort of thing, and we care for every one of our horses the best way we know how. That includes monitoring everything that goes into them.”

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, has used the term “chemical warfare” to describe what he considers unscrupulous doping of horses. He and other lawmakers worry that painkillers and other drugs can mask horses’ pain that would otherwise signal impending harm on the track. Udall is a co-sponsor of pending legislation that would bar the use of any drugs — not just steroids — in a horse’s system that could affect race-day performance.

A number of states, including Maryland, have banned steroids in racing in the past five years. The drugs were not regulated by Maryland as recently as 2008.

The grinding duel as thousands of shouting fans rushed to the rails at Pimlico Race Course was a party of only two, as the next closest horse was nearly nine lengths behind the battling pair.

The victory in the race with a $1 million purse was a repeat performance of his Kentucky Derby victory win two weeks ago. I’ll Have Another — bought, trained and sold by exercise rider Victor Davila at Eisaman Equine in Marion County — ran down Bodemeister at Churchill Downs, leaving him in second. Bodemeister was broken and trained by J.B. McKathan in Ocala.

Third was Creative Cause, trained and sold by Becky Thomas, owner of Sequel Bloodstock in Orange Lake.

The winning time for the field of 11 horses was 1:55.94 minutes. Eight of the horses had Marion County connections.

I’ll Have Another’s win also breathes life again into hopes of a Triple Crown possibility, resurrecting a feat that hasn’t been repeated since 1978 when Affirmed went on to win the Belmont Stakes in New York after winning the Derby and Preakness.

Davila said he had no doubts in his horse despite Bodemeister’s early lead out of the starting gate.

“I knew the horse would win again. When I saw him coming into the stretch, I knew no one was going to stop him,” Davila said from the racetrack Saturday evening. “I know that Bodemeister is a good horse, but I’ll Have Another is better.”

Davila, 34, bought I’ll Have Another for $11,000 at the 2010 Keeneland yearling sale and sold him the following year at the two-year-olds in training sale at Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company for $35,000 to his current owner, J. Paul Reddam. Davila broke and trained the colt by Flower Alley at Eisaman Equine, where he works for Barry and Shari Eisaman. They assisted him in the latter stages of training and his sale.

Critics of I’ll Have Another said the colt had too easy of a Kentucky Derby trip amid 19 other horses, with no traffic problems, bumping or pinning when he won that 1

The exercise rider from Sparr was back in the saddle at Pimlico Race Course, one of eight former female jockeys who came out of retirement to compete in the annual race to bring awareness to the fight against breast cancer and raise money for research. Pimlico Race Course and the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organized the race, which was first held in 2010.

“I went after (jockey Jennifer Small in the lead) and I thought I was going to get there but then (Bellagio) just settled into that spot and wouldn’t go anymore,” Tortora said. “I was closing at some point, but I ran out of time.”

Class Rules with Small aboard took the lead early out of the five post and held it wire to wire in the six-furlong race, winning the Lady Legends by 2

(CBS News) In the stands of Belmont Park Wednesday, Sean and Angelika Kerr were nervous.

Their four-year-old filly was about to run her first race.

The expectations for the rookie were admittedly low – in so many ways, her name, “Notinrwildestdremz,” pronounced: not in our wildest dreams, said it all.

“I don’t know if you remember the news, where some of these horses looked like Holocaust victims,” recounts Sean.

In the spring of 2009, police and a local humane society raided an upstate New York breeding farm, where they found deplorable conditions: 177 horses close to starving, their bodies ravaged.

The animals were confiscated and put up for adoption.

Among them, two young fillies and a gelding – each of them severely underweight and in desperate need of care.

“So we drove up,” recalled Angelika, managing partner of the 5R Race Horse Stable, “looked at them, and the decision was to be made which one we take. … So, we said, ‘Let’s take all three of them.”‘

With that, Captain Crime Scene, Driving Miss Dixie, and Notinrwildestdremz suddenly belonged to the Kerrs.

With three recovering horses now in their care, the couple knew they’d need a little help.

They created 5R Stables, and sold shares to finance their new mission.

What are the five Rs?

“They stand for rescue, rehabilitation, racing, re-training and retirement,” says Angelika.

More than 100 people have a share in 5R, whose goal it was to rehabilitate the three horses.

For two of the horses, the focus was on rehab – physical conditions as a result of their time at that breeding farm in upstate New York meant they’d never train as racehorses.

But Dremz – that’s her nickname – stood out.

“She came out of the barn with this confidence. I went, ‘Oh my God, she’s a racehorse!”‘

Through careful nurturing and rehabilitation, Dremz’s potential began to emerge, and the Kerrs went looking for a trainer.

They found Billy Turner, who has a rich pedigree of his own. Turner trained 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. And though nobody imagines that kind of success for Dremz, Turner agrees there’s something special about this horse.

“I must admit,” he says, “I’ve been amazed at the progress that she’s made.”

Two weeks ago, on the muddy main track at Belmont, Dremz impressed during a training run. The Kerrs and Turner knew she was ready to compete.

Which brings us back to the nervous couple up in the stands and Wednesday’s sixth race.

In the end, Dremz did not win. In fact, she finished dead last.

But that’s OK, because the race itself was a victory. She’d already beaten the odds.

As Sean and Angelica hugged, he said, “She did it. She did it!”

To see Erica Hill’s report, click on the video in the player above.

Recent media exposure on the “issues” in the sport of racing have caused a ripple effect, both in the executive offices and the backstretches of tracks across America.

While no particular faction wants to publicly hold another accountable as to sport’s declining popularity or the enmity toward it, there is overwhelming evidence the sport is as divided as ever and showing no signs of coming to any sort of mutual agreement to help save it from itself.

Regardless who’s to blame — and in spite of the fact the fixes are clear — the fans are who will ultimately decide the fate of the sport of kings.

Last weekend’s running of the Kentucky Derby, a showcase event with racetracks across America featuring the race going out of their way to promote the day.

And throughout the land, people responded in droves.

A look at the official attendance numbers for several racetracks that offered live wagering on the Derby card indicates it’s still the most important raceday on the calendar.

Belmont Park, home of the third jewel of racing’s Triple Crown, had over 9,000 people on the grounds for their live card, which included the running of the Kentucky Derby.

Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif., the home of trainer Doug O’Neill, who saddled Derby winner I’ll Have Another, had over 10,000 people on track for their live race day.

Those are all excellent figures, and the tracks that did promotions for those racedays likely did well.

The drop-off though, is what I was fascinated to see.

The following day’s attendance figures, according to Daily Racing Form, at those tracks were off sharply just 24 hours removed from Derby day.

Belmont Park, down 50 percent. Hollywood Park, down 63 percent. SunRay Park, down 75 percent.

A drop-off between the biggest day on the sport calendar and the next day is not surprising. It’s not particularly alarming either.

Except for one thing which continues to baffle me.

It happens all the time, and no one seems to want to do anything about it.

The problem from this perspective, is that management of these racetracks, by and large, don’t do a better job of promoting and marketing the sport on a daily basis, instead putting all of their eggs into one or two small baskets and expecting people to come back wanting for more.

People have short attention spans. We live in a culture that gets the majority of its news from video clips, scrolls on the bottom of their televisions and 30 second sound bites.

Racing is a cerebral game, it’s a sport that is played out over the span of hours on a day-to-day basis, and it’s currently being played and presented to an audience that doesn’t understand that way of doing business anymore.

The fans deserve better treatment than a few days each year in which they’re given a potpourri of rich races and shiny television productions, only to then be cast aside because the rest of the racing calendar just doesn’t cut it.

The racing fan sees that, and as a result, they are not coming back.

The fans aren’t getting it from the tracks that put on the races, and they’re not getting it from the people who are paid to make you want to come back to the track again.

The other side of this coin is the work being done in the barn areas. The trainers, the veterinarians, the farriers, the jockeys, the assortment of horsemen who live under a shroud of secrecy.

Think about it: If your general impression of the racetrack was that it was filled with shady characters who cared little about the athletes at the center of the sport, you’d walk away from that sport about as fast as people walk away from a grisly crime scene.

And who is to blame for that? Certainly not the fans, and certainly not the mass media that tried to present racing in a variety of fashions, whether it be movies, television, books or newspaper articles.

Racing, as an entity, needs to take care of itself. The people put in charge of the sport are the ones responsible.

As such, the sport has been presented with a golden opportunity to do just that.

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has created a fan-based site, called America’s Best Racing, focusing on the sport’s highlights.

There appears to be a groundswell of support to establish national, uniform medication rules that would change the general impression of the novice fan, or most importantly, the non-racing fan who believes the sport is infested with a gaggle of equine pharmacists looking for an edge, regardless of what it does to the horse or the sport itself.

The tracks need to do more to promote the sport -— not just the athletes, the participants of the sport — but the people who come to the track, whether it be to spend a day at the races wagering and handicapping on their own, or that same family, with mom and dad teaching their kid about animals, about being near some of the most intriguing athletes we have in any sport.

My father did that for me with baseball, with tennis and with boxing. It’s the same principle.

There are efforts underway to do just that here at SunRay. The American Quarter Horse Association, Equibase and different racing and equine organizations are coming together here to hopefully bring out a new fan base. This is one small step, but it is a necessary one, and one that hopefully will lead to more forward progress on all sides, be it the executive level or the trainer working on the backstretch.

Believe me, I’m a fanatic for this sport. I have invested the better part of 30 years of my life in promoting, publicizing, marketing and introducing people to this sport.

I’m not saying I have all the answers, and I’m not callous or disingenuous enough to believe that efforts made at this point by anyone can return the sport to its glory days.

I will say this though, I’m tired of this sport being maligned the way it’s been in recent months. I care too much about it to see it degraded and downsized.

And I’m upset enough about it that I’ll fight for it.

There needs to be a lot more of that spirit than what I’ve seen lately.

It seems fitting that Peter Fuller made his mark in horse racing and boxing, two sporting opposites.

One is The Sport of Kings. The other The Sport of Paupers. Opposites attracted Peter Fuller, a guy who loved to walk on both sides of the street but believed in playing it straight down the middle.

Fuller, who passed away Monday after giving cancer the kind of tough fight he once gave anyone unwise enough to slip into the ring with him, was the son of a Republican governor of Massachusetts who lived life as a Democrat. He grew up with servants and a patrician’s lifestyle, educated at Milton Academy, Dartmouth College and Harvard. But he was also educated in the Marines, as a New England AAU and Golden Gloves heavyweight champion and by managing both his family’s massive car dealership and a local fighter named Tom McNeeley, whom he took all the way to a shot at the heavyweight title.

“They don’t make them like Peter Fuller anymore” is an expression you hear at a time like this, when a good man has passed from this world to the next. This time it’s true. They don’t make them like Peter Fuller anymore. They really don’t, and the world is a lesser place because of it.

His father’s Packard dealership was in 1920 called “the world’s most successful auto dealership,” making him one of the wealthiest men in America and someone who would serve in Congress and two terms as governor of Massachusetts. Those were jobs for which he refused compensation because he’d chosen to serve.

That is a sizable legacy to live up to, but Alvan Fuller’s son more than did so in business, sports and the larger arenas of philanthropy and human kindness. The latter was something Fuller had in abundance, a rare breed of cat comfortable among the most powerful people in the country or the lowliest denizen of the backstretch or the boxing gym. He was probably more comfortable with the latter because Fuller said many times one thing he loved about sports was that you were measured only by what you accomplished, not by who sired you or how big a lead life gave you out of the starting blocks.

Yet his greatest sporting moment became one of his saddest when in 1968 his belief in the fairness of athletic competition was shattered after his horse, Dancer’s Image, came from 14 lengths back to win the Kentucky Derby by a length and a half. From that victory would flow his biggest defeat.

Several weeks before the race, Dancer’s Image won the Governor’s Gold Cup at Bowie Race Course in Maryland three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Long an advocate of civil rights, Fuller handed over the purse to King’s widow, Coretta, setting off a firestorm.

Fuller received death threats. One of his stables in New Hampshire was set ablaze. Worst of all, he and many backstretch guys in the know at the time felt his Derby victory was stolen by powerful forces in Kentucky upset with his political stance and enlightened racial convictions.

Soon after the race a chemist claimed Dancer’s Image had tested positive for phenylbutazone in his urine. This was a common medication legal at most tracks but not Churchill Downs. Immediately the victory was awarded to Calumet Farm’s Forward Pass, the only time a Derby winner has ever been disqualified and a departure from the usual way such things were handled.

Being a fighter by trade and inclination, Fuller battled them to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which four years later upheld the ruling. In defiance, a massive sign long stood in a pasture at Runnymede Farm, Fuller’s horse stable in North Hampton, N.H. It shouted: “Home of Dancer’s Image. Winner of the 1968 Kentucky Derby.”

Even late in life, Fuller could not speak of that great disappointment without his voice catching, a tear clouding his eyes. Sport was supposed to be the one arena where the game wasn’t rigged.

Fuller got a measure of revenge in 1985 when his filly Mom’s Command won the Filly Triple Crown with his daughter Abby in the saddle. Fuller had been criticized about that choice, wise horsemen urging him to replace her with a veteran jockey. In the end she would ride nearly 600 winners at Suffolk Downs and tracks in New York and Florida, including this year at Gulfstream, where she got back in the saddle at age 52 to direct Rule Number Six to a win in January. Peter’s tears that day were tears of joy.

“I was always hoping there would be one of those Hollywood endings where it would be proven the Kentucky authorities jobbed him,” said Richard Johnson, curator of the Sports Museum of New England, one of many entities aided by Fuller’s kindness. “I hoped Peter would be brought back to Churchill Downs and given his trophy.

“Peter realized sport is the one great arena of life where you achieve on your merits. He embraced that with vitality and zest. He was the son of a man who was a towering figure but he succeeded on his own. He was never a prisoner of privilege.”

Peter Fuller was the opposite of that. He was someone it was a privilege to know.

Think of a miniature Mike Mussina — with a whip.

Just as Mussina left the Orioles for the Yankees, scores of talented jockeys have left Maryland, including four future Hall of Famers. Chris McCarron and Kent Desormeaux sought the riches and sunshine of year-round riding found at California’s Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar. Edgar Prado and Ramon Dominguez went after the bright lights and big-name trainers at New York’s Belmont Park, Aqueduct and Saratoga.

Desormeaux, Prado and Dominguez will return this week to Pimlico. Desormeaux will look to add to his total of six Triple Crown victories when he rides locally bred Tiger Walk in the 137th Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Though neither has a mount in the Preakness, Prado and Dominguez will also be back at the aging race track on Park Heights Avenue that was once their proving ground.

Other states have served as feeders for the New York and California racing colonies, but few have spawned as many top-notch riders as Maryland.

“There must be something in the water,” Prado joked.

They leave for the same reasons — money, opportunity and the chance to ride in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont.

“I was at a point where I wanted to compete at a higher level,” said Prado, now 45 and more than a decade removed from his years as one of Maryland’s most successful and popular jockeys. “I had a lot of opportunities before, in California and New York, and I thought it was time to take a chance.”

It was not so much that Prado had outgrown the competition in Maryland, but he said he needed more of it on a regular basis. With a Maryland racing season that was quickly shrinking — its current 146-day season is nearly 100 days fewer than it was in 1992, less than half of what it is in New York and nearly 200 days fewer than what California schedules each year — Prado knew he had to head to the Big Apple.

It was the summer of 1999 and Prado, who like McCarron had come to Maryland from Massachusetts, went first to Saratoga Springs and then to Belmont. Aside from spending the winter season in South Florida, racing at Calder and Gulfstream, he has remained on the New York circuit ever since.

Looking back, Prado said that he almost stayed in Maryland too long.

“I probably should have left in 1995 or 1996,” Prado said. “But I was very happy in Maryland. My family was happy. I was doing well. I was winning something like 300 races a year. I knew I could ride anywhere, but if trainers wanted someone for a big race, they wanted a New York rider or a California rider. They would take the fifth-place guy there than the first-place guy in Maryland.”

Asked if he would have had the same kind of career — including two victories in the Belmont Stakes and a historic Kentucky Derby win aboard Barbaro in 2006 — had he remained in Maryland, Prado said, “No way. I never would have been given a chance to ride those horses. It’s all about winning, but winning in New York or California is bigger” than winning in Maryland.

Among the most respected jockeys of his generation, Mario Pino is one of the few to have stayed put by focusing his career in Maryland.

Pino, now 50 and closing in on the top 10 in wins all-time, said that he “got the itch” around the time he left to race in his native Delaware in 2007 and then spent a winter in New York in 2009. The connections he made in Delaware led to Pino fulfilling a longtime dream of riding in the Kentucky Derby in 2007, where he finished second on Hard Spun.

“It all seemed to work [in Maryland],” said Pino, whose wife Christina was from Maryland. “I could be home in 15 minutes. I got a little taste of what it’s like in New York. It’s a tough grind. People have different reasons to go in this direction or that direction. I got to ride some pretty good horses in New York. I got to ride in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. I think I’ve had the best of both worlds.”

Jockey agent Steve Rushing, who brought Dominguez from Massachusetts to Maryland after Prado left for New York, said that places like Pimlico and Laurel are a “great launching pad” but eventually the smaller purses and shorter racing seasons in Maryland prove to overshadow what Prado calls a more “relaxed” lifestyle.

“Once they have success in Maryland, it’s only natural for them to go where there’s more opportunity,” Rushing said.

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Grand Junction, CO (KKCO) Imagine people from all across the country showing up for competitive horse racing, right here in the Grand Valley. That’s the dream of some local horse professionals. Unfortunately, it’s a goal that’s been stalled for over two decades.

The Grand Valley hasn’t had full-scale horse racing since the late 80′s. Enthusiasts say it could benefit our local economy, and hope that others will jump on board to make this dream come true.

“It’s important to all of us, it’s our dream,” says Jennie Mitchell, a local horse rider. Riding horses is Mitchell’s passion. “It’s what we live for every day; we get out here every morning, we work hard, and sometimes we get hurt, and sometimes it’s dangerous; but it’s what we love,” says Mitchell.

Experts say the Grand Valley is ideal for training horses, but something is missing. “It’s difficult to break into, because there isn’t a lot of people in town who race horses anymore,” explains Mitchell. House Bill 1280 would bring a racetrack to Mesa County, but the bill is stalled because it lacks the support it needs to pass.

“You run a race meet here and bring in 1,500 head of horses for 3 months,” says Mark Schultz, owner of Schultz Racing Stables. Schultz says a racetrack would be a huge revenue booster. “Feed, grain, hay, sawdust, vet bills, and lodging and entertainment,” says Schultz, naming just a few examples, among many others.

According to a 2005 study by the Colorado Horse Association, horse racing has a 1.6 billion dollar impact in Colorado. “Western Colorado is unique in that if you run a fall meet, we’ve got a monopoly on the west, there’s no other race meets going on,” says Schultz. However, there is opposition. “Our big opponents are the big casinos in the mountains, they are the ones that are going against this,” says Schultz.

“We’d like to get a little gaming in here, to make it worthwhile for the horsemen,” says Tom Lichlyter, a local horse owner and trainer. Lichlyter is forced to travel to New Mexico for more money. “They’re not a machine, they’re an animal, and we have to treat them like an athlete animal,” says Lichlyter as he stops to chat with me for a moment, holding a horse’s reins in one hand before taking it out to train.

History has shown horses have a deeper meaning. “These horses inspire millions of people across the United States; and it’s phenomenal what a horse like Secretariat or Zenyatta can do; they bring the heart back into the sport,” says Mitchell.

Horse racing professionals ask that you contact your local Congressman to help make this happen. They believe there is a big enough interest to bring a track here, but need your help. The Colorado Horse-Racing Association says Diane Schwenke, Executive Director of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce, has supported previous efforts to bring a race track to the Grand Valley.

For more information on the Colorado Horse-Racing Association, visit chanews.org. Please review the attached fact sheet for more information on the horse racing industry.

Published: Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 10:13 a.m. Last Modified: Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 10:13 a.m.

BALTIMORE, Md. – Villanueva, Mexico, is 2,104 miles from the Pimlico Race Course here, but for Victor Davila – having grown up in the Mexican city known for its agriculture, colonial architecture and violent drug wars – this city might as well be on the other side of the moon.

Davila was 15 when he came to Ocala 19 years ago. One of seven children, he followed his parents who had left their small farm for a better life in Florida five years earlier.

When he arrived in horse country, Davila had never ridden a horse or watched a live race. He spoke almost no English.

He learned. And in 2010, he would go on to see the potential talent of a horse most other horsemen had missed, buying I’ll Have Another for $11,000. The horse would go on to win the Santa Anita Derby in April and, on May 5, the Kentucky Derby.

On Saturday, he will race in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico.

Davila, now an exercise rider for Eisaman Equine in Williston, sold the horse in 2011 for $35,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. after breaking and training him at his bosses’ farm.

The 34-year-old Davila has no regrets about selling for that price.

“It’s OK. It’s part of it.” he said, saddling one of Eisaman’s two-year-olds in training at the Fasig-Tipton Sale outside Baltimore this week, getting the horse ready for sale.

Davila acknowledges the horse he pinhooked a year ago did better than he expected.

“I thought he could be a stakes horse, but not in the place he is right now,” Davila said in broken English with a heavy Spanish accent. “He surprised me when he went to the Kentucky Derby.”

Shari Eisaman said what makes Davila successful is a strong work ethic, a desire to learn the horse industry and a savvy business sense.

His father, who began selling tacos from the back of a truck to Ocala-area farm hands, asked his son if he wanted to attend school or get a job when he arrived at 15.

“No, I came to work,” Davila recalled telling his father.

He never looked back to the border after arriving in Ocala.

“You don’t have opportunities in Mexico. There was nothing for me to do there,” he said. “Everybody in Mexico wants to come to America.”

His first job was work as a groom, but he saw the limits of the job. When his brothers, who were exercise riders, offered to teach him to ride, he jumped at the offer.

Davila began riding for Barry and Shari Eisaman more than 10 years ago.

“If you’re a good rider you can always find a job. People will always want you to work for them,” he said. “But it’s not easy. It’s hard this job.”

As much as he liked being an exercise rider, Davila said he was looking for other opportunities to get ahead.

In 2008, at a Keeneland horse auction he bought a Stormin Fever yearling for $7,000. After breaking the colt at Eisaman Equine, he took it to the Fasig-Tipton sale along with the other Eisaman horses and sold his for $110,000.

Davila wasn’t one to gloat over his profit.

“This type of business has ups and down. But you have to play,” Davila said with a shrug.

The same year he bought I’ll Have Another, Davila bought another colt for $8,500 and sold him for $100,000. He said the sale helps make up for selling I’ll Have Another at the lower price.

He said his plan is always to buy horses for about $10,000 and sell them for what he can.

“If I don’t lose money, that’s OK. If money comes, I’m happy,” he said.

Davila and his wife will apply this year to become US citizens. They have three children. All the English he’s learned is from working on the Eisaman farm, at horse auctions and from co-workers.

None of his children have shown any interest in following his footsteps in the horse business.

“That’s OK. I don’t want them to do something they don’t want to do,” he said, smiling.

Davila’s day begins before the sun is up. By the afternoon – after working with the Eisaman horses – he tends to his own.

He hopes to start buying and selling about a dozen horses a year rather than few he does now.

Shari and Barry Eisaman give him stall space and help him bring horses to auction under their farm’s name.

Shari Eisaman said the reason she helps Davila in his fledgling business is simple.

“Because he’s never missed a day of work in 12 years,” she said from her barn at the Fasig-Tipton sale. “And we’re a family. It’s rewarding … to see him succeed. It’s like he’s my son.”

Davila still doesn’t follow racing much or the careers of the horses he breaks and trains.

But he said he has faith I’ll Have Another will win the 1 3/16 mile-long Preakness just as he won the Derby.

“When I saw him in the stretch, I knew that he would win the race,” he said.

Despite winning the Kentucky Derby, I’ll Have Another, 5-2 odds, will not be the morning-line favorite. That will be Bodemeister, at 8-5, who was also the favorite in the Derby. I’ll Have Another ran him down in the stretch, leaving him in second.

Trainer Doug O’Neal said Thursday I’ll Have Another will have to run more aggressively Saturday if he’s to beat Bodemeister again.

Davila said he’s excited about the race, but the day-to-day work of exercising the Eisaman horses and prepping them for sale takes up most of his time. He will not give up his day job anytime soon to become a pinhooker instead.

“That’s the way you feel the horse – you know what you got,” he said of being an exercise rider. “And I like to work, and I want better for my wife and kids.

“That’s why I do this.”

Reach Fred Hiers at and 352-397-5914.

“Tommy, did you guarantee on Tiger Walk?” Plank says, teasing his good friend, Mullikin. Then, he stares into a television camera with a big grin and says, “Tiger Walk will win.”

Plank is all about big stories. He bought Sagamore Farm five years ago with dreams of producing a Triple Crown winner from the same patch of northern Baltimore County that produced the great Native Dancer, winner of the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1953.

He wanted to enter his horses in the biggest races, and on Saturday, he hopes Tiger Walk will be the first horse from his Sagamore revival to start in the Preakness.

What if he could send an unheralded colt to victory in his home state’s biggest race?

“We’d be running around Pimlico with a Maryland flag draped on our shoulders on NBC,” Plank says.

First, Tiger Walk needs to qualify for the Preakness field, which is not a given. An unusual number of contenders from the Kentucky Derby are still considering runs at Pimlico Race Course, and it’s conceivable that Plank’s horse could be shut out because 14 entrants — the maximum for the Preakness — have more career earnings. But Mullikin placed the chances of entry at 80 percent late last week, with the field to be finalized on Wednesday.

Tiger Walk’s entry represents the next step in Plank’s dream for the farm. Sagamore was a faded gem when he bought it in February 2007. Paint peeled off barns; pebbles and weeds cluttered the three-quarter-mile training track; and a top thoroughbred hadn’t trod the grounds in decades.

It was a far cry from the farm’s apex under the ownership of Alfred G. Vanderbilt II, when the place functioned like a miniature city, complete with a blacksmith shop and staff dormitories. In those days, Sagamore was a capital of American racing, the home of the sport’s greatest sire, Native Dancer.

Under Plank, who says he loves fixing broken things, the 530-acre farm has regained its visual splendor. The miles and miles of white fencing and the signature red roofs gleam once more. Beautiful horses again gallop over the training track, now covered in a water-resistant synthetic substance, flecked with recycled bits of Under Armour gear. The farm’s signature emblem of three cerise red diamonds adorns everything from saddles, to hats worn by staff members to the door knobs in the farmhouse.

The racing operation is coming along as well. Sagamore filly Shared Account shocked everyone by winning a $2 million Breeder’s Cup race in 2010. Last year, home-bred gelding Monzon gave Plank his first Triple Crown start, in the Belmont Stakes. And now, Tiger Walk could run in the hometown race that Plank used to attend as a rowdy teenager.