Totally agree with Bobby Frankel. And those other names won a lot of races back then didn’t they?
The HOF seems to take a dim view of claiming trainers. That’s why it was so nice to see King Leatherbury get in. He did deserve it.
Mott and Shug, of course. Sooo good.
My mentor. He died young. And what he did with Kings Swan really took people by surprise. But honestly, if you knew his work, you just shrugged your shoulders and said, that sounds about right.
We saw it with Lexington Park. Claimed for 14,500 and beats Halo on the grass in the Oceanport and beats Preakness winner Bee Bee Bee at Pimlico.
He turned Double Edged Sword from a underachieving maiden into a monster who won the Westchester Mile in super fast time with Cordero.
Dicky crushed the claiming box for many years. But when he got the opportunity to train better horses, he shined there as well. Lite The Fuse. His first start was a non winners of two because Dicky knew the only way he losses is if a freak First timer happens to show up. He won.
And I could go on and on . What an honor it was to be his asst. trainer in 1975 .
So lucky To have been a part of all that including a part of his family when the boys were young. Man we had fun.
His sons. Tony is a really good trainer who has trained some very nice horses. We’ve talked about that. Rick did things that were incredible as well as winning the Derby and Preakness. And regardless of what “ people” say, he did NOT cheat. Sorry folks. Ricky was a taught machine. He did horses. That’s it. And there was never a place in his dads teachings that had anything to do with drugs and cheating. If ANYONE would know that it would be someone that was taught the exact same things at the exact same time. Illegal drugs, giving shots, needles in the barn , were never any part of that barn. But we’ve been through that before as well.
Chip trained on his own a little but worked for both brothers the majority of the time.
Rick is eligible to apply for his license real soon. I sure hope he gets to have his trainers license back. It’s all he has ever wanted his entire life.
Thanks as always.
All the best JBEX!