Month: November 2022

Trainer Graham Motion has been bringing horses to Del Mar from his East Coast base at Fair Hill, Maryland since 2014, making his seaside debut during the inaugural Bing Crosby meet.

He's already notched a stakes victory at the young 2022 fall meet with Bipartisanship 0n Saturday in the Kathryn Crosby Stakes and also had a near miss in Friday's Let It Ride when his 3-year-old colt Script came from the back of the pack with a furious closing kick and missed by a nose.

So nothing out of the ordinary. Motion usually makes an impact wherever his horses race and there's more where that came from.

“We sent four out (to Del Mar) on a Fed Ex this week,” Motion said, “and then Speaking Scout stayed over from the Twilight Derby (G2) (at Santa Anita). He'll run in the Hollywood Derby (G1) at the end of the meet. So we'll have half a dozen in the rotation.”

That's par for the course for the 58-year old conditioner who has been an annual participant at the Bing Crosby meet.

“It ties in real well with Keeneland just because when Keeneland is over and we get back to the East Coast there's not a lot of grass racing left,” he noted. “Often we're out there (on the West Coast) anyway for the Breeders' Cup so it works well for us and it's a great place to race.”

The bulk of Motion's stable remains at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, 350 acres set in the rolling hills of the Mid-Atlantic.

“We moved there 20 years ago,” Motion said. “We can do our own thing. We have our own facility and we can go wherever we want with our horses. We're not tied to anybody. It's a luxury to have and it also enables us to do a lot of different things with the horses, we don't have to go to the racetrack every day.”

Over the past several years, Motion has been scaling back on his operations while exploring places to race.

“We used to have two barns at Fair Hill,” Motion said. “Then two years ago we decided to consolidate a little bit and we sold one of them. I'm trying to concentrate more on quality than quantity. So we keep 70 horses at Fair Hill and then Alice (Clapham, his assistant) is usually on the road with a string, whether it be at Saratoga or Del Mar. It's even possible we might send some to Santa Anita, we haven't decided yet.”

Motion has become one of the most respected trainers on the East Coast. His involvement in racing dates back to his early years.

“My family was always involved with horses,” Motion said. “My mom was one of the first females on the backstretch in America and my dad was an auctioneer for the Tattersalls Auction Company, so racing is pretty much in my blood.”

Motion has been training horses for nearly 30 years.

“I worked for Jonathan Shepherd,” he said. “That was my introduction to racing after I left high school. I spent a season in Europe where I met my wife. Then I worked with Bernie Bond and when he retired in Maryland in 1993 I took over his license.

“I've been incredibly fortunate,” Motion continued. “Bernie got me off to a really great start and I've had some great owners.”

And some great horses. Motion trained Animal Kingdom, winner of the 2011 Kentucky Derby (G1) and the 2013 Dubai World Cup (G1). There was Better Talk Now, winner of the 2004 Breeders' Cup Turf (G1); Main Sequence, champion grass horse and champion older horse of 2014; and most recently 2019 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) winner Sharing. There is also multiple graded stakes winner Mean Mary and Spendarella, his star 3-year-old filly who hasn't started since winning the Del Mar Oaks (G1) Aug. 20.

“We'll probably get her back under tack by Christmas time,” Motion said, “and then hope for a spring campaign with her.”

In the meantime, keep an eye on Script, a horse Motion once thought could be a Derby horse until he got sick this spring. If his run on opening day is any indication, there's big things ahead for the colt. And Motion is the one to make it happen.

The post ‘It Ties In Real Well With Keeneland’: Motion Sends Half Dozen West For Del Mar Meet appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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A familiar voice will take over calling the races at Del Mar next week. Larry Collmus, the voice of the Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup, steps up to the mic for a third year in a row at the Bing Crosby meet.

Collmus will start calling the races after he re-charges from the Breeders' Cup in Turks and Caicos. Del Mar's John Lies, ably covered for Collmus this week while he was in the Caribbean.

Collmus first filled in for longtime Del Mar announcer Trevor Denman in 2020, during the height of COVID when Denman decided not to risk his and his wife's health by traveling across country. Collmus was asked back last year when Denman suffered a serious back injury in a fall at his home in Minnesota. Trevor is fine this year, it's just that at 68 the veteran race caller has decided to cut back on his workload.

Collmus admits filling in for Trevor was a bit nerve-racking at first.

“It's a daunting task when you first step inside that announcer's booth,” Collmus said. “Everyone is so used to hearing Trevor. He's been such a legend over the past few decades. But it's something I've done in the past with Tom Durkin back east. I keep following legends wherever I go but it's okay, you just be yourself and people like it.”

That approach has been working for Collmus for almost 40 years of calling the races, a career that has taken him to practically every major track in the country, from Saratoga to Gulfstream Park to Churchill Downs. And like most of these stories, it all started with a trip to the track

“I was in my mid-teens,” Collmus said. “My father installed a sound system at Timonium at the Maryland State Fair and he took me there to work for him in the summer. He quickly found out I was mechanically incompetent so he had me hang out with the announcer. I would make sure the sound was loud enough. I'd turn it up or down depending on how many people were at the track and that's when I fell in love with horse racing.

“I got a tape recorder and a pair of binoculars and practiced calling the races in the Maryland press box,” Collmus recalled. “One day the general manager at Pimlico gave me my start. I was 18-years old when I called my first race at the now defunct Bowie race track. I never thought I'd be calling the Kentucky Derby or the Breeders' Cup.”

His list of mentors is a who's who of racing announcers.

“In my earliest years the one guy that was most influential was Dave Johnson. Dave was the voice of the Triple Crown on ABC at the time and he was a big help with me getting started.

“Another guy I used to love to listen to was Marshall Cassidy, the voice of New York racing,” Collmus continued. “Later on, he and I became friends when I was the announcer at Saratoga. It was great going out to dinner and being friends decades later with a guy I listened to as a kid.”

Collmus has called some of the biggest races of this generation. American Pharoah's Triple Crown victory comes first to mind. So how does he get up for a mid-week $10,000 claimer?

“Every race is its own race. I don't think you can fake that. If it's a $10,000 claimer and one horse is running away from the others it's not going to sound the same as the Kentucky Derby. But sometimes $10,000 claimers have stretch battles where two horses are going at each other the whole stretch and it's exciting. You'll be a little more pumped up for something like that.”

It's that level of professionalism that has lifted Collmus to top of his game and to one of the most sought-after jobs in the industry, the one here at Del Mar.

“Oh, absolutely,” Collmus said. “It's not only one of the better race meets in the country but it's one of the better places to be. It's hard to beat the weather and the beauty of the area.”

Collmus sees that beauty every race day when he steps in the announcer's booth atop the grandstand at Del Mar, something now fans can experience for themselves. Collmus is inviting people to watch a race with him for $100 with the proceeds going to the non-profit California Retirement Management Account (CARMA), an organization dedicated to providing funding for the rehabilitation, retraining and/or retirement of California-raced Thoroughbreds.

“It will be a fun experience,” Collmus promised, “and it all goes to a good cause.”

The post ‘It’s One Of The Better Places To Be’: Collmus Set To Return To Del Mar Announcer’s Booth For Third Year appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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