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Clerk Of Scales At Presque Isle Downs Suspended For Failure To Weigh-Out Jockeys

A longtime racetrack employee and the current Clerk of Scales at Churchill Downs Inc.-owned Presque Isle Downs in Erie, Pennsylvania was suspended by the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission's Bureau of Thoroughbred Horse Racing for 30 days beginning Jan. 8. Danny Hamilton was found by the stewards to have neglected to weigh-out jockeys before the eighth race Oct. 11.

Director of Enforcement Jason Klouser, who led the investigation, said, “The Racing Commission's investigators observed Danny Hamilton failing to weigh-out the jockeys for race 8, which is a violation of numerous sections of Pennsylvania's rules of racing.”

Klouser added, “At this point, the investigation into Hamilton's activities is ongoing to determine if there were any other violations.”

According to the stewards ruling which is posted on the commission's website, part of the duties of the Clerk of Scales and/or their assistant is to preside over the racing process from when the jockeys assemble before the race to weigh-out, all the way through its conclusion when they come off the course to weigh-in.

Hamilton appeared this past summer on an episode of Horse Racing Today co-hosted by Jamie Martinez in which he discussed his experiences and delved into his duties as a clerk.

On that program, Hamilton said, “We run a very tight ship here at Presque Isle.” When asked what happens if a rider's weight is off when he or she comes off the course, the clerk said with a laugh, “Well then we have real problems! Then the Racing Commission gets involved and stuff gets really real.”

He went on to say, “But we don't have that problem, all the riders come back heavier than what they went out. So, if you go out at 124 [pounds], chances are you're going to come in at 126 [pounds], 127 [pounds], because the saddle towel, the pad, the horse's are sweaty, it soaks up into the pad and saddle towel … it weighs a lot. If they come back lighter than they went out, major problem, if they come back heavier, then you're good to go.”

Growing up around racetracks, including Beulah Park and Delaware Park, Hamilton as recently as 2019 served as an inspector for the Ohio State Racing Commission. Since then, he's had several other stops at locations such as Oaklawn Park, where he was an integrity officer.

Hamilton was hired as the Clerk of Scales by Presque Isle Downs earlier this year after he was the horse identifier at the course during the 2022 season. An attempt was made to contact the track's Director of Racing, Matthew Ennis, but several messages were not returned.

Currently, Hamilton is serving as a placing judge at Fair Grounds, which is also owned by Churchill Downs Inc.

Klouser confirmed that, “We have notified the Louisiana Racing Commission of the pending suspension.”

As for the ruling, Hamilton is denied access to all grounds under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission and does have the right to appeal. He was unable to be reached for comment.

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NY Gaming Commission Upholds Void of Claim

A hearing officer for the New York Gaming Commission has upheld the voided claim of Battalion (Tiznow) in the fourth race at Belmont Park, May 28. Bella Mia Stables LLC and their trainer Bob Klesaris had entered the horse into the race with a $25,000 claiming tag. When owner Sanford Goldfarb and trainer Robert Atras claimed the horse, no one notified the Klesaris barn and the horse was returned to their barn, rather than the test barn. The New York Stewards decided to void the claim, and Michael De Bella, Bella Mia's owner, and attorney Drew Mollica appealed that decision.

“I conclude that, on this record, the Stewards did not abuse their discretion and, therefore, affirm the decision of the Stewards to void the claim,” wrote Gaming Commission Member Peter J. Moschetti Jr. in his decision. “The horse's prompt presence in the test barn is required to protect the claimant, who may, if circumstances warrant, avail himself of provisions in Commission Rule 4038.5(a)(4) to have the claim deemed void, if a Commission-designated veterinarian determines that the horse is lame pursuant to the standards of such rule. Rule 4038.5(a)(4) provides that the claim of a horse determined to be sufficiently lame by the Commission-designated veterinarian shall be deemed voided unless a representative of the claimant is present in the test barn and, instead, `decides immediately to accept the horse.'”

It was the job of the NYRA Clerk of Scales Jack Welsh to ensure that notice of a claim is given to the groom of the claimed horse, and he admitted that he had failed to do so.

“Appellants did nothing wrong here,” continued Moschetti in his decision. “Battalion's trainer did eventually bring the horse to the test barn when belatedly informed of the claim, but through no fault of Appellants, time had passed already from the end of the race. Claimant did nothing wrong here, either. However, through no fault of Appellants or Claimant, Claimant was deprived of the assurance that the horse was under the observation of Commission staff from the end of the race until delivery to the test barn for examination.”

Because there is no specific Commission rule on how to handle such a situation, Moschetti said, the Stewards have discretionary power to to impose a remedy. Battalion finished last in the race as the 2-1 favorite.

“I need not make any judgment about whether the Stewards' decision was the only plausible one they could have made, or whether their decision may or may not have been the best one. Rather, I conclude that in applying a Rule that empowers the Stewards to make a discretionary decision in unusual circumstances, the Stewards did not abuse that discretion in retuning the ownership of this horse to the status quo ante.”

“Michael De Bella is happy he fought this fight,” said Mollica, “although we obviously disagree with the commissioner's decision. This case brings to light the arbitrary and capricious nature that have recently been handed down in New York Racing. The facts here are clear and while in the final analysis, the hearing officer stated that although the decision might not be the right one, the Stewards' discretion rule carried the day. My client and I remain convinced, however, that the Stewards' discretion in this case was arbitrary and ill-advised at best, and illogical at worst.”

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Charlie McCaul: The Racetrack Called And He Found A Home

The name – thick Irish that it is – is Charles Gerard McCaul. But if you're like everyone else at a racetrack in Southern California, you simply know him as “Charlie.”

For the past 29 years, Charlie has run the jockeys rooms at Del Mar, Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Pomona and Los Alamitos as the Clerk of Scales, a job insiders know well but the general public hardly recognizes.

The Clerk of Scales is the guy who “runs the room,” making sure all is right in one of the most unique arrangements in all of sports. Racing is the only sport where competitors don't have different locker rooms/dugouts/dressing rooms for the times in between the frays. In the world of Thoroughbreds, they all gather in one large room with all the energy and combustibleness that phenomenally fit and ferociously competitive athletes can bring to the party. At one moment two riders are side-by-side on the racetrack, shouting, sweating, whipping and giving their all to beat the guy next to him. In the next moment they are side-by-side again, sitting next to each other at their lockers.

Running that show and keeping things on the level is no mean feat. It takes someone special to set the right tone, gain full respect and make sure things flow smoothly day in and day out.

That's our guy Charlie.

He didn't come to the job by way of a hand out. He paid his dues and worked his way into it after years and years of learning the racetrack from the ground up.

His tale is a classic, worth a telling.

His folks were from the “old country,” Letterkenny, Ireland, in fact, in the northern part of the country in County Donegal. Irish Catholic through and through with a priest and a nun as part of the clan, and a family pub named, of course, “McCaul's.”

His dad, also Charles (Charles Lewis McCaul), came to America to go to school and graduated with a degree in accounting from New York's Columbia University. He sent for his true love – Anne, known as “Ita” – and next thing you knew their apartment in the Bronx became much too small when the fifth child came around. So they were off to a home in Valley Stream, Long Island (not far from Belmont Park, as it so happened) where the kids got to growing with one of them – young Charlie – finding a couple of loves that he still holds today, the New York Yankees and horse racing.

With their parents' encouragement, the McCaul clan all headed to college and “proper” careers. All, that is, but young Charlie.

“I had seen Secretariat run,” he recalled, “and that hooked me right there. I was in love with horses and horse racing. My older brother, Patrick, had landed a job walking 'hots' at the track and, after I graduated from high school, I got in, too. Right from the start I liked it.

“I started out walking hots for Reggie Cornell when he had the Calumet Farm horses, the devil's red and blue. Worked my way up to a groom. Stayed with him for a couple of years but he lost the horses when they brought in John Veitch. Worked for King Ranch, then got back with Reggie when he now had Aaron Jones as his main client, so we were heading to California for the winters – first time for the '76 Oak Tree meet – then back to New York for the summers. I also worked for Elliott Burch when he had Alfred Vanderbilt and the C.V. Whitney as his clients. Nice horses for sure.

“So in 1981 I came back to New York one last time and decided California was where I wanted to be. Packed my car full of my things and drove west. First signed on with Jude Feld, then went to work with (the late trainer) Eddie Gregson. He was grooming me to be an assistant and then a trainer, but I told him I didn't like the thought of that – too tough, too cutthroat a world. So he said let me go to (Santa Anita's Director of Racing) Mr. (Jimmy) Kilroe and see what I can do. Mr. Kilroe gave some encouragement to Tom Robbins in the racing office to hire this young McCaul guy and I was off and running.”

Over the next several years Charlie became a stewards' aide, a patrol judge, a placing judge and then an assistant clerk of scales. (During that span he got the official seal of approval as a member of the west coast horse family when Bill Shoemaker, the notorious practical joker of the jockeys' room, put shaving cream in his hat, then watched it run down the side of his face when he put it on. “You're OK kid,” Shoe said with that grin of his. Charlie felt like he'd passed the test.)

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He especially liked working in “the room.” Eventually when the long-time clerk of scales Dean Scarborough – a former professional baseball player and one of the classiest men you'd ever want to meet – retired in 1992, he recommended Charlie to take over. Ever since – at all Southern California tracks – he's been “the man.” He's been the guy that — among other things — weighs them “out” (at the scale inside the jockeys' room prior to them heading out to ride), then weighs them “in” (after they've ridden at the scale alongside the winner's circle).

There were some years when he hardly got to draw a deep breath in his new role. He'd work Del Mar, then Pomona, then Hollywood Park, then Santa Anita, then Hollywood Park again then Del Mar. (“It was tough,” he recalled. “Almost no time for yourself; no breaks. Six days a week at Del Mar, then 30 straight days at Pomona. Oh, man. I'm glad I was younger and stronger.”)

A couple of the veteran riders in the current Del Mar room – both of whom have known and worked with Charlie for more than 30 years – were asked their opinions on him.

“He's fair, very fair,” said Hall of Fame rider Kent Desormeaux. “He lets us know exactly what he expects of his riders. He let's us know we're representing him, not the other way around. That the best thing a Clerk of Scales can do.”

Another Hall of Famer, Mike Smith, had high praise for Charlie, too. “He's an upstanding official and he's a man of faith, which really registers with me,” Smith said. “We talk sports, too. He'll tell you all about those quarterbacks and how they take the snap and drop back. He'll let you know about the ones that can really do it. And what's especially good about him is that he stays level; he's always the same. That makes him easy to work with.”

Charlie has held on to the things of his youth. He still goes to Mass every Sunday. (“They know I'm going to be a little late in the racing office on Sunday, but they understand.”) He still loves his Yankees. (“When I was a kid my Dad took me out to the monuments in centerfield at Yankee Stadium. I saw all the Yankee greats there – Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle – and I had this fantasy that I'd work for them some day and meet all the Yankee heroes. But instead I went to the racetrack and met heroes just as big – Pincay, Shoemaker, McCarron, Delahoussaye, Toro, P. Val, Stevens, Hawley and on and on. It came true for me.”) And he's glad that he found a place that makes a hard-working man happy. His current job additionally calls for a full morning of him taking entries from trainers and jockey agents in the backside racing office; drawing the actual races; then collecting and disseminate the scratches on race day. Finally, he spends the rest of the day in “the room.” His many roles at the racetrack have earned him a nickname that fits so well: “DoItAll McCaul.”

On reflection, he's found solace in a part of his life that once troubled him.

“My Dad died too early; he had a heart attack when he was only 53,” Charlie said. “And for a long time, I felt like maybe I let him down. My brothers and sisters went to school and found good careers. And all I did was go to the racetrack. But of late I'm thinking differently. I've got a good occupation with good people doing something I love. If my Dad was here now, I believe he'd agree.”

2021 marks year 47 of Charlie at the racetrack. Today, in particular, also marks something special: his 65th birthday. So if you see him somewhere around the racetrack today, doing one of the many things he does, wish him a happy birthday. Then watch the big smile of a happy, hard-working man spread across his face.

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Frank Courtney: A Racetrack Life Like No Other

It is a horse racing life well lived, and one that many are grateful to have been part of.

Frank Courtney's career, one that reached the finish line on a picture-perfect day at Woodbine, spanned seven decades, and spawned a multitude of roles, both on and off the racetrack.

His most recent job, that of Horsemen's Bookkeeper, was one he held for 32 years.

Few, if any, have been able to view the world of Thoroughbred racing through such a unique lens, something Courtney is humbly grateful to have experienced.

“I've been in racing all my life. My father trained horses and rode, my uncles also rode. It's been in my blood since I was born.”

Actually, even before he arrived.

“On Sept. 4, 1952, my mother was at the races at Dufferin Park and she started having labour pains and then you used to go home and have your children. So a few of the owners and trainers said, 'You better get home and have your baby,' and needless to say I was born about 6 p.m. I was actually almost born at Dufferin.”

His racetrack life began in the early 1960s when he walked hots for trainer Andy Smithers.

“Growing up and learning to gallop horses for Andy Smithers, I consider him one of the best trainers I ever worked for,” offered Courtney. “Other notable trainers were Frank Merrill Jr., I went to Florida for three years with him trying to be a jockey, but my body structure was a little too large and I couldn't get down light enough to ride Thoroughbreds, but I rode Quarter Horses on Sunday nights after the races. We'd go up there and I rode for John McKenzie, who ended up being a horse trainer here at Woodbine.”

Not surprisingly, Courtney, who also spent time as an exercise rider, has no shortage of racing tales, horse and human, to share.

How he got – and kept – the Clerk of Scales role at Woodbine is one that stands out.

“When I was working in the jocks' room in 1976, the Clerk of Scales at the time was Robert Davie and he was the gentleman that taught me everything in the jocks' room. A couple years later I became his assistant Clerk of Scales and when he retired he made sure the job was given to me, even though I was only about 27 years old.”

In some ways, the odds of success were stacked against Courtney.

“Even senior management was concerned because I had galloped horses with a bunch of my friends like David Clark, Robin Platts, Gary Stahlbaum, all the top riders at the time, and they were worried that I would be intimidated by them, but he had said to me, and I love this quote, 'Frank, I'm giving you the opportunity to be the Clerk of Scales, it's up to you to either keep the job or lose the job.' I'll never forget when he said that. He said, 'It's your job, a good job, and you're going to have to do everything that I taught you, don't let your friends intimidate you.' Luckily, the ones that I had been real close with were probably the best to work with.”

Courtney also worked closely with some of the sport's top trainers and top horses, never taking any of those interactions or lessons learned for granted.

“One of the best horses I ever galloped for Frank Merrill was a horse called Lord Vancouver. He was a super turf horse and that was one of Merrill's that they had purchased horse off Conn Smythe.

“Another horse that I had the privilege of getting on was a horse One for All, a horse that was trained by Horatio Luro, the trainer of Northern Dancer, that was sent up to compete in the Canadian International. We had real fun with him because they were training him to get ready to go to the l'Arc de Triomphe in France, but because they run the opposite way in France, we got to go out every morning after late training and they closed the turf so we could gallop in the wrong direction and that unique because nobody else was allowed on.”

For as many stories as Courtney has, others have equally fascinating stories of the man himself.

Some speak of the meticulous work he did as a bookkeeper, others talk of his life on the Woodbine backstretch.

All of them note the profound impact Courtney has had on Thoroughbred racing in Canada.

For trainer Don MacRae, who began his training career over 25 years ago, the man he met early on in his racetrack life would become a mentor, and a game changer in his career.

A lifetime winner of 535 races, MacRae, to this day, remains grateful for Courtney's guidance.

“As a younger trainer starting out I was very cocky and thought I knew it all,” said MacRae. “Frank was a guy who would always try and teach me to be a better person and show me that kind of attitude was the wrong one to have. I have a lot of respect for him.”

Woodbine Entertainment CEO Jim Lawson, and Jessica Buckley, Woodbine Entertainment SVP, Standardbred & Thoroughbred Racing, shared equally high words of praise for Courtney.

“Frank has been a fixture at Woodbine,” started Lawson. “Like many of our employees, Frank has been working with us for decades and it is people like Frank that have made Woodbine into the familiar and caring community that it has become. When you walk into Frank's office to ask him to perform a special task for an owner he reliably got the job done, despite usually being overwhelmed with “special requests.” Frank always handled those requests in stride and with a smile. I will certainly miss him and our chats and I wish him the very best in retirement.”

“Frank's long tenure with Woodbine is a true testament to his love for racing and the people he deals with on a daily basis,” said Buckley. “His commitment to excellence, when serving the bookkeeping needs of horse people, will be greatly missed by all.”

Sue Leslie, President of the HBPA, and board member with Ontario Racing, noted Courtney's keen eye and attention to detail in his bookkeeping role, skills that were highly respected and appreciated by the thousands of horse people who depended on his diligent efforts each week.

“Frank maintained meticulous order in the bookkeeper's office,” noted Leslie. “Horsepeople could count on him for accurate information on their accounts. On behalf of all horsepeople, Frank, we thank you for your 40 plus years of committed service to HBPA members. We all wish you well in your retirement and hope you visit us often.”

Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame trainer Mike Keogh, the man behind Wando's 2003 Canadian Triple Crown triumph, applauded Courtney, not just for his flawless work throughout the years, but also for his ability to connect with trainers, owners and jockeys.

“Frank is one the nicest guys you could ever meet, nothing was ever a problem with him. He always made sure everything was correct. Also, he is a horseman, so he understands what your needs are. We will all be sorry to see him leave, but wish him nothing but the best.”

With one of horse racing's most one-of-a-kind careers now in the books, Courtney can look back fondly upon what he was able to accomplish.

“It's been a great experience. “I've met a lot of great people over the years. I've been teaching Tammy Frost to come in and help with Anne McMahon, general manager of the office. Anne and Tammy were also related with horse racing also and it's something that a lot of people… I mean for 47 years I've given up a lot of weekends because races are Saturday and Sunday, so the weekends are Monday, Tuesday, which a lot of friends could never understand. They call you up for a party Saturday night, but I had to work Sunday morning doing my accounting reports, so you go to a party but in the back of your mind you have to get up early and go to work.

Many are grateful he did, and that in some way, big or small, they were able to go along for part of the ride with hm.

“Over the years, I realized how much he had helped me in my career to become a better trainer and a better person,” said MacRae. “I wish him all the best in his future adventures.”

The last word, which goes to Courtney, is a heartfelt expression of gratitude to his family.

“I met my wife Rita in 1972. We've been married 46 years. I have two lovely daughters, Amy and Lisa, and all the times I was allowed to work here and work weekends and my daughters both competed show jumping and eventing, my wife became the van driver and support staff while I was here at work. The odd weekend I would try and go on a Saturday and Sunday to some of the events, but you didn't get out too often, but I'd really like to thank my wife for being there for the kids.”

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