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85-Year-Old Bob Dunham Fishing For Another Stakes Score With Byhubbyhellomoney

Trainer Bob Dunham, who turns 85-years-old on Tuesday, will try to keep the celebration rolling when he saddles Jupiter Stable's Byhubbyhellomoney in Thursday's $100,000 Bay Ridge at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Byhubbyhellomoney worked an easy five-eighths over the Belmont Park dirt training track on Dec. 23, in preparation for the nine-furlong test for New York-breds 3-years-old and up.

“I enjoy it. Training horses is a passion. I was there on Christmas Day,” Dunham said.

Earlier this summer, Byhubbyhellomoney won the Fleet Indian at Saratoga Race Course. Dunham said he loves his summers at the Spa which allow him to dabble in his favorite pastime – fly fishing.

“Training horses is like fly fishing – it gets into your blood,” said Dunham, with a laugh. “I love going up to Vermont. It's only 55 miles from Saratoga and you can smell the change in the air, it's so much clearer and so fresh. There's a beautiful river I like there that goes from Manchester all the way down to New York to the Hudson called the Battenkill.”

The veteran conditioner, who trained 4-year-old filly Chou Croute to Champion Sprinter honors in 1972, has met a lot of interesting people through his career, both on and off the track – including broadcaster Charles Osgood and the late actor Steve McQueen.

“I was in the water fishing one morning – maybe seven years ago – at 6:30 in Arlington, Vermont and this guy gets in about 40 minutes later,” Dunham recalled. “As the morning moves along we end up closer together and he hollers at me, 'catch anything?'”

While Dunham had caught a couple, the friendly fisherman upstream had been shut out. When the fishing was done, the two strangers sat down for a cup of coffee and traded tall stories as 'Bob' and 'Charlie.'

“He had on these sunglasses that wrapped around, a Tilley hat and waders,” Dunham said.

Before he left, Dunham asked the man for his surname and he replied, 'Osgood' – as in Charles Osgood, longtime host of the CBS News Sunday Morning and The Osgood File.

“I told him I enjoyed his show on Sunday mornings. He's really a nice guy,” Dunham said. “Later, I invited him to the races at Belmont and he showed up for a nice lunch and we talked about the horses and the radio.”

Dunham also recalled shipping a small string of horses to Santa Anita nearing the tail end of 1972, including Chou Croute, who won the Las Flores Handicap on Dec. 28 and came back Jan. 16, 1973 to win the Grade 2 Santa Monica Handicap.

Dunham said he enjoyed spending time at Santa Anita with the late Willard Proctor, father of conditioner Tom Proctor.

“He was a good friend of mine and he liked to go out for a drink. He knew a lot of actors out there,” Dunham said.

On one occasion, Proctor introduced Dunham to racing fan and acting legend Steve McQueen, who was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor in 1967 for his portrayal of Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles.

After a few drinks, McQueen asked Dunham if he had any horses entered that he liked.

“I had a filly in that I loved. She'd had a couple races at Fair Grounds,” Dunham said. “We'd sprinted her a couple times and she was a route filly. She was entered going a mile and a sixteenth and I didn't think she could get beat, but I didn't tell Steve McQueen that. I said, 'I think she's got a chance.'”

Sure enough, the filly came through at a price.

“She won and McQueen came up and gave me a hug. I'm not sure how much money he bet,” Dunham said, with a laugh.

McQueen, known as a 'The King of Cool', kept in contact with Dunham through the years.

“He took us out to dinner several times and we exchanged numbers. Every time I had a horse in he called me,” Dunham said.

And while Byhubbyhellomoney, listed at 6-1 on the morning line, may be a little cool on the board Thursday, Dunham said he expects a big effort.

“She'll do good, but I don't know that she'll win,” Dunham said. “But every little bit helps.”

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Dunham Still Training At 85, Gets First Saratoga Stakes Win In Fleet Indian

Bob Dunham, who trained 4-year-old filly Chou Croute to championship Sprinter honors in 1972 before there were separate categories for males and females, won his first Saratoga stakes on Friday with 3-year-old filly Byhubbyhellomoney. But it will hardly be his swan song.

“My family has been trying to get me to retire, but what would I do,” asked Dunham, 85. “I like to play cards, and I like to go fly-fishing in Vermont and Montana. But you can't go fishing every day.”

What he likes to do best every day is train his stable of seven. And he still does it well.

When former claiming horse Byhubbyhellomoney won the $200,000 Fleet Indian on Friday's New York Showcase Day at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., by beating the favorite Make Mischief, it was an enormously popular win. But it wasn't for the filly's $28.40 payoff for a $2 bet. It was a sign of genuine respect and sincere affection for Dunham.

“It was an extremely exciting win. We all felt really great for Bob, which is the main thing,” said trainer Phil Gleaves, who is married to Dunham's daughter, Amy. “I cannot tell you how many people, especially trainers, have come by the barn to ask me to please congratulate Bob for them. This morning, Shug McGaughey stopped by the barn to say the same. Bob is such a well-liked guy. Mark Casse was very classy. He just got beat with the favorite, who had a rough start, and Mark was literally the first one there to shake his hand.”

Casse, a Hall of Fame trainer, said Dunham is a long-time family friend.

“I was extremely happy for Bob Dunham. He was a great friend of my dad and since I was a little boy, he was always very kind to me,” Casse said. “I saw him before the race and he said, 'I don't think we can beat you' and I said to him, 'If anyone beats me, I hope it's you.' It was bittersweet and I feel bad for Gary Barber (owner of Make Mischief), but I'm also happy Bob won. I remember him training Chou Croute and she was a champion sprinter. He was a dear friend of my father.”

Chou Croute beat Icecapade in the 1972 Fall Highweight at Belmont, and the old media clippings say that had not Secretariat, then 2-years-old, been the Horse of the Year, it might have been her. Each year, the Fair Grounds in New Orleans, La., runs the Chou Croute Stakes for fillies and mares.

“She was a great horse,” reminisced Dunham, who is a Kentucky native and said he started mucking stalls at Claiborne Farm was he was 12 years old.

“I worked there for Bull Hancock. Moody Jolley [father of Hall of Fame trainer LeRoy Jolley] was the trainer. When I was a teenager, Bull asked me if I wanted to be Moody's foreman. My parents wanted me to stay in school, but I went with Moody. I was the assistant when he trained Round Table,” said Dunham, who remains sharp as a tack and has total recall.

Round Table was a five-time Eclipse Award winner, the 1958 Horse of the Year, and a 1972 Hall of Fame inductee. Other top-flight horses Dunham worked with as an assistant include Delta, Doubledogdare, and Nadir.

Dunham trained multiple graded stakes-winner Moment of Hope and that horse was his most recent stakes winner when he won the Grade 2 Stuyvesant Handicap in New York in 1987.

“He is from way back. He was the assistant with all those good horses, and he's an Eclipse Award winner himself, in 1972, and now he wins a stake at Saratoga 50 years later. And with a claim. Imagine that. How wonderful is that? He's won a few races over the years here, but certainly nothing of this consequence,” said Gleaves.

Gleaves and Dunham have a little history of their own, and it predates the marriage to Amy.

“We joke that he was my pacesetter in the 1986 Travers, which I was fortunate enough to win [with Wise Times]. He had a horse in there [Moment of Hope] that was on the lead and we joke about that all the time,” said the son-in-law.

Dunham and his wife, Judy, stay with Amy and Phil Gleaves for the Saratoga season every year and for the younger trainer, he said it's almost like having a living encyclopedia of horsemanship under his roof.

“Over the years, I've had lots and lots of conversations about horses with Bob and I've picked his brain on numerous occasions about things I needed some advice on. He's always been there about that,” Gleaves said. “He helps me a lot because I come up here in May from Ocala and ship the horses down to Belmont to run. Most times I don't go, and he saddles them for me. He's saddled a few winners at Belmont for me, which has been great, and it's a big help to me not have to drive down there and back up here every time I run a horse. We interchange horses. I go to Florida for the winter and I leave horses with him for the winter in New York because he trains there year round.”

Not only will Dunham keep hanging his shingle outside his barn, but his stable is also about to get bigger.

Steve Shapiro, the owner of Byhubbyhellomoney, currently has three in Dunham's care and said he's going to claim another New York-bred for him to train.

“Bob Dunham is a genius. He is a genius trainer. He's underrated. He doesn't have a lot of horses, so he can pay attention to me,” said Shapiro.

Dunham is also a gentleman, and one from the old school.

“That's the best way to describe him. He's a very likeable person and a high-class person,” said Gleaves. “These are the stories that making racing so great, and you can't make them up.”

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Friday Card Features Six New York Bred Stakes At Saratoga

State-breds will take center stage Friday at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with an 11-race card offering a half-dozen stakes for horses bred in the Empire State comprising New York Showcase Day. The six stakes are worth a combined $1.15 million.

“Saratoga New York Showcase Day is the flagship event on the calendar for our state's breeders and owners,” said Najja Thompson, Executive Director of New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. “We're proud to partner with NYRA to feature an all New York-bred card at the premier racing meet in the country with competitive fields, lucrative purses and six state-bred stakes totaling $1.15 million. This day is a culmination of the hard work our breeders and everyone involved in the New York-bred program do daily to make our program great. It also highlights the advantages of breeding and owning state-breds in New York.”

Friday's card is headlined by the $250,000 Albany, a 1 1/8-mile main track contest for sophomores in Race 9. The lucrative card will include the $200,000 Fleet Indian for sophomore fillies going 1 1/8 miles in Race 7; the $200,000 Funny Cide, presented by Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, for 2-year-olds sprinting 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track in Race 4; the $200,000 Seeking the Ante for 2-year-old fillies at 6 1/2 furlongs in Race 2; the $150,000 West Point presented by Trustco Bank for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf in Race 8; and the $150,000 Yaddo, a handicap for fillies and mares 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/16 miles on the Mellon turf course in Race 10.

Trainer Christophe Clement will be represented by five horses across four stakes on the card, including Senbei [Funny Cide], Pay Grade [Fleet Indian], and Classic Lady [Yaddo], along with Therapist and City Man in the West Point.

“It's a big deal,” Clement said of the all-state-bred card. “I've got quite a few New York-breds, and, with the clients we have and the money we have to spend, we concentrate on the New York-breds because we have a better chance to get a stakes horse in the division.”

In the featured Albany, Americanrevolution [post 2, Luis Saez] will look to continue his upward trajectory following a 7 ¼-length victory in the New York Derby at Finger Lakes in Farmington, N.Y.

The son of Constitution handled his two-turn debut with flying colors, arriving at the New York Derby off a narrow triumph against next-out winner Water's Edge in a June 20 maiden event going six furlongs at Belmont Park.

Trainer Kelly Breen will saddle two contenders for Ron Lombardi's Mr. Amore Stable in It's a Gamble [post 1, John Velazquez] and It's Gravy [post 9, Joel Rosario].

It's a Gamble, a son of English Channel, earned an open company stakes victory when capturing an off-the-turf edition of the Jersey Derby on May 28 at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. The three-time winner broke his maiden over the Mellon turf last summer at Saratoga and defeated winners over the Aqueduct outer turf in the final start of his 2-year-old season.

It's Gravy, by Freud, is in search of his first victory since breaking his maiden on January 16 over a muddy and sealed main track at Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, N.Y. The bay gelding arrives off of a third-place finish in the NYSSS Cab Calloway on July 28 at Saratoga.

Completing the field are Purple Hearted [post 3, Eric Cancel], Bingo John [post 4, Manny Franco], Bobby Bo [post 5, Flavien Prat], Anejo [post 6, Junior Alvarado], Joey Loose Lips [post 7, Irad Ortiz, Jr.], and Our Man Mike [post 8, Jose Ortiz].

Stakes action will kick off in Race 2 with CJ Thoroughbreds' stakes-winner Miss Alacrity [post 1, John Velazquez] looking to stay undefeated when headlining the Seeking the Ante.

Miss Alacrity, bred by Milfer Farm, dominated in her debut with a 10-length score in May over the Belmont Park main track. Moved to turf last out, the Munnings filly drew away to a 2 3/4-length score in the Colleen on August 1 at Monmouth. Trainer Wesley Ward will switch her back to the main track on Friday.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen will send out Stonestreet Stables' Velvet Sister [post 6, Joel Rosario], a 9 3/4-length debut winner in June at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., for her second stakes appearance after running fourth in the Grade 3 Schuylerville on July 15 at the Spa. Velvet Sister was a $500,000 purchase at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Florida Select 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale.

Also in the field is Joseph Bucci's Laoban's Legacy [post 2, Irad Ortiz, Jr.], a 7 3/4-length debut winner for trainer Jeremiah Englehart; McConnell Racing Stable and Darlene Bilinski's Hideout [post 5, Eric Cancel], making her stakes debut for trainer Wayne Potts; November Rein [post 3, Jose Ortiz], who broke her maiden at second asking on July 16 here for conditioner Kelly Breen; and Succulent [post 4, Dylan Davis], looking for her first win, for trainer Phil Gleaves.

In the Funny Cide, Senbei [post 1, Manny Franco], a first-out winner by 4 3/4 lengths on July 18 for Clement, will take the step up in class. The Candy Ride colt, owned by Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Darlene Bilinski and bred by Dr. Jerry Bilinski, earned a 73 Beyer for his victory last month.

“He's doing well,” Clement said. “He's still very tender and very green.”

Michael Dubb and Michael Caruso's Run Curtis Run [post 7, Jose Ortiz] will put his 2-for-2 streak on the line for trainer Mike Maker. The son of Summer Front followed his debut win on July 2 at Belmont with a 3 3/4-length victory in the Rick Violette for state breds on July 21 in his Saratoga bow.

Other contenders include the Robertino Diodoro-trained Happy Happy B [post 2, David Cohen]; Shipsational [post 3, Luis Saez], a 6 3/4-length first-out winner last month at the Spa for Edward Barker; Montebello [post 5, John Velazquez], a $400,000 purchase at the 2020 Keeneland September Sale for Hall of Fame conditioner Bob Baffert; Daufuskie Island [post 8, Dylan Davis], an Englehart trainee who won by five lengths on August 12 here; Bourbon's Hope [post 6, Joel Rosario], a winner on July 9 at Belmont, for trainer Charlton Baker; and Who Hoo That's Me [post 4, Ricardo Santana, Jr.], trained by Jorge Abreu.

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The Fleet Indian will see A Little Bit O' Irish Sass [post 5, Luis Saez] attempt a third consecutive triumph for trainer Richard Schosberg. The gray or roan daughter of Laoban broke her maiden over next-out winners Raffinity and Epona's Dream over a sloppy and sealed main track on July 2 at Belmont Park en route to a score in the New York Oaks on July 26 at Finger Lakes.

Gary Barber's Make Mischief [post 9, Irad Ortiz, Jr.] brings open company class to the Fleet Indian field, having secured graded stakes black type in this year's Grade 2 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., and the Grade 1 Acorn at Belmont Park. Trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, the daughter of leading sire Into Mischief captured the Maddie May on February 20 at Aqueduct in her lone stakes coup.

Clement will saddle two-time winner Pay Grade for owner Robert Evans. The daughter of Tonalist, also trained by Clement and owned by Evans, defeated winners last out on July 10 at Belmont Park going a one-turn mile. Pay Grade broke her maiden at third asking on March 26 going a one-turn mile at Aqueduct.

“Pay Grade is coming into this race very well,” Clement said.

Jockey Eric Cancel, aboard for both victories, will retain the mount from post 2.

Completing the field are Betsy Blue [post 1, Jose Ortiz], Byhubbyhellomoney [post 3, Joel Rosario], Out First [post 4, Jose Lezcano], U Guys Are No Fun [post 6, Andre Worrie], Epona's Dream [post 7, Dylan Davis] and Coffee Bar [post 8, Flavien Prat].

Bond Racing Stable's graded-stakes winner Rinaldi [post 2, Luis Saez], last-out winner of the Grade 3 Forbidden Apple on July 16 at the Spa, will look to defend his title in the 42nd running of the West Point presented by Trustco Bank.

Clement will saddle a strong pair of graded-stakes placed veteran turfers in Oak Bluff Stables' 6-year-old homebred Therapist [post 1, Irad Ortiz, Jr.] and Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, Peter Searles, and Patty Searles' 4-year-old City Man [post 7, Rosario].

“We know them very well at this point, they've been around forever,” Clement said of the veteran duo. “It won't be an easy race but they are both doing very well.”

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher sends out a strong pair for Repole Stable in Grade 1-placed Mo Ready [post 8, Flavien Prat] and three-time winner Microsecond [post 4, Jose Ortiz]. Rounding out the field are Graded On a Curve [post 3, Javier Castellano], Lord Flintshire [post 5, Dylan Davis], and Sanctuary City [post 6, Manny Franco].

A loaded field of 10 line up for the Yaddo headlined by Lawrence Goichman homebred Myhartblongstodady [post 3, Jose Lezcano], who returns to defend her title after scoring gate-to-wire last summer. The 6-year-old Scat Daddy bay, trained by Jorge Abreu, boasts a record of 13-5-2-3 with purse earnings of $344,216.

Strong opposition will be provided by Michael Dubb and Bethlehem Stables' Clement-trained Classic Lady [post 2, Joel Rosario], who finished third in last year's Yaddo and didn't re-surface until a fourth-place finish last out on July 31 in an open optional-claiming event on the Monmouth Park turf.

Rounding out the field are Dancingwthdaffodls [post 1, Dylan Davis], Giacosa [post 4, Luis Saez], Kreesie [post 5, John Velazquez], Chocolate Cookie [post 6, Irad Ortiz, Jr.], Mike's Girl [post 7, Ricardo Santana, Jr.], Pecatonica [post 8, Javier Castellano], Dancing Kiki [post 9, Jose Ortiz], and Kilkea [post 10, Flavien Prat].

Saratoga Live will present daily television coverage of the 40-day summer meet on FOX Sports. For the complete Saratoga Live broadcast schedule, and additional programming information, visit https://www.nyra.com/saratoga/racing/tv-schedule.

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