In Their Care | Horse Racing Free Tips

Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Humberto Gomez More Than Just An Exercise Rider To The Stars

It is impossible to imagine that any exercise rider can match the resume Mexico City native Humberto Gomez has built since he arrived in the United States in 2000.

He learned the importance of keeping his mount in rhythm from trainer Bobby Frankel. John Shirreffs' emphasis on patience was somewhat offset by Julio Canani's aggressiveness. Doug O'Neill stressed the importance of a positive attitude and teamwork.

Bob Baffert then hired Gomez and allowed him to put all of that together in 2018. He entrusted him with Justify and the rider who is widely known as “Beto” helped him develop an unraced 2-year-old into an undefeated Triple Crown champion.

Gomez emerged as the successor to the great Dana Barnes in Baffert's phenomenal stable, helping quirky Authentic to mature in time to win the pandemic-delayed Kentucky Derby and the Breeders' Cup Classic last year.

Gomez's heroic handiwork on the ground in 2017 is as impressive as anything he has accomplished on horseback. Trainer Kristin Mulhall credits him with saving the life of a 4-month-old Thoroughbred that was seemingly taking its last breaths after swallowing a black widow spider.

Mulhall, receiving phone instructions from veterinarian Melinda Blue, was attempting to perform an emergency tracheotomy using a dull box cutter and a syringe casing for a tube. She was in despair when Gomez arrived. She looked into the flailing horse's eyes and saw imminent death.

“You couldn't even see his pupils,” Mulhall said. “His eyes were bloodshot and cloudy. I thought 'Well, if he can't get enough oxygen, he's probably brain dead.'“

When she told Gomez as much, he refused to give up. He jumped on top of the foal, doing everything he could to hold down its head and feet.

“Try again!” he implored Mulhall. “Try again!”

Her third attempt was the charm. She finally succeeded at cutting an adequate hole in the trachea and suturing the tube into place using dental floss.

“The minute she put the tube, the horse took a lot of air,” Gomez said. “That gave us a lot of hope.”

Humberto Gomez on horseback off the track

Gomez and a friend dragged the horse into a trailer. Gomez continued to hold down the foal as he was rushed to Chino Hills Equine Hospital, where he began a full recovery.

Mulhall thanked Gomez by inviting him to name the California-bred. Gomez thought back to Catemaco, a horse he rode in Mexico City that displayed a huge heart every time he raced. Mulhall quickly embraced the name, which was approved.

Mulhall will be forever grateful to Gomez. “He pushed me to try because I gave up,” she said.

For Gomez, 44, his job is so much more than a job. “I just love what I do,” he said. “I have a passion for racing.”

That passion, combined with expertise gained through exposure to so many prominent trainers, has made him the go-to exercise rider for many of Baffert's stars.

“He can tell me a lot. He tells me what we can do differently. We try to change it up a little bit every day,” Baffert said, adding, “He's a good horseman. He's a really good horseman.”

Baffert and Gomez form a dynamic combination, much the way Baffert and Barnes did. “He cannot feel what I feel,” Gomez said. “I cannot see what he sees.”

According to Baffert, Gomez's input is vital. “He'll tell me if a horse is not doing well,” he said. “I want to know if we're doing too much with him, if we're not doing enough.”

Humberto Gomez with Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic winner Authentic

Baffert had long admired Gomez from a distance. “I always thought he'd make a great addition to the barn,” he said. Once he had the opportunity to hire him, he did not hesitate to assign highly-regarded but unproven Justify to him.

Gomez knew almost immediately that Justify would be the horse of his dreams. “The power of this horse and how professional,” he said. “He was acting like he was an older horse. The horse would do anything you wanted him to do. He likes to please you.”

Authentic? He was a project from the start.

“Authentic, when we got him, he was really immature,” Gomez said. “He would be galloping and looking at things all the time and trying to do things like a troublemaker. Every day was something with him.

“Day by day, we were trying to get to know him better, always keeping in mind that he was a late foal (May 5) and it was going to take him time to mature. With this COVID thing, they changed the time for the Kentucky Derby, so we were lucky to get him more time to get him more mature and everything.”

Gomez raves about Saudi Cup-bound Charlatan, describing him as a “machine.” Although newly-minted 3-year-old Life Is Good and Authentic were both sired by white-hot stallion Into Mischief, he believes that Life Is Good is more advanced than Authentic was at this early stage while describing him as being “in a learning process.”

Justify, Authentic, Charlatan, Life Is Good. The hits keep coming for Gomez. That almost surely will continue as long as he remains aligned with one of the most accomplished trainers of all time.

“I love to be riding all these champions,” Gomez said. “I'm so lucky to be part of his team.”

Catemaco will always hold a special place in his heart, though. Mulhall needed to wait until he turned 4, but on New Year's Day she and Gomez exulted as he made a winning debut in a six-furlong race at Santa Anita.

“It was very emotional because I see a horse almost dying and you never thought the way we saw him that he would make it just to be a pet,” said Gomez, appreciating how far he and Catemaco have come.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

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Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Labarre, Montanez ‘Stronger Together’ After Harrowing Accident

Exercise rider Chloe Labarre tuned in to watch the first race at Laurel Park in Maryland on July 17, a 5 1/2-furlong turf contest. Her fiancé, Rosario Montanez, had picked up the mount on Hendaya due to an injury to another rider.

Labarre remembers feeling some concern as the runners advanced to the starting gate because neither of them was familiar with the 4-year-old filly. She breathed a sigh of relief when Hendaya broke cleanly and the field began to string out.

She was filled with doubt and fear by the time the race ended. Montanez and Hendaya were nowhere to be found as the horses flashed across the finish line. Then came the call.

It was from Brittany Russell, the trainer who employs Labarre. “Chloe,” she said, “he went down.”

Hendaya, seemingly too headstrong for Montanez to handle, had clipped heels with a horse in front of her, causing both of them to fall. Hendaya rolled over Montanez before regaining her feet. Montanez was not so fortunate.

“It happened so fast,” Labarre said. “I didn't see it happen.”

They live five minutes from Laurel Park. Fortunately, medical help arrived so quickly that Montanez was already being rushed to the hospital by the time Labarre reached the track. She waited hours while her fiancé was evaluated. He would have full use of his extremities but was found to have a traumatic brain injury, a broken back, broken ribs and facial fractures.

Montanez is 30, two years older than Labarre. They never envisioned such hardship when they became engaged on Nov. 3, 2019. No one could have.

Montanez, one of three finalists for the Eclipse Award as North America's leading apprentice in 2011, underwent successful back surgery at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore the next day. As Montanez spent the next two weeks recovering in intensive care, he understood as never before how strong a woman he had chosen as his future wife.

“Chloe is my rock, honestly. She is my everything,” he said. “If I wasn't with her, my life would be completely destroyed.”

Labarre found inner strength she never knew existed.

“I wasn't okay, but I was fine,” she said. “I was getting through it because he needed me to be there. I couldn't be the one falling apart, having a meltdown.”

She stayed at a hotel near the hospital in those critical early days before returning to work, even though Russell had urged her to take as much time as she needed.

“She reached out to me and said, 'I want to come back,'“ Russell recalled. “I was very surprised. But, at the same time, she loves what she does. I think it was a little bit of a sense of normalcy for her to get on horses and get back to the barn.”

Russell went on: “It's the nature of the business. Horse people, we don't really know how to take time off. It's kind of been bred into us to put your head down and go to work regardless of what is going on in your personal life.”

“I've loved horses since I was a little kid,” said Labarre after returning to the saddle following her fiance's racing injury. “They're my life.”

Labarre had grown up with horses and ridden at an early age. She has been an exercise rider since she was 16 and has worked for a series of prominent trainers, among them Hall of Famer Bill Mott, Chad Brown and Michael Matz.

Labarre never thought twice about returning to horseback, even after seeing firsthand how perilous that can be.

“I love it. I love horses,” she said. “I've loved horses since I was a little kid. They're my life.”

She had always been aware of the danger without experiencing it. “Thank God, I've never been injured badly on a horse,” she said. “I thank God for that right now because I don't want it to happen.”

While Montanez continues an encouraging recovery by attending physical therapy three days a week and talks hopefully about returning to competition, Labarre has helped make Russell one of the leading trainers at Laurel Park's fall meet.

“She is a huge asset in the barn for more reasons than one,” Russell said. “She gets along with pretty much anything she sits on and she's a good read of a horse. She can breeze horses. She works horses from the gate. She gets on babies. She helps older horses.”

Russell and Labarre enjoy much more than a typical employer-employee relationship. Russell arranged a GoFundMe account that ultimately raised more than $40,000 to benefit Montanez. Almost $3,000 poured in during the first hour.

“I have no words to say how thankful I am to them,” said Montanez.

Some good has come from the ordeal. If Labarre and Montanez had the slightest doubt about their relationship, they now know one thing with certainty. They are stronger together.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

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Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Horses Are The Best Medicine For Agrinsoni

Few questions are needed to prompt Frank Agrinsoni into telling his life story in well under an hour.

Yes, he talks fast. And he is unflinching as he speaks of mistakes made as a two-time divorcee, an itinerant career typical of many racetrackers, a grim battle with cancer that is now in its fourth year and the passion that sustains him, his love of Thoroughbreds.

“Nobody gave us a manual when we signed up for life,” Agrinsoni, 54, began.

And he was off to the races during a phone interview that largely turned into a delightful monologue by a good man.

Although Agrinsoni lacked a manual, his father Jose's background as a jockey turned exercise rider turned trainer certainly shaped his life. Jose left Puerto Rico to come to New York, where he worked a night shift at Nabisco, then trained horses at Aqueduct Racetrack or Belmont Park each morning. His son accompanied him to the barn whenever possible.

“I fell in love with the horse as soon as I saw one,” Agrinsoni said.

He served as a hotwalker at a tender age. With his father as his role model, he developed a tremendous work ethic. He just never viewed it that way.

“It's not work. It's a lifestyle,” he said. “If you can't handle seven days a week, the 16-hour days you sometimes put in, then this is not for you.”

Agrinsoni tried to devote the hours necessary to being a good college student. He attended William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., only to realize after a year and a half that advanced studies were not for him.

“The horses were calling,” he said.

He happily answered that call. He has worked as a hotwalker, groom, foreman and assistant for so many trainers that he lost count of them all.

“I'm a utility man,” he said. “Wherever I'm needed in the barn, that's where I go.”

He has been employed by luminaries such as Dick Dutrow Sr., Carl Nafzger and Steve Asmussen, making sure to absorb knowledge from anyone he ever reported to.

Photo courtesy Frank Agrinsoni

“This is not a factory where you train as a forklift driver and you train for six weeks and you're done,” he said. “This is an ever-evolving business. I've been 40 years in this game. I'm proud to say that. I'm still learning. Certain horses have to be handled a certain way.”

According to Agrinsoni, his greatest lessons derived from overseeing modest horses at small tracks.

“I grew up with horses that used to run for $3,000, for a ham sandwich,” he said. “I know what it is to take care of a horse that, after a race, he can't stand and eat from a feed tub. You actually had to put the feed tub on the ground because he was so sore.

“Being at a lot of cheap tracks, you get horses that nobody wants from the big tracks. I'm good with the problem children. It's like I tell everybody, 'I can treat the physical. It's the stuff between the ears we've got to work on.'“

Pearl Hagadorn, an assistant to trainer Cherie DeVaux, hired Agrinsoni two years ago to help her with a string of horses at Trackside Training Center in Louisville. He was grateful to gain a place in the operation because he believes DeVaux, a former assistant to Eclipse Award-winning Chad Brown, is on her way to becoming an outstanding trainer. He enjoys a great rapport with Hagadorn, who readily admits she often assigns him the barn's “problem children.”

“He would never complain about it,” she said. “He gets along with all horses.”

Hagadorn treasures employees such as Agrinsoni because he is devoted to the horses entrusted to them.

“It's just a totally different type of human being than the ones just there for the paycheck,” she said. “They have empathy. They understand the body language. They know how to interact and read their facial expressions, which you cannot say about a lot of people in the business anymore.”

Agrinsoni is as gregarious as he is loquacious. He speaks English and Spanish fluently. He moves around the track with the ease of a politician working a crowd.

“Anywhere you go with Frank, everybody knows him,” Hagadorn said. “It doesn't matter what state you're in or what track. There are at least three or four people who will say hello to him.”

She noted that Agrinsoni often gives of his time to help other workers with needs away from the track.

Said Ken Snyder, a long-time friend: “He's one of the nice, good people on the backside. I've never heard a bad word spoken about him.”

Agrinsoni spoke lovingly of his three children: Francisco, 15; Shandra, 14; and Asia, 10. He lives with his parents in Louisville. Jose is 80. Olga, his mother, is 78.

“I have no money,” he said. “So my reputation is everything.”

So is health. He finally hopes to regain that once he undergoes a prostate operation to remove malignant cells. The procedure has been on hold since last January due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His battle with cancer began when a colonoscopy revealed a tumor in 2017.

“It's been hell,” he said. “In and out of hospitals. In and out of chemotherapy.”

Agrinsoni said doctors are confident they can eradicate the few cancer cells that remain. He looks forward to returning to the backside and the track in the spring, if not sooner. He views that atmosphere as critical to his recovery.

“When the trumpet blares for the call to post, I'm like an old gelding that feels it's time for business,” he said. “There is no drug that I could ever take that beats a horse coming down the lane in front and you had something to do with it. From that quarter pole down, I still get goosebumps. The hair on the back of my neck still stands up.”

Words spoken by a man who has much to live for – and much to give.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

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Kirkpatrick & Co Presents In Their Care: Smullen Is The Glue That Holds Tagg Operation Together

Robin Smullen was 17 years old when she was preparing Barnabas, her finest horse, for a show. He was as responsive as ever to her cues – until he could respond no longer.

Barnabas collapsed beneath Smullen due to an aneurysm. Nothing could be done except to comfort him. He died in the arms of a teenager with whom he had enjoyed such a wonderful connection, his head nestled in her lap.

Smullen was devastated. She remained in her bedroom at her family's Oxford, Pa., farm for three days. She sold her three or four remaining show horses. She did not know how she would go on.

“At that point, I was thinking I wanted to give up on horses completely,” she said.

She soon realized how strong a hold horses can have on someone who had been around them for as long as she could remember. There is a pull that is undeniable. And perhaps inescapable.

“I was born into horses. That is all I ever knew,” said Smullen. “A lot of people who get into horses and leave, they always come back.”

Come back she did, and Thoroughbred racing is so much better for that. As an assistant to Barclay Tagg and his life partner, Smullen has been instrumental in the development of a pair of outstanding New York-bred 3-year-olds for modest Sackatoga Stable.

The gelded Funny Cide swept the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2003. Tiz the Law looms as a prime contender in the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 7 at Keeneland Race Course. He could emerge as Horse of the Year if he adds his first test against older horses to his authoritative Florida Derby, Belmont and Travers triumphs.

Smullen aboard Funny Cide. Photo courtesy Robin Smullen

“Robin is really the glue that holds Barclay Tagg Racing Stable together,” said Jack Knowlton, who has overseen Sackatoga since he established it with five high school friends in 1995.

Tagg and Smullen have shown they can accomplish a lot with relatively little. Funny Cide was purchased privately for the comparatively meager sum of $75,000 as a 2-year-old in training. Tagg made a winning bid of $110,000 to bring home Tiz the Law as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton's 2018 Saratoga Sale.

Smullen is proud of the keen eyes they bring to sales.

“We've picked out so many good horses and people don't realize,” she said. “A lot of people could have bought Funny Cide, but we did. You can't see that he's going to win the Derby, but you can see that a horse can run.”

Confrontation, a $35,000 purchase as a 2-year-old, and Realm, a $75,000 yearling, provide two more examples of diamonds in the rough that the tag team of Tagg and Smullen discovered. Each horse surpassed half a million dollars in earnings.

Smullen has been aboard tractable Tiz the Law throughout his development, just as she was the headstrong Funny Cide. When she talks, Knowlton and Tagg listen.

“That is invaluable to have somebody with her knowledge,” Knowlton said. “If there is one little thing that is maybe bothering him, she'll identify it. She may know what it is or, if not, she will work with the veterinarian or the blacksmith or the chiropractor or the masseuse.”

When Smullen detected upper body stiffness in Tiz the Law following his loss to Authentic in the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby, she showed her unwavering commitment to always putting the horse first by urging that the colt skip the $1 million Preakness, the final leg of this year's Triple Crown due to the pandemic. Knowlton abided by that advice. He also was on board when she and Tagg opposed shipping the colt across the country to Santa Anita for last year's Juvenile despite a fees-paid berth in the demanding $2 million race courtesy of a Champagne romp.

Smullen and Tagg have long enjoyed a relationship most couples would envy.

“We went to dinner,” Tagg likes to say, “and she never left.”

One of the keys to their staying power is their ability to leave work behind once long days at the barn and the track are done. They currently oversee approximately 20 horses.

“The good part about Barclay is he leaves the barn at the barn and then home is home,” Smullen said. “If you don't get along with the way you make a decision on a certain horse or a certain race, you leave that at the barn.”

Doswell, a quirky 5-year-old that is fairly new to their stable, represents a constant source of disagreement.

“He's a little bit of a head case, but I try to get along with him and compromise on things,” said Smullen. She gallops Doswell each morning; she is the one aboard for his antics once his training is done. Tagg would like to see the veteran walk back to the barn. The gelded son of Giant's Causeway, bred and owned by Joseph Allen, has other ideas.

“He doesn't like to walk off the track,” Smullen said. “He's jigging and carrying on the whole time, so I just jog him home.”

Although Tagg is routinely dismayed by that unusual sight, Smullen's willingness to live with that idiosyncrasy appears to be reaping rewards. After going winless through his first five career starts, Doswell is perfect in two turf starts for Tagg and Smullen. He led at every call when he finally broke his maiden on Aug. 8 at Saratoga Race Course. He displayed the same front-running command in capturing an allowance race on Oct. 2 at Belmont Park.

With each of those victories, Smullen is reminded of the rewards that working with horses can bring. And she is grateful she persevered long after the beloved Barnabas took his last breath.

Tom Pedulla wrote for USA Today from 1995-2012 and has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blood-Horse, America's Best Racing and other publications.

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