Jimmy Takter | Horse Racing Free Tips

Hall of Famer Julie Krone Brings Talents to Team Lindy

Just last week Lindy Farms, the Thoroughbred racing partnership of Philip Antonacci and Jimmy Takter, which was announced in September last year, had its first winner. They bring to the sport a novel approach to training and a dedication to keeping their horses relaxed and happy with a regiment that includes plenty of turnout in company with other horses.

Now, as they head back north to Monmouth for the summer, they are adding Hall of Famer Julie Krone to their team.

Krone is scheduled to arrive at Monmouth at the end of April.

“I'm very grateful to both Philip and Jimmy for the opportunity and am looking forward to getting to know the horses,” she said.

Antonacci, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Darley Flying Start program, grew up in a family that bred and raced Standardbreds at the highest level. Their renowned stable included the trotter Moni Maker, a mare trained by Takter, that retired as the richest female Standardbred in history, with $5,589,256 in lifetime earnings. As part of it's 1,000-acre breeding and training operation in Connecticut, the Antonacci family began dabbling in Thoroughbreds. It has long been the younger Antonacci's desire to be a trainer.

Takter, an international legend in the Standardbred business, began training for Antonacci's family in 1984. Retiring as a Standardbred trainer in 2016, he was looking for new challenges in life and now, as an adviser to Antonacci, Takter is applying his 40 years of conditioning experience and success with Standardbreds to Thoroughbreds.

“Simply put, Jimmy Takter is one of the great horsemen in the world,” Antonacci told the TDN in September, 2020. “He has a completely unique connection with the horses and his stats speak for themselves. Four Hambletonians, six Hambletonian Oaks and 34 Breeders Crowns, those are unfathomable statistics. He is one of those guys who, even though he was so successful every year, was always looking to make changes or modify something that would give him an advantage moving forward. He is a fast learner and is someone who can adapt.”

“We try to do things a little bit different without trying to reinvent the wheel,” Antonacci said of the new Lindy Farms partnership. “Obviously, everybody's been doing their own individual things for years and they are very successful at the highest level. So, we're just trying to find what works for us. Jimmy is a big believer, as am I, in interval training. We're trying to get horses to build a high cardio rate, and then recover, and then build back up again without putting too much stress on them.”

He continued, “So with our babies, we do interval training. It comes with plenty of rest, and not going too fast and letting them recover. So far, they've all taken to training very well and enjoy it. Everybody seems to be thriving off of it. After every training they seem to grow and muscle up more.”

Added Takter, “The reason why I like interval training is that you're building up the body a little stronger. I'd like to try to get a little bit more bone on the horses and get a little bit more solid foundation on the base. If they get a few months of that, then I think they can carry speed longer and hopefully stay sounder.”

In between the days of training, their pupils receive days of rest and turn out.

“These babies have their whole life to be stressed out in a racehorse environment,” said Antonacci. “We don't really want to replicate that type of environment in the early process as they're growing and developing. So, they spend plenty of time out in the paddock together. We pair them up in twos and they spend their off days, all day nearly, turned out in the paddock, enjoying themselves and being horses.”

With their first winter in Florida coming to an end, Antonacci and Takter have been able to see the fruits of their efforts, both in terms of the team they are building and their horses in training. Currently, there are 15 horses in the stable–eight of which are well-bred 2-year-olds.

“It's challenging,” Takter admitted. “It is way different than training a Standardbred. You never know what you will be facing every day, but I think for the last month I've been really, really happy with how things can come together. I think we finally found the right path, what we want to do with these horses. We went in very easy and very kind to them. Now the last month here they're coming along perfectly.”

“You know, with any new business or new team forming there is going to be ups and downs,” said Antonacci. “It's been a lot more ups than downs and I'm very happy with the people I have around me. The horses are doing great, so it's very exciting. Our team is really strong and everybody looks forward to coming to work every day. We're very happy with the horses and how they're progressing.”

“Our horse Advanced Strategy (Karakontie {Jpn}), who we acquired off Jim Jerkens, raced at Gulfstream [in first start for Lindy Farms]. He finished third. He raced very well. I give a lot of credit to Jim for sending him in such great order. He's a really honest horse and will be a fun New York-bred to have this summer to race around Belmont and Saratoga.”

In his next start last Saturday, the 4-year-old sailed to victory in an optional claimer at Gulfstream, giving Antonacci his first trip to the winner's circle as a trainer.

Krone's connection to the Antonacci family and Takter started with a big win. In 2000, when it came time to retire Moni Maker, Takter wanted to do it in an extra special way.

“When we had Moni Maker, the richest female Standardbred ever, she won a $500,000 race in her final start, but we wanted to do something a little bit more, you know, a little special for her when she did retire,” said Takter. “Julie Krone had just come off retirement and was getting inducted in the Hall of Fame. It was a nice tribute to bring a famous woman like her to ride Moni Maker in what we call Monte. It's riding on the saddle at the trot. Then, of course, she broke the world record. Philip kept in contact with her and about three weeks ago, we decided we would go to Monmouth Park and Julie said, `I want to be with you guys.' So I look forward to that day. She's such a great horsewoman and we can learn a lot from her.”

“Julie's got so much knowledge and she's really just a wealth of information,” said Antonacci. “I'm very, very excited to bring her along. And I think she's going to contribute to the team greatly. And, you know, she's got such a winning personality and is the type of person that you love to have around the farm. She makes everybody feel good and makes everybody feel happy.”

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Philip Antonacci, Son Of Harness Immortal, Celebrates First Thoroughbred Winner

Philip Antonacci grew up in one of the most prominent harness racing families, but he has always been fascinated by the world of Thoroughbreds.

His father, Frank Antonacci, whose Lindy Farms has won five Hambletonians, has been inducted into the Harness Hall of Fame's Hall of Immortals. Yet, the 26-year-old Connecticut native has opted for a change of pace and embarked on a quest to succeed as a Thoroughbred trainer.

Antonacci, who has worked for several of the world's most respected Thoroughbred trainers to achieve that goal, notched his first major milestone as a Thoroughbred trainer Saturday at Gulfstream Park, where he saddled his first winner, Advanced Strategy, in the mile optional claiming allowance feature on turf. Owned by Lindy Farms, Advanced Strategy was Antonacci's fifth starter.

“He'll definitely have a home forever, being my first winner,” said Antonacci, who has 15 horses stabled at Payson Park.

Although he has become focused on his Thoroughbred career, Antonacci has hardly left the Standardbred world behind. In fact, he is teaming with Jimmy Takter, the retired Harness Hall of Fame legend who has ventured into Thoroughbred racing to assist Antonacci.

“He's like the D. Wayne Lukas of Standardbred racing. He retired three years ago. He always had an interest in Thoroughbreds, so when I decided to go on my own, he said, 'I'd like to come along and help and assist. We can put our minds together and come up with our own training plan,'” said Antonacci. “He's at the barn quite a bit. It's been a great team effort.”

Unfortunately, Takter was unable to attend the races Saturday.

“I was on the phone with him. He's won a lot of Hambletonians, but he said he was relieved to get this one across the line,” Antonacci said.

Antonacci, a graduate of Godolphin's Flying Start program, became interested in Thoroughbred while attending the races at Saratoga and went on to work for trainers Wesley Ward, Australia's Gai Waterhouse and Todd Pletcher.

“I grew up summers in Saratoga, so that's when I started to get into it,” said the University of Pennsylvania graduate. “I actually started off working for Wesley at Saratoga. He helped me a lot getting started, and he's the one who introduced me to Gai Waterhouse, who put me in touch with the Flying Start program. If it wasn't for them, I never would have gotten started in the Thoroughbred game.”

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With Hall of Famer Takter By His Side, Antonacci Turns to Training

When Philip Antonacci begins his training career later this year, he won’t be just any rookie. The 25-year-old who has worked for a number of top trainers has enlisted legendary Standardbred trainer Jimmy Takter to assist him in what Antonacci describes as a partnership between the two.

Antonacci’s family operates Lindy Farms, one of the most prominent breeding and racing operations in standardbred racing. Lindy has branched out in recent years and now operates a modest sized thoroughbred operation, which Philip, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, has helped manage. It has long been his desire to go into training thoroughbreds and Takter was looking for new challenges in his life. That’s what brought the two together in what Antonacci calls a “perfect marriage.”

Antonacci has secured 15 stalls at Payson Park and plans on running his first horse at the Gulfstream championship meet. The horses will run under his name and he will handle many of the day-to-day chores, including the administrative duties. But Takter will play a major role, to the point where the two could be called co-trainers.

“Philip is a very bright young man, he has been all over and his background is in this sport,” Takter said. “But he has never had a stable of his own before. That’s where I can help him. I will be his wing man.”

Takter stunned the harness racing world when, toward the end of 2018, he announced his retirement. Just 58 at the time, he said he was having a hard time getting motivated. After spending much of the first year of retirement traveling with his wife Christina, he found that something was missing.

“You miss the horses,” he said. “Horses have been my life. It’s so important to me to be around horses I really began to miss them.”

Takter was born in Sweden, where his father Bo William Takter was a top trainer. Just 22 at the time, he made the move to the U.S. in 1982 and started out with a small stable made up largely of claimers. But it wasn’t long before he had become one of the leading trainers in the sport. In 1996, he earned his first of six trainer of the year awards and a year later he won his first of four Hambletonians with Malabar Man. His next big star was Moni Maker, the 1998 and 1999 Horse of the Year who won major races all over the globe, in the U.S., France, Sweden, Canada and Denmark.

Takter has dominated the Breeders Crown, harness racing’s version of the Breeders’ Cup, winning 34 races in the series. In 2015 at Woodbine, he won six Breeders Crown races and finished second with four other horses with his stable earning $2.69 million that night. It was nights like that led to him being inducted into three halls of fame, the U.S. Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2012, the Hall of Fame at the Nordic Trot Museum in Sweden in 2019 and the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 2019.

“Simply put, Jimmy Takter is one of the great horsemen in the world,” Antonacci said. “He has a completely unique connection with the horses and his stats speak for themselves. Four Hambletonians, six Hambletonian Oaks, 34 Breeders Crowns, those are unfathomable statistics. He is one of those guys who, even though he was so successful every year, was always looking to make changes or modify something that would give him an advantage moving forward. He is a fast learner and is someone who can adapt.”

Takter could have returned to harness racing and would have had no problem rebuilding a powerhouse stable, but he was looking for a new challenge.

“Training thoroughbreds is something I always wanted to do and something I always wanted to explore,” he said. “It will be a new game for me. It’s a good time to do this now.”
It remains to be seen if Takter’s harness racing acumen will transfer to thoroughbred racing. But he sees one important similarity between training a standardbred and a thoroughbred. To be successful with either one, you must have be able to get them into peak condition while also keeping them healthy.

“I am a great conditioner of standardbreds,” he said.. “I know they are totally different horses but you have to condition these horses. The main thing is to build up a strong horse and you have to try to figure out a way to develop them without any injuries.”

Another key to success, he said, is to develop a horse mentally.

“I’m a strong believer that the mind of a horse is very important,” he said. “The thoroughbreds are more hyper and stronger animals. You have to work on their minds and build then as strong as possible in that area, as well.”

Antonacci’s older brother Frank was, until recently, the head standardbred trainer for Lindy farms and Philip spent many a summer tagging along with him to major harness races. But his main focus would become the thoroughbreds, which led him to work for Wesley Ward, Todd Pletcher, Gai Waterhouse and Mark Johnson.

After graduating from Penn, Antonacci completed the Godolphin Flying Start course, the prestigious two-year racing industry management training program. His first job out of the program was for Dave Reid’s Preferred Equine Marketing as its Thoroughbred Sales and Bloodstock Executive, a role he will retain from his Florida base.

Ward currently trains most of the thoroughbreds for the Antonaccis and will keep those horses. Philip Antonacci’s stable will largely be made up of yearling purchases made by the Antonacci-Takter team. On Thursday, they made their first purchase, buying a Hard Spun yearling colt for $42,000 at the Fasig-Tipton sale. Takter weighs in on the conformation of the yearlings but leaves the pedigree analysis up to Antonacci.

At the start, the Antonacci-Takter team won’t have the type of firepower Takter had when training harness horses. They want to keep the stable small and say that their owners aren’t the types to spend lavishly at the sales. But Takter is not doing this to be part of a stable that operates in obscurity. Always brimming with confidence, Takter is setting lofty goals.

“To win a Triple Crown race or a Breeders’ Cup would be a huge step forward,” Takter said. “I understand you need the material for that. But I’m not going into this just to participate. I am going into it to try to compete. Of course, it is our goal to compete in those big races.”

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