Letters to the Editor | Horse Racing Free Tips

Letters to the Editor: Bob Fierro On Sam Huff

You should understand that from the time I could figure out pro football as a kid in the 1950s, I was probably the only one in New York City who detested the football Giants and loved the Baltimore Colts. Don't ask why, it just happened (and continues to this day–go Jets!). Thus, you would not be surprised to learn that through some machinations by the policeman father of a friend I wound up in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium with a dozen other young teens in December, 1958 for what turned out to be “The Greatest Football Game Ever Played,” as determined by a blue ribbon panel in 2019.

That I was probably the only one in stadium who stood and cheered and whooped when Colts fullback Alan Ameche swept past the Giants linebackers to score the winning touchdown was, in retrospect, a huge mistake, because I was immediately pounded into a pulp by my friends.

So, imagine many years later when as newly-elected president of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders I was at a reception for the state program presidents when the dining room doors opened up and in walked one of those Giants linebackers, a tall, fit, and totally mesmerizing man named Sam Huff.

I was beside myself with incoherent thoughts fleeting through my head and did not even have a chance to catch a breath after he was introduced to me and a couple of other presidents. He must have noticed my dropped jaw and for some inane reason I babbled, “I was at the Giants-Colts game when Alan Ameche scored the winning touchdown, and I was 13 years old and a Colts fan and when I went crazy after he scored my friends beat the crap out of me.”

Sam looked me in the eye while everyone around us took a deep breath and then smiled and said, “Would you like that to happen again?”

That was the Sam Huff I came to know–a sweet, determined, purposeful man who along with his partner Carol Holden brought quality, dignity and excitement to the breeding and racing industry in his beloved home state of West Virginia. The three of us got to know each other quickly and they actually invited me several times to be a guest on their radio program–once by cellphone as I was winding my way through the hills of his state on my way back home to New York from a sale in Kentucky.

Though he was stricken almost a decade ago by dementia, he still showed up at the sales at times and when he didn't, I missed a man who had become a star in two great sports–as well as a pal.

My condolences to Carol, his family, and West Virginia–to paraphrase John Denver, his state's country roads have taken him home.

MIKE SEKULIC
Churchill Downs' management is taking a hardline position by suspending Bob Baffert for two years. Baffert is an awfully successful trainer, so I am starting to wonder what might happen if his horses win all the big Derby prep races? Let's say Baffert wins the Santa Anita Derby, Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, Arkansas Derby, Blue Grass S., etc., will Churchill Downs double down on their position and run a Kentucky Derby filled with Derby prep also-rans and allowance horses? Or will they let Baffert's horses participate? Stay tuned. It seems like digging in your heels, even when you might be wrong, is the order of the day.

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Letters to the Editor: May the Horse be With Him

Like tens of thousands of racing fans in the Northeast, I became addicted to Harvey Pack when he began broadcasting his “Pack at the Track” radio program during the 1970s. Anyone who could get away with the kind of the totally 'Noo Yawk' attitude he put forth in a sport that always prided itself on being serious about its “Sport of Kings” sobriquet had to be someone who could probably get away with anything–and for the most part, that's what Harvey Pack did.

When I first met him in the mid-1980s, it was as part of a project a friend had developed with NBC to explore the inside of horse racing. The way he greeted us put into perspective what he always was known to do: he could throw the bull with the best, but he never gave you bull. If he liked you from the start, you were welcomed into his lair; if he didn't, you did not get past the cave entrance.

I was lucky that he smiled on me even if that TV project was dead on arrival.

His lair was on the second floor of Aqueduct, in the basement at Belmont and trackside at Saratoga, where fans from upstate and New England also loved his bantering way. I was fortunate that by being allowed into the lair I got to meet many people who developed into strong acquaintances like John Pricci and John Imbriale–or future business associates like prominent owner Bob Spiegel.

Somehow, he managed to worm me onto his Tuesday night racing recap shows even when I became prominent in the New York breeding industry whose product he privately disdained with a sobriquet of his own which is not quite fit for a family newspaper. I still have the video tapes from those shows and suppose they should be converted to digital since the VCR is long gone, but the memories are strong without having to rewind the lives we lived.

Harvey was a pal for a long time. He was also a perfect New York mensch–a hero to the horseplayer and (secretly at times) more than a few of the hobnobs of the sport. When the news came of his passing, what popped into my brain was that NYRA should do something permanent to honor a man who, in many ways, helped save the sport he loved when it needed all the help it could get.

So, since there is a statue in the Saratoga paddock of a horse that epitomized the lifetime achievement of a pillar of the sport of “kings”–Sea Hero; and, since there is a statue in the Belmont paddock of the great “savior” of racing–Secretariat; should there not be one placed in the horseplayer's perfect paddock–Aqueduct–to honor a man who, like the horse, will always be with us.

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Letters to the Editor: Rinaldo Del Gallo On Tapit

Sometimes a historical moment has to be pointed out. Australian (GB), Fair Play and Fair Play's son Man O' War each sired three GI Belmont S. winners. Lexington sired four Belmont winners who all won at Jerome Park. Now Tapit joins the illustrious ranks of Lexington.

Like Lexington, Tapit has now sired four winners of the Belmont: Essential Quality, Tapwrit, Creator and Tonalist. Tapit also sired Belmont runners-up Tacitus and Frosted, as well as Belmont third finishers Hofburg and Lani. An asterisk might be added for last year's fluke 2020 Belmont, which was 1 1/8 miles, where Tapit was the grandsire in the race won by Tiz the Law, sired by Tapit's son Constitution.

Broomstick sired three GI Preakness S. winners (and two GI Kentucky Derby winners). Bull Lea had three Kentucky Derby winners, as did Falsetto, Sir Gallahad (Fr) and Virgil. No horse has sired four winners of either the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness.

So when we speak of a horse that has sired four horses of an American Classic such as Tapit, this is rarified blood only accomplished by the legendary Lexington.

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Letter To The Editor: Why Do We Insist On Training Our Horses In One Direction?

“Imagine if you will” – Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone.

I start off with this famous phrase to get people to imagine professional track runners always training by exercising by going left only on the field track. Their competitions are left on the field track, always have been, so there would be no need to do anything else but train on that field track, always going left. Right? (See what I did there?)

Next, imagine your professional skaters — ice skaters, both figure and hockey. Anyone who has gone to an ice rink to do casual skating has been informed that after resurfacing the ice, skaters are to go the opposite direction. Imagine these professional skaters training in one direction only. Sounds absurd doesn't it?

So why, in 2021 are we in the North American racing world still only training to the left?

Horses, even Thoroughbred horses, are trainable to both sides. I've done it with every horse I ever owned. Any real horseman knows this. When you lunge a horse in the round pen, you certainly don't lunge only to the left, that would quite literally be insane and, dare I say, cruel.

A horse needs conditioning on both sides, just as a human does. And a horse, while a running athlete, is more comparable to that of an ice skater than that of a track runner. That blade that a skater glides on is comparable to the hoof on a horse. Such athletes need to be competent and more importantly physically prepared evenly or a weakness will gradually grow and hinder if not down right injure eventually.

North American race training has, for the most part, been flawed compared to that of the rest of the world. Globally, you can find horses training in all different directions on all manners of terrain and incline. I say “for the most part” because areas such as Del Mar and Ruidoso in the old days used to have horsemen who would take their athletes to the beach or into the mountains to exercise. This form of training has always been far superior and healthy for the horse as opposed to moving to the left, to the left, to the left.

Yes, there is back-tracking, but that isn't enough physical exertion to properly even out fitness on a horse. Training needs to be revamped so as to allow reverse training, just as your local ice rink makes you reverse directions.

It would be folly for me to go even further and suggest trying some reverse racing. I know they do it “over there” but that “is not here.”

For now, can we please just consider scheduling days of left exercising and right exercising? Who knows, maybe this crazy old guy will be right and that will lead to reduced injuries to the left foreleg.

–Robert Fox, Voice of the All American Futurity for 16 years, longtime announcer, former exercise rider and trainer's assistant.

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, please write to info at paulickreport.com and include contact information where you may be reached if editorial staff have any questions.

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