Vic Cozzetti Passes Away

courtesy Emerald Downs

Vic Cozzetti, a staple in Washington racing for over five decades, passed away Sunday in a Puyallup assisted living facility at age 93.

Cozzetti was a fixture in the press box at Longacres and Emerald Downs–where he was known as “Victor the Predictor”–and involved in every form of racing media–television, radio, newspaper, Internet. His nightly recap on local radio was especially popular with handicappers and horsemen alike, delivering results and racing news in the pre-Internet era of the 1970s and 80s.

Cozzetti was more than just a handicapper and voice for racing, however, founding one of the first ownership syndicates in America, bringing together virtual strangers via 10% shares to own and race Thoroughbreds. Beginning with Media Stables in the 1970s and followed by SKS Stables and Vic-Tory Stables, his syndicates' navy-blue silks were fixtures at Washington racetracks. His final horse, He's All Heart, won the 2011 Muckleshoot Tribal Classic by 10 1/4 lengths.

Cozzetti took great pride in handicapping, offering selections in the Valley Daily News, along with pre-race seminars and a weekly newsletter. He also sold equine insurance, tabulated program standings, assisted in the TV department, and maintained a racing website Predictorsays.com.

“Victor's accomplishments and contributions to Washington racing will never be matched,” said Emerald Downs President Phil Ziegler. “He took on so many challenges throughout his career. The people at Longacres and Emerald Downs were part of his family, and he was part of ours.”

Born in Niagara Falls, NY, Cozzetti grew up in Spokane, starring in baseball at Gonzaga Prep High School and later playing semi-pro ball in Montana. He eventually settled in in Tacoma, where he worked in insurance and umpired baseball and officiated football and basketball.

Cozzetti is survived by a son, Michael of Yelm, Washington, a daughter Deborah of Lakeland, Florida, and a stepson, Jeff of San Diego, California.

The post Vic Cozzetti Passes Away appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

This Side Up: Quit Chasing the Dollar and Try Cruz Control

Assuming that you, too, have by this stage marvelled at the tenacity, balance and athleticism of Alex Cruz in winning a race despite losing both irons leaving the gate, at Emerald Downs last weekend, then perhaps you might also have been prompted to reassess our prejudices against the seat of the 18th Century guardsman.

To the modern eye, the long-shanked equitation of those days appears ludicrous: awkward, stilted and, above all, inimical to the freedom of the horse's movement. We think of the elevation of the modern jockey, as popularized in Edwardian England by the American Tod Sloan, precisely as a withdrawal from interference. Yet seeing how his mount reeled in her rivals, more or less under her own steam, it struck me that the one thing Cruz couldn't be doing, in these rather eye-watering circumstances, was supervise her mechanics. Albeit he did contrive to brandish his whip, it would be a stretch to say that he was in charge of the situation. Yet if he was little more than a passenger, then you have to say that the engine appeared to run very smoothly indeed.

 

Now it would clearly be unwarranted to extrapolate too much from this single sample. But tastes do change–after all, the Turf Establishment in Newmarket was initially scandalized by Sloan's posture, deriding him as a monkey on a stick–and maybe we are too eager to discover efficiency in the style we nowadays find most aesthetically pleasing.

Be that as it may, it would seem that all variations in technique share the same objective, which is to minimize the contribution of the rider. It's very striking, after all, that you hardly ever see a loose steeplechaser even make a mistake, never mind fall, after discarding its jockey.

And I'm afraid that this principle has repeatedly occurred to me, in the days since, as an apt one to pursue in how we present the Thoroughbred to the racing public. Because it does seem that human beings will tend to get involved only to let their own shortcomings–their avarice, their self-interest, their venality–get in the way of the contrasting, captivating nobility of the breed.

Emerald Downs | Reed and Erin Palmer

Now it so happens that Emerald Downs, the setting for Cruz's prodigious feat, filled the poignant gap created by the sale of Longacres to Boeing, resulting in its closure 29 years ago this very week. No such sanctuary, sadly, seems likely for Illinois horsemen after they pay their final respects to a still more storied venue at Arlington on Saturday.

It's going to be a shattering experience for the railbirds of Chicago–among which this Englishman has often been fortunate, over the years, from time to time to infiltrate himself–to watch the curtain come down on one of the most sumptuous facilities, for horse and horseplayer alike, anywhere on planet Turf. Even for those of us who never set foot in the place, the video of the final race at Longacres is extremely moving, with caller Gary Henson doing unforgettable justice to the moment by unexpectedly leaving it to be run in silence. As they galloped toward the clubhouse turn, he solemnly declaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen, these horses belong to you. Listen to their final thunder.”

And, sure enough, there was a sound familiar to our species for centuries before the advent of the horseless carriage, never mind the Boeing jet: the pounding of hooves, against which percussion you hear only the improvisation of 23,358 fans crammed into the stands, crying out and whooping. Some are seen hugging each other in a devastated silence of their own after saluting the winner–ridden, aptly, by Idaho-born Gary Stevens, who began his journey to greatness round this circuit.

Henson's father Harry himself called at Longacres for 14 years but was associated even longer with Hollywood Park–a still more grievous loss to our sport, in the meantime, on the Pacific coast. That track, of course, had passed through the hands of Churchill Downs Inc, whose behavior at Arlington permits little doubt of their unabashed priorities in considering, apparently almost exclusively, the perceived interests of shareholders.

“Perceived” is the key word here, though it's evidently futile to renew the warning that cashing in Arlington tugs fatally at the weakest link in capitalism–namely, that point where a drooling, short-term lust for dividends and bonuses wrenches future profit from its source, in the sustainable engagement of consumers.

Arlington Park | Coady

You really couldn't come up with a more deranged example than putting a wrecking ball through Arlington (Arlington! paragon of racetracks!) in order to corral zombie gaming addicts into a more efficient factory. I can't let this bleak day pass without again quoting Richard Duchossois himself, in a conversation a few years ago. “We're never going to chase the dollar,” he said. “If you have the best services you can, a quality product and a competitive price, then we feel the dollar will catch us… Providing product, that's mechanical. Customer service, people-to-people, is the most valuable thing we have.”

As it is, the track he rebuilt after incineration is this time to be deliberately destroyed–with little prospect, it seems, of a phoenix–by the kind of blindly groping corporate avarice that ultimately injures itself beyond repair.

No doubt others have been culpable, too. I certainly can't claim, if indeed anyone can, to read the inner workings of Illinois politics. But the bottom line is that human beings somehow seem determined, in unspoken but deafening self-interest, always to subvert the glory of the Thoroughbred–stewardship of which is a privilege that should sooner compel us toward a reciprocal beauty, courage and generosity.

I'm not remotely qualified to pronounce on the merit or otherwise of the proliferating litigations that have once again filled the pages of TDN this week, though dismayed to see even the non-racing states of Alaska and Mississippi, presumably on ideological grounds, harnessed to attempts to derail the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). But one way or another there seem to be plenty of people out there with a personal agenda that can only erode public confidence in the way we handle the breed.

Our industry will only thrive if devoted to the horse, the whole horse and nothing but the horse. Future fans, if they are to emerge, are relying on us to breed a robust animal that thrives on the demands of racing–and not just to paper over the cracks as long as it takes to get them through the ring at Keeneland this past fortnight. It seems quite obvious that the long-term interests of the breed itself coincide with those of the fans.

Life Is Good in Pletcher tack | Susie Raisher

With its gray areas supporting yet more litigation, the Bob Baffert saga has arguably become an unhelpful distraction from operations whose sinister performance appears plainly legible in black and white. Some of these have patrons who purport to be respectable, but who can again be charged with wilful interference, in pursuit of short-term gain, with the natural functioning of the horse.

It must be tough for Baffert to see Life Is Good (Into Mischief), a refugee from his troubled barn, shaping as though he retains the potential to prove the most talented sophomore of all. His debut for Todd Pletcher was simply spectacular, and he will doubtless repay the prudent restraint of his rider that day when set a less exacting task in the GII Kelso H.

Baffert having meanwhile scratched the horse at the center of the storm from the GI Pennsylvania Derby, we welcome back a 3-year-old whose profile could scarcely be more different from Life Is Good in Hot Rod Charlie (Oxbow). For all the contrasts between them, these two horses both capture the majesty of the Thoroughbred and its capacity to engage and enchant a mass audience.

So maybe let's all of us try throwing our legs out of the irons, and just leaving the horse to do its thing. That way, in the long run, we all prosper together–life will indeed be good for horses, horsemen and fans. That way, we can daily declare: “Ladies and gentlemen, these horses belong to you.”

The post This Side Up: Quit Chasing the Dollar and Try Cruz Control appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Long-Time Washington Horse Trainer, Former NFL Player Junior Coffey Dies At Age 79

Junior Coffey, a star running back at the University of Washington and one of the state's most successful Thoroughbred trainers, died of congestive heart failure Monday at age 79.

Mr. Coffey died at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, according to wife Kathy Coffey.

A three-time All-Coast selection and three-time Honorable Mention All-American at Washington, Coffey led the Huskies in rushing in 1962 and 1964 and played professionally with the NFLs Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants. His pro career included a rookie stint on the Packers' 1965 championship squad coached by the famed Vince Lombardi.

After a knee-injury curtailed his NFL career, Coffey turned to the world of horse racing as a Thoroughbred trainer in the mid-1970s, becoming one of the state's most respected trainers at Longacres and later Emerald Downs.

At Emerald Downs, Coffey ranks No. 5 in all-time win percentage at 20.13 percent. He preferred a relatively small stable of runners and was “hands on” with every horse.

“My objective,” he said, “is to have a sound and happy horse.”

Born March 21, 1942, in Kyle Texas, Coffey starred at Dimmitt (Tex.) High School and is enshrined in the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame and Texas Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame. Coffey said he wound up a Husky because Washington assistant Chesty Walker had seen Coffey play in Texas and convinced him to come to Seattle. At that time, colleges in the Southwest Conference were not integrated.

Emerald Downs founder Ron Crockett entrusted some of his top horses to Coffey including 2012 Belle Roberts winner Cielator and 2007 Longacres Mile runner-up Raise the Bluff.

“Junior Coffey was one of a kind in so many ways,” Crockett said. “He was an accomplished athlete, a talented horse trainer, a philosopher, a friend to many and most of all kindhearted. He was a trailblazer.”

Coffey won 174 races at Emerald Downs including eight stakes races. He conditioned the filly Run Away Stevie to nine stakes victories including stakes triumphs at both Longacres and Emerald Downs. In his final start as a trainer, Coffey saddled Levitation to a neck victory under Rocco Bowen on September 23, 2018.

Coffey is survived by his wife, Kathy. Funeral arrangements are pending.

The post Long-Time Washington Horse Trainer, Former NFL Player Junior Coffey Dies At Age 79 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Former Racing Executive Brant Latta, 60, Passes

Joseph Brant Latta, age 60, of Fort Smith, Ark., peacefully departed this life on March 15, 2021.  Brant was born on June 14, 1960, in Oklahoma City, Okla.

After earning his accounting degree from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Brant went on to study racetrack management at The University of Arizona.  His horse racing career eventually brought him to Longacres Racetrack in Seattle, Wash., where he met his wife, Heather.  When Longacres closed Brant became the general manager at Yakima Meadows for two years in Yakima, Wash.  Brant went on to manage Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Ariz., and later, he became the general manager of Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.

In the last part of his racing career, he acted as chief operating officer for Magna Entertainment and worked closely with Magna's numerous tracks around the country. Brant was longing to spend more time with his family, so in 2008, he retired from the racing industry and opened an insurance agency that he owned until his passing.

Brant was loved for his quick wit, his extraordinary sense of humor, and his devotion to living his life to the fullest.  He enjoyed playing golf with his daughter, visiting the casino with his son, spending time with his eight brothers and sisters, playing poker with his posse, and having an after-work cigar at Winston's while visiting and laughing with his friends.  He also loved sitting outside on his porch, and anyone who was lucky enough to be invited to “Porchin' with Brant” was guaranteed some truly unforgettable entertainment.

Brant was preceded in death by his beloved parents, Ronald and Rose Latta.  He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Heather Latta; his daughter, Claire Rose Latta, and her fiancé, Chris Eckes; his son, Brayden Latta; his sister Alicia Burks; his sister Ann Borengasser and her husband, Jim; his brother Ty Latta; his brother Kevin Latta and his wife, Kelly;  his sister Theresa Little and her husband, Tony; his sister Angela Knutzen and her husband, Steve; his brother Todd Latta and his wife, Sara; his sister Kerry Roller and her husband, Terry; many nieces and nephews, and countless friends.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, March 20, at 11:00 a.m. at Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Barling, Ark. Interment of ashes will be private and for family only.  Honorary pallbearers will be Ty Latta, Kevin Latta, Todd Latta, Jim Borengasser, Tony Little, Steve Knutzen, and Terry Roller.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic Church, 1301 Frank Street, Barling, AR, 72923 or The American Stroke Association at www.stroke.org.   To leave online condolences, please visit www.edwardsfuneralhome.com.

The post Former Racing Executive Brant Latta, 60, Passes appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights