Tag: People

Money Maker. Maker Magic. Maker Happen. Million Man Mike. Magic Mike. Pick your pun, but trainer Mike Maker is having an unprecedented run at the FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs.

After a record Saturday, Maker went out and won Sunday's first race, a starter allowance with a $70,000 purse, with Just Say When. That gave him a record-breaking 11th victory of the meet, eclipsing the mark of 10 set by Wayne Catalano in 2013.

“Hopefully we keep going today,” Maker said before he went out and did just that Sunday. “The horses have been showing up, so we're very grateful for that. We have a lot of horses that fit here, so we have high expectations coming into the meet.”

Just Say When gave Maker an 11-5 lead over his closest competitor (Wesley Ward) for the Kentucky Downs training title, which Maker has earned a record six times.

After the first five days of the seven-day session, Maker-trained horses have earned $2,000,289. That includes a cool $1,095,033 just on Saturday, highlighted by victories with Somelikeithotbrown in the $1-million WinStar Mint Million(G3) and Red Knight in the $1-million Kentucky Turf Cup (G2), which Maker won for a record fifth time.

“He ought to be the next trainer elected into the Hall of Fame,” said Tom Egan, who owns Red Knight. “He doesn't have the big feeder farm or sheikhs or princes sending him horses. He has made them on his own. If Mike has one fault, it's that he doesn't talk enough. He is a quiet, soft-spoken man but has extraordinary abilities to train horses.”

Maker also had seconds in Saturday's six graded stakes with Atone (Mint Million), Artemus Citylimits ($1 million, G2 FanDuel Turf Sprint) and Run Curtis Run ($600,000, Franklin-Simpson). Maker also had a second with second-time starter Fire Baron in a maiden race.

As great as Maker's day was, it would have been more had some of his leading horses been registered Kentucky-breds, most prominently the New York-born Somelikeithotbrown, Red Knight, and Run Curtis Run as well as the Ontario-bred Artemus Citylimits. Had those horses been born in Kentucky and sired by a Kentucky stallion, Maker's tally would have been another $692,325 Saturday, for a total of $1,787,358.

Maker doesn't view it as money left on the table — that would be if his horses hadn't run well. His view is that just the base purses for which all horses run at Kentucky Downs is lucrative.

“Whether they're Kentucky-bred or not, where else are we going to find any race even worth half of what the Kentucky-breds race for?” he said.

“He points so many horses here,” said Peter Proscia, whose Paradise Farms Corp., has won four races at the Kentucky Downs meet, all with Maker. “He starts early in the summer to get ready for the September meet here. With the big pots, it's really a no-brainer.”

“And,'' added owner David Staudacher, who frequently partners with Proscia on horses, “he's got the Maker Magic.”

Five of the six graded stakes winners Saturday were bred outside Kentucky. Registered Kentucky-breds (foaled in the state and by a stallion standing in the Commonwealth) benefit from lucrative purse supplements from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

Saturday's six stakes winners, where born, what they earned:

$1-million WinStar Mint Million: Somelikeithotbrown (New York) Earned $330,770, missed out on $270,630;

$1-million Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf: Dalika (Germany) Earned $334,180, missed out on $273,420;

$1-million FanDuel Turf Sprint: Bran (France) Earned $320,540, missed out on $262,260;

$1-million Kentucky Turf Cup: Red Knight (New York) Earned $317,130, missed out on $317,130;

$1-million The Mint Ladies Sprint: Campanelle (Ireland) Earned $317,130, missed out on $259,470; and

$600,000 Franklin-Simpson: One Timer (Kentucky) Earned $345,960.

The post ‘Maker Magic’: Trainer Enjoying Record-Breaking Meet At Kentucky Downs appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Everybody loves having a nice green lawn but very few like putting the work into maintaining one. Those grumblings you hear on the weekends generally belong to homeowners moments before going out to mow that nice green lawn.

So, if it makes you feel any better, the next time you have to break out the mower and trimmer to take on the front or backyard, think about John Beggin and the lawn he's in charge of keeping nice and green.

Beggin, 41, is the turf and landscape superintendent for Del Mar's Jimmy Durante Turf Course, 10 1/2 acres of lush green grass that not only has to look good but must be kept in optimum condition for the horses that run on it every day during the summer and fall meets.

“I typically get here around 5:30 or six (in the morning),” Beggin said. “I take a walk out (on the course) at 7:15 to do my readings. That's walking the whole thing.”

During his walk, Beggin measures the moisture in the soil and checks the penetration depth and the sheer strength of the grass.

“Once I do that,” Beggin said, “I go to the computer and upload it to the Racing Surface Laboratory and then I do it again after the racing.”

Overseeing the meticulous care of the turf course is an around-the-clock job, seven days a week, 52-weeks out of the year.

“On Thursday's and Sunday's we have turf works, horses training for upcoming races,” Beggin said. “I have three teams of five people set up at different gaps around the track and once the training is done, we have to repair the divots the horses leave in the grass.

“The crews just walk where the horses were, about fifty feet toward the outside rail, that's where they train. We usually tamp and then we double check the other team's tamps.”

The protection of the turf course goes beyond watering and tamping. His crew is also in charge of laying out the boards under the wheels of the starting gate when the gate is moved into position on the turf course before a race. Without the boards, the wheels of the gate would leave side-by-side trenches in the grass.

“We can't have boards underneath the starting gate,” Beggin said. “So as the tractor moves the starting gate back, since we don't have enough guys, we leapfrog the boards out.”

They do the whole exercise again once the race goes off.

“Boom, the race goes,” Beggin said. “Now we have to hustle to get that starting gate out, typically 30-40 seconds. The first time I did it I thought, 'This is crazy. This 15-ton starting gate is flying right by us, tires are just missing us.' I usually do training runs before the season starts because you can explain it all you want but they actually have to do it.”

Beggin has been working at Del Mar for almost two years now. He started under former Del Mar turf superintendent Leif Dickenson, known as one of the best in the industry at taking fine care of Del Mar's turf course. But before arriving at Del Mar, Beggin worked golf courses.

“I was a golf course superintendent at age 26,” he says. “I ran Red Hot Golf Course in Temecula for nine years then left to take on a 36-hole golf course in Menefee Lakes where I worked for five years. And I also oversaw another golf course in Hemet. Then the pandemic hit, crazy budget cuts and I got laid off.

“One of my old teachers, and a friend of Leif's, reached out to me and told me to talk to the folks at Del Mar. We hit it off and I came in the following day. Then, just before the 2021 Breeders' Cup, I had one of my old golf courses reach out to me and push for me to come back. So I left here in January of 2022.”

But not for long. Months later, Leif Dickenson contacted Beggin again.

“He said he was taking a job in Florida and Del Mar needed me to come back,” Beggin said.

That was on June 20, one month before the start of the summer meet. Nonetheless, he signed on.

Beggin is quickly becoming a respected track superintendent in his own right. He applies the knowledge he learned working golf courses to maintaining the racing surface at Del Mar though, he says, there are some big differences between two.

“Golf you want everything fast and firm,” Beggin said. “Out here with horse racing we're all about safety. We need consistent conditions. We need the grass to be nice and soft. You want the grass to take the impact, not the horse.

“On a golf course all the heights and cuts are super small and everything's tight. On this (racetrack), we try to get the grass close to four inches. We want the soils to be super soft so there's a different mix. This is a 70-30 blend of sand with fibers in it that were engineered for horse racing.”

Beggin said it's not lost on him the huge responsibility that comes with this job.

“I think about it every day,” he said. “Every time those horses get on the track, I'm nervous.”

That being said, the safety record at Del Mar has been second to none over the past few years. Something Beggin takes a lot of pride in.

“Yes, we work so hard to keep those numbers consistent,” Beggin said. “It's not that easy. I get pretty stressed.”

And when the meet ends on Sunday, Beggin's job is just beginning.

“Then it's a matter of rebuilding the Bermuda base for the fall meet,” he says. “That's why we're constantly moving the rail, to spread the wear.”

After the Bing Crosby meet, the work continues into the winter and spring, when they literally blanket the turf course.

“We do something pretty unique here,” Beggin said. “We use UV turf blankets and cover all 10 and a half acres. Two weeks on…two weeks off. It's like a greenhouse effect. We're the only place that will be mowing in January.”

The blankets stay on until May when the soil temperatures and air temperatures get back up. Then the cycle begins again to get the track ready for the summer meet.

As if that's not enough, Beggin is also in charge of all of the many plants, bushes and flowers you see in the paddock and around the facility.

It helps to have a green thumb.

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Gage Holmes is getting a rare experience for a jockey who just started her race-riding career in late January. The 26-year-old Penn State graduate is riding Cambus-Kenneth Farm's Henrietta Topham in the Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf, whose $750,000 purse will increase to $1 million with the presence of Grade 1 winner Dalika in the field under incentives offered by Kentucky Downs.

Having won 34 races overall, Holmes generally gets a seven-pound apprentice allowance to encourage trainers to use an inexperienced rider. But that allowance does not apply to stakes races. Thus, the 4-year-old Henrietta Topham will carry the 124 pounds dictated by the race conditions, two pounds fewer than race favorites Dalika and 2021 Ladies Turf winner Princess Grace.

But Henrietta Topham is 3 for 3 with Holmes after starting her career 0 for 3 with veteran riders last fall. The victories include Ellis Park's $100,000 Centennial Distaff Turf Mile by a half-length over multiple stakes-winner Turnerloose. It was the first stakes win for Holmes, Cambus-Kenneth Farm owner Michael Burns and trainer Geoff Mulcahy, whose majority business is getting horses ready for other trainers.

“They're awesome, and they continue to give me a chance,” Holmes said. “I'm just so blessed and very thankful to everybody involved — my agent (Jimmy McNerney), the owners, trainers who have kept me on for this incredible ride. It's just a great experience.”

After the Ellis victory, Mulcahy admitted he'd thought about switching to a more experienced jockey but decided, “If it's not the right time to go for a stakes when you're coming off two wins, when is? And Gage was a part of those two wins.”

Now it's three wins.

“She's just so cool,” Holmes said of Henrietta Topham. “I know they're going to take her as a broodmare afterwards. But she's one of those if she didn't have anywhere to go, I would take her home with me, even if I had to keep her in my closet.”

Holmes grew up in Pennsylvania and groomed horses at Presque Isle during the summers while working on a degree from Penn State in veterinary and biomedical sciences — a combination of pre-med and pre-vet school.

“Just to get to know the racetrack, get to know what it's about and see if it was the right course for me after I graduated,” she said of a veterinarian career. “When I graduated I went to Ocala to learn how to gallop. From there I got a job in Kentucky and rode for Ian Wilkes for almost two years and I worked for John Ortiz and now we're here. The ultimate goal was to be a jockey.”

Holmes believes she will use her college degree some day.

“I'm doing this while I can and while I'm able,” she said. “I absolutely love it. That's just there for when I decide to retire.”

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A docuseries currently being filmed at Wyoming's Sweetwater Downs will provide an insightful, close-up, unfiltered portal into a sub-culture of American sport and the human spirit.

Long-time track announcer at Sweetwater Downs in Rock Springs, A.P. Harreld, who is an executive producer of the series, says the story will feature the racetrack where a kaleidoscope of lives converge –and the outcomes are never certain.

“These are very real people whose lives coincide for two months at a horse track in the heart of the American West,” said Herreld. “Some young, some old. Some successful, some less-so. All from vastly different backgrounds chasing big dreams or unlikely comebacks, set against the sublime and imposing Wyoming backdrop. And so much of the outcome is determined by the horse they ride.”

“Racing at the Rock” will take viewers on an insider tour of minor league horse racing and the lives of the people involved. Viewers will get to know a handful of colorful characters whose lives revolve around the racing, from the jockeys to the owners to the people who make a living around a racetrack.

The landscape and physical setting of Rock Springs, Sweetwater County and southern Wyoming will play a large visual role in this series.

“Wyoming is the American West,” said Eugene Joyce, general manager of Sweetwater Downs. “Windswept prairies, jagged mountains, trout-filled rivers. Cowboys, big rigs, big hats and big skies. Rock Springs might fly under the radar from a tourism perspective but it's as American and as western as it gets,” Joyce continued. “I am looking forward to horse racing season at Sweetwater Downs come alive on screen – and reveal all that personality, grit, hope and pride in an honest, unvarnished and competitive capsule.”

Veteran documentary film makers Michael and David Hansen of Modoc Stories intend for this series to be a true documentary. An unscripted series, it will be thoughtful and respectful while also being unafraid to reveal the thick skin, harsh realities and touching human moments inherent in the rough-and-tumble life of horse racing. A premiere date for the docuseries will be forthcoming.

“Most of our lives are slow, long train rides, but for these jockeys and owners their lives can turn precipitously, for good or bad, on a sprint around a dirt track,” said Harreld. “We intend to establish that tension – the race tension and the overall tension of the short season – throughout the series. The track and the sport as accelerators of the live-fast-ride-hard approach to life.”

For those who want to experience the action in person, the 12th season of live horse racing at Sweetwater Downs extends through Sunday, October 2. Gates open at noon on Saturdays and Sundays with post times set for 1 p.m. Races will also be held on Friday, September 9, and Friday, September 16. Post times for both Fridays are at 4 p.m.

Sweetwater Downs is located at 3320 Yellowstone Road in Rock Springs. Tickets cost $5 per person. For more information on live racing at Sweetwater Downs, visit: wyominghorseracingdata.com.

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