Tag: People

Jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. earned the Angel Cordero, Jr. Award as the leading rider at Saratoga Race Course for the fourth time, finishing with 55 wins to top Luis Saez and Flavien Prat, who tied for second with 40 wins each. Joel Rosario finished fourth with 39 wins. Ortiz has now earned 20 riding titles at NYRA racetracks.

The 30-year-old native of Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico secured the title with a record of 284-55-45-55 and earnings of $7,206,666. He posted a win rate of 19.37 percent and in-the-money percentage of 54.58.

“I feel great. It's amazing every time you have a chance to win a meet here,” Ortiz  said. “It's an unbelievable feeling. It's a lot of work and dedication. The trainers and owners give me big support, and my agent, Steve Rushing, does a great job.”

Ortiz celebrated 15 stakes triumphs during the 40-day meeting that ran from July 15 through September 5, capped by a resounding win with Life Is Good in the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney on August 6. He enjoyed four other Grade 1 victories, guiding top 3-year-old filly Nest to open-lengths scores in the $500,000 Coaching Club American Oaks on July 23 and the $600,000 Alabama on August 20; Goodnight Olive from off the pace to take down the $500,000 Ballerina on August 28; and Forte to a three-length victory in the $300,000 Hopeful on Closing Day.

Other stakes wins for Ortiz at the meet were a Grade 2 score in the Flower Bowl [Virginia Joy] and Grade 3 wins in the Troy [Golden Pal], Schuylerville [Just Cindy], Lake George [Dolce Zel] and Saranac [Annapolis]. He earned additional stakes wins in the Curlin [Artorius], the NYSSS Cab Calloway [Dakota Gold], the Bolton Landing [Love Reigns], the Funny Cide [Andiamo a Firenze] and the Albany [Bossmakinbossmoves].

“Nest was very impressive. It was amazing in the Alabama,” Ortiz said of his favorite moment this meet. “The Whitney was amazing, too. Life Is Good is an unbelievable horse. I'm glad I'm staying on top of him.”

Rosario, who finished fourth with a ledger of 39-34-15 from 184 mounts, captured the Grade 1 Runhappy Travers aboard Epicenter to secure his 12th graded stakes victory of the meet, setting a record for the most graded stakes wins by a rider in a single meeting at Saratoga.

Brown, winner of four Eclipse Awards for outstanding trainer, secured his fifth H. Allen Jerkens Award for top trainer at the Saratoga meet after posting a 197-42-30-34 record with earnings of $6,182,875, good for a win rate of 21.31 percent and on-the-board percentage of 53.81.

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher finished second with 38 wins with Christophe Clement finishing third with 18 wins.

Brown earned his fourth consecutive title at the Spa and fifth overall after coming out on top in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021 and this year. The 43-year-old conditioner credited his staff with his outfit's successes at the meet.

“They stayed focused and everybody contributed,” said Brown. “Of course, the horses, I'm so proud of this stable as a whole. They gave it their all, all meet. Very few horses didn't fire. Whether they won or lost is irrelevant. Very few times did I leave the unsaddling area disappointed with effort. It seems like more of them fired than didn't.”

Meet highlights for the Mechanicville, N.Y. native were Grade 1 victories with In Italian in the $500,000 Diana; Jack Christopher in the $500,000 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial; and Goodnight Olive in the Ballerina Handicap with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard. He also scored Grade 2 wins in the Bowling Green [Rockemperor], Lake Placid [Haughty], Ballston Spa [Technical Analysis] and Flower Bowl [Virginia Joy]; Grade 3 wins in the Lake George [Dolce Zel] and Bernard Baruch Handicap [Emaraaty]; and three other stakes coups in the Curlin [Artorius], Skidmore [Oxymore] and Riskaverse [Gina Romantica].

Brown said his three Grade 1 wins, including saddling the top-four finishers in the Diana, were his favorite moments of the meet.

“The three Grade 1s are at the top,” said Brown. “The Diana with the first four finishers. And also, a wonderful ownership with the Ballerina winner [Goodnight Olive] – that's so many close friends of mine that pooled their money together and bought a nice filly. That was a great moment for me personally.”

Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables continued its dominance at the Spa for the fifth straight year to come out on top as leading owner with 16 victories, two more than second-place Michael Dubb. Repole Stables finished third with 9 wins.

Klaravich Stables teamed up with Brown to celebrate a Grade 2 win with Technical Analysis in the Ballston Spa on August 27, and posted six other stakes placings at the meet. Klaravich Stables tallied a record of 16-12-11 from 77 starters for a 20.78 win percentage and $1,847,391 in total purse earnings.

The post Irad Ortiz Earns Fourth Saratoga Riding Title, Brown Leads Trainers For Fifth Time appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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For all of the considerable changes at Monmouth Park during the past 50 years, there remains one constant over that time: Gatha 'Gate' Artis is still in the clocker's stand at 5:10 a.m. every day during the live meet keeping a watchful eye on horses working.

This summer is his 50^th year as a clocker at Monmouth Park, and for a guy who makes his living marking time he still can't believe how fast that half century has gone.

“It seems like I just started yesterday,” Artis said. “I guess when you love your job that's how it is.”

The 70-year-old Artis first showed up at Monmouth Park for the 1972 meet, shortly after graduating Penn State with a business degree. He tried working as an accountant but found the lure of the racetrack too strong to resist.

He's considered one of the best in the business now.

“I don't know of a horse that has gotten by him,” said Monmouth Park General Manager Bill Anderson. “He knows the markings of horses. He's the best clocker I know.”

Artis hasn't simply adapted to changes in the business, he was the innovator behind moving workouts and identifying markings to a computer in the early 1980s.

“I learned a little bit about computers in college and, to be honest, I got tired of writing everything down in a notepad,” he said. “So I came up with a way to have everything transferred to a computer. Now everyone does that. But it was something no one was doing when I first started.”

The key to identifying horses during workouts, Artis said, starts with the heels. There is no advance notice of which horses will be working, or how many, on a given day, so being able to identify horses on looks alone is a fundamental part of the job.

“That's where you have to look first – the heels,” he said. “On the coronet of the feet, sometimes they have white, sometimes they have nothing, but every horse's foot is different and you have to recognize that. After you look at the feet you work your way up to the body and the horse's head. But if you don't start with the feet you'll get thrown off. They all have different feet.”

Artis, who started clocking with his cousin at now-defunct Green Mountain Racetrack in Vermont as a teenager, also serves an adviser during horse sales “scouting horses like I do the workouts.”

“I consider myself pretty good at watching a horse move and picking out horses,” he said.

The biggest change Artis has seen from his vantage point is the way trainers work horses. Thirty or so years ago, trainers would work horses at a mile or six furlongs. These days, he said, it's all three-eighths of a mile or a half-mile. That and the reluctance of modern trainers to work horses in the slop are the biggest differences Artis has seen.

He has also changed with the times, moving from a hand-held stopwatch he started with and used for many years to a more high-tech device that now records workouts in one-hundredths of a second.

And Artis remains one of the best at the job.

“The Monmouth Park clocking crew through the years is consistently the best, most accurate and the most reliable out there,” said Brad Thomas, Monmouth Park's handicapper and morning line odds maker.

Artis said three horses stand out above all the ones he has watched work through the years: Holy Bull, Skip Away, and a mare named Red Cross, who won 13 of her 19 career starts in the mid-70s.

“Skip Away was probably my favorite horse to watch,” he said. “He was an iron horse. He never missed a day at the racetrack. He was out there every day, all of the time, either working or galloping.”

The post Labor Day Salute: Clocker Celebrates 50 Years Of Timing Workouts At Monmouth Park appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Ireland's racing community on Sunday were mourning the tragic death of prominent jumps trainer Henry de Bromhead's 13-year-old son, Jack, following a pony racing accident the previous day, The Independent reports.

The teenager either fell or was thrown from his mount during the fifth race on the first day of the Glenbeigh Festival in County Kerry, according to other published reports

Emergency services arrived at Rossbeigh beach scene at approximately 5.20 p.m. local time. The young rider was treated and then transported to the hospital, where he later was pronounced deceased.

To read the full story at independent.ie, click here.

The post Trainer’s 13-Year-Old Son Dies Following Tragic Pony Race Accident In Ireland appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The New York Racing Association, Inc. announced that John Imbriale will retire as NYRA's full-time track announcer at the end of 2022. Although he will step away from the microphone at Saratoga Race Course and Aqueduct Racetrack, Imbriale will continue to serve as primary track announcer at Belmont Park in 2023 and beyond.

Imbriale's 43-year tenure with NYRA dates to 1979 when he won a New York Daily News contest, which gave him the opportunity to call a race and work with the NYRA press office. In 1990, the Queens, New York native became Tom Durkin's backup. Along the way, he took on other responsibilities at NYRA, working with Harvey Pack on the popular Inside Racing program, and in a variety of roles within NYRA TV.

Imbriale has served as NYRA's full-time track announcer since January 2020, the latest in a line of distinguished New York race callers including the likes of Tom Durkin, Dave Johnson and Fred “Cappy” Caposella.

“NYRA is the pinnacle of this wonderful sport, and these last three years have been filled with incredible moments and races that I will never forget,” said Imbriale. “I'd like to thank the fans at Saratoga for truly embracing me, and I look forward to being in the booth the rest of the year and at Belmont Park moving forward.”

Frank Mirahmadi, the track announcer at Santa Anita Park since 2018 and Monmouth Park since 2015, will take over the race calling duties at Saratoga Race Course in 2023. A Los Angeles native, Mirahmadi is well known to racing fans in New York through his work at Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course in recent years. In addition, his prior experience includes calling races at Oaklawn Park, Louisiana Downs, Golden Gate Fields and Hialeah Park. Mirahmadi, 54, will relinquish the race calling duties at Monmouth Park and remain as track announcer at Santa Anita.

“I felt the history and tradition of Saratoga Race Course the moment I entered the gates for the first time 25 years ago,” said Mirahmadi. “It is a magical place, and I am beyond grateful to follow in the footsteps of John Imbriale next summer at the Spa.”

Chris Griffin, who has served as track announcer at Parx Racing since 2021, will expand on his previous experience at NYRA and become the primary track announcer at Aqueduct Racetrack beginning in 2023. Accordingly, Griffin will call the winter, spring and fall meets at the Big A.

Griffin, 41, previously worked as track announcer at Sam Houston Race Park, Gulfstream Park West and Portland Meadows. A native of Santa Monica, Calif., Griffin was backup announcer to Imbriale at the 2021/22 Aqueduct winter meet.

“Aqueduct Racetrack plays a central role in New York's thoroughbred racing ecosystem, and it was a privilege to be able to call races there last winter,” said Griffin. “I thank NYRA for this opportunity and can't wait to get back to the Big A to begin this new role.”

The 2022 summer meet at Saratoga Race Course continues through Monday, September 5.

Due to the construction of vehicular and pedestrian tunnels designed to provide access to the Belmont Park infield, the 2022 Belmont Park fall meet will be held at Aqueduct Racetrack.

The 28-day Belmont at the Big A fall meet will begin on Thursday, September 15 and run through Sunday, October 30. Headlined by four Grade 1 races and six “Win and You're In” qualifiers to the Breeders' Cup in November at Keeneland, Belmont at the Big A will feature 23 graded events among 41 stakes worth $9.9 million in total purses. Live racing will be conducted Thursday-Sunday.

For additional information, visit NYRA.com.

The post Retiring From Full-Time Position, Imbriale To Share NYRA Announcing Duties With Mirahmadi, Griffin appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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