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Veteran Racing Secretary Creel Dies From Cardiac Complications

Tom Creel, a well-respected East Coast-based racing secretary and official whose career spanned parts of five decades, died on Thanksgiving Eve from cardiac complications at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York. He was 64.

Sam Elliott, a longtime friend and coworker, confirmed Creel's death to TDN Friday. He said Creel had suffered a heart attack several weeks ago. On Nov. 22 Creel underwent an eight-hour surgery to implant an artificial heart pump, but developed complications from that procedure and was unable to recover, Elliott said.

Creel had taken over this past spring as the racing secretary at Finger Lakes. But he is perhaps best remembered for his decades of working his way up through the ranks in various racing offices at New England tracks. He was the Suffolk Downs racing secretary from 2008 through the track's closure in 2019, and he later was the assistant racing secretary at Parx and the racing secretary at Delaware Park.

Creel had also worked racing official jobs at Penn National and Tampa Bay Downs, and at times was a jockey agent. Creel also was the racing secretary for the final two stops on the New England county fairs circuit-Brockton Fair and Northampton Fair-before the half-milers went defunct in 2004.

“Tommy was really good at his job, and he enjoyed it,” Elliott said. “As a racing secretary, just putting the races together, there wasn't anybody better. I think that's just that experience of being at the fairs.”

Elliott was alluding to the improvised, deadline-driven nature of the job at the seasonal bullring tracks. At the New England fairs, where horses often ran on the same day that entries for the next race date would be drawn, it was not uncommon for the racing office to forego using a condition book and instead just ask whoever wanted to run to enter their horses. In those instances, it was up to a racing secretary to build races based what limited stock was available, and Creel had a knack for putting together competitive races that didn't slight trainers or overmatch their horses.

“When he was the racing secretary, if you entered your horse, he'd find a place for you to run-that's just the way it was,” Elliott said.

“We met each other at Rockingham in April of 1986, and it was love at first sight,” Elliott explained. “We were pals right away. Tommy was just a very, very funny guy. He took the racing seriously and knew what he needed to do for his job. But he liked to have fun, and he was really good to all the little people at the track. He'd know all the grooms by name. He was the quintessential racetracker. He lived and breathed it, and on his days off you could often find him visiting some other racetrack just for fun. ”

Creel's services had not been finalized as of Friday afternoon, nor had a complete list of survivors.

Elliott told TDN that Creel had two children and a grandchild: One daughter, Amanda, and one son, Christopher. During Creel's tenure at Suffolk Downs, Christopher started shadowing his father on the backstretch and in the racing office at a very early age. He later became a jockey agent while still in high school, and has since worked as a racing official, assistant trainer, and bloodstock agent.

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John Botty, Well-Respected New England Trainer, Dies at 65

John T. Botty, a retired and well-respected New England trainer known for his attention to detail, patience, and knack for developing young horses, died suddenly Apr. 30 after suffering a stroke.

Botty was 65 and lived in Pelham, New Hampshire. He had remained active in the sport as a bloodstock consultant after stepping away from daily work under racetrack shed rows in 2015.

For the better part of three decades, Botty, together with his wife of 32 years, Kathleen, ran a successful, mid-sized racing stable based out of Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park. Kathleen owned some of the horses, but Botty also trained for other long-standing clients, and he was skilled at acquiring and developing horses on a modest budget and getting them to outperform expectations.

His best training years statistically were in the 2000-10s decades, when both Sassy City and Lovethatdirtywater were crowned with Horse of the Year honors as voted by the New England Turf Writers Association. In 2012, Botty was honored by that same organization with the Lou Smith Award for contributions to New England racing.

Beyond the 333 lifetime training wins he earned starting in 1987, Botty was known as a friendly backstretch face who was quick with a kind word, and he was emphatic about the concept of Thoroughbred aftercare long before that way of thinking became embraced as an organized industry movement.

Botty, a Massachusetts native who had graduated from Syracuse University, was one of the few New England trainers to occasionally venture away from the circuit to race at top-tier racetracks like Keeneland or Oaklawn Park, and the serendipitous tale of an 11-for-34 racemare named Our Revival epitomizes what Botty was all about, both as a person and a horseman.

Botty often described the hard-hitting Our Revival as a “street fighter,” and on Apr. 14, 2005, he shipped her to Keeneland. Just before the race, Botty ran into New England transplant Michael Blowen, who had parlayed his volunteer work on the backstretch of Suffolk Downs into founding the Old Friends retirement farm in Kentucky.

Botty handed Blowen a $50 win ticket on Our Revival. According to a subsequent Boston Globe story, he said he liked his mare's chances, and if she won, to donate the money to Old Friends.

That type of generosity wasn't unusual for Botty. But Blowen knew Botty was not the type of trainer who usually touted his own horses, so he figured the mare must really have a good shot.

Our Revival rallied from far back and won going away by 7 3/4 lengths. She paid $17.40 to win.

Now fast-forward a few years. Our Revival retired in 2007 and was sold twice at Keeneland as a broodmare. But by 2012 she was entered to be sold at an auction in Texas frequented by “kill buyers.” When Botty found out, he, along with a network of other helpers across the country who donated time and money, arranged for a last-minute acquisition to keep her from going to slaughter.

Botty contacted Blowen and said, “if you got a place for her, I'll get her out of there, whatever it takes to save her, because she's a beautiful animal. She shouldn't end up like that,” Botty told the Globe while deflecting most of the rescue credit to the team of “guardian angels” who spotted Our Revival at the sale.

Botty arranged for a horse van from Oaklawn to go get the chestnut mare with the distinctive white blaze in Texas and deliver her to Old Friends, where she lived a well-cared-for life until passing away in 2018.

Botty's memorial service is scheduled for May 10 in Massachusetts; details are here.

To honor Botty's memory, surviving family members are asking for donations to Old Friends via this online portal.

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Pat Lamberty, Former Suffolk TV Host and Centennial Farms Rep, Dies at 43

The New England racing community is mourning the loss of Patrick R. Lamberty, known for his work as a Suffolk Downs broadcast handicapper in the early 2000s, then later as the head of client management and sales for the Centennial Farms bloodstock and racing syndicate in his native Massachusetts. He was 43.

Lamberty died Dec. 16, 2020, in Pompano Beach, Florida. But it was not until Feb. 2 that news of his death began circulating among friends via an online tribute archive hosted by a cremation company that provided services for Lamberty.

No cause of death was listed on the tribute page. In the final years of his life, Lamberty fought to overcome an opioid addiction, according to friends who had extended help to him.

“P-Lam,” as he was fondly known, grew up as a multi-sport student athlete in the seacoast city of Revere, just a few furlongs from Suffolk Downs. He first became enthralled by horse racing when he and some neighborhood buddies would sneak into the track to watch the late-afternoon races when high school classes were done for the day.

In 1997, while earning a degree in business management studies from Boston University, Lamberty won an internship to work in the press box at Suffolk Downs. He spent several summers at Monmouth Park in a similar capacity.

Lamberty's aspiring knowledge of Thoroughbred pedigrees combined with a gregarious personality made him a natural fit for earning his way onto the Suffolk Downs “Paddock Preview” broadcast team in 1999. His confident willingness to take on additional on-air talent roles led to co-hosting a nightly TV replay show, a weekly radio program, and eventually serving as a backup race caller. He later parlayed this work into a TV handicapping gig for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation.

In 2003, Lamberty took great pride in forming a small Suffolk-based racing stable with those same hometown buddies with whom he used to sneak into the track. Their very first acquisition ended up exceeding expectations to race at Saratoga.

Lamberty later rose through the ranks at Centennial Farms, where he was the point-person for the syndicate's clients into the early 2010s. He especially relished his roles in helping to select young horses at sales and giving insights on the progression of racing prospects.

Friends who recalled a storm-soaked P-Lam celebrating with unbridled enthusiasm at Monmouth after Corinthian splashed home first in the 2007 GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile for Centennial will probably never encounter a happier rain-drenched racetracker.

Lamberty later moved to New Orleans and then Florida to try his hand at various bloodstock ventures and racing partnerships, and he also represented several jockeys as an agent. He was divorced with no children.

Those who knew of his deep compassion for making sure horses were always well-treated are asking that donations honoring Lamberty's memory be made to benefit a Thoroughbred welfare program of the donor's choosing.

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Defunct Tracks: Letters to the Editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

In Sunday’s TDN, we published Bill Finley’s ode to shuttered racetracks, and asked others to try to beat his number of 28 at which he had attended live racing. Here are a few of the letters we received about the piece.

What a wonderful and moving article from Bill Finley on defunct racetracks. I have no claim to even being close to Bill’s record and certainly not to his great memories. When I was about 10 years old, I remember my folks taking us to Hialeah (about 68 years ago!). I don’t remember much, but the photo in the article jogged my memory about palm trees.

We had moved back to northern New York state when I was around 15 years old and my grandfather took me to the Franklin County Fair in Malone, NY, to see the harness horses. I am not sure if that track is still there or not–probably not. I do recall other local fair sites, most gone. I have loved horse racing to this day.

I was hoping Bill would include a listing of all the closed tracks, location, years in operation, etc. Is there a link to such a list?

Kudos to Bill for his great article.

–Patrick M. Premo

Editor’s note: We used this list from Wikipedia as a base, but discovered that it is far from complete.

I wanted to say thank you for today’s article about defunct tracks. No, I’m nowhere near 28.

But, like Bill, Suffolk was a tough loss. I attended both closing days, 2014 & 2019. On the final one in 2019, I walked the track for an hour trying to come to grips with it. I still stop by to grab a Racing Form when I’m In Boston, no less hard. I have pictures from a dark night back in January.

Anyway. Scarborough Downs, short-term flat track in the 50s is set for their final harness race on 11/26. Things are bad there. There are hopes of redeveloping Cumberland Raceway for harness racing. However, Scarborough is the last New England outpost with Thoroughbred lines.

–Justin Stygles

I too majored in thoroughbred horse racing in college. As a resident of Winthrop, MA, I spent many a day–and night–at Suffolk Downs. To this day you can see the shoulders of the harness racing track fading away inside the current mile track. I do remember night harness racing there. Jump the fence and bet two dollars on the favorite!

When I went to college, it was at St Francis College (now the University of New England) in Biddeford, Maine. Right down the street from Scarborough Downs–how convenient! They had both flats and harness racing. We spent every night there. Just wanted to bring back another fond memory of my misspent youth! Remember the doubleheaders at Rockingham Park on Labor Day?

Thanks for the memory!

–Frank Buckley, Winthrop, MA

I can’t beat the number of tracks that Bill has been to that have closed, but I can add a couple of New England tracks–Narragansett and Lincoln Downs in Rhode Island, also Tropical Park in Florida. Some of the tracks listed in the article brought back some fine memories. It’s a shame that many of these tracks are gone, but I’m not sure the economics of the times would be good for the quality of racing if they were all still around.

-Gary Denn, Guilderland, NY

I just read your piece on lost tracks, and realized your days at Suffolk Downs probably coincided with mine. I have been a steward there since 2000, but since 1976 I bred, raised and raced my own horses. In fact, I just put out a book which is an account of each one, from birth to the track and beyond called “Chain of Foals.” You’d probably recognize lots of names in there! Anyway, I’m still suffering from Suffolk-shock; the grandstand is still there, and I keep thinking I should visit one more time, go up to the roof, look at that wonderful view…sigh! What a wonderful place it was, and wonderful people, now scattered all over the racing world. Anyway, I enjoyed your article; you might enjoy the memories in my book!

–Susan Walsh

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