Tag: The Paddock

Jockey Sonny Leon has been suspended for 15 days after the ride he gave Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike in Saturday's Grade 2 Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs, though Leon told media after the race that his left-leaning position was due to the saddle slipping. Rich Strike was beaten to the wire by Hot Rod Charlie and jockey Tyler Gaffalione.

Award-winning retired jockey-turned-broadcaster Richard Migliore was not impressed with Leon's actions. He broke down the stretch run on the New York Racing Association broadcast of America's Day at the Races (see video below).

“First and foremost, it takes away from the performance of two very courageous racehorses in Hot Rod Charlie and Rich Strike,” Migliore said. “The conversation becomes about a rider leaning all off to the left of his horse to put an elbow into another rider to slow down his forward progress.

“Honestly I think the tactics, besides being wrong, were a complete mistake, because why would you go pick a fight with Hot Rod Charlie, who likes to fight? You had momentum, stay away from him! Instead, Sonny Leon chose to break the hold on his rein, lean in and pull his horse toward (Hot Rod Charlie). When you lean in and pull a horse toward another horse, you're actually slowing their forward progress.

“Now, the story after the race was, 'Well, his saddle slipped.' I did not see that at all. If it did slip at all, it was because of him leaning so hard to the left. I find it harder to believe the saddle slipped if you watch the head on and watch the horses galloping out; after the wire, he changes his crop back from his left hand to his right hand with a hand off the rein. If your saddle actually had slipped, you'd be more concerned with keeping the saddle in the middle of the horse instead of being all loose and up in the air. His legs are in the same position they were when he left the paddock on the gallop out.

“So, I was born at night, just not last night. Stop; it's enough. It's horse racing, not jockey racing.”

Richard Migliore breaks down Sonny Leon's Lukas Classic ride with Rich Strike #ADATR pic.twitter.com/diHmetbJuy

— NYRA () (@TheNYRA) October 3, 2022

The post ‘It’s Horse Racing, Not Jockey Racing’: Migliore Doesn’t Believe Sonny Leon’s Saddle Slipped appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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“Could this moment turn into a movement?”

That was the question asked by Stephanie Hronis to introduce the first Horse Racing Women's Summit, held Sept. 28-30 at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif. Hronis, a partner in California-based Hronis Racing, came up with the idea for the summit and chaired the committee that developed the program.

The moment was the gathering of more than 150 women from various parts of the horse industry and from throughout the country. There were representatives from the front side of the racetrack, the stable area, breeding and sales, gaming, wagering, marketing, television, and more, including a handful of women who earned their way into executive suites.

The movement is about getting more women into decision-making positions, or as one speaker, Rikki Tanenbaum of 1/ST Gaming, put it: “We need more women in C-Suites.”

But the movement is also to have women at all levels be taken seriously within an industry that, like many others, is male dominated. One instance: even after 40 years at Breeders' Cup, where she is now the executive vice president and chief racing officer, Dora Delgado said, “I still have to prove my qualifications over and over again.”

From the perception of this aging, while male, the Summit's Sept. 29 discussions were eye-opening, educational, and refreshing. Eye-opening because I was stunned to learn some of the hurdles women have had to overcome and the challenges they still face. Educational because I gained a new perspective on women and on the workplace in general. Refreshing because the focus was more about what women can do rather than what they've been prevented from accomplishing.

First, the bad news.

Debbie Marshall, senior vice president of PNC Bank, kicked off the day with this startling revelation: at the current rate of progress, women will catch up to men economically in 257 years. That's not a typo.

Contrast that with this comment from FanDuel Group CEO Amy Howe that companies with 30 percent women in executive positions are 50 percent higher performers. “Diverse organizations solve problems better,” Howe said as the featured speaker during a luncheon that honored pioneering racing publicist Jane Goldstein.

Hired by Santa Anita marketing executive Alan Balch as the first female racetrack director of publicity in 1976, Goldstein was introduced at the luncheon by Amy Zimmerman, Santa Anita's senior vice president and executive producer of broadcasting. Goldstein faced numerous obstacles as she rose through the ranks of racing publicist: at Fair Grounds and Monmouth Park, women weren't allowed in the press box after noon because of objections from local newspaper editors.  She opened doors and helped normalize racetrack careers for Zimmerman (hired by Goldstein 40 years ago) and so many others who followed.

Goldstein received a thunderous standing ovation.

There were common themes that arose at each of the panel discussions and during the opening keynote address by author and entrepreneur Susan Packard. Here are a few.

Don't Work With Jerks – “Life is too short to work with jerks,” Howe said during her lunchtime talk. Packard put it another way: “At HGTV (which she helped launch and ran), we had something called the 'no asshole' rule. Don't hire assholes.”

Tanenbaum, who has worked for a number of gaming companies and referred to herself as a “consummate job-hopper,” said she “very quickly determined I need to love what I do if I'm going to bring my best self to work. I need to love who I work with.”

Lindsay Schanzer, senior producer for NBC Sports, repeated something her father, former NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer, told her: “It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.”

Look for Champions – The subject of mentoring and finding champions within an organization came up with several participants. Goldstein mentored Zimmerman and the latter is paying it forward, helping many other women launch careers in broadcasting. But mentors, by virtue of the numbers, can be men, too.

“You have to have champions within the organization,” Tanenbaum said, speaking about men and women. “Without that, it's tough to get the attention of senior, senior leadership.”

“A lot of times I was the only female sitting at the board table,” said Christa Marrillia, vice president and chief marketing officer at Keeneland. “We have amazing men on our team and I have had male and female mentors.”

Marrillia is an example of the “never give up” mantra. She said she forged her way in the door after serving as an intern at Keeneland, then “just kept showing up” at events. Finally, she said, she managed to get an appointment to meet with then-Keeneland president Nick Nicholson and did a PowerPoint presentation on all the reasons she should be hired.

It paid off.

It took awhile to move up the corporate ladder and Marrillia said she made several “lateral moves” at Keeneland, but now is an important part of a management team led by the Lexington racetrack and sales company's first female CEO, Shannon Arvin.

Try to Find Balance – “Workaholism is real,” said keynote speaker Packard, an expert on mental disorders and substance abuse and in recovery herself. She relayed the story of coming home from a business trip to her stay-at-home husband and child and, instead of transforming to wife and mother, went through a list of questions about what they'd accomplished in her absence.  “We aren't your staff,” her husband reminded her. “The biggest issue is bringing your work home,” Packard said. “I don't think it's healthy.”

Marrillia mentioned how she would seldom take lunch breaks, missed school events and birthday parties, and slept with her cellphone on her pillow, answering emails in the middle of the night. When she saw members of her team acquiring some of those same habits, she realized she was not setting a good example. Now she'll take an afternoon off during Keeneland's race meeting if family duties come calling. The cell phone is off the pillow.

Delgado had a similar epiphany after realizing she was not doing her co-workers any favors when she insisted on taking on more and more duties and working long hours. “I wasn't helping my co-workers to be well-rounded individuals when I'm taking on all the jobs because I didn't trust them to do it,” Delgado said.

Trust in yourself and your co-workers, Packard said, is the “most powerful workplace emotion.” The best leaders, she said, understand they have limits. Or as Dr. Dionne Benson, chief veterinary officer of 1/ST Racing, said: “I don't have to be the expert on everything, but I have experts I can go to.”

Don't Rely on Charity to Maintain Integrity – The afternoon panels dealt with “Opportunities for the Industry” and “Industry Integrity – a Brighter Future.”  The recurring message from the latter talk was that industry leadership must develop a plan to address key issues that hurt the public's perception of racing. Jen Roytz, co-owner of Brownstead Farm in Kentucky and a longtime advocate for second careers for off-track Thoroughbreds, said the industry needs to stop relying on charities to absorb the thousands of retired horses annually and have more accountability on what happens to those horses. “Aftercare should be part of the business model,” for breeders and owners, Roytz said.

Similarly, Shannon Kelly, executive director of the Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation, said that it is not “the greatest optics for there to be charity drives all the time for people in need who work on the backstretch.” Kelly delivered a powerful presentation on that subject at this year's Jockey Club Round Table.

Bo Derek, the actress who previously served on the California Horse Racing Board and is currently a member of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club board, said the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund falls into that same category, constantly having to raise funds to support fallen riders.

Derek, who said she once felt like supporting racing was akin to hanging on to a sinking Titanic,” cited significant progress with safety and welfare reforms for both horses and riders, adding there is still much work to be done.

“You can't enjoy this sport,” Derek said, “if you're concerned about the grooms, the riders getting hurt, and the horses not being treated properly.”

I didn't know what to expect when I decided to attend this first Horse Racing Women's Summit, one of a small number of men in attendance. I thought perhaps this might be all about providing greater opportunities for women. Turns out it was more about women providing greater opportunities and a brighter future for the sport.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From the Eighth Pole: Racing And A Much-Needed Women’s Movement appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Sonny Via remembers feeling a little shy, almost sheepish, at cocktail hour before collecting the 2007 Eclipse Award. His Good Night Shirt had run away with the voting that year, winning three grade 1's – second in another.

The horse was clearly best.

Via says he felt almost like an imposter.

Hobnobbing with thoroughbred racing's elite by that Hollywood, California stage gave the Virginia-born insurance salesman pause.

“I was wondering, 'what am I doing here?' It was almost unreal. I was a little dazzled.

“I'm looking around the room and there's sheikhs and billionaires and legends. My god, they're at the top the heap.

“And me.”

It was kindly counsel from Canadian billionaire, racetrack owner and multi-time champion breeder Frank Stronach's son, Andrew, that quelled Via's brief instant of insecurity.

“He was there to accept an award for his father – I remember this (conversation) like it was yesterday. I was saying I didn't really belong, and he said, 'Hell, if you were invited here, you belong here.' ”

A few minutes later, Via strolled with renewed confidence across the stage to collect Good Night Shirt's first Eclipse Award as champion 'chaser.

“I wasn't nervous any more because of what he said. I still remember that. I guess he was right.

“Right place, right time, right horse. That's what did it.”

Good Night Shirt was Via's best hurdler in a long line of National Steeplechase Association winners he's had over more than three decades in the game.

“Ann Via and I were lucky as hell to have some really good horses,” says the 92-year-old Via, as usual referring to his late wife of 61 years by both her first and last names. She died in 2014, but Sonny Via still credits her as a vital part of his racing success. “Good Night Shirt was the one people remember,” Via says. “There's others – Hinterland, Footpad, Welshman – he won at Foxfield just this spring.

“But Good Night Shirt. He was the greatest.”

On the eve of his local steeplechase meet – the 44th annual Foxfield Fall Races run this Sunday, Oct. 2, and it's the meet that actually started the ball rolling on Good Night Shirt's 'chase career, Via took time to trace his meteoric rise in the game. With a little prompting, he was able to recall some of the stories, some of the people that put into motion what Via calls the ride of a lifetime.

How It Happened

Harold Anderson Via Jr. was born July 18, 1930 in Charlottesville, Virginia. His father was a small businessman with an ardor for good horses and fast cars. The junior Via ended up following his dad into in all three.

Sonny Via started showing horses when he was about 10, moving to the open jumper division – he especially loved the old knockdown-and-out classes, by age 15. One of his contemporaries was neighbor and eventual show jumping hall of fame rider Rodney Jenkins.

The Vias showed horses all summer through Sonny's youth, up and down the Shenandoah Valley at county fairs and local and regional shows. They hunted with the local Farmington Hunt.

After high school graduation, Via studied at the University of Virginia for a semester then joined the U.S. Navy. It was during the Korean conflict, and he and a friend decided to sign up rather than sweat out the draft.

Via was assigned to the USS Antietam, an aircraft carrier used for anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic.

When not away at sea, Via was stationed at Oceana in Virginia Beach. He continued to ride at the local Cavalier Stables.

One day at the barn, a real-life meet-cute rocked his world.

“I was out there at Cavalier, and here comes these two girls – they were driving a brand-spanking new Cadillac towing a two horse trailer with two Dalmations in the back seat,” he said.

Via remembers being instantly smitten by Ann's vivacity and beauty.

“She had this boyfriend at the time. I had to relieve her of that, but, you know, we made it 61 years.

“My mom always told me the military was the best thing that ever happened to me. I argue that Ann Via was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

When he was discharged from the navy, Via entered a lifelong career in the casualty commercial insurance business, working out of Baltimore, Richmond and Norfolk. He retired in 1984 and the couple moved to a small farm in Free Union, near Charlottesville.

Via says the farm fed his growing penchant for tinkering and reno. He got totally into the job of fixing up the 1800's cottage: to expand the small home on the farm, they disassembled a 1776 house off another property they owned in rural Dinwiddie County, and carefully moved it to Free Union. He helped design a handsome pairing of the two post and beam structures, rebuilt to look like an original frame farmhouse.

“I like everything old,” Via says. “Old cars, old friends, old buildings. I love things that (mark) the passing of time.”

How Hob Knob got its name is a story unto itself: “I knew country places needed to have a name. So I sat down a yellow legal pad one day when we bought this place and started writing. I wrote down dozens of names, lots of words. I thought of the word, 'hobnob' which means 'to socialize.'

“Then I looked at the property. This house is on a little knoll, a knob. And don't you know Ann Via and I were super social back then.

“Hob Knob. The perfect name.”

Once settled in Free Union, Via dove deeper into another of his passions – vintage cars. He has a penchant for American originals: He's got a 1910 Packard, a 1912 Pierce Arrow, a 1914 Ford Model T and a 1930 Ford Model A.

Ann Via was a car enthusiast as well: her prize possession was a 1934 Rolls Royce.

“I got her that after she'd said she wanted a vintage car, and she wanted it to be a Bentley.

“I heard the cash register going – dinga, dinga, dinga. That's when we got her the Rolls Royce,” a little less pricey, Via says, but equally beautiful.

“I'd been taking cars apart and putting them back together since I was 11. I used to buy them out of barns and fields for as little as $2.”

One treasured find was discovering a 1930 Ford Model A – a two-door sedan he spied under a tattered tarp outside a barn near The Plains, Virginia.

Via's cars aren't just for show: he drives in vintage car tours over sometimes thousands of miles. Good Night Shirt's first hurdle win at the 2005 Iroquois collided with one of Via's car rallies. The Vias were already in Nashville that weekend for a car tour, guests of another steeplechase owner and vintage car enthusiast, Douglas Joyce.

“The horse (breaking his maiden) that day was icing on the cake,” Via says.

Via had previously owned horses in a small partnership with Jack Sanford and others – Farmwick Stables, but he had horses on his own with trainer Jack Fisher starting in the late 1990s. His first horse, Moccasin Run, won his first start for Via – 1998 at Foxfield. It started into motion a dream run for the small stable. Via still says he was always a little cowed even when the success began to pile up.

“I remember one day a horse of ours won at Camden. Our group was excited and jumped up to run to the winner's circle.

“I had to tell them, 'You guys go on down. I can't feel my legs.'

“I had to just sit there for a little bit. I was weak-kneed.”

He eventually made it for the trophy presentation, but a humble authenticity shines through Via's words.

“These horses were so great, it just overwhelmed me. It did then, and it even does now.

“We've had some great times.”

Gangly Youngster to Hall of Fame Champion

Born at Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Bowman's Dance Forth Farm in Chestertown, Maryland, the chestnut son of Breeders' Cup Classic winner and 2014 Maryland-bred Hall of Fame inductee Concern and the Two Punch mare Hot Story, Good Night Shirt was named after a saying by Tom Bowman's grandmother.

Sonny Via knew exactly what “Good Night Shirt” stood for when he purchased the horse in early 2005.

“It was a really old-fashioned saying, and a generation thing, a time-period thing, I'm sure.

“My father would not curse, but if something upset him, he'd come in with 'well, good night shirt' instead of saying, 'well, s**t' like you would today.

“It was old-fashioned and sort of sweet, I think, and fun that probably the Bowmans thought of that, too, when naming their horse.”

The Bowmans told the Blood-Horse that Good Night Shirt was considered “too big, too immature” to be sold with other Bowman-breds as a yearling, so they sent him for early training with Suzanne Moscarelli (who bred his dam.) He later was with Suzanne's son Vince at Maryland's Fair Hill Training Center.

Sean Clancy and then-wife Liz Merryman purchased the horse as an unraced 3-year-old and the big gelding embarked on a flat campaign for Clancy's Riverdee Stable. He made his first start in April 2004 at Pimlico and during the summer meet won back-to-back turf starts. That was the extent of his main track success – his flat career concluded with two wins from eight starts.

What Could Have Been

For her part, Liz Merryman remembers Good Night Shirt as a once-in-a-lifetime animal.

“He was the only perfect horse I have ever been around,” she says. “He had every good attribute a horse could have. He was sound, sweet, sensible, athletic, incredibly talented and a delight to be around.”

“Make sure Lizzie Merryman gets credit for his success. She made the horse,” recalls Good Night Shirt's one-time owner Sean Clancy.

After breaking his maiden and winning his NW2, Good Night Shirt wasn't effective at the allowance level. The timing of deciding to sell the horse and publication deadline made for a history-making collision.

“We had a quarter page hole on deadline” in the old print edition of Steeplechase Times, Clancy recalls. Brother and co-editor Joe Clancy “said we needed an ad to fill the space.

“We designed (a sales ad for Good Night Shirt) in minutes and threw it in there.

“We were probably both a little punchy and didn't think much of it. I got a couple of calls, and sold the horse, so I guess it worked.”

“Jack Fisher saw the ad, I saw it too,” says Sonny Via. “Everybody read the print Steeplechase Times back then. I remember the ad – it said 'Buy this horse, or you'll be chasing him.' It was clever, and, yes, I guess it worked 'cause we bought him.”

When asked if he was “sorry” to have sold the future champion, Clancy is circumspect.

“Lizzie told me not to sell him.”

New Beginnings

Trainer Jack Fisher and Sonny Via purchased Good Night Shirt from Riverdee after his last start on the flat in late 2004.

“Sean Clancy kept pestering me, telling me I should buy this horse,” Fisher recalls. “I finally got tired of hearing him talk about it so we bought the horse.”

Good Night Shirt won his first NSA start, a training turf at the old Strawberry Hill meet in Richmond in April, 2005. It was rider Willie Dowling's first NSA win, having arrived in the U.S. from Ireland just a week before.

He was third in his hurdle debut two weeks later at Foxfield Spring, and broke his hurdle maiden at Iroquois two weeks after that. They were brought down in a rough race at Saratoga, Dowling was sidelined and Xavier Aizpuru got the mount. With Aizpuru aboard, Good Night Shirt won the grade 2 Ferguson at Colonial Downs the next summer, second in the Smithwick.

Dowling got the ride back for the Royal Chase at Keeneland in April, 2007, and stayed aboard the rest of the horse's career. That year, they won the Iroquois, Lonesome Glory and Colonial Cup — all Grade 1 — to earn his first Eclipse. He defeated three-time champion and future Hall of Famer McDynamo twice that season.

In 2008, Good Night Shirt raced exclusively in grade 1 company, taking in succession the Georgia Cup, Iroquois, Lonesome Glory, Grand National and Colonial Cup. Good Night Shirt's 2008 earnings of $485,520 set a single-season record, surpassing the previous mark of $314,163, which he'd set in 2007.

At 8, Good Night Shirt started the 2009 season winning the grade 2 Carolina Cup for his 10th career graded stakes win.

He retired after second in the Iroquois with a fracture to his cannon bone. Good Night Shirt recovered and was pensioned to Fisher's Monkton, Maryland farm where he lived for years in the 60-acre retiree field at Kingfisher. Pasturemates included timber champions Saluter and Call Louis.
Good Night Shirt was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame in 2017. He died in 2018, and is buried in Fisher's field alongside Saluter.

Good Night Shirt won 14 of 33 lifetime starts, career earnings of $1,041,083. He was the third steeplechaser in history to surpass $1 million in career earnings, and was the first 'chaser to be named Maryland-bred Horse of the Year – in 2008.

He earned four consecutive Maryland-bred steeplechase championship titles (2006-2009).

Dowling Found His Perfect Match

Jockey Willie Dowling got the mount on Good Night Shirt just a week after relocating to Maryland from his native Kilkenny, Ireland. It was his first American winner, too – a training flat race at the Strawberry Hill meet at Colonial Downs.

Dowling got the call in the horse's hurdle debut two weeks later at owner Sonny Via's home meet – Foxfield near Charlottesville.

Good Night Shirt darted to a wide lead from the flag, stumbled at the ninth fence up the hill by the stable area but recovered to finish third.

Fisher wheeled the horse back in a competitive maiden at Iroquois two weeks later. Good Night Shirt jumped well and won easily.

It  set into motion what Dowling calls a dream ride.

“This was the horse of a lifetime. (Trainer Jack Fisher) always said nobody heard of me before Good Night Shirt.

“I say nobody heard of Good Night Shirt before me.”

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