Yo,
Shout for Schoolcraft & Middlebelt.

Cut my teeth at DRC also. Catalano for VBerg/Shinrone... Pete and OC Maxwell. I also remember Steve Cauthen Day at Hazel.... 30,000+ there.

Derby Bar across M-Belt from DRC.... many tough beats drowned away there.

Honu (and everyone else), thanks for the advice on the exercise riding. My ass is WAY out of shape still and I have a lot more work to do before I can even get to that point, I'm thinking... :eek:

sha sha sha make ya money maka....o.e.y..lol

LMAO Hooves... you got that right. :D

Oh, so you jacked the irons way up. I thought you meant you stood up out of the saddle.
I use to do that with my English saddle, then I realize I was going to ruin it by putting the rub marks on it (too expensive to be treating like an exercise saddle) so I went ahead and purchased an exercise saddle.

I was Tracy Hebert's coke dealer.

I'm using a piece of crap schooling saddle to do that with. No way would I use my nice Pessoa saddle...

I'm going to buy an exercise saddle when I get around to it...but I just do it for fun. I don't know what I'm going to do for a career...Oh well, I'll figure it out.

Ummmm..... when I galloped, I galloped in a cross. When you have a tough pulling horse, a full cross really comes in handy. Good luck to anyone that can ride a direct rein on a tough pulling horse. BTW, exercise riders better know how to "throw" a cross (especially) if they are going to be working horses. So yes, exercise riders DO throw and ride in crosses.
I take it you just went straight to riding races? Never was an exercise rider?

Sometimes I run across old exercise saddles. I will keep you in mind if I do.;) I have a friend that works on tack (from the track) and I can check with him too.

Is that how you got into racing?:D

Cool.:) I'd appreciate it. Let me know if you come across a used quality one. I'd be really interested in it...

OK, will do.

Hehe actually I got into racing because I heard there were alot of hot chicks at the track. Unfortunately for me my first experience at the track was at Laurel. :(

Worked there or just gambled there?

Gambled. If I had to choose between working at Laurel and having my feet submerged in boiling water I think i'd choose the latter.

You said that throwing a cross was the most important thing , jockeys and work riders throw crosses when cuing the horse to go fast or change leads or whatever.
You TAKE a cross when galloping , adjusting it thru your fingers as needed, wether its a full or half cross, in the 20 plus years I have been riding race horses I have never seen a person galloping a horse THROW a cross.

Ok, rookie question, but what is taking/thowing a cross? I've never heard of it...

And yes, I know what a direct rein is and all of that stuff....

Re-read my post, I did not state MOST important. "Take", "Throw" I have heard be used as the same. "Throw a cross and take a hold" - never heard that term be used?? I have. You've never seen an exercise rider "throw" a cross???? Throwing crosses isn't just for rousing a horse to run faster. BTW, you're a jock, when do you ever stick around and watch horses gallop. You are only out there working them in the AM, not galloping them... unless you're riding at a cheap track....

One day I went to see my Grand Dad about him loaning me some money for a week or two. He was mowing the lawn, so he made me finish and gave me 50 bucks. I told him I really needed $200. Grand Dad said that the best he could do was for me to get to Santa Anita and put what was left from the $50 on Denilai Ridge. I did, I won and I been looking for winners ever since. Thanks Grand Dad.

Hey you ever heard of a horse called The Tin Man , I ride him , I work in SoCali for a Hall of fame trainer, whom I have also been an assistant for.
I started breaking horses on my familys farm when I was 13 ( that would be 1983) then when I was 15 I started galloping horses at the track in PA. and when I turned 16 I started riding races. In 1997 I made the national standings for female jockeys races won, I retired from race riding in 1999 and went to work for Richard Mandella. I have galloped , worked and been around World Champions and Breeders Cup winners and stakes winners and the like.
I was also lucky enough to get the chance to train a string of 2 year olds , which included Halfbridled's little sister and a horse named One Union.
So there are my credentials , tell me about yours.

I'll PM you.

Give The Tin Man a good pat and I wish him luck in the BC! :)

I will and I will , thanks for the good wishes.:)

My family was never into it, but we'd watch the big races on TV (my pops is more into it now, we watch the races together, and Wire2Wire since we both get home early in the afternoon). When i was about 9 or 10, I remember watching Unbridled win the Derby. I was pissed that Mr Frisky didn't win lol.

I started getting serious with it when Canterbury Park re-opened in '95. by then I was 14 and could watch race-replays of ****ty 5k claiming events every night at midnight locaclly. Combo that with Cigar's streak, and I was hooked! My interest still kinda went up and down from year to year, but at least for the last 5-6 years I've been really inot it. Sites like this and ESPN only help matters.

i was (and still am sometimes) a degenerate gambler. was betting sports, playin numbers and goin to the casino. it was a logical step. figured id check this out. i have an uncle thats in the business as well and once he found out i was into racing we started talkin alot and goin to races.

how did you get into racing
 

In the early 70s I worked in produce with " wiseguys' . They owned trotters. Every friday for about 8 weeks I won more than my salary. this was at Roosevelt Raceway. Kellytuck Direct and Greentree Phantom are 2 that I remember. Then I went to the flats at the Big A and that was the end of my trotter career. I still like going to Aqueduct. KP

Hey Pillow you had it good growing up at Laurel, I spent my days at Penn National, Philly, Charles Town before they had slots. I started getting interested when Unbrildled won the Derby. During my high school years we use to spend my summers working at Delaware. Then when I graduated high school moved to Kentucky and worked the Keeneland Sales and the various surrounding racetracks. Moved back to Pennsylvania in 2000 to help my dad to take care of my mom who has Alzeimhers. In the early 90's dad got into a small partnership at Penn and owning couple of cheap claimers. We eventually owned horses at Delaware because our trainer moved there. Now we currently run at Delaware and Oaklawn. We currently have 2 two year olds, a yearling, and a 4yo mare in foal.

My first memory of horse racing was reading about Swaps while waiting to get a hair cut as a young boy. I didn't really get interested until a certain big red 2yo starting making noise in 1972.

A Grandfather on My Mom's Side....
 

took me to watch the morning workouts at Hollywood Park in about 1954-55 I'm guessing. Then move to L'ville 40 year later and loved hanging out at the Downs, but did not get serious about learning to handicap until I discovered I was the older brother of the famous Hooves.............lol

Still learning all that I can afford, more or less... will play until they make me stop in the retirement home.

Chris

Sitting in a bar in Grove City Ohio talking to the guy next to me and he said why don't you come tomorrow, meet me over at such and such place. Hooked since. Made many friends at the track and the barns. Burned a lot of cash. Love every aspect of this game and crave information like mad. Love the stars of the show, the horses, like no other.

2Mins, where do you go when Beulah is closed?

I actually hang at Beulah thru the year. Facilities suck on the whole, but I know a lot of the cats their. I can be found at Scioto Downs from May thru September on many a Friday and or Saturday in Box 53. That is my box now baby, put a deposit down on it for the season next year. I have an online wagering account and prefer the creature comforts of home. I spend every Friday afternoon now at Beulah, simulcast hall lower level usually first table on the left. Ask Herb, he'll point you the way.

Hey Kyrosesinmay, my friend said he'll check to see if anyone has a exercise saddle for sale at the track.:)

I whored myself! and all it got me was a job hotwalking
at least in Hollywood I'd have a line on Law & Order;)

like so many others, my grandfather would sometimes take me to the track in the mornings, hagerstown fairgrounds. eventually closed but was used for a training facility and stables. horses would then ship to the OLD charles town
or the 3 baltimore tracks.
i would then follow the triple crown races but to me thats all there was to racing until i was much older.
after the internet got big i began to follow it again.
three years ago i spent opening fall weekend at keeneland and the following spring i went to CD for the kentucky oaks. that hooked me. even hooked my wife and she had NEVER been to a track.

So I think the solution to the lack of interest in racing is for all of us to have lots and lots of grandkids! :D

Thanks, I appreciate it...

i loved watching the races on tv as a kid. and reading about them in the paper...kids really identify with the horses as only kids can. but the feeling always stayed with me...Carry Back was my hero.

I have been thinking about this since I saw this thread few days ago, I was amazed at myself because I couldn't remember how I got in to racing...sumitas just jogged my memory...
My very first exposure to racing was reading all of the walter farley books when I was in grade school...no one in my family had or has any interest in horse or racing...but I was bitten early.
My first trip to the track came @ age 11 (saratoga). First time sitting on a TB @ 13 (my best friend had one off the track named Buster Brown).
And it all went down hill from there, my mother is still trying to figure out where she went wrong. I told her it was that we had to drive past a horse farm on the way to my piano lessons when i was 5...

I've been around horses since I was a kid.
My first time at a track was back in the '80s..Meadowlands trotters.
Then Toga with my sons many times.
When my mother had a teminal illness in her old age, I tended to her needs.
To pass the time, I'd put her telivision on to the Derby preps, then the TC races. Talk about a "red boarder"!!! I'd pick one before the race. After they crossed the line, she'd say, "that was the one I liked in the post parade!"
Bless her heart. Those races gave her something to forget the pain for a little while.
After she passed on, I got a call from a friend. I had gone to the Belmont with her and her husband, the Real Quiet /Victory Gallop one. My friend had an in with the Jim Jerkens barn, and they ran the 3rd place finisher, Thomas John. Anyway, she asked me if I was interested in buying a race horse.
Seems the gentleman that owned him had gotten very far behind in his "barn bill". So, to make a long story short, I bought the colt and his dam with some money that my mother left to me. That was eight horses ago.
Still love them, still a thrill.
Race on!