April 17, 2025 • 24 mins
On this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show, Freddie has a one on one with cohost Bob Marks. Bob reveals how he first got involved in harness racing and the way his career progressed from a track handicapper to being Perretti Farms’ GM. Bob shares some of the great drivers and horses that he has seen or has been associated with during his career. Plus, Andy Cohen on this week's educational broadcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Harness Racing Alumni Show, brought to you
by Competitive Markets Action. I'm Freddie Hudson and I'm here
today with Bob Marx. On this week's show. It's an
open conversation with our own Hall of Famer Bob Marx.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The Harness Racing Alumni Show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Bob, let me start by, how how did you end
up in the harness racing in?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What year was that? I don't know it would have been.
I graduated high school in nineteen sixty. I was already
aware of harness racing. My stepfather used to go to
Roosevelt from Yonkers. Basically, I don't know. For some crazy reason,
(00:48):
I remember thinking a horse named tar Boy was going
to win a race. Tar Boy and Levi hornor so
it did. Where after that?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
For many in our audience, they may not realize that
Levi Harner was Buddy Gilmore's father in law.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, to be honest with you, at that time, I
would never have known that. But you know, like I said,
at that moment, I just remembered. Whatever the reason I
had Tarboy, it just struck me, maybe because I saw
he had won three in a row, and then I
think he was moving up into what they called free
(01:30):
from Roll then, and though I told my stepfather, I said,
here's two dollars. Because we used to play a game
called Fascination, which was called bingo with lights, where you'd
roll the ball on a table and you would hopefully
(01:51):
to get, you know, a straight bingo and basically you
were competing against everybody else, and they used to pay
us a dollar for every game we won, and I
think it was I think the games were like ten
cents a game or something like that. Well, the first
the first few games were twenty cents for six for
(02:12):
six games. I would invariably win one of them, so
that gave me a dollar, and then I would win
a couple usually walk out of there with about two
or three dollars in my pocket. Because the kids, as
we were then, we had a vacate by about eight
(02:33):
o'clock or eight thirty when the real people came in
and they didn't want the kids because they knew the
kids were good at it. We could win a lot
of games, so I was always aware of that, and
I was also aware of the fact that at ten
minutes after ten and I think it was on WI Ands,
(02:56):
the feature race from either Roosevelt or Yonker would be
aired and I would always stand there and listen to it.
And plus, in those days, the local newspaper Newsday always
covered hardness racing. I was well aware of who Addio's
(03:16):
Harry was. I was well aware of who a bell
Acton was because I used to read about them all
the time. They were like, you know, almost household words.
So when I started to go, well, of course, I
think Bye Bye Bird was probably the top older horse
in the country. And then there was this four year
(03:38):
old named Addio's butler. Everybody was right raving about, and
sooner or later he would meet up with bye By Bird,
and yeah, we'd go. And basically at that time, on
a Monday night it would be at least twenty thousand
people are at Rose Belt. On a Saturday night it
(03:59):
would be thirty five to forty thousand people. It was
like it was like jammed. You would park the car
a long ways away and take a bus actually to
get into the grant stand. But that's the way it was.
Back then.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They used to have parking lots opened up across the tracks,
if you remember.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's correct. And I can't tell you how many times
I would park in one of those and walk all
the way down. For the simple reason that getting out
of there, if you wanted to say, if you liked
the horse and the seventh or eighth race, getting out
of there it was going to be tough. Forget about
trying to get out of there after the ninth. It
might take you a half hour just to reach the
(04:42):
Meadowbrook Parkway. But that's the way it was. And up
at Yonkers, well, that was a completely different situation, but
because you had the two parkways right there, and it
was always very hard to get out of Yonkers. Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now, now, Bob, what was your first job in harness racing?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
My first job, Oh, I started. I could always write,
so I used to. I used to send stories to
the old Trotter weekly magazine. Those were that was before
the day of spell check or anything else. So I'm
(05:25):
sure that my actual copy was horrendous. But on the
same token, they printed some of it. And at one
point I don't remember remember why, but at some point
Willie rock Camp said to me, come on over, I
(05:46):
want to show you something, Okay, So I drove over
to At that point, the the top Trotter office was
was in Wanta, and and off of Sunrise and basically, yeah,
I saw all of these pre they used to get
(06:06):
all of these programs, and he said to me, why
don't you come in here on Saturdays in the morning,
he said, and I'll pay you and just print out
for it, you know, go through the programs and give
me horses to watch in the various tracks. Well, I
guess that was probably my first so called job. Sooner
(06:30):
or later, I mean, you know, we would I would
have lunch with him and we would talk, and he
knew I could handicap very well. And basically, at one
point his Thoroughbred publication Top Turf, the handicapper and him
(06:50):
they were having a disagreement on something and he wanted
to try handicapping the thorough Breads. Okay, so he said
to me, he said, well, you're good enough, he said,
you you just come in and do top Trotter. So
at that point, I don't know what year it was,
sixty one, sixty two maybe, and I started to do, uh,
(07:12):
to do Top Trotta. You know, the daily selections. How
is the pay for that? Back then? How is the
what the pay? The pay? Yeah? I wasn't great, but
you know, when you're doing something you think you love,
(07:36):
you know, at that moment. And I wasn't married or anything,
so it was okay, you know, based that way, it
was okay because see top Trotter used to sell I
don't know, two three hundred sheets a night, you know, right,
Roosevelt Jankins. So he was a profitable situation. And then
he started a weekly thing called the you know, the
(07:58):
magazine called Trotter Weekly, and that got some advertising from Hanover,
some advertising here and there, and then you know, and
then I would write for it, and it was based
that was basically how I got started.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Now, now you were a pretty good handicapper. Did you
bet on your own handicaptain?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Did I bet? Yees? Oh? Yeah, no I was. I
was not a good handicapper. I was almost a great handicapper,
but I was not a great money manager. Therefore, yeah,
I would bet. But I learned a lot of things.
I mean, I learned you about the law of averages,
(08:44):
Murphy's law, and things like that. It's like, for argument's
sakes of tough Trotter picked the fifth race correctly, and
I was a handicapper, and we also had the sixth
race correctly, and then I rehorse I wanted to bet
was in the seventh race. After a while, I learned
the odds are it ain't gonna win. Why Murphy's law,
(09:05):
Something's going to happen, because the odds of the ship
tip sheet picking three winners in a row are astronomical.
And I learned a lot about the law of averages
and Murphy's law. You know, if something can't go wrong
and will go raw. Yeah, you know. I was a
better But I did not bet every race.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Now, now, Bob, didn't you handicap one night either at
Roosevelt or Yonkers nine or ten winners in a row.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, I had. It was one night at Yonkers I
won every race on the card. It was November November seventh,
nineteen sixty four. The previous I didn't make that much
money the previous two Saturday. I was going up to
(09:56):
Yonkers every Saturday then because I was now working in advertising,
so I had a daytime job too. And what happened
was is that I would go to Aqueduct during the
day and then drive up to Yonkers at night. So
the previous two Saturdays, I had won the first five
(10:19):
races at Yonkers and then gave it all back in
races six, seven and eight and eight and nine. So
I was a little a little gun shy, but I went,
you know, but but but what happened was again I
won the first five races and now came time for seven,
(10:41):
eight nine, and you know for six, seven, eight and nine,
which was the twin double. And I only bought two
tickets on it because I wanted to who I wanted
to do. You know, I had two favorites which I
thought would win. And in the eighth race there was
a horse I really liked and he warmed he warmed
(11:03):
up great, and I think in the ninth race, I'll
have two shots, all right, but I wasn't thinking anything
of it. Then I wound up winning the sixth race,
and then I won the seventh race, and then adio
Elkinton that was his name, He won the eighth race
and he paid twenty and some dollars earlier that that day,
(11:26):
in the third race, I met a horse named Sharon
Glory who had got a terrific workout on and basically
was one of those incredible things where they went to
the first half in a minute flat and they came
the last half in one o three so I think
two three or two three and four that was about
part time for a C two pace, And so Sharon
(11:51):
Glory came from behind and won, and he wound up
paying twenty eight dollars. I was so by the time
the twin double came along, it was pretty flush. And
as luck would have it, Addie Ulkington, which my single choice,
paid two dollars up ago like that, and in the
(12:12):
ninth race I had two shots. It would Clansing and
Martin Hanover. And I remembered vividly watching the race, trying
to watch the race from get out point at the
top of the stretch at Yonkers because it was a
Saturday night, and the old car, the old fort I
(12:33):
was driving half the time, had a tough time getting
over the throgs Neck bridge because just trying to it
didn't have the power to actually get over the bridge,
and then it would coast and then it would coast
down and it would start up again. Long story short,
I was watching, you know, at that point. It probably
(12:56):
took about about an hour of it in my time,
but that race actually happened. Of course, it was maybe
you know, the normal, the normal you know, fifteen minutes,
but you know, to me, I was going bananas, and
long story short, I watched the race from the top
of the stretch and I saw as they turned for
(13:17):
home clanch and swung three wide. I forget who was
driving there. He popped there once and she like lengthened stride,
and I just took off because I saw once she
lengthened stride. I said, she's a winner, and I didn't
really want to be stuck in traffic, so I had.
I wound up winning one thousand dollars twin double that
(13:40):
night as well, so that was a pretty good night.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, you talk about the twin double, explain to our
audience nowadays, they probably don't have no idea how the
twin double worked. Could you explain how it worked to them?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, the twin double was basically the twin double was
just too daily double back to back. In other words,
you would buy tickets to just say, all right, there
was racist six, seven, eight and nine. So therefore what
would happen is you'd buy your tickets for races six
and seven and hopefully if you if you would then exchange.
(14:19):
If you had a winner, you would exchange the ticket
for a ticket in races eight or nine. So consequently
there was a lot of merchandising that went on. Guys
would come from you know, you got an extra ticket,
I'll give you twenty dollars more than's work, you know
what I mean, because they needed it. So there was
like a whole little cottage industry that was, you know,
(14:41):
that was set up there and basically to those of
us who were regulars and the upstairs guys would always
come down to the regulars, we need more tickets, All right,
go over there. That guy's got them, you know what
I mean. And that's basically what it was. It was
simply the twin. The was simply a combination of two
(15:03):
daily doubles to make fourth consecutive races.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Correct now, now, Bob, you basically moved into the PR department.
Which tracks did you work at?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What? So?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
What tracks did you work at when you were in
the PR. You worked at Roosevelt Yonker's, Meadowlands.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Worked at I never worked at a racetrack, Well I did.
I did in nineteen eighty two. I worked for Roosevelt.
I hosted that TB show, the nightly you know k
cable show from Madison Square Garden. But no, but I
never actually worked for any of the racetracks. I mean
I was well known there because I was there all
(15:48):
the time, all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, Now you saw over your time, you saw some
great drivers. Could you name some great drivers that you saw?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh, there was some fantastic drivers back then, no question
about it. Carmine Avatello, Herve Filion, Buddy Gilmore, Uh, Benny Webster,
they were great dry they were great, Lucian Fontaine, they
were great harness drivers and uh Henry Fillion. Uh, just
(16:25):
some some fact. There were some fabulous drivers, just like
there were fabulous drivers, you know in today's modern age,
and and then the old meadow lands, you know when
you had John Campbell and Billy O'Donnell and and you know,
and a few other guys. There's always been there's a
(16:46):
there has always been as far as I know, top drivers.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Now, how did you end up working at Parretti Farms
and how long did you work for Parretti Farms?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, basically before that, somewhere along the line, I got
because I was a breeding expert, and I wound up
working at Boardwalk with Side Bonum, and basically, you know,
we had a whole bunch of mayors and things like that,
(17:20):
and I would decide who would be bred to. And
I also published a newsletter, you know, called Inside Boardwalk.
We actually addressed many of the topics that are prevalent today.
It's a bit of a chuckle. I see now that
we're grading steaks because we came out with that in
(17:41):
nineteen eighty two. Isn't it time that we have graded steaks.
I mean, some races are just more important than other ones,
no matter how you slice it. I mean the metal
lance paces in the little brown jug these are the
Hamiltonian I mean, these are the races everybody wants to
win it. Of course they should have been considered grade ones.
(18:06):
So from there, from from you know, from the boardwalk,
where I got into the breeding aspect of it. I
had known Bill Peretti forever, and when he wound up
buying his farm, you know, buying his farm, and I
just went. I used to to go between the fair winds.
(18:28):
I was in a case at that time. I was
also like an independent contractor, so I would work for
various people, and I used to work with fair Winds.
And then right around the corner was Parretti Farms, and
what happened was is that I would go to both places.
And at one point there was a situation at Peretti
(18:50):
and whereas the farm manager thought he was going to
take the yearlings to Harrisburg and Peretti men to me
and I said to him, I said, you got the contracts.
He goes, no, he's just going to bring him over
there to sell them. I said, that's not going to happen.
And I explained to him, and he said to me,
(19:11):
at that point, he said, you better hang out there more.
He said, I want you there every day, you know,
work something out. And basically that's how I got, you know,
started with Parretti Farms, you know, basically at what At
Parretti Farms, I did the breeding, I decided who got
bread to who, and I merchandised the yearlings.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And you had some pretty good sires over at Parretti
Farms too, said that again, he had some very good
sires at Sparetti Farms.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh, we have a few sizes, had no question about it.
We had rock and Roll handover, we had Malabar men,
we had Muscles Yankee. We should have had Muscle Hill.
It just we made a deal. It didn't happen. Mister
Braddy was old at that point and and he just
(20:09):
didn't think that the business was going to sustain it
because there was no chance of us getting a casino
at the meadow Lands. And basically we had and joy
Levec was not it was not a great sire, but
Red River Hanover was not a great sire. We had
McCardell uh. We had many stallions dream vacation.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, now you're still in the hardest job I.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Ever did in harness racing was assembling the first Book
of Malabar Man because I had a well over five
hundred applications for two hundred slots, because you really didn't
want to breathe. At that point. There was no li
on how many mayors you could breed, but you just
(21:03):
didn't really want to, you know, breed much more than
one hundred and seventy or one hundred and eighty to
the horse. But like I said, so we decided, well
we'll try two hundred. See how he handles it. Actually,
we had over five hundred applications, and I learned one thing.
(21:26):
There is nobody in this world that has an ugly grandchild,
not one person. Consequently, not one person has a brad
Root mare. No matter what you try to say or whatever,
they will not accept the fact that the mayor is
(21:48):
not acceptable to go to this particular statue. Well, so
therefore we had to turn away at least three hundred
to Malabar Men. As it was, Malibar Man got the
job done. He just wasn't a great sire. He was
a decent sire and he inseminated the mayors, but he
was not a great sire.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Okay, now moving on along here, moving moving on here,
you're still involved with Parretti through Anthony Peretti. I'll tell
us about what you do with Anthony Peretti.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Now basically, now we're I'm involved with Anthony. Anthony's got
a small farm and you know we have I don't know,
ten or eleven brood mares. Maybe, well we try I
try to buy them very economically. We've red some pretty
(22:44):
good horses like Pappy's Pistol and Geocentric and we sell
with the Diamond Creek. And basically like this year, we've
got six yearlings to sell and one of them will
be a brother to Happy's Pistol. Then we'll have a
(23:08):
down by the seaside called that of dance and Lucille
named Ocean Party. I'm better sell him in Lexington because
they send they they tend to sell very well down
there down by the Seaside on that final day in Lexington.
And yeah, we've read the Jocentric and we just fold
(23:36):
a a full sister to her. She'll sell next year.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, well, Bob, I'm going to close the show out
right now. Thanks for the one on one with you.
I think it's very informative. Now over to Andy.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Thanks Freddie.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, next week, I think we're going to finally publish
my interview with Howard Taylor, who represents its Diamond Creek
and other people who were involved in the USTA's investigation
of the Nick Sura case. So it's a pretty interesting interview.
I also have a response from the USTA. I don't
(24:14):
know that it solves the conflict or it gives all
of us the answers that we're looking for, but it
certainly a step in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Back to you, Fred, thank you, Andy.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
To our audience, thanks for listening, and please join us
again next week.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The Houness Racing Alumni Show
Welcome to the Harness Racing Alumni Show, brought to you
by Competitive Markets Action. I'm Freddie Hudson and I'm here
today with Bob Marx. On this week's show. It's an
open conversation with our own Hall of Famer Bob Marx.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
The Harness Racing Alumni Show.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Bob, let me start by, how how did you end
up in the harness racing in?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What year was that? I don't know it would have been.
I graduated high school in nineteen sixty. I was already
aware of harness racing. My stepfather used to go to
Roosevelt from Yonkers. Basically, I don't know. For some crazy reason,
(00:48):
I remember thinking a horse named tar Boy was going
to win a race. Tar Boy and Levi hornor so
it did. Where after that?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
For many in our audience, they may not realize that
Levi Harner was Buddy Gilmore's father in law.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, to be honest with you, at that time, I
would never have known that. But you know, like I said,
at that moment, I just remembered. Whatever the reason I
had Tarboy, it just struck me, maybe because I saw
he had won three in a row, and then I
think he was moving up into what they called free
(01:30):
from Roll then, and though I told my stepfather, I said,
here's two dollars. Because we used to play a game
called Fascination, which was called bingo with lights, where you'd
roll the ball on a table and you would hopefully
(01:51):
to get, you know, a straight bingo and basically you
were competing against everybody else, and they used to pay
us a dollar for every game we won, and I
think it was I think the games were like ten
cents a game or something like that. Well, the first
the first few games were twenty cents for six for
(02:12):
six games. I would invariably win one of them, so
that gave me a dollar, and then I would win
a couple usually walk out of there with about two
or three dollars in my pocket. Because the kids, as
we were then, we had a vacate by about eight
(02:33):
o'clock or eight thirty when the real people came in
and they didn't want the kids because they knew the
kids were good at it. We could win a lot
of games, so I was always aware of that, and
I was also aware of the fact that at ten
minutes after ten and I think it was on WI Ands,
(02:56):
the feature race from either Roosevelt or Yonker would be
aired and I would always stand there and listen to it.
And plus, in those days, the local newspaper Newsday always
covered hardness racing. I was well aware of who Addio's
(03:16):
Harry was. I was well aware of who a bell
Acton was because I used to read about them all
the time. They were like, you know, almost household words.
So when I started to go, well, of course, I
think Bye Bye Bird was probably the top older horse
in the country. And then there was this four year
(03:38):
old named Addio's butler. Everybody was right raving about, and
sooner or later he would meet up with bye By Bird,
and yeah, we'd go. And basically at that time, on
a Monday night it would be at least twenty thousand
people are at Rose Belt. On a Saturday night it
(03:59):
would be thirty five to forty thousand people. It was
like it was like jammed. You would park the car
a long ways away and take a bus actually to
get into the grant stand. But that's the way it was.
Back then.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They used to have parking lots opened up across the tracks,
if you remember.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's correct. And I can't tell you how many times
I would park in one of those and walk all
the way down. For the simple reason that getting out
of there, if you wanted to say, if you liked
the horse and the seventh or eighth race, getting out
of there it was going to be tough. Forget about
trying to get out of there after the ninth. It
might take you a half hour just to reach the
(04:42):
Meadowbrook Parkway. But that's the way it was. And up
at Yonkers, well, that was a completely different situation, but
because you had the two parkways right there, and it
was always very hard to get out of Yonkers. Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Now, now, Bob, what was your first job in harness racing?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
My first job, Oh, I started. I could always write,
so I used to. I used to send stories to
the old Trotter weekly magazine. Those were that was before
the day of spell check or anything else. So I'm
(05:25):
sure that my actual copy was horrendous. But on the
same token, they printed some of it. And at one
point I don't remember remember why, but at some point
Willie rock Camp said to me, come on over, I
(05:46):
want to show you something, Okay, So I drove over
to At that point, the the top Trotter office was
was in Wanta, and and off of Sunrise and basically, yeah,
I saw all of these pre they used to get
(06:06):
all of these programs, and he said to me, why
don't you come in here on Saturdays in the morning,
he said, and I'll pay you and just print out
for it, you know, go through the programs and give
me horses to watch in the various tracks. Well, I
guess that was probably my first so called job. Sooner
(06:30):
or later, I mean, you know, we would I would
have lunch with him and we would talk, and he
knew I could handicap very well. And basically, at one
point his Thoroughbred publication Top Turf, the handicapper and him
(06:50):
they were having a disagreement on something and he wanted
to try handicapping the thorough Breads. Okay, so he said
to me, he said, well, you're good enough, he said,
you you just come in and do top Trotter. So
at that point, I don't know what year it was,
sixty one, sixty two maybe, and I started to do, uh,
(07:12):
to do Top Trotta. You know, the daily selections. How
is the pay for that? Back then? How is the
what the pay? The pay? Yeah? I wasn't great, but
you know, when you're doing something you think you love,
(07:36):
you know, at that moment. And I wasn't married or anything,
so it was okay, you know, based that way, it
was okay because see top Trotter used to sell I
don't know, two three hundred sheets a night, you know, right,
Roosevelt Jankins. So he was a profitable situation. And then
he started a weekly thing called the you know, the
(07:58):
magazine called Trotter Weekly, and that got some advertising from Hanover,
some advertising here and there, and then you know, and
then I would write for it, and it was based
that was basically how I got started.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Now, now you were a pretty good handicapper. Did you
bet on your own handicaptain?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Did I bet? Yees? Oh? Yeah, no I was. I
was not a good handicapper. I was almost a great handicapper,
but I was not a great money manager. Therefore, yeah,
I would bet. But I learned a lot of things.
I mean, I learned you about the law of averages,
(08:44):
Murphy's law, and things like that. It's like, for argument's
sakes of tough Trotter picked the fifth race correctly, and
I was a handicapper, and we also had the sixth
race correctly, and then I rehorse I wanted to bet
was in the seventh race. After a while, I learned
the odds are it ain't gonna win. Why Murphy's law,
(09:05):
Something's going to happen, because the odds of the ship
tip sheet picking three winners in a row are astronomical.
And I learned a lot about the law of averages
and Murphy's law. You know, if something can't go wrong
and will go raw. Yeah, you know. I was a
better But I did not bet every race.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Now, now, Bob, didn't you handicap one night either at
Roosevelt or Yonkers nine or ten winners in a row.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, I had. It was one night at Yonkers I
won every race on the card. It was November November seventh,
nineteen sixty four. The previous I didn't make that much
money the previous two Saturday. I was going up to
(09:56):
Yonkers every Saturday then because I was now working in advertising,
so I had a daytime job too. And what happened
was is that I would go to Aqueduct during the
day and then drive up to Yonkers at night. So
the previous two Saturdays, I had won the first five
(10:19):
races at Yonkers and then gave it all back in
races six, seven and eight and eight and nine. So
I was a little a little gun shy, but I went,
you know, but but but what happened was again I
won the first five races and now came time for seven,
(10:41):
eight nine, and you know for six, seven, eight and nine,
which was the twin double. And I only bought two
tickets on it because I wanted to who I wanted
to do. You know, I had two favorites which I
thought would win. And in the eighth race there was
a horse I really liked and he warmed he warmed
(11:03):
up great, and I think in the ninth race, I'll
have two shots, all right, but I wasn't thinking anything
of it. Then I wound up winning the sixth race,
and then I won the seventh race, and then adio
Elkinton that was his name, He won the eighth race
and he paid twenty and some dollars earlier that that day,
(11:26):
in the third race, I met a horse named Sharon
Glory who had got a terrific workout on and basically
was one of those incredible things where they went to
the first half in a minute flat and they came
the last half in one o three so I think
two three or two three and four that was about
part time for a C two pace, And so Sharon
(11:51):
Glory came from behind and won, and he wound up
paying twenty eight dollars. I was so by the time
the twin double came along, it was pretty flush. And
as luck would have it, Addie Ulkington, which my single choice,
paid two dollars up ago like that, and in the
(12:12):
ninth race I had two shots. It would Clansing and
Martin Hanover. And I remembered vividly watching the race, trying
to watch the race from get out point at the
top of the stretch at Yonkers because it was a
Saturday night, and the old car, the old fort I
(12:33):
was driving half the time, had a tough time getting
over the throgs Neck bridge because just trying to it
didn't have the power to actually get over the bridge,
and then it would coast and then it would coast
down and it would start up again. Long story short,
I was watching, you know, at that point. It probably
(12:56):
took about about an hour of it in my time,
but that race actually happened. Of course, it was maybe
you know, the normal, the normal you know, fifteen minutes,
but you know, to me, I was going bananas, and
long story short, I watched the race from the top
of the stretch and I saw as they turned for
(13:17):
home clanch and swung three wide. I forget who was
driving there. He popped there once and she like lengthened stride,
and I just took off because I saw once she
lengthened stride. I said, she's a winner, and I didn't
really want to be stuck in traffic, so I had.
I wound up winning one thousand dollars twin double that
(13:40):
night as well, so that was a pretty good night.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, you talk about the twin double, explain to our
audience nowadays, they probably don't have no idea how the
twin double worked. Could you explain how it worked to them?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, the twin double was basically the twin double was
just too daily double back to back. In other words,
you would buy tickets to just say, all right, there
was racist six, seven, eight and nine. So therefore what
would happen is you'd buy your tickets for races six
and seven and hopefully if you if you would then exchange.
(14:19):
If you had a winner, you would exchange the ticket
for a ticket in races eight or nine. So consequently
there was a lot of merchandising that went on. Guys
would come from you know, you got an extra ticket,
I'll give you twenty dollars more than's work, you know
what I mean, because they needed it. So there was
like a whole little cottage industry that was, you know,
(14:41):
that was set up there and basically to those of
us who were regulars and the upstairs guys would always
come down to the regulars, we need more tickets, All right,
go over there. That guy's got them, you know what
I mean. And that's basically what it was. It was
simply the twin. The was simply a combination of two
(15:03):
daily doubles to make fourth consecutive races.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Correct now, now, Bob, you basically moved into the PR department.
Which tracks did you work at?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What? So?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
What tracks did you work at when you were in
the PR. You worked at Roosevelt Yonker's, Meadowlands.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Worked at I never worked at a racetrack, Well I did.
I did in nineteen eighty two. I worked for Roosevelt.
I hosted that TB show, the nightly you know k
cable show from Madison Square Garden. But no, but I
never actually worked for any of the racetracks. I mean
I was well known there because I was there all
(15:48):
the time, all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Okay, Now you saw over your time, you saw some
great drivers. Could you name some great drivers that you saw?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Oh, there was some fantastic drivers back then, no question
about it. Carmine Avatello, Herve Filion, Buddy Gilmore, Uh, Benny Webster,
they were great dry they were great, Lucian Fontaine, they
were great harness drivers and uh Henry Fillion. Uh, just
(16:25):
some some fact. There were some fabulous drivers, just like
there were fabulous drivers, you know in today's modern age,
and and then the old meadow lands, you know when
you had John Campbell and Billy O'Donnell and and you know,
and a few other guys. There's always been there's a
(16:46):
there has always been as far as I know, top drivers.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Now, how did you end up working at Parretti Farms
and how long did you work for Parretti Farms?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Well, basically before that, somewhere along the line, I got
because I was a breeding expert, and I wound up
working at Boardwalk with Side Bonum, and basically, you know,
we had a whole bunch of mayors and things like that,
(17:20):
and I would decide who would be bred to. And
I also published a newsletter, you know, called Inside Boardwalk.
We actually addressed many of the topics that are prevalent today.
It's a bit of a chuckle. I see now that
we're grading steaks because we came out with that in
(17:41):
nineteen eighty two. Isn't it time that we have graded steaks.
I mean, some races are just more important than other ones,
no matter how you slice it. I mean the metal
lance paces in the little brown jug these are the
Hamiltonian I mean, these are the races everybody wants to
win it. Of course they should have been considered grade ones.
(18:06):
So from there, from from you know, from the boardwalk,
where I got into the breeding aspect of it. I
had known Bill Peretti forever, and when he wound up
buying his farm, you know, buying his farm, and I
just went. I used to to go between the fair winds.
(18:28):
I was in a case at that time. I was
also like an independent contractor, so I would work for
various people, and I used to work with fair Winds.
And then right around the corner was Parretti Farms, and
what happened was is that I would go to both places.
And at one point there was a situation at Peretti
(18:50):
and whereas the farm manager thought he was going to
take the yearlings to Harrisburg and Peretti men to me
and I said to him, I said, you got the contracts.
He goes, no, he's just going to bring him over
there to sell them. I said, that's not going to happen.
And I explained to him, and he said to me,
(19:11):
at that point, he said, you better hang out there more.
He said, I want you there every day, you know,
work something out. And basically that's how I got, you know,
started with Parretti Farms, you know, basically at what At
Parretti Farms, I did the breeding, I decided who got
bread to who, and I merchandised the yearlings.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
And you had some pretty good sires over at Parretti
Farms too, said that again, he had some very good
sires at Sparetti Farms.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh, we have a few sizes, had no question about it.
We had rock and Roll handover, we had Malabar men,
we had Muscles Yankee. We should have had Muscle Hill.
It just we made a deal. It didn't happen. Mister
Braddy was old at that point and and he just
(20:09):
didn't think that the business was going to sustain it
because there was no chance of us getting a casino
at the meadow Lands. And basically we had and joy
Levec was not it was not a great sire, but
Red River Hanover was not a great sire. We had
McCardell uh. We had many stallions dream vacation.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well, now you're still in the hardest job I.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Ever did in harness racing was assembling the first Book
of Malabar Man because I had a well over five
hundred applications for two hundred slots, because you really didn't
want to breathe. At that point. There was no li
on how many mayors you could breed, but you just
(21:03):
didn't really want to, you know, breed much more than
one hundred and seventy or one hundred and eighty to
the horse. But like I said, so we decided, well
we'll try two hundred. See how he handles it. Actually,
we had over five hundred applications, and I learned one thing.
(21:26):
There is nobody in this world that has an ugly grandchild,
not one person. Consequently, not one person has a brad
Root mare. No matter what you try to say or whatever,
they will not accept the fact that the mayor is
(21:48):
not acceptable to go to this particular statue. Well, so
therefore we had to turn away at least three hundred
to Malabar Men. As it was, Malibar Man got the
job done. He just wasn't a great sire. He was
a decent sire and he inseminated the mayors, but he
was not a great sire.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Okay, now moving on along here, moving moving on here,
you're still involved with Parretti through Anthony Peretti. I'll tell
us about what you do with Anthony Peretti.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Now basically, now we're I'm involved with Anthony. Anthony's got
a small farm and you know we have I don't know,
ten or eleven brood mares. Maybe, well we try I
try to buy them very economically. We've red some pretty
(22:44):
good horses like Pappy's Pistol and Geocentric and we sell
with the Diamond Creek. And basically like this year, we've
got six yearlings to sell and one of them will
be a brother to Happy's Pistol. Then we'll have a
(23:08):
down by the seaside called that of dance and Lucille
named Ocean Party. I'm better sell him in Lexington because
they send they they tend to sell very well down
there down by the Seaside on that final day in Lexington.
And yeah, we've read the Jocentric and we just fold
(23:36):
a a full sister to her. She'll sell next year.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, well, Bob, I'm going to close the show out
right now. Thanks for the one on one with you.
I think it's very informative. Now over to Andy.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Thanks Freddie.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
Yeah, next week, I think we're going to finally publish
my interview with Howard Taylor, who represents its Diamond Creek
and other people who were involved in the USTA's investigation
of the Nick Sura case. So it's a pretty interesting interview.
I also have a response from the USTA. I don't
(24:14):
know that it solves the conflict or it gives all
of us the answers that we're looking for, but it
certainly a step in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Back to you, Fred, thank you, Andy.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
To our audience, thanks for listening, and please join us
again next week.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The Houness Racing Alumni Show
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