Page 30 - October 2005 The Game

30 The Game, October 2005 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
TOMMY WOLSKI - CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
To me the time on this horse seems like an eternity. When we finally reach the starting gate, the assistant starter reaches up to lead this beast into to his stall. He throws his head back and hits me a solid shot on my noggin, rattling every bit of expensive bridgework I own and splits my nose.
There's more to come. As I begin to see stars I never knew, he suddenly drops his head and bucks. I'm a goner. Then he tries to step on me.
Well, it's decision time. It's either scratching him or scratch me. I voted for me and ride the track ambulance back to the jockeys room.
The jockeys room custodian quickly get a new jockey for the horse. Sure enough he runs right to his form, beaten 37 lengths to extend his lifetime record to beaten 113 lengths in seven starts.
Back in the Jocks' room I'm mad as hell. I tell my valet it is time to fire my agent for putting me on a horse like that. He looks at me with a big smile and says “Jock, you cannot fire him, because you are your own agent.”
Nevertheless, Wolski did get sacked by Wolski.
Did You Know...
That trainer Bobby Frankel is the first trainer to win both the Queen’s Plate (Wild Desert) and the
Atto Mile (Leroidesanimaux) in the same year.
Hustling is the secret behind riders winning races
By Tommy Wolski
If there is one thing that can be said about jockey agents, it is that they sure are part of a unique group of individuals.
The life of a jockey agent is one many of us know little about. Their job requirements: Go hustle your rider the best mounts available, at any cost.
Nearly all agents earn 25 per cent of a rider's gross earnings. If they have a top rider and get lucky on any Breeders’ Cup Day, their earnings could go deep into six figures. To get the best mounts they need to be tops at handicapping and salesmanship, and very lucky.
For a better understanding on how jockey agents accomplish this, here are a few stories from the memoirs of Wolski.
Five days before the 1989 Breeders’ Cup, the now retired Chris McCarron, was listed to ride Mi Selecto, a horse who appeared to have no chance in the $3-million Breeders’ Cup Classic. Through a strange twist of fate and some clever maneuvering by his agent Scotty McClellan, Chris wound up riding eventual winner Sunday Silence.
McClellan had known Sunday Silence's regular jockey, Patrick Valenzuela, was having personal problems.
"I had gotten his trainer to promise us if something happened and Pat couldn't ride he
would use Chris," said McClellan by telephone from California.
McClellan also had to cut a deal with the trainer of Mi Selecto to let him off if anything happened. Four days before the race, Valenzuela was suspended for a positive test. And the trainer of Mi Selecto let him off his horse.
"What you don't want to do is get hung up on something you know can't win," explains Ron Anderson, the agent for Jerry Bailey, by telephone from New York.
"What often happens is a jockey will get stuck with two horses to ride in the same race."
Anderson also happens to be an agent who keeps tabs on European horses planning to run in the Breeders' Cup.
"I remember sending a fax to trainer Andre Fabre in Paris. I basically asked him, if he wasn't bringing his own rider with him, to keep us in mind."
For years, Fred Aime had been the agent for now retired jockey Pat Day.
Aime's chief tool was an 800 number that trainers used to reach him.
It was a phone that usually rang around 20 times a day with people trying to get Day to ride their horses. And one he would use to make about 40 calls also
each day.
One thing all these top riders have in common is
they don't do the handicapping. It's all left in the hands of the agents. That should tell you something.
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News In Review
Fort Erie Turf Record Holder, Oh Mar, Retired
Nine-year-old, Fort Erie turf record holder (5 furlongs), Oh Mar, has been retired after finishing last in a seven horse field of $5,000 claimers on September 19.
Trainer and Owner Campbell Wilson was reported as saying that, ‘he had come up with a new problem, something he never had before.’ He will likely be a riding horse or even a stable pony. Oh Mar retires with a record of 13 wins and 15 seconds in 70 lifetime starts and $221,263 in earnings, which includes 5 wins and close to $90,000 for Campbell who purchased him privately for $3,000, four years ago at Oaklawn Park.
Multiple Stakes winner Wannatalkaboutme retired
Wannatalkaboutme, the 2-year-old winner of both the My Dear and Shady Well stakes this year at Woodbine, will reportedly be sold in the Keeneland November breeding sale.
The Bold Executive filly, out of the Regal Search mare, Regal Right, fractured her ankle in an in-operable place, which ended her promising career. The Nick Gonzalez trained filly was unbeaten in her 3 lifetime starts,
breaking her maiden in her first start at $40,000.
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