Page 14 - November 2005 The Game

14 The Game, November 2005 Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper
McMullen riding toward 1,300th winner
By Harlan Abbey,
With 1291 winners to his credit, jockey Mike McMullen is sure to break the 1300 mark one of these days at the Fort Erie Racetrack or at Woodbine.
But when it comes to the 1400 mark, McMullen -- born in Brooklyn and a jockey for 29 years -- isn't sure if that winner's circle picture will show him in the saddle or on the ground, holding the winning horse's bridle as its trainer.
"I'm in sort of a transitional stage," he said during a recent interview. "When I was a leading jockey and riding the card (having a mount in every race), if I had a bad mount I'd just tell my agent 'Find me another horse to ride.'
Now that I'm assisting my wife Marilyn with our stable, when one of our horses runs poorly I have to go back to the barn and try to figure out how to make the horse
run better."
There are some 100
major racetracks in North America and McMullen, 45, has ridden at 67 of them in amassing his 1291 winners, fourth highest among some 30 jockeys who ride regularly at Fort Erie. He rode his first race at Delaware Park at the age of 16.
"It was a father-son
thing," he explained.
"On weekends, instead of my dad taking me to Little League baseball games, he took me to Belmont Park, where he was a jockey, as were two of my uncles. At age 14 I had a summer job walking hots
the Midwest. The last six months of my 'bug' (apprentice) year I rode at Belmont Park. It was a great learning experience, but there were other good apprentices, too, including my good friend Richard Migliore and 'Cowboy Jack' Kaenel (who rode the Preakness winner at age 16)."
McMullen said his favorite tracks were Belmont and Saratoga; probably the least-known
track he rode at was "Atokad, a half-miler in Nebraska. The best horse I ever rode was Pass The Tab, who I worked the winter before he was fifth in the Kentucky Derby, and Adventurous Love, who set a world record at Calgary by running a half-mile in :43.4.
"In the winter of 1986 I was riding at Turf Paradise in Arizona. All the trainers I rode for were going to different racing circuits in the spring, so when track management from Assiniboia Downs near Winnipeg came down to recruit jockeys, it made sense to try it. I won the first race I rode there and then a bunch of stakes races. I rode a lot of nice horses who won $500,000 or $600,000 the hard way -- winning stakes with total purses of $15,000 to $20,000."
But as Mike and his wife Marilyn (a trainer) watched televised racing from Woodbine they agreed "It'd be nice to run for $60,000 claiming race purses instead of $15,000 stakes" so they moved their stable and children Brianna, now 11, and Austin, now 8, to Fort Erie three years ago.
However, McMullen still believes that Western Canada's Thoroughbreds do not get a fair break from the voters for the Sovereign Awards which honor Canada's
best runners each year. The winners almost always are horses that run at Woodbine.
For instance, Jan Alta (one of his favorite mounts) had gone unbeaten and won $265,000 as a two-year-old, but that year's Sovereign Award went to an Ontario horse with less money won. That year, Jan Alta won races from 3.5 furlongs to a mile and a sixteenth. Yet the next year the horse was involved in McMullen's biggest disappointment:
"There was a series of four races with a $250,000 bonus for the horse with the best overall record. Jan Alta won the Canadian Derby by five lengths and was the 6/5 favorite for the last race of the series -- and broke its leg the day before the race. He hadayearoffandcamebacktowinasa four-year-old. He's still racing, as a chuck wagon horse in the Calgary Stampede rodeo."
In comparison to his days as a champi- on rider, McMullen nowadays is riding less but enjoying it more. He commented: "The purses here are bigger, so the income remains the same. Riding the card isn't all it's cracked up to be -- always hustling around the backside to get on more horses each morning so you'll have more horses to ride in the afternoons.
"I know I can't ride forever, but I'll do it as long as I can stay healthy. Instead of waiting until that day to start my training career, I'm in a transitional stage toward that end."
McMullen doesn't look back at his early career and wonder what might have hap- pened if he'd been lucky and wound up rid- ing for a big-time stable:
"Racing's a tough game and luck -- being in the right place at the right time -- plays a big part in it. You can't ask 'What if?' It's still the horse that carries the rider across the finish line. I've paid my dues and done my time... but the game goes on."
Jockey Mike McMullen
WOODLANDS
Sales Representation and Preparation Boarding/Layups Training/Foaling Bloodstock Consultation
GAIL WOOD
P.O. Box 164 Hillsburgh, Ont. N0B 1Z0 www.woodlandsfarm.com
Phone: (519) 855-4915 Fax: (519)855-4514
(horses sweating after exercise gallops or races) for $120 a week... good money for a kid."
Delaware Park, back in 1979, "was the Saratoga of the Maryland circuit," he continued. "Then I went on to ride in Pennsylvania and
HBPA Backstretch
Children’s Christmas Party
Santa is expected to make a visit with a sack full of presents for all the good boys & girls
Fort Erie:
Saturday, December 3
Crystal Ridge Community Center
99 Ridge Road, Ridgeway
12noon - 3pm
Tickets available at Fort Erie HBPA Office from October 22 to November 4
Woodbine:
Monday, December 5 Woodbine Backstretch Kitchen 5pm - 9pm
Register at the Woodbine HBPA Backstretch office
before November 21
To attend you
must have a
valid ORC license.
The parties are restricted to immediate family only.
Did You Know....
That trainer Don MacRae is taking 15 to 20 horses to Mountaineer Park for the remainder of 2005 in an effort to offset a “bad year” at the
Fort. Last year Don sparkled with a win rate of 39% which included 26 wins in 66 starts. This year he sits with only 8 wins in 40 starts at 20%. After Mountaineer, he will head to Ocala Florida to get five or six babies ready for racing in 2006.
Halters: Foal, Weanling, Yearling, 2-Year-Old, Mare, Stallion
Custom Work, Repairs, Chaps, Nameplates, Horse Supplies, Gifts
Box 459, Nobleton, ON L0G 1N0 905-859-4052 Fax: 905-939-8096 Email: info@finchamsharness.com
www.finchamsharness.com
Melnyk Pavilion at St. Jo’s
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Martingales
Side Reins
Lead Shanks
Stud Shanks Newmarket Shanks
Manufactures of quality tack including:
Exercise Saddles Belly Pads Jumping Boots Ankle Boots Breaking Surcingles Anti-Cast Surcingles Chambons
Canadian horse owner Eugene Melnyk, was in attendance with his mother Vera Melnyk at the unveiling of the new, Vera and Ferdinand Melnyk Pavilion at St. Joseph’s Heath Care Centre in Toronto in early October. The newly renovated wing of the hospital was named in honour of his parents. Eugene Melnyk made the largest single donation in the hospital’s 84 year history, $5 million.
Ferdinand Melnyk immigrated to Toronto from the Ukraine after the war and was offered an internship at the hospital. He began and ended his profession as a doctor in Toronto and passed away nearly three decades ago at the age of 57. Ferdinand and Vera’s four children and two grandchildren were all born at St. Joseph’s.