Labor Day traditionally marks
the end of the summer season, but for trainer Tom Howard, who has brought his
stable at Arlington
Park for the first time
this summer, it proved to be a new beginning.
Howard, who served as an
assistant trainer for Cole Norman in the late 1990s before going out on his own
in 2001, saddled a training double on that Labor Day Monday holiday racing
program to triple his number of local wins. Then, last Saturday, the Oklahoma-born
conditioner underlined that success by saddling Frank Fletcher’s Rocket
Twentyone to win the Grade III Arlington-Washington Lassie – Chicago’s
most prestigious race for 2-year-old fillies.
Now, Howard plans to work
Rocket Twentyone one more time at Arlington
before the local season ends and then is looking forward to shipping his filly
directly to Keeneland for a run in the Grade I Alcibiades Oct. 7.
So although the rest of the
2011 racing season looks bright for Howard and his wife Kathy, who serves as
racing advisor for Frank Fletcher Racing Operations as well as her husband’s
assistant in the barn, things didn’t start off so well.
After years of summer sessions
at Louisiana Downs, Howard decided to make a leap of faith and bring his horses
to Arlington
this season.
“We had a home just three
miles from Louisiana Downs,” Howard said, “and it was hard to give up the
convenience of that, but we wanted to go to a track where things were moving
forward. This facility is just beautiful. It’s like being in
Disneyland, but the trip up here to Chicago
proved to be a nightmare.
“We loaded up the trailer at
Oaklawn with four horses and a pony and made most of the trip up here without
any problems,” Howard said, “but when we got up to the outskirts of town we
made a wrong turn and ended up going the wrong way into downtown Chicago
traffic.
“Eventually, we got turned
around going the right way to get up here,” Howard said, “but then we got into
the middle of a group of cars full of people carrying on some kind of traffic
war. They were weaving in and out of traffic, cutting us off repeatedly
while they were chasing each other, and eventually one of them brushed against
the trailer and caved in one of the wheel wells enough that it was brushing
against a tire.
“We had to pull the trailer
with the horses off by the side of the road in traffic until I had a chance to
get out and pry the wheel well off the tire so we could continue to get the
rest of the way out to unload the horses,” Howard said. “Then we had to
find our way to the place where we had rented, even though we’d never been
there before, and unload all the things we needed in the apartment. By
the time we got done with that it was well after 2:30 in the morning, so we got
a couple of hours sleep before we had to get up and come back out to the barn
to feed the horses.
“But when I got to the spot
where I had parked the night before the trailer was gone,” said Howard.
“It turned out where we had parked was marked as a towing zone, but in
the dark the night before we hadn’t seen the sign. On top of that, we got a
ticket for the towing expense.
“On the ticket it said they
had towed us at 2:30 in the morning,” Howard said, “but like Kathy pointed out
– they couldn’t have towed it at 2:30 in the morning because we were still
unloading the trailer at that time.
“Kathy then took another look
at the ticket and saw the towing fine was supposed to be something like $175,”
Howard said, “but they had scratched that price out and penciled in $520.
That really got her blood boiling but we had no choice – we had to pay the fine
right then because we needed the rig to get back to the barn.
“Things have gotten better
since then and will continue to do so,” Howard said with a smile on the morning
after Rocket Twentyone’s Lassie score. “Also, we’re not done yet.
We’ve got a few more horses to run before the end of Arlington,
so hopefully now we won’t have to borrow money to get home.”
ARLINGTON’S
2011 JOCKEY, TRAINER TITLES STILL UP FOR GRABS
The race for leading rider
honors at Arlington
this season, as well as the race for the leading training title, remained too
close to call entering Thursday’s racing program.
James Graham is the current
leading jockey with 72 wins through Sunday, while J. Z. Santana had 68 wins
with Junior Alvarado in the third spot with 65 trips to the winner’s circle.
Larry Rivelli was the meet’s
leading trainer after saddling 36 winners through Sunday, while Scott Becker
was runner-up with 32 and defending trainer champion Wayne Catalano had saddled
30. Red-hot trainer Jim DiVito, with three winners Friday, two more
Saturday and another training double Sunday, was in the fourth spot with 29
winners.