Foul Ball: Richie Silverstein’s Favorite Racing Stories
January 15th, 2002by Richie Silverstein
There are many relationships that comprise life on the racetrack. Owners and trainers, often fight like husbands and wives. Trainers and jockeys fall out at the first bad trip. Horses and riders often don’t see eye to eye, but the most tender relationship at the track is the one between the jockey and his agent.
Almost every rider has an agent, acquired in a “gentlemen’s agreement.” The relationships usually last about as long as a Madonna romance and only Bill Shoemaker had fewer agents than wives.
Richie Silverstein and Martin Pedroza have been together off and on since 1984. They have had more reconciliations than Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Take a nice Jewish boy and mix him with a little Panamanian and even Paul Newman couldn’t make it taste good. But for better or worse they seem to need each other.
Nobody tells a better racetrack story than Richie Silverstein and in the coming weeks, this space will be devoted to “Richie Silverstein’s Favorite Racetrack Stories.”
George Hollander, Camillo Marin, Jerry Ingordo, Ron Anderson, Tony Matos, Gene Short, Lenny Goodman, Craig and George O’Brien, Scotty and Chick McClellan, Vince De Gregory, Ray Kravagna and Bob Meldahl… even Agatha Christie couldn’t come up with this cast of characters. You gotta be nuts to work for a jockey and these guys certainly qualify, despite the fact that they have represented the cream of the riding crop.
Camillo Marin was one of the greatest jockey agents of all time. He was a frail, Cuban-born fellow who I didn’t get to know ’til the end of his career. His weather-beaten face always looked like rubber to me. His wit was second to none even though English was his second language. He wore $2000 suits with matching fedoras and $300 shoes with matching socks even in the hot Florida summer.
This dapper man was a close pal of Fred W. Hooper and brought many fabulous riders to the United States to ride first call for his friend. Laffit Pincay, Jr. was one of these “gems” that Camillo imported. Marin and Pincay were at Arlington Park, riding first call for Mr. Hooper and leading trainer Lou Goldfine gave Camillo “carte blanche” to put Pincay on any or all of his charges.
At that time, in Chicago, riders were named at scratch time, so an agent had time to study the form and make an educated choice as to what horse had the best chance in every race. One day, Camillo, never one to rush, arrives in the racing office, literally a second before scratch time. The stewards are tapping their toes waiting for him because the whole card revolved around whom Laffit will ride.
Camillo begins, “In the first race, I ride Mr. Hooper’s horse. In the second race, I ride the six. In the third race, I ride Mr. Goldfine’s horse. I do not ride the fourth. In the fifth race, I ride Mr. Hooper’s horse. In the sixth race, I ride Mr. Goldfine’s horse. In the seventh race, I ride the five. In the eighth race, I ride Mr. Goldfine’s horse and I ride Mr. Goldfine’s horse in the last.
At this point, trainer E.B. Carpenter runs up to Camillo and says, “You are making a big mistake! Laffit has been working my horse and he says it’s going to win! My owner is gonna bet $500 for you!”
Camillo yells, “Foul ball gentlemen! In the ninth race, I ride Mr. Carpenter’s horse!”
Lou Goldfine, with steam coming out of his ears, starts bellyaching, “How can you do that to me? I put you on everything!”
Without skipping a beat, Camillo replies, “Lou, don’t let a maiden $16,000 at Arlington get in the way of a beautiful friendship!”
P.S. Mr. Carpenter’s horse, Boc Man, won the race easily under Laffit Pincay, Jr. and paid $12.00 after opening at 20-1 on the morning line. Trainer Joe Pierce who was present in the racing office when all this was going on, had the presence of mind to claim Boc Man, who went on to win a stakes race for his clients.
