Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Twelve-year-old claimers, even classy ones, are expected to drop in class as they approach harness racing's mandatory retirement age of 15. But someone forgot to tell Prix d'Normandy, a longtime Meadows campaigner who has improved so much this year that he has moved on to racing's big time, The Meadowlands.

The turnaround began in February after usual driver Tyler Stillings purchased the horse privately for $4,000 on behalf of a partnership that includes his mother, Curby Stillings, and Mark Labbree of New Jersey. At the time, Prix d'Normandy was racing poorly in $5,000 claimers -- he had about $500 in earnings this season.

Jeff Carson, his trainer, and Stillings thought the horse might benefit from a change in scenery. After the purchase, the horse moved to the barn of trainer Mark Goldberg, where Stillings is an assistant. "He just got stale," Stillings said. "Jeff had done a terrific job over the last couple months."

Two months later, Prix d'Normandy is racing with $20,000 claimers at the Meadowlands, where he has two third-place finishes sandwiched around a three-race winning streak in five starts. His earnings for the year are $33,802.

In addition, he has given Stillings, 30, his first opportunity to drive at The Big M. He had tapped George Brennan to be Prix d'Normandy's driver, but, after one race, Brennan opted out and suggested Stillings take over himself. He did, just in time for the start of the horse's three-race winning streak, which ended with a third-place finish Wednesday night. That put Stillings at 3-0-1 in four career starts at the Meadowlands, not bad for someone facing the likes of John Campbell and Mike Lachance for the first time.

"I was a little in awe the first week. I was doing some star-gazing," Stillings said by cell phone as he drove home from New Jersey Thursday. "It was something sitting there right beside Hall of Famers."

Prix d'Normandy had moved up to The Meadows' conditioned $17,500 claimer, a pretty competitive division, before the shift to New Jersey. But Goldberg and Stillings began to think he might be better suited to the Meadowlands' 1-mile track than to the 5/8-mile oval at The Meadows.

"His game has always been trotting straight away," Stillings said. "He's always been lackadaisical the first three-eighths of a mile. But when he gets on a straightaway, he's all business."

And how. His first win in New Jersey -- with Stillings -- came in a lifetime-best of 1:56 1/5 seconds. This past week, he trotted the mile in 1:56 4/5 in finishing third.

Mountaineer addition

Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Resort opened a $25 million, five-story, 258-room expansion to its 101-room hotel May 1.

Ted Arneault, resort president and CEO, said the additional rooms should allow it to expand its market.

"Our market radius has traditionally been 150 miles, or a day trip [because of the small number of hotel rooms]," he said in a prepared statement. "... we will try to stretch that market radius to 300 miles as our customers opt to stay overnight or spend a few days."

ESPN contract extended

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Triple Crown Productions and ESPN have extended through 2008 a contract for the network and ESPN2 to provide two horse-racing series and special event programming.

The two live series extended are "CITGO Racing to the Kentucky Derby," a nine-show series of prep races for the Triple Crown, and the "Road to the World Thoroughbred Championships," a 17-show series of races leading to the Breeders' Cup.

The contract also renews 40-plus hours of programming built around the Triple Crown races (whose rights belong to NBC).

Betting numbers

Before the scratches of Buddha and Danthebluegrassman, the 20 individual betting choices in the Derby made for an amazing number of exotic wagers, which racing fan Mike Flynn of Moon figured out for this "mathphobic" writer:

There were 380 exacta combinations, 6,840 trifecta combinations and 116,280 superfecta combinations.

Those numbers went down dramatically following the two scratches, but the figures were still huge: 306 exacta combinations, 4,896 trifecta bets and 73,440 superfecta choices.