Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Sunday, December 08, 2002

Meadows driver Tyler Stillings is taking a shot at making a living in harness racing's big time in New Jersey. He moved a week ago to Freehold, N.J., an easy drive to the Meadowlands, Freehold Raceway and Yonkers.

"I'm five minutes from Freehold [the track] and an hour from the Meadowlands," he said. "I'm an hour and 20 minutes or 30 minutes from Yonkers depending on traffic."

Stillings plans to try to make it driving and training his own horses, though he won't turn down any catch drives. In fact, he had one Friday.

But Stillings' main concerns right now are Getinthephoto and Gogosaflyin, both 4-year-old trotters he bought out of the $51,000 he made training and driving 12-year-old Prix d'Normandy after buying him in February. Getinthephoto was supposed to race at The Big M Thursday night because races were canceled due to snow.. Gogosaflyin raced Friday at Freehold.

Fusco is listed as trainer on both horses because they're stabled in his barn, but Stillings is doing the training.

"I bought Photo last spring about a month after Prix d'Normandy and he made $30,000 for me," Stillings said. "Gogo I bought about six weeks ago and I have a win, a third and a fourth in four starts at The Meadows. At home, he was terrific on turns, and not as good on straightaway so I think he's made for a half-mile track." Freehold is a half-mile track; Meadowlands is a mile.

Stillings hopes Prix d'Normandy, who's on a break, will be able to join him in New Jersey sometime between Jan. 1-15 because that's where the two earned most of the horse's $51,000 in earnings this year. If not, retirement is a possibility.

"Seeing that he's 13 (as of Jan. 1) I gave him a little time," Stillings said. "I qualified him the first of October and he wasn't 100 percent. I thought I owed it to him to do the right thing. If he doesn't come back, he doesn't come back."

Eventually, Stillings would like to buy two more trotters to race in partnership with Mark Goldberg, for whom he worked and drove at The Meadows. But for now, he said, he can make his way with his two trotters if they continue racing well.

Stillings said he based his decision to move on his success with Prix d'Normandy in New Jersey and a desire to get more experience on different sized-tracks.

"It'll be a good change of pace. I think I was getting stale back home," he said. "Ideally, I'd like to stay here until we get slots in Pennsylvania and then go home."

Bad Meadows news

The decline in handle at The Meadows continues, according to minutes of the Oct. 30 meeting of the Pennsylvania Harness Racing Commission. General Manager Drew Shubeck reported that September handle on-track was down 24.1 percent from the same period last month. Handle at the four OTB parlors also was down: by 28.5 percent at New Castle; 25.2 percent at Moon; 18.1 percent at West Mifflin; and 24.3 percent at Harmar. Overall, Shubeck said, handle for September was down 30.9 percent from the same period in 2001.

Elmer Schweninger, executive director of the Meadows Standardbred Owners Association, reported that the amount of purses paid per week has declined from $250,000 from Jan. 1-Sept. 30 last year to $208,000 for the same period this year.

And some good news

Always Cam was voted the MSOA Horse of the Year for 2002. The 3-year-old filly pacer won a number of stakes, including the Adioo Volo, the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes championship for her division, the Jugette and the Lady Maud. Always Cam is owned by Nan and Wendy Cameron, trained by Bill Zendt and driven by Brian Zendt.

His honor Giuliani hired

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association has hired former U.S. attorney and New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani to manage and oversee racing's review of its wagering systems. The review stems from the Breeders' Cup Pick Six betting scam. "As a prosecutor, he demonstrated great skill and tenacity in combating white collar crime," NTRA Commissioner Tim Smith said.

Another racing scam

On Tuesday, the New York Racing Association announced the arrest of a security guard for allegedly stealing multiple betting vouchers from mail returned to NYRA as undeliverable. The vouchers were mailed in connection with a Mystery Mutuel Voucher Promotion on Nov. 29 at Aqueduct. Guard Henderson Kirton was discovered by NYRA trying to cash the vouchers, one of which was the grand prize voucher of $10,000.