Big Sport Of Turfdom Award
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Big Sport Of Turfdom Award
The Big Sport of Turfdom Award has been given annually by the Turf Publicists of America since 1966 to a person or group who enhances coverage of Thoroughbred racing through cooperation with the media and Thoroughbred racing publicists. The Turf Publicists of America, founded in 1951, is made up of approximately 180 Thoroughbred racing publicists and marketing executives at various racetracks throughout North America with the shared goal of promoting the sport of Thoroughbred racing. *2022 - Cody Dorman, namesake of Cody's Wish *2021 - Brad Cox *2020 - Tom Amoss *2019 - Mark Casse *2018 - John Asher *2017 - Penny Chenery *2016 – Art Sherman *2015 – Team American Pharoah: Zayat Stables, Bob Baffert, Victor Espinoza *2014 – Tom Durkin *2013 – Gary Stevens *2012 – Dale Romans *2011 – H. Graham Motion *2010 – Mike E. Smith *2009 – Team Zenyatta: Ann & Jerry Moss, John Shirreffs, Dottie Shirreffs, Mike E. Smith *2008 – J. Larry Jones *2007 – Carl Nafzger *2006 ...
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Thoroughbred Racing
Thoroughbred racing is a sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport – flat racing and jump racing, the latter known as National Hunt racing in the UK and steeplechasing in the US. Jump racing can be further divided into hurdling and steeplechasing. Ownership and training of racehorses Traditionally, racehorses have been owned by wealthy individuals. It has become increasingly common in the last few decades for horses to be owned by syndicates or partnerships. Notable examples include the 2005 Epsom Derby winner Motivator, owned by the Royal Ascot Racing Club, 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, owned by a group of 10 partners organized as Sackatoga Stable, and 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, owned by IEAH stables, a horse racing hedgefund organization. Historically, most race horses have been bred and raced by their owners. Beginning after World War II, the commercia ...
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Gary Stevens (jockey)
Gary Lynn Stevens (born March 6, 1963) is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey, actor, and sports analyst. He became a professional jockey in 1979 and rode his first of three Kentucky Derby winners in 1988. He had nine wins in Triple Crown races, winning the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes three times each, as well as ten Breeders' Cup races. He was also a nine-time winner of the Santa Anita Derby. He entered the United States Racing Hall of Fame in 1997. Combining his U.S. and international wins, Stevens had over 5,000 race wins by 2005, and reached his 5,000th North American win on February 15, 2015. His career successes were intertwined with significant injuries and periods of temporary retirement, mostly due to knee problems, from 1999 until 2000 and again from 2005 to 2013. He had an acting role in the 2003 film ''Seabiscuit''. After his second retirement from riding in 2005, he worked for TVG and then HRTV and NBC Sports as a horse racing analyst for seven ye ...
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Laffit Pincay Jr
Laffit Alejandro Pincay Jr. (born December 29, 1946, in Panama City, Panama) was once flat racing's winningest all-time jockey, still holding third place many years after his retirement. He competed primarily in the United States. Career Pincay learned to ride by watching his father who was a jockey at many tracks in Panama and Venezuela. He began his riding career in his native Panama and in 1966 prominent horseman Fred W. Hooper and agent Camilo Marin sponsored him to come to the United States and ride under contract. He started his American career at Arlington Park in Chicago and won eight of his first eleven races. Pincay rose to national prominence almost immediately, winning riding titles and major stakes on both coasts. In 1968, he became only the second rider in Hollywood Park history to win six races on a single card. During his career, Pincay was voted the prestigious George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in 1970 that honors a rider whose career and personal conduct exemp ...
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Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Hillenbrand (born May 15, 1967) is an American author of books and magazine articles. Her two bestselling nonfiction books, ''Seabiscuit: An American Legend'' (2001) and ''Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption'' (2010), have sold over 13 million copies, and each was adapted for film. Her writing style is distinct from New Journalism, dropping "verbal pyrotechnics" in favor of a stronger focus on the story itself. Hillenbrand fell ill in college and was unable to complete her degree. She shared that experience in an award-winning essay, ''A Sudden Illness,'' published in ''The New Yorker'' in 2003. Her books were written while she was disabled by that illness. In a 2014 interview, Bob Schieffer said to Laura Hillenbrand: "To me your story – battling your disease... is as compelling as his (Louis Zamperini's) story." Career Hillenbrand's first book was the acclaimed '' Seabiscuit: An American Legend'' (2001), a nonfiction account of the car ...
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Ken McPeek
Kenneth G. McPeek (born August 2, 1962 in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Life and career Kenneth G. "Kenny" McPeek was born August 2, 1962 in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas and raised in Lexington, Kentucky. He graduated from Tates Creek High School and then the University of Kentucky with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration. In 1985 McPeek received his Thoroughbred Trainer's License. McPeek serves on the Boards of the University of Kentucky College of Agricultural Equine Program Advisory Committee, Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA), and the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA). He is a member of the New York Racing Association (NYRA) and The Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine Equine Veterinary Medical Director Search Committee. Major horses McPeek has trained a number of racehorses. In 2002, he won the Belmont Stakes with Sarava. His horses won back-to-back Spinster Stakes' with ...
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Funny Cide
Funny Cide (foaled April 20, 2000) is a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He is the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby. He was an immensely popular horse and remains a fan favorite in retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park. Background Funny Cide was bred at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, but was foaled at the McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbred Farm, owned by Joe and Anne McMahon in Saratoga Springs, New York. His sire is Distorted Humor, who was then an unproven sire at WinStar, struggling to attract good mares. Belle's Good Cide, an Oklahoma-bred granddaughter of Seattle Slew, was already at the farm, and was therefore bred to him. She was then shipped to New York so her foal would be eligible for New York-bred races. Funny Cide was part of Distorted Humor's first American crop when his stud fee was $12,500, dropping down the next year to $10,000. Due to the success of Funny Cide and the rest of ...
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John Servis
John C. Servis (born October 25, 1958 in Charles Town, West Virginia) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer who was relatively unknown until May 2004 when his horse Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby. The colt then went on to win the Preakness Stakes further increasing Servis' reputation. Servis' Cathryn Sophia won 2016 Kentucky Oaks, winning by 2-3/4 lengths over Land Over Sea. In 2018, Servis won his first Breeders' Cup race with Jaywalk in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Servis trains horses primarily out of Parx Casino and Racing in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. He was born into a family involved in the Thoroughbred racing industry. As a boy, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where his father worked as a jockey. Servis trained his 1,000th winner on May 1, 2007 at Philadelphia Park. John is also the brother of trainer Jason Servis Jason J. Servis (born April 2, 1957) is an American trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses. He is best known for having trained M ...
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Pat Day
Patrick Alan "Pat" Day (born October 13, 1953, in Brush, Colorado) is a retired American jockey. He is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1999. Day won nine Triple Crown races and 12 Breeders' Cup races. He was once the leader for career Breeders' Cup wins though he was later surpassed as the events were expanded after he retired. Pat Day retired in 2005 with 8,803 wins (ranked fourth all-time) and as the all-time leading jockey in money earned. He was a dominant rider on the Kentucky riding circuit and holds all of the career riding records at Churchill Downs and Keeneland. Day's signature wins include winning the inaugural $3 million Breeders' Cup Classic in 1984 aboard Wild Again and his partnership with Easy Goer in a rivalry with Sunday Silence. Technique Pat Day was known for being a patient rider with gentle hands and for not usi ...
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Barbaro (horse)
Barbaro (April 29, 2003 – January 29, 2007) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2006 Kentucky Derby but shattered his leg two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes which ended his racing career and eventually led to the need to euthanize him. On May 20, 2006, Barbaro ran in the Preakness Stakes as a heavy favorite, but, after a false start, he fractured three bones in and around the fetlock of his right hind leg. The injury ruined any chance of a Triple Crown in 2006 and ended his racing career. The next day, he underwent surgery at the New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania for his injuries. In July he developed laminitis in his left rear foot. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent five further operations, and his prognosis varied during an exceptionally long stay in the Equine Intensive Care Unit at the New Bolton Center. While his right hind leg eventually healed, a final risky procedure on it proved futile because the colt soon ...
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Carl Nafzger
Carl A. Nafzger (born August 29, 1941, in Plainview, Texas) is an American Hall of Fame horse trainer. Before he was involved in horseracing he was a championship rodeo bull rider. Nafzger trained Unbridled who won the 1990 Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic. In 1990 he was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer and the Big Sport of Turfdom Award. In 1994, he wrote a book on the training of Thoroughbred horses titled ''Traits Of A Winner'' that was published by R. Meerdink Co. (). In 1998, Nafzger trained Banshee Breeze who won that year's Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Filly. In 2006 he was back in the national spotlight as the trainer of the colt Street Sense who won the 2006 Breeders' Cup Juvenile and the 2007 Kentucky Derby. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Nafzger moved into semi-retirement, training only for two clients: James B. Tafel, owner of Street Sense, and Bentley Smith. Smith's first wife (who died in 1999) was the daughter of Unbridl ...
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John Shirreffs
John A. Shirreffs (born June 1, 1945, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Based in California, Vietnam War veteran John Shirreffs began training Thoroughbreds in 1978. He has won a number of stakes races with his most important coming in the 2005 Kentucky Derby when Giacomo scored a major upset. In 2007, another Shirreffs-trained horse scored a major upset when Tiago, a half-brother to Giacomo (both out of the mare Set Them Free) won the Santa Anita Derby. He is also the trainer of champion Zenyatta, beaten only once in twenty career starts, and winner of the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic in 2008 and Breeders' Cup Classic in 2009. In November 2009, Shirreffs became the first trainer to conquer both the Ladies' Classic and Classic in the same year, as Life Is Sweet romped home in the former and Zenyatta defeated males in the latter. Shirreffs grew up around horses at his family's farm. He served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam during the ...
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Jerry Moss
Jerome S. Moss (born May 8, 1935) is an American recording executive, best known for being the co-founder of A&M Records, along with trumpet player and bandleader Herb Alpert. Music career After graduating from Brooklyn College with a degree in English and serving in the United States Army, Moss began his music career by promoting "16 Candles", a 1958 hit for the Crests on Coed Records. In 1960 he moved to California, where he teamed up with Alpert, forming Carnival Records in 1962 and running the company from an office in Alpert's garage. Discovering that the name was already taken, they dubbed their new-found company A&M Records. Moss and Alpert agreed in 1987 to sell A&M to PolyGram Records for a reported $500 million. Both continued to manage the label until 1993, when they left because of frustrations with PolyGram's constant pressure to force the label to fit into its corporate culture. In 1998, Alpert and Moss sued PolyGram for breach of the integrity clause, even ...
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