TOBA Awards Week: Claiming Horse Like a Saltshaker

The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association will honor national award winners at its 40th anniversary awards dinner Sept. 6 at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky in Lexington. Four national winners have been announced ahead of time, and BloodHorse is offering profiles of these winners throughout the week.

Today we profile Like a Saltshaker , the Claiming Crown Horse of the Year.

Like a Saltshaker spiced up the 2024 Claiming Crown last fall at Churchill Downs by gamely winning the $130,957 Claiming Crown Rapid Transit for Marsico Brothers Racing and trainer Brittany Vanden Berg.

Now, Like a Saltshaker has another prize to go along with his Claiming Crown trophy: the honor of being the 2024 Claiming Crown Horse of the Year. TOBA and the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association co-founded the Claiming Crown in 1999 to recognize former claiming racehorses with a series of rich starter allowance races on one card. As it approaches its 27th renewal, it continues to be a popular event.

Like a Saltshaker won five races from 12 starts in 2024, none richer than the Rapid Transit, when he earned $72,075 for outkicking Keen Cat  by a head in the seven-furlong race at Churchill Downs under Vanden Berg's husband, veteran rider Chris Emigh.

From the time he was claimed for $10,000 on May 14, 2023, until when the Marsico Brothers sold him to Staton Flurry of Flurry Racing Stables late last year, Like a Saltshaker earned them more than $277,000. As of June 2025, Flurry had him in training with trainer Tom Clark in the northeast, in part to take advantage of state-bred incentives when the gelding competes in Pennsylvania. While he hasn't raced since May, he completed a half-mile breeze Aug. 24.

"It's hard to find horses such as Like a Saltshaker, who can win eight or nine races over two years," Like a Saltshaker co-owner Mike Marsico told the National HBPA in late May. "When you find one of those, they're really special, because every time they get out on the track, you know they'll give their all."

Bred by Glenn Brok in Pennsylvania out of the Harlan's Holiday mare With Sprinkles, Like a Saltshaker won the 2020 Fitz Dixon Jr. Memorial Juvenile Stakes as a 2-year-old at Presque Isle Downs. He also had allowance optional claiming success at multiple tracks in 2021 and 2022.

But after struggling at Turfway Park in early 2023, he dropped that spring into the $10,000 claiming ranks at Churchill Downs—when Marsico Brothers Racing and Vanden Berg submitted a successful claim for him. He romped by 5 3/4 lengths.

Reflecting on his Claiming Crown victory, Vanden Berg praised Like a Saltshaker's desire to win in her comments to the National HBPA, saying his fight "summed up his entire career of just being one of the most trying-est horses we've ever trained. He really knows he's in a race, and he really knows he's supposed to win, and he knows he gets his picture taken at the end."