Robert Falcone Jr. Hits His Stride in California

There's always one.

Spend enough time at any barn full of Thoroughbred racehorses and odds are, you'll get the gist.

It may never be communicated explicitly, but a few raised eyebrows or a quick shake of the head can send the message—do not get too close to that stall.

Whether the horse is a bit wild, a biter, or just downright mean—there just always seems to be one.

Faustino Ramos had one when owner Robert Falcone had his horses with the trainer in New York.

"It was the one everyone stayed away from," Falcone remembered, now 20 years later. "Don't give that horse carrots, don't pet the horse, don't get close to the horse."

So when Falcone brought his still-toddling son to the Ramos barn one day, there was that flash of panic so many parents are familiar with. Where was his son? He had just looked away for a second.

The answer was unsettling. At the age of 3, Robert Falcone Jr. was in front of the stall—the no carrots, no petting, no nothing stall. Ramos lunged for the young boy, who was confidently petting the horse everyone else was afraid of.

"He was petting the meanest one. The one everyone was afraid of," the elder Falcone recalled. "The horse's head was two feet off the ground."

It would be easy to say that was when Robert Sr. knew what would be ahead for his only son. He didn't know, but upon reflection, that early moment in his life sure seems to fit.

Fast forward to 2018 and the Brooklyn-born Falcone Jr., now a full-fledged horse trainer at 24, has started up an operation 3,000 miles away from home, and he's been an early season surprise on the West Coast racing scene. He won his first two races of the year at Santa Anita Park in January, then five of his first 10, and now sits with five wins from 13 starts in late February with a string of 12 horses and $122,010 in purse earnings.

It's hard to talk to the younger Falcone without feeling his confidence, which squares with a person who moved his entire life across the country to pursue his career. Such confidence is also particularly striking in a game that frustrates so many. Trainers with decades invested in the sport are not immune from flaming out, so it might be hard for older observers not to project some caution onto the young horseman. But Falcone Jr. will have none of that, because he has such a strong self-belief and like that day in the Ramos barn—whether it is considered fearlessness or naiveté—it has suited him well so far in the training game.

The passion for training all started with Falcone as a teenager, when he just knew he needed to be around horses.

"You just fall in love with it, if you love the animal itself," Falcone Jr. said.

His ascent to a grade 1-winning trainer was rapid. He first started getting involved with horses mucking stalls for Belmont Park outriders at 14, and six years later he was training horses on his own. Another two years passed and Falcone Jr., who was based in New York at the time, saddled Mind Your Biscuits to a grade 1 victory in the 2016 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita.

In between came a short-lived dream of being a jockey, then he joined trainer Dominick Schettino, who his father had horses with, as an assistant at age 15.

On days he didn't have school, he was at the barn. On some days he did have school, he still found his way to the barn.

"I wasn't the best school kid," Falcone Jr. said. "School was not my thing."

The jockey dream didn't work out—Falcone Sr. said one day his son told him "he wanted to eat pizza and hang out with his friends"—but he was still able to get on horses to exercise them when he turned 16.

"Dominick would call me and say, 'Rob, he's a great rider and he wants to learn, but I don't want to be the one who calls you up and says your kid is hurt,'" Falcone Sr. said. "We tried to wean him off of riding, and we were successful, but he wasn't happy. So that was the end of that.

"He's just a unique individual. You can't tell him 'no' and you can't explain 'no' to him. What I love about him is everything, but that he'll never give in. When he stops trying, it's his last breath."

Schettino observed that confidence immediately in Falcone Jr., but didn't see it as a hindrance, because it came with a thirst for learning the trade.

"When he worked for me, he listened. He's always had confidence and that was his personality the first day he walked in," Schettino said. "He's confident and believes in himself, and I took it in a good way. You want to be confident in what you're doing and what you learn. It is one of his strong suits."

At every opportunity Falcone Jr. sponged all he could from Schettino and others, and it wasn't long before he shared his opinion, which often turned out to be right.

He suggested an equipment change and the horse won next time out. He expressed reasons not to put in a claim, Schettino passed, and the horse ended up running poorly. He suggested a drop in class and the horse cruised to victory.

Falcone Jr. wasn't right all the time—no one is—but he was right enough of the time for Schettino to take notice.

"To me, I saw that he had the ability," Schettino said. "Some people grasp things naturally quicker—soundness, vet stuff, how they breezed, how they galloped out, fatigue. When it came to the horses—training, reading the condition book, blacksmith stuff—he caught on to all that."

"Everything came to fruition with him when he started working with horses on a daily basis," Falcone Sr. added. "He knew what he wanted out of life and he knew his opinions counted, and Dom took him seriously."

Things went well enough that all parties involved, the Falcones and Schettino, felt it was time to send Falcone Jr. out on his own. But Falcone Sr. didn't want to take his horses away from Schettino, with whom he had developed a deep friendship.

"He wanted to give Robert one or two, gradually, but then I told him, truthfully, he can go out on his own," Schettino said. "He learned a lot here."

Schettino's response was surprising to Falcone Sr., who was half-seriously thinking about instituting a draft of his horses so he could have both his friend and son train for him.

"He said, 'Rob, you should be paying your son. I'm telling you as a friend, he's ready to go out on his own. Just give him all the horses,'" Falcone Sr. said.

So the Falcone operation moved under one roof on the New York Racing Association circuit, with a 20-year-old trainer at the helm. In his first two years (2014-15), Falcone Jr. had a 10% win rate, and his father found out just how headstrong his son was out on his own.

"Everything I thought was a great idea went out the window," Falcone Sr. said with a laugh. "He's going to do things his way, if he thinks he's right. I hate to say it, but he's right a lot of the time. I've even had to admit he's a better handicapper than me.

"He'll figure things out, he'll take his time, and he won't put his horse on a track—and it drives me crazy as an owner—but he won't do it if he's not ready. As an owner I'm going, 'Get the damn horse in a race.'"

Falcone Sr. even saw from a bit of a distance how that type of mentality was challenging for his son with other, less understanding owners.

"Even when he had a bunch of my horses, he'd get a new owner and give me the daily roundup," Falcone Sr. said. "He'd tell me, 'I'm going to give this horse a week.' He called the owner and told him the horse belongs at Penn National. 'I'm sorry that you paid $40,000.' I'm sitting over here biting down on my tongue thinking, 'Give them a chance. If it's not there, it's not there.' But that's not him. Hopefully people will see that honesty and reciprocate that, but not everybody will."

Not racing scared, at least from Schettino's perspective, has aided his one-time protégé.

"That's the most difficult thing starting off as a trainer," Schettino said. "You start on your own and you get excited and you get this horse, and a lot of things run through your mind. You don't want to lose a horse, but with his dad involved in the claiming game, you have to put horses in the right spot. That might have helped him. He's always been good like that."

In early 2016, though, Falcone Jr. would be dealing with more than just claimers.

Falcone Jr. began 2016 winless in his first 13 starts, but then came Mind Your Biscuits in a New York-bred maiden special weight at Aqueduct Racetrack in early April. The Posse colt was one of a few that Falcone Jr.'s friend Chad Summers, who was part of Mind Your Biscuits' ownership, asked the young conditioner to train.

"I love the claiming game, but any trainer, owner, or jockey would be crazy not to say they don't want the good horses," Falcone Jr. said. "Other than the love for the animals, you're here to win big races.

"I just kept thinking, 'Man, just need a good horse.' I know I can make a horse good, but I need a good horse."

After a 7 1/2-length win in the Aqueduct maiden race, he had that horse for the first time, but Mind Your Biscuits didn't turn into a grade 1 sprinter overnight. He finished third in a New York-bred allowance, came in second in a New York-bred stakes, and then crushed another state-bred allowance field by 9 1/4 lengths in July at Belmont.

"We knew he was a nice horse. He just needed time to grow, which he did," Falcone Jr. said.

In his next start Mind Your Biscuits gave Falcone his first graded win at the age of 22 in the Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at Saratoga Race Course. The colt then placed in the Gallant Bob Stakes (G3) and TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), and closed his year out with a thrilling Malibu score over the speedy Sharp Azteca.

But as quickly as Mind Your Biscuits took Falcone to the top level in the game, he was taken away, and it wasn't a mutual decision. Summers took out his training license, took over the care of Mind Your Biscuits, and shipped the colt overseas to score the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News (G1).

"It was tough. It was hard," Falcone Jr. said. "You spend a lot of time to get a really, really talented horse and you lose him."

The specifics of the split with Summers and Mind Your Biscuits are not something Falcone Jr. wants to publicly discuss, but his father expressed his displeasure with how it all went down.

"He took it like a man. I didn't," Falcone Sr. said. "My Italian ego wasn't happy with the way everything turned out, but he told me, 'I'm going to get another Mind Your Biscuits.' He wanted to go to Dubai, so it really hurt me that the opportunity right before got taken away from him. I didn't think it was fair, but he took it like man."

Losing the best horse in any barn is difficult to bounce back from, but Falcone Jr. performed admirably in 2017. He upped his win rate to more than 17% and finished in the money with more than 44% of his starters (compared to a 13% win rate and 40% in the money in 2016). He didn't win any stakes (he only ran in four), but he still brought in $648,947 in purses.

He even brought a string down to Gulfstream Park for the winter, but got frustrated when a few too many of his horses drew into difficult outside posts in large turf fields or didn't draw in off the also-eligible list. With a small group of horses, every start is not only an opportunity, but a commodity, and he felt many of those were getting wasted with tough circumstances in South Florida.

But the time in Florida was a sign of things to come, at least in Falcone Sr.'s perspective.

"I knew in my heart it was coming," Falcone Sr. said of his son's eventual move out to California. "He tested me the year before by sending horses to Gulfstream. Gulfstream is easier than California, and I put up resistance to that, but I knew he was going to do it anyway. As an owner I'm going, 'Just run around the track with short fields at Aqueduct and make some money.'"

But the reasons for Falcone Jr.'s move to California run a little deeper than that. He admits to frustration from not being able to acquire new owners in New York, despite a higher win percentage than other barns who have more horses, and was lured by Santa Anita's new "Ship & Stay" program, which rewards out-of-state trainers with bonuses for shipping in and running more than once at the Arcadia, Calif., racetrack.

"I was doing good in New York and on the East Coast," Falcone Jr. said. "I was at 20-25% the whole year except for December, and then it dropped. But when you compare that to everybody in New York, it's still pretty good. And I wasn't taking on anybody—no phone calls, no new business.

"It’s a lot harder to get a cheaper horse to run than a freak to run. If you’ve got a freak and he’s a freak, they’re going to run. That's a lot easier than getting a $16,000 claimer to run who has a cheap head and needs a fixing-up job."

The hustle at his new Southern California base is readily apparent. He and his girlfriend, Natalie Fawkes, get into the irons themselves and train most of their horses, and every race day the trainer with the chinstrap beard takes notes in the paddock on all claiming and allowance horses, because he needs to be ready should an owner call with a claim to put in, that day or in the future.

The owners who sent horses with Falcone Jr. have been supportive—most notably Sandy Levine of Drawing Away Stable, who has been the owner of record on each of his five winners at Santa Anita—but to get to the next level, Falcone Sr. sees some room for improvement.

"An old trainer of mine, Ron Taylor, he used to tell me, 'Most of the work of a trainer is to be a salesman,'" Falcone Sr. said. "When I came out to California, we had dinner with (jockeys) Rajiv (Maragh) and Corey (Nakatani). They told him, you gotta put yourself out there. He's a little shy, but I think the new owners will come. I think they'll recognize what he's doing."

Falcone Sr. doesn't hide his admiration for his son. You'd be hard-pressed to find a prouder papa—"I'll talk about my son any time, and for as long as you want," he said—but the distance between them also stings. They don't get to sit down and read the Daily Racing Form together any more, and those daily status reports just feel different through a cell phone.

"At 20 it was scary for him to start training on his own, but he was here," Falcone Sr. said. "For me, we're very close. I miss him coming home and giving me a roundup of every horse. I knew I was going to miss that, and I do."

As difficult as it might be for his father, however, Falcone Jr. may not be leaving the Golden State anytime soon. His time at Santa Anita could just be a winter excursion, or it could be for a longer run.

"I don't know if I'm going back," Falcone Jr. said. "We'll see how it goes here. I don't have an answer to that yet. If I'm still having success out here and I'm picking up horses, I'm not going anywhere."

And if he stays longer, he'll have to assimilate to the sun and the sunny disposition of his new neighbors, which caught him off-guard when he first arrived.

"You want to talk about kindness or friendliness, compared to the East Coast?" Falcone Jr. said, with a smile and a Brooklyn twang. "I got here and was shell-shocked. On the East Coast, you try to get across the street and everybody is honking at you, and out here they stop and wave you across. I mean, what is that?"