'Not in Any Rocking Chair' Success at Emerald Downs

Experience won out in the sixth race June 17 at Emerald Downs, which was saying a lot.

Regazze Cat's gate-to-wire effort gave owner/trainer Arturo Arboleda the win in the "Not in Any Rocking Chair Starter Allowance," a race where the conditions required the horses' trainers to be born on or prior to June 6, 1928. 

The race attracted four trainers 90 years of age or older to the entry box, and runners from three of those barns filled out the four-horse field. Arboleda was the oldest of the group at 94.

"He never slows down," said Bret Anderson, director of racing at Emerald Downs. "He drives himself to and from the track, and he lives a ways away. He had a heck of a year last year. He won 10 races."

Last year's 10-win season was easily Arboleda's highest total since 1991. Sunday's race was the third win of 2018 for Arboleda from 15 starters, which already puts him on pace for one of his better seasons in recent memory. He also picked up a third-place finish in the starter allowance with Cats Gulch.

Regazze Cat won the six-furlong race in 1:09.45 over a fast main track. Kevin Orozco was the winning rider.

The plan to host a race restricted to trainers 90 and up had been discussed for some time, Anderson said, but a push by Emerald Downs president Phil Ziegler and a Seattle Times feature this spring on the track's surprising abundance of nonagenarian conditioners, focusing on Arboleda and H.R. "Pat" Mullens, helped make it a reality this meet.

"We did a little research on it last year, but some of them weren't quite 90, and then we lost one last year that was 90-plus, so we decided to do it this year with (Ziegler's) urging," Anderson said. "There were a couple naysayers, but once they thought about it, they came around. In fact, we had a few joke that they were going to transfer their horses to one of those guys so they could run it in the race, but we weren't going to let that happen."

The specific date for the age cutoff in the condition book was to accommodate the whippersnapper of the field, Bob Meeking, who turned 90 on June 6. Meeking finished second with favorite Trelawny.

The field's other trainers were Mullens, 91, and Ira Rhodes, 90, whose horse was scratched.

Meeking, a native of Canada, has spent the past two decades stabled at Emerald Downs and has been a regular presence up and down the West Coast for decades, saddling Longacres Derby winners Mincemeat and Salad Sam in the 1970s. 

The trainer described the fraternity of 90-plus trainers, along with six or seven in the 80-plus range, as a close bunch of friends.

"We talk every day," he said before the race. "We're all in a bunch. We all have golf carts and sit and talk, and probably lie to each other. I think everybody's kind of laughing at it, and hopefully everybody has a good time and all the horses come back well."

Meeking, who has five wins from 20 starters this year, claimed Trelawny for $3,200 in March 2017 at Golden Gate Fields. Since then, the stakes-placed Three Wonders gelding has picked up four wins.

Sunday's starter allowance was the 82nd start for Trelawny, who has earned $523,838 over 10 seasons of racing. At age 11, he was by far the elder statesman of the field. 

Meeking had planned to retire the gelding on his farm when the time came, but he recently received a call from Old Friends Equine Retirement informing him that someone had paid to reserve a spot for him at the Georgetown, Ky., farm at the end of his racing career.

"I think it's marvelous," the trainer said. "Somebody has watched him run and cared about his performance and wants to do that. I was going to do it at my farm, but he'll be better there with a lot of old-timers. I don't know who is behind it, but it's really remarkable that there are people like that." 

Meeking joked that he hoped Old Friends might have a place for an old trainer like him, too. However, he just as quickly admitted his plan for the future was to stay right where he is.

"I'm going to stick this out for another 10 years, and if I don't become successful, I'm going to have to go and get another job," he said.