Join The Saratoga Special Readers Club for exclusive access to news, swag, discounts, special events and more
Joe Clancy 
Brothers Rich and Adam Newman grew up in an apartment in Queens. If they saw a steeplechase race as children, they don’t remember it. Charlton Baker grew up in Jamaica. He got no closer to jump racing than watching English steeplechases on television. Naturally, the Newmans and Baker team up with a horse in Thursday’s Grade 1 Lonesome Glory steeplechase stakes at Belmont Park.
Trainer Graham Motion and his horses spent a lot of time on Interstate 87 this summer, bouncing between the base at Maryland’s Fair Hill Training Center and a barn on the far turn at Saratoga Race Course.
Led by stakes wins by Tacticus in the Birdstone and Under Control in the Lure heading the list, Motion won six races at the meet with nine seconds and nine thirds from 57 starts.
I can take down the seven pieces of paper taped to my office wall. They list, in various forms: Times Union PDF file specifications, a slew of contact numbers at the printer, the complete advertising schedules of iStable (until it changed) and Maestro’s, less-detailed advertising schedules for Brisnet, Fasig-Tipton, Keeneland, West Point Thoroughbreds and WinStar Farm, Times Union file-name specifications and very detailed instructions (which I forgot) on how to upload our digital editions.
The horses are ready for him, and stand tied to the back wall as Christophe Clement hustles in and out of stalls, speaking in French (maybe Spanish) to grooms and checking legs. It’s mid-morning and between sets and Clement hesitates when questioned about a stable tour.
Over in Bill Mott’s barn at the harness track Tuesday morning, one horse gets ready to train. The dark bay 2-year-old gelding looks a picture – white blinkers with orange trim, white saddle pad with an orange C inside of a black circle, four white polos, sheepskin cover on the yoke, attentive, upright ears.
Last fall, I went for a ride with Divine Fortune. With Keri Brion aboard, he sauntered out of the barn, stepping with a leggy reach that said, “Hey let’s go train.” He was 11, coming off a rough fall at Belmont Park a month earlier, and it was the attitude that struck me.
Seven years ago, he led the Woodward for a mile. Six years ago, he tried the Grade 1 at Saratoga again and finished sixth. Today, he stands around and waits for the love of his life.
And she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I like to think he likes me, he knows me and he waits here for me to pull in the driveway in my truck, but I don’t know,” said Trish McLaughlin, the proud owner of retired Grade 1 stakes campaigner Past The Point. “He’s got a home for life with me. I love him.”
Funny Cide doesn’t walk the shedrow or even reluctantly hang out in the pony stall anymore. Jersey Town is a stallion. Sky Blazer was retired and his stall is empty. Confrontation got sold to Dubai.
Joe McSorley laughed at the question. “Who taught him to jump? You can’t teach a horse to do that. You can’t,” the Kentucky horseman said, then instructed assistant Lyndsay Deaver to cue up a photo on her phone. “Find the one of him jumping the thistle out in the paddock. He would touch the ground and do it again, like a dolphin through water. It was easy for him.”
Which trainer saddled a horse to win two races at the meet first? Pletcher, Mott, Brown, Clement, McLaughlin? No, no, no, no and no. The answer is Steve Klesaris, who has 18 stalls filled with mainly claimers under the trees just beyond the main track’s 5-furlong pole.
