by Murray Brown

Richard Young by his own admission can be quite controversial and perhaps is not the best liked individual in harness racing.

“I realize I can be different and some people may not like me or what they perceive I stand for,” Young said. “However, I feel that I always am a man of integrity and one can trust what I say to be truthful and my actions I believe are what I believe are best for the sport and ultimately myself.”

You started in the sport as an owner in 1987. Through to today, you say you have had 18 different trainers. Eighteen is quite a few.

“In addition to being a great fan of the sport I also consider myself to be a good businessman. I started in business pretty much dirt poor and personally worked my way up the ladder to the point where I had a thriving company and became quite comfortable. I am sure much of the blame for having had multiple trainers rests with me. But sadly, I encountered my share of what I considered to be unscrupulous individuals. There is no one to blame but myself. I made choices based on results not on the individual.

“Like most owners, I hadn’t learned the game, but unlike most owners, I made an effort to. I would like to acknowledge certain trainers who I believe had the same goals as I did regardless of the result. Ray Remmen, one of the best horsemen and individuals in the sport. Joe Holloway, a tremendous horseman, a nice guy who believes he’s always right but that’s okay, he is most of the time. Chris Ryder is one of my favorites, a superior horseman and a good friend. Linda Toscano, there is no nicer person in the game. She deserves the best and is a phenomenal trainer who always puts the horse first.

“I started buying horses in 1987 when I claimed Heads Up Handsome. He was okay. He actually made money so I can blame him for buying more horses. I don’t know how many horses I bought after him, but most of them were bad. There were times when I had a dozen or so horses that I was paying bills on. Most of them did not pay their way. I re-evaluated my game plan which was instead of buying made racehorses to enter the yearling market and see if I could change my luck. If anything, things got worse. I spent a lot of money on well-bred horses and something would always go wrong. My wife Joanne and I were ready to get out, just call it a day and absorb our losses which I calculated to be in the area of $2.7 million.

“We decided to give it one last try with Nick Sodano as our trainer. I always liked Nick. In the yearling sales of 2000, we bought Sing Fat Lady ($316,780), Weeping Wanabe ($346,248) and Elephants Can Fly ($248,967). Those three helped to right a sinking ship. They showed us that we could buy horses that could make money. However, although finally having a taste of success, we also continued to be what could be considered unlucky. Sing Fat Lady won the Sweetheart and never won again. I did sell her for $100,000. Weeping Wanabe was supposed to be the best, but she ran into a fence as a 2-year-old and didn’t race. She proved to be useful even while having severe EPM and I eventually sold her for $150,000. Elephants Can Fly competed with the best. He won a couple of stakes but had a bad bleeding event and never recovered. So here we were experiencing the ups and downs of racing but we finally had some ups.

“Then in 2008, lightning struck. With Chris Ryder we bought a Rocknroll Hanover filly named Put On A Show. She was out of the great race filly and producer Stienam’s Place ($1,402,301). Perhaps I should have said ‘great race filly and producer to become,’ because to that point one might say she was okay as a producer, but not yet great. Put On A Show was to elevate her to that status. Chris was training her and I guess she was all right, but not outstanding. One of the maxims I’ve tried to live by in both racing and business is that your first loss is usually your best loss. I don’t believe in throwing good money after bad. Here it was February, and she was making breaks. I had done business with Bill Perretti periodically through the years. I had paid $75,000 for Put On A Show. I offered her to Bill for less than half that $35,000. He thought about it and came back saying he wasn’t interested. Bill went on to claim that the reason he didn’t buy her was that Bobbo [Bob Marks] nixed the deal. Bill Perretti did what Bill Perretti wanted it to do. For whatever reason, he didn’t buy Put On A Show. He often blamed Bobbo, but let’s face it, it was Bill’s decision. It was certainly the best decision for me. Chances are if Perretti had bought her, she would never have raced and headed straight for the broodmare ranks.

“She began racing and the rest is history. She retired as the richest pacing filly in history [counting just] 2- and 3-year-old earnings of $1,993,490 and total earnings of $2,406,628. She basically had two careers. As a 2- and 3-year-old she was arguably the best of her division both years. In her last race at the conclusion of her 3-year-old season she fractured her knee necessitating surgery and had three pins be put in to aid the healing. She was on the shelf for 15 months and a vet suggested to us that he felt she could be rehabilitated and come back to racing. I had my doubts, but I said to myself, ‘I’m not a breeder. I love racing!’ She did it and came back, if that was possible, even better than before. At 5, she won 12 of 25 starts and earned $513,135.

“For some crazy reason she has not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame. I still have hopes, though. After waiting forever, they have finally enshrined the great mare Adios Scarlet and the all-time great horseman Lucien Fontaine. If they fail in putting her where she belongs, it won’t hurt her, it will only bring discredit to the institution.”

You don’t own Put On A Show anymore. Why?

“I sold her more than a year ago, primarily because I am not in the breeding business. I don’t want to be in the breeding business. As much as racing is fraught with dangers, breeding and raising horses can even be more troublesome. I owned only one mare, Put On A Show. She was as wonderful a horse to own as could be possible. Yet, there were significant problems we had with her as a broodmare. On two different occasions she aborted the foal she was carrying. One other time, she failed to get in foal. On yet another occasion, she had a foal that had a condition that precluded her ever being trained and raced. As I said, it’s fraught with dangers. If you have a large broodmare band, you realize that stuff happens, it balances out over the whole herd. When you have only one mare as we did, when those things happen it’s, as Mike Tyson would describe it, like a kick in the mouth.

“We made a deal with Steve Stewart that I think is fair to both of us. By the way, Steve in my opinion is the best in the business in doing what he does. She was in foal at the time to Tall Dark Stranger. The deal was that in addition to the selling price that I would get the foal that she carrying if it was a filly. If it had been a colt, I would have a portion of what it brought as a yearling at the sale. It so happened that she now has a yearling filly by Tall Dark Stranger that I own. She will go into training with Linda Toscano next fall. As luck would have it, her next foal aborted. I’m sure that once Steve gets a viable yearling out of her, he will be ahead of the game.”

Let’s talk about her foals.

“Her first two foals were fillies by Somebeachsomewhere. They are both owned by commercial breeders. Farhi Standardbreds owns Beach Showoff and Cameo Hills owns Come See The Show. Beach Showoff was born sick and never recovered to be a useful racehorse. Come See The Show was a stakes winner earning $131,686. She was majestic in her appearance and with her breeding sold for $450,000 as a broodmare. Her next foal was Best In Show, a Bettor’s Delight colt. He earned $672,840 and won the Meadowlands Pace. I still own him. He is standing stud in Indiana. His oldest foals are yearlings. Then Mother Nature decided Put On A Show should take a vacation. She failed to have live foals for the next two years. Her next foal was Magic Showman by Sweet Lou. He had no ability whatsoever. He couldn’t beat me and I can’t go fast. The next foal is It’s My Show the recent North America Cup winner and his meter now stands at $523,715 and is still clicking. Hunterton Farms now owns her and she is now in foal to Bulldog Hanover.”

Which leads us to It’s My Show. You decided to not supplement him to the Meadowlands Pace. Why?

“It just didn’t make economic sense. If he was a potential sire, winning the Pace would increase his value. It now became a decision on what is best for the horse and me over the long term. I’d like him to race for a few years and you have so many great races. Of course, if there had not been the huge supplement fee, we would have entered him. But other than that, it would have been foolish to race him in it. Hopefully he has a great racing career ahead of him that will last many years. The world does not begin and end with just one race.”

Put On A Show is not the only great filly you have owned. How about I Luv The Nitelife?

“We owned her dam’s first foal I’m The Pied Piper, a Western Ideal colt who had ability but had soundness issues. We gave $110,000 for him. Naturally, we looked at her second foal, a Rocknroll Hanover filly who had a Deo name. She became I Luv The Nitelife. We bought her for the bargain price of $60,000. She turned out to be great, not quite as great as Put On A Show, but great nonetheless. She earned $1,944,667 at 2 and 3 and eclipsed Put on a Show’s filly earnings record. Ironically, her racing career came to an end in Chicago in The American national with a similar injury in the same race that terminated Put On A Show’s first career. Unlike Put On A Show, she never could make it back. We sold her to Diamond Creek Farm. She had two foals, and then tragically she passed away at a young age.”

Where do you see harness racing going?

“Unfortunately, not in the right direction. I’m not alone in that assessment. Go to any track in North America, from the smallest to our largest. Attendance is down everywhere. People just don’t go to the racetrack anymore. It’s a situation that feeds on itself. The fewer people that attend the races, the less likely it becomes that more people will come.

“A perceived negative experience breeds on itself. We, all elements of the sport, have not only made it less desirable to go to the races, we have made it more desirable to remain at home with all of its comforts and options. The number of tracks are way down. I developed a love for this sport by going to two tracks — Blue Bonnets in Montreal and Pompano Park in Pompano Beach. Now neither exists.

“I guess, mostly thanks to money from the casinos, purses are pretty good. But expenses continue to rise. It’s next to impossible to meet the nut required to keep an ordinary overnight horse racing. Generally speaking, that horse is racing for more money, but it costs a whole lot more to keep it in action. Even racing our better horses sometimes requires that we race somewhere near the red line or even occasionally over it. I used to race several horses. Now I am down to one on which I am paying bills. I am fortunate in that it is a very good one and expenses are not an issue. Despite its numerous travails, this is still a great game. The thrill of winning a big race, or even a small one, is unmatched in my experience.”

What keeps you occupied these days?

“I play some bridge online. I used to play golf daily, but I don’t do much of it anymore. I have neck issues which basically dictated me to give up the game. I walk daily, usually at least five miles, but this extremely hot Florida weather isn’t helpful in that regard, so sometimes I do it on a treadmill. Of course, I follow my horses.

“I have It’s My Show, his yearling sibling half-sister I’ll Take U There and I will be following the reports on the foals of Best In Show as they begin training and start racing next season. My girlfriend had a thriving business which she sold this past March. I sometimes contributed some advice to her, as good as it might be. I am 76 years old, but I don’t feel it. I still sometimes feel as though I am ready to take on the world.”