Stacy and Bruno Chiodo feel they were meant to own ‘Rocky’ as well as give him away.

by Debbie Little

Owner/trainer/driver Stacy Chiodo believes everything happens for a reason, especially when it comes to 15-year-old gelding Rock To Glory.

Chiodo has a soft spot for older, veteran horses, and in 2021, she was looking for something for her husband, Bruno, who still needed a handful of satisfactory drives in qualifiers to get his provisional (“P”) license.

Stacy noticed that 13-year-old Rock To Glory was for sale on the online horse auction website onGait.

“I had said to Bruno ‘If [Rock To Glory] goes cheap, I’m going to buy him, you’re going to finish getting your qualifying drives and then we’re going to retire him and find him a good home,’ because his form was terrible,” Stacy said. “I don’t know how to look up the records from onGait that far back, but I believe he sold for like $7,000, which is more than what I was willing to spend to turn around and retire a horse after Bruno finished his qualifying drives.”

Trainer Mike Russo, a friend and former boss of Stacy’s, informed her that after only three starts and $540 earned the owner was interested in selling his recent onGait purchase.

Through text messages with the owner, Stacy found out that he wanted $5,000 for Rock To Glory.

“And I’m like, ‘I’m not spending $5,000 on a horse, that basically, we’re going to qualify and turn around and retire,’” Stacy said. “So, I said, ‘Look, I’ll give you $3,000. I’m not looking to spend a lot of money here.’”

After not receiving an immediate reply, Stacy said she got a text saying: “Can you come get him tomorrow?”

“[Rock To Glory] wasn’t earning a lot of money,” Stacy said. “And at that point, he was 13 and had just over $900,000 on his card, and I thought if he doesn’t want to race anymore, nobody should be making him race.”

Apparently, Rock To Glory — nicknamed “Rocky” — didn’t get the memo about his planned retirement.

Bruno could tell Rocky was a special horse from Day 1.

“It was actually the first time I trained him and I think Stacy said the same thing, ‘Wow, what a cool horse,’” Bruno said. “He was 13 at the time when we got him and he still had a lot of go in him.

“The first time I [qualified] him going for my license, it was like I had a handful the entire time and I kept telling Stacy this horse wants to race and she said, ‘No, he’s going to get retired.’”

In five straight qualifiers with Bruno at Freehold, Rock To Glory had two seconds, a win and two more seconds, respectively.

It didn’t take long for Stacy to notice that Bruno wasn’t just sitting in and following the field.

“I’m like, ‘Why are you pulling this poor old horse first over?” she said to Bruno. “And he goes, ‘I can’t hold him anymore, he really wants to go again.’ And so, we’re kind of laughing and Bruno goes, ‘No, really, drop him in the box.’

“He fit the cheap TrackMaster (TM) at The Meadowlands, which was the 73.5 and we put Mark MacDonald on him and he wins. The purse was $8,125. So, he takes home $4,062 and we just paid $3,000 for the horse.”

Rocky finished second in Bruno’s last required qualifier as well as a TM race the following week at Freehold with Austin Siegelman, where he took home $1,531.

“The next day, we went to turn him out in the paddock and he pulled up lame,” Stacy said. “We had no idea what had happened, because he didn’t pull up lame from the race and I went, ‘Oh, poor guy.’ So, now he’s retired; he doesn’t owe us anything. We’ll get the vets; we’ll find out what was wrong and then we’ll rehab him and put him in one of the retraining programs and find him a good home.”

The vets couldn’t find anything wrong with Rock To Glory, but the Chiodos decided to turn him out with Stacy’s riding horse until they felt he was ready to be rehomed.

“So, then I went to feed one day and my barrel horse, my quarter horse, is galloping around the paddock like a maniac and there’s Rock To Glory trotting with his tail up, keeping up with him,” Stacy said.

“And I said, ‘Well, son of a gun, he’s sound as a dollar.’ And I said [to Bruno], ‘You’ve got your license now, he could be your amateur horse. Let’s put him back into work and let’s see and if he stays sound, fine, and if he doesn’t, fine.’ And then we went ahead and qualified him and the rest is history.”

In all, Bruno had 58 starts in amateur races with Rock To Glory, and one that stands out for him was his first win at The Meadowlands.

“It was a cool feeling, you know, something I’ll never forget,” Bruno said. “He taught me a lot. There were a few times when he was more willing than what I was and he actually got me in a little bit of trouble. Like I really had to hang on to him a few times.

“And then Stacey said, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are to drive a horse like this.’ You know, I know how lucky I was now. Every race with him was good. He was cool on and off the track.”

According to Stacy, Rocky was a particular favorite of The Meadowlands’ Jessica Otten.

“Jessica loved him because whenever she would bring people and kids down into the paddock, she’d always ask me, ‘Where did you put Rock To Glory?’” Stacy said. “And she would go over, put him on cross ties and all the kids would get to pet him and take their picture with him and he just was an absolute sweetheart.”

Rock To Glory had $917,632 on his card at the start of 2021 and as he continued to perform at a high level for the Chiodos, the question of whether he could stay good enough to reach the $1 million lifetime earnings mark came into their minds. Since Rocky raced in amateur events, he was allowed to compete as a 15-year-old, and on Nov. 3, 2023 at The Meadowlands, he went past the million-dollar plateau, after which his shoes were pulled and he was finally officially retired.

“So, then I felt like a jerk for only giving the guy $3,000 for him because even at $5,000 he still would have been a steal,” Stacy said, adding with a laugh. “Like I said, I did it with the intention that within a couple of months, Bruno would be done with his drives and then this horse was going to be a riding horse somewhere, it was just 2 1/2 years later.”

But that’s not where Rocky’s story ends. For as much as the Chiodos wanted him to enjoy his retirement turned out at their farm, he wanted more.

“You could tell that he didn’t want to just be that old guy out in the field mowing,” Bruno said. “I jumped on his back, so I knew he was already broke to ride and then when Stacy put the western saddle on him, I said, ‘Wow, how good does this horse look under saddle?’ It’s like, no matter what he does, he’s good at what he does.”

According to Stacy, on Monday (Nov. 27) she saw a Facebook post that read: “This is probably a long shot but does anyone have a standie looking for a new home that has Laag line?” Rock To Glory is by Rocknroll Hanover, out of the Laag mare Faded Glory.

“There was a reason that that post showed up as soon as I turned Facebook on that morning,” Stacy said. “To me, it was just meant to be.”

Brooke Dunn from Hanover Shoe Farms made the post because she had the privilege of taking care of the Laag mare Movie Star Laag that she absolutely adored and had to be put down in November.

“That’s what sparked the search for a descendant of Laag,” Dunn said. “On Facebook, I made a post on a couple of standardbred groups. Soon after I posted it, Stacy Chiodo messaged me. She explained that she recently retired Rocky and wanted to know if I was interested. I lost my 30-year-old gelding in July of 2022. I have been struggling with finding that type of connection with another horse. That was until I saw Rocky’s picture. Something in me was drawn to him. I mean yes, he’s handsome, but his eyes, they drew me in. This is when we had a phone call and realized that sometimes the world is quite small and things happen in weird ways. Stacy said that it was the first post she saw and something told her to message me. Stacy also had a yearling coming back to Hanover that week. I decided to ride out with the Hanover trailer and pick up Rocky.”

According to Dunn, Rock To Glory has now settled in with her three other geldings, one of which is a 13-year-old standardbred that she rescued from a kill pen.

“Rocky is by far one of the kindest and smartest geldings I know,” Dunn said. “He acts as if he has been a riding horse his entire life. He stands to be mounted. He walks, trots and backs up with no fuss. I recently rode him with just a halter and lead rope; he acted as if that was the norm. I can’t wait to have plenty of new adventures with Rocky. He will be with me until it is his time to go over the Rainbow Bridge. He is part of the family. We love him very much.”