The owner of 2020 Mohawk Million starter Tokyo Seelster died recently at the age of 81.

by Melissa Keith

When Saverio “Sam” Sergi died at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania on Oct. 29, 2024, the 81-year-old horseman left a double legacy. He founded Sergi’s Italian Restaurant and Pizza, a family-owned and operated business that has been a Canton, NY landmark since 1966. Sergi also established a family farm and instilled a life-long love of harness racing in sons Mike and Pat. The younger generations also picked up Sam’s love of the game: his grandson Antonio Vecchio drives at Rideau Carleton Raceway; Mike says his own kids “are not quite old enough yet” to do more than help around the barn, but “one of them definitely has horse fever.”

Reached at Sergi’s Restaurant Friday (Nov. 29), Pat told Harness Racing Update how his father initially became involved in racing.

“Honestly, he used to go to the races up there in Ottawa [Rideau Carleton],” Pat said. “I always heard him say when he had enough money, he was going to invest in one. Eventually. He would go to the races before he became an owner.

“He founded the restaurant, but he did not work too much there lately. My mother, Maria, was here most of the time. Sam spent most of the time with the horses lately, and for the last 25 years.”

Sergi’s Restaurant became popular, allowing Sam to pursue his true passion.

Mike is Sam’s youngest son.

“We didn’t work in the restaurants together, but we spent every day in the barn together,” Mike said of his father. “After college, I started coaching lacrosse and went on to a career outside of racing… Since I was little, I always loved the farm, so we were partners. We’ve had anywhere from one horse a year to a dozen at a time.”

When racehorse ownership became a reality, Sam was able to fulfill a boyhood dream.

“He came here from Italy when he was 17, and everybody there had a rural hobby, a couple goats, a couple cows,” Pat said. “He purchased his first horse, Clever Garland [10, 2:09.4h; $12,999] from Garland Garnsey at the farm we own now. Garland Garnsey owned the farm in Canton, NY, at the time. His son was [1982 Goshen Hall of Fame inductee, trainer/driver] Glen Garnsey. We used to train there and when Garland’s kids wanted to sell the farm after he passed away, at least 35 years ago, my dad bought it.”

Mike recalled that another restaurant owner in Potsdam, NY, Angelo “Jalop” Fiacco, was Sam’s harness racing friend in the early days.

Rather than outsource breaking and training duties, Sam took care of them himself.

“Oh no, no, he liked to go [to the farm every day],” Pat said. “Anything local that he trained here, he loved to go, and that’s what he got up for in the morning. He never really did retire.”

Sam had wide-ranging involvement as a horse owner.

“We’ve done the racehorses; we like to try the yearlings, especially,” Mike said. “He loved the horses. That was his only pastime. He didn’t golf or anything. Dad never trained horses in Italy, but he grew up on a farm over there, raising his own beef cattle. He always wanted to be on a farm. He also liked raising his own beef cattle here.”

The USTA records show that since 1992, horses trained by Sam recorded 332 wins from 2,545 starts. His last was with trotting mare Msfrannie (3, 1:56.4s; $55,366) Sept. 5, 2024 at Rideau Carleton. Another Sergi-owned and trained trotter completed the exactor: Hatikvah (3, 1:53.2m; $296,232).

Pat said his father owned, trained, and drove horses for a much longer time than shown in the online stats.

“Oh, for sure, since the ’70s, because I can recall we’ve always had a bunch of them around,” Pat said. “We would get them ready here and then send them to Toronto, if they were good enough.”

Sam’s horses raced at tracks throughout New York and Ontario. He drove at fairs from 1980–93 and in 1995, making 173 career starts as a driver and winning 24 of them at New York tracks like Plattsburgh, Sandy Creek, Gouverneur, Malone, Trumansburg, Fonda, and Dundee, as well as at Essex Junction, VT. “We have the local county fair circuit here in New York,” said Mike, who still drives at the fairs. “My dad and I actually won our first races as drivers at Sandy Creek.”

Developing racehorses, especially young trotters, was a welcome sideline to the restaurant business for Sam.

“We spent a lot of years at the farm,” Pat said. “I enjoyed it. We had to get away from the restaurant for rest and relaxation. I would do that in the morning and then come here [to the restaurant] in the evening.”

Sam enjoyed success over several decades with horses he owned, trained, and occasionally drove. Here Comes Mike (4, 1:55.4s; $219,462) was an early high-achiever.

“Way back when, we had a horse called Here Comes Mike, named after Mike [Sergi], that we bred, broke, trained and raced,” Pat said. “He trotted around :54 around 25 years ago, racing at Mohawk, Woodbine, Montreal, Rideau, Vernon… We even raced him at the county fairs to get him ready. He raced all over.

“Recently, we had Tokyo Seelster (5, 1:51.4s; $376,939). Sam broke and trained him himself and got the miles on him. It was right around COVID time and our farm track isn’t the best, so we sent him to Robbie Robinson at Rideau Carleton to get him ready to race.”

Normally Sam and his sons would have continued working with the Kadabra—Tymal Timeout colt, but weather conditions were not on their side.

“In the winter here, it’s icy,” Pat said. “You have to put big caulks on them. We paid a lot of money for him, so we wanted to train him on a good surface.”

Tokyo Seelster broke his maiden at first asking in a June 30, 2020 2-year-old conditioned race at Mohawk, with Robbie Robinson in the sulky. The $52,000 yearling won going away in his next two starts there, Ontario Sires Stakes Gold legs on July 9 and 30.

“We raced Tokyo Seelster in the Mohawk Million,” Pat said. “We didn’t do very good, but we were in it the first year it was offered.”

The Sergis’ colt found his way into the $100,000 slot race because of an ongoing relationship with prominent owner Jeffrey Snyder.

“I met Jeff when I bought a mare out of Saratoga probably 15 years ago,” Mike said. “We stayed in touch a little bit. I saw that he had a slot, so I reached back out to him and we made some kind of deal.”

Tokyo Seelster finished eighth. The Sergis still found ways to celebrate.

“We couldn’t get across the border because it was COVID,” Mike said. “I bought a huge screen and we had a huge party in my backyard. As a family, we’ve had a lot of fun with the horses.”

Tokyo Seelster went back to Mohawk and trainer Richard Moreau in early 2023, coming into his own as he climbed the class ladder to the preferred 2 level. On June 26, 2023, he took his 1:51.4s lifetime mark. He hit the board in 17 of 35 starts that season, all at the track where he would spend the remainder of his career.

In Tokyo Seelster’s eighth start back at age 5, tragedy struck. Going off-stride in an early first-over bid June 10 at Mohawk, he was pulled up by driver James MacDonald. He did not finish.

“He broke a bone and he had to be put down,” Pat said.

Tokyo Seelster may have been the best, but he was not the first or last good horse to emerge from the Sergi Stable to race at Mohawk.

“Grammarian [4, 1:55.3f; $425,218] is one of them,” Pat said. “Lukes Vidalia [p, 3, 1:53.2s; $192,982] —Vidalia, like the onion — she was a good pacing mare. We raced her at Vernon, Rideau, and eventually she went to Mohawk.”

Mike said their “breakout horse” was a $5,000 yearling from the 2007 Harrisburg sale: Bay Of Sharks (p, 7, 1:49.3s; $528,093).

“I liked that he had a lot of things that other people didn’t like,” Mike said. “He had four white feet; a white eye; he was a ridgling. We had lots of fun with him. He took us to some different places that we hadn’t been before: the [2009] Confederation Cup, [2009] North America Cup, and even the [2009] Breeders Crown, when he finished fourth, parked the entire mile.”

As with other Sergi horses, Bay Of Sharks was a team effort.

“We picked him up at the sale, and we all broke him at the farm – me, my dad, Mike,” Pat said. “We bred a lot of mares to him, mostly our own, and raised a few colts.”

They also bought Bay Of Sharks’ Royal Mattjesty half-sister, Bay Girl (p, 3, 1:50s; $576,130), for $7,000 at the 2008 Forest City yearling sale. She went back-to-back in the 2010 Canadian Breeders Stake elimination and final at Mohawk.

“That was her biggest win, and she was probably the best that we had for earnings,” Mike said.

Winning at Woodbine Mohawk Park was always special to Sam. In the month since his passing, two of his horses have stepped up with victories there, Nov. 18 and 25 for trainer Robert Kyle Fellows.

“Oh yeah, we’ve still got a few racing,” Pat said. “Recently we have wins with Bella Cavalla [5, 1:53s; $241,000] and Sounds Good [p, 3, 1:50.4s; $193,168] at Mohawk. Sounds Good won the [2022] Battle of Waterloo for my dad, that was probably the biggest win, for both of them.”

Friday (Nov. 29) was a significant date for the Sergi family.

“We had a 30-Day Mass for my dad,” Mike said. “That was tonight.”

Active in racing to the end, Sam will be remembered that way by those who knew and loved him.

“He jogged and trained the horses every day and did barn chores right until he went in the hospital,” Mike told HRU. “I’m going to keep the farm going. I still have four horses there that I’m training, a couple at Mohawk, and a couple at Saratoga. I sent Msfrannie to Toronto.”

Mike added that a familiar song took on new meaning for him lately.

“I got listening to a country song one day about a guy and his dad,” he said. “I’d heard it before, but I happened to listen to it this time, and then I bought a mare, Make It Blue Chip, in foal to New York sire Back Of The Neck. The song is by John Michael Montgomery, ‘I Miss You A Little’.”

Mike said he plans to keep the foal and name it after the song’s title.