February 20, 2023

Alfredo Marquez: Raised at the Racetrack

February 20, 2023/ Webmaster

Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH MY!

Being “raised at the racetrack” takes on the true meaning of the phrase when one is referring to trainer Alfredo Marquez. The California conditioner, now 75, was introduced to the backside of a racecourse when he was just a month old.

Article by Annie Lambert

The old Agua Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico, has tethered Alfredo Marquez to Thoroughbred racing and his roots in Mexico for a lifetime. He spends off days from his California training barns at his home in Tijuana, a gated community literally built in an area where Caliente’s old barns once stood.

“That’s where I still live,” Marquez affirmed. “I still live basically in the barn area. We have a gated community where they tore out like six barns; there is a fence between the other barns and our homes. Most of the old barns are still there. They got bears, lions, tigers, elephants and a few Andalusian horses…all the barns are occupied by different kinds of animals.”

The “old” Caliente hosted Thoroughbred horse racing between late 1929 until the early 1990s, a golden era for the racecourse. Greyhound racing seven nights a week now satisfies the live racing obligation needed to continue their simulcast signal.

But, how did wild animals come to replace racehorses in the old stable area?

Jorge Hank Rhon was raised in Mexico by his wealthy, powerful German immigrant parents. Before taking over the Agua Caliente track in 1984, he moved to Tijuana from Mexico City where he had been an exotic animal trader. Rhon owned nine pet shops, six veterinary clinics and a dolphin show.

Before moving, he sold his businesses—many of which were paid for in part with exotic animals: rhino, leopards, cougars, panthers, tigers and even the Andalusians. During the evening horse races, Caliente spectators were able to watch some of the menagerie roaming on the infield.

Rhon still owns Grupo Caliente, Mexico’s largest sports betting company.

What does Rhon do with the animals? “Feeds ‘em,” Marquez said with a laugh. “It’s like a small private zoo for the owner of the track. He’s an animal lover.”

Rearview Mirror

The Marquez family has been a part of Caliente’s storied history—as well as California tracks—for several generations; nearly every Marquez family member is or has been a racetracker. They worked at tracks like Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, Golden Gate, Bay Meadows and mostly Del Mar “because it’s only a jump from Tijuana.”

Marquez’s brother, Saul Marquez, is currently a jockey valet for Juan Hernandez (current leading rider at Santa Anita), Franklin Calles and Ricardo Gonzalez at Santa Anita. Saul’s son, Saul Jr., was a jockey agent for a long time and worked sales at horse auctions. He now runs his own business as an independent trucker. A nephew, Victor Garcia, is the son of former jockey Juan Garcia and is also a trainer at Santa Anita.

“A lot of my Tijuana family, most of them, worked at the track,” Marquez said. “They were grooms, trainers, assistant trainers, pony boys, exercise riders and jockeys.

From an early age, Marquez, worked within the Thoroughbred racing industry in many capacities. His one wish from the beginning was to own a racehorse.

“My main goal was to own horses,” Marquez said. “That was it from day one, since I was born. I had a horse when I was young. My dad bought me a horse for my birthday when I was seven. I sold it when I was eight. It was a riding horse, a filly. In those days [in Tijuana], there were no cars. You walked to school, which was not too far from home, and you walked to the racetrack.”

Marquez claimed his first horse for $1,000 in 1964, at the age of 16. He took a horse named Social Book off Wes Cain and the owner, Mrs. Morton. Those connections claimed the horse back just three weeks later for $1,400.

“They sent him up north, and he made like $50,000,” Marquez said of Social Book.

Owner Tim Goodwin, Alfredo Marquez & jockey Tiago Pereira, 2017.

His second claim was Cahill Kid, trained by then leading trainer, C.L. Clayton.

“That was a very, very nice horse—a stud,” Marquez recalled. “I ran him six times and had four wins, a second and a third. I lost him for $1,600. I think all together I made about $7,800 in three months, which was a lot of money then and a lot more nowadays.”

“I bought a Chevrolet Impala in Mexico with the money,” Marquez added. “I also bought property—a lot that I built apartments on later—like in 1968, I finished building.”

While he was claiming his first horses, Marquez worked for trainer L.J. Brooks until he was “17 or 18,” before going to work for a smaller trainer with only a couple of horses. Marquez remembers one really nice gray horse he handled, The Roan Clown—a two-time winner at Pomona.

Motivos & More

The English translation for motivo is “a reason for doing something, causing or being the reason for something.” Motivos was a horse perfectly named to become the young trainer’s favorite horse—a horse he owned himself.

“I had Motivos, a Mexican bred,” Marquez explained. “He ran twice in California, then I took him back to Mexico, to Tijuana. In one year, he was Sprinter of the Year, Miler of the Year and Horse of the Year. In the 1980s, he took everything—running from 5 ½ furlongs, a flat mile, a mile and an eighth and mile and a quarter.”

“What I admired about that horse was, when he goes short, he goes to the lead and they never catch him,” the trainer added. “And when you go a mile or more, he breaks on top, and he lays back second or third; he doesn’t go past, then he makes a run. He’s just like a human. I’ve never seen any horse like him, ever. He was amazing—amazing—and he was so smart.”

Motivos even ran second in the $250,000-added Clásico Internacional del Caribe (Caribbean Derby), the most important Thoroughbred black-type stakes race in the Caribbean for three-year-olds. The Caribe is for the best colts and fillies from the countries that are members of the Confederación Hipica del Caribe; the race rotates between those countries each year.

In 1988, the Caribe was held at Caliente. Marquez ran Don Gabriel (MEX) and Joseph (MEX), both colts owned by Cuadra San Gabriel. “Don Gabriel won it, and Joseph ran second,” Marquez said. “Nobody had ever run one-two before.”

With Equibase earnings of $8,384,323, Marquez has trained multiple graded-stakes winners over the years.

Melanyhasthepapers (Game Plan) was purchased as a yearling for $40,000 out of the Washington sale at Emerald Downs by owners Ron and Susie Anson. They named the colt after Melanie Stubblefield who handled all the registration papers at Santa Anita for decades.

Melanyhasthepapers racehorse — Melanyhasthepapers

“I bought the colt off the Ansons for $40,000 when they retired from owning horses,” Marquez remembered. “He ended up being a stake horse.”

Melanyhasthepapers earned $311,152 between 2003 and 2006 including five wins; the horse won the Cougar II Stakes at Hollywood Park, ran second in the All-American Handicap (G3) at Golden Gate and third in Santa Anita’s Tokyo City Handicap (G3).

Tali’sluckybusride racehorse and connections Alfredo Marquez — Tali’sluckybusride

The Ansons also purchased Tali’sluckybusride as a yearling out of the 2000 Washington sale for $23,000. The Delineator filly went on to win the Oak Leaf Stakes (G1) and was third in both the Hollywood Starlet Stakes (G1) and Las Virgenes Stakes (G1). She ultimately earned $245,160.

Ron Anson obviously had an eye for a runner. “Ron was pretty good at claiming horses and buying them privately,” Marquez said. “He died last year.”

Marquez-trained stakes horses include: Martha and Ray Kuehn’s - Irish (Melyno (IRE)) that won the Bay Meadows Derby (G3); Anson’s - Irguns Angel (Irgun) topped the A Gleam Handicap (G2), ridden by Eddie Delahoussaye; and their gelding, Peach Flat (Cari Jill Hajji), was triumphant in the All-American Handicap (G3).

“We claimed Peach Flat up north at Bay Meadows for $20,000—his second start,” Marquez pointed out. “We won seven races with him.”

Tali’sluckybusride racehorse — Tali’sluckybusride

The Border & Beyond

Marquez used to check on sales yearlings at Gillermo Elizondo Collard’s Rancho Natoches in Sinaloa, Mexico. In 1989, between inspecting sales yearlings, he spotted a mare with a baby at her side that caught his eye.

“It’s a big, beautiful farm,” Marquez pointed out. “I’m checking those horses, and I see this mare with a little baby—probably five months old. The owner bought the mare at Pomona in foal to La Natural; this is that baby.”

When Marquez inquired about buying the La Natural, the owner informed him that the colt was Mexican-bred, not Cal-bred. The trainer wrote a check for what had been paid for the mare – he thinks $6,000 – and asked that the baby be delivered to him at Caliente as a two-year-old.

“I waited almost two years,” Marquez said. “I got him and two other horses [for training] delivered to quarantine at Caliente Racetrack. I broke him at Caliente along with the other two.”

The La Natural colt, named Ocean Native, made his first start for Marquez at Del Mar in 1991 in a $50,000 maiden-claiming race with Kent Desormeaux riding. The dark bay gelding won going away first time out. Less than three weeks later, Desormeaux rode him back for a second win in the Saddleback Stakes at Los Alamitos.

After running up and down the claiming ranks, Marquez lost Ocean Native on a win for a $25,000 tag at Del Mar in 1993. The durable gelding was hardly finished, however. He ultimately ran fourth in his last race with a $3,000 tag in 1999 at Evangeline Downs. Ocean Native ran 77 times, won 12 races and earned $155,194.

One of the babies that arrived at Caliente with Ocean Native was a Pirate’s Bounty named Tajo. Marquez remembered the colt as “a really nice horse that broke his maiden at Del Mar; and he also won an allowance at Hollywood Park second time out.”

The Anson’s Lord Sterling (Black Tie Affair [IRE]) took his connections on a two-week trip to Tokyo, Japan, for the very first running of the Japan Cup Dirt (G1).

In late 1998, Marquez claimed Lord Sterling from Jerry Hollendorfer at Golden Gate, in just his second out for $50,000. The horse had run second his first out there in a $25,000 maiden claimer.

Over the next two years, Lord Sterling won four additional races for Marquez including a listed stake at Santa Rosa. In October of 2000, the horse finished second in the Meadowlands Cup Handicap (Gr.2) as the longest shot on the board. That effort punched his ticket to Japan.

“We were invited and almost won the race,” Marquez recalled with enthusiasm. “[Lord Sterling] ran a big, big third in a $2.5 million race. We went back the following year with another of Anson’s horses, Sign of Fire.”

Sign of Fire (Groomstick), a graded-stakes placed runner, unfortunately bled and ran out of the money.

“Tokyo is like five racetracks in one,” Marquez said. “They got turf, dirt, a bigger turf and steeplechase. They only ran Saturday and Sunday. But, like on Friday, you see hundreds of people sleeping on the sidewalk so they can go into the races. They limit it to, I think, 100,000 people. They gamble, and I mean they really gamble…

“You know what’s really amazing? When the horses come out of the gate, everybody gets quiet until the race is over; it is total silence.”

Love & Compassion

Marquez commutes between his Tijuana home and Southern California tracks—roughly a three-hour drive to Santa Anita. He spends a few days each week in Mexico, depending on his schedule—a routine that has sustained him for 40 years.

He and his wife, Angela, a certified public accountant, have four children. His son and three daughters were not encouraged to pursue racetrack careers, according to their father. The kids are smart, educated and on the road to bright futures.

“I wanted them to buy property instead of horses,” Marquez explained. “Real estate—that’s where the money is. Horses are fun, and when you race, you enjoy as much as possible; but you can’t win every time.”

Marquez’s son Jonathon graduated from San Francisco State University. He and Angela recently traveled to Boston to see Jonathon receive his Masters Degree in speech therapy. Their daughter Brenda graduated from Grand Canyon University of Phoenix with a Masters in Education and is teaching. Daughter Georgette teaches in San Diego and another daughter, Yvette, evaluates autistic children.

Although Marquez encouraged his children to pursue education and positive careers, he loves “everything racetrack,” especially training and owning horses. He also takes compassionate aftercare of his trainees.

Marquez claimed Starting Bloc (More Than Ready) in the spring of 2018 for $50,000 out of the Richard Mandella barn. The colt ran 15 times for Marquez, picking up 11 checks, including three wins.

When his horses show signs of being at the end of their careers, Marquez has a solution.

“We’ve still got Starting Bloc up at the ranch in Nevada,” Marquez said. “My owner, Robert Cannon’s son, Michael, has a big, 5,000 head cattle ranch up there. [Retired horses] have a whole big field. It’s their home for life.”

Lil Milo (Rocky Bar) is another of Marquez’s horses headed to the ranch for life. “He won the Clocker’s Corner Stakes the last time he ran,” the trainer pointed out. “His owner Dr. [Jack] Weinstein died right after the horse won, like a month later.”

Most of his career, Marquez trained a barn of 40 to 45 horses. Most of his owners became like family; and as they aged and drifted out of the horse business or passed on, Marquez also slowed down.

“When they retired, I retired,” he explained. “Right now, I’ve got the smallest barn as possible—only six to eight horses. But I’m going to stay in business until I drop. You have to have your mind working all the time. I don’t want to stop.”

Marquez recalls all of the many great horses he has trained with enthusiasm and can rattle off stories of every one. As he says, “I’ve been so lucky to own horses. They are still in my memory, in my heart.”

April 27, 2022

Brian Lynch - the Australian born trainer whose set to make a mark at Ellis Park this summer

April 27, 2022/ Webmaster

By Ken Synder

“If you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,” said trainer Brian Lynch. “I’ve been blessed to do a job that I have a passion for. I have fun with it.”

“Fun” is not a word often associated with training Thoroughbreds. The job, as everyone in racing knows and as Lynch noted, “is seven days a week, 365 days a year.” The word, however, crops up often for those who know Lynch.

“He’s fun to be around,” said Richard Budge, general manager at Margaux Farm, where many of Lynch’s horses have begun careers as yearlings.

Dermot Carty, a bloodstock agent who first met Lynch when he came to Canada in 2005, echoed Budge: “With Brian, he just makes it fun. He makes it enjoyable through the good times and the bad. He’s one of the few true characters in the business who actually puts enjoyment into horse racing.”

Greg Blasi, Churchill Downs outrider who knows Lynch away from the racetrack “cowboying” with him, (more on this later), expressed it most succinctly: “He’s a hoot.”

Of course, the most fun is trips to the winner’s circle, and Lynch has made plenty of those: 720 at press time and earnings just short of $47 million.

A native of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia, Lynch fits, perhaps, the profile of a stereotypical and classic “Aussie.”

“We have more of a laid-back attitude than Americans. It’s nothing to share a few beers with each other and have a good time…helps you make new friends, that’s for sure.”

What Lynch did before coming on the racetrack may explain also why racing is more fun to him than anything. He was a bull rider back home. In fact, he came to America in 1992 to join this country’s professional circuit with big purses after learning the trade locally. “They had a local rodeo back home, and it was a big thing. Not far from the racetrack was a horse trader who had some bucking horses and some bucking bulls; and I used to hang around his place a lot. That’s where I got the taste for jumping on bulls.”

The racetrack Lynch mentioned is an unusual triangular racecourse that was across the road from his home and where he got his start, filling water buckets and learning to ride as a boy. “I could ride from a young age. It wasn’t long before I graduated to galloping horses.

“I was always a little bit too big to be a jockey. I sort of found a lot of work helping on the wilder horses.” Apparently, it was experience sufficient to prepare him for something bigger and more dangerous…with horns.

Thoroughbreds sidetracked Lynch when he came to Southern California and a small farm near the border with Mexico. “There was a little Thoroughbred farm called Suncoast Thoroughbreds. I got a job breaking colts for them, and it wasn’t far from San Luis Rey.”

Lynch said he “annoyed” the stewards there till they gave him a trainer’s license. His start was with two horses at San Luis Rey.

That led to training for the Mabee family’s Golden Eagle Farm in Ramona in San Diego County.

“I kicked around California for a lot of years just with small numbers, just scratching out a living—selling, and running horses, and flipping horses. I was bringing some from Australia and moving them.”

His big break was training at Santa Anita and Del Mar where he met some important influences. “Most say they admire the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. For me, it’s Ron McAnally, Jack Van Berg, and Bobby Frankel,” he said with a laugh.

When Frankel learned the Mabee family was going to downsize their Thoroughbred operation, he approached Lynch about joining his stable as an assistant. “He was starting to get more two-year-olds than he’d ever had. That’s when Chad [Brown] and I teamed up with horses for Bobby. Chad went to California, and I went to South Florida and Palm Meadows in the first year that it opened,” said Lynch.

“Bobby certainly wasn’t a textbook teacher,” Lynch said of the legendary New York trainer who died in 2009. “He wasn’t going to walk you through everything. He was a guy that if you were around him enough and you didn’t absorb anything from him or learn anything from him, then shame on you.”

Frankel, not known publicly as being chatty, was half of a truly odd couple with the amiable Aussie. Not just the experience, but the friendship is treasured by Lynch. “He had a heart of gold. He was a great guy to train horses for and just a wonderful human being.”

Lynch’s big break came when he moved to Canada to manage Frankel’s division at Woodbine in 2005. In 2006 he went out on his own, eventually becoming a private trainer for Frank Stronach.

Canada was very much to his liking; in both 2006 and 2007, his earnings topped $1 million before jumping to over $3 million in 2008. That year began his string of consecutive top 100 earning trainers in North America that continued through last year.

He is quick to credit owners for his success and consistency: “I’ve been very blessed to have long-term owners who like to play the game and who have always tried to work on finding the better horses. Fortunately enough, if you look back over the list, there’s been quite a few of them.”

Quite a few indeed. Lynch trained Clearly Now, who set the Belmont record for seven furlongs (1:19.96) in that track’s 2014 Sprint Championship, earning an Equibase speed figure of 122. (To give you an idea of how phenomenal the performance was, the next year’s Sprint Championship winner won in 1:22.57.) Other top horses include Grand Arch, owned by Jim and Susan Hill of Margaux Farm and winner of the Gr. 1 Shadwell Turf Mile Stakes at Keeneland in 2015; Oscar Performance, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Santa Anita in 2016; and Heart to Heart, winner of two consecutive back-to-back Gr. 1 stakes in 2018 at Keeneland and Gulfstream Park. Most notable outside the U.S. was a win in Canada’s 2015 Queen’s Plate Stakes with Shaman Ghost.

While many trainers get labels for being good with two-year-olds, sprinters, etc., there is an enviable trademark for Lynch’s horses: long careers. “I’ve raced two- and three-year-olds and still have them around running Gr. 1’s and winning at six or seven.” Grand Arch raced till the ripe old age of seven and in stakes company, finishing his career in the Forbidden Apple Stakes at Belmont. “Keep them in good form and you’ll have them still around when they’re older,” said Lynch who also points to “patient owners” like the Hills, willing to give their horses a break as a necessary ingredient in managing racing careers.

If there is a label, Lynch is unaware of it. When it was pointed out that in the past five years he had started more horses on the turf than on dirt, his response elicited another Lynch trademark: humor. “Probably because they were too slow for the dirt.

“I guess I primarily grew up training horses and riding horses to run on the turf down there [Australia], so I probably am influenced to run ‘em on the grass. I’m certainly not frightened by the dirt, by any means, but somehow, I ended up trying them on the grass. If they run well there, I’ll keep them on that surface.”

As intent as he is on enjoying himself and bringing enjoyment to others in the game, he is “no-nonsense” as a trainer—a euphemism not used by Carty to describe Lynch. “He can figure out in a very short period of time if a horse has or does not have any talent. He’s not one of those bull***t trainers who tells people that, ‘yes, yes, it’s going to get better’ and in his heart and soul, he knows it’s just for a day rate. He’s not interested in the day rate. He’s interested in developing and making great racehorses.”

Asked about his success and consistency, Lynch responded with characteristic modesty and self-deprecation: “One thing I’ve learned about training horses over the years is I’ve gotten very good at delivering bad news. That’s what you seem to do a lot.”

Unlike many high-profile trainers with multiple divisions and large strings of horses who are more business people than trainers, Lynch’s focus is the barn first, and then business. “It’s switch on, switch off,” said Carty. “Clients will feel good and enjoy themselves at the races with Lynch. But when he goes back to that barn and those horses, he switches to Brian Lynch who looks after the horses, making sure they’re ok.

“He’s there first thing in the morning, and following the races, he goes over and checks every stall and goes through it. He’s not one who would just leave it to the help,” said Carty.

Richard Budge offered another perspective on Lynch. “I would say he’s unique in the fact he’s willing to roll the dice in a stakes race with a horse that may be an outsider.”

A case in point was a recent start by Phantom Currency (yet another Hills-owned horse) in the Gr. 3 Kitten’s Joy Appleton Stakes at Gulfstream in April. The horse was coming off a 13-month layoff. While most trainers may have looked for an allowance race tune-up, Lynch went for the gold. The horse won, earning a very impressive 114 Equibase speed figure.

“If a horse is training well, he’ll ask, ‘Why not? Let’s give it a shot,’” added Budge.

“That would be a huge positive. We can be a little tentative about where to place them or put them. You never know if you could have run a stakes race when you run in an allowance.

That very question faces Lynch with his first potential Kentucky Derby starter, in Classic Causeway.

After two impressive wins—the first in the Gr. 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes in February and a month later in the Gr. 2 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby with identical and impressive Equibase speed figures of 104—the horse finished a mystifying last in the Florida Derby.

Classic Causeway, owned and bred by Clarke M. Cooper and Kentucky West Racing, is one of three foals from the final crop of Giant’s Causeway who died in 2018.

He made his debut at Saratoga last September and blew away the competition from gate to wire over seven furlongs, winning by six-and-a-half lengths. The horse entered the Derby picture with a third-place finish in the Gr. 1 Breeders’ Futurity in October at Keeneland and followed that with a second-place finish in the Gr. 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes in November at Churchill Downs. His two wins at Tampa Bay Downs earned him qualifying points for one of the 20 spots in the gate the first Saturday in May.

Before the Florida Derby, Lynch had this to say about the son of the great Giant’s Causeway, known as the “Iron Horse” after winning five Gp. 1 races in just 11 weeks as a three-year-old. “You always hope that you come across one in your career that you can have a ‘kick at the can’ in the Derby, but fortunately this horse came into our stable, and he’s done everything we’ve asked of him. I think he’s just getting better, and we’re really excited to have him.”

Whatever lies ahead, Lynch said he will “stop and smell the roses,” whether they’re draped across the withers of Classic Causeway at Churchill Downs or the figurative kind.

He embraces a positive attitude toward racing that most of us should emulate. “Racing is a game of ups and downs. You could be dodging missiles in Ukraine. You get over a loss, have a beer or soft drink, and move on.”

His idea of relaxation may be an indication of the kind of person Brian Lynch is. When Greg Blasi mentioned one day he and other outriders were going up to a farm east of Louisville to work cattle, the 57-year-old Lynch was quick to say to Blasi, “If you ever need some help, just let me know.”

He’s ridden with Blasi, and the others as many times as he’s had the opportunity, ever since. “He’s just a very good horseman, whether it’s on the back of a pony herding cows—just whatever,” said Blasi. “He used to gallop his own horses. He’s come up the hard way, and he tells stories about when he didn’t have a couple of nickels to rub together. Nothing was handed to him. I respect guys like that. There are a lot of people that didn’t have to struggle to get where they are.

“He’s also a lot of fun to be around.” Ah, there’s that word.

For a guy who’s ridden bucking broncos and bulls, you might expect a certain fearlessness. Not so: “I have one fear in life, and that is that there’s a good time going on somewhere and I’m not in the middle of it.”

April 27, 2022

Earle Mack - The Eclipse Award winning humanitarian philanthropist

April 27, 2022/ Webmaster

By Bill Heller

Many people wonder what they can do to help people in need. Other people just do it. That’s how Earle Mack, who received an Eclipse Award of Merit earlier this year for his contributions to Thoroughbred racing, has fashioned his life. So, at the age of 83, he flew from his home in Palm Beach, Florida, to the Hungary/Ukraine border to deliver food and clothing to desperate Ukrainian refugees who fled their homes to escape the carnage of Vladmir Putin’s Russian thugs.

“I’m going to the front,” he declared in early March. “I woke up and said, `I have to do my part.’”

He’s always done more than his part. Besides being an extremely successful businessman, he was the United States Ambassador to Finland. An Army veteran, he is helping veterans with PTSD through a unique equine program. He supports the arts. He is an active political advocate. And he has enjoyed international success with his Thoroughbreds—breeding and/or racing 25 stakes winners, including 1993 Canadian Triple Crown Winner and Canadian Horse of the Year Peteski, a horse he purchased from Barry Schwartz; $3.6 million winner Manighar, the first horse to win the Australian Cup, Ranvet Stakes and BMW Cup; and 2002 Brazilian Triple Crown winner Roxinho. Two of his major winners in the U.S. were November Snow and Mr. Light. And he founded the Man o’ War Project, which helps veterans with PTSD via equine-assisted therapy.

“I love my country,” he said. “I love the arts. And horse racing is in my blood.”

Literally, Ukraine is in his blood. He discovered through Ancestry.com that he is two-thirds Ukrainian. “My great grandfather fled Ukraine to go to Poland,” he said.

So he had to go to Ukraine.

“He’s an extraordinary man,” owner-breeder Barry Schwartz, the former CEO of the New York Racing Association and the co-founder and CEO of Calvin Klein, Inc., said. “I’ve known [Earle] a very, very long time. He loves the horse business. He’s extremely philanthropic. I’ve been on the board with him for the Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University [where Earle served as chairman for 14 years]. I get to see a different side of him. He’s smart. He’s articulate. He’s a class act.”

In early March, Mack, a trustee of the Appeal Conscience Foundation, called owner/breeder Peter Brant (a fellow member of that foundation) and former New York State Governor George Pataki (whose parents are Hungarian) to head to one of the most dangerous locations on the planet. Brant supplied the plane. His wife, Stephanie (Seymour), brought 40 big duffle bags of clothing, “She spent over $30,000 buying the clothes,” Mack said. “I took clothes off my racks. I brought all the fruit that we could find and a couple boxes of chocolate.”

The delegation landed on March 10th, two weeks after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and began an unforgettable experience. Displaying yet another talent, he wrote about his trip in an op-ed published by The Hill, an American newspaper and top political website, on March 16th:

“How would you feel, in this day and age, if you were fleeing your home with only the few things you could carry in freezing winds and winter temperatures? How would you feel sitting in your car for 17 hours, waiting to cross a border, all the while worried that the sound in the sky above might be a missile or bomb bringing certain death? How would you feel trapped in your basement or a public bomb shelter, food and water running out, afraid to leave and face death? How would you feel if your city was under attack and you watched as civilians were shot up close by Russian soldiers and neighborhoods were rubbled from faraway artillery? How would you feel leaving your fathers, husbands and brothers behind to fight against impossible odds?

“This is what I have wondered, listening to heartbreaking stories that have brought me to tears, told by Ukrainian refugees on my recent trip to the Hungarian border and into the Ukrainian city of Mukachevo, where hundreds of thousands have fled the war with Vladmir Putin’s Russia.”

Mack went on to share his experience of Ukraine, “Ukraine has cold winds. Thirty-five feels like 15. Lots of hills and farmland. Peter and his 17-year-old daughter stayed at the border. We went into Mukachevo, a city of about 20,000 to 25,000 people. At that point—two weeks into the war—there were more than 500,000 people in that area, hoping that there’s something to go back to.

“We went into a children’s hospital ward filled with children. We looked at a COVID ward with kids lying down. We went into a school converted into a dormitory. We saw all these kids, ages two to eight with their mothers. Men, 16 to 65, weren’t allowed to cross the border. The kids were crying. Not much to eat. We brought in the fruit. We brought in the chocolate.

“I started handing out the chocolates. These kids ate all the chocolate. I have the empty box. I put it on one of the six-year-old kid’s head and started singing, `No more chocolates; no more chocolates.’ That kid takes the empty box and puts it on another kid’s head. They’re all singing, ‘No more chocolates; no more chocolates.’ When I was leaving, the director of the center came running after me and said this is the first time they laughed in two weeks.”

Mack wrote of this bittersweet moment in his story in The Hill: “As we prepared to leave, there was a 12-year-old girl who literally begged me to take her with us. I can’t describe how hard it was to walk away from this young girl whose life is forever changed.”

This from a man whose life is forever changing.

Terry Finley, the CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, said, “Although we’ve never owned a horse together, we try to make a point to spend a couple of races at Saratoga, just the two of us in the box. I pick his brain. He’s such a good person. He’s got a world of knowledge. He’s a fun guy. He’s a caring guy—as cool a guy as there is in the industry.”

Peter Brant, Earle Mack, Lily Brant, Christopher Brant & Karen Dresbach (executive vice president of the appeal of Conscience Foundation) before boarding a plane loaded with medical supplies, food, clothing and other essentials for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Hungary

One of four boys born in New York City, Earle’s father, H. Bert Mack, founded The Mack Company, a real estate development company. Earle was a senior partner of The Mack Company and a founding board member of the merged Mack-Cali Realty Corporation. He has served as the chairman and CEO of the New York State Council on the Arts for three years and produced a number of plays and movies. His political action included an unsuccessful attempt to draft Paul Ryan as the 2016 GOP presidential candidate.

His entry into horse racing was rather circuitous. He learned to ride at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in North Tarrytown, N.Y. “All the juniors and seniors were allowed to use the trails at Sleepy Hollow County Club,” he said. “I was 16, 17. I got to ride on the course. That’s how I learned to ride.”

Just after graduating college, he returned to Sleepy Hollow. “One day, I was dismounting; the riding master who taught me how to ride came over to me and said, `I’m very sorry to tell you this, but my wife has cancer and needs surgery. I need $2,500 to pay for surgery.’ He owned a horse who won a race up in Canada.”

Mack went inside with him to examine the horse’s papers. “I said, ‘I’m buying a $5,000 horse for $2,500’; I bought it on the spot. I thought this sounds like a good deal. The horse’s name was Secret Star. He stayed in Canada and raced at Bluebonnets and Greenwood. The horse won about $20,000.”

Flush with excitement, Mack bought four horses from George Kellow. “They did well. I said, ‘This game is easy.’”

He laughs now—well aware how difficult racing can be. That point was driven home in the late 1960s after Mack had graduated from Drexel University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science and Fordham School of Law. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry as a second lieutenant in active duty in 1959 and as a first lieutenant of the Infantry and Military Police on reserve duty from 1960–1968.

In the late 1960s, he was struggling with his Thoroughbreds. “My horses weren’t doing that well,” he said. “I bought two seasons to Northern Dancer. His stud fee was $10,000 Canadian. When the stud fee came due, I didn’t have the money to pay for it. I walked over to my dad’s office. I said, ‘I need a loan.’ He said, `No, you’re in the wrong business. Get out of that business.’”

Mack walked back to his office. “I started to think, ‘How am I going to get this money?’ Twenty minutes later, my father threw a check on my desk. Then he got down on his knees, and he said, ‘Son, sell your horses. Get out of this business. You’re not going to make money in this business.’”

He might have had a good thought. “The two Northern Dancers never amounted to anything,” Mack said.

That seemed like the perfect time to follow his father’s advice and give up on racing. But Mack stayed. “I just loved the business; I loved being there. I loved the horse. I loved the people. I just loved it—that’s why. I still love the sport. I love to go to the track. I love to support the sport. I love to help any way I can. I’ve given my time and my efforts to our industry.”

That list is long: Board of Trustees member of the New York Racing Association 1990-2004; chairman of the New York State Racing Commission (1983–89); member of the New York State Thoroughbred Racing Commission (1983–1989); member of the Board of Directors of the New York State Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Corp (1983–89); and senior advisor on racing and breeding to Governor Mario Cuomo and Pataki.

The Earle Mack Thoroughbred Champion Award has been presented annually since 2011 to an individual for outstanding efforts and influence on Thoroughbred racehorse welfare, safety and retirement.

He has been a long-time backer of The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation.

In 2011, he established the Earle Mack Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation Award. The first three winners were Frank Stronach, Dinny Phipps and famed chef Bobby Flay.

His brother Bill, the past chairman of the Guggenheim Museum and Guggenheim Foundation, also owned horses, including $900,000 earner Grand Slam and $500,000 earner Strong Mandate. But he did better with investments in art. “He bought art; I bought horses,” Earle said. “Guess who did better? Much better.”

But who’s had more fun? Mack bought Peteski, a son of 1978 Triple Crown Champion Affirmed out of the Nureyev mare Vive for $150,000 from Barry Schwartz after the horse made his lone start as a two-year-old, finishing fifth in an Ontario-bred maiden race on November 14, 1992.

Earle Mack, Barry Irwin, jockey Jamie Soencer and Team Valor connections celebrate Spanish Mission winning the $1 million Jockey Club Derby Invitational Stakes at Belmont Park in 2019

After buying Peteski, Mack sent the horse to American and Canadian Hall of Famer Roger Attfield. Peteski and Attfield put together an unbelievable run: seven victories, two seconds and one third in 10 starts, finishing with career earnings of more than $1.2 million.

Mack told the Thoroughbred Times in October 1993, “Bloodstock agent Patrick Lawley-Wakelin originally called the horse to my attention. I’d always liked Affirmed as a stallion and together with my connections, we thoroughly checked the horse out before I bought him. I was lucky to get him. There were other people trying, too, but I had long standing Canadian relations and was able to move fast. They knew I was a serious player.”

All Peteski did was win the Canadian Triple Crown, taking the Queen’s Plate by six lengths; the Prince of Wales by four lengths and the Breeders by six. He followed that with a 4 ½ length victory in the Gr. 2 Molson Million. In his final start, Peteski finished third by a head as the 7-10 favorite in the Gr. 1 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs.

“The thrills he’s given me are something money can’t buy,” Mack told Thoroughbred Times. “One of the reasons for staying in Canada for the Triple Crown was because of the wonderful and nostalgic feelings of my youthful days spent racing there. This is the greatest horse I’ve ever owned.”

Earle with jockey Gerald Mosse at Newbury Racecourse in 2019

Mack would race many other good horses, but the ones who may have had the greatest impact are the anonymous ones he helped locate who participated in the Man o’ War Project—perhaps Mack’s greatest gift. In 2015, out of his concern about the mental health crisis facing veterans, he created and sponsored the Man o’ War Project at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center to explore the use of and scientifically evaluate equine-assisted therapy to help veterans suffering from PTSD or other mental health problems. Long-term goals are to test that treatment with other populations. Immediate results have been very promising.

There is a sad reality about veterans: more die from suicide than enemy fire. The project was the first university-led research study to examine the effectiveness of equine-assisted therapy in treating veterans with PTSD.

“My love for the horse and my great respect and empathy for our soldiers bravely fighting every day for our country and not getting the proper treatment led me to do this,” Mack said. “Soldiers come home with the strain of their service on the battlefield. The suicides are facts. There was no science or methodology proving that equine-assisted therapy (EAT) could actually and effectively treat veterans with PTSD. All reports were anecdotal.”

The project was led by co-directors Dr. Prudence Fisher, an associate professor of clinical psychiatric social work at Columbia University and an expert in PTSD in youth; and Dr. Yuval Veria, a veteran of the Israeli Armed Forces who is a professor of medical psychology at Columbia and director of trauma and PTSD at New York State Psychiatric Institute.

After a pilot study of eight veterans lasting eight weeks in 2016, 40 veterans participated in a 2017 study also lasting eight weeks. Each participant underwent interviews before, during and after the treatment period and received follow-up evaluations for three months post-treatment to determine if any structural changes were occurring in the brain. Each weekly session lasted 90 minutes with five horses, using the same two horses per each treatment group. The veterans started by observing the horses and slowly building on their interactions from hand-walking the horses, grooming them and doing group exercises.

“We take a team approach to the treatment,” Fisher said. “We have trained mental health professionals, social workers, equine specialists and a horse wrangler for an extra set of eyes to ensure safety during each session.”

Marine Sergeant Mathew Ryba at the Bergen Equestrian Center

The results have been highly encouraging. A 2021 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry concluded “EAT-PTSD shows promise as a potential new intervention for veterans with PTSD. It appears safe, feasible and clinically viable. These preliminary results encourage examination of EAT-PTSD in larger, randomized controlled trials.”

Mack was ecstatic: “This is a scientific breakthrough. You could see the changes. It’s drug free. Before, you had to take more and more and more drugs. Before you know it, you’re hitting your family.”

The Man o’ War project works. It helps. It could possibly help a lot of people besides veterans. That would be the biggest victory of Mack’s remarkable life.

“That would be my Triple Crown,” he said.

Mack was asked how he does what he does in so many varied arenas. “Pure tenacity, drive and 24/7 devotion to the things that were important to me and public service,” he replied. “I’ve devoted my life to public service, my business, horses and the arts.”

And now, to Ukraine. Lord bless him for that.

January 31, 2020

Taylor Cambra - Tall in the Saddle

January 31, 2020/ Webmaster

By Annie Lambert

Exercise rider Taylor Cambra has set his sights on training horses; natural talent, professionalism and a quirky personality will likely help him attain that goal.

When he was very young, exercise rider Taylor Cambra wanted to be a jockey. Growing up around the racing industry and riding horses, Cambra soon changed his career goal to training racehorses. That was due, in part, because he just kept growing and growing. The well-spoken, 22-year-old now towers at 6’2” and realized early on that a training career better suited his physique.

Cambra has galloped horses since he was a teenager and hopes to keep his weight down a bit longer. Along the way, he aspires to get more experience as an assistant trainer before establishing his own training business. He has worked for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella since the fall of 2018 and has the honor of galloping Omaha Beach (War Front x Charming by Seeking The Gold, LTE $1,651,800), winner of the Rebel Stakes (G2), Arkansas Derby (G1), Santa Anita Sprint Championship (G1) and Malibu Stakes (G1).

“I’m very happy to gallop horses right now,” Cambra said. “I know it won’t last too much longer, with me filling out and stuff, but I’m enjoying it while I can.”

Breezing Track Ponies

Cambra’s father, Billy Cambra, was an outrider in Northern California for 35 years. Being a rambunctious kid, with a lot of nervous energy in school, made it hard for Taylor to sit still in class. Billy’s solution was to take him to the track before school and let him ride off his excess spunk.

“When Taylor was about seven years old he was riding all my outriding horses,” Billy recalled. “One day he asked to ride ‘Snoozer’ in the Pavilion. About 45 minutes later the track man called me and said Taylor was breezing that pony.”
“He was breezing him, getting down low, switching sticks and everything,” he added with a laugh. “He was still young and small and always could ride a horse. He had real good balance and everything.”

Taylor started riding the ponies of Billy’s good friend, trainer Michael Larson, when he was just three. It was also Larson that gave him his first job, where he worked until he was about 17 and began to participate in high school rodeo events.

“[Larson] was the guy who taught me a lot of patience, taught me to give and take,” Cambra noted. “You can’t learn everything overnight, and you can’t teach everything overnight. Mike was a big influence on me, not only with the horses, but in life too. He and my dad together made a huge impact on my life. I’m very grateful for both of them.”

The Rodeo Life

Diana Cambra, Taylor’s mother, was never thrilled with his rodeo aspirations, but like her husband, was ever supporting. Her son was a good enough cowboy to be offered a rodeo scholarship to Colorado State University. Taylor chose to turn it down as he wasn’t sure about which major to pursue and knew deep down a racetrack career was his ultimate destination.

“When I turned 18 I went ahead and got my [Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association] card, which was pretty neat,” explained Cambra. “I rode saddle broncs and got to go and travel with some of those big guys. I mostly rode on the West Coast—all over in California, Arizona and Utah.”

The rodeo road was not pain free for Cambra, but his wrecks could have been worse. Diana recalled his first injury and one of the worst at the Clovis Rodeo in California.

“He had his head cracked open,” Diana said with a grimace. “The ambulance offered to take him to the hospital, and he didn’t want to pay a lot of money. I told him he had insurance and to go to the hospital. I still worry when he does [rodeo]; it is just so hard for me to watch.”

Cambra remembers that bronc ride well.

“I got bucked off over the front of the horse, landed on my hands and knees, then the horse jumped over in front of me,” he said. “When he double barrel kicked, he got a hold of me pretty good. I think I got 13 staples in the top of my head.”

Back on Track

As much as he loves the rodeo world, Cambra was drawn back to where his future career loomed. He had been working for trainer Ari Herbertson at Golden Gate Fields on and off. After he was injured he began working for him as a full-time assistant and exercise rider. It was the first time Cambra was more than just an employee; Herbertson gave the then 19-year-old more responsibilities and the ability to make decisions on his own.

“One of the biggest things I took away from working from Ari was his giving me the opportunity to kind of help run the barn and run my own organization,” Cambra noted. “That helped me realize where I needed to get stronger and make improvements.

“You can watch it every day, but when the reins are actually handed over to you it is kind of different. You have more responsibilities, not just the work you’re assigned to, but making sure all the employees are good, making sure all the horses are getting the right medication and making sure that everything goes smoothly every day.”

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February 01, 2018

Trainer Profile - Roger Attfield

February 01, 2018/ Web Master

By Alex Campbell

At 78 years old, Hall of Fame trainer Roger Attfield is still at the top of his game, showing no signs of slowing down.

“While I’m well and healthy and enjoying it, I’ll keep on doing it,” Attfield said. “I enjoy the horses. I always have. I’m still enjoying the people and my owners that I’m working with, so there’s no reason not to.”

While some people are born into the sport, Attfield developed a love of horses all on his own. Born in England to Leslie, a coal merchant, and Gladys, a stay-at-home mother, in 1939, he grew up in the town of Newbury. Attfield said that as a child, he would often venture off with a group of foreign settlers that made their home just outside of his village.

“The Romaners used to come up and camp on the village green, and still do apparently,” Attfield said. “They used to come up there with donkeys and goats, and when I was very young I followed them up. They sort of befriended me up there. My parents went mad when they found me because they thought they were stealing me. I fell in love with animals, and especially horses, from a very early age.”

This love of horses led him to a riding school. His parents didn’t have the means to pay for lessons, so Attfield funded them himself by working for farmers in the area.

“I started riding for some local farmers that had ponies kicking around,” Attfield said. “I used to do a milk round and I used to go ferreting for rabbits and sell the rabbits to the village and the local butchers to get enough money to go to the riding school.”

As Attfield got older, he moved into competitive riding. He started with show horses and eventually raced steeplechase horses as a teenager, where he won the juvenile steeplechase championship in 1955 at 16 years of age. The next year, he enrolled in the Berkshire Institute of Agriculture, where he specialized in farm management. Once he finished his education, Attfield started his own training and breeding business, while also riding show jumpers at the same time.

But as he moved into his 30s, Attfield was finding it tough to get by, even while competing in international equestrian competitions. In 1970, he made the decision to move to Canada in search of greener pastures.

“It’s pretty hard to make a living, no matter how well you’re doing, riding jumpers and show jumpers,” he said. “You had to sell the odd horse every now and then to make ends meet and you’re working really, really hard. That was getting to be a little tedious, and I didn’t see how I was going to do much better financially.”

Attfield had established a good foundation in the horse business during his time in England.

“A number of the people that I rode for were horse and cattle dealers, and they were just true farmers and horse people,” he said. “I used to go around sales and ride for a lot of these horse dealers that were really, really good horse people. I was always asking them questions and listening to conversations. I was always surrounding myself with some pretty good older horse people that really knew horses.”

Attfield said it was easy to spot the differences in horseracing between England and Canada once he made his first visit to Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto.

“When I first came over, I went down to the track with Frank Stronach one morning,” he said. “It was an eye opener for me as opposed to how we train horses in England. I was going into a situation where there’s riders and hotwalkers and grooms. Back home, somebody would do two or three horses and do everything with them.”

Attfield said he initially gave himself three years in Canada before he was going to move back to England. His first job at Woodbine was as a freelance exercise rider, but he quickly moved into training himself. He was given the opportunity to spend one season at Blue Bonnets Raceway in Montreal with Stronach’s trainer Fred Loschke, but when the meet at Blue Bonnets ended, Attfield wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue in racing.

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February 01, 2018

Diamonds are Forever: Chuck Fipke in Profile

February 01, 2018/ Web Master

By Frances J. Karon

The kitchen table is in a state of organized chaos. Thick white binders; thin red binders; a three-hole punch; scissors; clear tape; paper printouts; a box filled mostly with yellow HB 2 Paper Mate pencils, their erasers worn to the nub. From where Charles “Chuck” Fipke is seated at the table, he need only glance up to see Forever Unbridled’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff trophy. To his left, down the length of the wooden table, is a window bench that was overtaken long ago by more fat white binders, behind a Nikon with an 800mm lens on a tripod.

This is where Fipke plans his matings, like the one that produced Eclipse Award-winning champion older female Forever Unbridled.

The view through the back window is magnificent: the house backs up to the shore of the Okanagan Lake in Kelowna, British Columbia. And the Nikon is pointed at the top of a tall perch, recently frequented by an osprey, on the dock outside. On the ground, plump quail, unperturbed by a fat squirrel in their midst, peck at the birdseed that Fipke tosses out from a container near the door.

The yard, says his son Taylor, the youngest of Fipke’s six children, is “like a mini-ecosystem.”

For as long as anyone knows, Fipke has always had this connection with nature, linked with his fearlessness, fervor for adventure, and the methodical approach of a passionate and unwavering workaholic. Listen – you don’t discover diamond mines by accident or luck.

Nor has his Thoroughbred breeding operation been run by accident or luck.

“In both disciplines [horses and geology], I do my own little research,” he says. “To identify minerals that go with diamonds, I’ve got my ways of doing it. It’s pretty complicated, and I do the same with horses, too.”

They’re really not so different, finding diamond mines and breeding champions.

Chuck Fipke was the first of Ed and Anna’s four children, born in Alberta, Canada, in 1946 with independence and a take-charge attitude.

Anna was, she says, “always right behind” her young son.

“I remember when he was just a little boy and he used to take his little tricycle and go down a hill,” says Anna, “and there was traffic down there. That really scared me. I didn’t want him to do that but he did it anyway. It was a challenge for him to go fast down there and just stop.”

Instead of curbing his strong personality, she gave him freedom. “I always encouraged him to do things, I never restricted his doings. He was quite a kid to raise.” And here she laughs again. “He had his own way and he wanted it done his way. He always was a leader. Whenever he was with a group of boys, he was the one that was always arranging things and taking them wherever they should go, which he still does. And it seemed like he did good because I never heard complaints about it.”

His family couldn’t afford much, and with Ed drifting in – and mostly out – of the picture during the early years, Anna resolutely raised four children. “I always found a way,” she says. “They never went hungry.”

“My dad left us once for two years, eh.” Fipke says matter-of-factly. It’s consigned to the past now. “We had this garden, and at one stage all we had left was celery to eat. I didn’t like celery after that, but now I love celery, because I ate it when I was young.”

Fipke was a quick thinker, precocious and clever enough to devise means of earning money – though not always in ways that he could tell his mother. “I actually was quite a good entrepreneur,” he says. “I was probably the richest kid in my class. And you know, I never got anything from my parents.

“I did a lot of questionable things, to be quite honest. Even though I was a Scout,” he says quietly, looking back on a child’s survival instinct through an adult’s filter.

When his father started an aerial farm photography business and settled down somewhat, moving the family from Alberta to British Columbia – to a Peachland farm on the outskirts of Kelowna – Ed was more present in their lives, although his work took him away often.

Anna used a paintbrush to turn Ed’s pictures into beautiful works of art, and their oldest son knocked on doors to sell the photos. Young Fipke was, he discovered, good at sales, and the job helped prepare him for the future. “It doesn’t matter what you do, you have to sell yourself,” he says.

“My dad was always critical, which was good. It’s good to have criticism. But my mum was always positive, so I had a balance of both.”

While finding his balance, Fipke began to yearn for a horse. He says, “I liked all animals, but all I dreamt about was having a horse. I never thought I’d get one.”

He’d raised a collection of birds, from pigeons to owls and even a falcon, from a very young age. Maybe he was attracted to the freedom that birds experienced. One day he’d stood helplessly watching as his falcon flew away, never to return.

With horses, he, too, could fly. Their wildness that could never be fully tamed was a buzz.

“The thing about riding a horse going full blast is it’s exciting, because with downhill skiing, you can control yourself, but with a horse you never really know exactly what’s going to happen. You direct it, but it doesn’t necessarily go there!” He laughs, his enthusiasm boyish and pure.

He had two horses before he was out of high school, an Arabian filly he lost when his father still owed money for her and an ex-racehorse he sold after it nearly killed him, giving Fipke a concussion and fracturing his skull in three places.

“I used to love to ride like the wind. You develop quite an attachment to them, too. It’s one of the things I don’t like about having so many horses, that I can’t really see them all,” he says.

He rode the ex-racehorse against Exhibition (now Hastings) Park racehorses that were on their way to the Calgary Stampede. “I came dead last, but it didn’t discourage me,” he says, remembering that he’d ridden Western against real jockeys on lightweight saddles. “I didn’t think I’d lose, you know.”

Taylor tells his dad, “That doesn’t cross your mind often.”

Fipke graduated from high school in Kelowna and enrolled at the University of British Columbia (UBC). His father had advised him that there were nine jobs available for every geophysicist who earned a degree, so he started off in that direction until a required course unearthed a talent for geology.

“Before I went to university, my little brother liked rocks, but I didn’t really. You know, they were interesting, but…”

Rocks, he soon learned, presented him with the intellectual challenge of discovery and the physical challenge of the hunt that drives him even now. Geology could unlock the secrets, billions of years old, of the Earth for anyone with the intelligence, patience, and derring-do to find them.

On a typical day, Chuck Fipke spends his mornings poring over the papers in his horse binders and afternoons poring over samples, results, charts, and maps at his lab, where he’s in the process of finalizing a “very important” diamond indicator mineral classification scheme that no one else has done.

C.F. Mineral Research Ltd. is in a modest building that’s been the company’s base since it relocated from the kitchen of Fipke’s first house. His parking spot – which he uses more often now that he isn’t bicycling or rollerblading to the office anymore – is marked with a sign: “Stud parking only. All others will be towed.” An old, broken-down Oldsmobile, AKA “The Shark,” occupies a parking space, too.

“We do things cost-effectively. What I found when we were starting out is that it was cheaper to put five guys in a car and drive than it was to have everyone go on a bus, eh!” he says. The Shark is kept around as a reminder of how Fipke once had to make do on a shoestring budget.

The work that goes on inside the lab is, frankly, staggering. The process of sifting through each sample of what, to the uneducated eye, looks like dirt, dirt, and more dirt is incredibly detailed and exacting. No single grain is ignored; each step sifts out particles of earth whose analysis will not lead to diamonds, gold, or whatever element they happen to be looking for, until they are left with a small, viable sample that warrants closer examination.

The man running the wet-sieving equipment removes every last speck of dirt before moving on to another bag of dirt. If he doesn’t do this perfectly, the next sample will be contaminated. And so it goes for each of the weeding-out processes. One tiny misstep can put prospectors on a costly false trail – or turn them away from a legitimate one.

This lab, it’s been said, is the world’s best in its field. “One reason we’re so successful in mining,” Fipke says, “is we developed the technology ourselves.”

That technology has helped Fipke identify what he thinks is his second diamond mine, in the Attawapiskat area north of Toronto.

“It’s fun finding diamonds!” he says.

But despite using the highest level of technology to separate and analyze millions of grains in a bag of dirt – or to breed and develop horses – Fipke doesn’t use the internet. For him, the fax machine is still king, and, though his horses sometimes wear heart monitors and GPS equipment, there’s nothing better than a stopwatch when it comes to training.

Fipke, who has a perpetual hint of mischief in blue eyes and a laugh always percolating under the surface, says, “I’ve learned how to use a microwave! People call me a dinosaur, but I’m high tech now that I use that microwave.”

Maybe his reluctance to embrace all aspects of modern technology is a vestige of his earliest days in the field when, just out of college with a wife (from whom he’s divorced) and young son, he lived among cannibals, warriors, and bushmen, sometimes sleeping with a double-barreled shotgun by his side.