To a long-time reader of The NYT it is annoying development, but I should write and thank them. Because of their misguided opinion of what passes for sports writing, I've taken to buying the New York Post. I still get the print edition of The Times, so they didn't lose a subscriber, but I get through the paper much faster these days.
Alan King once joked that if you want to read about love and marriage you need to buy two books. If you want to read about news and sports in New York you need to buy two newspapers. Simple as that.
Mr. Drape is a true racetrack denizen. He's wagered on races on several continents, bet on camels, and would fit right in with racetrack attire with an untucked shirt, a program sticking out of his back pocket, while holding a marked up Racing Form. If anyone actually went to the racetrack these days on anything other a Triple Crown event, you might spot a few people like this. But they're not young, and not many.
At the talk he made a strange comment that I didn't understand the significance of at the time. It was 2016 and he said he was going to be the last racing reporter for The NYT. Huh?
When he signed my book we talked quickly, and he told me he read back over all the prior racing reporters—and there have been many over the decades—and told me he liked Steve Cady, now deceased, the best. I agreed that I loved reading Cady as well, and I loved reading about racing in The NYT.
I grew up with a good friend, Dave Piermont, who when he got out of college with a degree in journalism from Kentucky Wesleyan College went to work for Eddie and Richard Bomze at Sports Reporter and Racing Star Weekly, publications about horse racing and betting on college and professional football.
In Kentucky, Dave made the rounds of any track that was open: Miles Park, Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Turfway Park. This was the late 60s and early 70s and Keeneland didn't even have a race caller. Imagine that. Dave was a race track denizen, and passed away in 2021.
Richard Bomze owned thoroughbreds, usually New York breds. He bred a lot of horses to his sire Compliance, and as such got to name the offspring. He named a lot of his horses with a nod to the people who worked for him. When Broadway Joan gave birth to a horse from Compliance, Bomze chose the name Fourstardave, a nod to his employee, and my friend, recognizing that Dave never gave out four betting stars on any of his football picks. Thus, Fourstardave started his career as one of the most successful New York bred horses and the winner of 8 races at Saratoga, the Sultan of Saratoga.
Fourstardave was a gelding, so he didn't get to create any offspring. When he passed away they named a street by Siro's restaurant outside Saratoga, Fourstardave Way, and buried the horse on the backstretch at Clare Court. There is a graded turf race named The Fourstardave held annually at Saratoga.
When Saratoga did some renovations years ago and ditched the dilapidated area called the Carousel where they held prerace handicapping talks, they held a contest to solicit names for the new sports bar area they were going to create. The fans voted for the sports bar to be called Fourstardave.
I've written about the origin of the Fourstardave name before. A few years ago I met Joe Drape in the Fourstardave area and we talked a bit. Toward the end of the card Dave was getting excited because he had three legs of a pick-four. I lost track of him, and never found out if he hit.
The complete irony of Dave and the Fourstardave sports bar is that the person, Dave Piermont, never went to Saratoga. He had been brainwashed by a co-worker, Howard Rowe, another turf writer, when working for the Bomzes that the place was a tourist trap. I could never get him interested in going, and I've gone since 1975, and for decades of consecutive Augusts.
Dave was prickly when someone in the media got something wrong about horse racing. He loved to listen to Mike Francesa on Sports Radio, and even though Francesa owns thoroughbreds over the years he apparently would say some dumb things about racing. Dave would get incensed, and the phone would ring and I'd have to listen to what Mike got wrong—again.
As I mentioned, Dave is no longer with us so I can't call him incensed at what an Athletic reporter wrote on Monday in The New York Times about Bill Mott.
Friday and Saturday The NYT had expansive piece about horse racing. There was a piece about Bob Baffert and his return to Churchill Downs after his three year suspension, by Dana O'Neil, a new Athletic byline that I had never seen writing about thoroughbred racing. Dana also had a big piece on Mike McCarthy, the trainer of the morning line favorite Journalism and how he was personally affected by the California wildfires. There was a piece about the struggles of making a living running a stable in the era of billionaire owners. Joe Drape had a byline about Joe Greene and DJ stable. I was chuffed.
The NYT true to its policy of yesterday's news tomorrow, didn't even have a Derby story in Sunday's paper. Thus, no result, no chart, no payouts. Nada. No surprise.
The surprise was yesterday, Monday when there was a expansive bylined piece by Dana O'Neil on Bill Mott, the trainer of the winner Sovereignty. There are no wholesale inaccuracies in the piece, other than at the end when Ms. O'Neil tells us Michael Banahan owns the horse. No, Godolphin owns the horse. Michael is a farm manager for Godolphin, as Bill Mott is one of their longstanding trainers.
The owner of Godolphin is the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. The Arabs have been trying to win the Derby for decades. They bid extravagant sums for yearlings every year, breeding the best and hoping for the best.
Yet the entire piece makes it sound like Bill Mott has finally won a significant race, finally winning the Derby outright after his horse Country House was moved from first to second after the stewards disqualified Maximum Security for interference coming into the stretch in 2019. The ruling dragged on for 23 minutes back in 2019 as the stewards viewed film from all angles. It was first ever Derby DQ, and as often as I saw it I didn't think anything significant had happened. History.
Reading Ms. O'Neil's story I wonder if she was even there in the winner's circle. Her quotes are verbatim from the TV. She'd have had to be pretty close enough to hear Kenny Rice interview Bill Mott. I wonder.
Bill Mott is not suddenly fortunate. He trained Cigar to 16 straight victories. He's won the Belmont; he's won Breeders' Cup races; he's been an eminent trainer for decades, routinely winning at a 20-24% clip; he's trained for Godolphin for decades.
Nice recognition of Bill, but missing the parts. A lot of parts. Big parts. He's a HALL OF FAME trainer, words not found in Ms. O'Neil's piece.
Ms. O'Neil's bio on Google tells us she's covered many sports, car racing and college events. She's an assistant Athletic Director at Villanova University. She's not a turf writer, and the Bill Mott piece shows us that. She doesn't have a program sticking out of her purse, or a marked up Racing Form handy.
The NYT and The Athletic feel they can parachute any writer into an event and turn out a piece. It can work for some things. It didn't work writing about Bill Mott.
http://www.onofframp.blogpost.com
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