Triple Crown Competitors Support Live Thoroughbred Racing’s Return to Rockingham Park

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

May 15, 2013 

Contact: Ed Callahan

603-898-2311 ext. 302

TRIPLE CROWN COMPETITORS SUPPORT LIVE THOROUGHBRED RACING’S RETURN TO ROCKINGHAM PARK

SALEM, NH-  Claude “Shug” McGaughey, whose career took him from Rockingham Park to Thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame and is now poised to win the Triple Crown, is among the sport’s elite who back the return of live racing at the Salem landmark.

“I would very much like to see Thoroughbreds race again at Rockingham,” said McGaughey, who won this year’s Kentucky Derby with Orb and will attempt to win the second leg of the Triple Crown when the colt competes in the Preakness Stakes Saturday. “I won my first race at Rockingham in 1979 and I was stabled there in the barn right across from the track kitchen.” 

Trainer Doug O’Neill came close to Triple Crown glory last year when I’ll Have Another captured the Kentucky Derby and Preakness but was scratched one day before the Belmont Stakes due to an injury. He’ll send out Goldencents, winner of the $1 million Santa Anita Derby, against Orb in the Preakness.

“I am 100 per cent supportive of live Thoroughbred racing coming back to Rockingham,” said O’Neill, who is based in Southern California. “Are you kidding me? Everybody in the industry would be behind that. We need to expand our sport and (the new) Rockingham would be a beautiful place to do it. With how many great horsemen there are in New England and how great the fans are up there, it would be a wonderful thing.”

Rockingham Park, which debuted as New England’s first track in 1906, last ran a live Thoroughbred meet in 2002. The $200,000 New Hampshire Sweepstakes was Rockingham’s signature race and was contested on a turf course considered one of the best in the country.

“I would send my horses to run at Rockingham and I would support the stakes program as long as it was a quality program,” said McGaughey, who has won the Belmont twice, the Preakness once, nine Breeders’ Cups and the Eclipse Award as North America’s top trainer.

“I would ship my horses to compete in top level stakes. I think trainers from all across the country would,” said O’Neill, who has won three Breeders’ Cup races and was California’s top trainer in 2002.

Kelly Breen, who pulled off a major upset in the 2011 Belmont Stakes with Ruler on Ice and is based in New Jersey, concurred. “If the purses were good and they had quality stakes races, it would definitely lure me up there. It’s nice to run for good purses against good competition.”

Rockingham Park holds an important place in the treasured history of the sport. Over one-third of the jockeys and dozens of the trainers enshrined in the Hall of Fame have competed at the track over the decades. Many also have ties to the Triple Crown, which has been captured only 11 times.

Eddie Arcaro rode Triple Crown winners Whirlaway (1941) and Citation (1948) and photos of when he was a member of Rockingham’s jockey colony still hang in the clubhouse. Other Triple Crown winners who rode at Rockingham include Johnny Longden (Count Fleet, 1943), Ron Turcotte (Secretariat, 1973) and Jean Cruget (Seattle Slew, 1977).

Several others who competed on the Salem oval have come close. Hall of Famer Chris McCarron, who started as a groom on the backside, rode Alysheba to victories in the 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Former Rockingham regular Stewart Elliot (Smarty Jones, 2004), Jose Santos (Funny Cide, 2003) and Jorge Velasquez (Pleasant Colony, 1981) captured the first two jewels in the crown.

For Triple Crown-winning trainers, “Sunny” Jim Fitzsimmons (Gallant Fox, 1930; Omaha, 1935), Ben Jones (Whirlaway, 1941), Max Hirsch (Assault, 1946), Horace Jones (Citation, 1948), Lucien Laurin (Secretariat, 1973) and Lazaro Barrera (Affirmed, 1978) ran horses at Rockingham during the golden eras of racing.

“It would be good to see Rockingham Park come back,” said McGaughey, who hopes to soon be among them.

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