PROFILES
Flying under the radar
Five all-time leading trainers not to hit the headlines Five of the winningest trainers in racing history have been flying under the radar so long that it’s second nature to them. No national TV spotlight. No Triple Crown standouts. No Breeders’ Cup celebrations. But training titles? By the dozens, many of them consecutively. These five gentlemen have done their job so well for so many years that they are among the only 18 trainers in racing history to win more than 3,600 races. One, who came to be known as “King,” had his career jump-started by a bowling baron. One was known as the Prince of Patch for his acumen with bad-legged claimers. One literally had a racetrack come to him. One’s dad was a cardiologist. WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: CanaDIan HORSE RaCIng HaLL Of famE, fOUR fOOTED fOTOS, HORSEPHOTOS, SV PHOTOgRaPHY
King RichaRd
Richard Hazelton, the all-time leading trainer at Arlington Park 66
TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43
When he was just beginning his career as a racing analyst for HRTV and TVG, trainer Richard Hazelton’s son Scott was on the backstretch at Santa Anita one morning. “Here I was a young guy that nobody knew and Bob Baffert would almost shout out, ‘Do you people know who this kid’s dad is? King Richard! Are you kidding me? His dad should be in the Hall of Fame before any of us,’” Scott said. “It gave me a kind of instant credibility that you couldn’t possibly get anywhere else. Being my dad’s son opened a lot of doors for me.’” He did so quietly, even though he remains Arlington Park’s all-time leading trainer with 1,181 victories, nearly 300 more than any other trainer in the landmark Chicago racetrack’s history. “I’m a non-talker,” he admitted in a December phone interview. When informed that he had three minutes to speak at his induction to the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame, he told them, “You can have two-and-a-half minutes back.” Afterwards, Hazelton said, “I was pretty nervous when I got up there. I almost
couldn’t remember my name.” His accomplishments speak loudly. Eighty-six year-old Richard Hazelton’s 4,745 victories leave him eighth on the all-time trainer victory list. Behind him in ninth and 10th are Bill Mott and Todd Pletcher, respectively. Hazelton captured eight titles at Arlington, 17 consecutive ones at Sportsman’s Park in Chicago, and eight straight and 13 in 15 years at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona. But the son of a trainer started out as a jockey, riding in Phoenix, where he was born and raised, and then at Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. “I was 14, not old enough to ride in a race there,” he said. So he put his age down as 16 and got away with it. “I won six races in one day with three seconds and a third in 1945,” he said. “I was the leading rider at Caliente in ’45.” His jockey career was brief. “I got too big,” he said. “I was riding at Caliente two days a week. I’d make the weight in the hotbox and fill up later.” Ultimately, he turned to training. “I just