News and Notes for September 28, 2018

 LONE STAR PARK RACING CLUB TO PRESENT $11K CHECK TO PDJF
The Lone Star Park Racing Club will present the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund with a donation of more than $11,000 on Saturday.

The Lone Star Park Racing Club is a 501(c)(7) not for profit club that, for a minimal membership fee, provides insight into race horse ownership. The prodigious season experienced by the 2018 racing club made it possible to make this donation to the PDJF.

The check presentation will be in the winner’s circle after Saturday’s second race. On hand to accept the donation for the PDJF will be 10-time World Champion Jockey G. R. Carter, Jr. and former jockey and current Texas Racing Commission Steward Jerry Burgess. Carter has served on the PDJF board of directors since 2006.

The Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund (PDJF) is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit charity that provides support to jockeys who have suffered catastrophic on-track injuries which ended their riding careers.

TEXAS-BRED HADIFLY NAMED TIP HORSE OF THE YEAR
The Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.) today announced the recipients of its two non-competition awards, the T.I.P. Thoroughbred of the Year Award and the T.I.P. Young Rider of the Year Award, for 2018.

The Thoroughbred of the Year Award recognizes a Thoroughbred that has excelled in a non-competitive career, such as equine-assisted therapy or police work, and includes a $5,000 grant to the non-profit organization associated with the horse or, if no organization is associated with the horse, to a horse-related charity chosen by The Jockey Club.

This year’s winner is Fly, registered as Hadifly, a 20-year-old gelding that serves as a riding horse at the New Mexico Center for Therapeutic Riding (NMCTR). NMCTR works with students from the Santa Fe Public Schools and the New Mexico School for the Deaf, at-risk teens, and other clients with cognitive, emotional, and physical special needs.

Hadifly is a Texas-bred son of longtime leading Texas stallion Hadif who raced 48 times before becoming a three-day event horse and then joining the team at NMCTR. He is known for his patience, sensitivity, and will to please. He spent most of his racing career in New Mexico, where he won eight times with five seconds and 11 thirds and more than $80,000 in earnings.

Last year Texas-bred Raja’s Best Dancer, a now 24-year-old gelding that serves as a police mount with the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, won the same award.

BROBERG, END ZONE ATHLETICS HONORED AT LAD
Texan Karl Broberg added another title to his fast growing list, winning 31 races from 101 starters to top his fellow conditioners this meet.

This showing caps his dominant year in Louisiana, when he began the year with 83 wins at Delta Downs to capture his seventh consecutive leading trainer award. On August 28, he picked up his eighth training title at Evangeline Downs with 59 wins from 190 starters.

This was the second leading trainer title at Harrah’s Louisiana Downs for Broberg, who has been training since 2009, and is currently ranked eighth in earnings on the Equibase North American trainer list.

The highly successful End Zone Athletics, Inc.,a partnership of Karl Broberg and Matt Johanson, has reigned supreme on a national level and in the Texas-Louisiana region for many years and won 15 races this meet to earn leading owner honors.

End Zone Athletics, Inc. has led the nation in wins for the last three years, and currently tops all North American owners, according to Equibase, in 2018. They won the title at Delta Downs earlier this year for the sixth time in the last seven years. They also won leading owner honors earlier this year at Sam Houston Race Park. Since 2007, End Zone Athletics, Inc. has started 4,195 Thoroughbreds, winning 1,110 races and earnings of $14.573,256.

NOTES: Governor Greg Abbott has appointed Connie Couch McNabb, DVM, of Montgomery to the Racing Commission for a term set to expire February 1, 2021.  Dr. McNabb is retired after over 30 years of veterinary experience, including 3 years as the chief veterinarian for the Texas Racing Commission.  Dr. Gary Aber of Simonton previously served in this position.