The retirement of Cinder Angelina

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, we all ring in the new year.

It’s a joyous time for most, but we do lose something sacred to our hearts. We lose some of our precious harness racing horse population to retirement—forced retirement—as they reach 15 years-of-age.

Oh, a few of them will hang around for another year competing in amateur races, but the vast majority will, hopefully, lead a life of luxury in retirement.

We’re losing million dollar winners Bettors Fire N (Bettor’s Delight), Great Vintage (American Ideal), Christen Me N (Christian Cullen), Texican N (Bettor’s Delight) and Townslight Hanover (Bettor’s Delight).

We’re losing a whole slew of sub-1:50 performers including Rock To Glory (Rocknrolll Hanover), Lyons Johnny (Mach Three), Road Untraveled (Grinfromeartoear), Mr. Hasani N (Christian Cullen) and Tink And Tiger (Art Major), who took yearly marks at seven different tracks!

The aforementioned Great Vintage, Christen Me N and Townslight Hanover made both of the above prestigious lists.

The amazing Hopetobefirst (Sagebrush) will be sent to pasture—amazing that he took a two-year-old mark of 1:52.4 in 2010—never bettered it but coming close the last three seasons—and went on to post 64 career wins while going to the starting gate 463 times.

Among our trotting elite, we’re losing Waiting On A Woman (Northern Bailey) with 82 lifetime wins…and the million dollar winner Zooming (Classic Photo) and Cantab Lindy (Cantab Hall), who hadn’t lost a step during his entire career with 62 wins and $721,000 and change. Undercover Strike (Striking Sahbra) and Slip Into Glide  (Yankee Glide) also come to mind.

Yes, the backbone of our great sport remains the “overnight” horses, you know, the ones that put on the show filling races week after week after week throughout North America.

There are many thousands of horses but, this time on the Mane Attraction, two are saluted — Cinder Angelina and The Mexican.

These two never got any headlines. but their stories and careers deserve the headlines here as they both are, literally, hours away from official retirement.

Cinder Angelina (American Ideal), took a two-year-old mark at Tioga Downs of 1:57.3 in a Late Closer, surviving a miscue at the start of that race and rallied to win by a nose, winning the major share of a $13,300 purse—her largest payday ever! She even lowered that to 1:56.4 at The Meadows at age three. She then became a mama and became the dam of five record performers, the most notable being Paddy Murphy (Westwardho Hanover), who took a mark of 1:52.1 and earned $78,751.

Somehow, she wound up in Canada—Prince Edward Island way—and was back on the track the last three seasons competing at Summerside and Charlottetown Driving Park where, in her 85 starts over the past three seasons, had six wins—two of them in 2022 with all of them at 2:00 or within a tick or two.

Over those 85 starts, she never raced for a purse as high a $2,000 and will retire with around a bit above or below $45,000, depending on which dollars you use—U.S.A. or Canadian.

By the way, her driver was Jaycob Sweet, who never gets any headlines, either. He’s 20 years old, has been driving for just a couple of seasons and has a respectable .267 UDRS with a 10-20-20 scorecard in 104 drives.

While Cinder Angelina enjoys the retirement, Jaycob Sweet is the future of our sport, and we need a few thousand more like him.

The Mexican (Dream Vacation) raced every season from age two to 14 and made 250 lifetime starts in upstate New York—Buffalo and Batavia—and earned but $105,097 with $13,069 being his best season. He had 13 lifetime wins and broke the 2:00 barrier only one time, that being a 1:59.2 win in 2016 for Ron Beback, Jr., who was in the bike for trainer Rich Mays.

Rich Mays was a warrior, himself, winning 1,638 races during a 45-year career who died on September 7, 2022, after a “fierce” battle with cancer, still training within a week or so before his passing—a hero to our sport.

Some other warriors that went, in boxing terms, 15 rounds were Peterpumkineater with 436 lifetime starts, Freaky Flyer (458), Arsenal (437) Putnams Attack (407), Fancy Footwork (412 with 40 starts in 2022), Avogadro Hanover (398), Giddyallyougot (390), Playin For Keeps (381), Don’t Say Goodby (388), Laurent Hanover (393)…a total of about 100 equine senior citizens in all this in 2022.

Yes, we may idolize the greatest and fastest horses, but the equine athletes that take punches and throw punches on the racetrack year after year after year filling races to keep this sport alive, well, THEY are the true heroes.

They are like baseball’s Satchel Paige or Hoyt Wilhelm, golf’s Gary Player, bowling’s Carmen Salvino and basketball’s Udonis Haslem, to name a few.

When these horses got to the starting gate, they competed to the best of their individual ability—some better than others, of course—but all had a hand of keeping the sport of standardbred racing alive in North America and throughout the world.

Now, they are ready for equine social security full of green pastures, hay, oats and water and many equine friends.

They sure deserve it!

by John Berry, for Harnesslink