Joe Sbrocco: “I’ve been awful lucky”

Being an owner in harness racing is a big gamble, says Joe Sbrocco, who is coming off one of his best seasons ever.

“I don’t gamble, with money,” the 82-year-old laughed. “The way I look at it, I’m gambling enough as an owner, when it comes to the money I’m investing. That being said, I’ve been awful lucky.”

Joe, who grew up in the Cleveland area, is a second-generation Italian. His grandparents on both sides of his family came from two small towns—Matrice and Gildone—in the Compobasso province of Italy, southeast of Rome.

“When I was growing up in the 1940s, I was a big fan of Satchel Paige, the African American baseball player,” Joe said. “He had this saying that he had, which was ‘Don’t look back, they might be gaining on you.’  I’ve always lived by that, and especially in harness racing, when things go bad, you just put the blinders on and go toward the finish line.”

That mantra stuck with Joe over the years, and unlike many owners in the harness racing game, Joe began his foray into the sport as not only a trainer-driver, but as an announcer as well.

“I got started in the business through Bob Cole, my father-in-law, in 1970,” Joe recalled “He trained horses at the Medina (Ohio) Fairgrounds and told me, if you guys want to move down here to Medina, I’ll give you half a horse.  Bob had trained two Ohio Trotters of the Year, and Betty Cole, his second wife, helped him in the barn, so it was a real family, hands-on operation. They ended up going to Florida to winter train, at a facility between Orlando and Ocala, and I went down there for five years to help him train. I was working in Cleveland for a title company and drove a bit in fair races and also called the races (announced) at five different Ohio county fair tracks, including Medina, Wooster, Norwalk, and Wellington. Sandy, my wife, was charting the races at those fairs too.

“The business was totally different back then,” Joe continued. “My son, Joe Jr., was born in 1969, and for those years we were living in Medina, and I was working a full-time job and helping with the horses, I rarely saw or spent time with my son. Eventually Sandy, my wife, said to me, ‘you either get out of the horse business or out of the house.’ So, I sold all the horses and the equipment, and got out of the business. In 1980 I established my own business, Executive Title, which sells title insurance, acting as an agent for Chicago Title. Five years later, I decided to get back into the horse business, but I knew I had to relearn everything because I had been out of the business for so long. So, I went to my father-in-law’s house and read up everything I could find and bought five horses.”

Those five horses did not materialize into what Joe was hoping for, but he persevered, and kept buying better bred equines. Eventually, that perseverance paid off.

“I bought a filly, a foal of 1996, named Miss Pine Chip (Pine Chip), and we just couldn’t get her off her knees, but I knew she had a ton of speed, so I decided to keep her and breed her,” Joe explained.

Bred by Castleton Farm and foaled on May 30, 1996, Miss Pine Chip produced some decent foals, but it was her fourth foal, that really got Joe excited about harness racing, and kept him in the sport.

“Mr Pine Chip had a great 2-year-old season with Jimmy Arledge, Jr., but I knew I needed to move him out east for his 3-year-old year,” Joe recalled. “So I reached out to Trond Smedshammer, and he won six in a row with the horse, including the Hambletonian elim. I brought 35 people to the Meadowlands for the Hambletonian, but the horse got sick that week, and we decided to race him anyway, and he broke in the stretch. Everyone felt worse than I did that day, but I’m used to the business. I ended up selling half of Mr Pine Chip for one million dollars to Southwind Farm and then later sold him to Europe.  That trotter is the reason I stayed in the business.”

Mr Pine Chip earned $635,9675 for Joe and since that year (2006), Joe’s successes have come one after another. Over the years he’s owned more than 600 horses, and currently has 60 youngsters in training: 42 freshmen, and 18 sophomores. As well, for the first time, he also has a clutch of 4-year-olds.

“I tend to own 25 percent of each horse,” he stated. “And I like having them spread out with a number of different trainers. For instance in Ohio, I have horses with Brian Brown, Chris Beaver, and Ryan Miller, and for the first time I have a few with Tyler George in Indiana. Out east, my trainers include Noel Daley, Ron Burke, Nancy Takter, Tony Alagna, Chris Ryder, Jennifer Bongiorno, Ake Svansedt, Steve Carter, Lucas Wallen, George Ducharme, and Ray Schnittker.”

Joe does have a broodmare as well, Flyme To The Moon, a daughter of Bettor’s Delight-Poetic Lady-Western Ideal, who he purchased for $20,000 at the 2015 Standardbred Horse Sale at Harrisburg. She earned $77,122 and took a mark of p, 3, 1:53.4f, before being retired in 2018.

“I own one hundred percent of her,” Joe said. “And I’ve named all of her foals, who I own fifty percent of, after Frank Sinatra songs.”

Those foals include the prolific I Did It Myway (Captaintreacherous) p, 3, 1:48.1 ($868,403); For Once Inmy Life (Downbytheseaside) p, 2, Q1:54 ($3,600), the 2-year-old Reachingforthemoon (Captaintreacherous); and the yearling Itwasaverygoodyear (Downbytheseaside).

Joe says he became completely immersed in the Standardbred business once he sold his business in 2000.

“My son, Joe, Jr., is now the operations manager for Chicago Title,” Joe noted. “While I’m glad he’s interested in the horses, I don’t want him investing in the business just yet.”

Joe’s list of horses that he’s owned the past two decades read like a who’s who of champions including Captaintreacherous (Somebeachsomewhere) p, 3, 1:47.1 ($3,148,657); Downbytheseaside (Somebeachsomewhere) p, 3, 1:48.3f ($2,179,558); Modern Family (Cantab Hall) p, 4, 1:51 ($575,925); Artspeak (Western Ideal) p, 3, 1:47.4 ($1,627,762); Hot Rod Mindale (Real Artist) p, 3, 1:51f ($371,071); It’s Academic (Uncle Peter) 5, 1:50.1 ($1,359,312); and Propulsion (Muscle Hill) 4, 1:52.1 ($86,178).

“I remember when I first saw Propulsion,” Joe recalled. “I never saw a horse trotting around the pasture as fast as he was trotting, and my partners and I, we went crazy when we saw him in the fall of 2012.”

Other moments that stand out for Joe includes when Captaintreacherous captured the $500,000 Hempt Memorial at Pocono Downs on June 29, 2013.

“That race totally flabbergasted me,” Joe admitted. “He was parked out the whole way in the mud and three-wide in the last turn and still won the race in 1:49.2. It was unbelievable. The other race for me that I can never believe is when Downbytheseaside won at Delaware in 1:50. It’s still a world record and he just smoked those other horses that day.

“The thrill of having stallions like Captaintreacherous and Downbytheseaside, and now Pebble Beach as well as Artspeak and My MVP—both up in Canada—is a dream come true,” Joe added.

Joe’s two Dan Patch winners from 2022—Pebble Beach (3-Year-Old Pacing Colt) and Volume Eight (2-Year-Old Trotting Colt)—elevated him to the heights of being the richest earning Standardbred owner of the year, with more than $5.27 in purses won.

“This business hinges on friendships—like the ones I have with John Fodera and the Country Club Acres folks,” Joe stressed. “My partners and I, we talk all the time, and go back and forth with e-mails and we keep the comraderies close. It’s the friendships you foster with the other people that make the business more enjoyable.  If you have a partner, someone with you to enjoy the win, that’s the best part of it.”

by Kimberly Rinker, for Harnesslink