Stiles enjoying the ride with Captain’s Quarters

When Captain’s Quarters (Captaintreacherous) won the $717,800 Metro Stake on Sept. 23 at Woodbine, it highlighted more than six decades of ownership in the harness racing industry for Rich Stiles.

The New York City native—who hails from Queens and once played tennis with John McEnroe—now lives in Chelsea, Michigan, where he earns a living by collecting and selling rare coins and currency.

“My parents were both teachers,” Rich explained. “I was a rowdy kid, and when I was around 11 or 12, a friend’s older brother told us that if we behaved, he’d take us to the racetrack. It was kind of like that scene from the John Candy movie, Uncle Buck. He took us to Belmont Park, and I saw the horses and thought, wow, this is really neat. I put two dollars on a horse, and it won.”

The horse’s name, coincidentally, was Lucky Coin.

After graduating from high school, Rich attended Community College of New York “for a few years,” but decided he’d rather get involved with horses and coins.  He and some friends went to Florida, where they met trainer Vince Aurigemma.

“I met Vince at a training center in Lake Worth,” Rich recalled. “He had horses like Division Street, Doc’s Fella, and Skip By Night. He and his wife Joy were good horse trainers.”

Rich’s first foray into ownership came with a 6-year-old son of Bret Hanover p, 4, TT1:53.3 ($922,616) named Less Tired, who earned $86,305 and took a 7-year-old mark of 2:01.2h.

“He had been racing at Foxboro but hadn’t raced in half a year when I bought him for $7,600 at the 1975 Liberty Bell sale,” Rich said. “He was a good, solid, first horse.”

Less Tired was the first of 14 horses that Rich would own over the years, including others such as Racing Marvel p, 4, 2:02h ($115,994) and more recently Wink And Nod p, 5, 1:53.1 ($120,631), a son of Western Hanover-Don’t You Smile-Grinfromeartoear. Foaled March 1, 2008, and bred by Kentuckiana Farms Gen Par, the brown gelding raced from ages 2 through 14, and retired last fall, which helped to spur the purchase of Captain’s Quarters.

“I usually only own one horse at a time,” Rich explained. “I had purchased Wink And Nod as a yearling in 2009. He was small, which I knew when I bought him, and still cost $75,000, but he was the first foal out of the mare Don’t You Smile p, 3, 1:53.1 ($270,797), and was a nice horse—not a stakes horse—but a solid raceway horse.”

Rich still owns Wink And Nod, who now resides at a retirement farm near Saratoga.

“Wink And Nod’s last race was in late last Fall, and I knew I wanted to get another horse, but I kind of wanted a partner, because I was hoping to get a good quality yearling, and I know those don’t come cheap,” Rich noted. “The Lexington Sale was coming up, and I saw this son of Captaintreacherous and knew he would not go cheap. It was a complete twist of fate how everything worked out for me to get this horse.

“Dealing with horses is like dealing with rare coins,” Rich added. “I like horses and I like coins—there’s a lot of similarities between the two industries that most people wouldn’t notice.”

When Rich first began investing in the rare coin and currency industry, he was right out of high school.

“I started traveling around the U.S., to go to coin shows, and every city I went to, I’d visit their racetrack, if they had one,” he explained. “When I started, I lost of a lot of money—just like people do with racehorses—it’s a learning process.  It’s like being at the Lexington sale—people go to coin shows to buy rare coins—they’re a commodity, but you can make a good living at it if you know what you’re doing. It’s a big industry, and people have been collecting coins since pre-Roman and Greek times. Copper, silver, and gold coins.

“I have a gold coin I bought several years ago at an auction—a gold coin from Ancient Rome that was struck (engraved) with Marcus Aurelius on it,” Rich continued. “It’s virtually in perfect condition. It was struck 150 years after Christ. My point is there’s market value for everything. This coin was being sold at an auction, and it is so perfect and it’s fairly rare. The condition on this coin is parallel to the perfect yearling—just like a horse—you know where to sell them, who’s buying them, etc., it’s like everything else, you have to know what you’re doing.”

Rich says that purchasing coins and racehorses both require a bit of luck, and a little bit of a gamble.

“Gambling is an inherent part of the human psyche,” he stressed. “For instance, I once found a coin in a pile of junk, and it was a Jefferson Nickel with two heads—a Jefferson profile on each side. It was made at the Philadelphia Mint in 1964.”

The Jefferson Nickel was so named because from 1938-2004, the nickel contained the profile of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson on one side. It replaced the longstanding Buffalo Nickel, which had been minted from 1913-1938.

“People get into collecting coins as kids and try to find something rare,” Rich acknowledged. “When I was young, I’d look at coins and say, gee, I wish I could own one of those. It was just like watching the horses as a youngster, it was a dream to finally get to own one, and learning what is important when purchasing a yearling. It’s like any other dream you have as a kid.  Some kids play baseball and dream of getting into the world series. It does happen.”

As it did in the case of Captain’s Quarters.

“I went to Lexington to buy him and had contacted a trainer friend who agreed to go in halves with me on the horse,” Rich explained. “He brought $235,000, and I thought, well, that’s okay because I have a partner, but as it turns out, the partner was not able to come up with the money, and I ended up owning the horse on my own—which has turned out to be great.”

Rich sent the then-youngster to trainer Greg Peck initially.

“Greg broke him and started jogging him and told me he was jogging him in a corn field,” Rich said. “I didn’t know what to think about that but then in ensuing weeks, he started jogging him on the Delaware Towpath—it’s a 59-mile dirt straightaway mostly used by joggers. This was something new for me, as I thought the horse should be at a training center and training in the company of other horses.”

When Peck began experiencing heath issues and was unable to continue training Captain Quarters, Rich enlisted Herb Holland to take over the youngster’s conditioning. Holland had bid on the horse initially and so he was no stranger to the colt. He brought him to Beechwood Acres, a private facility in Milton, ON to train at Rich’s request.

“By the time Herb got him, I didn’t know if our horse could compete,” Rich said. “My goal was to stay in one place and compete in these three Canadian races and I didn’t want the horse shipping all over the place.  It was a fantasy to be in the Metro—you don’t really expect anything, but you want to be part of the action. But all along Herb was telling me that the horse had high power and he said this not an ordinary horse—he just keeps going. I was thinking, this guy is just talking the horse up.

“One thing Greg had told me was that the horse never got tired, and that he would jog ten miles without breaking a sweat,” Rich recalled. “I was concerned in early Spring of this year that he might not be fit enough after only being jogged on that Towpath, but Herb told me the horse was in great shape, and as Greg had said, he never seemed to get tired.”

Captain’s Quarters was the first foal out of the mare Prescient Beauty p, 2, 1:50.4 ($464,250), so he had the pedigree to be a good horse, and proved that in his second Woodbine qualifier, when he paced in 1:56.1 on July 31. Twelve days later, when he won a $12,750 Woodbine overnight in 1:53.3, Rich started getting calls.

“I got some phone calls asking if I wanted to sell the horse, but selling him wouldn’t have changed my life any, and that’s why I bought him, was to enjoy racing him,” Rich explained. “Whatever the horse did was fine with me—win or lose. One thing I’ve learned, is you have to study how fast a horse comes home, what his last quarter is, and in this race, he came home in :26.1, so I thought he might be better than expected.”

Rich was looking for a race after that, in order to keep the horse tight, before the $69,338 Nassagaweya Stakes.

“There was nothing for him,” Rich stated. “I was looking for a non-winners of two in between as I didn’t want to go against all those tough bearcats. I wanted a steady progression with another race to see how he would move forward, but that didn’t materialize. When I asked Jody Jamieson if the horse would be competitive, he said, he definitely would. I thought he would get crushed—being that there were three weeks in between and, in this case, I really did second guess myself. Jody raced him from off the pace, so he didn’t have to get used hard, but it was a pleasant surprise that he wasn’t far off from the winner.”

Captain’s Quarters was third in the Nassagaweya to the winning Funtime Bayama, in 1:51.1, with a :26.1 final panel.  His next start was the $67,890 Champlain Stakes on Sept. 9, and again Rich was concerned about his 2-year-old, not wanting him to get overwhelmed by some tough rivals.

“He drew the ten-hole in this race, and I was thinking, well, I’m hoping we’ll get a check, a minor award, with these horses who are standout 2-year-olds,” Rich admitted. “I asked Herb to tell Jody, please don’t leave, just race him easy from behind. As it turns out, Jody knew a lot more than I did, and he wound up getting in a good spot and was third again, not far from the leaders. Jody told me the horse was just cruising, pacing out there for fun, and that he never touched him. The wild thing is that the horse had jogged by himself for six months.  He had never trained with a lot of horses in a herd, with a group, in simulated races, so even being so uneducated in that regard, he was still smart enough and game enough to want to be competitive.”

Captain’s Quarters paced in 1:50.3, with a final brush of :26. The $29,600 Metro elimination was looming just seven days later.

“Now I’m thinking, if we can at least get a fifth, we’ll get into the main draw for the final,” Rich said. “When Mirage Hanover ducked to the outside, Captain’s Quarters was coming like gangbusters, and just past the wire, he was head-to-head with the winner, Clever Cody, who went wire-to-wire for the win.”

A close second in that elim saw Captain’s Quarters pace in 1:52, this time with a :25.2 final panel. The rest, as they say, is history, as the youngster put in the race of his life to secure the triumph in the Metro on Sept. 23 in a career best 1:49.3.

“When you’re going for the final from an outside post, anything can happen,” Rich stressed. “Jody gave him the perfect drive and cut the mile from the :55.1 half on; and hit the three-quarters in 1:22.1 …which was basically the season’s fastest three-quarters for the 2-year-olds. I started thinking that once he hooked up with the other horses, he didn’t want to let anyone else go, so now at the top of the lane I’m thinking Holy Mackerel, what is happening?  He cut the mile from the half and hung on to win by half a length. He was still on top 50 yards after that race—he just wasn’t going to be beat that night.”

The Metro was to be Captain’s Quarters last start of the 2023 season, with $389,143 earned from two wins, one second, and two thirds in five career starts.

“He’s stabled at Winbak in Canada right now,” Rich offered. “He’s done for the season, and I’m hoping he’ll grow a little over the winter. My plan is to point him to some of the races with the same kind of schedule that Somebeachsomewhere had, a few more U.S. races and definitely the North America Cup. We’ll make definitive decisions after that.”

by Kimberly Rinker, for Harnesslink