Trish Speaker a home run for her owner

Hightstown, NJ — Regardless of whatever Trish Speaker (Artspeak) accomplishes on the racetrack, she has been a home run for her harness racing owners.

Trish Speaker, a 3-year-old female pacer who will make only the third start of her career Friday (Feb. 10) at Freehold Raceway, is owned by G.R.J. Partners and Rhoda Garfinkel. She is the first and only horse ever owned by Garfinkel, who received her share in the filly as a surprise for her 90th birthday in April 2021.

Jeff Rubinstein, who makes up G.R.J. Partners with his brother Barry, put the wheels in motion for the Florida resident’s foray into horse ownership during a dinner conversation with Garfinkel’s son Bruce and his wife Sandi shortly before Garfinkel’s birthday.

“Bruce mentioned that he had one regret as his mother was turning 90,” Rubinstein said. “I asked what it was, and he said that she always wanted to own a racehorse. She loved to gamble. She loved to go to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, the track; she was really into that stuff. He said his biggest regret was that he never got her a racehorse.

“I said, ‘I think I can help you with that.’ We have some racehorses and I’m sure I could work out getting your mother a piece of one of them and we could do it in time for her birthday. I told them I would get the registration done and we’d have something with her name on it, that she owns the racehorse, and they could send it to her.”

Given that Garfinkel’s birthday was already near, Rubinstein needed to work quickly to complete all the necessary paperwork and regulatory requirements to make his idea a reality.

“People were very helpful in getting it done,” Rubinstein said. “Everybody was enthralled by the story when I told it to them and thought it’s great.

“We went through the whole process. For her birthday, I had them send me a registration, which (Bruce and Sandi) had mounted and framed and sent to her in Florida. When it showed up, they got her on the phone and asked her to open the package. She saw her name on the registration and that she owned a piece of a racehorse, and she started crying. She was thrilled. It was a very big deal for them.

“My brother and I were very happy to do it. When I told him the story, he loved it. We did a mitzvah. We like to do stuff like that.”

Later that year, Rubinstein, Bruce, and Sandi headed to Gaitway Farm in central New Jersey, where Trish Speaker is stabled with trainer Jeffrey Smith, to watch the filly train. They did a Facetime call with Garfinkel, who was delighted to watch her horse in action.

Trish Speaker is a homebred filly out of the mare Cheyenne Trish. Her name is a play on the name of Hall of Fame baseball player Tris Speaker, who was one of the game’s great hitters and centerfielders in the early part of the 20th century.

“It’s a 50-50 proposition,” Rubinstein said with a laugh about the filly’s name. “Fifty percent of the people have no clue what it means, and the other 50 percent think it’s the best name they ever heard.”

Trish Speaker will make her second start this season Friday in the 11th race at Freehold, where she is the 5-2 second choice on the morning line in a conditioned pace for fillies and mares. Austin Siegelman will be in the sulky as the filly looks for her first career victory for G.R.J. Partners and Garfinkel.

“It would just be great if we could get a win picture for her,” Rubinstein said. “That would be really special. That would be the icing on the cake.”

by Ken Weingartner, for the USTA