frank amonte wins

[lamboguy]

at age something like 73 at sulfolk last race. for all you guys that chased him he just went off at 99-1. congradulations to those that had him

sorry, i missed the race, i though it was him...false alarm

[Nikki1997]

at age something like 73 at sulfolk last race. for all you guys that chased him he just went off at 99-1. congradulations to those that had him

sorry, i missed the race, i though it was him...false alarm


Seriously ???

That is great .

He rode my OTTB at Suffolk more than a quarter of a century ago .

--------------M

[DoughBoy]

Sure Money ridden by Luis A. Garcia won that race at 99-1. Amonte was near the back of the pack.

[Cardus]

I watched Amonte win at the Northmapton (Ma.) Fair on Labor Day weekend 2005 at 67 years old... with the oldest horse in the race (9, I think).

[lamboguy]

I watched Amonte win at the Northmapton (Ma.) Fair on Labor Day weekend 2005 at 67 years old... with the oldest horse in the race (9, I think).
i was there myself, i loved the fairs

[tampahorseplayer]

Anyone remember the marshfield fair? I used to go there as a kid. My dad told me of a horse than ran every day for 5 days straight and won all 5!

[Cardus]

Anyone remember the marshfield fair? I used to go there as a kid. My dad told me of a horse than ran every day for 5 days straight and won all 5!

Where is that fair?

[DAT]

Anyone remember the marshfield fair? I used to go there as a kid. My dad told me of a horse than ran every day for 5 days straight and won all 5!

Must have been trained by Carlos Figueroa, the King of the Fairs. He had no qualms about running 'em every day!

[Track Collector]

Where is that fair?

Marshfield is South of Boston not too far from the coast line. Racing at the fair ended after 1991. I missed my one and only chance that year due to Hurricane David. :mad: To my knowledge, there have never been any serious attempts to bring back racing at Marshfield.

As far as the currently dead MA fair circuit, the only place that has any realistic chance to bring back racing is the Brockton Fair.

[BombsAway Bob]

ESPN's BILL FINLEY wrote about the Mass. Fair Circuit in 2005-
The Massachusetts fair circuit is no more. Officials at the Three County Fair in Northampton, Massachusetts announced earlier this week that the fair, which has featured racing of one kind or another since 1856, will not hold a meet in 2006. All that's left now are memories of the fairs, the most colorful, crooked, strange, remarkable and down right fun racing circuit there has ever been or ever will be.

There was a time when the Mass. fairs were big business. Northampton was part of a circuit that included Marshfield Fair, Great Barrington Fair, Weymouth Fair, Brockton Fair and Berkshire Downs. The races were cheap (mostly $1,500 claimers) and the horses were slow and broken-down, but the fans flocked to them anyway. The Great Barrington Fair once had a crowd of 27,048. The record handle there was $987,306.

They all had a charm that modern-day racing at major tracks so desperately lacks. Part of that was the outside attractions. There were the tractors pulls and 4-H shows, the cotton candy and caramel apple stands, the Ferris wheels and tilt-a-whirl rides. Part of it was the racing. Watching bottom-level claimers whip around a half-mile track might not be for everybody, but there were those of us who thought that brand of racing to be every bit as entertaining and as fascinating as Saratoga. To say, the least, the fairs were never dull.

There was the time an 18-year-old named Golden Arrow ran at Great Barrington in 1979. Zippy Chippy came within a 1 ? lengths of breaking his notorious losing streak, which eventually reached 100, when he finished second in 2003 at Northampton. In 1963, trainer Carlos "King of the Fairs" Figueroa ran a horse named Shannon's Hope five time in eight days and won all five of his starts. It was during the streak that the Massachusetts SPCA went to him and complained about how he was overworking the horse.

"They said I was running him too much," Figueroa recalled. "I told them that Paul Revere rode his horse from Boston to South Carolina (huh?) And he weighed 190 pounds, carried a whip and was screaming the whole way. They didn't say anything to Paul Revere. They made him a hero. I told them they should have made me a hero. Paul Revere never won five races in eight days."

[Cardus]

Marshfield is South of Boston not too far from the coast line. Racing at the fair ended after 1991. I missed my one and only chance that year due to Hurricane David. :mad: To my knowledge, there have never been any serious attempts to bring back racing at Marshfield.

As far as the currently dead MA fair circuit, the only place that has any realistic chance to bring back racing is the Brockton Fair.

I was in Boston just after that fair ended, so I had no chance to see it.

[Nikki1997]

Some of the fair races were just carnage ...

But it was somewhat amusing to see some of the shippers blow the sharp turns ...

Northampton Fair is about 5 miles from me ..

My OTTB ran his last race there, and I took out a groom's license to keep an eye on him , as I decided to buy him and get him off the track after 140 races.

I threw the jockey up--who weighed almost 30 pounds more than I did at 120--Richard Buisson--and told him just to get him home safe .

He did .

Amonte was long in the tooth even then, and Tommy Maeda was finishing up his career as well .

I think Harry Vega may have been there in that era .

Northampton Fair was done no favors when a local lumberman with a bunch of snotty hunter rider kids took over , but there were a few years when my NY horseplayer friends came up and really enjoyed the atmosphere , and the crazy stuff that happened there ...

Toward the end, the local farmers that kept what I called " fair stars " could not compete with shippers ..

The local stars I remember were a sprinting mare Agreeable Lady, and an old horse named Soda Pop Kid

Dale Baird shipped in a 100,000 claimer and back class horse named Maddy's Waquoit off a two year layoff

He could have won on three legs, I remarked to my friend--and that is exactly what happened .

It was fun, but it was sad--as rogues and cripples showed up there often for the last time .

One year, a bunch of racers were abandoned there, and many were just put down by local vets.

On the other hand, a few people went down to the backstretch and bought or were given horses .

I personally saw Figueroa stick a horse with the live end of an electric wire .

-------------------Mikki

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