For trainer Kenny Black, a life on the race track * The Racing Biz

Those who are not familiar with the deep cuts in the history of Delaware Park Racing may not realize the meaning of the presence of trainer Kenny Black in the Shedrow this summer.

For Black it is a return to the site of some of his biggest victories in the saddle, and where he earned leading rider Laurels in 1981.

To the question where he comes from, Black replies that he is ‘coming from the race track’. He spent his early years on the west coast and traveled State with his father and younger brother, both Jockeys himself. He rode on bush tracks as young as nine years old, and when he became a teenager, the training to become a bugjockey began seriously.

In the late 1970s, his father got a job in the east with trainer Chuck Taliaferro, who also housed and accompanied a young man for a few years, Kenny’s senior named Steve Cauthen. Cauthen would of course soon rule the driving world and won the Triple Crown on board, confirmed and reached the highest levels of not only racing fame, but also of the general public appliance.

“There has probably never been a better ambassador for horse races than Steve Cauthen,” says Black. “All young aspiring jockeys abstained him. He was everyone’s hero. And you can’t find a better role model than he did.”

Just like Cauthen – whom he regards as an old friend – Black also had an early ally in Taliaferro. The trainer advised him to stay on the east coast for his time as a bug, away from the stiffer competition in California. It turned out to be the right move.

He was first under contract with trainer John Forbes and then connected to Agent Chick Lang, Jr., who helped him climb on board some of the best shares to offer the early eighties. He won 58 races in Delaware in 1981, and his title season was covered by a victory in the then 2 Delaware Oaks with the flagpole (Dam of Future Delaware Oaks winner Run-up the Colors and Second Dam or the Year Moonshaft).

Other remarkable east coast confirmations for Black were the winner Sportin ‘Life (Sire of Classic Winner Bet Twice) and Fall Highweight Victor Pete Pete, who was in the race for Champion Sprinter in 1981.

But on December 7, 7 of that year – almost exactly two years to the day after his first mountain in the Meadowlands in 1979 – the west coast stared of a new cold winter in Maryland, and he could not tolerate the thought. He loaded his car and made a Beeline for California.

“I wanted to drive with the best,” Black notes. The sunny weather was an extra bonus.

He also achieved success in California – a bet victory through a nostril above the legendary Bill Shoemaker remains one of his most cherished moments – but his driving career finally ended in the late eighties and nineties, with his last mounted mountain in 2002.

But he was a racing man, through and through, and although life like a jockey was now in his rear -view mirror, Black did not go up forever. His journey from Rider to Trainer first took him through the barn of John Shireffs – where he was struggling with a young future Kentucky Derby winner in Giacomo – and then to trainer Jason Orman, where he served as an assistant.

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Black then became a member of the old owner/breeder of California, EW “Buddy” Johnston’s old English Rancho operation, first as an assistant, and then went to head coach. He won three Graded Stakes and even made the Breeders’ Cup in 2016, with grade 1 winner what a display.

After the old English rancho merged with Harris Farms in 2018, Black continued to train in Kentucky, but could not get stalls there last winter. Instead, he went to the stock market site, where, funny enough, a cruel winter was waiting for him – in particular one of the most brutal winter storms in the history of New Orleans.

“In twelve o’clock it snowed like twelve centimeters,” Black recalls, laughing laughing. (It was less than that, but still shattered Snowfall Records.) “It closed the entire city.”

Then, two weeks before the start of the meeting, Black moved his horses to Delaware. His stable is small but powerful, with a winner on the meeting in one unlikely and the well-bred Vekoma child, most recently second and later this week.

There is also Black Volt, a slim and fast son of Cairo Prince. With an older half-brother in the winner of the commitment and a series of promising training courses, the 2-year-old will be introduced for his first start on Thursday at Colonial Downs and Black is enthusiastic for the future.

In general, Black has a victory and two seconds of five starters at the meeting. It may be far away from his days as the leading rider, but that’s ok.

Delaware Park, says Black, is incredibly horse -friendly: “So quiet and serene; they can always graze and roll in the sand.”

“It’s good for them. It keeps them happy.”

Black is also happy.

“I like to be back here,” he says. “It’s such a beautiful place.”