Harness racing will say “au revoir” this year to a few dozen 14-year-old horses facing mandatory retirement when they turn 15 on the universal equine birthday of January 1

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Monticello Raceway in New York will host a $7,500 race for 14-year-olds on the afternoon of December 31. There are five horses expected to start right now in the Au Revoir race and others may join them.

Two horses local to Monticello that are expected to compete are Mr Touring and Jaccamo A.

Trainer-owner Ricky Maher Jr. of Port Jervis, New York, plans to enter the carrot-loving Mr Touring, the horse referred to as “The Old Man” around the Maher Stable. Mr Touring has 34 starts and six wins this year, for a lifetime total of 378 starts, 61 wins, 44 seconds and 44 thirds. His lifetime earnings are $445,985.

Maher says inherent soundness has been the key to Mr Touring’s long tour in racing.

“That’s one thing, no major leg problems, knock on wood,” Maher said. “This is the best he’s been feeling since he’s been racing, no matter who drove him.”

Mike McCauley of Kauneonga Lake, New York, will send out his Australian-born pacer, Jaccamo A in the Au Revoir race as well.

“He’s a good boy,” McCauley said. “I bought him two years ago from Betsy Phillips; she used to ride him. He always just tries. He’s very nice, very gentle. He’s like a pet. I’m going to give him away to a good home and I’m going to ride him soon and try him out.”

McCauley says Jaccamo doesn’t need any special routine. Jaccamo has won 57 times in his career, counting races in both the U.S. and abroad, and earned $244,447.

“I have a farm seven miles from the raceway and, basically, I just race him,” McCauley said. “He’s happy, he has his own acre paddock in the back, no training between races. He’s very sound, he has two-year-old legs, it’s unbelievable. Everyone I show him to they say I can’t believe it, he could race til – forget about it – he’s perfect.”

McCauley is hoping his easygoing horse with the “two-year-old legs” is able to compete in amateur races next year.

“That would be very, very good,” he said. “[In his most recent race] he got a fifth, but he had the six hole and he was pushed back behind the seven and you wouldn’t believe it. Then finally when he got loose, he caught right up to the ones in front. He doesn’t wear a headpole, not any equipment hardly. He likes to race. He would be beautiful for an amateur, he’s nice to drive.

“He’s good size, big not monstrous, but he wears 59-1/2 inch hopples. When you watch him go, he floats, he springs and he’s so pretty, tucks his neck in and he’s pretty.”

Ned Urbanski of Sayreville, New Jersey, trains and drives and cheerleads for Sinbad, another 14-year-old, who he describes as “a professional” who doesn’t need any special attention. The winner of $557,481 with 66 wins in 287 starts is, “just normal, jogs and trains between every race,” he says.

“He loves what he’s doing, he loves to race,” Urbanski added. “I tried to put him out in the paddock. His paddock is out on a turn [at Crystal Brook Farm in Colts Neck] and I can’t keep him out there that long because he races everything that goes around. He works harder out in the field. He just wants to race, he loves to race.”

Urbanski, who has owned the horse for the past year, admires Sinbad’s longevity.

“It’s strange for a horse to race every year,” he noted. “He raced every year from his two-year-old year [1998] to mandatory retirement. He’s raced every year of his life. He raced at 18 different racetracks, had 54 different drivers, 24 different trainers. He’s won with 23 different drivers, 14 different trainers and this is what I think is great – in his lifetime he was claimed 11 times for a grand total of $254,000.

“On February 17 of 2001, he actually was claimed at the Meadowlands for $100,000. Sinbad won over $126,000 at the Meadowlands two years in a row (2000 and 2001). If he was a baseball player, when you look at the back of his bubblegum card, he’d be in the Hall of Fame.”

Sinbad might as well be called Singood, according to Urbanski.

“He’s a pussycat, a big, big pussycat,” he said. “He’s a big, round, solid horse.”

Sinbad is expected to compete in an amateur race on December 10 at the Meadowlands before joining his fellow 14-year-olds in the Au Revoir race.

Urbanski already has a retirement plan in place for the horse that “everybody who had him, he made money for and nobody has a bad thing to say.”

Sinbad will move south to Delaware after his racing days are over on December 31.

“Sandy Crissman’s father had him as a racehorse. He got deathly ill and she slept outside his stall for two weeks and nursed him back to health. She saw us one night at the Meadowlands and came up to him and hugged him, crying and she begged me. I said, ‘No problem. When he retires, he’s yours.’ She has a farm and he’s going to be a riding horse – she rode him already.”

Plenty Of Highlights For Boomer Berman

He has more wins than most horses have career starts, but when 2011 arrives, 14-year-old Boomer Berman can race no more. The son of Defiant Yankee-Meadow Hattie, whose namesake is ESPN announcer Chris Berman, has trotted 255 pari-mutuel miles with 89 victories, 53 second place finishes and 30 thirds and has amassed $215,961 in purse money.

Owned by Steve and Kathy Schoeffel of Evans City, Pennsylvania, and trained by Lisa Lederhouse of Akron, New York, the gelding has only been off the board in seven of his 38 starts this year and earned $59,418 while competing at Buffalo Raceway and Batavia Downs. The Upstate New York Chapter of the U.S. Harness Writers Association named Boomer Berman the 2010 Western New York Horse of the Year.

“We [closed] here at Batavia the first week of December and his name is on the list for a retirement race they are trying to get together at Monticello,” said Lederhouse. “I’ll be honest, I’m getting a little greedy with him and he’s less than [$1,000] away for $60,000 this year, so I might take him somewhere else to get there. To me it’s a big deal to have an overnight horse in this area make $60,000 and never be in higher than a $10,000 claimer. That says something about him and what kind of horse he is.

“He gives you 110 percent any time he goes to the gate and I do think he will miss the races,” she continued. “Fortunately, Steve is going to keep him to train down colts every year, so he will still be doing what he loves to do, he just won’t be going behind the gate.”

Boomer is normally all business on the racetrack, but at times shows his connections just who is really in charge.

“Some days when you take him out to jog or to warm up before the races, he’ll drop his head, try to take off and go 100 mph with you,” Lederhouse said. “He never does anything wrong, but he can be a bully sometimes and I think it’s because he’s a little spoiled and realizes he can get away with it.”

The gelding’s personality is one of the reasons he receives extra attention.

“You can’t help but take a liking to him,” Lederhouse said. “He’s a real small horse. The bugger doesn’t even stand 15 hands high and is like a big pony. Someone that has never even seen a horse could go right up to him and start petting him. He even puts his head down for little kids and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

After he failed to earn $5,000 during his 2008 campaign, Boomer’s former owner, Thomas Barrett, told Schoeffel, who was then training him, that he could have the horse since he didn’t think he was profitable anymore.

Schoeffel allowed several of the teenagers that worked for him to train the gelding down for overnight races on the Pennsylvania fair circuit, but after the kids got him ready that spring they realized overnight races were being culled from the fair program and Boomer was sent to Lederhouse as kind of an experiment.

“Steve, who I have been friends with for a long time told me, ‘Look, I don’t know if this guy is any good anymore, but I’ll bring him up to qualify him and if you have room for him, keep him,’” Lederhouse said. “Last year the horse ended up winning more than $27,000 and after Steve paid my training bill he put the rest of his earnings aside for the kids that trained him down to go to college.

“They were tickled to death,” she continued. “Steve is a great guy and has had some success in this business which you always want to see with someone like him, because he gives back.”

Several people have approached Lederhouse about using Boomer in amateur races next year, but she doesn’t think that will actually occur.

When Boomer leaves her shedrow at the end of December, Lederhouse admits finding another horse to put in his stall will be easy, but no horse can ever quite take his place.

“You can’t help but love Boomer,” she said. “He didn’t get to the races until he was 5 and he’s had some things go wrong here and there like he has bad feet, but at 14 how can you not have some soundness issues? He’s so professional on the track and such a pet around the barn. He is the kind of horse that is difficult to replace.”

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This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.