Noel Daley is a busy man.
The 2024 Dan Patch Trainer of the Year Award winner is a humble sort who was grateful to take home that hardware.
“It’s not something you focus on, but it’s nice to get it,” said Daley, who came to North America from Australia 36 years ago. “We had a good year, so we’ll take it.”
The busy part? Daley has a shedrow that is currently packed to capacity.
“Unfortunately, we have about 75 horses, which is a lot,” said Daley, clearly kidding around, during an interview with Meadowlands Racetrack's Dave Little during last weekend's In The Sulky segment. “I’m trying not to have as many racehorses. I’ve got 45 two-year-olds, which is crazy. I’ve never had that many. I like doing the young ones.”
That’s for later in 2025. As for 2024, Daley reflected on a pair of standouts under his watch, the Dan Patch Three-Year-Old Male Trotter of the Year, Sig Sauer, and the Dan Patch Three-Year-Old Male Pacer of the Year, Captain Albano.
Sig Sauer (Muscle Hill-Sigilwig) won half of his 10 starts a year ago, including the Kentucky Futurity at The Red Mile as well as the Stanley Dancer and Breeders Crown, which were both at The Meadowlands. He banked $1,196,770.
“I wasn’t quite sure we got there [in the Breeders Crown],” said Daley of his horse’s nose win over T C I. “I actually said to [T C I’s trainer] Ron Burke, ‘Did I win or did you?’ but he knew and said, ‘Yes, you won it.’
“Sig Sauer was a challenging horse to have,” said Daley. “He was a handful to be around but he was a very professional racehorse. He overcame whatever he had to overcome to win his races.”
Now a sire at Hanover Shoe Farms, Daley thinks his stud career should be a good one.
“He’s got everything that you would want,” said Daley. “We paid $200,000 [USD] for him, which was a lot for us. A magnificent horse. He had a lot of attitude to him. He thought he was a good horse.”
During a season in which he won 12 of 18 starts and earned more than $1.5 million, Captain Albano (Captaintreacherous-Angelou) was the winner of the Little Brown Jug, Hempt and Adios, and was nothing short of spectacular in his final outing of the season, when he went parked into an opening quarter of :25.1 only to reign supreme at the wire by 2-1/4 lengths in 1:49.1 around Dover Downs’ five-eighths-mile oval.
He was on his way to stud duty, but that stage of his career will have to wait.
“To be fair to him, we raced him right until the end [of the year],” said Daley. “We test-breeded him basically straight off the track and the numbers weren’t good enough. We were hoping they would get better, but it was late and we couldn’t make people wait, so we said we’ll bring him back [and race] this year and try again to breed him next year.”
Daley admitted he was OK at the prospect of having ‘The Captain’ come back this year.
So, how are things looking?
“He really did well [when third in his second qualifier last Saturday],” said Daley. “He’s probably too big, so we’ll come back next week and put the screws to him.”
He should be ready to race in a few weeks.
One horse who is already off to a good start in 2025 is Smooth Dream, who remained perfect in five starts this year after taking the New Jersey Sire Stakes three-year-old male pacing final in 1:50.3 last Saturday. All of his outings this season have come at the East Rutherford, New Jersey mile oval.
“You know as much about him as I do,” said Daley. “I got him three or four weeks before he was ready to qualify. He’s been nothing but great. He had a chip in his ankle, so he only had [three] starts last year. [His connections] didn’t know enough about him, so probably the only mistake it looks like they’ve made so far is under-staking him.”
The son of Cattlewash-Dreamlands Latte is a gelding, so it’s something not usually done, but is it possible the horse could be supplemented to the Meadowlands Pace?
“We’ll have to see. That decision is up to [the owners]. It’s a big ask,” said Daley. “We’ll see what the competition looks like at the time. He basically only has the New Jersey races [on his schedule for this year]. We have looked through to see if there are some races that make sense to supplement to. Being a gelding, that’s your challenge there. We’ll take him week-to-week.”
Daley has little to do when it comes to Smooth Dream, but has some things to improve upon with his Hambletonian hopeful, Onajetplane (Walner-Noble Lover), the winner of the 2024 New Jersey Classic final.
“He was disappointing [last Saturday morning when fifth in his qualifier],” said Daley. “We started a little later with him. This horse trained down good but he’ll have to come back next week and show me a little more. He didn’t finish last year great. The Hambletonian is your first serious race. Everything you do is surrounded by that race. If he’s not ready at that time, well, then he can’t be in it. You have to be realistic.”
The full interview can be viewed below.
(With files from Meadowlands Racetrack; photo of Captain Albano winning the 2024 Little Brown Jug)