There was no trip to the winner’s circle, no celebratory photo to record the occasion and the profits from the little victory would soon be returned to the betting source from which they came.
But for one night at least - nine years of racing and some 46 wins later -- Primetime Bobcat could finally put a smile on the face (and a little cash in the wallet) of his namesake and one-time owner, sports talk radio personality, Bob McCown.
“When I came back to the table in the dining room, that was the one thing that struck me,” said McCown, the host of the wildly successful nationally syndicated program, Prime Time Sports. “That was a lot of years to cash that ticket.”
Though some hard luck and circumstances forced McCown to give up ownership of Primetime Bobcat back in 1999 -- after just five career starts -- he never completely lost touch with the now 11-year-old gelding’s magnificent story.
Whether it was fun-loving pals filling him in on the latest win or when Primetime Bobcat made headlines as the fastest horse in the world, the radio man was sure to find out about it from any number of wise guys.
So when McCown cashed that ticket at Woodbine back in December, he couldn’t help but take a little pride in the proceedings. Never mind that since leaving McCown, the horse had amassed more than $700,000 from a career that had all but been left for dead.
Or that he made headlines throughout the sport when he set a world record back in 2006 after a blistering 1:47.2 mile at Mohawk Raceway.
Or that the way things unfolded, McCown may have had a license to be bitter regarding his first stab at horse ownership with a pacer that is still going strong after nine years and has 48 career wins on his record.
“It was fantastic,” McCown said of owning a pair of standardbreds almost a decade ago. “Even though it ended badly, somehow, even though I have nothing to do with him, seeing him come back and doing what he has done ... in a weird kind of way I take pride in it. In some weird way he’s still mine.”
“I know he’s not - I have no vested interest now. I can’t even cash a good ticket on him. But owning a racehorse and being at the track the night he is racing -- there’s no better experience.”
There was a time, not long after he spent $10,000 for a 10 per cent share in a colt (then named Armbro Topaz) that McCown dreamed - believed, even - that he would profit much more from his foray into horse ownership.
It is a story that had its genesis as a publicity stunt but turned into much more for both the new owner (who gained an appreciation and respect for the sport) and horse (who would set a world record some seven years after it was surmised that his career was toast).
It all started in June of 1999, when McCown and Woodbine Entertainment Group publicity chief, Glenn Crouter, mused over the possibility of celebrity ownership. Crouter, whose father Wally was perhaps the most renowned morning radio man in Canadian radio history during his decades at Toronto’s CFRB, figured that parlaying that interest with the power of McCown’s medium would give the sport some much needed exposure.
“He did lose some money but Bob knew the risk going in,” said Crouter. “He was happy to get involved.”
As discussion evolved, it was decided standardbreds would make the most sense. The horses race more frequently and there’s a lower up-front cost to get involved -- in theory, the risk is lower.
“I made it clear that I would be interested in owning a horse and Crout’s feeling was that it would be great for the Jockey Club, as it was known then,” McCown said. “It would be a good promotional opportunity.”
Crouter didn’t take long to find the perfect match as an ownership partner. Tony Delmonte was a passionate owner, a huge sports fan and a regular listener of McCown’s. And he was coming off a magical 1998 season in which his three-year-old pacer, Straight Path, won the $1 million North America Cup.
The two hit it off immediately and McCown agreed to take 10 per cent of a pacer named President Ryan, an $11,000 yearling purchase of Delmonte’s. While out watching him train one morning, McCown’s stake unexpectedly jumped up a couple of notches.
“I’m sitting there watching the horses in their training and this black horse goes by and I turned to Tony and said, ‘wow that’s a beautiful horse.’”
“Tony just looked at me. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.”
“He offered me 10 per cent,” said McCown, “and since the horse hadn’t raced yet, Tony came up with the idea to change the name. He figured it would fit the whole idea of publicity.”
Between the two of them, they came up with the idea of Primetime (named after his signature radio show) Bobcat (McCown’s on-air nickname).
Bobcat (the person) didn’t waste any time becoming an active owner and was soon quite smitten with Bobcat (the horse). Regular training visits allowed McCown to get a feel for the personality of his namesake.
“I got out and visited him every once in a while and to say he was frisky is putting it lightly,” McCown deadpanned. “You couldn’t let him get within a thousand yards of a filly, so it turned out we had to do the obvious. That disappointed me. I never want to be a part of relieving anything of its manhood.”
Another trait led to the creation of a nickname for the colt turned gelding. His habit of wrapping his lips around a visitor’s hand prompted McCown and Delmonte to nickname him Louis the Lip, leading to McCown’s “c’mon Louis” cheers whenever he watched him race.
Primetime Bobcat showed enough promise to make it to the races as a two-year-old, starting five times. The single success that year came at Flamboro, but as bad luck would have it, McCown was on the air and unable to witness the pacer’s lone win under his ownership.
He was there for both of his Woodbine starts, however, and developed a fast friendship with Delmonte. His passion was contagious.
“He was fun and real and had no ego at all,” McCown said. “Had Tony lived, I think we would have had a long relationship. I had a million questions about the game. I was a sponge. I wanted to learn everything and Tony was the perfect guy. He enjoyed every minute of it.”
Unfortunately, after a lackluster finish in a race at Woodbine on August 17, McCown had to learn one of the hard lessons of the racing game -- one that would lead abruptly to the end of his ownership days. Vet work after that race revealed a crack in one of Primetime Bobcat’s legs and a long layoff was prescribed.
“The story from the vet was that he couldn’t believe this horse had been racing,” McCown said. “It was his belief that the crack had existed for virtually all of his races. Apparently he had so much heart that he would pace as hard as he could and then he couldn’t take it any more. He wouldn’t break down, he’d just slow down.”
Things went from bad to worse in matters involving his partnership and fast-developing friendship with Delmonte. The big man, who had been riding the high of his life in the horse game, was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. The disease struck quickly and without mercy.
“One minute I’m having dinner with him, the next week he’s in the hospital and the next week he’s dead,” McCown said. “It was almost that fast.”
After what McCown said was a ‘suitable time’, he received a call from Delmonte’s widow, Dot, who was in the process of dispersing her late husband’s stable of 20-plus standardbreds. McCown was given the opportunity to buy back the rest of Primetime Bobcat, but perhaps not fully grasping the situation, Dot was asking the original ticket price -- an amount paid for a well-bred colt (not gelding) and one with four healthy legs.
“I was torn,” McCown said. “The vet had said there was just an 80% chance that he would ever race again and even if he did, we couldn’t expect him to be anything like we would have hoped at one time.”
“The first thing that goes through your mind is -- how can he be worth $100,000? But I had fallen in love with the horse and I made some calls. He was like part of the family and I felt like I at least owed it to Tony to try to keep him. He was his prized jewel.”
“In the end, I just couldn’t pull it off. I didn’t have that kind of money myself and we ended up selling him at Harrisburg for $15,000.”
Soon it was ‘out of sight out of mind’ -- Primetime Bobcat slowly resurrected his career in Ohio and Michigan, often racing for modest purses. He returned to the winner’s circle on August 11, 2000 at Hazel Park and earned $1,600 for the effort. Along the way, there were starts at Northfield Park near Cleveland and even some smaller tracks on the Ohio fair circuit where he once raced for a purse of $2,600.
By the 2002 season, he was a regular in the open classes at Hazel, winning his share of races if not sulky loads of cash. And occasionally after one of those wins, McCown would hear about it.
“Every once in a while, Crouter would call me, sadistic (bleep) that he is, to tell me my horse had just won a race,” McCown said. “I’d just say ‘screw off.’”
Though he may have been new to ownership, McCown is no maiden to the racetrack. He is wise and well-versed in all things gaming. He once did his show from his home in Las Vegas for several months of the year and shares tall tales of skipping class in high school to visit Woodbine and Greenwood.
There is a particularly ribald story of the night he went to Greenwood with former Argo “Tricky” Dick Thornton and came a nose short of making the score of a lifetime. We’ll leave out the details to protect the protagonists.
Like many in the Toronto media, McCown always liked to drop by Bigliardi’s, the downtown restaurant of longtime horse owner, horseplayer and horse fan, George Bigliardi where the subject of conversation, more often than not, is racing.
But the involvement with Primetime Bobcat took things to a new level and over the years resulted in some decent radio material. Most days, the first hour of McCown’s show is open-phone time, a chance for fans to vent and comment on the world of sports. McCown’s gift of handling all types of callers is one of his strengths and he tends to be a good sport when a race fan calls in with an update of another Primetime Bobcat triumph.
Attention ratcheted up in 2006 when the Bobcat returned to the WEG circuit for good. Claimed by Casie Coleman for $50,000 out of a race at Woodbine, the nine-year-old made an immediate splash, winning his next five starts. That caught the eye of trainer Tony Montini, who snagged him out of a $100,000 claimer -- the same as Delmonte paid for him as a yearling.
Soon Primetime Bobcat wasn’t just the fastest horse around WEG, he was the fastest in the world and quite a story.
“After he set the world record, we had (Montini) into the studio for an interview and I tried to goad him into selling me a piece of the horse,” McCown said. “I was joking with him, telling him that he owed me. He was almost offended. I don’t think he got the tongue-in-cheek part of it.”
While McCown acknowledges the shock value of a nine-year-old gelding setting world records, and becoming both an O’Brien Award nominee and the dominant aged pacer on Canada’s top circuit, in an odd way, it didn’t surprise him.
“It was what we saw when he was so young and what his breeding suggested,” said McCown, who admits he fell hard and fast for his four-legged friend.
“I loved the guy. I’m an animal person - I had always had dogs - so I was excited about it. I was totally consumed by this horse because of what I thought he could be. I started envisioning getting dressed up and going to the track for the big races and going to the Meadowlands or wherever.”
“These were the dreams Tony and I had when we sat in the dining room, that he could be a good horse.”
It took some time and others -- not the dreamers -- were the beneficiaries, but it turns out the two guys, united by their fondness for a horse, may have been onto something.