Like every sport, racing needs star power.
But you can’t depend on star power; it comes and goes unpredictably, like fashion.
What racing depends on is something else entirely: little-known trainers toiling with little-known horses, filling everyday races and hoping against hope that the next horse will be the one that helps them grab the brass ring.
It depends, in other words, on guys like Leo Ambrogi and horses like Shemp’s Boy.
Director Jeff Krulik caught up Leo one morning at the Bowie Training Center, while he was monitoring the exercise of Shemp’s Boy — named, inevitably, for Leo’s favorite stooge. Leo, who’s won 49 races in a 20-year training career, says he’s “trying my luck with the horses.”
With bonus Three Stooges footage…
Wow…I need to get out more. I didn’t know Bowie had a covered track. I wish when they closed Bowie they would dismantle it and reassemble it at Laurel. It is pretty cool.
Good luck to Mr. Ambrogio and Shemp’s Boy. He is one handsome colt!