Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story included an incorrect spelling of Allen Jerkens' last name.

His name is Clint Goodrich. Never heard of him? Neither had I.

Once you talk to him, though, you quickly realize that he knows horse racing.

Peter Monaco: You've seen a pretty serious arc in this sport. Give me some perspective.

Clint Goodrich: I caught the last of the best of it. I'm talking about the last glory days of horse racing. My first exposure was just as Secretariat burst on the scene. I was a kid. I knew zip about horses. I knew right then, I wanted to be a jockey.

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PM:Before we actually met, I wanted to do some statistical homework on your career. The industry database Equibase has almost no record of your accomplishments. How do you explain this?

CG: I can't explain it. I can only surmise when Equibase took over from the Daily Racing Form in the late 90s as the official record keeping source for the industry, they weren't very well staffed. Apparently a lot of the records didn't make the shift. I have notebooks filled with win pictures of horses I either rode or trained.

PM:What does that say about the records overall at Equibase?

CG: It says, don't just assume everything you read is accurate. Horseplayers and racing fans should understand Equibase is not always correct. Plus, if you're just looking at numbers, they be deceiving in either direction.

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PM:I've seen some of your pictures — Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Gulfstream Park, Arlington Park and lots of places. They don't lie. 

CG: I am very comfortable and confident in my successes. There is always a faster horse, someone who did more, and good for them. Statistically and monetarily, I had a more successful trainer. I trained against Allen Jerkens, Shug McGaughey, Carl Nafzger, Wayne Lukas. As a jockey, I rode and won more races at the smaller tracks but I also rode with some of the best riders of my day; Jerry Bailey, Pat Day, Eddie Delahoussaye.

PM:Talk to me about buying horses at the sales from a trainer’s perspective.

CG: I always spent a client's money at the sales like it was my own. When you're a trainer and you buy horses for a client, you know you're going to have to live with, train and prove. You are, in essence, putting your money where your mouth is. Your credibility lives or dies with your ability to succeed with those purchases.

PM:What if you're buying for yourself?

CG: The same principles apply; you just don't have to answer to anybody.

PM: Best horse you ever bought at the sales?

CG: I bought a colt named Saint Ballado, who was a full brother to two champions, for $90,000 at Keeneland, September in 1990. He won several graded stakes and we stood him at stud. He was an immediate success siring the favorite for the 1997 Kentucky Derby. We ultimately sold him for over $6 million.

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PM: Since you were also involved in breeding horses, talk to me about the business of breeding thoroughbreds.

CG: Big commercial breeders who breed to sell want their horses to be handled in a way that enhances sales prospects for their breeding establishments. When you train for breeders who breed mostly to race, they want to prove or strengthen their private bloodlines

PM:How about dealing with breeders from a pure trainer’s perspective?

CG: If you're a true horseman and your barn is not a factory outlet mall, you want to train for breeders and owners who breed to race and care about the value of their investment and the longevity of their horses. Commercial breeders put tremendous pressure on trainers to race their horses as soon as possible. That pressure gets transferred directly to the horse — whether it's ready or not. People want immediate results. They don't understand, some horses need more time.

PM:If an owner pays big loot for a horse, shouldn't they expect results?

CG: Sure, an owner can expect results but you don't always get what you want. Trust me when I say, the horse has no idea how much you paid for them and they have no concept of time.

PM:How does the breeding establishment relate to the big picture of the sport.

CG: Don't underestimate the degree to which many commercial breeders and breeding farms have also contributed to the demise of this sport. They've pressured the sport to create too many cheap stakes races that only serve to promote shallow breeding practices and pedigrees that look good on sales catalog pages. They breed for cheap speed and short distances. This is what the current condition of the game rewards.

PM: They don't see it, or what?

CG: They all want the short-term money. It's like financing long-term debt with short-term money, it's easy at first then it gets painful. This is also what breeders and racetrack managements have done to the Breeders' Cup series. They've taken what made it special and watered it down. Two Breeders' Cup days of racing instead of one, too many categories that created more 'Breeders' Cup winners' for the benefit of the sales catalogs. It's not special anymore. Fans get numb, too. They can only give you so much attention. One big day is a party, two big days is a hangover. Economics 101 says when you create more of something, its value drops. There is nobody to tell these people: NO, we aren't going to do this anymore.

PM: You mentioned horsemanship. Explain that a little further.

CG: Horsemanship is no longer rewarded, it's discounted. The ranks of the true horsemen-trainers have vanished, replaced by the factory outlet barns of the mega-numbers horse trainers. Most horses today are over-trained and under-raced. This era of a horse running four, five or six times a year is ridiculous.

PM: You said being a jockey was why you entered the sport. How do you view the status of jockeys today?

CG: Jockeys don't get a pass with me, either. The state of the jockey world is nothing short of embarrassing. What's left of who is considered to be the top jockeys riding today are mostly grandpas in their early or middle 50s. But there are few up and comers who can push them off the stage. Most of the top riders of today are a flimsy remnant of what passes for a real race rider.

PM: What about racetrack management?

CG: Horse racing has been in a death spiral for decades. The sport's anemic fan base is still is bleeding out and they are not being replaced. Multiple dozens of tracks all over the country have closed in the last 25 years. Interest waned because no one nursed it. Animal rights activists are running rampant using misinformation, extortion, guilt and shame tactics. This is all at the doorstep of racetrack management.

PM:Some tracks are doing well with casinos.

CG: A few tracks where casino gaming subsidizes purses for live racing appear to be doing OK. It's mostly a scam until they can figure out a way to kill off the live racing component. If something doesn't change, they will eventually get it done.

PM: But those tracks have better purses. Isn't that good?

CG: Those purses are still not good enough. Even tracks where the purses are better, racing is still not healthy. It's much more complex. There are lots of short fields. The betting takeout is too high, gamblers and would-be horse players have other choices, better value choices.

PM:So, you're saying racetrack management doesn't understand?

CG: They don't want to understand or even address it. They really don't care. Purse structures around the country are wildly out of balance with the cost of horse ownership and the expense of racing horses. Cut the betting takeout, you get bigger handle. Raise purses across the board, trainers will start entering. You'll get bigger fields. Bigger fields generate a bigger betting handle because a horseplayer has more value. It feeds on itself. Cut racing down to three days a week, whatever it takes to raise purses. Otherwise, why does anyone want to own a racehorse?

PM: As a near-lifelong horseplayer, this is scary stuff.

CG: Casino gaming is fine in Las Vegas but it's a heroin drip for a racetrack. It can keep racing going for a while but eventually it'll kill the sport. The casino powers rationalize; why are we putting up with this expense, the maintenance of this racetrack facility and these burdensome horses? Horse racing is a means to an end for their business model. The house lives to make money. They don't care how they make it.

PM:You're not alone in this assessment, but most who agree with you are powerless to know what to do or how to correct it.

CG: If the sport is going to survive to any meaningful degree, it needs to be revamped from the bottom up. I am the only person who can do it. I have the knowledge, insight, perspective, the first-hand experience and the guts to do it. The core problem is complete lack of structure. There is no central umbrella. No one has authority to make across the board, sweeping changes. Racing is fractured into dozens of individual fiefdoms; every one of them working solely for their own self-interests. It can be fixed, there's just no will or courage to do it.

PM: I've never heard anybody talk about the sport of horse racing in these terms. So, what is Clint Goodrich's solution.

CG: I can turn the sport around by example. I'm a little reserved because I want to present it to the right person or people. I have a model by which to completely remake the sport and refocus on what made it successful before it lost its way.

PM:My natural question is, how do you do that?

CG: I need a racetrack. I don't need to build one from scratch. A shuttered one in the right place will do fine. I need an interested party with money and some time. Give me five years, I'll have the gold standard racetrack business model. The rest of the sport will follow.

Goodrich is currently writing a new book of short stories about his experiences in horse racing. Read his horse racing blog at

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