Lou Raffetto headed into his fifth month as chief operating officer of the Maryland Jockey Club and answered questions from Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred editor Lucy Acton about the racing industry in Maryland. The New Jersey native, 51, had an extensive background, including a stint as Laurel's racing secretary from 1978 to 1984.
When given the question: The revenue pie in Maryland is static or shrinking. How do we make it grow? Raffetto replied: "It's clear to me that for years, and again whether it's 15 years ago, 10 years ago, or maybe as recently as five years ago, the Maryland product was known for its quality and quantity.
"The horses here could certainly compete at levels anywhere in the United States, but it was always known as a very hard-knocking circuit. But I think as time has gone on, and field size has shrunk, for a variety of reasons, I think that people have lost interest to some extent.
"If we put out races whether the [recently introduced] Pick 4 or the rest of the card, and they're all six-horse fields, it doesn't do us any good whatsoever."
Frank "Dooley" Adams, a member of racing's Hall of Fame, was the all-time leading steeplechase jockey by victories (301) when he retired in 1956. More than 40 years later he was riding high once again, this time as owner of Al Skywalker, winner of the Carolina Cup-G1, a race Adams won as a rider in 1951 and 1952.
Al Skywalker was all but given to Adams, who simply paid the son of Skywalker's van fare from the West Coast to his Refugio Farm in Southern Pines, N.C., where he taught him to jump.
New Jersey breeding was in focus with a pedigree report on the impact of *Rasper II, who held court at his owner Mrs. Milton Erlanger's Woodside Farm near Oakhurst, N.J., in the early 1960s, but whose influence continued long after his death at age 13 in 1965 with just 57 foals in seven crops. Six of his runners were stakes winners, including influential regional sires Rambunctious (sire of Rollicking as well as millionaire Jameela, dam of Gulch) and Rock Talk, sire of Eclipse Award winner Heartlight No. One.
n New Jersey's 11-time stallion of the year, *Slady Castle, was euthanized due to kidney failure at age 32. Pensioned since 1992, he stood his entire career at the Fieramosca family's Colonial Farms near Colts Neck. His 17 stakes winners included graded stakes-winning, Grade 1-placed Castle Royale, and son Castle Guard, who also stood at Colonial Farms.
*Slady Castle and *Rasper II were from the same Hyperion male line through Owen Tudor, *Rasper II's sire and *Slady Castle great-grandsire.
n John Tammaro Jr., one of the most accomplished horsemen to hail from the Mid-Atlantic region, died in Florida at 75. The native of Baltimore, Md., came from a family with deep roots in racing and, despite a naturally large physique, achieved the seemingly impossible by launching a career as a jockey at age 16, riding 1,000-plus winners over a span of more than a decade. As a trainer, he was one of the "Big Four" dominating in Maryland in the 1960s and '70s, along with Bud Delp, King Leatherbury and Dickie Dutrow, and was leading trainer at Monmouth Park and Delaware Park.
In 1976 he became the private trainer for the Willmot family's Kinghaven Farm in Canada, sending out five Canadian champions, led by Eclipse Award winner/Canadian Horse of the Year Deputy Minister.
