Via TD Thornton
When Coach Tom Van Berg won two races for the crown Saturday with his first horses in that series, most racers have a connection to his father, the late Hall-of-Fame conditioner Jack Van Berg. But the connection to another family legacy in that series may not be so clear: 25-year-old John Timothy Kirby, who also saddled the man who started his first Crown Claim to win winning his first race at Churchill Downs, was a third generation rider with solid roots running deep in New England.
In fact, after more than half a century of breeding and racing Massachusetts hybrids, the Kirbys have outlasted all the Thoroughbred races in their home region. That meant that even before the Suffolk Downs stopped running well in 2019, the youngest coach in the family was forced to hit the road and move to Parx in Pennsylvania to focus on his business.
The Crown of Claims likes to refer to itself as the “Blue Collar Breeders’ Cup,” and that’s a pretty fair comparison. But how many coaches at the national level are willing to do the 675-mile rickshaw ride with their sole participant for that event, like Kirby did with Tiger hero (Hero of Order), a $100,000 Ready’s Rocket Express 4-1 winner?
“I rode in the back. Just wanted to make sure he’s transporting well and everything,” Kirby told video reporter Dani Gibson of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Riders Association (PTHA) after the win.
“Bobby Mosco’s horse is on it too,” Kirby added, referring to Unusual (Dramedy), who offers 10 lengths of a $150,000 Tiara, who would have completed a Parx-based double in the Claiming Crown if it hadn’t been swept away by home-street Kentuckians.
“Everything is going very smoothly and the stars are aligned. We are so lucky,” Kirby said.
The tenacity and work ethic honed over three generations didn’t matter either.
John T.’s grandfather, John F. Kirby, had always worked around raised horses, and he began training Hybrid Horses in 1953, when the New England races included a vigorous lap in Massachusetts. , New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Maine, plus a variety of regional county fairs in the summer and fall.
Kirby began breeding Purebred dogs at his Smokey Valley Ranch in Dover in 1967, about half an hour southwest of Suffolk Downs, and he had built up a small flock of broodstock by the time Massachusetts began started monetizing state-made wallet incentives in 1972.
After training outside clients for more than two decades, older Kirby cut back to focus on his hometown racehorse in 1975. As the Massachusetts-bred program expanded to include racehorses. state-bred shares in 1981, at least one horse raised by Kirby would win at least one of those shares each year over a three-decade-long streak.
The horses carrying the family’s green and white shamrocks are known for their durability and good sound. A foal from Kirby’s 1968 crop named Brik (“Kirb upside down”) won 23 races in 184 starts.
The family was also very strong, and although they were not the chiefs in Suffolk, they were respected by many for their horsemanship. In 1985, John F. Kirby said in a Boston Globe describes that between the ranch and the track, the work schedule is “seven days a week, from dawn to exhaustion.”
Timothy Kirby, John T.’s father, started training in 1991 and still has a small stable in Parx. Patriarch John F. Kirby stopped training in 1999 and died in 2011. The 40-acre family farm was shrunk to pieces as the horses left the property and the stallion business in New England exhausted and disappeared.
The youngest Kirby recalled in a 2019 interview with PTHA’s Dick Jerardi that as a high school student he was often reprimanded for reading a Race form hidden inside his briefcase.
John T. Kirby said: “If we were to hold a horse race, I would most likely be on the track, not in the classroom.
But Kirby went to school in other, more meaningful ways. Just as important as the race results, he learned from his father and grandfather, that’s what happens after finishing.
“We always have Mass.-breeds,” Kirby said in that PTHA post. “They treat us well. We mostly keep them when they’re done and let them live to old age on the farm.”
On an unseasonably snowy Saturday in Churchill, which no doubt made Kirby reminisce about the bygone, brutal days of winter racing in Suffolk, there was a moment at the top of the track that looked like Hero Tiger, even though the track is full. , will be forced out of contention because a narrow gap aimed by horseback rider Luis Saez turned into a wall of horse meat before the 6-year-old gelding could cross.
“Honestly, when that hole closed in on him, I think he lost momentum. But Luis really rode it so hard and got the momentum back, and this horse just has the biggest heart – the biggest heart,” said Kirby, his voice cracking momentarily with emotion after the climax of the victory. best in his career.
With limited runs, Kirby has won 14 races from 98 starts this year, hitting a 45% run while competing primarily at Parx, Delaware and Penn National. But he’s no stranger to New York, where he’s won a race each at Saratoga and Belmont in 2021 and ’22, the most recent victory being a 21-1 defeat in June with a sportsman. pitcher claims $45,000, who beat six feathers in a quick 1st half: 07.34.
Back on September 4, Kirby voted on behalf of owner Gregg O’Donnell for a $40,000 request for Hero Tiger at Spa, and Saturday’s Crown win returned $56,000 on the investment. there.
Instead of taking credit, Kirby commended his jockey in a post-race interview while brimming with enthusiasm about bigger and better things to come.
“The first horse we ordered [Saez] continued, he won at Saratoga. And then earlier this year they [nearly] broke the record at Belmont,” said Kirby. “So we went 3 on 5 with Luis, and this is just the beginning. We’ll get him more mounts.
