With wins record in sight, Morgan remains a ‘day-to-day guy’

11.21.2006

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Staff Writer

WARWICK, Md. — Tony Morgan is having a year many other drivers dream about, but don’t expect him to bring it up in converstation.
With 917 wins for this year at the end of last week, Morgan is more than 250 wins in front of the next winningest North American, virtually locking up the wins title for this year. The all-time wins record for a year is 1,077 set by Water Case Jr., in 1998. With about six weeks left in the year, that record is almost out of reach, says Ken Weingartner, a spokesman for the U.S. Trotting association, be Morgan is still having a tremendouls year.
“Earlier in the year, he was kind of on pace,” Weingartner says, “but 1,000 wins would be remarkable in itself. He’d be only the second person to get 1,000 wins. Heck, he’s only the second person to get 900 wins.” Morgan had the record for most wins in a year with 852, set in 1996, until Case Jr. broke it.
Morgan says he doesn’t think about the wins record much at all and just tries to focus on the next race.
“I’m kind of a day-to-day guy. I like the day-to day-grind and the year-to-year stuff just sort of falls along,” he says.
Morgan, 48, grew up in Troy, Ohio, learning to drive horses on his father’s farm at age 13. He’s the sixth generation of harness drivers in his family.
“I had a lot of good opportunities early because my dad had a lot of horses so it was easy for me to get into the business,” Morgan said. “It’s like anything, it takes practice and it’s good to have a good mentor. It makes it go a lot quicker.”
From Ohio, Morgan moved to Michigan and then Illinois where he raced at Midwest tracks near Chicago for about 25 years. Morgan would have probably finished out his career in the Midwest, but the way wagering is structured at the region’s tracks made him move to Warwick, Md., and race at tracks in the Mid-Atlantic, mostly Dover Downs and Harrington Raceway.
“The last five years, the money got really bad. The rebate shops were beating up on the parimutuel handle pretty bad.”
The rebate shops that manage “offshore” betting only send about 3 percent of their wagering back to the racetracks in simulcasting fees to pay horsemen. Wagering at the track sends 17 percent back to horseman.
“If you do the math it takes 10 people at the track to make up for that one guy betting offshore. So as soon as those off shore accounts get 10 percent of your handle, your handle goes to half.”
Because purses at Delaware tracks are augmented by slots revenue, about ten percent of the handle is affected by rebate shops but in Chicago, the entire handle is effected.
Morgan said moving wasn’t as easy decision. “It was rough on us moving and everything, we’d been there 25 years. It’s hard to just pack up and move, but I just couldn’t make enough money there anymore.”
Morgan moved to Maryland in April 2005 and didn’t waste any time making an impression at the track. He won the spring meet at Harrington this year with 198 wins, a track record and won the fall meet with 179 wins.
Morgan said the biggest challenge in starting at new tracks was getting trainers to give him a shot at driving their horses.
“It’s like any other business, you have to know how to market yourself, have a little talent and lot of luck,” Morgan said. “I’ve been very fortunate.”
Two trainers Morgan had known when he raced in the Midwest, Tim Crissman and Josh Green, gave him a shot.
“He never had to market himself to me,” Green said. “I think a lot of people didn’t know how good he was.”
Crissman said he thinks other trainers were hesitant at first to take a chance on a new driver when they had long standing relationships with other drivers.
Morgan drove three races his first day at the track after moving and won them all. The next day he won three out of four.
“It didn’t take long after that” to get drives, he said.
Morgan said being a good student of racing and paying attention to each horse has a lot to do with his success.
“I try to learn something all the time,” he said. “You can always be a better horsemen and a better driver.”
With each horse being different, Morgan said it’s better to adapt to the horse rather than making the horse adapt to him.
For the most part it’s a confidence game. You try to instill confidence in a horse that they’re better than they are. If you can keep them confident, they’ll last a little bit longer than if they give up,” he said.
“He’s definitely aggressive,” Green said of Morgan’s racing. “He puts a horse in a position to win but he would never abuse a horse to win a race.”
Though winning races is the goal for Morgan, he said he doesn’t spend time thinking about records or standings.
“I know him as well as anyone here and I can say It doesn’t come up,” Crissman said.
Morgan said the racing has been “great all year,” and that has a lot to do with the horses he gets to drive.
“When you’re clients are doing good, your doing well,” he said. “As long as everything’s going well in they’re barn, life’s good.”
As for life after racing, Morgan’s not sure there is one for him.
“I think you die then. I think that’s it,” he says with a quick laugh. “The natural progression of most drivers is they drive until they can’t drive anymore and then they train colts or something. And I don’t know if that would be my cup of tea. I do want to get to a point financially where I’m not competitive anymore and I don’t have to do it to make a living.”
But for right now, Morgan’s fine just going day-to-day.