BY SARAH WELK BAYNUM
Thomas Sweeney has had what he calls a “wild ride” in the racing industry.
While none of Sweeney’s family were in the racing industry, they were racing fans.
“My dad was a big racing fan, so I was dragged along with my parents to the racetrack. I was probably three years old when I went to my first race,” Sweeney said.
In the early 1970s, when Sweeney was in his mid-20s, he decided to get into the racing business in his native Northern California.
“The first horse I bought was Balcour. He was a maiden and in his third start for us, he won his first race. Shortly after that, I bought my first yearling at a sale and she was a pretty talented filly named Fortunata. There were going to be a lot of expenses before she got a chance to earn any money, so I grabbed a bunch of my old high school buddies to go in on the horse with me,” Sweeney said.
Then, Sweeney decided to become even more involved in the racing industry as a bloodstock agent.
“I became obsessed with pedigrees and I had clients that would hire me to find horses with good pedigrees to purchase. That led to me consigning horses at the sales throughout the 1970s. In 1980, a trainer I was friends with, Walter Green, wanted to move to Southern California which was big-time racing at tracks like Santa Anita, Hollywood and Del Mar. I made the move at about the same time he did,” Sweeney said.
While watching television one day, Sweeney discovered a show called The Winners Circle, which propelled his career even further.
“I was mesmerized by it. Racetracks like Belmont, Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Arlington, etc. sent the show a tape of their pick six races. The fellow that owned the show was named Tom Hammond. I contacted him and set up a meeting and we came to an agreement that if I could find a television station in Los Angeles, that he would put the show together on tape and leave three commercial spots empty. He would then send the tape to me, and I would find advertisers in California. The show became very popular and people would see me on the show and then they’d see me at the track and introduce themselves,” Sweeney said.
While talking to an agent friend in Washington state, Sweeney heard of a very fast 2-year-old who had broken the world record for five furlongs in his second start.
“He was telling me about this horse, Chinook Pass, and I asked if there any way that this horse could run in Southern California. He told me I think this horse could run anywhere.” Sweeney said.
Chinook Pass went to California and Sweeney became the horse’s manager since the owner was in his 80s and in poor health.
Chinook Pass – ©Four Footed Fotos
“Chinook’s trainer, Bud Klokstad, came down from Washington. Bud was the leading trainer in Washington at the time. To this day, I’ve never seen a horse that broke this fast out of the gate. He would just go right to the lead and the race was over. The [Los Angeles] Herald Examiner did an interview with me once, and the interviewer called him the fastest horse that ever walked on the planet,” Sweeney said.
It was Chinook Pass that was a defining moment in Sweeneys’ racing career. While a planned match race unfortunately never took place due to injuries, it took Sweeney on quite the adventure.
“Chinook was challenged by a guy who owned a quarter horse for a million-dollar match race to just the two of them going a quarter of a mile. It ended up with us at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and with Coca-Cola and Budweiser wanting to sponsor it. In between all of this, the Queen of England invited us to run in a match race against her champion sprinter at that time. Chinook Pass won the Eclipse Award as a champion sprinter and was named Washington-bred horse of the century,” Sweeney said.
During the 1980s, Sweeney put together an All-Star jockey series, bringing the top riders from Europe to compete against America’s top riders.
“In around 2007, one of my clients in California bought some property here in Ocala. He offered me a ridiculous amount of money to come here and build out the farm. So, I took him up on it,” Sweeney said.
Since then, he has continued his career in Florida, even teaching classes about racetracks for a few years at Marion Technical College.
“Since I’ve been here, I have raced almost exclusively all Florida-breds. The Florida-breds I’ve had the last several years I’ve always nominated to the Florida Sire Stakes. If you run in a particular race at Gulfstream, for instance, the prize money may be $35,000, and $5,000 – $8,000 of it goes to the winner if it’s a Florida-bred. If it’s not a Florida-bred, and you win the race, the prize money is going to be considerably smaller. If you’re going to race in Florida, it is crazy to not have Florida-breds.” Sweeney concluded.
