RIP John Forbes (1233 Views)
Posted by: TGJB (IP Logged)
Date: February 02, 2021 03:25PM

... who, among other things, came up with the term “bounce”, describing what it looked like on the sheet, back when I was still with Ragozin.

Dennis Heard and I were the ones who convinced John to move to Jersey from Maryland. King Leatherbury was training our string down there, we liked Maryland trainers, and asked King to give us the names of some good young ones who might consider moving to Jersey. He gave us three, John was one, we interviewed him at the Meadowlands. He showed up in a tan corduroy sport coat with patches on the elbows, looked like a preppie. We ended up hiring him, and he ended up winning about a hundred training titles in Jersey, and eventually being elected head of the horsemen’s group.

John trained for me later as well, after I started TG and was managing Ed Wachtel’s stable. We used two apprentices— Johnny V in NY, and a girl, Julie something, in Jersey. At the time she was going out with Steve Brown, one of John’s assistant trainers, the other being Pat McBurney.

I’ve worked with a lot of good trainers. As a pure horseman, John was as good or better than any of them. There was more correlation between what he said about a horse— getting better, ready to tail off, time to get out— than anyone else I ever worked with. He once told me he didn’t like the way a horse was standing when he took a piss in the test barn— and he was right, the horse had a problem that was surfacing.

RIP, John.



Subject Written By Posted
RIP John Forbes (1233 Views) TGJB 02/02/2021 03:25PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (799 Views) hellersorr 02/03/2021 11:51PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (883 Views) TGJB 02/04/2021 12:30AM
Re: RIP John Forbes (685 Views) portbay711 02/07/2021 05:09PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (637 Views) portbay711 02/07/2021 05:25PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (642 Views) portbay711 02/07/2021 05:32PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (670 Views) portbay711 02/07/2021 05:46PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (645 Views) shanahan 02/08/2021 06:09PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (644 Views) portbay711 02/08/2021 08:04PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (806 Views) P-Dub 02/08/2021 08:34PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (666 Views) richiebee 02/08/2021 10:40PM
Re: RIP John Forbes (576 Views) shanahan 02/09/2021 06:13PM


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