Veteran Trainer Smith Back On 'Line'

Trainer Andrew Smith never gave up on horse racing, even when horse racing seemed to have given up on him. Smith, a small-time trainer at Woodbine, is enjoying a renaissance in his career, which has spanned more than 30 years and has seen him struggle at times. Those struggles have taken a toll on his business and his personal life. He left the industry twice, including as recently as 2015 when he went to work doing maintenance at a Standardbred farm. In both cases, he was drawn back to the game because he stubbornly refused to let go and, in the most recent example, the veteran trainer was able to capitalize on a lucky opportunity.

With Woodbine's 133-day season ending Sunday, Smith has turned back the clock to a time when he carved out a modest living. He surpassed more than $200,000 in season earnings three times between 2005 and 2009 and eclipsed $100,000 in the other two years. He has passed the $200,000 mark again and won his first stakes race since 2008.

After starting out the season with six horses, his stable expanded to 14, one of whom, the 2-year-old Sovereign Award-contending filly Line of Vision (Court Vision) owned by Joe Guerrieri, has won two stakes events. That doubled the number of stakes Smith had previously won in all of his years training.

“It's a new lease–I'm absolutely lucky,” Smith said. “Some of it is because I'm stubborn. I'm persistent. I just don't go away. I keep at it. I don't throw up my hands and say, 'Screw it, I'm done.' As soon as you're out, you're out. That's where the luck comes in.”

After apprenticing as the assistant to veteran trainer Glenn Magnusson, whose strength was developing 2-year-olds, Smith struck out on his own in the late 80s. But by 1999, his stable had fallen on hard times, his 25-year marriage collapsed and he was deep in debt. Smith headed off to Australia to find himself, and although the trip lasted three months, he knew after two weeks he wanted to be back in the business and returned to work as an assistant trainer to Josie Carroll. Two years later, Smith started back on his own and business started to pick up with that solid five-year run.

Yet it was circumstances out of Smith's control that triggered another downward spiral–this time as a result of the near collapse of the Ontario horse racing industry when the provincial government opted to scrap the lucrative Slots at Racetracks Program. Many small-time breeders–the kind who supported trainers such as Smith–left the industry because they were already struggling to make ends meet.

Between 2013 and 2015, Smith sent out only 37 starters and had just one winner. His collective purse earnings totaled about $85,000. He sold the last of his two cheap horses and went to work at the Standardbred farm to collect a regular paycheck, not knowing if he'd come back to the track to train–although in his heart, Smith said the desire never truly died.

“If you really have the passion for the horses and you find it a challenge, you should continue,” Smith said. “The opportunities do come along. A good horse will come eventually.”

As fate would have it, a call “out of the blue” in the summer of 2016 from a former jockey who had ridden for Smith many times led to an opportunity training horses at a farm purchased by Guerrieri. The 60-year-old began in the sport as a hotwalker in the early '70s and became involved as owner in later years with some claimers. Beginning in 2011, Guerrieri switched his focus to buying yearlings and partnered with Aldo Ventresca. They bought a yearling for a mere $4,500 and named him Black Hornet (Pioneering). Racing under the stable name Joey Gee Thoroughbreds, Guerrieri has enjoyed great success the horse, now a 7-year-old multiple stakes-winning gelding who has won almost $600,000 for trainer and partner Pat Parente.

When Guerrieri decided to get into the horse business as a “full-time hobby,” he built a complete stable of racehorses, broodmares and young horses totaling about 50 and decided to employ a full-time staff at his newly christened Winview Farms. Smith, who had previous experience prepping horses for the racetrack on farms, was hired as the manager to train his horses and others who were stabled there by clients.

Smith accompanied Guerrieri to the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Premier Select Sale in the fall of 2016. Guerrieri had horses consigned to the sale as a breeder, but also had interest in buying horses. Along with Smith, they looked at a variety of prospects, narrowed them down after vetting them out, but ultimately came away with only one after they were outbid on others. That one, of course, was Line of Vision, who appealed to Guerrieri because he'd owned her half-brother, while Smith liked the horse's conformation.

With most of the stock shipped out to the track in 2017 for winter training with Marty Drexler and Katerina Vassilieva at Woodbine and little work for Smith to do on the farm, Guerrieri decided to give him six claimers–one of which, Blutarsky (Shakespeare), found the winner's circle on opening day in April.

“The farm is the secret sauce,” said Guerrieri, who also owns 2017 Breeders' S. winner and GI Hollywood Derby runner-up Channel Maker (English Channel) in partnership with Gary Barber and Wachtel Stable. “Without the farm, I don't think we would have been able to have the success, and all the racetrack does is allow Andrew to finish what he started. Because Andrew had been through the mill, he just understood the value of being part of a team as opposed to being an individual dictator.”

Guerrieri's confidence in Smith grew, and when some of the 2-year-olds were ready to go to the track, the owner decided to send them Smith's way. Their success escalated in the fall, beginning in October with a victory by Line of Vision in the Victorian Queen S. It represented Smith's first stakes win since 2008 with Becky Sharp (Favorite Trick), a filly who banked $364,586–the most of any horse Smith trained.

Smith will end the 2017 season with 14 head in his barn and an active role in the oversight of training back at the farm.

“Joe's got some good horses in the barn,” Smith said. “Having the opportunity to have good horses makes all the difference in the world. They say a good horse is dangerous in anybody's hands.”

Guerrieri took a step back to appreciate the journey that landed Smith with a key role in his operation.

“Initially he was just filling a role that I had plotted out, so it's really something that he earned, and I just didn't put in there,” said Guerrieri. “It's there now through his level of experience and attention to detail, which is hard to find in this industry.”

Likewise, Smith is proud of grinding it out with lesser stock that arguably requires more horsemanship.

“It doesn't give you accolades or anything like that, but it gives you satisfaction and that's why I'm in the business,” he said. “It's not to make money or anything like that. You've got to make a living, but it's working with the horses and it's a challenge. When you get it right you get the satisfaction from it. It doesn't matter whether the horse is a cheap claimer or a stakes horse. I never lost faith in myself in the horsemanship end of it.”

The odds of the only yearling they bought making it to the races, winning and becoming a multiple stakes winner and a Sovereign Award contender are steep, leading Smith to adopt a philosophical perspective about this latest stage of his career.

“Some guys they have a good horse and then they get back to their level, which is what I did, and others get fed up or discouraged and strictly find it financially impossible to stay in the business,” Smith said. “The idea [this time around] was to back off a little bit and do something different and get back in with a couple of my own. I knew I'd be back in the business. This opportunity presented itself and it's worked out well. I always knew I could do this, but it's hard to prove it to anybody. It's hard to show people if you don't have the stock–it doesn't matter who you are.”

Smith has walked many shed rows and put his hands on many horses waiting for that one big break. It only took 30 years.