Bob Klesaris dabbling in training again

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – On Friday, at Aqueduct, Bob Klesaris will start his first horse as a trainer in 11 years. Just don’t call it a comeback.

“I’m just passing the time,” Klesaris said Wednesday.

Klesaris is the trainer of One More Tom, entered in a $40,000 claiming race for horses who haven’t won two races. The one-mile race goes as the seventh on Friday’s nine-race card.

One More Tom had been entered to run in New York under trainer Rick Sillaman’s name, but was scratched when a scheduled turf race did not come off the grass. He is one of two horses Klesaris has in his care.

“I haven’t been involved with the horse that long, just two weeks,” said Klesaris, who has stalls in New York. “This is going to be real simple, small, and quiet. I’m not going to get crazy like before.”

Klesaris, 65, won 2,236 races as a trainer during a career that began in 1976 and ended on Oct. 20, 2007 when Crispy Cat won a maiden claiming race at the Meadowlands. During his career, Klesaris won graded stakes with the likes of Parochial, Passing Ships, Vinnie the Viper, Holy Mountain, and Hilby’s Brite Flite.

“I won my very first two starts as a trainer at Narragansett Park and I won my very last and a whole lot of [stuff] in between,” Klesaris said.

Since quitting training, Klesaris has worked as a jockey agent for the likes of Rosie Napravnik and, for the last six years, Edgar Prado.

Prado, who spends most of the year in Maryland, opted to ride in Florida this winter and Klesaris didn’t want to go. So, he opted to train a few horses. Klesaris has two horses.

“I’ve had people ask me [to train] over the years,” he said. “I never really looked at it seriously. Basically, I’m just going to do it for the winter and just go real easy. Just a couple of horses. I don’t see it mushrooming into anything big.”

One More Tom will break from the outside post in this 11-horse field for his first start since being claimed for $30,000 on Oct. 13.

Klesaris doesn’t know what will happen come spring time. For now, he’s just back doing what he did for more than three decades.

“It’s kind of like you never left, really,” he said.