Northeast trainer Scott Volk dies at age 73
Trainer Scott Volk, who primarily worked at Finger Lakes and Monmouth Park in a career spanning five decades, passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 2, from heart failure caused by a fall. He was 73.
Volk began his career as a groom at Finger Lakes in the 1970s before becoming a trainer, notching his first win with Lord Edmundo in a 1978 claiming race. He went on to run horses at dozens of tracks along the East Coast, earning 539 victories, including 10 stakes, and more than $9.5 million in purse money in 3,450 career starts.
Tom Volk, the longtime trainer’s son, remembers a childhood built squarely around the racing world. His father relocated from Finger Lakes to Monmouth in the late 1990s, when Tom was still in elementary school. Later in life, Tom helped his father tend to his horses when his health began to fail. Even then, his father insisted on mucking his own stalls.
“His famous words were ‘I am the groom. I'm still the groom,’ ” Volk’s son said. “This was his passion and you won't find many other guys like him, that want to get dirty and get in there and be a part of every horse's care.”
During his career, in which he took regular trips to Saratoga and Belmont Park, Volk made cherished connections with high-profile contemporaries. According to his son, the trainer especially admired D. Wayne Lukas, who referred to him as “the kid” and supported him early in his career.
During a brief stint training for owners Kenneth and Sarah Ramsey in 1998, Volk earned his first stakes victory when Fitz won the $50,000 Kentucky Cup Starter Handicap in a photo finish at Turfway Park. That same year, he got a taste of triumph at Saratoga when the Ramsey-owned horse Grim Reaper shipped from Kentucky to win a $39,000 allowance.
At Monmouth, Volk established a successful outfit and won eight stakes races between 2006 and 2011. Goombada Guska, a three-time stakes winner who earned more than $200,000 for Volk, shipped to New York in late 2010 and won the Cosmic Bob and Stymie during a successful winter campaign at Aqueduct.
In the late 2010s, Volk still maintained a small string of horses in New Jersey, including the gelding D’Marin, his favorite horse who raced for him from 2012 to 2017.
In 2019, he was rewarded for his determination when the mare Blank Paige sprung an 8-1 upset in the Eleven North Handicap, giving the trainer his first stakes victory in more than eight years.
This year, Volk took on his last project, guiding 4-year-old filly Park Avenue Betty to a maiden-claiming victory in her 11th start on Aug. 9. She was Volk’s last starter on Oct. 11, one final testament to the trainer’s lifelong dedication to the sport.
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