Schosberg planning to retire but will remain a presence
Though he will retire from training horses at the end of the year, Richard Schosberg still plans to be a fixture on the backstretch of New York Racing Association tracks in his many behind-the-scenes roles helping horsemen and with Thoroughbred aftercare.
“I’m going to be on the backstretch. I’m not disappearing,” Schosberg, whose retirement from training at year’s end was first reported Thursday by Blood Horse, said Friday morning at his barn.
Schosberg, 60, has trained horses since the late 1980s, winning his first race at Belmont Park on Sept. 4, 1988 with Three Chopt Road. He is best known as the trainer of Affirmed Success, a three-time Grade 1 winner who won 10 stakes overall and earned $2.2 million, and Maria’s Mon, the 2-year-old champion of 1995.
Other top horses trained by Schosberg include Grade 1 winners As Indicated and Mossflower as well as graded winners Pentatonic and Giant Moon.
Entering Friday, Schosberg had won 870 races from 5,773 starters and his horses have earned nearly $38 million in purses. Among the more impactful owners in his career were Lloyd Bensen, who raced under Heatherwood Farm, Al Fried, Viven Malloy’s Edition Farm, and, more recently, Michael Sternklar, who founded Clear Stars Stable. The latter is part-owner of Bossmakinbossmoves, a New York-bred 3-year-old who won the Albany Stakes at Saratoga in August and who is entered in an allowance race Sunday at Aqueduct.
“The labor costs are very high and it’s just gotten to the point where I could use my time more efficiently,” Schosberg said. “I’ve had a great career. I’ve had a limited number of horses but I’ve had a lot of really good horses and a lot of tremendous owners and support along the way.”
Schosberg said his stable is down to about 15 horses and he plans to be very much involved in transitioning those horses to other trainers at year’s end.
Schosberg said several factors led to him determining this was the time to stop training, including the difficulties of making money in the game, his responsibilities with the ever-expanding Thoroughbred aftercare programs, and his responsibilities with a family commercial real estate business.
“The time involved with running a racing stable here in New York, it got so consuming and there are other responsibilities in other parts of my life that required my attention,” said Schosberg, who sits on the board of Marx Realty, a Manhattan-based commercial real estate company that was started by his grandfather.
Schosberg also is vice president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and president of Take 2 Second Career Thoroughbred Program and Take the Lead, aftercare programs that help transition, retrain, and rehome retired Thoroughbreds for a second career.
“I’m really intertwined with aftercare at pretty much every level and I want to remain as such and that does take up a lot of time also,” Schosberg said.
Schosberg has also been part of FOX’s America's Day at the Races programs, which broadcasts NYRA’s races on a daily basis, and hopes to become more involved in that aspect of the sport.
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