Trainer Rick Violette, who passionately and tirelessly fought for the rights of horsemen while maintaining a successful racing operation for decades, lost his battle with cancer Sunday. He was 65. Violette died at his home in Delray Beach, Fla., surrounded by family members. Violette was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2015, but it was in remission until this year. Last month, Violette was hospitalized with a stomach ailment. Violette, a native of Lowell, Mass., made the switch from show horses to racehorses in the late 1970s when he began working on the backstretch at Suffolk Downs. Violette won four races from 33 starters at Rockingham Park in 1977 and came to New York, where he worked as an assistant to David Whiteley before going out on his own in 1983. Over the last 35 years, Violette won 870 races from 5,499 starters, and his horses earned $44.5 million in purse money. Violette trained a bevy of stakes winners, including Diversify, who this year won the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes and Grade 2 Suburban and in 2017 won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup. Owner Ralph Evans said Sunday that Diversify has been turned out on Dr. Patty Hogan’s farm in New Jersey and won’t be brought back to the track until next spring. He has not decided who will train Diversify in 2019. Though he was an accomplished trainer, Violette’s biggest victories may have come for horsemen and the backstretch community at large as president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association from 2007 until last year. He served on the NYTHA board for 25 years and was chairman of the New York Jockey Injury Compensation Fund. During Violette’s tenure, NYTHA went from near bankruptcy to financially stable, to the point where in 2016 it contributed nearly $2 million to benevolence initiatives, donated more than $350,000 annually to equine aftercare initiatives, and increased contributions to scholarships for backstretch workers and their families and funding for backstretch recreation programs. Under Violette, NYTHA helped to reorganize and strengthen the Backstretch Employee Service Team (BEST) and was co-creator of Take2 and Take The Lead, programs that help to retrain horses for second careers or find homes for them in retirement. Violette fought to get horsemen’s share of the VLT revenue from the Aqueduct casino from 5.5 percent to 7.5 percent, which nets about $15 million annually for purses. Due to Violette’s hard work, NYTHA and the breeders have voting rights on the board of the New York Racing Association. “Today is a sad day for horsemen, backstretch workers, and horse racing in general,” Joe Appelbaum, who succeeded Violette as president of NYTHA, said in a release. “We have lost a leader. Rick Violette was one of a kind – smart, tenacious, and indefatigable. “His commitment to horse racing was unparalleled. From worker’s compensation to the racing program to the welfare of our workers, there was no area ontrack that Rick was not deeply involved in.” Andy Belfiore knew Violette for 37 years, first working for him as an exercise rider and then serving under him as NYTHA’s executive director, a position she still holds under Appelbaum. “You can go through the long list of all that Rick accomplished and still have no real sense of what he has meant to New York racing,” Belfiore said. “The total dedication, the battles he fought on behalf of the horsemen and the backstretch, the incredibly long hours put in behind the scenes, he gave it his all without expecting accolades or honors. He had incredible integrity, maybe too much candor, but you always knew where Rick stood on an issue. “Very few people have such courage of their convictions. I have known Rick pretty much my whole adult life. He was not only a tremendous horseman and a peerless advocate, but he was also a true friend who would literally do anything for the people he cared about. He had my back more times than I can count. I can't believe he is gone.” In addition to Diversify, Evans had other horses with Violette. Evans sent the 2-year-old Binary to Pat Kelly. Gary Gullo recently bought three horses from Evans, who said he has not decided to whom he will send his horses next year. Evans said Violette became like family. “I shared Rick with the owner and trainer community for these 25 years,” Evans said. “He was a busy man doing what he thought was best for the industry. As an owner, there were frequently times when he’d say, ‘Can I call you back? I’m in a meeting, I’m on a conference call,’ or what have you. For that, he deserved an immense amount of credit whether he was right or wrong, and occasionally I had to politely tell him when I thought he was wrong, which wasn’t often. “He had a splendid mind for what was going on in the business and truly had the owners’ and trainers’ best interests in mind.” Last summer at Saratoga, Violette was honored for his accomplishments by the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. At that event, Alan Foreman, the THA chairman, announced the creation of the Rick Violette Award, which Foreman said recognizes “contributions to racing similar to [Violette’s] as well as extraordinary contributions in the best interests of horsemen. The award will be national, open to those who work on the backstretch or front side of a racetrack, and may not be given out every year.” A service will be held for Violette on Thursday at a 11 a.m. at St. Vincent Ferrer Church, 840 George Bush Blvd, in Delray Beach, Fla. Plans will be made for a memorial service in New York at a later date. The family has requested in lieu of flowers donations be made to Take2 and BEST.