by David Mattia, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

New Brunswick, NJ — Ten years have passed since Malabar Man and his amateur driver Mal Burroughs found an opening and came up the rail against a tiring Bowlin For Dollars (Trond Smedshammer) and emerged victorious in the 1997 Hambletonian.

“When I saw that opening I knew I had a chance to win, but I wasn’t sure I was going to win,” said Burroughs. “It was my strategy to sit behind Trond because I knew his horse had a tendency to drift out. When there was just enough room, Malabar Man thrust himself through that opening. I yelled at him a little, but he was overpowering anyway. I had never before felt such a surge of strength from a horse.”

Currently Mal Burroughs is having a little surge of strength himself, and he’s doing a great job of recovering from bypass surgery. He regrets that he will miss this year’s Hambletonian, but it can be said in Burroughs’ case that in the 1997 Hambletonian both the horse and the driver had a lot of heart.

Ten years have passed since Mal Burroughs drove Malabar Man to Hambletonian glory.

“This isn’t my first time with heart surgery,” recalled Burroughs. “I had five bypass surgeries in 1996 and that was before I even sat behind Malabar Man.”

Malabar Man retired at the end of 1997 with a record of 26 wins in 31 starts and a hefty bankroll of $2,143,903, and in 1997 he was awarded the Dan Patch Award as Horse of the Year.

“He was always a pretty horse and he was also a very smart horse,” noted Burroughs. “He could be tough but he never was nasty. He had a beautiful eye — a pretty eye, and he had a great way of carrying himself like a champion even before he was a champion.”

During the height of his fame, and just prior to the Hambletonian, Burroughs tells an unusual tale about how he coped with the media attention.

“We hid Malabar Man before the Hambletonian. Everybody was following us around, and on top of that the Italian racing people wanted us to race in the Orsi Mangelli in Milan, Italy. We didn’t want the horse to deal with all the pressure so we hid him down at a farm in Jobstown, New Jersey. He wasn’t a skittish or nervous horse but we felt it was better to keep him away from all that strain.”

Malabar Man was foaled on March 1, 1994 in Flemington, New Jersey. He was sired by Supergill, and was the first foal from the Meadow Road mare Lady Love McBur. The existence of Malabar Man was brought about by a series of intelligent and thoughtful decisions that Burroughs made when he was first starting out as an amateur driver.

“I was getting involved in the Billings amateur driving thing and I needed a horse to drive so I went to a sale, and with the help of a great horseman by the name of Greg McDonald, I bought a horse named Fickle Yankee. I drove her for a few years and she set a world record on the five-eighths-mile track at Freestate Raceway. She trotted that day in 1:57.4 and soon after I retired her. I bred her to Meadow Road because I loved the cross and I got a filly I named Lady Love McBur.”

“Jimmy (Takter) trained Lady Love McBur down but she got hurt along the way so I started looking for a stallion to breed her to,” recalls Burroughs. “After a lot of research into bloodlines and crosses I found Supergill and the rest is history. He was born at four in the morning — I remember that.”

Conny Svensson trained Malabar Man as a 2-year-old, and he first qualified at The Meadowlands on June 26, 1996. He won that qualifier in 2:04.2, and his :28.4 solid last quarter turned a few heads.

USTA/Ed Keys photos

Malabar Man and Mal Burroughs were 1:55 winners in the Hambletonian final.

Unlike his owner and driver, Malabar Man soon relinquished his “amateur status.” He began his for-profit career on July 14, 1996 in a New Jersey Fair Stake with Mal Burroughs in the bike. He won that debut in a leisurely 2:07.3. He came back to Showplace for the New Jersey Fair Stakes three more consecutive times and he won them all. His best time was a neck win in 2:00.2.

“He just kept getting better and better and it was a great experience for me as an amateur driver,” said Burroughs.

When asked why he always maintained his status as an amateur despite being a Hambletonian winning driver, Burroughs was quite emphatic and realistic.

“I stayed an amateur because I am an amateur. I work in the construction business. I don’t think I should go around ranking myself with guys like John Campbell and Mike Lachance. It wouldn’t be the right thing to do. Some guys have yachts and airplanes and I have trotters.

“I’m a builder (his company built The Meadowlands Racetrack) and my interest in the business has always been that of an amateur. Fortunately I had the money to maintain horses like Malabar Man because it’s not easy to support a horse all the way to any major stake race. That’s why today you see a lot of partnerships forming and I think that makes a lot of sense. Surely you can’t buy your way into winning the Hambletonian but you have to have the money to get the horse there in the first place.”

Of course Malabar Man won more than just the Hambletonian, and his American accomplishments are legendary, but not many people know that Malabar Man’s career was burdened with rumors of him moving to Italy, or racing in Italy, or breeding in Italy.

Burroughs was having a hard time dodging the Italian connection and he finally relented.

“I eventually gave in to the Italians and I raced him in Milan. He won the Orsi Mangelli and I am pretty sure that he is the only colt who has won the Hambletonian and the Orsi Mangelli. That race is essentially the European edition of our great race. After that, the Italians were always trying to buy him for stud duties but that wasn’t on my mind at the time.”

Burroughs continued on with reverence for his fine horse.

“Currently he is standing at Winbak Farm in New York,” said Burroughs. “He’s getting on in age and he’s had some fertility problems but to look at him you’d think he could go right out there tomorrow and race against Donato Hanover.

“Malabar Man always gave me 100 percent and you know, I never hit him with the whip in any of his starts. I rubbed the whip on his tail a few times but I never touched him.”

Burroughs may never have touched Malabar Man but it’s quite obvious that Malabar Man has touched this incredibly thoughtful and intelligent man, and we can’t help but wish him well as he makes his recovery.

Mal Burroughs brought a lot of excitement into the world of trotting and he is, in essence, the kind of person who does more than participate in harness racing, he literally creates it.