from the Meadowlands Publicity Department

East Rutherford, NJ — The Meadowlands Racetrack informed trainer Noel Daley on Friday that all of the horses in his care must race out of a secured stakes barn for 180 consecutive racing dates, starting with those entered to race on Thursday, April 21.

The action was taken as a result of the New Jersey Racing Commission’s findings that the Daley-trained Night Mystery, who won the third race on February 25, 2005 at the Meadowlands, “had a total carbon dioxide (TCO2) level which was equal to, or exceeded, the established regulatory level for TCO2, revealed as a result of a post-race blood gas test following that race.”

“The Meadowlands has had these procedures in effect for TCO2 and Class 1 and Class 2 positive tests since November of 2001,” said Meadowlands Vice President for Racing Operations Chris McErlean. “Every horseman signing a stall application for racing privileges at the Meadowlands receives a copy of the procedures and the full documentation (for Meadowlands Track Rules for Positive Tests) has been presented on our website.

“We have been consistent with the enforcement of this policy regarding all horsemen who race at the Meadowlands who fall under similar circumstances,” McErlean said. “Now that the positive test has been published as an official ruling by the NJRC, it triggers the implementation of our track rules.”

On Wednesday, the New Jersey Racing Commission issued a ruling, suspending Daley for 180 days and fining him $2,500 for the TCO2 positive with Night Mystery. It also ordered the disqualification of Night Mystery and the redistribution of the purse.

The suspension dates on the New Jersey Racing Commission ruling are April 21, 2005 through October 17, 2005. This was Daley’s second violation of the TCO2 regulations, commonly referred to as “milkshaking.”

All the Daley trained horses entered under his name will be required to be placed in a stakes barn at the Meadowlands Racetrack the night prior to the horse’s race. Daley will be subject to a $100 charge, per horse, for this procedure. There is no charge if a horse is part of a race in which all horses are required to be in a stakes barn.

“Arthur” finds his match in Ted Wing

Both 55-year-old driver Ted Wing and 11-year-old pacer Art Attack have a few aches and pains that come from years of hard racing.

But neither, apparently, has lost his competitive zeal.

Wing will be in the sulky when Art Attack goes to post for the 175th time in the fifth race, a conditioned pace with an $18,750 purse, on Saturday night at the Meadowlands.

Art Attack comes into the race with a win and a third in three starts this year. Lifetime, his record is 42 wins, 29 seconds and 20 thirds from 174 starts for earnings of $649,158.

For Maine-born Wing, the stats are equally impressive. He has 5,101 career wins and earnings in excess of $30 million.

Would either of these hard-hitting athletes know when to retire?

“Hey, maybe we’ll retire together,” Wing mused. “It is Art Attack who’s going to tell me. He’s not going to wind up in a $20,000 claimer or anything like that. He’s like Goliath. Look at him. He’s the most amazing physical specimen you’ll see. We’ve gotten along tremendous together. When I walk into the barn in the morning, he’s happy to see me, and I’m just as happy to see him.”

Wing, the 1978 driving champion at the Meadowlands, first claimed Art Attack when the horse was seven. That was for $50,000 and took place at the Meadowlands on Hambletonian Day, 2001.

“He won from last in 1:50.2 the day I claimed him,” Wing recalled. “I knew immediately that I had something. I gave him a week off, then trained him on the half-mile farm track. Bill O’Donnell was there watching. I got to the three-quarters in 1:37, and he came home in :26.2, (for a) mile in 2:03.2. And I was pulling him up the last 100 yards. I got off the bike and Billy looked at me in amazement and told me he’d never seen anything like that on a farm track. I knew for sure that he wasn’t a $50,000 claimer right then.”

Wing, a long time resident of Paramus, New Jersey, makes the daily journey 48 miles each way to Marveland Farms in Succasunna, New Jersey, to see “Arthur.”

“We call him that (Arthur); it just kind of caught on,” Wing explained. “He’s a big, goofy type horse to be around, and it kind of fit.”

But no one would confuse “Arthur” with a sweet, lovable pet.

“He can be a nasty and kicking son of a gun,” said Wing. “Sometimes when he races, I bring him back to the barn and cannot put him near other horses. In his last start at Freehold, I hit him once in the stretch, and he told me that was enough. He’s the type of horse who will allow you to get to his eye, then fight you off. I think in all the time I’ve had him, he must have won 35 to 40 races, but I don’t ever remember him winning by more than a length and a half or so. It’s a self-preservation thing. That is why he’s lasted so long.”

Art Attack is from the first crop of Artsplace and was a stakes competitor at two and three but did not distinguish himself and settled into low-level conditioned classes. At ages four through six, he raced in New Zealand.

In the fall of 2000, he was back in New Jersey, in the hands of trainer Peter Walsh, until Wing snatched him out of a claimer on August 4, 2001.

“He’s not going to anyone else,” Wing stated. “I put him in for $99,000, then $89,000 after I took him. Then, for the next year and a half, I took him out of claimers completely. On Hambletonian Day in 2003, I put him in for $140,000, and he beat Life Source. But that was the last time. He’s the most amazing horse I’ve ever been around. And this is the longest I’ve ever had a horse, going on four years come August.”

Since 2001, Art Attack has won at least nine races, averaged 35 starts and earned at least $100,000 each year.

“I gave him most of the winter off,” Wing noted. “It’s the first time since I’ve had him that he’s had an extended break. He’s only qualified for me two times in almost four years. At his age, you just don’t know how he’ll come back. He doesn’t like the hard winter tracks. For him, he loves it when it is hot, really hot. He makes the bulk of his money from July 15 through the end of the summer. That is his time.

“I’ve been claiming horses since 1964, but I’ve never had one like this,” Wing recalled. “I took Moe Collins for $40,000 and made about $250,000 with him. For Jewel’s Dream I paid $30,000 and got back about $300,000 before he was taken. Total Freight was a good one, too. I took him for $30,000; he won $120,000 the first year and $100,000 the second year before I lost him back. But Art Attack, he’s been really special. He made $60,000 the rest of the year for me in 2001, then $120,000 in 2002, $170,000 in 2003 and almost $120,000 last year. He’s allowed me to be independent, to not have to train a bunch of horses for someone else. In 1999, I made the decision I was going to do this on my own. A lot of people today claim in groups and partnerships, and it can be tough going up against that.”

It has been a while since Wing carried the workload of a busy catch driver, getting behind more than 1,000 horses each year. The last four years, he has driven in less than 100 races each year.

“I have a herniated disc that was reactivated when Escape Attack tipped me out of the bike at the Meadowlands last month,” Wing explained. “I couldn’t drive nightly, every night, but I do well fresh. Some have told me that you cannot compete against these kinds of drivers racing only a few times a week, but I told them I’d gladly take my chances. I do well fresh.”

When Art Attack retires from racing, Wing will make sure he has a good home and, possibly a second career as a stud.

“I’ve gotten some calls from people interested in standing him at stud,” he noted. “He’s bred great, and I think he’d do at a smaller state. The fact that he was not a top two or three-year-old hurts him as far as breeding. But a state like Florida or somewhere in New England would be ideal for him. I think he’d be a great candidate.”

Nicholas Jemas funeral set for Monday

Funeral services for Nicholas Jemas, a jockey for 20 years and executive director of the Jockeys’ Guild from 1967 through 1986, will take place at 12 noon Monday at St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church, 615 Mercer Street, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Jemas, 86, passed away on Thursday, April 14, 2005.

Viewing will be at the Church on Sunday from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations to the St. Thomas Greek Orthodox Church Home for the Aged in care of the Church.

Jemas’ son, James, is vice president of finance for the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority’s racing properties, Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands.

Correction to Sunday entries

The correct name of the fourth horse in the tenth race on April 17, 2005 is Miss Mackintush.