from the Meadowlands Publicity Department

East Rutherford, NJ — Special Report rebounded from foot and knee injuries to become harness racing’s newest millionaire last week. On Saturday night, May 17, he will try to continue his rise to the top of the pacing ranks in the $284,000 Graduate Final at the Meadowlands.

Special Report is the 9-2 third choice on the morning line from post nine in the Graduate, which is slated as race eight. Driver-trainer Larry Stalbaum will be in the sulky behind him. The Graduate shares the spotlight with the $200,000 Arthur J. Cutler Memorial for older trotters.

Since entering their barn in October 2006, Special Report has been a project of patience for Stalbaum and Kim Asher, his wife and training partner. Stalbaum purchased the gelding from veteran Michigan horseman Jack Cobb at the end of his 4-year-old season for Hugo Iodice. Cobb paid $10,000 for Special Report as a yearling and campaigned him to more than $200,000 in earnings.

“I tried to buy Special Report from the time he was 2, but he wouldn’t even price him,” Stalbaum said. “Then, after his 4-year-old season, he priced him at $100,000. I told him that was fine and we would take him. Actually, I talked to him yesterday and he has another one he thought I might be interested in. I never haggle over the price.”

Special Report won 10 of his next 19 starts for Stalbaum, but was plagued by a bone chip that ultimately caught up with him in the $239,700 Molson Pace Final on June 1, 2007 at Western Fair Raceway in Canada.

“When we bought Special Report we actually didn’t vet him out and we found he had a chip in his left front knee,” Stalbaum said. “He was a little sore and after we raced him a little, we had him x-rayed. He raced okay, but Dr Riddle (Dr. Thomas Riddle of the Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Ky.) said this chip was just sitting there and had to come out. When he came back from Canada after finishing sixth in the Molson Pace at Western Fair he just wasn’t the same. So we stopped with him and he had the surgery. He had six months off and came back in December (2007).”

During the time Special Report was sidelined, Stalbaum and Asher moved their stable from Monticello Raceway to the Meadowlands backstretch. They targeted the 2008 Presidential Series in January as the first stakes goal for Special Report and he proved up to the task, winning two preliminary rounds of the series. Special Report was a close third in the $126,500 Presidential Final, won by Mr Feelgood on January 26. Stalbaum then shipped Special Report to Pompano Park in Florida for the Isle Of Capri Series, where he finished second in both legs and the $267,000 final.

However, another minor injury came to the surface at Yonkers last month. Special Report won the $50,000 opening leg of the six-week Levy Series on March 29, but was a disappointing fourth in the second round. Stalbaum’s suspicion that a pus pocket had formed in the gelding’s hoof was confirmed.

“His other problem was when he came back from Florida this winter,” Stalbaum said. “He had a high white count in his blood. He scoped clean, I thought it was an infection in his foot (a pus pocket), and sure enough he eventually had blown it out in two different spots. He would race well and when he finished fourth in the Levy Series (on April 5), he stopped on the lead. That’s not him. The night he finally blew it out (the abscess came through and drained) was when he lost by a nose (on April 19). He should have won.”

With his hoof now healed, Special Report won his next two starts and surpassed the million-dollar mark in earnings in the $390,000 Levy Final on May 3.

“In the Levy Series he was so consistent, but it doesn’t really matter what kind of track he races on,” Stalbaum said. “He’ll just do anything you ask him to do and he tries so hard. With as much speed and ability that he has it’s his manners that separate him from a lot of simply fast horses. You can leave with him every week in :26 seconds and next week take him off the gate with two fingers.

“This Graduate field has a lot of horses that have done great things in the past and maybe some are going the other way right now,” he continued. “Even the 4-year-olds haven’t come all the way to the surface and we haven’t got any real shining stars right now, so far anyway. (Divisional champion) Mister Big qualified again this week because he wasn’t good qualifying last week. I was in with him and he fell short down the lane. It’s still the top class, but there isn’t anybody stepping up to the plate yet to go in 1:48 every week yet.”

Special Report represents the culmination of 25 years of hard work in the business that has taken Stalbaum all over the racing map, from grind-it-out stops in Ohio, California, Michigan and Canada, to the bright lights of the Meadowlands.

“He’s a horse of a lifetime for us,” he said. “Once you get a horse like Special Report you’re in constant search for another one. I’m not that old, and I can remember racing for $800 purses in Muskegon and I was always happy. I raced at all the cheap places and I survived. I raced at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Thirteen-sixteenths of a mile starting out of a chute. It would be 40 below zero and the wind would howl. There was a ticker on the television screen there that said, ‘Beware exposed skin will freeze in five minutes.’ Now we’re playing at the top and it changes your whole perspective.”

Stalbaum, 44, grew up on a farm in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he helped care for the family’s horses. His father, a steel mill worker, was a racing enthusiast and Larry would often accompany him to the track.

“He loved the horses and took me to all the Chicago tracks: Hawthorne, Washington Park, Arlington,” he said. “As soon as I graduated from high school I went to work for trainers. I’ve never done anything else.

“I spent a lot of time in Michigan and I consider it home,” he continued. “I went to California for four years and loved it out there. I stopped going when they quit racing at Los Alamitos. I would come back east and race at Raceway Park in Toledo, Ohio. I got to spend a few months with my older son who lives there and I’d buy up some new horses. I’ve gotten a lot of good horses from that area and Michigan. It’s supported me my entire life.”

Stalbaum and Asher have four young children, which has made putting roots down a necessity. Last month they moved their stable to Mark Ford’s training center in Middletown, N.Y.

“I really don’t know where we’re going to settle,” he said. “We’re really cutting down and selling a lot of our bottom-end horses. We want to try to race only a handful this summer and not travel all over the place. We’re in the process of buying some promising 3-year-olds, and, of course, we want to concentrate on Special Report.

“We race a lot at Pocono Downs and we got on the Pennsylvania insurance program,” he continued. “That means a lot when you have five kids and four are quite young. The four young ones go to a private Montessori school near the Delaware River and Kim drives them every morning.”

Here is the complete field for the Graduate:

HN, PP, Horse, Driver, Trainer, Odds
1, 6, Total Truth, Brian Sears, George Teague, Jr., 5-1
1A, 9, Southwind Lynx, Yannick Gingras, George Teague, Jr., 5-1
2, 7, Western Shore, Jody Jamieson, Erv Miller, 7-2
2A, 11, Mr Feelgood, Andy Miller, Jimmy Takter, 7-2
3, 1, Won The West, Greg Grismore, Mickey Burke, 15-1
4, 2, Artist’s View, George Brennan, George Sholty, 8-1
5, 3, Spin Rate, Ron Pierce, Ken Rucker, 10-1
6, 4, Forensic Z Tam, Daniel Dube, Patrick Lachance, 15-1
7, 5, Artistic Fella, Tim Tetrick, Steve Elliott, 5-2
8, 8, Mypanmar, David Miller, Virgil Morgan, Jr., 8-1
9, 10, Special Report, Larry Stalbaum, Kim Asher, 9-2