by Rich Fisher, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Rich Fisher

Trenton, NJ — Some folks may not have heard of Wind Surfer. If so, they have spent a long time not hearing about a horse who never had that one glorious, spotlight moment, but who has served his owners and trainer in an amazingly consistent manner for a decade.

“He’s been a good ole’ boy, that’s for sure,” said Kent Sherman, who trains the horse for his parents, Betty and Daryl Sherman.

The 12-year-old trotter reached a mild milestone on April 5, when he took the 10th race at Northfield Park for his 50th career victory. Coupled with 44 seconds and 40 thirds, Wind Surfer has hit the board in nearly half of his 277 starts and amassed career earnings of $946,612.

Asked if No. 50 had any particular meaning to him, Sherman chuckled.

JJ Zamaiko photo

Wind Surfer posted the 50th win of his racing career on April 5 at Northfield Park.

“Not particularly,” he said. “It’s a nice round number kind of thing. Quite frankly, give me the money first. I’ll take zero wins and the $900,000 any kind of day. But it’s a nice round number. My parents owned a few horses that won more than that, but they never had one that made this much money for them.”

With no foreseeable end in sight, Wind Surfer can hit the $1 million mark in 2018 if he can reach the $30,000 mark — which he has been done in recent campaigns — each of the next two years.

“That one we would celebrate a little bit, I think,” Sherman said.

If Wind Surfer were a baseball pitcher, he would be known as a compiler. The kind of guy that never had that Cy Young Award-type season, but just kept competing forever and put up impressive career numbers.

“He’s been very consistent,” Sherman said. “That’s been the key to making as much as he’s had. Super consistent. He’s slowed up a little bit here lately, but he was never quite the fastest horse. Obviously he’s won preferreds and opens at Yonkers and the Meadows and places like that. He was a very good horse, and he just keeps doing it. He just keeps on keeping on.”

Wind Surfer’s lifetime mark is 1:53.4 as a 4-year-old at the Meadows and his richest win was a $52,000 Open Trot at Yonkers Raceway in 2011. He finished second in the 2009 American-National Stakes and third in the 2009 Allerage Farms Open Trot.

The horse is not affected by his environment, having won at six different venues in four different states, including Northfield Park in Ohio, the Meadows and Harrah’s Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Yonkers in New York, and Freehold and the Meadowlands in New Jersey.

“He’s made most of his money on half-mile tracks because he’s so good gaited he doesn’t tend to speed up much on the bigger tracks,” Sherman said. “But he can go on anything.”

When it comes to a picking a favorite memory, Sherman simply refers to the horse himself and his overall body of work.

“If I had to pick one, probably the American-National, that’s going back a ways and he raced against good horses and did really well,” Sherman said. “But really, it’s the whole experience with him. He’s just kind of turned into almost a member of the family. My parents own him completely now (after former co-owner, Jim Koran, retired in 2014).

“When my kids were little they could ride on the jog cart with me with him. He’s just a really a pleasurable horse to have. He never won any super big race but he won a lot of nice ones, that’s for sure.”

The Shermans and Koran purchased Wind Surfer as a 3-year-old in the summer of 2008. The horse originally went through the sales ring for $72,000 at the 2008 Tattersalls January Select Sale and the Shermans did not want to go higher than $70,000.

“We initially didn’t get him at the sale; Perretti (Racing Stable) still owned him at the time,” said Sherman, who has a total of 18 horses stabled at Northfield Park. “They came back and said ‘If you’ll give us the 70 we’d like to sell him,’ because they didn’t think he was a Hambletonian horse, which he wasn’t. We were just looking for a nice horse, something young that could move forward, hit some stakes and things like that.”

They initially raced him in some New Jersey Sire Stakes at Freehold, where he had some success. And while he never became a Cover Boy kind of horse, Wind Surfer has maintained a low, steady burn ever since.

“He’s really been just a nice horse,” Sherman said. “Every year he knocks it out of the park — he’s a super nice horse to jog, to train and drive, and obviously I haven’t had any soundness issues because he’s still trucking out there.”

Indeed, Wind Surfer has never had any serious injury that has forced him to miss any time. He has only received the usual maintenance required to keep a horse racing.

“He’s on a pretty easy schedule during the week,” Sherman said. “I don’t give him extended breaks any more. I think with an older horse it can be harder to get him back to the races than it is for him to keep racing.”

Sherman said about the only thing that has changed with Wind Surfer since he first started racing, is that he has become more of a come-from-behind horse than a front-runner.

“When won his 50th he came from well off the pace,” the trainer said. “He’s kind of changed that a little. But he’s pretty versatile; he’s always had enough tactical gate speed. If you draw well you can leave but he doesn’t have to. He’s like the perfect work-a-day racehorse, he’ll do whatever you ask him.”

One thing that has never changed has been his attitude in the barn. Which is a good thing.

“Just fantastic,” Sherman said. “He’s just like a big kid. He wants to be petted, messed with. He’s super to jog and train. A 5-year-old kid could walk him around. He’s just really a nice animal.”

And he’s an animal who has no retirement pending. Sherman plans on racing him between 35 and 40 starts this year, all at Northfield Park. After that, it all depends on the horse’s mindset and ability.

“As long as he’ll be sound and able to do it we’ll just keep chugging along,” Sherman said. “He’s always been profitable and his attitude is great. There’s really been no particular reason to think about stopping. He’s a gelding, so nothing like that is going on. As long as he can be productive and happy and healthy, we’re going to keep doing it.”