Couple Gallops to Racing Success at Assiniboia Downs

By Scott Taylor (@staylorsports)

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WINNIPEG — Carlos Moreno and his wife of 36 years, Maria Isabel, are quite convinced they made the right choice.

Last winter, while living and working Phoenix, they studied every racetrack in North America and even took time to visit a few around the United States. They wanted to find the perfect summer meet for their stable of quality horses.

In the end, they decided the best place to put together a small barn of competitive thoroughbreds was Winnipeg’s Assiniboia Downs and now, as their first full meet in Winnipeg is nearing the end, the Morenos insist that they’ll be back next year with a bigger barn and more high-quality horses.

Granted, Carlos and Maria Isabel have been incredibly successful this year. They started with a seven-horse barn, sold three, and now have four horses running at the Downs. However, next week they will welcome a two-year-old filly named Linda’s Map that they have very high hopes for. If their success continues, Linda’s Map just might be the filly to beat when the $50,000 Winnipeg Futurity goes to post on Sept. 17.

“Right now, she’s being taken of by Chip Woolley, who won the Kentucky Derby (2009),” said Carlos. “She’s a Kentucky-bred who has been in training for more than five months. She’s out of Liam’s Map and the first foal of Magdalena’s Moment by Harbor the Gold. We also have a foal out of Goldencents who will be here next year as a two-year-old. Every year, we’re going to bring good quality horses here.”

It says something about the people who power Assiniboia Downs, but listening to Carlos, one gets the sense the Morenos were in love with Assiniboia Downs long before they arrived.

“We were at Turf Paradise, living in Phoenix, and we met Kirt (Contois, the assistant race secretary at ASD) and Derek (Corbel, the director of racing) there,” he said. “We were looking at every single racetrack in the country to see where we might go after they decided to stop racing at Turf Paradise. We studied other racetracks and we really liked what we learned about Assiniboia Downs. We thought our horses maybe could do well there. We looked at the races they had and decided that it would be a good fit for us. So, I called a number for Derek that was listed on the website.

“I told Derek, ‘I would like to talk to you about filling out an application to bring our horses to Assiniboia,’ and he said, ‘That’s great, tomorrow we are going to be there at Turf Paradise.’ We met Kirt and Derek the next morning, they bought us breakfast and we had a good talk. They were so great! They made it so easy for us. They really take care of people. They did everything they could to facilitate how we could get here. They did everything they possibly could for us regarding all the international paperwork. They helped us with all the immigration details. They were very, very good to us. They made our life so easy to come here.

“Then we came here and suddenly we found some wonderful personalities here. In Phoenix and other places we had been in the States, people were always kind of rude. We went to different racetracks – Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia – we just didn’t like any of them. But we came here and people were so great to us. Everyone here is so nice.”

In return, Moreno brought some quality horses and has had a tremendous first year. With his small barn, he’s seventh in the trainers’ standings with nine wins, eight seconds and no third-place finishes in just 24 starts. He has won $127,864 and has an ASD-leading 38 percent winning percentage. He has finished in the Top 2 in 17 of 24 races. That’s unheard of.

His filly Zorina finished second in the Jack Hardy Stakes, second in the Chantilly Stakes and fourth in the Manitoba Oaks. When he had the Manitoba-bred No Show No Call in his barn, the colt won three times, including the Frank Arnason Sire Stakes. And Mr. Stang won a $50,000 stakes race on June 26 and then finished second on the R.J. Speers Memorial. Meanwhile, in non-stakes races, Ice Storm has two wins and three seconds.

The eldest of 22 children, Carlos has send 895 horse to post in his career and has a record 112-122-102 with career earnings of $1,246,134. He’s come a long way from the first time he visited the old track in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico.

“In 1964, my mother took me to Agua Caliente in Tijuana,” he recalled. “I had a neighbour who was a rider. After my mom took me the first time, he would take me every morning after that. I became very interested in horse racing. I had never been there. I was 10-years-old and I had never ridden horses before. But I fell in, love with horses and could never get away from them.”

He and Maria Isabel were running a large stable and living in San Diego when they moved to Seattle to race at Emerald Downs.

“We had race horses there for 18 years,” he explained. “We started to go back and forth to New York, to Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga until things just stopped going well with Emerald Downs and we just decided to fold it. We decided it was not for us and I retired from racing for four years. I didn’t train, just ran my company, an environmental consulting business, which does business with the United States Department of Defence. We had a contract with them so we did pretty good. I was able to play golf three or four times a week.”

Golf, as well as boxing, have always been a big part of Moreno’s sporting life.

“In the early 2000s, some people approached me to turn professional, to become a golf professional, but I said, ‘No,’ I just didn’t want to go,” he said. “I was a boxer before that and then I became a boxing trainer. I trained my brother, he was a terrific fighter. But through it all, we always had horses. We started buying them in 1995 and still do today.”

He credits Maria Isabel with being the foundation of the Moreno racing business.

“I’m so lucky that I have my wife of 36 years here to support me and work with me,” he said. “She comes with me everywhere with the horses and she helps buy horses. She is very important to any success we have.”

While Moreno is seventh in the trainers’ race, Lee Delaronde continues to lead the standings. Delaronde now has 25 wins, 24 seconds and 13 thirds with $296,284 in winnings in 163 starts. Michael Nault is second with 17 wins while Devon Gittens is third with 16.

On the jockey side, former champion Prayven Badrie has run away from the field. Badrie has 37 wins, 25 seconds and 21 third-place finishes and a total of $434,177 in earnings in 133 starts. Antonio Whitehall and Damario Bynoe are tied for second. Whitehall has 29 wins, 24 seconds and 25 thirds to go with $342,869 in winnings in 159 starts while Bynoe has 29 wins, 22 seconds and 22 third-place finishes in 140 starts and has accumulated $328,016 for his owners.

Racing continues on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Assiniboia Downs. Post time for Race 1 is always 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit ASDowns.com.