For John Mazza, 82 is Just a Number

[Wandering Eyes]

He gets up every morning every day at 4 a.m. and tends to the horses at both his Monmouth Park barn and at Holly Crest Farm, a New Jersey breeder that he has been associated with for nearly 60 years. When he was seven, his family bought a cow farm in Wayside, New Jersey and converted it to a horse farm. Everyone in the family had to pitch in, so 7-year-old John Mazza was put to work. Seventy-five years later, he’s still at it.

Starting off as an assistant to trainer Joe Kulina in the 1950s, John Mazza, 82, started training on his own in the 70s and is as much a part of Monmouth Park as the ocean breeze. He’s been there since the track opened in 1956.

“Guys like John, they are lifers,” said Bob Kulina, Joe Kulina’s son and the former president of Monmouth Park.

There are others like Mazza. Good, dedicated horsemen, guys who stick around forever, but ones who never get much acclaim or have deep-pocketed owners sending them the types of horses with the potential to win at racing’s highest level. Mazza did enjoy a taste of success when he won the 1992 GI Hopeful with Great Navigator, but 27 years later and at an age when most people wouldn’t have nearly the energy to do what he does, he was still waiting for the next star to come along.

It looks like the wait may be over.

New Jersey-bred Horologist (Gemologist) won’t be the favorite in the GI Cotillion S. Saturday at Parx, but she is a serious contender. Once a filly that looked to be just an above-average Jersey-bred, she defeated Eclipse Award winner Jaywalk (Cross Traffic) last time out in the GIII Monmouth Oaks and has won four straight races.

“I liked this horse from the start because I could see she had a lot of heart,” Mazza said. “She’s game, she’ll fight another horse. When I ran her the first time, I thought she’d run well because she had showed me a little bit of talent here and there. But she was growing. She was a young horse.”

Horologist exceeded the expectations of Mazza and owner Cameron Beatty when she broke her maiden by 20 3/4 lengths. But the Beyer number was just a 63 and with the New Jersey-bred program so depleted, the quality of the horses she beat was suspect. Whatever enthusiasm she generated that day waned when she lost her next five starts.

But she turned a corner winning an allowance race at Gulfstream in March and hasn’t looked back since. Kulina said not all trainers could have done what Mazza has done.

“Guys like John, when they get a horse that has some sort of ability they have to get the most out of them,” Kulina said. “There aren’t enough opportunities for really good horsemen who aren’t maybe your salesmen or promoters that are so prominent in the game today. There are a lot of guys who take good physical care of the horses and maximize the horse’s ability, sometimes more than the guys who get the $1 million yearlings given to them. People like John, when they get a chance with a good horse they can’t afford to make a mistake. They can’t hurt them. They have to protect them.”

“I took my time with her,” Mazza said. “She never had any problems, but I wanted her to grow more and she did. Sometimes, there has been a long time between her races, but she runs better fresh. The Beyer numbers go way up when she runs fresh. I took my time and the owner let me do that. That’s the way you’re supposed to do it. That’s what I learned from Joe Kulina.”

Mazza is a product of a different time in racing, when it was less corporate and competitive, a friendlier environment. He has no enemies, knows everyone on the backstretch at Monmouth and no one has a bad word to say about him. Most everyone at Monmouth Park will be rooting for him Saturday.

“John is from the old school, where everybody on the backside is part of his family,” Kulina said.

Kulina says that with or without Horologist, Mazza is the type who will keep training until he is no longer physically able to do so.

“With most horsemen, racing gets in your blood and you’re in it for life,” Kulina said. “Very few trainers, as long as they are physically able to continue, walk away. As long as he can get up in the morning and still go out, he’s going to do that until he can’t do it anymore.”

But most trainers, when they get to Mazza’s age, have only a handful of horses and their old owners gave up on them a long time ago, convinced they needed someone younger to do the job. Between the horses he has stabled at the track and the broodmares, weanlings and yearlings at Holly Crest, Mazza is in charge of 41 horses. How does he do it?

“With good help,” he said. “I have three really good guys at the farm. You have to have good help, the proper help. I could never do all this without them. I’ve had some physical problems. I’ve been having problems walking lately, but I’m getting better.”

Against horses like Guarana (Ghostzapper), Serengeti Empress (Alternation), Bellafina (Quality Road) and Jaywalk, Mazza knows this will be a very hard race for Horologist to win. But he also didn’t think she could beat Jaywalk in the Monmouth Oaks.

And if he does win the Cotillion, a $1 million, Grade I race?

“Somebody will have to pick me up off the floor,” he said.

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