Rare Friends

In an age where long-term owner/trainer partnerships have become scarce, the DiGiulio family's 20-year relationship with trainer Bob Tiller is rare indeed.

by Jennifer Morrison-Learn

Frank DiGiulio Sr. always had a lot of faith in Bob Tiller. A true-blue racing lover who read the Racing Form and liked to place the occasional bob on a horse race, DiGiulio and his son Frank built up one of Canada’s best known-racing stables under the direction of Tiller.

DiGiulio never worried when they dropped in a claim slip for a horse and then watched it finish last. ‘Don’t worry, Bob will fix it’ is what he often said.

That faith has been rewarded many times-over during twenty years of horse ownership but sadly, DiGiulio missed most of 2001 - the best year ever for the DiGiulio and Tiller team and a year that could end with a Sovereign Award for their homebred, Win City, as well as his trainer.

“It’s been some year, an unbelievable year,” said Tiller on a typically hectic morning at his Woodbine barn. “You’re so busy in this business. But the other night, it suddenly hit me. In a way it’s sad, I would have liked him to have been around to see this.”

DiGiulio passed away on May 26 at the age of 91, only days before Win City’s romping victory in the Plate Trial established the gelding as the Plate favourite.

Win City, a son of the DiGiulio’s homebred mare Winsfordan, didn’t get lucky on Plate day when his late charge fell just short behind the impeccably bred filly Dancethruthedawn, but he got revenge a few weeks later in the Prince of Wales Stakes at Fort Erie. The three-year-old collected his fifth stakes win in the Col. R.S. McLaughlin Stakes in September and firmly established his position as the leading sophomore in Canada.

For Frank Jr., it has been a bittersweet year for his family and the racing stable.

“I really appreciate having Win City,” said DiGiulio, who went into partnership with his father in 1986. “But it’s not quite as much fun for me as it used to be. I almost feel a little bit lost at the races right now. I would spend the whole day at the races with my father when the horses were running.”

The long and successful relationship between the DiGiulios and Tiller is a rare one in the competitive business of horse racing. Constant communication and an understanding of the business aspect of the game are vital for the success of a racing stable.

Frank Sr. met up with Tiller in the early 1980s when a mutual friend recommended DiGiulio try his hand at thoroughbred ownership.The DiGiulio family, including brothers John, Frank and the late Rocco, plus cousins and friends, often attended the races together as a family picnic. It wasn’t long before Frank Jr. was lured into sharing ownership of the stable with his Dad.

In Tiller, the partnership had found a no-nonsense trainer who had a reputation for running his clients’ horses where they could win, earning him the nickname ‘wonderboy’.

Indeed, two years after taking out his trainer’s license in 1973, the Dutch-born trainer just missed winning the 1975 Queen’s Plate with longshot, Near the High Sea.

The DiGiulios hit it off immediately with Tiller as both parties understood what to expect from the other.

“He didn’t mince words,” remembers Frank Jr. about the first years with the trainer. “He was brutally honest, you could say. As a new owner, it might have got your back up a little bit but once you got to know him, you knew he was doing it for the right reasons.”

Tiller said that while father and son didn’t know a lot about the game back then, they learned quickly.

“Frank (Jr.) learned an awful lot along the way,” said Tiller. They both thought everything out, they listened to me but it went both ways. As Frankie matured he took over the management of the stable. Between us, there is constant communication. It’s one of the reasons this thing has worked for so long and we’ve been as successful as we have.”

Incredibly, the team was very close to breaking up in 1988 when, after a run of bad luck with the horses, the DiGiulios thought about calling it quits.

“We had just claimed a horse for $20,000 that broke down in the race, said Frank Jr.. “We thought maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”

But, in an unusual twist of fate, the team decided to take one last shot at the claim box and dropped a slip in for an unraced two-year-old named Domasca Dan for $32,000. After a ‘shake’ to decide the successful owners, the colt was theirs. Domasca Dan went on to earn over $595,000 from several stakes victories before being retired to stud.

“I owe that horse a lot, we all do,” said Frank Jr. “We’ve gone from nothing to where we are now because of him. If we didn’t win the shake that day, who knows what would have happened.”

Frank Jr. has a lot of fond memories of his father and Tiller and his favourite story is that of Urban Distraction.

“The day we claimed her, first time out, she beat one horse and was beaten 15 lengths,” said DiGiulio. “I was sick, Bob was sick. We thought she was going to be worth $4,000. But my Dad just said, ‘she’ll be fine’. And he was right, It was amazing. He knew things would work out. He had faith in Bob that he’d get the best out of the horse.”

Urban Distraction won the Seaway Stakes in 1998, placed in three others stakes and earned over $170,000.

Of course, one of the most popular DiGiulio-Tiller projects was Elated Guy, a $40,000 claim in 1990. The ‘Guy’ became a cult hero at Woodbine, racing until he was 10-years-old, banking almost $1 million and finishing second in the ‘92 Molson Million.

It would have been hard for the DiGiulios or Tiller to imagine a year like 2001. When the season began, Win City was a maiden winner and the stable was full of young horses and claiming types. Tiller, who is also a part owner of a lot of horses he trains for other clients, started winning races early and often.

When Win City finished a troubled third in the Achievement Stakes, a Plate prep in the spring, it was the beginning of a thrilling ride through the Canadian Triple Crown races that left Frank Jr. and Tiller with heavy hearts.

“My Dad would have had a smile from ear-to-ear,” DiGiulio said after Win City’s Prince of Wales victory. “These are the kind of races he’d dream about. He would have loved all of this.” Through mid-October, the DiGiulio runners had earned over $1.15 million.

Frank Jr. said that Tiller’s strength as a trainer comes from his work ethic and his natural skills as a horseman.

“He’s got a lot of people to deal with, a lot of horses and the hours aren’t the greatest,” said DiGiulio. “He puts a lot of pressure on himself and he takes it to heart but that makes him as good as he is.”

“He’s a very good judge of horses, he’s pretty well known for that. He likes to win and it bothers him to lose. He’s not satisfied with what he’s got, he’s always trying to improve.”

Fittingly, the newest star in the DiGiulio barn is the aptly-named Rare Friends, a colt co-owned by Tiller. Rare Friends went undefeated in his first four races as a two-year-old this year.

“It’s like a good marriage,” said Tiller about his relationship with the DiGiulio family. “It’s a two-way street, you don’t always agree, you have to work it out. Trust and respect for each other keeps it going. That’s basically the way it has been with the DiGiulios.”