Legendary trainer died Monday at 96
Longtime Arlington Park horse trainer Frank Calabrese died Monday at 96. When the track reopened in 2000 after a two-year closure, Calabrese set a standard that will never again be challenged. He won 10 consecutive owners championships after sharing one in 2000.
Photo courtesy of Horsephotos.com/file
FRANK CALABRESE HAD THREE ABIDING PRIORITIES in his long and colorful life — family, loyalty and work integrity.
By his own admission, the quest for “action” was merely a bonus pot o’ gold at the end of his very Italian red, white and green rainbow.
He fulfilled that chase in spectacular fashion at Arlington Park. When the track reopened in 2000 after a two-year closure, Calabrese set a standard that will never again be challenged. He won 10 consecutive owners championships after sharing one in 2000.
“It cost me about $20 million to set that record,” he said this past summer. “It better last forever.”
CALABRESE DIED MONDAY on his 96th birthday. He was surrounded by family at his northwest suburban home after less than one full day in hospice.
With his demanding eye for symmetry, his finish line came on the 18th anniversary of the afternoon when jockey Rene Douglas steered his beloved Dreaming of Anna to victory in the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Churchill Downs.
It was the biggest win of Calabrese’s 27 years in thoroughbred racing.
Jockey Rene Douglas rides Dreaming of Anna to victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies race Nov. 4, 2006 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. The filly was owned by Frank Calabrese and was his greatest champion.
Associated Press
The filly was named for Anna Anderson, a sister who died of cancer at age 48. Calabrese summoned the muse within to once say: “My sister Anna was so graceful. Fluid, a great athlete, a wonderful dancer. Dreaming of Anna moved with the same champion’s style.”
CALABRESE’S LIFE MOVED with grit and a champion’s style. He made his fortune as a print salesman turned direct-mail magnate with his FCL Graphics, a full-service firm based in the O’Hare suburb of Harwood Heights.
The company was named for his three sons — Frank, Carmen and Lewis.
“My mother told me when I was little, ‘Frankie, if you don’t make your first million by age 30, you never will,’” Calabrese once recalled. “She was a very smart lady and I listened.”
CALABRESE’S FCL GRAPHICS HIT many more deadlines. The company became a principal supplier of color advertising inserts for an impressive scroll of regional newspapers.
When Calabrese sold the firm close to 20 years ago, printing trade publications estimated his cash-out anywhere from $80 million to $140 million.
THAT WAS HEADY ATMOSPHERE for a man who got his start in the business at age 12, making 50 cents per-day “hanging paper” at a print shop in his native Little Italy on the west side of Chicago. He eventually advanced to a more adult $33 per week, $30 of which he gave to his mother.
All also further intensified his ardor for horse racing. That passion began decades ago with “the nighters”— harness racing — at Sportsman’s and Maywood Parks and the frosty winter meets at Hawthorne.
IN 1994, DAVE FELDMAN, the fabled downtown horse-racing writer and multi-streamed turf capitalist, convinced Calabrese to move some money into the thoroughbreds.
Feldman’s influence was seminal. By 2000, Calabrese began his run as the king of the Arlington paddock. Wayne Catalano was his principal trainer, although the two had a tempestuous relationship reminiscent of George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin.
FOLLOWING A SECOND TITLE, AP czar Dick Duchossois gave Calabrese his own director’s chair outside the rail at the southwest edge of the paddock. It was where horses would turn to the tunnel for the parade to post. Calabrese’s daily attire was normally a designer’s t-shirt, stylish shorts and a gold neck chain.
While he reveled in the celebrity throne, the man also known as “FCC” never lost his common touch. Stories of his kindnesses and generosities to both race-track regulars and paddock irregulars are legion. Friendly strangers were frequently invited down to join group photos in the winner’s circle.
HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ARLINGTON PARK went into a bizarre tailspin in 2012 when his training staff was denied its request for a full complement of stalls. AP management said that Calabrese’s negative effect on betting handle by dropping claiming horses into “sure spots” — and producing too many winners at 4-5 or less — was the reason.
“That was so ridiculous,” said Gary Duch, long a senior racing official at Arlington. “That’s how the claiming game can be played. That’s how trainers like Richard Hazelton and J.R. Smith flourished. They didn’t always get over-bet like Frank. But Arlington penalized him.”
STILL, CALABRESE NEVER COMPLAINED about the lack of corrective edicts in the matter by either Duchossois or William Carstanjen, CEO of Churchill Downs Inc.
The reason for that was that in the winter of 1999-2000, when the “merger” between Arlington and CDI was about to go full bore, Duchossois told Calabrese to buy a lot of Churchill stock.
“I think the price at the time was about $22 a share,” Calabrese said. “At the peak of Carstanjen’s run, the quarterly dividend checks alone were amazing. The return on investment is around 2,000 percent. I hate what they’ve done to Arlington. But as an investor, how can I badmouth him?”
TO THE END, CALABRESE’S INQUISITIVENESS remained sharp. Last week, he asked a caller about the status of the Bears’ proposed new stadium. He then said, “I don’t think they’ll ever build at Arlington. But I know they’re not going to get what they want on the lakefront. So where does that leave ’em?”
Visitation for Calabrese will be Thursday from 9:30-11 a.m. at Ryan-Parke Funeral Home in downtown Park Ridge. A Mass will follow at 11:30 a.m. at nearby St. Paul of the Cross.
OSCAR SANCHEZ, A FORMER JOCKEY and current racing official at Horseshoe Indianapolis, last visited with Calabrese Sunday.
“I brought a birthday card and some chocolates,” Sanchez said. “Frank was fading but I sat and just told old stories. He listened as best he could and smiled at some. Like me, he was a neat freak who scrubbed his own sinks. One summer he stabled out of Monmouth (in New Jersey) and I had a room at his summer house. It wasn’t Oscar and Felix. It was Felix and Felix.”
Said grandson Sam Calabrese, once a star hockey player at Notre Dame who shooed away all NHL teams in 2012-13 to pursue a career in finance: “I know the ending is supposed to be sad, but what a life. What a man. And 96 years to the day. He worked very hard for what he earned. But boy, did he know how to have fun.”
All while never losing track of the traits — family, loyalty and work integrity — that brought “FCC” to so many winner’s circles.
• Jim O’Donnell’s Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.
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