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| Michael Matz |
Stats Updated Through: 11/19/2009
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| 2009 Stats: | | Starts | | 347 | | 1st-2nd-3rd | | 53-61-56 | | Earnings (Rank) | | $2,493,611 (52) | | Win % (In-The-Money %) | | 15% (48%) |
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Top Associated Horses:
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Princess Haya,
Good and Lucky,
Spicy Dubai,
Just Julian,
Ice Road,
Katara |
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Biography, Highlights and Media:
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- Born: Jan. 23, 1951, Redding, Pa.
- Residence: Coatesville, Pa.
- Family: wife Dorothy (D.D.); daughters Michelle and Lucy, sons Michael Jr., Alex, Robert and Arthur ... Dorothy has deep roots in Thoroughbred racing. She is the daughter of breeder Helen Kleberg Groves and the granddaughter of Robert Kleberg, who owned King Ranch in Texas and raced 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault and 1950 Kentucky Derby winner Middleground. Her sister, Helen Alexander, owns Middlebrook Farm in Lexington, Ky.
- Professional Background: As a boy, he began a riding on a neighbor's farm; he joined a pony club and began competing in local shows. After high school, Matz took a job as a groom at another farm, and tried college – Albright College in Reading – but found himself wishing he was riding instead. So he hit the road with a sleeping bag and a dream. He was grooming and riding at horse shows, getting farther and farther away from home. By 1973, he was competing in Europe; three years later he was on the Olympic team headed to Montreal. He didn't make the team again for sixteen years ... July 19, 1989, Matz and D.D. (his fiance at the time), survived the crash landing of United Flight 232 after all of its hydraulic systems had failed over the farmlands of Iowa with 296 people aboard. They were on the way back home from a horse show judging in Hawaii when it became obvious that the plane was in trouble. After a horrific landing in which Matz was miraculously unscathed, he set about rescuing other survivors, including three children travelling unaccompanied
- Racing Background: A relative newcomer to the Thoroughbred training ranks, Matz is a long-time horseman. He rode on the Olympic equestrian team in the 1976, 1992, and 1996 Summer Games. In ’96, Matz was honored to be asked to carry the American flag into Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Stadium during the closing ceremonies ... Matz won eight Pan American Games medals from his four competitions, including five Gold, and rode in three World Championships where he won a team Gold Medal (1986), as well as team and individual Bronze Medals (1978) ... He started training in 1998 with a three-horse stable. When he failed to make the Olympic team in 2000, he made training his full-time profession. Matz retired from show jumping as the leading money-winning rider in the sport's American history, with over $1.7 million
- Racing Career: First stakes winner was Camella, his wife's homebred. His first grade 1 victories came with Kicken Kris, who captured the 2003 Secretariat Stakes and the 2004 Arlington Million (via disqualification) ... Relatively unknown outside the Mid-Atlantic region at the start of his career, Matz stepped into the national spotlight in 2006 through riding an emotional roller coaster with Barbaro, owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables. Few people will ever experience triumph and tragedy as profoundly as Matz did that year ... In the course of slightly more than eight months, he lived through a tumultuous chain of events that saw him win the Kentucky Derby with Barbaro, only to have the horse suffer injuries in the Preakness that would ultimately lead to his death on Jan. 29, 2007. Sent off as an odds-on favorite in the Preakness, Barbaro had taken just a few strides out of the gate when he fractured his right hind leg in three places. Following the injury, Barbaro underwent nearly two dozen surgeries and procedures to repair the ankle, but eventually succumbed to laminitis ... Barbaro, only the sixth undefeated horse to win the Kentucky Derby, also won the Florida Derby, Holy Bull, Tropical Park Derby and Laurel Futurity for Matz ... In November, 2006, back at Churchill Downs where he won the Derby, he saddled Round Pond to win the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (now Ladies' Classic). It was Matz's lone appearance in the Breeders’ Cup ... Round Pond, who was retired following the Distaff, also won the 2005 Acorn Stakes and the 2006 Azeri Breeders’ Cup at Oaklawn Park ... Matz experienced joy and heartbreak with another promising colt, the multiple-stakes winner Chelokee ... Chelokee accounted for one of the more heartwarming moments of 2007 when he won the inaugural running of the Barbaro Stakes (formerly the Sir Barton) on Preakness Day at Pimlico . He also won the G3 Northern Dancer Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs in 2007, but at the same racetrack on Kentucky Oaks Day in 2008 he suffered a life-threatening injury to the ligaments in his right ankle while running in the Alysheba ... The Centennial Farms colt underwent surgery to fuse the bones and replace the damaged ligaments. Following several months at Rood and Riddle Equine Veterinary Hospital in Lexington, Ky., Chelokee moved to Vinery Farm in early September and veterinarians are hopeful that he can begin a career at stud next year ... Among Matz’s 2008 Breeders' Cup candidates is Lael Stable’s Ready Set, who captured the 2008 G3 West Virginia Derby ... Other stakes winners include 2008 G1 King's Bishop winner Visionaire, Street Sounds, Aunt Henny, Political Attack and Bowman’s Band.
- Breeding/Racing Operation: Matz, who has 75 horses in his barn, is based at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md.
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NOTE: Stats include North American and selected international races. Click here to view selected international race list.
Biographies on jockeys, trainers and owners are from the Breeders' Cup World Championships events from 2001 through 2009, and are intended as informational resources. Biographies will be updated if an individual is again a participant in the Breeders' Cup World Championships.
Biographies are available for most horses appearing in the top 100 money earnings list, and/or for those who are frequently making headlines in the news starting with the 2006 Triple Crown season.
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