Bozzo Keeps Going Strong
by Mike Kane
Not quite half his lifetime ago, Jerry Bozzo sold his stake in a company and left that career behind. Never one to stay still, some 45 years later, Bozzo is rolling along at 94, breeding and training Thoroughbreds in South Florida.
Most likely the oldest active trainer in the country, Bozzo won with his final starter of 2014 on Sunday when Dangerous Brew won a $37,000 allowance race at Gulfstream Park. It was Bozzo’s eighth victory from 49 starts this year and pushed his five-horse stable’s earnings to $180,395.
Decades ago, horses helped Bozzo relax. Now they keep him going. The great-grandfather rises before dawn every morning and makes the 10-mile trip to Gulfstream Park West, the former Calder Race Course, to check out his horses and supervise his five employees.
“As long as I can do it, I will do it,” he said. “We won a pretty important race, an allowance, in a thrilling manner [Sunday]. That part is pretty hard to give up.”
The star of Bozzo’s barn is the 3-year-old filly Flutterby, who he is pointing to the Florida Sunshine Millions Distaff on Jan. 17. The homebred daughter of Congrats, was second in her last two outings, both stakes, the Sunshine Millions Distaff Preview and the Golden Beach H. She is the fourth generation of her female family that Bozzo has owned and trained.
Bozzo laughs at the suggestion that someone might push him to retire.
“I don’t think they would dare,” he said. “I hear more of ‘When are you going to retire,’ not ‘You should retire.’ I’m going to do it as long as I can do it. What should I do, sit around and vegetate?”
Bozzo earned a degree in civil engineering from Carnegie Tech, now called Carnegie-Mellon, and a degree in aeronautical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During World War II, he helped expand the Navy’s air corps. Following his time in the service, he bought into the Pierce Glass Company in Port Allegany in northwest Pennsylvania.
“It was very stressful work because it’s 24 hours a day,” he said. “You can’t shut a glass furnace down very easily or start them up, so it was 24/7. To keep from going nuts, I had a farm on the side and one of things I did was ride horses. It would help me stand the pressure of things going wrong at 2 o’clock in the morning in the factory.”
Bozzo turned to breeding Thoroughbreds in the late 1950s, which led to personally delivering foals, breaking yearlings and preparing them for the races. He sent the prospects off to various trainers, but says he did a lot of racing in Ontario and at the new Finger Lakes Racetrack in Western New York because they were closer to his home. Right after he sold his interest in Pierce Glass in 1969, Bozzo, qualified for a trainer’s license in Canada and bought 160 acres of land in Boynton Beach, Florida where he established a training center. He said he watched with interest as Calder was built and had his first winner there during the track’s second season, 1972. Bozzo figures he’s the only one of the horsemen left from Calder’s early years.
“I’m the last rose of summer left blooming alone,” Bozzo said, quoting the poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore.
While Bozzo may well be the oldest trainer currently working in America, he is certainly not the first nonagenarian to saddle Thoroughbreds. Noble Threewitt, who was believed to be the youngest trainer in the country, when he started his career in 1931, retired on his 96th birthday in 2007. He died three years later. South Florida stalwart Harold Rose trained until his death at the age of 92 in 2003.
Though he’s a ways away from 90, Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, 85, still operates a stable in South Florida.
Bozzo joked about a 94-year-old having three broodmares because there is such a long wait from the time the mating takes place and the young horse makes it to the races. He is booking 2015 seasons for his mares and hopes to be getting his horses ready to compete when he celebrates his 95th birthday in October.
“I’m still very active,” Bozzo said. “I love breeding. I love