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Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Potts, Dookie say Mosca was a genius

by

Kelvin "N"
1925 days ago
20200416
Juan Mosca, Trainer (wearing Checkered shirt) and the rest of the connections of Mischief Maker parade in the Winners' Circle with their charge and jockey Sheldon Rodrigo in the saddle after winning Race 6 on Saturday at Santa Rosa Prak, Arima on Day 19, 2019.

Juan Mosca, Trainer (wearing Checkered shirt) and the rest of the connections of Mischief Maker parade in the Winners' Circle with their charge and jockey Sheldon Rodrigo in the saddle after winning Race 6 on Saturday at Santa Rosa Prak, Arima on Day 19, 2019.

RALPH BANWARIE

Juan Mosca was de­scribed as a ge­nius by two of his clos­est friends, for­mer jock­ey Buxo Potts and own­er of many hors­es, Court­ney Dook­ie.

Mosca, who passed qui­et­ly on April 7, was re­ferred to in the rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty as the "Peo­ple's Train­er' and the "Small Man Train­er".

Mosca whose first job as a teenag­er was as a "Pa­pers Boy", el­e­vat­ed him­self to be­com­ing a banker. He was al­so a top in­sur­ance sales­man, an in­sur­ance con­sul­tant, a train­er, an own­er and breed­er, a restau­rant own­er (King Cre­ole), and a horse farm own­er. Such is the re­sume of the man.

The like­able train­er was a fam­i­ly man and Mosca gave his wife, Pa­tri­cia, the best birth­day gift that she ever re­ceived, mar­ry­ing her on her birth­day, Feb­ru­ary 16, 1969. She stayed with her hus­band un­til death and their union bore four chil­dren Den­nis, Myra, Sara and Kirk.

And just as at home, he flour­ished in both rac­ing in­dus­try and the in­sur­ance busi­ness.

In the lat­ter, the "Prob­lem Solver' worked for Guardian Life of the Caribbean Lim­it­ed where he be­came a leg­end in the in­dus­try by win­ning many of the top awards in an as­ton­ish­ing 51 years of ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice.

His con­tri­bu­tion to the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion will not go un­no­ticed as they were sig­nif­i­cant in the de­vel­op­ment and growth of Guardian Life.

In the "Sport of Kings," he carved his mark in­deli­bly and no one in the rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty could for­get the train­er with the som­brero, who was friends with Potts and Dook­ie from an ear­ly age.

"We had great times and he was a won­der­ful friend who would give you good ad­vice and stand with you. He was a char­ac­ter and though bois­ter­ous, want­ed the best for you. He made every­one around laugh," said Potts of his late friend.

"When I met Juan, he was more in­ter­est­ed in foot­ball and pi­geons. When he be­gan to come to races, he was try­ing to hand­i­cap races. Then, one day at the 'Big Yard,' the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, he be­gan talk­ing about his knowl­edge in the rac­ing game.

"That day he played a bet at the rac­ing pool for one dol­lar which con­sist­ed of eight hors­es on the bet. No need to say, all eight hors­es won and he was paid the 'Prince­ly Sum' at that time by the pool own­er of $5,000. Court­ney and my­self nev­er ex­pect­ed this from Juan who stat­ed he 'Thrives on knowl­edge.'

It was there­after this ex­pe­ri­ence that Mosca be­came more in­volved in horse rac­ing, buy­ing a horse called Grand Prix with Val Ma­habir and Har­ry Nunes.

"Grand Prix was son of Pre­science by Red Curls and Mosca stat­ed that he was too fash­ion­ably bred not to be good. Mosca has al­ways said that horse rac­ing has to be about blood­lines. If you don't breed wise­ly, you could well get a 'runt.'

We be­gan tak­ing Mosca se­ri­ous­ly and I re­mem­ber at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah

I was my way out of the game and I was get­ting heavy. I asked Juan to ride Grand Prix in a six fur­long race. In the race I was shuf­fled back at the three fur­long mark­er and by the time I got him set­tled I al­lowed him to come home in his own time. Had I rid­den him out he may have fin­ished fourth. But the win­ner had gone be­yond re­call when I was im­ped­ed."

"Well if you know Juan who has such a good eye and knowl­edge of rac­ing, you would know what he came to the pa­rade ring to tell me! He was about to tell me I pulled his horse. He was ready to curse, that was how Juan would be­have in such a cir­cum­stance. I ex­plained my­self and told him that we will win next week. It is a mile race and with two fur­longs more to race, he will win."

The race the fol­low­ing week was in a high­er class of hors­es where Bob­by Hard­widge who had a 100 per cent record when he pre­pared a horse for a race. Hard­widge had Spitz in the race with Au­die Mueller aboard and the late Venice 'Pap­py' Richards was aboard the tal­ent­ed Comet for Joe Hadeed.

"The rest is his­to­ry and with one fur­long to race I asked Grand Prix for his all that he had and he quick­ened up nice­ly to catch both Spitz and the leader Comet close home. I was hap­py for Juan as the gam­ble was land­ed, Grand Prix paid $8.00 to win and the fore­cast paid $46.00. Juan land­ed a good bet."

Mosca's train­ing method was rev­o­lu­tion­ary and he was the first train­er to be­gin breez­ing hors­es on a Thurs­day.

"Juan said the hors­es need 48 hours to re­cu­per­ate. He was the first train­er to do this and he was ridiculed for it and crit­i­cised for it but that did not bend him as he was a vi­sion­ary. He be­lieved that the horse would be fit­ter and bet­ter."

Mosca was a metic­u­lous in­di­vid­ual and he was very tech­ni­cal.

"He al­ways told me 'Don't doubt my knowl­edge!'" said Potts, point­ing out an­oth­er train­ing feat of Mosca, which went against all rea­son, ex­cept that of the late cham­pi­on train­er

"We bought a horse called Sargeant Yorke from Bar­ba­dos and he was a son of King's Bench and as you are aware he was fash­ion­ably bred. He was be­ing trained for a race and he came to win and blew up. "Juan came to the pa­rade ring and we both agreed that the horse was short. What hap­pened next shocked me. He took the horse from Port-of-Spain that night and drove him up to San­ta Rosa Park (Ari­ma). "Guess what hap­pened on Sun­day morn­ing? Mosca gal­loped Sargeant Yorke over six fur­longs. I was fu­ri­ous and of course I told him what I thought in my unique way. Juan calm­ly re­spond­ed, 'You train­ing this horse or me?'Yes­ter­day he was short but next week he will be long. It is bet­ter I gal­lop him to­day than Wednes­day or Thurs­day next week. What I have to say now will not come as sur­prise to any­one, Sargeant Yorke won well the fol­low­ing week. He land­ed yet an­oth­er good Mosca gam­ble."

Potts com­pli­ment­ed Mosca, say­ing, "There was a method to the mad­ness. He did his re­search. He found the fault in many hors­es and fixed them and that was the hall­mark of a good train­er. In his ca­reer, he would take out­cast from top train­ers and turn them in­to very good hors­es."

A sen­ti­ment agreed to by Dook­ie, strength­en­ing his and Potts' point that Mosca was re­al ge­nius.

"He did the same sort of mag­ic with a horse called Fun­ny Mon­ey which won but came back lame. Af­ter the race he was blis­tered and left in the stall. Fun­ny Mon­ey came out the next week and won," said Dook­ie.

Mosca has waved his mag­ic wand on many oc­ca­sions there­after as he land­ed Ex­ploiteur to beat the "A" class hors­es, a feat which he re­peat­ed with Tum­bel Dancer to prove how good he was as a train­er.

"At­tie Joseph had a horse called Ed­ward George in Bar­ba­dos and it had prob­lems and broke down. This horse was by Gal­li­van­ter and Joseph sold the horse to us for $25,000," said Potts. "Ed­ward George turned out to be one of the best hors­es that he trained. Ed­ward George was brought back to rude health by Mosca and won more than eight races."

Ac­cord­ing to his friends Mosca was "a won­der­ful hu­man be­ing". May he rest in peace.


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