Sport: Pint-Sized Pirate

The hottest horse trainer in the U.S. is sawed-off, 30-year-old Stan Lipiec (rhymes with see-pic). He goes in for strictly ordinary nags that run in strictly ordinary races—and run so well that last year they won him a whopping $239,550.

Trainer Lipiec’s horses frequently go to the post as long shots (10 to 1 or better) and with surprising regularity pay the kind of money $2 betters dream of. At Gulf stream Park this season he has run 47 horses, won eight races for a profit of $106.20 on a $2 flat bet.

Pick When Ripe. For 5 ft. 3 Stan Lipiec (he buys his clothes in the boys’ department) life began at 14, when he skipped school and took to the turf. As a fourth-rate jockey in Cuba (he still gallops his nags mornings), he learned what makes a horse tick. Over & above his practical schooling, he developed a strategic sixth sense for razor-sharp hay-burners. His secret lies in knowing when to nab horses that other trainers have brought to peak performance.

Less than two years ago Mrs. Lottie Wolf, wife of Detroit’s wiping-rag tycoon, hired Lipiec to build up a stable, gave him his big chance. The best way to get ready-to-run horseflesh in a hurry was to buy it on the race track’s huge super-market—the claiming race.

Fiercely Frequent. Claiming races make up about three-fifths of the program on the big-time circuits.* Almost 90% of all U.S. race horses run as claimers; in all claiming races owners risk having their nags bought out from under them, whether they want to sell or not. All Lipiec (or any other trainer) has to do before a race is to file a claim for a particular horse and deposit the money. After the race, he takes the horse.

Lipiec’s claiming raids became so fiercely frequent that he replaced Hirsch Jacobs, leading U.S. trainer for eleven of the twelve previous years, as the turf’s prime pirate. But since taking up headquarters in Gulfstream’s barn F, horse racing’s pint-sized pirate has slipped a bit. His claiming score: three acquired, nine lost to other claimers. Size of present stable: 17 head.

*The chief others: stakes, handicaps, allowances.