Remembering Cinzano

ROUSE AND CINZANO IN 1981 (Douglas Lees Photo)

Back in June, Dr. Mark Gerard died.  Gerard was convicted of a horse-swapping scam and banned from racing back in 1977.  One of the horses involved in the swap was Cinzano.  The speedy South American champ would be stripped of his papers by the Jockey Club after the scandal and purchased by noted Virginia horseman Randy Rouse.  Rouse successfully raced Cinzano in the unsanctioned point-to-points where Jockey Club papers weren't required.  The pair were undefeated in ten starts. Cinzano died a pensioner at Rouse’s farm in 1999 at the ripe old age of 26.

Not long after Gerard died, the Washington Post published a very well-written and complete obituary written by T. Rees Shapiro, the son of retired newspaper Washington Post columnist Len Shapiro and author and publisher Vicki Moon of Middleburg renown. The obituary does a great job of retelling the Cizano story.

    

Shortly after reading the obituary, we asked Eclipse Award photographer Douglas Lees if he had any old photos of Randy and Cinzano, and, of course, he did.  The problem was finding the old negatives from the pre-digital days.  This conversation was re-enacted a few times over the summer and early fall, and this morning these photos arrived from Douglas. 

Spectacular, as always.

ROUSE AND CINZANO IN 1982 (Douglas Lees Photo)