By Dick Jerardi
Consistency is elusive at the race track. Winning any race is cause for joy. Winning the most races and the most money at your home track is a reason to celebrate.
That was Marty Shaw’s Top Notch Racing in 2024 at Parx Racing. His stable won 50 races and $1.4 million at Parx, nearly $6,500 per start which pays all the bills and puts some money in the owner’s pocket.
Top Notch won the Parx money title in 2019 and finished second with 42 wins to 43 for Jamie Ness’s Jagger, Inc. The stable also won the money title in 2018 and finished tied for most wins (24) with Jagger.
But 2024 was, by far, the stable’s best year yet, both at Parx with trainer Ernesto Padilla-Preciado, aka Chito, and in New York with Rob Atras. All told, Top Notch won 66 races from 352 starts for stable earnings of $1.8 million, 44th nationally. Its 66 wins were 13th nationally. It really was an incredible year.
“It meant a lot to me,” Shaw said by the first floor bar at Parx late Tuesday morning. “I’m so grateful to the people on the backside really. Any award that I shall receive or do receive would really be going back to the trainers, the jockeys, the hot walkers, the grooms. They’re such a big part of everything. Some of these people are not in the limelight. At the end of the day, they’re the people that get the job done.”
But somebody has to get the horses and decide where they can win. That would be Shaw’s job.
“I go with the theory of the Ragozin Sheets,” Shaw said. “Not many people go down that path so it’s a different angle…You have to pay attention, learn, and you have to be aggressive (when) placing horses. If you don’t do that…There’s no reason to place them in spots they can’t win.”
Top Notch found most of the right spots in 2024. And 2025 is starting with more of the same: 24-6-4-4 to start the year at Parx.
Working with Chito in 2024 made for a perfect partnership. Why did it work so well?
“Most likely, his easygoingness, workability,” Shaw said. “The guy shows up every day at 4 a.m., 4:30 a.m. He’s an extremely hard worker and, more importantly, super easy to deal with. He’s a great person, great family. The overall relationship is nothing but great.”
Shaw lives in Doylestown, but has an office around the corner from Parx so it’s easy to manage his horse business while also rehabbing houses.
Like so many, Shaw got into the game because of his father.
“He never owned horses,” Shaw said. “It was more of a hobby. Got me into it, just small little bets to keep your interest in the racing, and it’s turned into a major part of my life at this point.”
So major that Top Notch currently owns around 50 horses
“It costs a lot to feed them,” Shaw laughed.
Shaw’s favorite horse through the years?
Ruby Bleu, of course.
The newly minted Parx Hall of Famer won $486,038 for Shaw in his amazing 100-race career, more than half of the horse’s $939,169 career earnings.
“I claimed Ruby Bleu off the Ragozin Sheets,” Shaw said.
That was on Nov. 4, 2017 for $12,500. Ruby Bleu won nine races for Top Notch and trainer Joe Taylor. And that nearly half million in earnings helps keep a stable going.
“He was a Pa. bred, and if you kind of know what you’re doing, it’s hard to lose unless he’s horrible,” Shaw said.
Ruby Bleu, of course, was the opposite of horrible. He was simply one of the coolest horses ever to race at Parx.
Ruby won for every owner and every trainer, but never won more than he did for Shaw’s Top Notch Racing.
Shaw is into the stock market, crypto and real estate, but the most nervous he gets is when he watches his horse run, especially if the horse is favored.
“I never want to lose when he’s going off at 3-5,” Shaw said.
But it is always better to be 3-5 than 35-1. And nobody understands that better than Shaw. He’s always been a numbers guy, a mathematics guy.
“For me, horse racing is mathematics,” Shaw said. “It’s something that I kind of challenge myself to keep myself sharp. The Ragozin Sheets is a different way to look at it. I read the book four or five times.”
He obviously read it well. He clearly understands the game, as complicated as it often is, and has distilled it to its essence: find good, consistent horses and put them in races where they can win.