Giant Heart Serves One-Eyed Wonder Tiny Hope
Upon first glance, a casual observer wouldn't notice anything unusual about the pacing gelding named Tiny Hope. Small but powerful, this Bold Hope six-year-old glides easily over the Maywood oval on a typical Friday night. Upon closer inspection, however, you'll find that this Illinois-bred winner of nearly $160,000 is missing his left eye.
Trained by Crete, Illinois resident Perry Smith for owner Raymond Ningard of Bay Village, Ohio, Tiny Hope has been a member of Smith's stable since May 25, 2003, when the 53-year-old conditioner claimed the pacer at Hawthorne for $8,000.
"I didn't know he was missing his left eye when I claimed him," Perry recalled. "He had been wearing a Murphy Blind that completely covered his eye for his previous owner, and I just thought they had the blind on him wrong."
"I didn't know what to think then," Perry said. "I had never dealt with a horse like that before. The main reason I claimed him was because at the time, I had one of the top $6,000 claimers racing at Hawthorne (Cock Robin N), and here comes this little Tiny Hope and just blows by my horse like he's standing still. So, I thought, well, I've got to have this horse (Tiny Hope), no matter what they put him in for the next week. So I claimed him the following week, when he won."
Tiny Hope sprang from the wee village of Goldfield, Iowa in late May of 1998. He is the second of four foals out of the Marauder mare Young Angela, and the only one to race. During his first two campaigns as a freshman and sophomore pacer, most of his starts came over the Iowa county fair ovals. Going into his four-year-old season in 2002 he had $12,610 to his credit and a 2-7-2 record from 26 career starts, with a mark of 2:02.2.
"I don't know anything about his history, or how he lost his eye," Smith said. "In fact, I had never even noticed the horse before until he beat me that day at Hawthorne."
Tiny Hope spent 2002 and the first four months of 2003 with Illinois trainer-driver Nick Clegg, who raced the mighty mite at a variety of tracks including Maywood, Balmoral, Raceway Park, Northfield and Flamboro Downs. In fact, it was with Clegg that Tiny Hope scored his first pari-mutuel win on February 10, 2002, winning by four lengths in 1:58.1 at Balmoral with Clegg at the lines.
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