With a keenly selected stable headlined by B Ts Onaman Lake, trainer Sherif Cunmulaj is making his mark this season at Meadowlands Racetrack
.
A recent acquisition by Cunmulaj and owner Larry Baron, B Ts Onaman Lake bids for his eighth straight win on Thursday night. The four-year-old Michigan-bred pacer caught the trainer's eye a few months ago and has won both of his starts at the Meadowlands since shipping east. B Ts Onaman Lake is perfect in five starts this season and sports a total slate of nine wins, one second and two thirds from 15 career efforts. He looks to extend his streak Thursday night as the 5-2 morning line favourite from post five in the tenth race.
"I had been watching B Ts Onaman Lake racing in Michigan," Cunmulaj said. "I called his previous trainer, Terry Tomlin, to see if he was for sale and he was. So, I told Larry Baron to call him and he bought the horse. I watched his videos, and I know he was beating cheaper horses, but it was how he was doing it. He was never turned loose and his times were as fast as their open class. Terry Tomlin is a top horseman, and he never pushes them when they're young. He told me he'd actually be better on a smaller track. He's sound and never took a lame step."
Cunmulaj, 44, is off to strong start at the Meadowlands this season with 10 of his 23 starters having finished in the money. An Italian-born trainer of Albanian descent, Cunmulaj grew up in Michigan, where he initially entered the racing business as a catch driver. He moved his stable east in 2008 and now races primarily in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
"My name is pronounced 'Cune-mah-lay'," he explained. "Emina Cunmulaj, the famous model, is my cousin. We're from Albania. My mother and father escaped communism there in 1964 and fled to Italy. They stayed in a camp there and that's where I was born in 1965. They were farmers. They came to New York and then straight to Detroit, Michigan. Some Albanians took them in and my father, Elez started working as a painter until he retired. He would get up at 4 a.m. to go to work. He didn't speak a word of English.
"My father loved to gamble at the racetracks," he continued. "He would go to Wolverine, Hazel Park and Northville. In the late seventies, he went to the Delaware Sale, and bought a horse for $3,200 and another for $2,800. He didn't even know how to put a harness on a horse. The $2,800 horse did okay. The $3,200 horse was a son of Meadow Skipper, and he went on to break a track record after he sold him. My father just bought him because he looked good. The horses never got out of his blood. He's out there jogging my brother's horses all the time now.
"I used to run around the racetrack when I was 12 years old, and I loved it," he continued. "In my early twenties, I finished second in the driver standings at Saginaw Valley Downs in my first year of driving and won a training title there. [Then] I got too big. I was 6' 3" and around 220 pounds."
Cunmulaj trains a stable of 16 horses at Holly View Farm in Monroeville, NJ, while his brother, Zaim, has a roster of 20 back in Michigan. Cunmulaj has formed a successful partnership with the Meadowlands’ leading owner Larry Baron, of Horsham, PA.
"When I first got here, Larry Baron claimed a couple from me, and I started talking to him," he said. "I also knew his other trainer, Josh Green, who recommended me to him. Then, Larry called me out of the blue and hooked me up with some of his horses. I have five or six of his right now."
Sherif Cunmulaj was the guest on Meadowlands Racetrack's pre-card broadcast on February 27. Click here to watch the interview.
(The Meadowlands)