Hopes Roar’s big win at Belmont supports Susan G. Komen Foundation

When jockey Manuel Franco, dressed in pink silks, and Hopes Roar crossed the finish line first at Belmont Park on Oct. 15, part of the winner’s purse went to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The donation was the start of what horse owners Vince Roth and Dan Zanatta, and their partners, hope to make a permanent movement to spread breast cancer awareness in horseracing each October. Roth said that when one of their partners, Mike Metzger, informed them that his wife, Kerry, was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2016, they wanted to do something to help the fight.

“We started brainstorming and we put our heads together and all the other sports do the cancer awareness campaign where they wear pink in October,” said Roth, a co-owner of the East Rockaway-based Final Furlong Racing Stable. “… I was like I’ve never seen it done in horseracing. So, we thought, what if we change our silks to pink?”

Once the idea started rolling, Speedsilks.com donated the pink silks to the stable. Roth and Zanatta also had to get the measure approved by the New York Racing Association and the National Championship Racing Association.

In addition to the pink silks, Roth said, the partners vowed to donate 10 percent of their October winnings to Susan G. Komen. As it turned out, Hopes Roar only had one race in October, her first since a victory at Saratoga on Aug. 25.

“Lo and behold, the horse goes off and wins, which was great,” Roth said. “They were all excited. We were all excited.”

Roth said he was at Disney World when Hopes Roar beat out 11 other horses, and had difficulty getting the stream of the race to work on his phone. When he found out about the victory, Roth said, he was elated.

“It’s always awesome to win a race,” he said, “but after seeing the culmination of putting something together and having a tie to it through a partner’s wife — and to see the pink silks cross through first — I watched the replay probably like 20 times.”

The win ended up netting $20,400, 10 percent of which went to the foundation. Roth said he and his partners have plans to get New York jockeys to sign the silks, and to raffle it off next October, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the foundation.

Roth added that he wants to make horseracing like the NFL by having other stables don pink in October. “Hopefully our initial foray into it, and again we’re retiring the silks as 100 percent winner, might lead to something good next year and in years to come,” he said.