By: Shawn Drupp
When you’re interested in horse racing at a young age, the first instinct is always to be a jockey when you are older. As a matter of fact, my four-year-old son is going through that stage right now. He wants to watch horse racing and he wants to act out trying to be a jockey. It’s not always fun for me as he tries to make me the horse.
Nicholas Tomlinson
Nicholas Tomlinson went through the same stage. He admits that goal was short lived and by the time he was 13 he realized that wasn’t going to happen. He also realized he could still be involved with horse racing. Nicholas Tomlinson is a native of Brampton Ontario Canada and currently resides in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is a year-round assistant to trainer Mark Casse at Palm Meadows.
At a young age, Nicholas would spend most of his time at Woodbine racetrack where his dad was a groom. “He would tell me stories of me playing in the shedrow with toy horses and often disappearing into the stalls where he would find me loving on the horses. Needless to say, horse racing was always going to be in my future,” said Tomlinson.
At the young age of 13, and under parental consent, Tomlinson was finally able to get licensed. He worked weekends and summers as a hot walker for Peter Berringer. “I always had the bug, but the more involved I got the more addicting it became. I always wanted more. I worked my way up from a hotwalker to a groom. I would even skip school just to go to the races and would lie about why I was there,” explained Tomlinson.
In Tomlinson’s final semester of high school, he took co-op which allowed him to go into the workplace and still get credits to graduate. Naturally, he went to the track where he got an opportunity to work for Sally and Malcolm Pierce. “They really helped me get to the next chapter of my life. They allowed me to write my assistant trainers test. Shortly after that, I started doing most of their traveling and work for them year-round between Woodbine, the Fairgrounds, and Palm Meadows. As great as Sally and Malcolm are, it was time for me to take it to the next level,” expressed Tomlinson.
Nicholas Tomlinson with Soup and Sandwich
This is when Tomlinson’s career took off. He met Mark Casse at Keeneland in October of 2015. “I expressed a great interest in working for him and one thing led to another. In December of 2015, I started working for Mark in Ocala. After spending the winter there, I went down to Gulfstream then headed up to Saratoga to work under Mark’s son Norman. We did very well that year which led to multiple Grade ones including Classic Empire in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile,” an excited Tomlinson states.
At the end of the winter. Tomlinson stayed at Palm Meadows where he got his own string of horses to watch. “I got to oversee the training of Got Stormy, War of Will, Sir Winston, March to the Arch, Ride a Comet, and Pappacap and Kentucky Derby starters Soup and Sandwich, Helium, and Flameaway the list goes on and on,” Tomlinson states proudly.
Horse racing is a business where it might be tough to get in but once you do you can really grow and go far with your career. Even though Tomlinson never got to live his childhood dream of being a jockey, he’s still getting to live the dream of being involved in horse racing.
He’s enjoying his career and hopes it continues to grow from here. “My goal now is to eventually branch out on my own,” remarks Tomlinson. Maybe a Kentucky Derby trainer in the future? You never know. We wish Nicholas Tomlinson the best of luck and can’t wait to see more success come his way.
