Harness racing trainer Linda Toscano is ‘Brooklyn All the Way’

February 3, 2021 Andy Furman, Special to the Brooklyn Eagle

Linda Toscano, named to harness racing’s Hall of Fame. Photo courtesy of Andy Furman

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She went from P.S. 235 to St. Catherine’s of Genoa.

Linda Toscano grew up in Flatbush – Linden Boulevard and East 35th Street, to be exact.

“I’m Brooklyn all the way,” said the 65-year-old horse racing professional, who was inducted as a driver/trainer to the Living Hall of Fame in 2019 by the U.S. Harness Writers of America.

Make that the first woman trainer or driver in harness racing’s Hall of Fame.

“I was used to hanging with my friends all the time. We went to Shea Stadium – by subway.”

And she can’t forget Angelo’s on Church Avenue.

“For a buck and a quarter, we’d get a meatball hero and a coke,” she remembered.

That was Brooklyn.

Those were the good times for Linda Toscano.

“We moved to Long Island,” she said, “and I was devastated. I missed the city and was miserable.”

Riding lessons was suggested by her mother.

“I fell in love with horses, and thought of becoming a veterinarian,” she said.

Lucky for the sport of harness racing, she passed.

As for standardbred racing – well, she passed with flying colors.

She had a friend who worked with one of the leading trainers at Roosevelt Raceway – Buddy Regan. “It was during the summers of 1975 and 76,” she recalled. “I was a student at Stony Brook.”

Linda broke away and went on her own in 1984.

“Things changed,” she said, “I was racing all over the country.”

She compiled more than 2,100 career wins and more than $52 million in earnings. She ranks 10th in all-time earnings among trainers, behind leader Ron Burke and fellow Hall of Famers Jimmy Takter and Robert McIntosh.

“I first met Linda many years ago when I was public relations director at Roosevelt Raceway,” said Barry Lefkowitz, a Brooklyn native as well, who is national vice president and treasurer, U.S. Harness Writer’s Association. “She is without question the prototype of the great success story. From humble beginnings, she demonstrated her trade with great skill, moving from those modest beginnings to Hambletonian winner to Horse of the Year conditioner and many terrific horses in-between,” he said.

In addition to the Hambletonian and seven Breeders Crown wins, the first woman to win the Meadowland Pace, Toscano has won the Canadian Trotting Classic, Nat Ray, Progress Pace, Monument Circle, TVG Trot, Zweig Memorial, American National, Titan Cup, Art Rooney, Golden Girls and others.

And as for the pandemic, Toscano says it hasn’t been too harmful.

Why?

“Horses are deemed essential; they’re athletes and need exercise,” she said. “And we were very careful with them.”

Racing was shut-down from March through the end of May – and re-opened in June.

“My niche now,” she says, “is selecting young horses.”

Her career earnings nowadays can certainly purchase some meatballs at Angelo’s.