2025 Claiming Crown Horse of the Year: Concrete Glory

Big Frank can put a ring around another accomplishment for Concrete Glory.

The horse that owner Frank Rupolo’s Big Frank Stable claimed 24 races ago for Gulfstream Park’s bottom-level $6,250 on Dec. 9, 2022, has been selected as the 2025 Claiming Crown Horse of the Year after the Pennsylvania-bred gelding won the $100,000 Claiming Crown Ready’s Rocket Express for the second straight year at Churchill Downs.

The announcement was made by the Claiming Crown co-founders, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association (NHBPA) and the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association (TOBA). Trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., the now 7-year-old Concrete Glory will be honored at the TOBA National Awards Dinner on Sept. 10 at the Kentucky Castle in Woodford County.

The multi-race Claiming Crown — staged in conjunction with the host track and the state HBPA affiliate — and was created in 1999 to give American racing’s blue-collar workhorses their own championship day on the lines of the Breeders’ Cup. Each year the National HBPA recognizes one of the competitors as the best of the Claiming Crown’s best. The honor comes with Concrete Glory already immortalized on the gold-and-diamond-encrusted championship-style ring that Rupolo wears. (More on that below.)

“I knew he was good enough to be up there with the selected horses, but to be Horse of the Year, I couldn’t believe it,” Rupolo, a cancer survivor who believes Concrete Glory helps extend his life, said from Florida in a phone interview. “He’s just a super horse….This is not a joke: The day after he runs in the Claiming Crown, I’m already thinking about next year. That is my favorite of all.

“I’m a low-level claimer (as an owner). I did have a horse once in the Derby, believe it or not, but I only had 10 percent of Closing Argument (second at 71-1 odds to 50-1 Giacomo in 2005). That was unbelievable, but I’ll never get another chance like this. This is like my Breeders’ Cup…. This is the best I’ve ever had. It’s so much fun with him, and I just hope he just keeps continuing. I can run him at 8, 9 and 10.”

Concrete Glory, a son of 2012 Arkansas Derby (G1) winner and Kentucky Derby and Preakness runner-up Bodemeister, proved well-named: He’s a true iron horse. He ran nine times at age 2, from June 20 through Dec. 15; 12 times at 3, from Jan. 1 through the day he was claimed. Concrete Glory clearly has thrived in Joseph’s care, winning 12 times for his current barn. That includes feasting on starter-optional claiming races at Gulfstream Park, but he became a regular in stakes races last year and this, including capturing Tampa Bay Downs’ $125,000 Pelican Stakes.

His 18 career victories have come in front-running fashion or being head-and-head for the early lead. After winning the 2024 Express by 7 1/2 lengths, Concrete Glory was hounded by Wound Up throughout the 2025 edition before holding on by a head under Irad Ortiz Jr. The gelding also has six seconds and two thirds while grinding out career earnings of $598,474 the hard way, through sheer longevity.

“Concrete Glory is exactly the type of horse that the Claiming Crown series and our Claiming Crown Horse of the Year Award were created to honor,” said Pennsylvania HBPA executive director Todd Mostoller, who chairs the National HBPA’s Industry Awards Committee. “In addition to being a two-time winner who also ran in the Express in 2023, Concrete Glory epitomizes the heart, soul and resilience of the claiming horses that make American racing go by filling out the racing programs for the stakes horses. He was claimed for $6,250, but 3 1/2 years later is in the same barn and has advanced to being an open stakes winner who has run 44 times and earned almost $600,000. It’s a testament to Concrete Glory as well as Saffie and his team.”

The Claiming Crown races are held under starter-allowance conditions for horses that have competed for a certain claiming level, or cheaper, during a designated time frame. With the six-furlong Express for horses that have competed for an $8,000 claiming price or less anywhere in their life, the goal for Concrete Glory is to return to Churchill Downs on Nov. 14 to try for a historic three-peat. Concrete Glory and Emerald repeater Echo Lane last year became only the fifth and sixth horses to win two Claiming Crown races. No horse has won three.

“This is a great achievement for the horse. He’s been so fun to have,” Joseph said by phone. “He’s one of the favorites in the barn, just for his personality. He’s a little goofy. When we first got him, he used to be very difficult to saddle and stuff, but he has quieted down a lot. He just has a lot of try in him.

“He was never supposed to be in that class, though. He was coming off a bad run, and the previous ownership took a chance to drop him in from $25,000. They obviously wanted to make him starter-eligible. There were two claims in for him that day, and thankfully we won the ‘shake.’ We never envisioned he was going to be this good.”

Concrete Glory had done much more for Rupolo than all his win photos and $468,580 in purses since being claimed. The saying “there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man” truly applies to Big Frank, who has been battling multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells.

“This horse keeps me alive, Concrete Glory,” he said. “I just think about him every day. Six years ago, they told me I had five years, and then three years ago they told me I got another three, and they keep upping my life with new experiments and drugs, so I’m just riding this wave.”

Rupolo said he underwent a stem cell transplant four years ago — he named his other horse in training Stem Cell, a 3-year-old who should make his debut soon — and the new CAR-T therapy two years ago.

“They keep going further and further with research, so hopefully I’m around for another five or 10 years,” said Rupolo, who is working to get his stable numbers back up after having six horses claimed or otherwise sold in the last four months.

Joseph agreed Concrete Glory may be Big Frank’s best medicine, “more than even the therapies he gets,” the trainer said. “Even when he’s in the hospital and weak — he goes through spells where he gets very sick — he’ll be texting me, ‘Just tell me the horse is all right.’ Or ‘where are we going? Because that’s what keeps me going.’ That’s what horses do for you.”

About that ring: Rupolo won his first Claiming Crown race as an owner with Sugar Fix in the 2021 Tiara at Gulfstream Park, which came the same day he married his wife, Yasmin, in a wedding and celebration at the track. Last year he gifted the stable ownership to Yasmin, though Big Frank remains the force and big personality behind the operation. He commissioned the Super Bowl-sized ring topped with a crown image and emblazoned with “Claiming Crown.” One side has a cutout of a horse with the name Sugar Fix and the Claiming Crown date; the other side has Concrete Glory and the date of his first Claiming Crown win.

“And then he won it again,” Rupolo said. “But I can’t change the ring, so there’s nothing I could do. So I’m going to wait until he retires and get a bracelet made or something nice. I like my jewelry. Somebody said, ‘What are you going to do if he keeps winning?’ I said, ‘Listen, I’ve got nine other fingers.’”

Watch Concrete Glory repeats in Claiming Crown Express – and awaits three-peat attempt! on YouTube.