His father was a jockey, and manager of the Jockeys' Guild for 11 years, then state steward in West Virginia for 18 years. Growing up so close to the track, he and his mother would drive there and sit on a hill overlooking the track and watch the horses break from the chute in 41¼2-furlong races. "That's when I started getting the bug," he said. He got a job working at O'Sullivan Farm, located about seven miles from the track, mucking stalls, foaling babies, and helping with the mares. The following year, he was promoted to the track, walking hots for trainer Frank Gall.

After going to Monmouth Park, where he groomed horses, he got hurt and returned home to stay with his parents. "I was broke up pretty bad. Charles Town was closing and one of the jockeys asked me to come to Penn National with him and take his book." He then took over the book of Shannon Sullivan and did very well, eventually moving on to Philadelphia Park, where he became good friends with trainer Mark Reid. "I started crying to Mark that I didn't want to be an agent, I wanted to be a trainer. He said I should come to work for him, and I became his assistant for five years."

Servis eventually went out on his own, and saddled several good winners, such as stakes winner and graded stakes-placed Rapunzel Runz; and stakes winner Le Grande Pos. He claimed Groovy Feeling, who went on to win a small stakes in New York.

He met Rick Porter through a mutual friend, Joe Viviani, who worked for Porter as general manager at one of his automobile dealerships. "Rick said he was bored and was looking for something to do, and Joe talked him into getting into racing," Servis said. "I claimed a horse for him for $35,000 and ran him twice, and he won twice before being claimed. Then I bought him a cheap filly at the Ocala sale for $17,000. When she won first out for $25,000, he was hooked. I had no idea how big he wanted to get, until he called me one day at my hotel out of the clear blue sky and said he was thinking about buying You and I. I told him he'd probably cost around a million dollars, and he didn't even balk at it. I thought, 'Wow.' I told him I felt there was better value elsewhere. We almost had Tejano Run bought, but the owners decided not to sell. Then I was going to buy Thunder Gulch, but I dragged my feet, waiting for one more race, and he wound up being sold to Michael Tabor." Of course, Thunder Gulch and Tejano Run went on to finish one-two in the following year's Kentucky Derby.

Servis then became a private trainer for Porter. "I explained to Rick it would take a good four or five years before we started to get going, I wasn't surprised when Rick went with Nick Zito. I was just a small-time guy. But he did leave a few with me, and I didn't say a word. Then they slowly started trickling back."

Horse Racing