Del. official Bob Clark dies

Veteran horseman and racing official Charles “Bob” Clark Jr. of Delaware, died Monday at the age of 70.

Mr. Clark served as director of physical education for the YMCA in West Chester, Pa., later as a foreman at General Motors and when time permitted, he spent time breaking and training young horses for well-known horseman Abe Stoltzfus.

As a youth, he spent many of his formative years helping his father, Charles R. Clark Sr. and his uncle, William Clark, in the family tradition of working with Standardbred. In the late 1960s Mr. Clark began training and driving horses himself and would train as many as 10 horses in a season. His first winner was May's Darling in 1967 at Harrington Raceway.

In 1970, Mr. Clark attended the U.S. Trotting Association School of Judges and became a patrol judge at Harrington Raceway and then an associate judge at Dover Downs. In short time, Mr. Clark advanced to become presiding judge at all three Delaware harness tracks, Brandywine, Dover Downs and Harrington, until 1989. It was then that Mr. Clark's son, Bobby, began training a racing stable of horses and to avoid possible conflict, he took a position with Intervet in Millsboro, Del.

It wasn't long after retiring from the sport that Mr. Clark filled a year vacancy as a judge at Plainridge Racetrack in Massachusetts after which he returned to participate in the training stable where he remained until a few months prior to his death.

Visitation is scheduled for the Avenue United Methodist Church in Milford, Del. Friday, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m

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