NEWS
Turf writer, handicapper Florio dies
Posted: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 5:14 PM
CLEM FLORIO
by Tom De Martini
Longtime turf writer, handicapper and former Maryland Jockey Club oddsmaker Clem Florio died on May 25 at Memorial Regional South Hospice in Hollywood, Florida, following a battle with lung and pancreatic cancer. He was 78.
The colorful scribe began his lifelong career in racing as a groom for Racing Hall of Fame trainer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons. He later worked as a handicapper for the Miami News before moving to the Baltimore News-American where he handicapped and covered Maryland racing from 1965 through '78.
Florio later spent ten years in a similar position with the Washington Post and later served as morning-line oddsmaker for the Maryland Jockey Club tracks through the late 1980s.
Florio also appeared on several Baltimore AM sports radio stations throughout his career to talk racing and occasionally called live races from Maryland tracks on the air.
Washington Post turf writer and Daily Racing Form columnist Andrew Beyer said Florio was the one colleague who took him under his wing and encouraged him.
“He loved the game. I loved Clem and he had a very big impact on my life,” Beyer said. “There was a time in the 1960s when people in press boxes didn’t understand the game. Clem understood it and on a level that few people did. He didn’t make [speed] figures, but he had an understanding of the importance of time and knew how to evaluate horses.”
Born in Queens, New York, Florio grew up near Aqueduct and began prize fighting under the name of The Ozone Park Assassin in the 1930s to support his family.
Beyer said Florio was very acute at watching a post parade and gleaning information from a horse’s body language.
“He was ahead of his time on those things,” Beyer said. “He used his ability as an athlete to relate to the look of a horse on the track. He called it the jiggle. A couple of times a year he’d say ‘he’s got the jiggle’ and it would send us scrambling to the windows.”
Florio is survived by his son, Louis Florio of Boca Raton, Florida.; three daughters, Clemma Florio and Mary Lou Hutter of New Bern, North Carolina, and Lonna Florio Pizarro of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; a brother, Patrick Florio of Pembroke Pines, Florida.; ten grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Tom De Martini is a New Jersey-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
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Posted by: Marylou, Hollywood, FL on August 18, 2011 at 09:43 PM
My father never told me about you, but I do like what you said about him. I would like to know more. In turn I shoould tell you some "stuff" about my dad.
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