ship restaurant is Herb & Wood, which
opened in July of 2016 in the revital-
ized Little Italy neighborhood of San
Diego. The restaurant is in a cavern-
ous former warehouse, which gives
it an airy, relaxing atmosphere. The
food is outstanding, no surprise con-
sidering Malarkey's abilities and his
pronouncement that he was going to
refocus on being a hands-on chef and
less so on being a businessman and
celebrity.
He's busy with his restaurants, but
the Del Mar meets are such a passion
of his that he finds plenty of time to
enjoy racing. It's still so much in his
blood that one of his dreams is to one
day exercise one of his own racehors-
es. He once asked his trainer, the late
Mike Mitchell, if he could do so and
Mitchell couldn't say no fast enough.
"We had this horse, Sir Searsucker
and he had problems; we couldn't
get him to the track," Malarkey said.
"When we did, Julien (Leparoux), who
was Mike's son-in-law, told us he was
'common.' After a lot of sixth and sev-
enth-place runs at Santa Anita and
Del Mar I told Mike, 'We wasted a lot
of money on this horse and I want to
get something back. I'm a horsemen.
I can ride a jumping horse, any horse I
want. Let me work him at Del Mar.' He
