Month: September 2020

Riders Up Documentary Takes Look Behind Scenes at “First Sports Bubble”

As the  realities of the coronavirus started to spread across California and the country, the team at Santa Anita wasn’t sure how to prepare for what could have quickly escalated into a dire situation for the track and the sport. But what began as a scramble of sorts led to a well-coordinated plan. Racing would successfully return to the historic Southern California track and with an innovative wrinkle. During the racing week, the jockeys were required to live in a bubble in campers situated on track. What might at first have seemed to be an imposition quickly turned into a collegial summer camp for the riders.

“If you have to do something like this, this is the way to do it. I’d like to say life in quarantine is pretty tough, but I’d be lying like crazy,” jockey Mike Smith says.

Santa Anita was shut down by the coronavirus following the Mar. 22 card but returned May 15 and the meet was completed without any serious setbacks. How it did so is the subject of the entertaining documentary from NBC Sports Network “Riders Up. The First Sports Bubble.” (Click here for a preview.)

While horse racing has figured out how to operate during a global pandemic, that wasn’t the case when COVID-19 started to upend life as we know it.  As “Riders Up” begins, the management team at Santa Anita is considering the worst-case scenarios

“We started seeing the news day by day get worse and we realized businesses were going to start being put out of business for the time being,” said Stronach Group Executive Director of California Operations Aidan Butler. “Unlike any other business, the racetrack is like a town. Eight hundred people live here. Eighteen hundred horses live here. It’s not like any other business. That was the realization that we could have a real crisis on our hands. A little bit of panic set in across the group here.”

This was a case where panic turned into the mother of invention.

“At that point it was ‘What are we going to do?'” Butler said. “We have to make a decision here. We can start to ask animals to leave here and people to start to get out and try to get it to an amount that was controllable or double down and try to get her open as quick as we could.”

The horses and the backstretch community were the easy part. There was plenty of room to accommodate them and because the horses needed to be cared for, there was never any serous question about allowing the backstretch workers to continue on as normal. The jockeys were the bigger issue. Should they be brought back and then, had some of them tested positive, racing would have likely had to be shut down again. It was decided to house them on track in RV’s that were normally used on movie and television sets that had been closed due to the pandemic.

“We built a small city in a matter of a week,” said Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager Nate Newby.

Santa Anita’s bubble would be the first of its kind in sports, a precursor to what the NBA and the NHL would do with their players once they resumed playing.

“I certainly had concerns,” Smith said. “What’s going to happen? Are we going to be close to everybody? Are we going to be piled into a room all together? Is it going to be a little bit scary?”

Understanding that confinement can be stifling, Santa Anita set out to make things as enjoyable as possible for the jockeys. With Butler and Newby acting as head counselors, there was a 50th birthday party for veteran Aaron Gryder, karaoke, poker, movie night and group dinners. The jockeys, who usually go their separate way after the races are over, bonded.

“It was a great time being with the guys,” jockey Edwin Maldonado said. “Like being in a man cave.”

It worked. By the time the meet ended without further interruption on June 21, over 1,000 COVID-19 tests had been administered to jockeys and essential employees. Not one jockey or racing employee tested positive.

Riders Up will air Friday on NBC Sports Network at 3 p.m. PT and will be shown again Saturday at 9:30 a.m. PT. It was produced by the Hennegan Brothers.RIdTTaea

The post Riders Up Documentary Takes Look Behind Scenes at “First Sports Bubble” appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Authentic ‘Just So Full Of Himself’ During First Trip Over Pimlico Course

As he has done for so many years, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert held court outside the Pimlico Stakes Barn Wednesday morning after his Preakness horses had come back from the track.

Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Authentic was jogged clockwise over the muddy surface along the outside rail at 8:30 a.m., some 90 minutes after stablemate Thousand Words galloped a circuit on the course under Humberto Gomez. Both horses were shipped from Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. to Maryland on Tuesday.

After breezing a half-mile in a 'bullet' 47.60 seconds at Churchill Downs Monday, Authentic had a very light morning of exercise Wednesday.

“He just went out there for a little jog. He looked good,” Baffert said. “Coming off that plane yesterday, he was like a keg of dynamite. He has so much energy, that horse. He's just so full of himself.”

Authentic, who is owned by Spendthrift Farm LLC, MyRaceHorse Stable, Madaket Stables LLC and Starlight Racing, has been installed as the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the Preakness, the last leg of the Triple Crown this year.

Albaugh Family Stables LLC and Spendthrift Farm LLC's Thousand Words was scratched about a half hour before the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5 when he reared up and fell while being saddled for the race. The Pioneerof the Nile colt turned in a sharp work Saturday at Churchill Downs that convinced Baffert that he was ready for the 145th Preakness. He will wear blinkers again after two races without that piece of equipment.

“He worked on Saturday so we gave him a little gallop around there,” Baffert said. “It's a wet track and it's hard tell what's going on. He went nice and moved over the track. The main thing is you want your horses to look sound and healthy. He went nice.”

Authentic gave Baffert his record-tying sixth Derby victory. Though each of his previous five Derby winners also won the Preakness, Baffert, 67, noted that the situation was different this year with the Covid-19 changes that juggled the Triple Crown schedule. The Belmont Stakes was run in June, the Derby on Labor Day weekend and the Preakness at the beginning of October.

“Two weeks, though. It was two weeks. We've got a month now,” Baffert said. “I would have loved to run two weeks later because he was just full of himself two weeks afterward. It's just giving horses time to freshen up. You have new shooters now. It's so turned around now.

“I feel real good about it. I think he's going to run his race. He hasn't regressed. He looks great.”

Baffert said he would have preferred that even though the Triple Crown had to be delayed because of the pandemic that the races were run in the same order, with the Belmont following the Preakness

“But it would have conflicted with the Breeders' Cup for the 3-year-olds,” Baffert said. “I still think it would been a great scenario. I just feel fortunate that we even have this. It was looking pretty bleak (during the Covid lockdown).

“It doesn't feel like Preakness, but it will the day of. It's like the Kentucky Derby. It didn't feel like Derby that day, but when that gate came open it felt like Derby. That's the way it is. When that gate comes open it's going to feel like Preakness. That's what it's all about. All you are hoping for is that your horses show up and when they turn for home you're hoping you have something to root for. That's it. That's all you can ask for.”

Baffert is tied with 19th century trainer R. W. Walden with a record seven Preakness victories. While the dates are far different and the usual raucous scene will be quiet because spectators are not permitted, Baffert said he is happy that the 2020 Triple Crown was not cancelled.

“It would have been horrible if we didn't have the Derby, the Preakness,” he said. “The Belmont was sort of different, more like the Dwyer. The Derby and the Preakness, at least we got to run them. And we have beautiful weather.

“I love coming to Baltimore, even though it's pretty quiet right now. The environment here is just so nice. It's a beautiful stakes barn. I've seen the same people here the last 15 to 20 years and they are glad to see us come in.”

The post Authentic ‘Just So Full Of Himself’ During First Trip Over Pimlico Course appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Doctor Mounty Headlines Pimlico’s Oldest Stakes Race, The Dinner Party

Already a four-time winner of the race, Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey will go after No. 5 with Maryland-loving multiple graded-stakes winner Doctor Mounty in the $250,000 Dinner Party (G2) Saturday, Oct. 3 at Pimlico Race Course.

The 119th running of the Dinner Party for 3-year-olds and up on the grass is part of a Preakness Day program of 12 stakes races, seven graded, worth $2.7 million in purses featuring the $1 million Preakness (G1) for 3-year-olds and $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan (G2) for 3-year-old fillies.

Previously run as the Dixie, Pimlico's oldest stakes race and the eighth-oldest in the country was named the Dinner Party for its 1870 debut and contested at two miles. The distance has changed eight times over its history, settling at the current 1 1/16 miles in 2014.

Larry Pratt and Dave Alden's Doctor Mounty snapped a five-race losing streak when he returned from a brief freshening with a front-running 1 ¾-length triumph in the 1 1/16-mile Henry S. Clark Sept. 7 at Laurel Park. It was his first victory since his previous trip to Maryland, when the now 7-year-old gelding rallied to win the Prince George's County by a length last June.

The Clark was Doctor Mounty's sixth win from nine lifetime tries at Laurel, including the 2018 Baltimore-Washington International Turf Cup (G3). Based at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., where he breezed a half-mile in a bullet 47.40 seconds Sept. 26, Doctor Mounty has yet to race at Pimlico.

“He's doing fine. He's been there at Fair Hill and he's trained well there, so we'll take a shot,” McGaughey said. “He likes Laurel, so [the Clark was] a good spot to try and start him back again.”

In the Clark, Doctor Mounty was reunited with jockey Forest Boyce, who has ridden him to five of his Laurel wins including all three stakes. She and the 2019 Tropical Turf (G3) winner will team up again from Post 6 in a field of seven for the Dinner Party.

McGaughey's previous wins came with Hall of Famer Lure (1993), Parading (2009), Ironicus (2015) and Fire Away (2018), when it was rained onto the main track.

“Forest rides him really well, so I think that's one of the things that's helped, too,” McGaughey said. “He's made more than a half-million dollars, he's won some stakes and won some graded-stakes. He's been off and on a little bit but we gave him a little time this summer. We thought about taking him to Colonial [Downs] but when that fell through [the Clark] was the next logical spot, [and] here we are.”

Trainer Graham Motion, who won with Dr. Brendler in 2003 and Better Talk Now in 2006 and was third the past two years with Just Howard, counters with the pair of True Valour and Irish Strait. R. Larry Johnson purchased Irish-bred True Valour over the summer and the 6-year-old debuted for his new connections Sept. 5 in the 1 1/8-mile Turf Classic (G1), pressing the pace before fading to seventh.

True Valour has gone winless in seven tries since taking the City of Hope Mile (G2) last October, his first start in eight months after winning the Thunder Road (G3), both at Santa Anita. Winner of the 2018 Ballycorus (G3) at Leopardstown in Ireland, he will be ridden by Julian Pimentel from Post 1.

“I think the mile and an eighth in Kentucky was a little far for him. I think shortening up to a mile and a sixteenth is going to help him,” Motion said. “He's pretty straightforward; I just think distance is going to be a bit limited for him. Last time was just a bit too far.”

Isabelle Haskell de Tomaso's homebred Irish Strait is a half-brother to Irish War Cry, millionaire winner of the 2018 Pimlico Special (G3). Irish Strait earned his own graded triumph in the 2017 Red Bank (G3) and has run second or third four times since in graded company.

After more than a year between races, Irish Strait has started twice this year with a third in the 1 1/16-mile Oceanport Aug. 9 and a fourth to Analyze It in the one-mile Red Bank Sept. 5, both at Monmouth under jockey Jorge Vargas Jr. Trevor McCarthy will be aboard for the Dinner Party from Post 5.

“He's run twice this year and run pretty well. Just looking over his form, he almost never gets beaten more than four lengths. Since last January he's just been very consistent,” Motion said. “He's 8 now so at some point in time it's going to catch up to him, but I thought in the Red Bank [trainer] Chad [Brown] won it with a filly coming off a long layoff with a pretty nice horse, a Grade 1 type horse. Jorge felt like he made a mistake by taking back little bit, and he was only beaten 4 ¼ lengths.”

Also in with a pair of horses is trainer Mike Maker, Somelikeithotbrown and Hembree, who will break side-by-side from Post 2 and 3, respectively, under Paco Lopez and Daniel Centeno. Skychai Racing and Sand Dollar Stable's Somelikeithotbrown, 4, captured the Bernard Baruch (G2) July 26 at Saratoga for his second career graded triumph, while Three Diamonds Farm's Hembree won the 2018 Nearctic (G2). The 6-year-old hasn't visited the winner's circle since the 2019 El Prado but placed six times in 13 tries, all stakes.

Gaining Ground Racing's Factor This, beaten less than a length after setting the pace in the Turf Classic, cuts back to a distance where the 5-year-old owns four wins from seven starts, the most recent coming in the June 20 Wise Dan (G2) for trainer Brad Cox. It was part of a three-race streak interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic following victories in the Muniz Memorial Classic (G3) and Fair Grounds (G3). An 11-time winner of nearly $1.1 million in purse earnings, Factor This drew outside Post 7 with Florent Groux.

Rounding out the field is O Dionysus, a stakes winner on turf and dirt for previous trainer Gary Capuano making his third start since being purchased by Irvin S. Naylor for $135,000 last December. The 6-year-old gelding has won stakes in each of his first four racing seasons but is 0-for-2 in 2020, finishing off the board in the United Nations (G1) and Henry Clark. This will be his third straight year in the race, running fourth in 2018 and fifth in 2019.

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