October, 2020 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Delta Downs Preparing For Delayed Thoroughbred Season Kicking Off Nov. 24

Delta Downs' 2020-21 Thoroughbred season will see plenty of changes after a pair of powerful storms caused heavy damage to the racetrack during the offseason.

Hurricane Laura, which struck the Vinton, La. area on Aug. 27 as a Category 4 storm with winds of nearly 150 miles per hour, caused extensive damage to the facility before Hurricane Delta struck nearly the same area as a Category 2 storm on Oct. 9.

Due to the lengthy repairs necessary, Delta Downs' season has been pushed back from its original starting date of Oct. 6 and will now begin on Tuesday, Nov. 24. The 84-day meeting will run through April 16 and feature live racing each Monday through Thursday following opening week. Post times for this season will be at 12:55 pm Central Time each day since the lighting system was damaged beyond repair and nighttime racing was made impossible.

Delta Downs' stakes schedule for the upcoming season has also been altered this year. Overall, the track will offer 22 added-money races worth a total of $1.745 million.

The stakes activity will begin on opening week with a pair of $60,000 races, the Lookout and the B Connected Stakes, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 24 and 25. The track will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 26 before the week wraps up on Friday and Saturday with a pair of $100,000 events, the Treasure Chest and the Delta Mile.

The richest race day of the year will happen on Wednesday, Feb. 10 when the track hosts the 18th edition of Louisiana Premier Day. The star-studded program will include 10 stakes races for Louisiana-bred horses and a total of $805,000 in total purse money. The featured race on Louisiana Premier Day will be the $125,000 Louisiana Premier Day Championship for older horses traveling 1 1/16 miles.

For more information about the upcoming season, including the entire stakes schedule, visit the track's website at www.deltadownsracing.com. Fans can also get information about the track through Facebook by visiting the page 'Delta Downs Racing'. The track's Twitter handle is @deltaracing.

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Aaron West of Bradley Thoroughbreds Named Finalist for Newcomer Award

Congratulations to Aaron West, one of three finalists in the Newcomer Award category of the Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards (TIEA), presented by Godolphin. Currently the racing operations manager at Bradley Thoroughbreds LLC, West originally hails from Arkansas, where he was bitten by the Thoroughbred bug at Oaklawn Park. A move to Kentucky followed, as did a graduation from the North American Racing Academy (NARA) after focusing on ground skills and barn management. First a yearling groom at Lane’s End Farm, West landed at Bradley Thoroughbreds. He coordinates with owners–making sure everyone is licensed, ensuring silks and papers are in the right spots, and organizing seating on race days; provides updates on breezes; works with trainers on horses’ targets; and more.

“Aaron comes to work every day with a can-do attitude,” said Pete Bradley.

Click for the video feature on West done by TIEA.

Other finalists for the Newcomer Award are Robert Cole of FTBOA and Alexis Kolasa of Denali Stud. The Newcomer Award is presented annually to an individual who has been in racing or breeding for under five years and has shown ambition to continue a career in some facet of the Thoroughbred industry while also improving his or her skills and knowledge.

A total of seven award categories will be honored by TIEA for 2020. Maria Cristina Silva of New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (NYTHA) has already been announced as the winner of the Community Award, while the winners in the other categories will be announced live in a virtual ceremony hosted by Jill Byrne and streamed at the TDN homepage Thursday, Nov. 5, at 12:00 p.m. ET. All finalists will be spotlighted in TDN in the days leading up to the ceremony.

The post Aaron West of Bradley Thoroughbreds Named Finalist for Newcomer Award appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Research Study On Diagnostics For Equine Osteoarthritis Of The Neck

Radiographs have been found to be insufficient evidence for diagnosing Cervical Facet disease according to a research study by Dr. Judith Koenig and a team of researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College. In a video interview, Koenig explains some of the complexities of equine osteoarthritis and cervical facet disease.

“Osteoarthritis is common in any athlete,” explains Koenig “especially as they get older.” The development of bone spurs can cause the facets to become enlarged. Inflammation around the cervical facet joints can affect the soft tissues and nerve roots. It is hypothesized that slight neck instability or overuse can result in remodeling of the joint. There were a larger number of dressage horses relative to the hospital population in the study and dressage horses may be at a higher risk for overuse of the facet joints of the cervical vertebrae.

Clinical signs of Osteoarthritis in the neck include: atrophy/muscle wasting (pronounced hollow in lower neck and vertebrae appear prominent), stiff neck (e.g. limited range in carrot stretch, difficulty when ridden in a “frame”) and sometimes front limb lameness that does not resolve by nerve blocking up the leg.

One of the reasons for the OVC study was the fact that previous studies have shown radiographs indicating changes in the neck of younger horses (6 to 8 years old) with no other clinical signs of osteoarthritis. Koenig has seen for herself, horses dismissed after pre-purchase exams when radiographs indicate mild osteoarthritis. When previous studies indicate 50 percent of clinically normal mature horses present with mild osteoarthritis on radiographs, a study to explore the significance was in order.

Differing opinions in classifying the severity of the stage of osteoarthritis from radiographs was revealed to be a good case for not using radiographs alone in diagnosis. “The repeatability of grading of osteoarthritis from radiographs was not reliable,” says Koenig. Two-thirds of the horses in the OVC study that were treated with intra-articular cortisone injection returned to their full level of work. The study concluded that radiographs alone were insufficient to diagnose cervical facet disease and other clinical signs (atrophy, stiffness, or lameness unresolved by nerve block) need to be present.

Watch the Equine Guelph video here.

Del Mar’s Seventh Consecutive Fall Meet To Be Conducted Without Fans

Del Mar's seventh consecutive fall race meeting – presented with a Hollywood flare and a title that honors the track's founder, Bing Crosby – breaks from the starting gate this Saturday for a 15-day stand that will take it through to Sunday, Nov. 29.

The Bing Crosby Season will offer 16 stakes races during its run, headed by a pair of grassy Grade 1's on closing weekend – the $300,000 Hollywood Derby on Nov. 28 and the $300,000 Matriarch Stakes on Nov. 29.

After its Saturday/Sunday opening weekend, the track will settle into a Friday-through-Sunday format for the following three weeks, then close things out with a four-day finish starting on Thanksgiving Thursday, Nov. 26.

The track will continue its emphasis on the safety of its horses and riders which has now resulted in a highly successful three-year span that has seen it rise to the top of a list of the nation's safest racetracks. Its extensive program of enhanced procedures and protocols include additional veterinarian oversight, a panel of experts that scrutinizes all horse entries and overriding analyses of medications and workout routines for its horses. These once novel steps now have become part of the day-to-day routine at the shore racing headquarters.

As was the case during recently concluded summer meet, the track will operate its fall season under stringent COVID-19 protocols, including daily health screenings for all employees and essential personnel. It will have medical professionals onsite and require both the wearing of face masks and social distancing. In accordance with state and local guidelines, racing again will be conducted without fans in attendance.

“Safety is on our menu from start to finish,” said Del Mar Thoroughbred Club's CEO Joe Harper. “If you start with safety, everything else just flows. And not only will we again have safe racing, but we'll once more have the best racing in the country throughout our stand, something racing fans are going to love to watch.”

Nine of the track's fall stakes will be run on its Jimmy Durant Turf Course starting with the opening day Kathryn Crosby Stakes for fillies and mares going a mile. The meet's last seven stakes – presented over the extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend – are all contested on the lawn, leading up to the two Grade I offerings mentioned earlier.

In keeping with its Bing Crosby/Hollywood theme, the majority of the track's stakes are named for stars of the past who had Del Mar connections. Among the black-type presentations are races named for Desi Arnaz, Bob Hope, Betty Grable, Cary Grant, Jimmy Durante and Cecil B. DeMille.

Del Mar's racing office – headed by a pair of pros in its executive vice president for racing Tom Robbins and racing secretary David Jerkens – will be presenting either eight or nine races daily with a first post of 12:30 p.m. on all days with the exception of Thanksgiving Day and its special 11 a.m. start.

It also will present live cards on both Breeders' Cup days – Friday, Nov. 6 and Saturday, Nov. 7. Eight Del Mar races will be run both afternoons around the 14 championship events – five on Friday and nine of Saturday — conducted at Keeneland Race Course in Kentucky this year.

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