March, 2021 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Keeneland Catalogs 23 Horses For March Digital Sale

Keeneland has cataloged 23 horses for its March Digital Sale, to be held Tuesday, March 23 as part of Keeneland's Digital Sales Ring platform. The March Sale catalog is available at Keenelanddigital.com.

Online bidding opens at 10 a.m. ET on March 23 and will begin to close that day at 2 p.m.

How to Register and Bid

Buyers are encouraged to register for an account in the Keeneland Digital Sales Ring in advance of sale day. In order to log in to the Keeneland Digital Sales Ring, you should register for an account or log in through the Keeneland Sales Portal. Your universal login applies to both the Sales Portal and the Digital Sales Ring.

Step 1: Visit portal.keeneland.com and create an account or log in to your existing Keeneland Sales Portal Account;

Step 2: Upon sign in, click “My Account” and review your current credit limit. Request credit as needed. We recommend you do this prior to the sale day;

Step 3: Click the “Digital Sales Ring” button in the top right corner to automatically access and participate in the Digital Sale.

Buyers have two options for bidding on the day of the sale:

Direct Bid allows you to bid manually as you go.
Max Bid establishes a top price that you are willing to pay for a hip. As the bidding progresses, the software will automatically bid on your behalf as you are outbid up to your maximum.

For more information about the March Sale, contact Dean Roethemeier at droethemeier@keeneland.com, Kyle Wilson at kwilson@keeneland.com or Chip McGaughey at cmcgaughey@keeneland.com.

***************

The Keeneland Digital Sales Ring has scheduled a total of seven mixed sales for 2021. They will continue in May, June, July, August, October and December.

The post Keeneland Catalogs 23 Horses For March Digital Sale appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Second Episode Of ‘Truth To Power’ Series Provides Action Points For Those Who Care About Racing Diversity

The second installment of The Racing Biz panel series titled 'Truth To Power' aired Wednesday with a focus on practical suggestions for those in the racing community to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. The panel series aims to define and address the issues racing faces with diversity among its workforce and fan base.

See a recap of the first installment and watch a replay here.

The second panel included expertise from Renee Hess, founder and executive director of Black Girl Hockey Club, Ron Mack, founder of the Legacy Equine Academy, and Leon Nichols, CEO and founder of the Project to Preserve African American Turf History. The panel was moderated by The Racing Biz founder Frank Vespe, freelance journalist Teresa Genaro, and NTRA Director of Communications Alicia Hughes.

A few key takeaways from the discussion, with a full replay below:

Panelists believe the rich history of standout Black jockeys from the early days of American racing like Jimmy Winkfield and Isaac Murphy provides a great basis for bringing Black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) back to the sport.
“Ironically, Thoroughbred racing can really be called the first sport to demonstrate equity and inclusion,” said Mack. “The jockeys I mentioned earlier were not only jockeys, but they were trainers, they were owners. They held power and influence in the culture of Thoroughbred racing, even in the late 1800s. As we honor and celebrate the glory of the past, at the Legacy Equine Academy we're training and cultivating our kids for the future of the sport.”
Hess's model with Black Girl Hockey Club was really to provide a sense of community to the comparatively few Black fans and participants in ice hockey, though she points out you don't have to be either Black or female to join — you just have to support the mission of including more diverse participation in the sport. Originally, the club began as a fan club and has grown to become a nonprofit that provides scholarships to girls who play in travel teams around the world. Not only is that helping diversify the sport's players, it's bringing fandom to people outside the United States who may not have become familiar with ice hockey otherwise.
The first step in improving diversity and inclusion, Hess said, is to talk about it. Businesses and organizations within an industry will prioritize something if they believe their consumers value it.
“Once we utilize our voices and let these organizations know that this is something the masses want to see, I think we'll be able to make these changes and drag these industries kicking and screaming because it is a financially sound decision,” she said. “Because this is the direction other sports are moving into. Our sports need to do the same if they want to remain relevant. We talk about 'growing the game' in hockey, and what better way to grow the game than to include the Black community, the LGBTQ community?”
Nichols hopes that his project can also grow racing by showing a new community of people that they have heroes in the sport, too. He is part of a group workshopping a screenplay based around part of Isaac Murphy's career, specifically about the famous match race in which he piloted Salvatore against Tenny, which was one of the greatest rivalries in American sports at the time.
“Reading Isaac's story, one thing you'll learn about him is … he was so inspired to set an example as an African American male in the 19th Century that it drove him to try and rove his equalness and Black excellence,” said Nichols. “Out of that came the match of the century.”
Mack is hoping to continue building a pipeline from school to racing industry jobs through the Legacy Equine Academy, but said he's not just preparing the students to be grooms or hotwalkers — he's encouraging them and preparing them to become racehorse owners and corporate executives. Not only should it be possible for those students, it should be desirable for racing to see better representation at the higher levels of administration.
If diversity is important to you but you don't sit at the top of the totem pole in your workplace, Hess said you probably have some influence you can use to prioritize equity. Do you hire interns? Consider looking for them at historically black colleges in addition to the programs you already correspond with. Do you manage your company's newsletter content? There's a chance to acknowledge achievement or history of the company or industry through the work of diverse trailblazers. Another thing she encourages: Keep having conversations about these topics — even though they're probably going to make you uncomfortable sometimes.
“I do think that when you are a non-Black, non BIPOC person, talking about race can be a little bit uncomfortable,” said Hess, who launched a campaign called Get Uncomfortable to encourage these dialogues. “I'm not 100% on that because I'm Black, but I get the gist that could be the feeling. But it's all about having these uncomfortable conversations … Change is uncomfortable.”

The post Second Episode Of ‘Truth To Power’ Series Provides Action Points For Those Who Care About Racing Diversity appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Gary Contessa To Send Out First Starter In Nearly A Year This Friday At Aqueduct

Trainer Gary Contessa announced his retirement from training racehorses in March of 2020, but last December he made the decision to return as a private trainer for Bell Gable Stable. This Friday, the trainer will have his first starter since March 21, 2020 at Aqueduct.

According to the Daily Racing Form, Contessa won't be at the track to saddle Trustyourinstinct in the day's eighth race, a $40,000 claimer for New York-breds at six furlongs. The trainer will instead be setting up his base at Delaware Park, where the backstretch just opened this week.

Bell Gable is operated by Nick and Delora Beaver out of a farm near Delaware Park. Contessa's role for the couple includes building the racing operation, picking out horses at the sales, and assisting in the breeding operation.

“It's been a wonderful experience so far,” Contessa told drf.com. “He's one in a million.”

Op/Ed Feedback: Why Is Legality Considered Optional?

by Peter Ecabert

Bill Finley, in his Mar. 17 TDN opinion piece on the National HBPA challenging the legality of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, wrote: “It's hard to imagine that there is one horseman anywhere who cares one bit whether or not HISA is unconstitutional or not.”

To Mr. Finley, it doesn't matter if this legislation, ramrodded through to passage with no Senate Committee discussion or debate as a little-known add-on to December's COVID relief bill, is legal or not. Who cares about the law's legality? he asks. The National HBPA cares.

We believe thousands of horsemen and horsewomen, including HBPA members and those in other racing jurisdictions, care, but many are afraid to say aloud that the emperor has no clothes. If they don't care today, we are confident they will down the road when the harmful consequences of HISA are put into effect.

No reasonable person should take issue with the National HBPA, North America's largest Thoroughbred horsemen's association, doing its due diligence to make sure that any such fundamental change to the running of horse racing has a solid legal foundation. It's the due diligence that should have been done in the first place by the well-funded power-brokers pushing this legislation that raises more questions than answers.

Let's be perfectly clear, the National HBPA is and has remained in favor of uniformity. We demanded safety protocols be the norm, not a half-hearted attempt to service public perception. We have never spoken against USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency) as a contracted entity to aid in enforcement, and we have never stood in favor of the protection of proven cheaters. To label any horsemen's group with that is misinformed and has no basis in fact. However, we have stood for due process and the protection of horsemen and horsewomen's rights. Rest assured we will continue to call for such protection.

What does it matter if the underpinning of what would oversee medication policy, testing, enforcement and safety measures isn't legal? Here's what: those cheaters Mr. Finley believes that HISA will eliminate will have a get-out-of-jail-free card if the law that set up the process for their sanctions is found to violate the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Finley writes because no one cares about legality (which is what constitutionality comes down to): “Instead, one is left to connect the dots and after doing so, it wouldn't be hard to reach the conclusion that the only reason to have HISA overturned would be that they prefer the status quo over a new system under the control of USADA.” The fact is, there are no dots here–and that's the problem with HISA. It's illegal and open-ended with more questions than answers.

We believe horse owners and horseplayers likely will be forced, with no say-so, to pick up the cost of HISA's unfunded mandate to create a new bureaucracy.

We also believe thousands of horsemen and horsewomen in the trenches want answers to the many questions before putting their livelihood under control by a group which almost certainly will be indirectly selected by and unduly influenced by the elites (i.e., The Jockey Club, whose largely homogeneous membership of approximately 150 is by invitation only).

For those wanting to portray the National HBPA as being obstructionists for demanding due diligence rather than blind faith, we in turn ask: is it really clear how HISA provides integrity, other than establishing an authority with a vague mission and unchecked power? It's like people are reading the bill title, thinking that's all this is to it and all problems are solved.

The National HBPA along with the Liberty Justice Center went beyond the good-feeling title and read the fine print. That's why we're in court.

Peter Ecabert is General Counsel for the National HBPA and owner of Ecabert Law Offices in Lexington, Ky.

The post Op/Ed Feedback: Why Is Legality Considered Optional? appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post