Month: May 2021

British Trainer Botti: Prize Money Situation Has My Horses Leaving For America

Group 1-winning trainer Marco Botti says low levels of prize money in Britain are beginning to impact his career after three more of his horses left the yard to race abroad.

The 104-rated Count Of Amazonia, winner of three out of six for the Newmarket trainer, plus 2020 Oaks D'Italia third Made In Italy and maiden Brown Delivers moved on this week, all headed to new stables in the USA.

Botti, 44, made his name with champion miler Excelebration and has won top prizes around the world, landing the Beverly D Stakes at Arlington with Euro Charline, the Canadian International with Joshua Tree and Prix Royal-Oak with Tac de Boistron. However, the Italian's most recent Group-race winner in Britain was Dylan Mouth in 2018.

Last year Botti's best horse Malotru was sold to Hong Kong after his owner received an offer that was too good to refuse and the increasing trend has become a serious concern for the trainer.

“Down the line it is affecting my career a little bit because when owners are looking at my stats and point out I haven't had a Group winner last year, I say it's because we are selling all the time,” he said. “I have to run a business but unfortunately once the horse has gone you get the money, but you don't get the success.”

Count Of Amazonia, Made In Italy, and Brown Delivers had won just over £50,000 ($70,584) combined from 22 starts in Britain and Botti has other examples of horses who have had to be sold or were moved on.

“We bought Count Of Amazonia last year and were planning to campaign him a bit more abroad this year to get better prize-money,” he said. “But an offer came in and the owner said it made no sense to run in a Listed race here for £20,000 ($28,233) so we were forced to accept the offer. He is going to America but Kulbir Sohi has kept a share.

“It was the same story with Made In Italy. We sold her before she ran at Kempton in a Listed race to American clients with a view to running her again before she headed to America. But because they knew the equivalent of a 20k Listed race is worth £60-70,000 ($84,700 to $98,817) over there they decided to send her there sooner rather than later.

“Brown Delivers is owned by Team Valor. He ran a couple of times this year and was unlucky at Kempton and then in a handicap. They said if he went to America he could run in a £30-40,000 ($42,350 to $56,467) maiden in America, rather than for £2,500 ($3,529) here.

“I had another horse, Endured, who won a maiden. His owner was based in Hong Kong and he said he couldn't keep him in England because he was running for no prize money whereas if you win a race in Hong Kong it pays for a couple of seasons.

“That's the way it is. It's frustrating. We are all living in hope something will change but when it's going to happen, who knows? A yard like mine has no Maktoum family or Juddmonte owners so we have to rely a bit on the market as well. It happens all the time where I lose nice horses for the same reason.”

Botti backs his track record, including most recently with the Sohi-owned Felix, who was bought out of Sir Michael Stoute's yard for 24,000gns. He is to be targeted at Royal Ascot's Wolferton Stakes and the Arlington Million.

“Felix was second in the Winter Derby and Winter Derby Trial,” said the trainer. “In two races he won £20,000 ($28,233), then the same horse went to Dubai, okay it was World Cup night, and won nearly £300,000 ($423,504) in one race for finishing third! The gap is huge.

“We have all been complaining. I don't know if anyone is listening to us but I personally think it makes no sense when valuable horses run for less than £3,000 ($4,235).

“I don't want to criticise the BHA or whoever is in charge but there is no way we can survive with the current system. It is going to be a big struggle. I know it has been like this for a long time but something needs to be done.”

This story was originally published by Horse Racing Planet and is reprinted here with permission.

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About That Connection Between SGF-1000 And Dexamethasone

When news broke last weekend that Medina Spirit had tested positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone, Paulick Report staff received several questions from readers asking about a phone conversation intercepted by federal agents. Court documents from the federal indictments of March 2020 recalled a conversation between trainer Jason Servis and veterinarian Dr. Kristian Rhein in which they were discussing a substance called SGF-1000, which prosecutors say was one of the misbranded or adulterated drugs at the heart of the case. Rhein told Servis that the substance could sometimes create a false positive for “dex,” widely believed to refer to dexamethasone, and Servis asked Rhein to alter his veterinary records to make it appear as though horses had been treated with dexamethasone in case of a positive test.

Read more about SGF-1000 in this Paulick Report feature.

Since both dexamethasone and betamethasone are corticosteroids, some readers wondered whether a positive test for betamethasone could actually be a guise for something more sinister.

According to Dr. Mary Scollay, executive director for the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the answer is no.

Scollay explained that the testing and confirmation process used in mass spectronomy makes it virtually impossible for one drug to be misidentified as another. She doesn't believe betamethasone is a false positive result, nor that SGF-1000 could actually have shown up as dexamethasone in post-race tests. (No one ever said the indicted individuals were always accurate in their intercepted conversations.)

Mass spectronomy works by identifying foreign molecules inside blood or urine and weighing them as part of a process called screening analysis. Those molecular weights are then checked against the lab's drug catalogue. The catalogue contains the molecular weights of known substances and is developed through rigorous testing of known drugs. If a molecular weight matches something in the catalogue, that's an initial finding.

Before the lab can actually call the test a positive for the substance though, it goes through a second process called confirmatory analysis. It's possible two substances could have the same weight but be made up of different components, so the lab must find out if their compositions are the same. In this process, the molecules of the substance are bombarded with energy until they split apart, and the ratios of the resulting pieces are measured against the catalogued substance.

“Each specific molecule has its own way of fragmenting,” said Scollay. “It's like a Hershey bar – it's scored in a certain way, it's going to break the same way every time if you apply force at certain points. When you go to identify the molecule, you look at the candidate ions, the ions that result from fragmenting it, and also the ratio of those ions to each other. They should be present in very specific proportions. If they're not, or if the candidate ions are not present, or even one of them is missing, you have not identified the substance.

“I would argue that if you identify the candidate ions in the right ratio, you've identified betamethasone.”

By the time a lab calls a positive using this testing method, it's justifiably confident that the substance at play has been correctly identified.

So what of the SGF-1000/dex connection?

“Maybe dexamethasone was in the SGF-1000, and that's why they said it would show as dexamethasone, but if a molecule has the same exact molecular weight as dexamethasone and you apply energy to it and it fragments, and the fragmented parts are the ions you would get from dexamethasone in the relative concentrations, I'm going to say you've identified dexamethasone,” she said.

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Stablemates Bye Bye Melvin, English Bee Headline Competitive Field In Dinner Party

Grade 3-winning stablemates Bye Bye Melvin and English Bee will take on the imposing pair of Kuramata and Grade 1-placed Sacred Life as well as Grade 2 winner Somelikeithotbrown in a competitive edition of Saturday's $250,000 Dinner Party (G2) at Pimlico Race Course.

The 120th running of the 1 1/16-mile Dinner Party for 3-year-olds and up on the grass is part of a spectacular 14-race program featuring 10 stakes, six graded, worth $2.25 million in purses headlined by the 146th renewal of the Preakness Stakes (G1), Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown.

Other graded-stakes on the card are the $200,000 Chick Lang (G3) for 3-year-olds and $150,000 Maryland Sprint (G3), both going six furlongs; $150,00 Gallorette for fillies and mares 3 and up at 1 1/16 miles on the grass; and $100,000 UAE President Cup (G1) for Arabian horses.

First race post time is 10:30 a.m.

Pimlico's oldest stakes race and the eighth-oldest in the country, the Dinner Party was contested at two miles for its 1870 debut, won by the Hall of Famer Preakness. The distance has changed eight times over its history, settling at the current 1 1/16 miles in 2014.

Alex G. Campbell Jr.'s Bye Bye Melvin, a homebred son of champion Uncle Mo, made his 4-year-old debut in an open, third-level allowance at the Dinner Party distance April 15 at Keeneland, where he took a short lead into the stretch and nearly held it the rest of the way before being beaten a neck when second to Midnight Tea Time. It was his first race since running third by one length in the 1 1/8-mile Bryan Station Nov. 6 over the same course.

“He's been very consistent. He was a little unlucky the other day coming off the layoff. He might have gotten a little tired,” trainer Graham Motion said. “He's a very hard-trying, hard-knocking horse. He's been thrown all sorts of different ground to run on.”

Bye Bye Melvin won the one-mile Saranac (G3) by a head last summer on a soft course at Saratoga, then was beaten a nose when second in the James W. Murphy over yielding ground on the Preakness undercard in October.

“He's put in some really strong efforts which kind of show that his Saratoga win was not a fluke, I think,” Motion said. “He's a big, strong, gorgeous horse. I think this will hopefully be a stepping stone to some longer races this summer. Ultimately, I think probably a mile and a quarter is going to be a good trip for him.”

Motion, whose previous Dinner Party wins came with Dr. Brendler in 2003 and Better Talk Now in 2006 when it was contested as the Dixie, will also send out Calumet Farm homebred English Bee. A 5-year-old son of turf champion English Channel, he will be racing for the first time since running fifth in a 1 1/16-mile allowance Oct. 8 at Keeneland.

“We gave him a freshening over the winter. I felt like he'd been going at it for a long time without a break,” Motion said. “After we ran him at Keenleand last time I wanted to give him some time. He went to the farm at Calumet and Jack Sisterson got him started for me and he came back to me here in the beginning of the year.”

English Bee won the 1 1/8-mile Virginia Derby (G3) at Colonial Downs and the one-mile Parx Fall Derby in successive 2019 starts but has gone winless since. During that stretch, other than his most recent race, he hasn't lost by more than 3 ½ lengths with seconds by a neck in the Wise Dan (G2) and half-length in the Canadian Turf (G3).

“This horse, I love this horse. He's a hard-knocking, tough little horse,” Motion said. “He's been a little unlucky probably not to come away with another win in one of these races he's been in, but he hasn't been beaten far in some pretty tough races. He's a hard-trying horse.”

Hall of Famer John Velazquez will ride Bye Bye Melvin from outermost Post 8, while Joel Rosario has the assignment on English Bee from Post 2.

Four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown, winner of the 2016 Dinner Party with Takeover Target, entered Kuramata and Sacred Life. Peter Brant's Kuramata will be making just his fourth career start and first in a stakes, breaking his maiden Feb. 21 at Tampa Bay Downs and winning a 1 1/16-mile allowance April 2 at Aqueduct in his two races this year.

Michael Dubb, Madaket Stables, Wonder Stables and Bethlehem Stables' Sacred Life was a Group 3 winner in his native France that has yet to break through with his first graded-stakes in North America. Winner of the 1 1/16-mile Oceanport last summer at Monmouth Park, the 6-year-old ran third by 2 ½ lengths in the Maker's Mark Mile (G1) April 9 at Keeneland in his first race in seven months.

Irad Ortiz Jr. will be aboard Kuramata from Post 3 with Hall of Famer Javier Castellano riding Sacred Life from Post 5.

Also exiting the Maker's Mark Mile, where he was seventh by less than four lengths, is Skychai Racing and Sand Dollar Stable's Somelikeithotbrown, second to Factor This in last fall's Dinner Party. Trained by Mike Maker, the 5-year-old son of 2008 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness (G1) winner Big Brown is a graded winner on two surfaces, taking the 2019 Jeff Ruby (G3) on the all-weather at Turfway Park and the Bernard Baruch (G2) over the Saratoga turf last summer.

Somelikeithotbrown owns four wins and three seconds in seven career tries at the Dinner Party distance. Jose Ortiz gets the call from Post 1.

“He was second in this race last year,” Maker said. “It's a nice distance for him.”

Completing the field are Dreams of Tomorrow, third by 1 ¼ lengths in the Henry S. Clark April 24 at Pimlico for Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey; 2018 American Derby (G3) winner Real Story; Talk Or Listen, Group 3-placed in France in 2019; and stakes-placed Midnight Tea Time.

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