August, 2021 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Arapahoe Park To See Purse Increases For 2021 Meet

A recently announced $2,000 bump for all open-company overnight races is designed to reward loyal horsemen supporting the Bally's Arapahoe Park 2021 meet set to open Wednesday. The Aurora, Colo., racetrack pushed back the season from its usual mid-summer dates to allow the simulcast-driven purse fund to recover from pandemic-related OTB closures. The added time has resulted in a purse account that is as flush as it has been in many years.

In addition to the purse increase, Arapahoe is offering a new bonus structure for Colorado-breds competing against open company, with up to $2,000 in additional purse funds for a top-three finish.

First post will be 12 p.m. (Noon) MT, Wednesdays to Fridays, through Oct 15.

The mixed meet will offer Arabian, American Quarter Horse, and Thoroughbred racing. Select Thoroughbred races will be broadcast live on TVG and/or TVG2. All races are available on every prominent wagering platform.

Wednesday's Opening Day program kicks off with an Arabian maiden special weight, followed by six Thoroughbred races. The featured seventh race is a $15,500 allowance for non-winners of four races or non-winners in 2021 going 5 1/2 furlongs. The competitive field includes Docs Holiday, winner of last year's Colorado Thoroughbred Breeders Association (CTBA) Derby; Collusionist, a two-time stakes winner at Arapahoe in 2020; Doby, who ran one of the fastest races of the meet last year as a 3-year-old but was disqualified for interference; Maius, champion of the 2019 Gold Rush Futurity, the meet's most prestigious race; and King Parker, on the board in seven of 12 starts this year.

Opening week also includes Quarter Horse trials for the $75,000 Mile High Futurity (Thursday) and the $75,000 Mile High Derby (Friday). The stakes schedule features 15 Thoroughbred stakes, including six for Colorado-breds, as well as seven for Quarter Horses and three for Arabians.

Last year's leading trainer, Stetson Mitchell, is back to defend his title with 60 horses stabled here. Adrian Ramos is favored to lead the jockey standings after sharing last year's title with the legendary Scott Stevens, who retired in March.

Admission will be free for live racing. Much of the grandstand will be closed due to precautionary measures for COVID-19 but the ground-level concessions and bar will be open.

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Breeders’ Cup Winner Public Sector Finds Rail Spot To Prevail In Grade 2 Hall Of Fame Stakes

Public Sector (GB) emerged victorious from a relaxed rail trip in the Grade 2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Stakes at Saratoga on Friday, Aug. 6. Jockey Flavien Prat got the Chad Brown favorite away from the gate well and seemed pointed for an early lead, but settled in along the rail and let Next and Wolfie's Dynaghost dictate the early pace for much of the one-mile contest on the inner turf. As the field began bunching up around the final turn, Public Sector seemed initially boxed in but found a gap along the rail and burst through, holding off a late challenge from Annex.

There was a stewards' inquiry into the stretch run, where Annex crossed over from the outside of rival Original under right handed urging from jockey Junior Alvarado. Original subsequently took a serious bobble and seemed to trip as though he caught the heels of Annex, and jockey Luis Saez pulled Original up before the finish line. Original was unsaddled and walked off the track alongside his groom, under his own power. There was no change to the order of finish as the result of the inquiry.

Annex was left up as second, with In Effect third and Next fourth. The final time for the mile was 1:35.03, with fractional times of 1:11.37, :47.56, and :23.91.

As the 4-5 favorite, Public Sector paid $3.80, $2.50, and $2.10.

Public Sector came to the race off a second-place finish in the Manila Stakes at Belmont (where he was second behind Original), and was last year's G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner. Klaravich Stables owns the 3-year-old son of Kingman (GB) and Montjeu (IRE) mare Parle Moi (IRE). Public Sector was bred in Great Britain by The Kathryn Stud. The colt was a $217,822 purchase by Klaravich from the Tattersalls October Sale, where he was consigned by Clearwater Stud.

See the full chart here.

G2 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame Quotes, courtesy NYRA Press Office

Chad Brown, winning trainer of Public Sector (No. 2, $3.80*): “Our plan was to leave out of there with intention. It looked like there was a lot of speed on paper but make them go, get our spot and if they're going to go, go. If not, we'll be there. As it turned out, they actually weren't going. The 47 and 3 [half-mile] is solid but it's been dry here and in a graded race at Saratoga, that's not that fast for these horses. Flavien [Prat] does many things wonderfully and that was one of them. He gives you a chance to win by adapting to the pace right away. If you give him the right horse, he's going to deliver for you.”

On winning for Seth Klarman's Klaravich Stables: “We've become very close friends and he's such a loyal supporter of our stable and he provides us with these wonderful horses like you saw today with Public Sector. He's a real sportsman and always does the right thing by the horse and he gets rewarded because of that.”

Flavien Prat, winning jockey aboard Public Sector (No. 2): “The first time I rode him, I was really close to the pace and he won a nice race [on June 4 at Belmont Park]. Last time, I think it was just a slow pace. I got stuck behind horses. He couldn't really bring me anywhere around the turn and I had to make up a lot of ground on the slow pace [second in the Manilla on July 4 at Belmont]. Today, we had a good draw and he broke well and put me in the race. The pace was a bit stronger and it worked out well.

“I thought I was going to be able to go around the leader, but then I saw the leader came out and I dropped in and had room.

“We were pretty much making the move together but when I really asked him to make the move, he responded well.”

Junior Alvarado, jockey aboard runner-up Annex (No. 1): “I was moving with Luis Saez [aboard No. 6, Original] and we both made the run. At the time, I was moving more forward than him and I felt him bump me on my rear end. I knew I was still straight in my path. After that, when he was out of there, I started coming again. My horse put in a good run today and I was happy with him.

“It may have cost me a few lengths but I didn't have much room on the inside. The winner had the trip and I really didn't have another way to go but just move outside.”

Luis Saez, rider aboard Original (No. 6) who did not finish the race: “The horse was OK. He just clipped heels.”

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An Offshoot of MyRacehorse, Edge Racing Off to a Fast Start

As the MyRacehorse syndicate continued to grow, the team there kept hearing what became a familiar refrain from some of its many partners. They wanted something more.

While the microshare concept proved to be innovative and popular, there are some limitations when you might own only a tiny fraction of a horse. With that in mind, last fall, MyRacehorse created a spinoff business, launching Edge Racing. Edge is more along the lines of traditional partnerships, which may include about a dozen owners instead of several hundred or even a thousand.

“As MyRacehorse grew and developed, people started wanting a little bit more,” said Joe Moran, the stable manager for Edge Racing, who also oversees MyRacehorse's contingent in California. “We saw people venturing off, whether going to other partnerships or going out on their own. We decided to put this new group together. We wanted to give people the sort of service and experience that comes along with owning a larger share of a horse. We wanted to let them take the next step in ownership.”

Just nine months after its inception, Edge Racing has burst out of the gate, in large part thanks to its star horse, Yes This Time (Not This Time), who is entered in Saturday $1-million GI Saratoga Derby Invitational. A winner of five straight, the colt will be facing the biggest test of his career.

“He deserves a shot to go against the best,” Moran said.

Back in the winter, Moran was scouting around for good candidates to add to the Edge Racing roster and came upon Yes This Time. He was coming off a win in a $30,000 maiden claiming race at Fair Grounds in his first try on the grass. Knowing that he was eligible for plenty of winnable races, Moran made the purchase, paying $100,000 for the colt. Edge Racing sold 10% shares in the horse and brought in six partners.

“This was a horse I found from browsing the races on a daily basis,” Moran said. “We thought he was coming off an impressive performance and we thought he had a lot of potential with his pedigree. But did I think we'd be running in a $1-million Grade I seven months down the road? Maybe not quite. He had run in a maiden claimer so he had multiple conditions left. That was really the play, to take advantage of those conditions.”

Kelly Neely was among the first to sign up for a piece of Yes This Time.

“I had had a lot to do with the Standardbred business for decades, but I wanted the real horses,” she said. “I didn't want to buy them myself. I went to sales and kept studying for about three years. I said to myself, 'Wow, I need to get involved in a partnership.' I went to MyRacehorse and after I bought a few microshares, thought I want a real percentage. They put me in touch with Joe Moran and it's been a wonderful ride.”

Edge Racing looks to keep its partners informed and involved. They hold bi-weekly Zoom meetings so that Moran can fill in each owner on the latest developments with the stable and because they own a large enough interest to get an owner's badge they can visit their horses on the backstretch any time they please.

Now trained by Kelly Breen, Yes This Time finished fourth in a Jan. 21 starter allowance at Gulfstream in his debut for Edge Racing. He hasn't lost since. After winning another starter allowance, he captured an allowance race at Gulfstream and then the English Channel S. He showed up next at Delaware Park for the GIII Kent S, which he won by a length.

“The fact that we are in this race at Saratoga and we belong in this race is overwhelming to me,” Neely said. “It's a dream come true.”

Yes This Time is one of nine horses currently owned by Edge Racing. The horses are spread around the country, in California, Texas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York and Florida. The stable got off to a quick start, winning with its first starter, Escape Route (Hard Spun). He was claimed for $40,000 out of an Oct. 10, 2020 maiden claimer at Keeneland and came right back to win a starter allowance at Del Mar. The stable also includes In Due Time (Not This Time). A $95,000 purchase at the Ocala Breeders' Sale Spring Sale, he won a July maiden special weight race in his debut. He is also trained by Breen.

While the selling of microshares will remain the company's core business, Moran said the MyRacehorse team believes Edge Racing will eventually knock heads with more well-known syndicates, like West Point, Starlight and Eclipse Thoroughbreds.

“I think we can turn this into one of the top traditional syndicates around the nation,” he said. “We've already had some short-term success. From a brand standpoint, we haven't marketed a ton. We have kept this close knit because we really want to let the people involved know exactly what they are getting into. We want to be all around the country and get people involved, to get people to love horse racing. That's our thing. We have so much passion for the game and that's what we're trying to bring to all our new owners out there.”

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Voss: American Pharoah’s Hall Of Fame Induction Marks A Complicated Moment For Racing

To say the combined 2020/2021 Hall of Fame induction ceremony was surreal seems an understatement. The public gallery in the Fasig-Tipton pavilion was packed with people well before the 10:30 a.m. start time, as might be expected in a year that saw the first admission of a Triple Crown winner since 1981 when Seattle Slew was enshrined. Still spinning from the cancellation of last year's ceremony (and much else) due to COVID-19, people were “just happy to be here this year.”

It's appropriate that the ceremony is held with a day of racing at Saratoga as its backdrop – the pinnacle of achievement, recognized in one of the toughest places to win a horse race. It's supposed to be a pure moment each year to honor the very best accomplishments in our sport. This year, it was a cloudy one.

Indeed, the stretch run of the 2015 Belmont, which so many of us have seen over and over again, was played a few more times. The crowd stirred a little. Everyone remembered how they felt in the moments when Larry Collmus called those immortal words into his microphone: American Pharoah is finally the one.

According to the eligibility rules for the Hall of Fame, this is the first year American Phaorah was on the ballot to enter the Hall, and he got in on the first try, as he should have. But in the six years since his retirement, the men united by his accomplishments are no longer thought of as solely the engineers of racing's favorite history-making moment.

Bob Baffert saddled another Triple Crown winner, who was later discovered to have tested positive for scopolamine and had that test result buried by California regulators while he was on his way to winning the roses. He has had a slew of other therapeutic drug positives among his other graded stakes winners, followed by an apology, followed by the biggest scandal of all – a betamethasone overage in this year's Kentucky Derby winner.

The legal fallout from the Medina Spirit saga is still unrolling and probably will continue for many years to come. It's the public trust in racing that will suffer for far longer. In a sport that already had two black eyes from the 2018-19 California breakdowns and the 2020 federal indictments, Baffert has knocked us right in the kisser. Everywhere I've gone this year, non-horse people have asked me (with absolutely no prompting from me) about 'why the white-haired trainer doped that horse' or why he 'thinks he can get away with it' as Baffert and his lawyer went on a public relations blitz, making clear they would fight a disqualification. People who hadn't watched a race in years remember this one, and probably the last time you could say that about a horse race, it was the 2015 Belmont.

Ahmed and Justin Zayat look on as a highlight reel of American Pharoah's career plays on the monitors at this year's Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Photo by Joe Nevills

Ahmed Zayat ran through the money American Pharoah won him with dizzying speed and took out $23 million in loans barely a year after the horse crossed the wire in the Belmont. He had run out of money to prop up his racing operation, telling MGG Investments he was already in debt and wanted to buy more horses. At the start of last year, MGG took Zayat to civil court, claiming he had not only failed to pay back that loan, but also that he sold breeding rights to his Triple Crown winner in violation of contract. Zayat has since declared bankruptcy, with a bunch of trainers and other horse industry professionals listed as his creditors – hard-working people who endured early mornings and bad weather trying to take care of his animals, people who now may not see a dime for it.

There's a tendency in horse racing – among fans and journalists alike – to cringe away from discomfort. It's human. When a person in racing does something we don't like, I hear people say they prefer to focus on the horse and the horse's accomplishments, laying to one side the problematic connections they'd rather not think about.

It is true, after all, that the horse can't choose his or her connections, and I, like many people in this sport, am in this because of my fascination with the horse more so than the people.

But I'll just say the thing I'm not supposed to say: it wasn't American Pharoah accepting a bronze plaque acknowledging his immortality on Friday morning. It was Ahmed Zayat.

Just as horses have no say in what their owners or trainers do, they also have no use for the accolades we do or don't give them. Becoming an Eclipse Award winner or a Hall of Famer will not change a horse's day. While I believe horses are highly intelligent, I also think they live in the moment; they are not worried about human constructs, for better or for worse, but the people around them will add to their own net worth with such honors.

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In American Pharoah's case, we were fairly warned. Zayat was sued in 2009 by Fifth Third Bank for allegedly defaulting on $34 million in loans, and then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for his Zayat Stables. Baffert's history of therapeutic violations prior to American Pharoah has been well-documented – so well-documented, in fact, that an animal rights activist who protested Friday's induction ceremony carried what I assume was supposed to be a poppyseed bagel. So was the 2013 investigation into the number of sudden deaths suffered by his horses in California, which were never completely explained but eventually blamed on thyroid medication Baffert was administering to horses who did not have a medical need for it.

The voting body (of which I am a member) could hardly have refused American Pharoah's enshrinement based on all this. His accomplishments were historic. But it's time to stop pretending that 2015 was a fairy tale, and that this moment isn't a complicated one.

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