January, 2022 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Irad Ortiz Plans Return At Gulfstream With Light Weekend; Full Resumption Next Week

Top jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr. will return to the saddle this weekend at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., reports the Daily Racing Form, after missing two weeks due to a knee injury suffered in the starting gate on Jan. 7. The injury was initially diagnosed as a fracture and expected to keep Ortiz from riding for up to a month, but a second opinion has cleared the jockey for a gradual return to riding races.

“Irad said he felt great this morning,” agent Steve Rushing told DRF. “He's going to start back on Saturday, only ride a couple each day this weekend, and gradually get back to a full card starting next week.”

Thursday, Jan. 6 was the first day Ortiz had ridden since the Clasico del Caribe card at Camarero (Puerto Rico) on Dec. 5, 2021, owing to a 30-day suspension for his actions in a pair of races at Aqueduct.

Ortiz has won the past three Eclipse Awards as North America's champion jockey. He led all riders with 336 wins in 2021 and ranked second with 1,443 starts and $29,274,435 in purse earnings. He also won a personal best 36 graded stakes, 10 of them Grade 1 races.

Ortiz is booked to ride Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good in the Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 29, as well as defending winner Colonel Liam in the Pegasus Turf. Trainer Todd Pletcher told DRF Ortiz would retain those mounts if all goes well this weekend.

First Foal a Filly for Instilled Regard

Taylor Made Stallions' Instilled Regard (Arch), a Grade I winner and four-time graded stakes winner, sired his first reported foal when a filly out of the stakes-winning and stakes-producing Malibu Moon mare Hung the Moon was born Thursday, Jan. 13. OXO Equine bred the filly.

Hung the Moon is the dam of the stakes-winning and multiple graded stakes-placed Brill (Medaglia d'Oro) and her most recent yearling–a colt by Quality Road–sold for $800,000 to Maverick Racing at last year's Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale.

Instilled Regard, a $1.05-million OBS March juvenile, is standing his second season at stud for $7,500 S&N.

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Holy Bull Is ‘On The Table’ For Juvenile Third Giant Game

West Point Thoroughbreds and Albaugh Family Stables' Giant Game, unraced since running third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) last fall for trainer Dale Romans, continues to work toward his 3-year-old debut.

The sophomore son of Giant's Causeway had a five-furlong move in 59.76 seconds Wednesday morning over Gulfstream's main track, the fastest of five horses. Giant Game has been breezing steadily at Gulfstream since returning to the work tab Dec. 20, including another bullet five-eighths in 59.85 Jan. 11.

The $250,000 Holy Bull (G3) at 1 1/16 miles Feb. 5 is Gulfstream's next step for 3-year-olds on the road to the $1 million Florida Derby (G1) going 1 1/8 miles April 2. In between is the $400,000 Fountain of Youth (G2) March 5, also at 1 1/16 miles.

“I think everything is progressing nicely. I did talk to Dale probably a week ago and he was upbeat,” West Point's chief operating officer Tom Bellhouse said. “He said everything is going smooth. From what I understand, the Holy Bull is on the table. If he's training well, I would think he'd go to the Holy Bull.”

Giant Game, who fetched $500,000 as a yearling in September 2020, graduated at second asking in a 1 1/16-mile maiden special weight last October at Keeneland, earning him a shot at the Breeders' Cup. Sent off at 21-1, he was in a striking position on the outside in the stretch but wound up 3 ¼ lengths behind front-running favorite Corniche, trailing runner-up Pappacap by a length and a half.

“You have to start somewhere this year. Dale gave him plenty of time,” Bellhouse said. “I thought he ran a monster race in the Breeders' Cup. With a better trip I think we're probably second. If you look at the race the horse was really in a perfect spot on the rail, but I know when you feel like you're loaded you want to take that swing out. But, he ran a huge race and I'm hoping that he comes back and moves forward.”

The post Holy Bull Is ‘On The Table’ For Juvenile Third Giant Game appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Kentucky State Rep. Adam Koenig Discusses Breakage Bill On Writers’ Room

Breakage, the practice of rounding down bettors' payouts to the nearest 10 or even 20-cent number rather than paying the deserved amount to the penny, has long been a thorn in horseplayers' sides. Kentucky state representative Adam Koenig, an avid horseplayer himself, is trying to do something about it in his state. Wednesday morning, Koenig joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss the bill he's sponsoring to eliminate breakage in Kentucky, as well as his proposed sports betting legislation, the successful effort to protect historical horse racing in the Bluegrass and more.

“Breakage laws go so far back that we can't even figure out when they were passed in Kentucky, but there was a time 100 years ago when the only place to go and legally make wagers was the racetrack,” Koenig explained. “The lines were deep and it was something done to make it easier to cash people out. They didn't have computer to figure out how much was being wagered. They were counting the money in the back and figuring out the odds by hand in real time. But obviously those days have come and gone, and it's time for our laws to reflect today's reality. Now we have an opportunity to do something about it, and this is going to be a comprehensive parimutuel wagering modernization bill.”

Koenig added that, especially in Kentucky with skyrocketing purses and the lucrative historical horse racing machines, accurately paying winning horseplayers is a matter of fairness.

“I live five minutes from Turfway,” he said. “Churchill Downs is building a beautiful facility there. They've got multiple facilities in Louisville. They've got a harness track in Hopkinsville. They're making plenty of money on the HHR facilities and I think, certainly on the breakage front, they can stand to help the bettors. We've taken care of the tracks. We've taken care of the breeders and the trainers and the jockeys. We need all of them to make the show run. But we also need bettors to make the show run. And by God, I'm going to take care of the bettors, not just because I am one, but because we need to take care of those folks without whom we don't have an industry.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, West Point Thoroughbreds, XBTV, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders and Legacy Bloodstock, Joe Bianca, Bill Finley and special guest co-host Randy Moss of NBC Sports touched on Michael Beychok's decision to stop playing the horses, the beginning of the trials in the doping scandal, the proposed four-race campaign of Flightline (Tapit) and more. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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