Month: March 2022

Bloodlines Presented By Mill Ridge Farm: Father-Son Success Continues For Elusive Quality, Quality Road

The father-son team of Elusive Quality (by Gone West) and Quality Road sired the winners of a pair of Grade 2 stakes over the weekend. At Oaklawn Park, Elusive Quality's Breeders' Cup winner Ce Ce won the Azeri Stakes in her prep for the upcoming Grade 1 Apple Blossom. At Tampa Bay, Quality Road's daughter Bleecker Street made a point of her continuing improvement with victory in the Hillsborough Handicap.

Prior to his death on March 14, 2018, Elusive Quality had been one of the rocks of consistency and quality in Kentucky breeding. Retired to stud after winning nine of his 20 starts, Elusive Quality had shown speed of an exceptional degree, setting a track record for seven furlongs at Gulfstream with a time of 1:20.17 for owner Darley and trainer Bill Mott.

Amazingly, however, Elusive Quality wasn't guaranteed a spot at stud, despite his obvious talent, because the massive colt had not won a stakes race until he was successful in the Jaipur Stakes and Poker Handicap, setting a new course record of 1:31.63 for a mile in the latter at Belmont.

Elusive Quality was a 6-year-old when he won those stakes; he couldn't have been more impressive, and the manner of his victories was as decisive a factor in sending the grand-looking dark bay to stud as his exceptional race times.

Even so, Elusive Quality (not to mention the sport's fans and owners) was lucky the big rascal managed to find his spot at stud because the horse never won a Grade 1 race and both of his stakes victories were on “t – u – r – f,” a substance toward which many breeders act as if it should be eaten but not raced on by aspiring stallion prospects.

All was well with Elusive Quality, however, when his first crop began to race. They were fast, they were early, and they had class. He was off to the races and was nosed out of the freshman sire championship by fellow non-Grade 1 winner Distorted Humor (Forty Niner).

Both promptly sired classic winners. Distorted Humor got Funny Cide, winner of the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness, and Elusive Quality sired Smarty Jones, winner of the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

Overall, Elusive Quality's champions or highweights included elite racers in the U.S., as well as Europe and Australia, and he proved himself one of the most valued and valuable sires of the last 20 years.

A primary reason for his continuing influence is the immense success of his son Quality Road as a stallion. A horse of exceptional speed like his sire, Quality Road was declared out of the classics due to a quarter crack, but he won the G1 Florida Derby at three, then returned at four to win a trio of additional G1s, including the Metropolitan Handicap and Woodward Stakes.

Standing at Lane's End Farm outside Versailles, Ky., Quality Road has become a staple of top-tier breeding operations, and his best offspring include champions Abel Tasman (Kentucky Oaks), Caledonia Road (Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies), and Corniche (Breeders' Cup Juvenile).

At stud, Quality Road has 2022 freshman sire City of Light, winner of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and last month, Quality Road was represented by Emblem Road, winner of the Saudi Cup.

Unbeaten in five starts, Bleecker Street won her second graded stakes in the Hillsborough, and she is highly regarded among the older turf fillies.

Ce Ce won the Eclipse Award as the best sprint mare in the country for 2021, when she won the Breeders' Cup Filly Sprint, and her plan of attack for this year appears to be focused on slightly longer races, with the immediate target being the Apple Blossom, a race the mare won two years ago at four.

In addition, Ce Ce comes from a family of mares that have made winning Grade 1s a regular accomplishment. The chestnut daughter of Elusive Quality is the third generation in a row to win a Grade 1. Her dam is Miss Houdini (Belong to Me), winner of the G1 Del Mar Debutante, and the second dam is Magical Maiden (Lord Avie), who won the G1 Hollywood Starlet and Las Virgenes.

Magical Maiden was one of three stakes winners from her dam, Gils Magic (Magesterial), who also produced the extraordinary broodmare Magical Flash (Miswaki), the dam of six stakes winners. Gils Magic was such a dominant broodmare that she managed to produce Magical Mile, a graded stakes winner by J.O. Tobin, one of the most beautiful and talented racehorses but a pure pillock as a stallion.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Mill Ridge Farm: Father-Son Success Continues For Elusive Quality, Quality Road appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Kentucky House Committee Approves Koenig’s Pari-Mutuel, Sports Wagering Bills

A bill standardizing the tax rate on all pari-mutuel wagers placed in Kentucky as well as making claiming races eligible for Kentucky-bred purse supplements and benefiting horseplayers through the elimination of breakage was overwhelmingly approved Wednesday morning by a Kentucky House of Representatives' committee.

Rep. Adam Koenig said House Bill 607, which he is sponsoring, will significantly increase revenue to Kentucky's General Fund while allowing horse racing to thrive. Koenig temporarily turned over chairmanship duties for the House Standing Committee on Licensing, Occupations and Administrative Regulations to Rep. Matt Koch during discussion of his bills.

“In a couple of years, we're looking at a $27 million increase, probably at a minimum,” Koenig told the committee, noting that's in addition to the $62 million projected to flow to the state from parimutuel taxes in 2022. “… So the money is coming in from the industry. I think I found some creative ways generating additional money without hurting the product.”

The bill is the result of last year's legislative interim task force on pari-mutuel wagering chaired by Koenig and Kentucky Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer. The task force — created after the 2021 General Assembly passed legislation that protected Historical Horse Racing (HHR) in the state — sought to identify ways to increase revenue to state coffers without negatively impacting purses or discouraging racetracks from investing in HHR operations and associated capital projects.

Also easily passing the “L&O” committee Wednesday were bills that would legalize betting on sports in Kentucky and provide funding for problem gambling. All three bills are sponsored by Koenig, a horseplayer and racing fan whose Northern Kentucky district is near Turfway Park.

HB 607 calls for taxing pari-mutuel wagers off the top at 1.5 percent. That is the same rate currently assessed for HHR gaming. However, the bill raises the current rate for bets placed through online platforms (or Advance Deposit Wagering, commonly referred to as ADWs) from 0.5 percent. The tax rate on simulcast wagers placed at a Kentucky track on an out-of-state race would drop from 3 percent. The majority of bets are now placed through ADWs, while simulcasting has shrunk considerably as horseplayers opt for the convenience of wagering online.

Koenig said that when the original ADW rate was established by the Kentucky Legislature “it was a fledgling industry. Well, it's not a fledgling industry now.”

Koenig has received national attention and praise from horseplayer advocates for being a champion of the virtual elimination of breakage. That's where tracks round winning payoffs down to the nearest dime based on a $1 bet. Breakage under HB 607 requires tracks to pay off to the nearest penny, resulting in more money being returned to horseplayers. Koenig cited the example of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify paying $7.80 on a $2 Kentucky Derby win bet, a payout that would have been $7.92 without the breakage.

“That is the bettors' money,” Koenig said. “I've been very interested since last year's HHR debate in making sure the bettors are taken care of. We took care of everyone else. Everyone is getting healthy on this except for the bettors, and this is how we're going to help the bettors. They're going to get paid to the penny rather than every 20 cents. In addition to taking care of the bettors, it will make Kentucky the place in North America to wager. If you're someone who wagers a lot of money, why would you bet anyplace else?”

HB 607 also opens the door for Kentucky-bred purse supplements to be used on claiming races – a policy change strongly pushed by the Kentucky HBPA in order to raise purses for the lower-level races in which many horsemen compete. Currently, money from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) is restricted to non-claiming races.

Rep. Al Gentry, a member of the pari-mutuel wagering task force, called making claiming races eligible for KTDF supplements “very, very important and one of the big pieces of the bill.”

HHR has allowed Kentucky to offer some of the highest purses in the world, with that revenue expected to grow considerably with the expansion of satellite facilities. With that in mind, HB 607 stipulates that after the KTDF money reaches $40 million and the Kentucky Standardbred Development Fund hits $20 million in a year, the rate going to purses would decrease, with the difference channeled to the state's General Fund.

“We believe in two or three years, when the Historical Horse Racing facilities are more mature, that we're looking at $20 million additional in the General Fund,” Koenig told the committee. “The increase in the ADW tax from one-half to 1 1/2 percent will immediately generate $4 million a year. That's the growth area, so that will continue to go up over time.”

The bill also requires that the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission be self-sustaining, rather than the cost coming out of the General Fund. Koenig called that a savings of about $3 million a year.

“We have enough of the HHR machines now that they can put a fee on there and be self-sufficient,” he said of the commission, adding of the General Fund “… In a couple of years, we're looking at a $27 million increase, probably at a minimum. This $27 million is on top of the additional monies that are being generated. Even if we do nothing, those monies have gone up quite a bit: 2021 was $41 million (generated for the state from parimutuel taxes), which was more than the previous two years combined. This year the estimate is $62.7 million.

“So the money is coming in from the industry. I think I found some creative ways of generating additional money without hurting the product. I know there was a lot of discussion on the floor last year about raising the HHR tax, and Rep. Koch and I stood up and promised we would look into it, and we did.”

Koenig emphasized that HHR (and other pari-mutuel wagers in the state) are taxed on gross. “Whereas, when you have casinos and slot machines, they typically tax it on their profits,” he said.

The bill also:

  • Provides funding to the equine programs at the University of Kentucky and Bluegrass Community and Technical College. The University of Louisville business school's Equine Industry Program already receives funding from pari-mutuel wagering.
  • Eliminates the 15-cent per person admission tax racetracks currently pay even if they don't charge admission (which is every track except Churchill Downs and Keeneland).
  • Requires tracks to maintain a “self-exclusion” list – where individuals such as problem gamblers can say they don't want to be allowed into a track or HHR facility for a given period of time — to be shared with the racing commission and the other tracks and HHR properties.

The bills still must be approved by the full House before being sent to the Senate.

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