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Month: June 2022
Flurry Content To Play Small Ball With Lady Flurry
Staton Flurry is set to be represented over the next couple of weekends in major graded stakes in the Midwest, but the Arkansas native is also not one to shy away from his Mid-South roots. On June 20, an otherwise sleepy and uneventful Monday afternoon on the American racing scene, Flurry homebred Lady Flurry (Lord Nelson) raised more than a few eyebrows, streaking home to best fellow Louisiana-breds by some nine lengths in a time that nearly lowered a track record that had been around for nearly four decades.
“I didn't expect that big of a blowout, but we knew she was training good going into it,” the Hot Springs native said of the filly, who was off as the 1-2 chalk. “We knew she had some speed in her and there is plenty of speed in her pedigree, but hard to say we expected that. To be that close to the track record was great.”
The listed track record for 4 1/2 furlongs was set by the future stakes winner Sondor when romping in by 10 lengths May 16, 1984. Lady Flurry was timed in an eased-down :51.63, with a final sixteenth in :5.96.
Flurry campaigned Lady Flurry's Arkansas-bred dam Patchofbadweather (Storm and a Half) to five wins from 13 starts–all between five and six furlongs–including the Lady Razorback Futurity in 2014. Patchofbadweather's dam was the champion Argentinian sprinter Preflorada (Arg) (Choir Prospect, by Mr. Prospector), who won a Group 1 sprint over five furlongs in :54.10. Flurry elected to send Patchofbadweather to the recently departed Lord Nelson for her 2019 covering.
“I just loved him for his speed, he was a big, fast, good-looking horse and, like I said, my mare's got some speed in her pedigree,” Flurry said. “Just took the approach of breed speed to speed and hope it holds.”
The owner/breeder said Lady Flurry was attractive and straight-forward growing up.
“She was always very smart,”he said. “All the Lord Nelsons I've seen are great-looking animals. She was always really easy to deal with, whereas her mom was a complete wild animal, an Arky-bred who had a mind of her own. She was fast also, but this filly is a whole lot more gentle to be around than her mom was. Definitely excited to see what the future holds for her.”
Having earned a strong 71 Beyer Speed Figure for the debut run, one wouldn't blame Flurry and trainer Karl Broberg for shooting for the stars. Instead, Flurry is happy enough to run the filly with her 'friends' and broach the subject of loftier targets somewhere in the future as her performance merits.
“We'll point her for the state-bred stakes the rest of the year, see if we can knock a few of those off and maybe see if she can't be champion 2-year-old filly in Louisiana,” he said. “For the most part, we'd like to keep her with her own kind, but I do think she can be competitive in open company.”
Flurry indicated that he returned Patchofbadweather to Arkansas earlier this year and the mare has a “really nice Army Mule colt” on the ground.
“The state-bred programs in Louisiana and Arkansas are so lucrative and it isn't a bad thing at all to have an Arkansas-bred these days,” he said.
Meanwhile, Flurry's part-owned 2020 GI Kentucky Oaks winner Shedaresthedevil (Daredevil) drew the outside stall in a field of five for Saturday's GII Fleur de Lis S. at Churchill Downs on a slightly bigger stage.
“She's been training great, probably as well as she's trained in a long time,” Flurry said of the 5-year-old mare, campaigned in partnership with Whisper Hill Farm and Qatar Racing. “Pauline's Pearl (Tapit) looks like she's taken a step forward and we'll have to match her, but [Shedaresthedevil] is doing great. We're expecting a big effort out of her this weekend and hopefully get her back in the winner's circle. We're taking it race by race with her, with the Breeders' Cup the goal, and we're going to work backwards from there. This is the first step.”
Flurry's own colors will be carried aboard GII Black-Eyed Susan S. winner Interstatedaydream (Classic Empire) when she makes her next start in the GIII Indiana Oaks at Horseshoe Indiana July 9. Shedaresthedevil won the same event two years ago as a prelude to her victory in the COVID-19-delayed Kentucky Oaks.
Congrstulation to Lady Flurry on her win this afternoon at @LouisianaDowns, she is owned by @StatonFlurry and trained by @KarlBroberg. Our HB Johnson team is proud to be part of her journey. https://t.co/3IXLTcNcp2
— Jose L Gomez (@josegomez1026) June 20, 2022
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Tawny Port Another Strike for Wente
He really does seem to have some kind of Midas touch right now. And a lot of people, hitting a formula that has paid off with such remarkable consistency, would be tempted to raise the stakes. But it's not just the fact that Tommy Wente is perfectly well acquainted with the other kind of luck, so routine in this business, that will stop him getting carried away. Because even if he believed that his model might be adapted to a higher level of the market, he would miss the sheer buzz of beating the odds.
“I can't go in there and buy those mares for $200,000 or $300,000,” Wente says. “They're just not going to work out for me. You'd be so heavily invested, at that point, it would be no fun. And that's what keeps me going every day, the fun of it. Trying to find young mares with blank dams, and just sitting on them for a couple of years, and seeing if their families can go to work for you. Because when they do, it's so much more of a thrill if you took a shot on something nobody wanted.”
And who knows, maybe there's something in this temperate response to his recent success that explains why his program is functioning so effectively in the first place. Maybe the kind of person who would become giddily convinced of his or her genius would never have had the clarity required to spot the same bargains.
Wente first demanded our attention last fall, thanks to the very first crop bred from a handful of mares acquired, some five years previously, after he had moved his program from Indiana to St. Simon Place in Kentucky. Four of these juveniles had contested “Win and You're In” races for the Breeders' Cup. Three won; the other ran second. Their dams had cost Wente and his partners a total $32,400.
Everyone was asking him what his secret was. He shrugged. “Am I just really, really lucky?” he asked his buddy Tommy Eastham of Legacy Bloodstock. “Or is something going on here?”
“Well, I guess anybody can be lucky once or even twice,” Eastham replied. “But man, you're just doing it over and over again. You've got to be doing something right.”
Rattle N Roll won Keeneland's Breeders' Futurity | Coady
The right thing to do, next, was to close out the cycle by cashing in a couple of those mares. Wente had bred GI Breeders' Futurity winner Rattle N Roll (Connect) from Jazz Tune (Johannesburg), found for just $20,000 at the Keeneland November Sale of 2016. Back at the same auction last fall, Hunter Valley Farm bought her for $585,000. C J's Gal (Awesome Again) had been even cheaper, picked out for $9,500 in the same ring in January 2016. Her daughter Hidden Connection (Connect) having won the GIII Pocahontas S. by nine lengths, Woodford Thoroughbreds gave $450,000 for the mare.
Time, you would have thought, to let the dust settle awhile. But Wente was only just getting started. Since then, a couple of other mares to have caught his eye have also made a name for themselves.
Just about the least surprising thing to emerge from the GI Kentucky Derby success of Rich Strike (Keen Ice) was that his dam Gold Strike (Smart Strike) had been sold to Wente deep in the 2019 Keeneland November Sale, for just $1,700. Admittedly this was a rather different case: an older mare, picked out for a friend. But then last weekend Tawny Port (Pioneerof the Nile), who had finished seventh at Churchill, confirmed himself one of the crop's most progressive colts in the GIII Ohio Derby. And it turned out that his dam Livi Makenzie (Macho Uno) had likewise been sold since his foaling, to Wente and partner Scott Stephens, for $30,000 at Keeneland November 2020.
Wente happily credits this latest coup to Carrie Brogden of Machmer Hall, a trusted mentor ever since his Bluegrass transfer.
“When I'm at a sale, I never go to the barns to look at mares,” Wente says. “I never look at a book and say, 'Okay, let's go see these 10 today.' I buy them coming into the ring, and I'm trying to get a deal on. And Carrie was sitting there, and said, 'Hey, this mare coming up, you need to take a look at her: we sold the Pioneerof the Nile yearling out of her for WinStar in September for $430,000.' We're kind of suckers for chestnuts anyway, and I liked the way she looked, and I figured that a real good Pioneerof the Nile colt could be anything. I just thought the mare might be too expensive. Because she could run, she was a stakes winner [and graded stakes-placed]. I thought she'd make $75,000 to $100,000. But I thought, 'Hell, we'll give it a shot.' And we got her.”
Tawny Port followed up a Stonestreet Lexington win at Keeneland with last weekend's Ohio Derby | JJ Zamaiko Photography
She came with a bonus, as she was carrying a filly by Always Dreaming–who has meanwhile obtained a residual value as half-sister to Tawny Port. And while “a really nice colt” by Global Campaign followed this spring, his Apr. 25 delivery left his mother only a short window and she missed on a single covering.
“But that's fine, she's in her prime [13] and the year off will do her good,” Wente remarks. “She can get back on an early cycle next time. But we do like her baby, and if Tawny Port can go on and win a Grade I, then it's all good. She's a really laid-back mare, a real sweetheart.”
As for the dam of Rich Strike, she was being culled so cheaply that Wente reckoned her ideal for Indiana horseman Merrill Roberts.
“When I'm buying these mares, a lot of the time I'm thinking in the back of my head about people who have asked me to look out for one,” Wente says. “That particular mare I bought strictly for my buddy Merrill, because they'd just got a stallion [Candy Ride (Arg)'s son Looking Cool] going and I thought she's be perfect for him, with her race record and pedigree, if they could get her in foal.”
Unfortunately that final part of the equation proved difficult, and Roberts turned her over to Austin Nicks the very week that her son came out of nowhere to land the Derby. (Nicks, unsurprisingly, wasted no time in sending the mare to Munnings!)
As already indicated, however, Wente has a properly seasoned perspective on all this success. In fact, he has an unhappy bond with Eric Reed, trainer of Rich Strike, whose career was likewise nearly unraveled by a barn fire.
Wente had become captivated by horses when visiting the barn of his stepfather, former Hoosier Park trainer Tom Hickman. Before long, even though money was tight, Wente found himself buying one of the babies.
“I way overpaid, though!” Wente recalls. “He charged me $5,000 and, looking back, the horse probably wasn't worth $200. It was for me, though, at the time. I wanted it so bad. I was driving a truck in those days, and giving him like $500 a month for this horse. And I'd just got it all paid off, and the horse had just had his first run. They were stabled down there at the old Quarter Horse track in Henderson, Kentucky, and one night I got a call, 2 a.m., to say he'd lost all these horses burned up in a fire.
“He had always told me, 'You know, if you're not willing to put $1,000 in an ashtray and burn it, don't get into this business.' To this day I always try to remember that. Only in my case it wasn't bills in an ashtray. It was that poor horse in a burning barn. But I was hooked, even so. Next day I was back on it, looking for a new one.”
Wente picked out the Derby winner's dam at Keeneland November in 2019 for a friend | Coady
Looking back, in fact, Wente wonders whether the early difficulties he has had to overcome–both in his own life, and then in his journey of Thoroughbreds–have condensed into a foundation stone essential to his better fortunes now.
“We were raised poor,” he stresses. “And I had my struggles, trying to find my way. I couldn't save money. I owed everybody. I robbed Peter to pay Paul. But I straightened up. I figured I wanted more from life. And I think it was the horses that did that for me.
“I don't know if you need that; whether you need to know the bottom to appreciate everything more. But now, when I look back to when I was new to the game, and thinking of those really poor horses as the best thing in the whole world, and my stepdad teaching me all those things, him being so back in the old ways, I think that really helped me towards where I am today. Having all that under my feet gave me a different perspective.”
Wente is candidly disparaging about the animals he raised in Indiana, but they sharpened his judgement and taught him to respect every horse as a potential opportunity. Coming to Kentucky just elevated the caliber of the disrespected, the rejects.
Conceivably, moreover, perhaps the resilience Wente had himself acquired can be shared with the young stock on St. Simon Place?
“It's so true,” Wente replies. “If you baby them, pamper them, to me they're not going to make racehorses. They need to get out there, need to knock heads, knock bodies. They need to get cuts, to get sore. They need to be in the snow, in the rain, in the heat. They need a struggle. Because when I struggled, I got tough. And I think it's the same with horses.”
MSW One Timer, another bred by Wente and St. Simon Place | Coady
Maybe, then, that's at least part of the answer. Not that many of those asking Wente for his “secret” will find that very helpful. It was only as an outsider, making a journey few would choose by design, that Wente found redemption in horses. Maybe that couldn't have happened if, like so many competitors, he had been born to this way of life, and not in suburban poverty near St. Louis.
“Everybody's just shaking their head and they're like, 'How in the world are you doing this!?'” says Wente with a chuckle. “And like I said, I don't know whether I'm just really, really lucky, or I'm doing something right. But I think the people that have the wealth to back themselves up would still rather buy mares with more page, mares with some produce under them, mares that are already proven out. But they've got the money. Me, I do the opposite. Because I have to buy cheaper mares, I'd rather buy one that has no page but might get some runners. Because things can change so fast. I bought Spanish Star (Blame) for $1,500 off the track [Keeneland November 2017], and then, bam, her brother [Sir Winston (Awesome Again)] wins the Belmont. And now she's had One Timer (Trappe Shot).”
That colt is currently four-for-five, his sole defeat at the Breeders' Cup. But while a lot of things have been falling into place, Wente emphasizes that he has not done it all on his own. On the farm Calvin and Shane Crain run a parallel sod-growing business, and he has partners in a broodmare band now extending to 40 or so, as well. And whatever inspiration Wente may bring to the equation himself, he will only take credit for perspiration.
“You've got to be dedicated,” he says. “You have to live and sleep this business. I'm hands on. I like to get out there and mow my own grass. I don't know if that helps me do what I'm doing, but I do know that I love it. And since I came over here, and Carrie took me under her wing, everything's been going great. I just feel blessed.”
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New Lawsuit Aims to Halt HISA On Eve of Implementation
The states of Louisiana and West Virginia are at the forefront of a new federal lawsuit filed late Wednesday that seeks to block the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) from going into effect when the clock strikes midnight on Friday.
The defendants, who consist of the HISA Authority, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and board members and overseers of both entities, have allegedly violated the Fourth, Seventh and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, plus the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations, according to a series of June 29 filings in U.S. District Court (Western District of Louisiana).
“The regulatory power that Congress purported to delegate to HISA is breathtaking in scope, covering virtually all aspects of horseracing,” the complaint states. “HISA claims power to adopt rules governing doping, medication control, and racetrack safety. It claims power to investigate violations of its rules by issuing and enforcing subpoenas. After investigating alleged violations, it claims to then be able to act as judge in its own cases and adjudicate alleged violations of its rules.
“If that's not enough, HISA claims power to bring civil actions in federal court in response to known or anticipated violations of its regulations. And for those it deems guilty of disobeying its commands, HISA claims disciplinary power to issue sanctions up to and including lifetime bans from horseracing, disgorgement of purses, and monetary fines and penalties.
“Since the scope of HISA's purported regulatory authority extends to virtually all activities related to horseracing, it's not surprising that HISA likewise claims authority to regulate nearly all persons associated with the horseracing industry. Specifically, HISA claims power to regulate trainers, owners, breeders, jockeys, racetracks, veterinarians [and] others licensed by a state racing commission, and agents of any of those persons.
“Despite purporting to exercise this breathtakingly broad federal regulatory power over all activities and persons related to horseracing, HISA is unaccountable to any political actor. No federal official can remove the members of HISA's Board of Directors. The Act thus delegates to a private body the full coercive power of the federal government while simultaneously insulating it completely from political accountability,” the complaint states.
The plaintiffs want “expedited consideration” from a federal judge to keep the first phase of HISA's “substantively and procedurally deficient rules” from going into effect July 1.
“Congress's efforts to federalize horseracing regulations through a private entity like HISA suffer from a host of constitutional problems,” the complaint states.
“Just this week, four U.S. Senators wrote to [HISA executives] to question whether the FTC is providing adequate oversight of HISA, whether Congress should extend HISA's statutory deadlines, and why HISA decided to delay implementation of some rules but not others,” the complaint states.
HISA has already gotten two lawsuits dismissed that alleged unconstitutionality, although an appeal is underway in one case and expected in the other. On Mar. 31, a federal judge in Texas threw out a complaint initiated one year ago by the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA). On June 3, a federal judge in Kentucky tossed a similar suit in which Louisiana and West Virginia were also plaintiffs, ruling that HISA's enforcement powers were indeed lawful.
This time around, the plaintiffs are the state of Louisiana, its racing commission, the Louisiana HBPA, the Louisiana Thoroughbred Breeders Association, the Jockeys' Guild, the state of West Virginia, its racing commission, and five individuals regulated as “covered persons” under the HISA Act.
Lisa Lazarus, the HISA chief executive whose name tops the list of individual defendants, did not respond to a Thursday morning query for comment prior to the breaking-news deadline for this story.
The plaintiffs want a federal court to provide declaratory judgments that assert 1) the FTC exceeded its statutory authority by approving each of the HISA rules; 2) the HISA rules are arbitrary and capricious under the APA; 3) HISA's enforcement rule violates the Fourth and Seventh Amendments, and 4) the HISA rules are procedurally invalid under the APA because the FTC failed to promulgate them through proper notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures.
The suit also asks for declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction finding the HISA rules invalid and setting them aside, plus a temporary restraining order and an injunction prohibiting HISA or the FTC from taking any actions based on the HISA rules currently in place.
HISA's funding is a key issue that comes under question in the lawsuit.
“A private, politically unaccountable entity with breathtaking regulatory power over an entire industry requires significant funding to carry out its work,” the complaint states. “HISA, however, is not funded by Congress. Instead, Congress forced the responsibility of funding HISA onto the States. The Act forces States to choose either to fund HISA with money from the State treasury (or racing commission) or-if a State refuses–HISA intends to assess fees to the racetracks, which will undoubtedly be passed on to participants in that State's racing industry…
“As things stand today, the FTC has finally approved only three sets of regulations from this private, unfunded, politically unaccountable entity known as HISA. Those three sets of final rules cover 1) racetrack safety, 2) HISA enforcement proceedings, and 3) HISA's methods for assessing and collecting funds. All three sets of final rules will wreak havoc on the racing industry within a matter of days. And all three sets must be preliminarily and permanently enjoined because they suffer from fatal flaws under the APA Act or contradict constitutional guarantees,” the complaint states.
The suit alleges that when a first batch of HISA rules got approved in March and April, the FTC provided only a 14-day public comment period, far shorter than the typical 30 or 60 days. The complaint purports that this is an “unlawful pattern,” and that the FTC “ignored commentators who identified that HISA's rules for assessing fees are contrary to law because HISA bases assessments on purse size and racing starts but the Act limits the assessment methodology solely to race starts, with no mention of purse size.”
With specific respect to Louisiana, the suit states that “it is unclear how HISA will collect monies from racetracks and covered persons because Louisiana law makes clear that the Louisiana State Racing Commission must ensure pari-mutuel wagering revenue is distributed in a particular manner-namely, that 'fifty percent of [specific proceeds] shall be distributed by such track licensee as purses' and the remaining fifty percent 'shall be distributed by such track licensee as purses.'”
The complaint states that its “most pressing” concerns have to do with an expected spate of scratches come Friday if “covered persons” aren't properly registered with HISA.
“At recent meetings, Defendant Lazarus claimed that HISA will attempt to scratch horses associated with covered persons who refuse to register with HISA or otherwise seek to disqualify horses post-race associated with unregistered personnel,” the complaint states.
“If HISA is allowed to enforce this punitive system, it will strip jockeys, owners, trainers, and all individuals involved in the horseracing industry of their economic interests in race purses-which are not set by HISA-and call the integrity of the entire industry into question.”
As far as the Jockeys' Guild is concerned, the “one-size-fits-none crop rule” is a chief beef.
“This is a major change from Louisiana's incoming rule, for instance, which will likewise limit the use of the crop to six overhand strokes but permits the use of underhand strikes at different junctures in a race, which is critical to the integrity of the race and participant safety,” the complaint states.
“Indeed, the FTC and HISA chose not to consider problems with state-specific concerns that were raised during the comment period and instead arbitrarily issued a rule without addressing comments criticizing that rule,” the complaint states. “The FTC's failure to meaningfully respond to these comments on the crop rule makes the rule arbitrary and capricious.”
The Fourth Amendment allegedly comes into play because a HISA rule “subjects covered persons, including the Individual Plaintiffs, to searches and seizures by HISA without prior approval by a judge or magistrate. This constitutes a per se violation of the Fourth Amendment,” the complaint states.
The Seventh Amendment allegations refer to HISA's ability to seek civil penalties from covered persons. “HISA enforcement actions under these rules that successfully obtain civil penalties will deprive aggrieved parties of their property rights and economic interests without providing aggrieved parties the right to a jury trial. The Enforcement Rule thus violates the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial,” the complaint states.
The Tenth Amendment, which stipulates that the federal government only has powers that are specifically delegated in the Constitution, isn't directly addressed in the complaint. But the plaintiffs allege a violation of it in their separate request for a restraining order and injunction.
Later Thursday, Doug Daniels DVM, National HPBA President and Chairman of the Board, said, “We agree integrity, safety and uniformity in horse racing are of great importance, but we also believe getting each of these addressed in a lawful and proper manner is of paramount importance. Horsemen and horsewomen from coast to coast as well as United States Senators Grassley, Manchin, Ernst and Kennedy are asking for this implementation to be delayed and thus far it has gone on deaf ears.
“Now it has become necessary to request this court decide if HISA is ready for its roll-out. The participants are clearly saying the answer is 'no'–the implementation and the regulations are not ready as they stand today. We applaud Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and the other plaintiffs who are demanding answers for everyone in the industry.”
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