The Breeders' Cup, one of Thoroughbred racing's most prestigious international events, launches the first episode of a monthly digital series, Breeders' Cup Challenge Rundown with Rosie, highlighting the best races from around the world that are part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Win and You're In.
The first episode is available now on the Breeders' Cup Facebook and YouTube pages, and World Horse Racing's social platforms.
The new series, produced and promoted by World Horse Racing (WHR), will run from July through November, with a final episode produced at Keeneland Race Course previewing the 2022 Breeders' Cup World Championships, Nov. 4 and 5. New episodes will be released at the beginning of each month.
Host Rosie Tapner will introduce the top performances from prior Challenge Series races, as well as identify unique storylines based around the Thoroughbred athletes and their connections. The show will take place in various locations, connecting that particular episode and key international contenders that are being aimed at the 2022 Breeders' Cup World Championships.
“We are delighted to partner with World Horse Racing to bring international racing fans a lot closer to the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series, and tell the fascinating stories of the people behind these great horses as they are being prepared for this year's World Championships,” said Justin McDonald, Breeders' Cup Chief Marketing Officer. “Among our highest priorities each year is to expand the global reach of the Breeders' Cup, and we look forward to doing that with this new series.”
“World Horse Racing is delighted to be teaming up with Breeders' Cup to create, produce, publish and distribute this new series and amplify the World Championships,” said Geoffrey Riddle, Editorial and Brand Director of World Horse Racing. “With 82 races in 11 countries, the Challenge Series has something for everybody around the world, and Rosie Tapner is an exciting new talent who will resonate worldwide. Our organization was set up in 2018 to grow a global audience, and this show promises to bring the best of horse racing to new frontiers in the lead-up to Keeneland in November.”
The Breeders' Cup Challenge Series, now in its 15th year, will be hosted at many of the world's premier racetracks in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, England, France, Ireland, Japan, Peru, South Africa, and the United States. While the show will have a strong international focus, it will also highlight the domestic Challenge Series races. Last year, 40 Breeders' Cup Challenge winners competed in the World Championships at Del Mar, including five Championship race winners: Knicks Go, $6 million Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1); Yibir (GB), $4 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1); Ce Ce, $1 million Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1); Echo Zulu, $2 million NetJets Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) and Corniche, $2 million TVG Breeders' Cup Juvenile presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (G1).
Her stable recently expanded to two horses, but even when it was just one, Amy Cortez wouldn't have had it any other way.
Cortez is the owner and trainer of Audacious Quality, the narrow 5-2 program favorite in Friday's 1 1/8-mile optional claiming allowance feature for Maryland-bred/sired horses on the Exceller turf course as live racing returns to Laurel Park.
Post time for the first of eight races is 12:40 p.m.
Audacious Quality exits a fourth-place finish in the 1 1/16-mile Find at Laurel, his stakes debut. Beaten less than a length for it all, the 5-year-old Elusive Quality gelding emerged from a three-way photo a head behind third-place finisher B Determined, who also returns in Friday's race.
“I think he was in front by the second wire [in the Find],” Cortez said. “He ran huge. He got taken back a little too far out of it and had to make a big run. He had a lot of ground to make up and kind of got in a little bit of trouble, but he was running at the end. I feel like out of anybody in the race he was running the fastest at the end, so I am anticipating the same type of move for Friday.
“I expect him to be more forwardly placed. There's a couple speed horses in there but he's got tactical speed so he should be sitting closer. He'll still have that same kick at the end,” she added. “He'll have a little more room to work with, and it's a little bit of an easier spot. The other horse that he was in a photo finish with is also in there [B Determined], and he is a very nice horse, too, so we'll see how it goes.”
Cortez came to acquire Audacious Quality last January from trainer Phil Schoenthal, for whom she was galloping before Schoenthal moved his operation from Laurel to the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md.
“He was kind of cleaning house a little bit and just kind of taking some of the better horses, more useful horses, and was looking to find another home for him,” Cortez said. “I really liked him. I had been galloping him and I was like, 'I'll take him if you're interested in selling him,' so that's what I did.”
Also factoring into her decision was the success Cortez had as owner of another Elusive Quality gelding, Giron, who returned in 2010 after 14 months away from the races to win seven times through the spring of 2012. A Stonestreet Stables homebred, Giron was claimed by Schoenthal on behalf of owner William Wise for $15,000 in October 2008 at Laurel and wound up with Cortez after suffering an injury.
“I would win race after race with that horse,” Cortez said. “He was being given away because he bowed real bad. I just gave him the time, and with the time off he got better and better. We brought him back to the track and the rest is history. I wanted this horse because he reminded me a lot of that horse, and I'm not wrong because this horse been even better.”
Cortez has one other horse, an unraced 2-year-old filly in which she recently purchased a half-interest. A native of Vermont who began galloping in her teens at Santa Anita before relocating to Maryland in the winter of 1995-96, she gallops every morning at Laurel for trainer Justin Nixon, where Audacious Quality is stabled.
“My boyfriend helps me out. He's a blacksmith and he'll come and chip in. I do rub Quality myself and he'll come and help me tack up if I need him or do him up, that kind of thing. He's grooming the baby filly,” Cortez said. “I'm here all morning and I just work as I go. I take Quality out last. After I get done galloping Justin's horses, then I ride him.
“Everybody asks, 'Do you want more horses?' And I'm like, 'I don't know,'” she added. “I think if you're only going to have one, he'd be the one.”
Audacious Quality has raced seven times for Cortez with two wins and two thirds. Both of his wins have come since being moved to the grass, winning a one-mile claimer last May at historic Pimlico Race Course that wound up being his season finale. Fifth by 1 ¾ lengths to Nathan Detroit – an allowance winner July 4 at Laurel – Audacious Quality captured an open one-mile allowance at Laurel just 15 days before the Find.
“The day after he won, they called me up and asked if I wanted to nominate. They were looking for horses and it's [a] free [nomination],” Cortez said. “I really wasn't going to run him in that race, honestly, but when the PPs and everything came out I was like, 'You know what? I'm running.' He ran a huge number the time he won and I thought he'd be competitive, so we ran. And I'm glad we did. I thought he could have won that race.”
An injury kept the Virginia-certified Audacious Quality out of last year's Bert Allen at Colonial Downs – a race his mother, Staged Affair, won against the boys in 2012 – but he is being pointed to both that race Sept. 7 as well as a spot on the 37th Jim McKay Maryland Million Day program Oct. 22 at Laurel.
“We were at Timonium [last summer] and he started going wrong at that time and just wasn't doing as well so I just decided to stop. He got an injury and I gave him the rest of the year off,” Cortez said. “I plan on running in the stake race in Virginia, and then after that he's probably eligible for the starter in the Maryland Million or I might run him in the regular Turf.”
Audacious Quality drew the far outside post under jockey Angel Cruz in a field of 10 for Friday's Race 7 that includes main-track-only entrant Welling; Mr Jefferson, second by a head to multiple stakes-winning stablemate Joe in the Federico Tesio on dirt April 16 and returning to turf for the first time since his debut last August at Colonial; and B Determined, second choice on the morning line at 3-1.
Cortez has started a total of 37 horses as a trainer since 2017 and Audacious Quality has been her most successful. But to Cortez, he's been much more than a racehorse.
“He's a pet now, that's the other thing. I have one horse and just recently got the other, so he gets a lot of time and a lot of attention and he likes that,” Cortez said. “He's a nice guy. He's just a cool horse to work around. He's a lot of fun to ride, and he's just a really enjoyable animal.”
Ahead of his sentencing in federal court on July 11, prosecutors say veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman has a lot more going against him than just his high-profile conviction on charges of drug adulteration and misbranding.
Attorneys for the Southern District of New York are seeking a prison sentence between 10 and 20 years for Fishman, who was convicted of federal drug misbranding charges earlier this year. The report also suggests Fishman, like several of his co-defendants, could be hit with serious financial penalties. The government requested Fishman be ordered to pay restitution of $25,860,514 to be shared jointly with co-defendant Jorge Navarro and others convicted on the same drug adulteration charge. In terms of restitution to victims, the report indicated prosecutors are aware of which “specific horses that the Government can demonstrably identify were doped, or specific trainers that the Government can demonstrate were recurrent purchasers of Fishman's inarguably prohibited PEDs, as reflected in the proposed restitution order provided to the Court and defense counsel amounting to a total of $11,268,177.”
In the case of previous defendants who have entered guilty pleas, court proceedings have indicated restitution payments would be distributed to connections of horses who lost to competitors doped by the defendants. Documents detailing proposed disbursement amounts have been filed under seal and have not been accessible by the public.
There are several aggravating factors the government detailed in its pre-sentencing report. Perhaps most notably, the prosecutors pointed to what they characterized as continued attempts by Fishman to keep selling illegal products even after he had been arrested and had his offices searched by the FBI. When investigators discovered that Fishman was still making and selling a couple of popular products after his arrest, Fishman's attorneys argued he was not in breach of any federal regulations or court orders because the substances were created only for export and were not for sale in the United States. In November 2020, a federal grand jury entered a superseding indictment that included a sentencing enhancement on “the basis of the defendant's continued commission of crimes while on pretrial release.” That enhancement could subject him to an additional consecutive prison term of up to ten years.
What hadn't come out in court before were Fishman's attempts to regain control of the products seized by the FBI with the help of the Emirati government. Prosecutors say that after his arrest and subsequent searches of his property in October 2019, Fishman emailed one of his clients suggesting they file an action in U.S. Court seeking the return of drugs seized by the FBI. In March 2020, the Presidential Affairs Department, Sector of Scientific Centers and Presidential Camel Department, Dubai Equine, and Dubai Camel filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, claiming they had purchased the drugs the FBI had taken and as a result, American authorities had no right to hold them. Those filings also claimed the seized drugs were only to be used for the camel and equine breeding seasons in Dubai and were not intended for performance animals, a claim prosecutors in the Fishman misbranding case say was false.
One of the non-FDA approved drugs prosecutors say came from Seth Fishman's Equestology
Court documents released this week included a series of December 2019 email exchanges between Fishman and a person identified only as Adel. In them, Adel suggests Fishman “better send me a draft for what you want from me to prepare on the letter head and signed with stamp to send it back to you.”
In April 2020, a letter appeared in the case from Dubai Equine and the Presidential Camel Department on “United Arab Emirates Presidential letterhead, executed and with a Presidential seal detailing petitioners' relationship with Dr. Fishman,” apparently in an attempt to establish the Emirati government's business relationship with Fishman.
“Please remember that products were also requested by certain vets working for private stables owned by HH … It's NOT limited to DEH, because the products themselves may not be the actual issue, but how they were used,” Fishman wrote to Adel in December 2019. “Lina will eventually have to speak to the Palace either way because there are likely implications that go far beyond any importer or hospital. The necessary steps moving forward might require more than a newly positioned staff of Al Meydan.
“My fears are that a few young and inexperienced US officials eager to make major headlines without understanding the politics will loose[sic] site[sic] of their objective quickly. In respect to the crown I think being overly proactive would be far more appreciated than reactive.”
The attempts by government officials in Dubai to have the products released to them were ultimately denied, and afterwards, Fishman filed a similar motion of his own, which prosecutors say parroted some of the same statements previously made by the unsuccessful Emirati petitioners.
The phrase “Presidential Affairs” comes up again in the Fishman case file. In text messages intercepted by the FBI, Fishman complained about a time when he was under investigation in Delaware. In 2011, Dr. Brittany Faison of Coastal Veterinary Services was called to examine a Standardbred racehorse named Louisville in the barn of Les Givens who died after receiving an injection of pentosan made illegally by Fishman. Faison voiced concerns about whether Fishman was actually examining patients before prescribing treatments, and noted she had seen Lisa Giannelli, Fishman's co-defendant and former employee, at “farms in Harrington, Dovington Training Center, Gateway Farms, and now Seaford.”
Giannelli and Fishman denied allegations that Giannelli was practicing veterinary medicine without a license or that Fishman was not maintaining an appropriate relationship with patients.
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In a phone call intercepted by the FBI, Fishman would later say that “Presidential Affairs” “cleaned up” veterinary board's investigation into Fishman.
It may not have been the only form of help he was hoping to get from the government in the UAE. In a June 2019 phone call with an unidentified female, Fishman said he “can't do business with anyone overseas because I get accused of laundering money. Which now, Sheikh Mohammed, not Mohammed Maktoum, Mohammad Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, he is going to make me a temporary resident and give me proper UAE banking and then everything I do will be under presidential endorsement. So when the IRS or somebody accuses me of money laundering they speak to presidential affairs.”
Besides his alleged use of international connections in this and other cases, this week's court filing also revealed a few more identities of active clients of Fishman. One wire tapped phone call between Fishman and Giannelli mentions the use of “bleeding paste” and “pills” by “Richey Silverman.” Another conversation via text with Giannelli mentions trainer and law enforcement officer Silvio Martin. In February 2020, Pennsylvania investigators reached out to Giannelli, hoping to ask Fishman about Martin, though the conversation doesn't specify why. Another document, which has been heavily redacted, lists several patient names of Standardbreds for whom Fishman prescribed BB3, a blood building product.
Interestingly, the same document includes line items which read, “potentially compromised product .. good customer gift,” and “Potentially compromised product … free.”
Prosecutors in the Fishman case further allege he hid assets from them when he was asked to detail his financial holdings, omitting two Panamanian bank accounts which had six figures in them. They also accuse Fishman of trying to intimidate trainer Jamen Davidovich ahead of his testimony in court. Fishman texted Davidovich saying he was copying “my investigator and wondering if we could have a call together.”
Fishman's attorneys have filed their own pre-sentencing report, but that report has been kept under seal and is inaccessible to the public or the media. A letter from the prosecution to the court indicated defense counsel had approved the unsealing of parts of the letter and supporting documentation, but wanted to keep some attachments under wraps because they include medical information. Fishman was not in court for the final verdict in February, and his attorneys indicated at that time he had been hospitalized.
Judge Vyskocil is expected to sentence Fishman next week.
