October, 2022 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Helen Alexander, Shannon Arvin To Be Honored At Safety Net Foundation’s Fashionable Fillies Luncheon

The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation announced today that it will be hosting the Fashionable Fillies Luncheon Lexington at Jeff Ruby's on November 2, 2022, as part of the Breeders' Cup Festival Week. The media partner for the event is TOPSINLEX.

The luncheon will honor The Jockey Club members and Safety Net trustees Helen Alexander and Shannon Arvin and will offer cocktails and Jackson Family wines, food stations and passed hors d'oeuvres with Kentucky favorites, and the opportunity to shop from local vendors such as Boulevard Home, AJ's Clothing, and Breeders' Cup Milliner Christine A. Moore. Live music will be provided by Throwdown Thursday, which consists of five professional Kentucky-based musicians who perform in different Bluegrass bands that tour across the country.

For nearly two decades, Alexander managed the Thoroughbred division of King Ranch Farm in Lexington, Ky. King Ranch had success in racing and was annually among the leading consignors of yearlings.

At her Middlebrook Farm, Alexander is an owner, breeder, and consignor. Notable horses she has owned, bred, or co-bred include two-time Eclipse champion Covfefe and Grade 1 winners Arch, Aldiza, Acoma, and Bayern, a Breeders' Cup Classic winner.

Alexander is a past president of the Thoroughbred Club of America and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. She has been a board member of Keeneland Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Breeders' Cup, Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Research Foundation, and chair of the Graded Stakes Committee.

Alexander has been a member of The Jockey Club since 1986 and served as a steward from April 2000 until August 2004. She has been a trustee of the Safety Net since 2008.

Arvin is the eighth president of Keeneland Association and the first woman named to the position. She began practicing law in 2002 at the Lexington firm Stoll Keenon Ogden (SKO), where she represented Thoroughbred owners and industry organizations in Kentucky and around the world. As an SKO partner, in 2008 she began serving as corporate counsel to Keeneland, and she has been secretary and advisory member of Keeneland's board of directors since 2015.

Arvin serves on the board of directors of the University of Kentucky's Gluck Equine Research Foundation and Stock Yards Bancorp, and is the chairman of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. She is a trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and The Lexington School. She became a member of The Jockey Club in 2019 and a trustee of The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation in 2021.

“Helen and Shannon are exceptionally active members of the racing community, and they are well-respected leaders in our sport in Kentucky and across the nation,” said Shannon Kelly, executive director for the foundation. “Their contributions have helped to improve racing and the lives of many in the industry, and they are well-deserving to be honored at the Fashionable Fillies Luncheon Lexington.”

All proceeds from the event will be earmarked by the foundation to benefit the backstretch community in Kentucky, and local chaplains' and horsemen's organizations will help ensure the funds are distributed to those most in need.

“The Fashionable Fillies Luncheon has been one of the Safety Net's most successful fundraisers in Saratoga and California,” said Kelly. “We are very excited to bring this luncheon to Lexington to help support the backstretch community in Kentucky.”

Tickets ($150) and sponsorship opportunities are available at tinyurl.com/FFBC22.

The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation is a charitable trust that provides, on a confidential basis, financial relief to needy members of the Thoroughbred industry and their families. Recipients of the Safety Net Foundation's support represent virtually every facet of the Thoroughbred industry, from jockeys, trainers, exercise riders, and grooms to office personnel and other employees of racetracks, racing organizations, and breeding farms. Assistance can come in any number of forms, including financial aid, medication, surgical and hospital costs, therapeutic equipment, voice-recognition computers for quadriplegics, and wheelchair-accessible vans. Since 1985, The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation has provided more than $16 million in assistance.

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The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: Who Are Those Boots On The Ground?

Earlier this week, horse owner Barry Irwin wrote an Op/Ed stressing the importance of having “boots on the ground” investigators to help combat illegal drugs and other forms of cheating in racing. Surveillance and investigations should play an outsized role, Irwin wrote, especially as the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's Anti-Doping and Medication Control program prepares to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

In this week's Friday Show, we spoke to one of those “boots on the ground,” Don Ahrens, director of security of Sam Houston Race Park in Texas and an officer with the Organization of Racing Investigators, a membership association of security personnel from throughout North America.

Ahrens has also worked as part of a Racing Integrity Team that tracks, racing associations or regulatory agencies retain for major events such as the recent Pennsylvania Derby day program at Parx, when surprise searches yielded contraband that included syringes, an electrical device, and firearm.

Ahrens outlines the general duties of racetrack security personnel, which often work in concert with state racing commissions. He also explains the benefits that the Organization of Racing Investigators provides in the area of networking and sharing of information from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and organization to organization.

“The industry has to work together, regardless of the organization or entity,” Ahrens said, “because the goal is common.”

Watch this week's episode of the Friday Show below:

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XB Net Adds Harness Racing At Yonkers Raceway Ahead Of $1 Million International Trot

XB Net, the leading provider of premium content for North American racing, has added more muscle to its distributional package with the addition of top-class Harness Racing (or Trotting) from the prestigious New York Venue of Yonkers Raceway for all its international operator partners.

Yonkers Raceway is the proud home of three major harness events each year: the Yonkers Trot, the Art Rooney Pace and the Messenger Stakes. And this weekend, the storied racetrack hosts the $1 million International Trot, which welcomes a raiding party of global challengers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Italy and France take on the best trotters from the US and Canada.

The Yonkers International Trot (Race 7) is run over a distance of 1 1/4 miles and scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, 15 October. It represents the first leg of a $20,000 Guaranteed Late Pick 4 and also includes the $250,000 Aria Pace and Robert Miecuna Trot Invitationals as Races 8 and 10.

Trotting is already a hugely popular sport across the Nordics and much of mainland Europe and, as such, boasts a truly international audience, whose domestic action and wagering preferences can now be complemented by their favourite format of horse racing stateside.

Yonkers Raceway's EDT time zone naturally clocks on for core UK and European racing audiences, generating increased fan engagement at peak leisure times. Its schedule of compelling coverage, which neatly complements Europe's own racing scene, provides operators with a trustworthy source of fast-settling betting content from 18:00 CET. This engaging action is proven to retain eyeballs and promote betting activity during competitive digital-entertainment cycles, driving new revenue streams for a wide range of international clients.

This deal is emblematic of the continued co-operation between XB Net and NYRA Content Management Solutions (NCMS), a subsidiary of the New York Racing Association, over the content rights, data, odds, and signals from a host of first-class horse racing venues.

XB Net's definitive end-to-end solution, corralling wide-ranging content that covers approximately 75% of all U.S. racing, also opens the door to many of the world's best-quality courses and most prestigious thoroughbred horse races. Other notable highlights include the Pegasus World Cup, two legs of the Triple Crown (comprising the Preakness and Belmont Stakes) and this season's upcoming flagship finale of the Breeders' Cup World Championships at Keeneland (4-5 November).

Simon Fraser, Senior Vice President International at XB Net, said: “We're delighted to be offering our partners more high-quality racing action from another fabled New York venue in Yonkers Raceway. We have a strong track record of delivering unique and engaging racing products, and progressive partnerships like this make for an eloquent case in point. For many global operators, this can represent a significant step towards being able to develop and educate around the popular sport of Harness Racing. It has a loyal and active following, and provides an exciting area into which some can broaden and diversify their content timetables.

“Wherever you set your scene on the map, securing the right content at peak leisure-times remains of paramount importance. XB Net's wide range of low-latency racing solutions, racetracks and varied codes of racing are continuing to deliver the requisite flexibility that international operators demand.”

XB Net is the proven pacesetter for live North American racing content, managing international rights, data, odds and live broadcast and video streaming on behalf of its growing global portfolio of partners. Harnessing low-latency feeds from more than 2,500 meetings, showcasing over 25,000 races per year, North American racing is engaging more and more bettors as worldwide operators recognize its flexible value-add to any sportsbook schedule.

Currently working with many of the world's leading fixed-odds, spread-betting and commingled wagering companies (such as Flutter Entertainment, bet365, William Hill, Playtech and Entain) XB Net enjoys a growing geographic footprint in mature and emerging markets across Europe, the UK & Ireland, Asia, North and Central America, and Australia.

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Absaroka, She’s All Wolfe Ready For Title Defenses In Oklahoma Classics

Absaroka and She's All Wolfe have been nominated to defend their Oklahoma Classics titles on Friday, Oct. 21, in the Cup and Distaff, respectively, but it will be no easy task for either to repeat.

Oklahoma Classics night features the best Oklahoma-bred horses running in eight stakes races to determine the top runners in different classifications. Started in 1993, this will be the 30th edition of the Oklahoma Classics.

Absaroka, owned by Cowboy Stables (Blake Sappington) and trained by C.R. Trout, won the $175,000 Classics Cup last year at the end of a three-race win streak and he did it easily by 4-1/4 lengths under jockey David Cabrera. He hasn't won a race since, but Trout says he has been training well.

“I like Absaroka,” said Trout of Edmond, Okla. “He's training well. We gave him a bunch of time off this summer. On opening day this meet, we had him fit but not quite tight enough to run.”

The 6-year-old gelding by Flat Out, out of the Brahms mare Wanton Song, ran fifth, beaten nine lengths in a second-level allowance race, but he hadn't run from Dec. 17 last year to Sept. 7. His record is 20 starts, five wins, four seconds and three thirds for $217,379 in earnings.

Absaroka is one of 25 nominations for the Cup, a 1-1/16th miles race on the main track for 3-year-old and older Oklahoma-breds. There are several other horses nominated that have earnings in excess of $200,000 like Absaroka. He could face Number One Dude, a multiple stakes winner, who has won on both the dirt and the turf. Owner Terry Westemeir of Broken Arrow, Okla., and trainer Kari Craddock will have to decide whether to put the Dude in with Absaroka or keep him on the grass where was a winner in the $70,000 Red Earth Stakes last time out on Sept. 23 here, his first trip over the lawn. Number One Dude is cross-nominated for the $130,000 Oklahoma Classics Turf. It carries a purse of $45,000 less than the Classic. His record is 14-8-3-0 with $345,893 in the bank. If he were to go in the Classics Cup, he would be the top money earner in the field.

Trout has also entered his 3-year-old filly, Hits Pricey Legacy, in the Classics Cup, but she will more than likely go in the Distaff off her upset win in the Grade 3, $200,000 Remington Park Oaks on Oklahoma Derby Day, Sept. 25. She beat Grade 1 winner Juju's Map in that spot, who was the odds-on favorite.

“When we saw Juju's Map was coming in (for the Oaks), we first thought, 'Oh my gosh, what have we gotten ourselves into?', Trout said about the Oaks.

Hits Pricey Legacy, a 3-year-old filly by Den's Legacy, out of the Concord Point mare High Price Hit, is a home-bred owned by Trout and she won the Oaks by two full lengths, impressively. She has won two races in a row and three of her last four. She is a three-time stakes winner at Remington Park, taking the $75,000 Slide Show Stakes as a 2-year-old and has doubled up this meet with the Oaks and the $50,000 Oklahoma Stallion Stakes (filly division) on Sept. 9.

It could be quite a matchup in the Distaff between She's All Wolfe and Hits Pricey Legacy, if that happens in this 1 mile, 70-yard race. She's All Wolfe is the defending champion in the Distaff and the Queen of older mares at Remington Park, definitely a horse for the course. Her lifetime record at this Oklahoma City track is 6-of-10 lifetime on the main track, including winning the Distaff the past two years in a row for owner Dr. Robert Zoellner, of Tulsa, Okla., and trainer Donnie Von Hemel. Von Hemel is the all-time winningest Classics victor at Remington Park, having won 29 Classics races in his career here. He and Trout are 1-2 with Trout winning 15.

“Donnie and I are great friends,” said Trout. “We've both been here since the track opened in 1988. I consider him Mr. Oklahoma when it comes to Classics races. If we meet in the Distaff, She's All Wolfe is an awfully good mare. What a great matchup.”

She's All Wolfe, a 5-year-old mare by Magna Graduate, out of the Include mare She's All In, has won 9-of-27 lifetime and run second six times and third twice for a bankroll of $638,860. She was bred by Zoellner, who owns her dam, She's All In, who was another multi-stakes winner. She's All Wolfe would easily be the top money earner in the field of the Distaff if she is entered in that race. She is cross-entered in the Classics Cup. Hits Pricey Legacy and She's All Wolfe have also been nominated to the $130,000 Classics Distaff Turf.

Live racing at Remington Park continues Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14 & 15, with the first race nightly at 7:07pm-Central.

Tracked by more than 171,000 fans on Facebook and 10,600 Twitter followers, Remington Park has provided more than $304 Million to the State of Oklahoma general education fund since the opening of the casino in 2005. Located at the junction of Interstates 35 & 44, in the heart of the Oklahoma City Adventure District, Remington Park features the top Oklahoma-breds in racing on Oklahoma Classics Night, a million-dollar evening of stakes events on Friday, October 21. Thoroughbred racing continues through December 17 with simulcast racing daily, and a casino that is always open! Visit remingtonpark.com for more information.

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