Month: October 2022

The Game of Live Roulette

If you’ve ever been to a live casino before that offers more than just an army of slot machines, the chances are you’ve had a chance to witness the excitement that surrounds the live roulette wheel. Maybe you’ve been part of the action itself and felt the strange attraction people have to this game of chance in particular. Whether you’ve seen the game up close or not, though, chances are you’re familiar with the wheel, it’s array of black and red-framed numbers, and the little white ball that decides people’s fate. Where did it come from, though, and how has the roulette wheel spent its time in existence?

While there is no conclusive evidence to back up just where the roulette wheel came from, some theorize that the French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented it. This is only one theory, though its origins are most likely in France, considering the name roulette is French for “little” wheel. The first modern roulette wheel used in gambling was presented in 1796 in a casino in Paris.

It traveled to the United States in the 1800’s, where an extra pocket was added to bring the number up to 31. This created the two forms of roulette wheels that are around today, aptly dubbed the “American” and “European” wheels. If you want to increase your chances of winning, play on a European wheel if given the chance. Since there are only 30 pockets, it will be easier to get the one you want.

Since its inception, live roulette has become one of the most popular casino games for years. In Europe, it is much more popular than other games, due to the fact that the odds of winning are much better than with other games. In America, a general love of poker, which has been on the rise, recently, beats out the popularity of roulette. Its popularity has made it a staple in casinos, and it’s unlikely that the roulette wheel will go anywhere anytime soon.

For a newcomer to the game of live roulette, the first point to note is that there are two main types of bets you can try on the roulette wheel. These correspond to the layout of the wheel itself. You may place an inside roulette bet, which takes into account the arrangement of numbers which run around the inside section of the roulette wheel.

The second broad type of bet is known as an outside bet, which also brings into play the possibility of betting on whether the ball will land in red or black, for example.

Within these two types of bet, there are plenty of alternatives that a player can gamble on; you may choose to bid on the likelihood of the ball landing on a specific number, or on a group of numbers, or even on whether the ball will land on an even or odd number.

While live roulette may seem puzzling for the newcomer, after you get to know the variations in bets available on both the outside and inside options, then you will start to understand exactly how the game is played – and perhaps even place a roulette bet yourself.

Spirited Bidding As Fasig October Sale Opens with Into Mischief Yearlings on Top

LEXINGTON, KY – The Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings Sale, looking to build on a record-setting 2021 renewal, opened with a day of competitive bidding Monday. A pair of yearlings by Into Mischief topped the day's activity, with a filly going the way of Ben McElroy for $425,000 and a colt selling to the Green family's DJ Stable for $400,000.

“It was a very good opening session to the 2022 Fasig-Tipton October Yearling Sale,” said Fasig-Tipton president Boyd Browning. “There was very good trade. The parking lot was jammed pack, we saw lots of faces on the sales grounds, lots of trainers, pinhookers and end-users and lot of representatives from overseas.”

During Monday's session, 253 yearlings sold for $12,342,100. The average of $48,783 was up 21.3% from the same session a year ago and the median of $27,000 was up 58%.

The 2021 auction set records for both average and median–of $45,627 and $22,000, respectively–and the opening session of the 2022 sale was ahead of both marks.

“The 2021 sale was a quantum leap from previous year levels, so to be able to sustain that and potentially improve on that–I hate to get too far out because it's hard to judge the composition of which days are the best when there are 1600 horses on the grounds. But it was a very solid session with lots of activity.”

With 96 yearlings reported not sold, the buy-back rate was 27.5%. It was 19.6% during last year's first session.

The Fasig-Tipton October sale continues through Thursday with sessions beginning daily at 10 a.m.

McElroy, Ward Strike for Into Mischief Filly

Bloodstock agent Ben McElroy, sitting alongside trainer Wesley Ward, made a session-topping final bid of $425,000 to acquire a filly by Into Mischief (hip 336) at Monday's first session of the Fasig-Tipton October sale. The yearling is out of stakes winner Velvet Mood (Lonhro {Aus}) and was bred by Alpha Delta Stables, which purchased the mare with the filly in utero for $1 million at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton November sale. She was consigned by Mill Ridge Sales.

“She's by a great sire, whether it's colts or fillies, and she's out of a precocious mare who was a stakes-winning 2-year-old,” McElroy said of the filly's appeal. “She just fit our model for getting them out early with Wesley and she looks like she could be turf or dirt, or even synthetic. She is a very nice filly. For me, she was the pick of the fillies today. We were happy to get her at that price and fingers crossed from here on out.”

McElroy said he expects to find partners for the yearling.

“We will put together a partnership on the filly and see how it goes,” he said. “That's good money for a horse, but by that sire, I think we did good.”

McElroy signed for four yearlings Monday and three were acquired with Ward. Keeping busy throughout the yearling sales season across the globe this fall, he also signed for eight yearlings at the Keeneland September sale and three yearlings at the Goffs Orby sale.

“It was really tough to buy what I wanted at Keeneland,” McElroy said. “In Europe, I think we got some really nice horses. We got four today and we are really happy with what we got. This sale always gets better day by day, so hopefully by Thursday these will look like good value.”

Greens Continue to Pick Their Spots

The Green family's DJ Stable, which purchased the co-toppers at the OBS October sale earlier this month, continued its yearling buying spree at Fasig-Tipton Monday, acquiring a colt by Into Mischief (hip 80) for $400,000 just minutes are purchasing a son of Gun Runner (hip 74) for $200,000.

“We are just trying to find a competitive advantage,” Len Green explained. “There are people with more money, so the idea is to try to find the spot and then buy them correctly. Because someone told me a long time ago, you run out of money before they run out of horses.”

Green admitted the team was searching for horses who might not be attracting the attention of heavy-hitting buyers.

“For example, there was an Uncle Mo (hip 197) that came in the ring later on and every big guy was on the horse,” he explained. “I looked at the list of who had visited him and they must have had 14 or so. So I said there is no sense to bid against those guys. Whereas on ours, we looked at the list and we said we have a chance to get this horse at the price we want this horse for.”

Of DJ Stable's buying process, Green said, “We have [trainer] Mark Casse, who certainly knows physical horses, and Jon Green knows what the value of horses is, he follows them all the time.”

Hip 80, bred by Emily and Oliver Bushnell and consigned by Lane's End, is out of Shysheisnot (Tribal Rule).

“This one looks like a runner,” Green said of the yearling.

DJ Stable is currently represented by a daughter of Into Mischief, Wonder Wheel, who is expected to go postward in next week's GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.

“It wouldn't make any difference,” Green said of the sire. “We don't look at the pedigree page. We look at the physical first. And then we look at the pedigree page to figure out a valuation for the horse.”

Hip 74, bred by Three Chimneys Farm and consigned by Taylor Made Sales Agency, is out of Shocking Fast (Distorted Humor), a half-sister to this year's GI Preakness S. winner Early Voting (Gun Runner).

“These are the kind of runners that, if they make it, they are worth a heck of a lot of money,” Green said. “You can say to me, 'Well, there are horses with no pedigree who win Grade I races,' but more likely the ones that win Grade I races are the ones that have the pedigree and the physical. So that's what we are looking for.”

DJ Stable purchased six yearlings at the OBS October sale, including a colt by Mitole and a filly by The Factor for matching $210,000 sale-topping figures. The operation also purchased the $600,000 sale-topping son of Curlin at the Fasig-Tipton July sale this year.

“We are also selling a lot right now,” Green said. “We were very heavy in fillies because we have a breeding program now. So we have the ability to do foal sharing. We never had that before. If you get a good filly, physically and with a pedigree and she does well on the track, then you have the opportunity to breed it and get into Book 1.

“We found that you can sell certain horses and then we have the advantage that, if we don't get the number we want, we can actually race them. So the number [of horses in the stable], believe it or not, is the same as it was last year.”

DJ Stable struck again late in the session to acquire a colt by Vino Rosso (hip 387) for $60,000.

Arrogate Filly Helps Kick Off October Sale

A filly by Arrogate (hip 7) will be heading west to the barn of that late sire's trainer Bob Baffert after bloodstock agent Donato Lanni made a final bid of $350,000 on behalf of John Rogitz to acquire the yearling early in Monday's first session of the Fasig-Tipton October sale.

The yearling was bred by Paul Tackett and his late son Phil and was consigned by Tackett. She is out of Saharan (Desert Party), a half-sister to Grade I winner My Conquestadory (Artie Schiller).

“She looks like a good Arrogate,” said Lanni. “She looks fast and she was light on her feet. She was a cool filly who did everything right.”

Lanni said of Rogitz, “He's a new guy for us and we thought this filly would suit him very well.”

The post Spirited Bidding As Fasig October Sale Opens with Into Mischief Yearlings on Top appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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New Study Finds Horses Racing On Lasix At 62 Percent Increased Risk Of Sudden Death

A new study of data from the Equine Injury Database has revealed that horses medicated with furosemide (Lasix) on race day were at 62 percent increased odds of sudden death compared to horses that were not racing on furosemide.

Funded by the Grayson Jockey Club Foundation, the study was published by Dr. Euan Bennet and Dr. Tim Parkin on Oct. 20, 2022, in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. It examined the 4,198,073 race starts made by 284,387 Thoroughbred horses at 144 racetracks in the United States and Canada between 2009 and 2021; those numbers represent 92.2 percent of all official race starts during that period.

Of those nearly 4.2 million starts, 536 resulted in a horse's sudden death, an incidence rate of 0.13/1,000 starts. Sudden death was defined as any horse that was recorded as a fatality within three days of racing, along with one or more of the following fatal injury descriptions or (presumptive) diagnosis, as provided by each participating track to the EID: (1) sudden death (recorded as “SUD” in the EID), (2) pulmonary hemorrhage, (3) exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH), (4) postexertional distress/heatstroke (PED), and (5) cardiac arrhythmia.

In total, the study examined 49 risk factors for sudden death, and found that 15 of those risk factors were significantly associated with sudden death, including horse age and sex, season and purse of race, race distance, and horses' recent history of injury and lay-up.

The most startling statistic was that associated with Lasix; of the 536 sudden deaths examined in the study, 518 were recorded as racing on the anti-bleeding medication. Only 18 horses suffering sudden death had raced without the medication. Researchers determined horses racing on Lasix had a 62 percent higher risk of sudden death than horses racing without it.

Study authors explained that 94 percent of starters in the recorded data raced on Lasix, so it is an extremely common risk factor and merits more research.

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They wrote: “Identifying any potential causal link between furosemide administration and sudden death should be a priority. Furosemide administration, alongside water restriction, is common race-day practice for the management of EIPH and has been shown to also result in improvements in race performance. Although evidence supports the use of furosemide to reduce the severity of EIPH, the ethics of permitting any race-day medication is controversial and problematic for the sport.

“Furosemide is a diuretic and reduces the severity of EIPH by reducing blood volume and hence blood flow and pulmonary arterial pressure. The diuretic action results in a loss of sodium, potassium, and chloride into the urine and hence predisposes to electrolyte abnormalities. In humans, these electrolyte disturbances may predispose to arrhythmias and arrhythmic death. Therefore, it could be hypothesized that furosemide administration in horses may increase the risk of sudden death through fatal arrhythmogenesis.

“However, as the exact cause of sudden death (cardiac vs non-cardiac) was not determined for the horses of this study, we can only speculate at possible mechanisms. Further investigation is required to understand which, if any, pathophysiologic mechanisms could underlie the association between furosemide use and sudden death, as this finding raises further concerns about the ethics of race-day administration.”

Other risk factors in the study were as follows:

  • Compared to horses racing in summer, those racing in winter were at a 28% reduced risk of sudden death.
  • Starts made on synthetic track surfaces were at 33% reduced odds of sudden death compared to starts made on dirt tracks.
  • Longer race distances were associated with a significantly reduced risk of sudden death.
  • Horse starts in state-bred races (in which only state-bred horses were permitted to race) were approximately 41% less likely to  experience sudden death than horses in other races.
  • Horse starts in races with purse values > $10,000 were at approximately 40% greater risk of sudden death compared to starts in races with purse values < $10,000.
  • Compared to female horses, geldings were not significantly different with respect to their risk of sudden death, but intact male horses were at 39% increased risk of sudden death.
  • Older horses were at increased odds of sudden death compared to younger horses, with horses 5 years old and above at 44% increased risk relative to horses 3 years old and younger.
  • For each additional race start made in the previous 0 to 30 days, individual horses were at reduced risk of sudden death.
  • Horses that had made two or more race starts in the period 90 to 180 days before the current race were at 19% decreased risk of fatality compared to horses that had made 0 or 1 start in the same time period.
  • Horses making their first start as a claimer were at 38% increased odds of sudden death compared to horses that were not previously claimers.
  • Compared to horses that had never had a lay-up (defined as a period of longer than 60 days with no race starts), horses whose previous lay-up was within 30 days of the current start were at 37% increased odds of sudden death.
  • Horses that had previously been added to a vet list were at 31% increased odds of sudden death compared to horses that had never been on a vet list before.
  • Horses that had raced a longer cumulative distance in their prior career were at reduced odds of sudden death compared to those with less cumulative distance.
  • Horses with more previous wins in their prior career were at increased odds of sudden death.

The study's authors also wrote that the risk factors were most helpful in identifying an at-risk horse when layered together; that is, if they removed one variable from the model (like number of starts in 90 to 180 days) the statistical significance of other factors like season and furosemide use changed. The final model used for the paper included all three variables because it produced the most accurate prediction of a horse's risk. This, they believed, was likely due to the rare nature of a sudden death compared to the overall number of race starts in the database.

Sudden deaths are also difficult to study because even with a necropsy, it's not uncommon for the exact cause to remain unknown.

According to the study: “Some of the factors identified suggest that the possibility exists to identify at-risk horses well before they experience sudden death. Further work is required to determine which, if any, clinical signs are potential indicators and indeed whether such a rare outcome could be reliably predicted.”

See an abstract of the study here.

The post New Study Finds Horses Racing On Lasix At 62 Percent Increased Risk Of Sudden Death appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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