Month: February 2023

Letter To The Editor: Economics, Not Medication, Is Racing’s No. 1 Challenge

There is no doubt in my mind that racing must bear down on the drug issue to build confidence in the sport among fans and bettors. But I don't believe the decline in racing is caused by this very important problem. Bettors have suspected chicanery in racing for a long, long time, but they stick with it nevertheless. They will suspect it going forward even if drug violations are brought under control. It's the nature of things.

The way I view the decline is very different. It has more to do with the economics of participating in racing. And you can see this most clearly in the ongoing decline in the foal population, over the years.

As a small-time breeder who began in the mid-1980s I recall that my foals were among 40,000-plus being bred each year. Today there are under 18,000. In Ohio, where I began, the number of foals increased marginally every year during that period, but it increased. We may have been dreamers in Ohio, but isn't that what racing is all about?

A couple of weeks ago four 3-year-olds competed in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes as a kickoff to the Derby prep season out West. All four were trained by a single person, the inimitable Bob Baffert. That type of field is on its way to becoming normalized. This boils down to the fact that breeders like me and trainers like the men and women who trained for me over the years are leaving the sport.

Because of the economics of the sport.

The best runner that I bred was Numerically, the Ohio Horse of the Year in 1993. His unraced sire was Four Ten, whose stud fee was $500. This stallion was a son of champion Graustark out of Eastern Princess, a full sister to champion Bold Ruler. My mare was an unraced daughter of Red Ryder, a full brother to leading stallion Mr. Prospector. In 1990 I had access to championship bloodlines for $500.

Try to put a pedigree like that together today for less than five or six figures. It's not possible.

You may think that this is OK as long as a few bigger racetracks can still field a program. So what if the lesser tracks decline? So what if the small stables decline? So what if there are fewer horses being bred?

So what? So, this is more likely the beginning of the end. And it's a slow, slow ending. I don't care if some whales fatten the parimutuel pools. I don't care if the sport takes place in a bubble. It just won't be racing as we once knew it and the only times that you're going to see large crowds at the races are on the premier days. Kentucky Derby. Breeders Cup. But perhaps those crowds will also decline when the big event turns out to be Cox vs. Cox vs. Cox.

When I was a kid, sneaking into Aqueduct every Saturday, there were always 30,000 or more people in the stands. It was exciting and infectious. That excitement drove me to get into racing, even if it was with $500 stud fees and unraced mares.

You might argue that casinos have eaten into the horseracing gambling population.  But they aren't the cause of what's squeezing the sport. The cost of being in the sport is, to me, the real problem.  People like me are NOT going to bet that Baffert will beat Baffert, or that Cox will beat Cox or Pletcher will beat Pletcher. This isn't the sport we want to be involved with.

Look, I'm not blaming them. This is just where the business and the sport have ended up.

Racing needs to find a way to bring back the $500 stud fee (metaphorically speaking). Racing needs to keep more people like me in the game or we can all jump on the withering bandwagon, cheering on fewer and fewer horses, fewer and fewer stables, fewer and fewer trainers…until it's gone.

The drug problem must be solved, but people like you good folks at Paulick also need to analyze the bigger issue, which is the shrinking of the sport and the loss of the thousands of horsemen and horsewomen who once made it what it was. They are not dying off. The sport is simply going down without them.

We didn't need to get into racing to make a bet. We did it for love.  Lose the love and all you have left is another casino game.

— Al Milano

Lexington, Ky

Breeder, owner, fan

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, please send it to info @ paulickreport.com along with your name, home state, and relationship to horse racing (owner, fan, horseplayer, etc). We will request consent before publication. 

The post Letter To The Editor: Economics, Not Medication, Is Racing’s No. 1 Challenge appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Kathleen O’Connell Nearing Milestone She Really Never Saw Coming

Kathleen O'Connell only learned a few months ago she was approaching a spot in the Thoroughbred record books.

O'Connell, who started her own racing stable in 1981, may soon pass Kim Hammond as the leading female trainer in North America by victories. The conditioner known to employees, friends, rivals and fans as “K.O.” has sent out 2,381 winners, four fewer than Hammond.

Gai Waterhouse of Australia is acknowledged as the planet's No. 1 all-time woman trainer in victories with more than 7,000, according to the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

O'Connell is 11-for-88 in 2023 while racing between Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream. Hammond, based at Turfway Park, has not won from 15 starts this year. Those numbers suggest it is likely just a matter of time before O'Connell takes over the No. 1 spot in the Northern Hemisphere. Which was even further away from her mind than the land down under when she started in the business.

“It will be a celebration whether it's a little time, or a long time,” O'Connell said. “Records are always broken. I just think it's an accomplishment, more than a record. It's an accomplishment.”

It's not a cliché to say O'Connell has poured body and soul into her career.

“I've always been the type of person whether I played basketball or ran track, no matter what I did, it was always overboard, 110 percent. I don't know how to do things any other way,” she said. “That is what, I guess, intensifies my business, because I don't have a family and I don't have a lot of things, so all my energy is channeled this way. And that can be bad and good, but that's just the way it is.”

O'Connell never joined the women's-liberation movement – “I was too busy working!” – but in her chosen field, she made the steps required to advance untold numbers of her sex. After her application to Michigan State University's veterinary school was turned down (she discovered they only admitted two women a year), she attended community college and worked for a photo developing company, but the siren of the racetrack proved too alluring to ignore.

O'Connell's second racetrack license, issued at Detroit Race Course in the early 1970s, listed her occupation as “Pony Boy.” Talk about feeling like an outsider.

“There was no such category as girl, no box to check. There was no 'exercise girl,' no 'pony girls,' ” she said wryly.

But the horses she got on didn't discriminate, and she knew she had found her niche. After spending the 1975 season at Fair Grounds in New Orleans with trainer William R. Harp, she arrived at Tampa Bay Downs in 1976 and has been here every season since.

What a legacy she has established.

She has twice been leading trainer at Tampa (tying Jamie Ness for the 2009-2010 title) and was the first woman to win a training title at Calder in Miami, also in 2009-2010. She finished second here last year with 30 winners to Gerald Bennett.

Her graded-stakes winners include Blazing Sword, who won three graded events from 1997-2000; Ivanavinalot; Fly by Phil; Stormy Embrace, winner of the Grade 2 Princess Rooney Stakes in 2018 and 2019; Well Defined, who won the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes here in 2019; and, perhaps most memorably, Watch Me Go, a 43-1 upset winner of the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby in 2011.

Watch Me Go, owned by her long-time clients Gilbert Campbell and his wife Marilyn, took O'Connell to the Kentucky Derby. Mr. Campbell passed away a year-and-a-half ago at 91, but O'Connell still trains for Mrs. Campbell's Stonehedge Farm South, a relationship of more than 30 years duration.

Another outstanding O'Connell-trained horse was the speedy turf filly Lady Shipman, who finished second by a neck in the 2015 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Keeneland as a 3-year-old after winning six stakes that year and setting two course records. There were many others, certainly.

O'Connell still trains about 60 horses between Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream, a task that would be impossible without her stable of about three dozen employees split between the tracks.

“It's not just about me, it's about all the people who work for me. It's been a huge team effort,” she said. “And it's about the owners who trust you to run their horses in the correct spots.”

She has always treated each horse as an individual, gotten to know their likes and dislikes and their quirks and styles.

“They are all individuals, and that is how they have to be treated. What works for one is not going to work for another. It takes a lot of reading your horse, seeing how they act. It's just like with kids – sometimes their coaches push them, and sometimes they push themselves. It's knowing how much gate work to do with them, how intense to get with it and when to back off. You watch if they are scared about the gate, if they are in the feed tub, whether they are acting OK on the track.

“You try to get them to want to train, to want to be out of their stall and be able to enjoy it.”

O'Connell has loved it so much for so long that she never really wondered where the hours went on a daily basis, but she is mystified by how the years flew by so quickly. Sometimes, her body reminds her that her career has transpired in real time, and that nothing lasts forever.

For now, though, retirement is not on her radar screen. What she does has value to her owners, breeders, her employees, jockeys and the fans. And to the teenage kid who always did everything to the best of her ability.

“I think I'll know when it's time, because as much as I love the business and love the horses, things are changing a lot, and I'm not so sure for the better,” she said. “When I can't do what I know is best to protect my horses, which also protects my owners and my help, then it is time for me to use the 'R' word (retirement).”

Until then, take comfort in seeing K.O. atop her pony on a misty morning, and striding into the winner's circle several hours later spreading cheer with her smile.

“I don't gallop any more, but I do enjoy the closeness of the training as far as being on the ponies. I do enjoy riding to see the condition of the track myself,” she said.

“You have got to look forward. That is all you can do, just keep looking forward.”

The post Kathleen O’Connell Nearing Milestone She Really Never Saw Coming appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Value Sires Part V: Everything to Prove

For this final part of the series, we are looking at stallions who have retired to stud since 2021 and will thus have either first foals or yearlings at the sales this year or are about to cover their first book of mares.

There is plenty to digest from three years' intake and of course prices can often drop after a stallion's first year at stud, so there could be some value to be found for breeders willing to roll the dice on a stallion about to embark on his third season. He will have first runners before the resultant offspring of this year's matings make it to a sale. As always, results on the track are everything, and we are very much in unproven territory here. 

As with the earlier parts of this series, the sires have been divided into fee brackets and though there is of course some discrepancy between the euro and the pound, we are treating them as equals here.

Stallions standing at £/€25,000 and above

At £80,000, Baaeed (GB) is the most expensive young sire to retire to stud within this timeframe and it would not have been a surprise if he had commenced covering at a six-figure fee. Instead he is starting at almost exactly the same level as his sire Sea The Stars (Ire) and the problem for Shadwell won't be filling his book, rather deciding which breeders they have to let down. 

Some will baulk at Baaeed's absence of two-year-old form but, at 135, he is the highest-rated son of a brilliant stallion with a wonderful pedigree behind him, as well as a race record that includes victory in six coveted Group 1 races in Britain and France. He'll be given a great chance in his new career and in a few years £80,000 may look very reasonable at this upper level of the stallion market.

Baaeed got the better of Palace Pier (GB) in the 2021 Champion S., but until then the latter had compiled a similar race record, albeit his included maiden and novice wins at two. This top-class miler had his fee trimmed to £50,000 from £55,000 for this year, after a who's who of international breeders lined up to use him in 2022, when he covered 154 mares, including the dams of Cracksman (GB) and Farhh (GB).

On a swelteringly hot June day in Chantilly, Sottsass (Fr) became the first Group 1-winning colt for his Siyouni (Fr) when landing the Prix du Jockey Club of 2019. One could sense the joy Peter Brant derived that day from winning a French Classic, and that was multiplied the following year when Sottsass claimed the Arc, too. He is of course a son of the Monceaux super mare Starlet's Sister (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and has been clipped to €25,000 from his €30,000 opening fee. His owner backed him strongly with his own mares and his first yearlings will take to the ring from August. A year behind him and bred on the same Siyouni-Galileo cross is the former champion juvenile St Mark's Basilica (Fr) who sailed through his 3-year-old seasons with a French Classic double followed up by victories in the Eclipse and Irish Champion S. A heftier price tag of €65,000 greeted his arrival at Coolmore, and his first foals will be arriving this spring, while his half-brother Magna Grecia (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) will be represented by his first runners. A big year for the family.

One name that we can expect to make a big splash at the yearling sales this year is the 2020 Horse of the Year Ghaiyyath (Ire). The first foals of the son of Dubawi (Ire) and Classic heroine Nightime (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) returned a six-figure average just above 100,000gns, with a 375,000gns top lot. He is competitively priced at €25,000 and he has covered some smart mares, including G1 Fillies' Mile winner Lyric Of Light (GB) (Street Cry {Ire}), G2 Rockfel S. winner and 1,000 Guineas runner-up Lucida (Ire) (Shamardal), and dual Group 3 winner Tickled Pink (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), who is also the dam of G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf winner Victoria Road (Ire) (Saxon Warrior {Jpn}).

Pinatubo (Ire) carried all before him in his unbeaten juvenile season, ending 2019 as the champion in Europe. It is easy to imagine that his offspring could show similar precocity, thus making it a decent bet that his first yearlings will sell well this year. For these reasons, along with strong support from breeders, he has remained at €35,000 since his retirement to stud. His sire Shamardal had started out at €40,000 and dropped in years four and five to half that amount. We all know what happened after that: his fee climbed steadily, along with his reputation for excellence. 

Persian King (Ire) was an early star and a first Classic winner for his sire Kingman (GB). A Group 3-winning juvenile, beating Magna Grecia (Ire) in the Autumn S. at Newmarket, he took the Poule d'Essai des Poulains and then added a further two Group 1 wins to his credit at four in the Prix d'Isaphan and Prix du Moulin. A first try at a mile and a half on his swansong saw him finish third behind Sottsass in the Arc. He entered stud at a sold €30,000 and has been trimmed slightly in this, his third year, to €25,000.

Last season's champion juvenile Blackbeard (Ire) will remain a brilliant 2-year-old in our memories as he has been retired to stud off his dual Group 1 strikes in the Prix Morny and Middle Park S. From his eight starts, he won six, as early as the beginning of April and including the G3 Marble Hill and G2 Prix Robert Papin. 

At a time when many breeders will struggle to get near his sire No Nay Never, Blackbeard looks an appealing alternative at €25,000 and it's unlikely that he will lack support. 

Stallions standing at £/€15,000 to £/€24,999

Godolphin had an embarrassment of Shamardal riches in 2019 with Pinatubo stealing the show but Earthlight (Ire) more than holding his own when, just like Blackbeard three years later, he won the G1 Prix Morny and G1 Middle Park. Earthlight's foals sold well last year and, now trimmed from an opening fee of €20,000 to €15,000, he could well be good value at this level. Victor Ludorum (GB), who completed Godolphin's hat-track of homebred Group 1-winning sons of Shamardal that year, stayed in training through his 4-year-old season after winning the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and Poule d'Essai des Poulains in his first two years in training. His final win was in the G3 Prix Messidor, and he too is at €15,000 at Haras du Logis.

Hello Youmzain (Fr) has Shamardal on his dam's side and is a rare son of Kodiac (GB) in France. He's a durable one, too. In three seasons to race, he was a Group 2-winning juvenile before landing the G1 Sprint Cup at three and the G1 Diamond Jubilee at four. Starting out at €25,000, he's now at €22,500 in his third season.

At the same stage in their stud careers are two Group 1-winning milers: Kameko and Mohaather (GB). The former, by Kitten's Joy and a top-level winner at two and three, has had a £10,000 reduction from his opening fee and is now at £15,000, while Mohaather, a sleek son of Showcasing (GB), has also been at that fee for two years, having started at £20,000.

Like the aforementioned Victor Ludorum, Lucky Vega (Ire) also represents the Shamardal line, has his first foals arriving, and is also pitched in at €15,000. He has received significant backing by his owner Yulong Investments, and is one of a number of young sons of Lope De Vega (Ire) at stud. It is doubtless hoped by his connections that he will pick up the baton for this line which is increasingly flourishing in Europe.

Similar comments can be applied to Space Blues (Ire) and the Dubawi sire-line. The hardy little chestnut really hit his stride as an older horse after being Group 1-placed and a listed winner at three. His top-level wins came in the Prix Maurice de Gheest (beating Hello Youmzain) at four, before he signed off at five with an international G1 double in the Prix de la Foret and Breeders' Cup Mile. He has been competitively priced at €16,000 this season.

The G1 July Cup winner Starman (GB) was one of the busiest Flat stallions of 2022, with David Ward's statuesque homebred given a rousing reception at Tally-Ho Stud when covering 254 mares at a fee of €17,000. That has been trimmed his season to €15,000.

Entering stud this season in this bracket are the Group 1 winners State Of Rest (Ire) at €25,000, and Mishriff (Ire) and Torquator Tasso (Ger) at €20,000. Perfect Power (Ire) begins at a fee of £15,000 in Newmarket, while in Ireland Bayside Boy (Ire), Minzaal (Ire) and Naval Crown (Ire) are all starting off at €15,000.

Stallions standing at £/€7,500 to £/€14,999

In France, where Wootton Bassett (GB) is almost certainly missed, his fast son Wooded (Fr) was added to the ranks at Haras de Bouquetot in 2021 after winning the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye. Starting off at €15,000, his first yearlings are on the horizon and his fee has been snipped to €12,000.

Wooded went head-to-head in Normandy with Golden Horde (Ire), another Group 1-winning sprinter who joined the Sumbe team and will also have his first yearlings for sale this year. His opening mark of €10,000 has been reduced to €8,000.

Circus Maximus (Ire) has tended to sail a little under the radar, but it should not be forgotten that he is a treble Group 1-winning miler by Galileo (Ire) out of a classy mare in the Group 2 winner Duntle (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}). His fee has been halved from his first year to €10,000 in his third year, and he has some potentially smart offspring to represent him, including Proxima Centauri (Ire), a filly out of his breeder's four-time Group 1 winner Alpha Centauri (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) and a colt out of the smart racemare Banimpire (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire})

Another well-bred son of Galileo, Japan (GB), joined the German stallion division at Gestut Etzean in 2022 and has remained at €11,000 for his first two seasons. The National Stud's Lope Y Fernandez (Ire) is another with first foals arriving and his fee has also been maintained at £8,500, while the G1 Middle Park S. winner Supremacy (Ire), one of a number of young sons of Mehmas (Ire) to retire to stud in the last two years, has been trimmed from €12,500 to €10,000 at Yeomanstown Stud. A year behind him is another Mehmas horse, Persian Force (Ire), who starts out at Tally-Ho Stud, where he was conceived, at €10,000.

The Chehboub family's Haras de Beaumont sets out its stall as one of the newest stallion operations in France by standing their own Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and Champion S. winner Sealiway (Fr) at an opening fee of €12,000.

If you set a stallion's fee against the number of miles covered in their careers then Stradivarius (Ire) would certainly represent value as he raced over almost 65 miles during his 35 races, 20 of which he won, including 18 group races. In fact, any way you look at it, you get plenty of bang for your buck (£10,000, to be precise) when booking a mare to the charismatic stayer, for his noted soundness is exemplified by his elastic movement which has turned many heads since he joined the stallion yard at the National Stud. Throw in the Stradivarius breeder bonus offered by his owner Bjorn Nielsen, which rewards the breeders of his first ten 2-year-old winners with £25,000 each, and first-crop group winners with £100,000 for Group 2 or 3 races and £250,000 for a Group 1 victory, then he is certainly worthy of serious consideration.

Stallions standing at less than £/€7,500

Farhh (GB) may have covered only limited books since retiring to stud in 2014 but he now has four sons at stud. Two of those, Far Above (Ire) and King Of Change (GB), stand alongside each other at Starfield Stud and have their first yearlings on offer later this year. Yes, it's a chancey time to use any third-year stallion, but at €5,000 and €6,000 respectively, they look well-priced, and the Group 1-winning miler King Of Change in particular came in for some compliments from shrewd operators when his first foals were in the sales rings last November.

We may have trouble saying his name, but Sergei Prokofiev did not go unnoticed when his first foals hit the sales last year either, and the son of Scat Daddy is another ensuring that the Whitsbury Manor Stud stallion barn remains plenty busy over the coming months. At £6,000 he is competitively priced, and the same can be said for River Boyne (Ire), Tara Stud's Grade 1-winning son of Dandy Man (Ire), who has remained at €5,000, the same fee set this year for Shaman (Ire), the Wertheimer-bred son of Shamardal who is at Yeomanstown Stud.

One of the most interesting horses in this fee bracket is Sands Of Mali (Fr), winner of the Gimcrack at two, followed by the G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint at three among his four group victories. He's by a stallion that has some people scratching their heads, the dual Group 3 winner Panis, himself a son of the influential Miswaki. At €5,000, Sands Of Mali is an easy horse to breed to, but not just because of his largely outcross pedigree: he was also talented and is good-looking to boot. He has recently been joined at Ballyhane Stud by Space Traveller (GB), a son of Bated Breath (GB) who raced until he was six, having won the G2 Clipper Logistics Boomerang S. and G3 Jersey S. at three. His final start came last season when denied by a head to finish second in the GI Frank E Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita, and he starts his new career at a fee of €6,500.

Also at €5,000 at Castlefield Stud in Ireland is Alkumait (GB). We can be certain that his half-brother Chaldean (GB) (Frankel {GB}) will end up at stud eventually, but in the meantime this Group 2 winner has stolen a march and joins an increasing throng of sons of the popular Showcasing (GB) now at stud.

No Nay Never is another stallion with increasing representation among the stallion ranks and his young sons include Arizona (Ire), who is at Castleyhde Stud and the Molecomb S. winner Armor (GB), a recruit last year to Haras de Bouquetot. Both stand at €5,000, while Armor has been joined at Bouquetot by the G1 National S. winner Thunder Moon (Ire), who stands for €6,000.

A'Ali (Ire), a son of the late Society Rock who notched up four Group 2 wins during his career with Simon Crisford, joined the throng at Newsells Park Stud last season and his fee has been reduced from an opening mark of £7,500 to £5,000 this year, making him another to be a potentially value option for breeders. 

Tally-Ho Stud is represented as the breeder of a growing number of stallions at stud, including A'Ali and also Overbury Stud's new recruit Caturra (Ire). The Flying Childers winner is the first son of Mehmas to stand in the UK, and he has joined another Tally-Ho-bred, Ardad (Ire), at the Gloucestershire farm, where he will start off at £6,500.

The latest son of Wootton Basssett to retire to stud in France is last season's Poule d'Essai des Poulains runner-up Texas (Fr), who now stands at Haras de Hoguenet for €3,800.

Big Shuffle's son Areion (Ger) made a pronounced mark on the German breeding scene over many years, and died last year at the age of 27. He has been succeeded in that country by the Group 1 winner Alson (Ger), who retired to Gestut Fahrhof last year and stands at €6,000, while Rubaiyat (Fr), a five-time group winner in Germany and Italy, is his latest son to take up stallion duties, and he is at Gestut Ohlerweiherhof, where he commands a fee of €4,500.

Value podium:
Instead of selecting a gold, silver and bronze medallist, as is the norm for this feature, I am opting instead for three stallions across the distance range whom I believe represent value at this early stage of their careers. There are no prizes for guessing that Stradivarius is one, and he is joined by the miler Mohaather and the sprinter Sands Of Mali.

The post Value Sires Part V: Everything to Prove appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights