April, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Hawthorne Swaps Saturdays For Thursdays For Remainder Of Season

Hawthorne Race Course will swap out Saturdays in favor of Thursdays for the upcoming June-through-Labor Day portion of its season, continuing a schedule switch that the Chicago-area track began with the current spring meet.

The Illinois Racing Board (IRB) granted the change with a unanimous vote at its Apr. 20 meeting.

Right now Hawthorne is racing on a Thursday-and-Sunday schedule. The changes will go into effect starting May 31, when the meet expands to three days: Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Post times are 2:30 p.m. Central.

Jim Miller, Hawthorne's racing director, explained to IRB members the reasoning behind the request to move off of Saturdays.

“Fortunately, things have actually worked really well just in the first four or five weeks of the meet here, because originally we were going to race on Saturdays and Sundays in the spring,” Miller said. “And just finding the amount of competition on Saturdays usually had our handle somewhere around $900,00 per card on a Saturday. By shifting to Thursdays, there's been less competition, more exposure for us [via simulcasting], and actually on Thursdays we're averaging close to $2 million per card in handle.

“For comparison purposes, last year in the spring meet our average handle per card was about $1.2 million. Right now we're just over $1.6 million. So the belief is by kind of continuing this trend during the summer by racing Wednesday-Thursday-Sunday, you'll have a lot more exposure on Wednesday and Thursday compared to a Saturday card when you're starting to get to the bigger meets [and it's] so hard to compete.

Miller pointed out that the schedule change allows for the dovetailing of dates with FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing (formerly Fairmount Park), some 275 miles to the southwest, which races on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

“It works for everybody. It works for handle in the state,” Miller said. “It works for the riders who try to ride and make a living at both racetracks. The horsemen have the ability to go to both of these racetracks as well. Even though it is not a perfect world where you have five straight days of racing at one location, at least there's five days of racing within the state.”

The post Hawthorne Swaps Saturdays For Thursdays For Remainder Of Season appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Tattersalls Online to Offer Breeze Up at Dundalk

Breezes for the Tattersalls Online June Sale on June 7-8 will be held at Dundalk Racecourse on Friday, May 19, Tattersalls Online announced.

Open to unraced 2-year-olds, the breezes will provide an opportunity for entries to gallop on the all-weather track similarly to conventional breeze-up sales. During their breezes, the 2-year-olds will be filmed and footage will then be uploaded to the Tattersalls Online website two weeks prior to the sale. Similar options will also be provided on request for entries based in the United Kingdom.

Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony said, “We are delighted to offer this innovative and cost-effective opportunity to breeze-up consignors to showcase their horses on the Tattersalls Online platform. We are constantly exploring ways to provide new innovative options for vendors and purchasers alike and we believe that Tattersalls Online will provide an excellent alternative for those wishing to showcase their breeze-up 2-year-olds. The Tattersalls Online sales have already captured the attention of domestic and international buyers, and we anticipate that the benefits of selling online as well as the opportunity to use the facilities at Dundalk will be an attractive option for vendors.”

Tattersalls Online website will provide buyers the opportunity to inspect any lot entered prior to the sale taking place. Spectators can also attend the breeze session at Dundalk. The June Sale is also open to all other entry types.

For more information, please visit the Tattersalls Online website.

The post Tattersalls Online to Offer Breeze Up at Dundalk appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Stay Thirsty Yearling Offered At Auction To Benefit Paralyzed Jockey Anne Von Rosen

A chestnut filly by Stay Thirsty is being offered to benefit paralyzed jockey Ann Von Rosen at SportHorseAuctions.com in the website's April Internet Auction for Sport Horses and Ponies.

Bidding is open now and closes April 26.

Lot 301, Peanut Bar, is by California's leading sire Stay Thirsty and was born May 5, 2022.

The filly is eligible to compete in all races with enhanced purses which are restricted to California-sired and California-bred Thoroughbreds, and she is eligible to be nominated to the lucrative Golden State Stakes Series. Because she was foaled in Arizona, she also qualifies for owner's and breeder's awards in the Grand Canyon State.

A native of Germany, Von Rosen hung her tack at tracks around the country after beginning her riding career in 2001, but she was most often a regular at Turf Paradise and Canterbury Park. She won 666 of 4,939 Thoroughbred starts over her 14-year career, and her mounts earned $5,725,969, with stakes wins in Arizona, Minnesota, Idaho, and North Dakota.

Von Rosen's career came to an abrupt end following a March 2014 Quarter Horse race at Turf Paradise when her mount collapsed shortly after crossing the finish line and left her pinned underneath. She suffered a severed spinal cord from the incident, and procedures in the immediate aftermath saved her life, but left her paralyzed.

Despite the prognosis, Von Rosen said after the injury that she was determined to walk again, and she remains driven to do so. Money raised from the yearling's sale will go toward Von Rosen's ongoing rehabilitation costs.

To view the online listing, click here.

The post Stay Thirsty Yearling Offered At Auction To Benefit Paralyzed Jockey Anne Von Rosen appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

More Than Three Years After Original Indictments, A New Name Surfaces

In the case involving high-profile thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and more than two dozen others, Standardbred horseman Brandon Simpson has pled guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy for his role in a scheme to provide horses with performance-enhancing drugs.

What makes the Simpson case unusual is that his guilty plea came some three years after the original charges against Navarro, Servis et. al. were unsealed and there was no mention of Simpson's name in the indictments released at that time. Court records released this week show that Simpson came to the government's attention as early as mid-November, 2020 when the government and Simpson's attorneys agreed on a bail package. What happened over the next several months and why was Simpson's name omitted from the original indictment remain unanswered questions. The Simpson development also raises the question as to whether or not more new names will surface in the near future when it comes to those being indicted as part of the drugging scandal.

Simpson both trained and drove, winning 1,643 races as a driver and 375 as a trainer. He last drove in 2017 and it appears that around that time he accepted a job as an assistant to trainer Rene Allard. Allard is among the bigger names caught up in the scandal and is currently serving a 27-month prison sentence after he previously plead guilty to one felony count of misbranding and altering drugs.

In a particularly troubling chapter in the Allard scandal, the Federal Bureau of Investigation intercepted a phone conversation in which two other alleged conspirators discussed the deaths of horses trained by Allard after they had been given illegal drugs. One reference caught on wiretap described the trainer's operation as the “Allard death camp.”

Court documents released this week detailed Simpson's activities, which included purchasing drugs at a pharmacy in South Carolina and then shipping them to a training center located in the Southern District of New York. Simpson also, the government claims, “administered prescription drugs to racehorses under Simpson's and others' control without a valid veterinary prescription, for the purposes of enhancing the horses' race performance.”

The post More Than Three Years After Original Indictments, A New Name Surfaces appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post