June, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

Lost Iron? No Problem For Irad Ortiz Jr. and Donegal Forever

It's not every day a jockey loses his irons coming out of the gate when his mount stumbles and then goes on to win, but that happened to Irad Ortiz Jr. and Donegal Forever at Belmont Park in the fifth race on June 17.

Sent away the even-money favorite while making his career debut against seasoned opposition for trainer Todd Pletcher and Donegal Racing, Donegal Forever stumbled badly a few strides out of the gate, causing Ortiz to come out of his left iron. Both horse and jockey regrouped after the bad start, with Ortiz showing tremendous athleticism just by staying on the horse and then getting his boot back in the irons in a matter of strides.

They tracked the early leaders and then took command into the stretch, drawing off to win by 4 1/4 lengths, the 1 1/16 miles in a very respectable 1:43.33, getting a solid Beyer Speed Figure of 89 for the effort.

A 3-year-old colt by Pioneerof The Nile out of Flatter Up, by Flatter, Donegal Forever was bred in Kentucky by Three Chimneys Farm and purchased by Donegal Racing from Four Star Sales for $170,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Donegal Racing's Jerry Crawford said the big, long-striding colt was the stable's first starter at Belmont since Mo Donegal won the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes in 2022.

“The reason we named him Donegal Forever is I kept telling people that's how far this horse will run,” Crawford said.

“He had a couple of issues that stopped him for a while,” Crawford said, explaining why the colt was so late at getting to the races. “He got close and got knocked sideways and got close again. I kept thinking he might be our Derby horse.”

Donegal Forever grabbed a quarter from the stumble but otherwise was none the worse for fair, Crawford said on Wednesday. “He was back on the track this morning,” he said.

Crawford said Donegal Racing has “8 1/2” 2-year-olds at the moment (the half interest is a horse co-owned with fellow Iowan Dennis Albaugh's Albaugh Family Stable). There's a similar number of older horses, divided between Pletcher and Brad Cox. Crawford looks for yearlings in the $75,000 to $300,000 range.

“We do one partnership a year and it's usually between eight and 10 yearlings,” he said. “We only buy yearlings. If you're a partner in one, you're a partner in all.”

Crawford was generous in his praise of Ortiz, and not just for his handling of of Donegal Forever.

“We love working with Irad,” he said. “The only thing better than his riding skill is his quality as a human being.

“I said to him how impressed I was (after his recovery aboard Donegal Forever)” Crawford said. “He said, 'The horse is the hero. He's terrific.'”

Watch Donegal Forever's race below.

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StrideSAFE Team Concludes Churchill’s Musculoskeletal Fatality Data Showed Pre-Existing Conditions

A research team associated with StrideSAFE, the biometric sensor mechanism capable of detecting minute changes in a horse's gait at high speed, concluded that the majority of the recent musculoskeletal fatalities at Churchill Downs were due to pre-existing conditions. A total of 12 horses suffered fatal injuries over a recent five-week period at Churchill, leading track officials to unveil new safety initiatives and then move the remainder of the current meet to Ellis Park.

A grant was awarded to StrideSAFE by the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council (KEDRC), prompting a research team to hold a two-day meeting at the company's headquarters in Midway, Kentucky. In attendance were lead investigators Dr. Warwick Bayly and Dr. Denise McSweeney; co-investigator and StrideSAFE CEO Dr. David Lambert; and team consultants Dr. Mikael Holmstrom, Dr. Kevin Donohue, Dr. Sue Stover, and Dr. Laura Kennedy; as well as Greg Pachman, who represented StrideSAFE management.

The team reviewed Churchill's recent fatalities, of which eight of the 12 were race-day musculoskeletal events. All eight of the horses were carrying StrideSAFE technology. Seven of the eight musculoskeletal cases showed abnormal sensor readings as soon as they left the starting gate.

“Had the sensors been on the horses in prior races, they could have pointed to an issue the horse was having weeks or even months earlier,” said Lambert. “These results give us great optimism that with consistent use, we should be able to identify issues long before they are discernible to the human eye. StrideSAFE technology will empower trainers and veterinarians with vital information which they can use in their daily efforts to safeguard the welfare of their horses.”

TDN has published a number of stories on StrideSAFE's technology in the past year, including The Missing Link to End Fatal Musculoskeletal Injuries?; Data, Data, Data: The “New Frontier” for Horse Racing; and NYRA, StrideSAFE Sensor Technology Study Begins New Stage.

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Turkish Expatriate El Corredor Dead at 26

GI Cigar Mile H. winner and former Hill 'n' Dale sire El Corredor (Mr. Greeley–Silvery Swan, by Silver Deputy) has died at the age of 26 in Turkey, according to Turkish news source Yaris Dergisi. El Corredor has stood since 2015 at the Turkey Jockey Club's Silivri Stallion Complex until reportedly passing away Tuesday, June 20.

A $110,000 Keeneland September yearling from the first crop of Mr. Greeley, El Corredor was purchased by Bob Baffert and raced in the colors of Hal J. Earnhardt III. The dark bay won the Cigar Mile and GII Del Mar Breeders' Cup H. at three before adding a second edition of the Del Mar Breeders' Cup and the GII Pat O'Brien H. at four. Often brilliant but frequently plagued by quarter cracks, the Needham-Betz Thoroughbreds/Liberation Farm-bred retired with a record of 10-7-1-0 and earnings of $727,920.

After standing several years in Kentucky, as well as stints at Questroyal North in New York and The Stallion Station at Copper Crowne in Louisiana, plus shuttling several seasons to Argentina, El Corredor was purchased to stand in Turkey for the 2015 breeding season. He has 33 black-type winners bred in the Northern Hemisphere, including Grade I winners Adieu, Backseat Rhythm, Crisp, and Dominican, and five other graded winners.

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KHRC Receives Final Veterinary Safety Figures On Troubled Churchill Spring Meet; So Far, So Good At Ellis

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission heard the final veterinary reports for the abbreviated Churchill Downs spring meet and Keeneland's April meet at its regularly-scheduled meeting on June 20.

KHRC chief veterinarian Dr. Nick Smith told commissioners that prior to switching the remainder of the Churchill spring meet to Ellis Park, the track saw 1,855 total starts and, by the commission's count, 11 highly-publicized equine fatalities. That count does not include the fatal injury of Kentucky Derby contender Wild On Ice, who suffered a fracture in training prior to the actual start of the meet, although his injury is included in year-end overall totals. (Officials track fatalities in Kentucky “per race meet” at the end of each track's meeting, so fatalities that happen outside of the dates of a meet are counted separately at the end of the year.)

That makes for a rate of 5.93 fatalities per 1,000 starts (or, if Wild On Ice is included in the total, 6.46 per 1,000) — significantly higher than the national average of 1.25 per 1,000 starts recorded by the Equine Injury Database in 2022.

According to analysis by the Paulick Report of previous presentations before the KHRC, Churchill's rate varies by race meeting but has been as low as zero and as high as 1.85 per 1,000 starts over the past two years.

Upon being asked by commissioners, Smith said there had been no racing or training fatalities at Ellis Park through six racing cards. He said the regulatory veterinarian team is “very adept at moving track to track. It's a pretty seamless transition from Churchill to Ellis.”

Throughout the meet, Churchill had 53 veterinary scratches, 33 of which came as the result of morning pre-race exams; another 20 were scratched between the paddock and the gate, either for soundness issues or accidents in the paddock or gate. There were 212 horses claimed, with 20 claims voided for unsoundness after the race.

Those figures are roughly in line with Keeneland's spring meeting, which saw 1,262 starts. There were 44 vet scratches there, 31 of which after morning pre-race exams, 13 of which were on-track pre-race. There were 85 claims at Keeneland, seven of which were voided afterwards for unsoundness. Keeneland's meet included three racing fatalities and one training fatality, all the result of musculoskeletal injuries.

There were 80 horses added to the veterinarian's list at Churchill Downs, and 66 added to the veterinarian's list at Keeneland. Most of those were based on pre-race examination results, but also included some horses who exited races with a soundness problem, bled, or were treated for heat distress. It does not include horses who were placed on the list temporarily as the result of receiving therapeutic medication or treatment. Some treatments or drug administrations require a set amount of time on the list to ensure analgesic or other physical impacts have worn off before the horse can race.

KHRC veterinary staff provide these statistical run-downs to the commission at the conclusion of each regularly-scheduled race meeting. Kentucky's racetracks all report injuries to the Equine Injury Database, although only Keeneland permits some of those figures to be made public. Previous reports are available in the meeting materials archive from previous KHRC meetings.

The current Churchill meet at Ellis is scheduled to run through July 3. On July 7, Ellis will begin what was its regularly-scheduled meeting, which will run through Aug. 27.

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