August, 2023 | Horse Racing Free Tips

WATCH: Jockey Club Round Table Live Streaming: Thursday, Aug. 3, 10 A.M. Eastern

The Jockey Club's Annual Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing, scheduled for Thursday, August 3, at 10 a.m. ET, at the Saratoga Springs City Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., will be available via livestream on multiple media and industry outlets, including the Paulick Report (below). These options are in addition to jockeyclub.com and The Jockey Club's Facebook page, facebook.com/USJockeyClub.

A video replay of the Round Table Conference will be available on The Jockey Club website following the conference, and transcripts will be available a few days later. The conference is expected to last approximately two hours.

Chairman Stuart S. Janney III will preside over the conference and give insights on activities of The Jockey Club and the future of the sport.

This year's keynote speaker is Michael Lopez, senior director of Data and Analytics for the National Football League. Lopez will discuss how data is analyzed to enhance and help better understand football and possible correlations with horse racing.

Lindsay Czarniak, a sports reporter and anchor who works for FOX NFL and FOX NASCAR, will use her extensive knowledge of sports to provide observations on marketing of horse racing.

The conference will also feature two panels. The first will be hosted by Pat Cummings, executive director of the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, with panelists Marshall Gramm, a professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and co-founder of the Ten Strike Racing syndicate, and David O'Rourke president and CEO of the New York Racing Association. The panel will focus on computer-assisted wagering and its effects on racetracks and bettors.

The second panel will address the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) after its first year of enactment. Panelists are Lisa Lazarus, CEO of HISA; Ben Mosier, executive director of the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit; and trainers Jena Antonucci and Ron Moquett. The panel will be moderated by The Jockey Club President and COO James Gagliano.

In addition, Kyle McDoniel, president and COO of Equibase, will present on E-GPS and opportunities for Equibase to help grow the sport. Kristin Werner, senior counsel for The Jockey Club and administrator of its Thoroughbred Safety Committee, will discuss improved traceability of Thoroughbreds and analysis of the Equine Injury Database.

Round Table Agenda

The Jockey Club Round Table Conference was first held on July 1, 1953, in The Jockey Club office in New York City. The following year, it was moved to Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The conference has featured discussions on myriad critical industry topics, including aftercare, equine safety, marketing, and national uniformity, as well as international perspectives and viewpoints from outside the Thoroughbred industry.

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Becky’s Joker Continues to Defy Odds with Unconventional Spa Schedule

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.–Trainer Gary Contessa believes in Becky's Joker (Practical Joke) and is not going to waver from his against-the-grain approach with the massive 2-year-old filly.

On the opening day of the Saratoga season, July 13, Contessa had her make her career debut in the GIII Schuylerville. She won for fun by 3 1/4 lengths at 21-1. According to Equibase, she is just the fifth horse since 1991 to start its career with a graded-stakes victory.

After she worked four furlongs in :48.40 seconds on July 26, Contessa said she was a probable starter in the GIII Adirondack S. on Sunday. Following her :48.77 half-mile work on Tuesday, Contessa said Wednesday he definitely would enter her in the Adirondack rather than wait for the GI Spinaway S. on Sept. 3.

The last time a Schuylerville winner ran back in the Adirondack was in 1999 when Magicalmysterycat (Storm Cat) ended up fourth in the second leg of Saratoga's juvenile fillies series.

Contessa is a veteran horseman who is not bound by current norms.

“I'm kind of old school. I race a horse if they're ready to run,” he said. “I don't say, 'Oh my, God, I ran a 2-year-old. I have to give it six weeks to the next.' Nah. I'm old-school.”

Contessa touted Becky's Joker to everyone before the Schuylerville and was not surprised when she won. He said after the race that he and owner Lee Pokoik would look to the Spinaway for her next start.

“I didn't want to run her three times at the meet. But if you really do the math, this is 23 days to this race. Not bad,” Contessa said. “And she's training great and she's a happy horse. Then it's 28 days to the Spinaway. It's not like we're not getting

some time in between.”

Contessa said that if she runs well in the Adirondack, she will go on to the seven-furlong Spinaway. The last Schuylerville winner to run in all three races was Turnback the Alarm (Darn That Alarm) trained by Red Terrill in 1991. She was third in the Adirondack and second in the Spinaway.

The last horse to complete the rare sweep was Over All (Mr. Prospector) in 1989.

Contessa bought Becky's Joker, already an above-average sized filly, as a weanling at Keeneland November 2021 for $130,000. She didn't reach her reserve when offered as a yearling or as a 2-year-old. Contessa had her shipped to his stable at Saratoga in early May and began getting her ready to run in Pokoik's colors. Her size, once considered a negative, has turned out to be an asset. Contessa said she stands about 16.3 hands and estimates that she weighs 1,250 pounds. He figures she will be 17 hands.

When he purchased her, Contessa acknowledged that he wondered whether she would be able to get to the races because big, young horses are prone to injuries.

“But you never know how precocious a horse might be,” he said. “She has defied the odds. There's an exception to every rule. Sometimes there's many exceptions to every rule and this filly is the exception to every rule.

“I'm sure, there are a lot of people that looked at her at the 2-year-old sales and said, 'I like her a lot, but she's too big.' And to me, she was never really too big. I always liked her.

Contessa said the Becky's Joker has made a believer out of some doubters.

“The day that I bought her as a weaning at six months and sent her to Taylor Made, Frank Taylor picked up the phone and said, “As a yearling, Frank called me and said 'Gary, she's kind of big.' Then as a 2-year-old in training, he said, 'Gary, she's kind of big.' Then, after she won the stake, he called me and he said, 'I guess she's not too big.'”

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Brocknardini a Hometown Win at the Spa

Owner Tom Brockley admitted he had moderate expectations when Brocknardini (Palace Malice) when to the post for the first time Wednesday at Saratoga.

“In my mind, she was really more of a dirt horse, but this race came up and she was ready to go,” Brockley, who owns the 2-year-old filly with his wife, Daryn, said. “She had a good work from the gate 10 days or so ago at Saratoga. [Trainer] George [Weaver] said, 'We've got to race her.' The race that came up was this. So I said, 'Let's bring her out. At least she will get a work and we will see what she does.'”

Sent off at 6-1, Brocknardini, mid-pack for much of the race, came blazing down the stretch and powered home a 4 3/4-length winner.

“We took a shot,” Brockley said. “She had never worked on the turf and, of course bringing a horse out as a 2-year-old first-time starter at 1 1/16 miles is a struggle, because you don't know what you've got. But once she got clear at the top of the stretch, when she saw that opening, she just moved.”

Brockley, a financial advisor based in Albany, purchased the filly privately after she RNA'd for $35,000 following an :11 flat work at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May sale two months ago.

“I got a call from my agent who told me this was a horse I should think about, that she was a New York-bred,” Brockley said. “She didn't work a fast time. I think she worked in :11 and that was a little slow for the auction, but we liked what she looked like. I liked her breeding. [Her dam] Broad Stripes is by Bernardini and she's by Palace Malice.”

Brockley found a built-in cheering section for the filly when he got to the paddock before Wednesday's fifth race.

“I didn't realize I knew the breeder until after I bought her, [Kristen Esler's] Thirty Year Farm,” Brockley said. “I saw her in the paddock and she said, 'I can't believe you bought my horse.' I said, 'Well we did and we are going to get to the winner's circle with her.' And we did. She was watching the race with me upstairs. She was pretty excited. She had a couple of her farm folks there that helped raise the horse. I am glad they got to see her.”

Brockley's first experience with racehorse ownership came via syndicates in the 1990s, but he found immediate success when he first decided to go it on his own in 2022.

“I claimed my first horse on my own at Saratoga in 2002, Brocco Bob,” he said. “Believe it or not, I raced the horse back and the first race back, the horse won. So I won the first race of my own career at Saratoga and I got the bug. From there, I expanded. A couple of years ago, I had two winners in one day here. Which is tough to do for anyone, especially for me, a little guy, compared to these big owners and breeders that come up to Saratoga. I just try to keep within my discipline with what I buy.”

Brockley has just five horses in training at the moment and, while he acquires most of his runners either at the 2-year-old sales or at via the claiming box, he does do a limited amount of breeding.

“I have a pretty nice mare, Louisiana Violet (J P's Gusto), that I bred the last two seasons,” he said. “I bred her to Bustin Stones and we had a colt this past April and we named him Stonecoldbrockley.”

While he came close with Sinful Dancer (War Dancer), who was second in the 2021 New York Stallion S., Brockley has yet to have a stakes winner in his colors.

“We are still looking for our first stakes,” he said. “Maybe this filly could be our first stakes winner. You never know, right? You've got to keep swinging the bat to get that home run.”

In the meantime, Brockley can bask in the glow of his latest winner at the Spa.

“I've been coming up here for 40 years,” he said. “There is nothing like. Especially if you're a local.”

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Arqana May Breeze-Up Sensation Debuts At Goodwood

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Thursday's Observations features a half-sister to a triple Group 1 winner.

17.20 Goodwood, Mdn, £60,000, 2yo f, 7fT
CLASSICAL SONG (IRE) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) was a big deal at the Arqana May Breeze Up as the fourth highest-priced filly and now starts out in the colours of Doreen Tabor for this maiden won in recent times by Amazing Maria (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) and Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). Ralph Beckett has charge of the half-sister to the triple Group 1 winner Dylan Mouth (Ire) (Dylan Thomas {Ire}), whose peers include Michael Blencowe's similarly-unraced Imperial Express (Ire) (Inns Of Court {Ire}), an Andrew Balding-trained half-sister to the G1 Phoenix S.-winning sire Ebro River (Ire) (Galileo Gold {GB}).

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