The approval of horse racing fixed-odds wagering on Colorado sportsbooks is intended to attract a wider range of casual bettors, who will be offered the same type of betting as all other sports.

SIS offers a horse racing vast portfolio of international and domestic events, including the upcoming Saudi Cup Day Feb. 24 and Dubai World Cup meeting Mar. 30. Additionally, year-round racing is available from 14 countries, including Ireland, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and the United States.

“This is a great first step in expanding the horse racing audience and I commend the Colorado horse racing stakeholders, Colorado Division of Gaming and bet365 for their vision and support,” said Michele Fischer, Vice President, SIS Content Services. “Horse racing provides sportsbooks with exciting year-round 24/7 content throughout the world. It will take time in the US, but I expect that more sports wagering operators and states will include horse racing on their sports catalogs.”

The SIS platform also includes live-streamed video with betting triggers, race day data, and an extensive range of markets and odds prices.

Shannon Ruston, Executive Director of Operations & Racing at Bally's Arapahoe Park, said: “We are thrilled to be able to put horse racing on Colorado sportsbooks for fixed-odds wagering. Working with SIS, we crafted a commercial framework that benefits local racing, while giving sportsbooks access to thousands of races. Our belief is that this development will secure a better future not only for Arapahoe Park, but also for the racing ecosystem as a whole in Colorado.”

For more information, click here.

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A familiar face in the Colorado horse racing scene for the past 29 years, Seymore has made significant contributions to the horse racing community, serving as the President of the Colorado Horse Council and actively participating in Colorado politics.

“I would like to thank Bruce for his years of service and wish him the best of luck in his retirement, which I'm sure will include some well-deserved time on his boat, at the golf course, hunting, and spending time with his wife, Kim, their five children, and soon-to-be 16 grandchildren,” said George Papanier, President at Bally's Corporation.

Ruston, a Colorado native who was born and raised in a horse racing family, joined the Bally's team in 2020 as the park's Racing Secretary and Director of Racing, bringing a wealth of experience having worked in every job on the backside of a horse track as well as managing family horse barns. He served as the Executive Director of the Colorado Horseracing Association from 1992 to 2020.

The post Seymore Retires, Ruston Promoted at Arapahoe appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Natalie Voss, editor-in-chief for the Paulick Report, joins publisher Ray Paulick in this week's edition of the Friday Show to recount the Colorado test barn caper that Voss wrote about earlier this week, including security lapses and missteps investigators appeared to make along the way.

While Arapahoe is not a major racing circuit, Voss points out several things racing officials around the country can learn from this unusual crime in the Centennial State.

Bloodstock editor Joe Nevills reviews the performance of this week's Woodbine Star of the Week, the 5-year-old mare Mutamakina, who led a 1-2 finish for trainer Christophe Clement in the Oct. 17 renewal of the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes at the Toronto, Ontario, track, giving jockey Dylan Davis his first career G1 victory.

Watch this week's Friday Show, presented by Woodbine, below:

The post The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: Colorado Test Barn Caper appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The mixed sale of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse yearlings, weanlings, broodmares, and pony horses served as the spiritual successor to the Colorado Thoroughbred Breeders' Association's Silver Cup Sale, which has traditionally been the state's primary auction.

A total of 37 horses changed hands at the Arapahoe Park sale for revenues of $131,400 and an average sale price of $3,551. The buyback rate was 21 percent.

“Thank you to everyone who came together to put on this sale for the first time at Bally's Arapahoe Park,” said auctioneer Vaughn Long. “We're looking forward to next year and growing. We might possibly have a race for the yearlings and hopefully a derby that we're working on.”

Riley Parsons purchased the sale-topper, a yearling Army Mule filly named Ms. Hot Lips, for $20,000.

Offered as Hip 28, the bay filly is out of the winning E Dubai mare Fine Lookin Lady, who is the dam of two runners.

Bred in Colorado by the partnership of Menoken Farms, Bob Schreiber, Francis Heckendorf, and Don and Michell Laubacher, Ms. Hot Lips hails from the family of Grade 1 winners Rosalind and Life's Hope. Her dam, Fine Lookin Lady, is a half-sister to Grade 1-placed Heart of Destiny and Grade 2-placed Brother Bobby.

Ms. Hot Lips was consigned by Menoken Farms.

The post Army Mule Filly Tops Colorado Mixed Sale At Arapahoe Park appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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More than a year later, it looks like whoever burglarized the test barn has probably gotten away with it.

On a backstretch where rumors normally spread like wildfire, almost no one seems to have heard about the burglary when it first happened. The meet was winding down, and a lot of trainers had already begun shipping their horses out. Kerry Kemper, who trains Colorado runners on the side of his business hauling horses, was pulling his rig through the backstretch gate on Aug. 31, the same day the burglary was discovered. Kemper spotted Bruce Seymour, director of Mile High Racing and Entertainment.

'Did you hear what happened in the test barn?' he remembers Seymour asking him.

'No,' said Kemper.

'You will,' Kemper remembers Seymour saying.

The tale of two suspensions

Kemper was notified on Aug. 11 that his horse, Midnight Maverick, had a “pending positive” test after winning the sixth race at Arapahoe on Aug. 3. Fellow trainer Miguel Pena was informed Aug. 26 that his horse, One Rare Jess, had a “pending positive” test following a victory in the second race on Aug. 10. While many states do not pursue investigations until their labs have completed both initial screening and confirmatory analysis, Colorado's commission gets a screening report showing which test samples have been held back for further testing, and its investigators begin looking into the operations that may (or may not) have violations coming to them. Commission investigators requested copies of both trainers' veterinary records from the veterinarian they shared, Dr. Jim Dysart. No one searched either trainer's barn or vehicle after notifying them of the pending positives, which sources say was a departure from the standard procedure.

When the trainers were later summarily suspended (Kemper on Aug. 25 and Pena on Sept. 2) and informed that further testing had confirmed the presence of 3-hydroxylidocaine, both said they were puzzled. Kemper had no idea how the metabolite of lidocaine could have gotten into his horse. Pena said the only thing he could think of was an accidental contamination through some topical, possibly from a Caslick procedure he thought his vet had performed on another horse just before seeing One Rare Jess. (The vet later confirmed he hadn't used lidocaine in that procedure and also couldn't figure out how it could have been introduced to One Rare Jess.) Neither horse's veterinary records indicated use of the drug by Dysart.

Perhaps it was a mistake, they reasoned. Both submitted requests for split sample testing.

In Colorado, like most other states, there are two containers of blood and urine taken from selected horses post-race. The winner from each race is tested, and additional horses may be tested by request from the stewards. One set of samples is sent off to Industrial Labs in nearby Wheat Ridge for testing, while the other set is preserved in a locked room in the test barn – the theory being that this set will remain sealed and will not be handled by the same people responsible for doing initial testing, just in case initial testing had in some way compromised the sample. When a Colorado trainer requests a split sample test, they are given a form letter telling them when and where they are to meet with commission officials to supervise its removal from storage, verify chain of custody records, and oversee its packaging as it is sent off to a referee lab. Trainers may be accompanied by a representative from their horsemen's organization to act as their witness and to ensure all the correct procedures are followed.

Both Kemper and Pena were board members of the Colorado Horsemen's Association. They thought it was a little odd when the forms they received had the standard 'test barn' location covered over in liquid paper and the address of Industrial Labs written in. Pena went to the lab on Sept. 9 on behalf of both trainers.

As Industrial lab director Petra Hartmann would later testify, the sample containers she brought into a conference room before Pena and commission investigators were the remainders of the primary samples. Pena pointed to the broken evidence seals on the containers and crusted blood around the rims.

“That's not a split sample,” he said.

It was only then he learned that there were no split samples left for him or for Kemper. They had been destroyed in the test barn burglary, but the commission was planning to pursue the cases against them anyway.

The investigation that wasn't

No one seems to know exactly when the test barn at Arapahoe was broken into. Racing had taken place Monday, Aug. 24, with the meet's closing card taking place on Wednesday, Aug. 26. The Tuesday, Aug. 25, card was cancelled, meaning no one was supposed to be at the test barn in between the Aug. 24 and Aug. 26 race days.

The fridges and freezers where split samples are kept are each secured by two padlocks, both of which must be unlocked at the start of each racing day. One key is kept by a racing commission employee, and the other is held by the Colorado Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Representatives of both entities are supposed to be present for lock-up at the end of the day, but because the locks are padlocks, test barn employees have told the commission they just close the locks themselves at day's end.

The commission investigators' inquiries into the situation were brief. Investigator Richard Thomas filed a three-page report detailing his discovery of the scene along with Agent In Charge Ed Kulp at around 6:30 on the morning of Aug. 31. They found the cut padlocks lying on the floor, the bags of urine piled in the sink, and discovered a second office on the other side of the building had also been breached, with the locks on its freezer cut. Later in the morning, information technology personnel were sent to the racetrack to help the investigators access the video from the surveillance camera installed at the barn. They determined that the camera had been hooked up to a malfunctioning hard drive earlier in the season, and no video had been recorded at all.

Sources tell the Paulick Report that at the beginning of the season, the surveillance camera in the test barn had been functioning properly. With a couple of weeks left in the meet, Kulp had been informed that something was wrong, and that the camera no longer seemed to be recording. When asked whether he wanted the camera fixed, Kulp had dismissed the idea, saying that the end of the meet was so close he didn't think it made any difference. It's unclear how many people may have been aware it had stopped working.

Thomas and Kulp called local law enforcement to report the burglary, and according to testimony from a third investigator working for the commission, that seemed to be the end of the commission investigators' role.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office dispatched an officer to investigate criminal mischief, theft, and second-degree burglary. When they arrived, officers learned that Kulp and others had already touched “everything in the office.”

Kulp told the responding officer “that he believes someone did this so that their horse would not be able to test positive for drugs or any other enhancement supplements.” Kulp also told the officer he'd be conducting his own investigation but had no case number yet.

At the time of the burglary, Kemper and Pena hadn't yet requested their split samples be tested. Pena's case wasn't even confirmed as a violation, and Kemper had just been handed his summary suspension but hadn't submitted his request. There were only four other samples marked as “pending” during that time – three which cleared once Industrial tested them further, and one which became a confirmed positive on Sept. 4, several days after the burglary. The trainer in that case settled the case with the commission.

Kemper and Pena say they were never questioned about their whereabouts that weekend, nor was it suggested to either of them that investigators thought they could be involved in the burglary. In fact, an open records act request for investigative documents in this case turned up only initial incident reports from Kulp and Thomas, with no indication that either questioned any other licensees about the incident.

“Because this was a criminal investigation, the Division investigators contacted and reported the crime to Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office to complete the criminal investigation. Therefore, any actions taken the sheriff's office to investigate this burglary would be contained in reports by that agency,” said Suzanne Karrer, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Revenue, which oversees the Division of Racing Events.

When asked whether the investigation was still active, Karrer said: “I cannot comment on the investigations of other agencies. The report was made to Arapahoe County. I suggest you contact Arapahoe County for their investigation report.”

On Sept. 1, the day after commission investigators called the sheriff's office, Kulp called to let the officer working the case to let him know he had no surveillance footage to show them. In lieu of any other information about potential suspects, the case was deactivated by law enforcement that day, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office's incident report.

Far from being a focus for the Colorado Racing Commission in the months afterwards, the burglary was a passing mention in one meeting of the commission after it took place. At the time, the commission was told the sheriff's department's case was “still open pending additional leads,” according to meeting minutes. The commissioners were told Donia Amick, director of racing events, planned to suggest steel doors and reinforced windows be added to the building, as well as better locks and cameras.

In the seven racing commission meetings since, commissioners have been provided with no updates on the search for the perpetrators of the burglary, according to published meeting minutes.

Have we been down this road before?

It's not the first time the test barn in Colorado has had difficulties handling evidence. At the end of a prior racing season (no one can quite remember when) Arapahoe Park maintenance staff cut power to the test barn, allowing fridges and freezers inside to thaw and rendering stored split samples useless. According to Karrer, the workers were closing up the backstretch for the season and made a mistake. There were three pending split samples in the test barn at that time. When asked what investigators discovered about the event, she said that “no action was taken by the division or the commission in this incident.”

Then there was a civil case filed in 2010 over the handling of a positive test from Quarter Horse mare Cedar Creek. The mare won a trial for the Rocky Mountain Derby that year but was kept out of the final after a test came back positive for an intra-articular corticosteroid. The horse's owner said the drug was left over from a treatment five months earlier, and the horse had raced at two other tracks after the treatment with no positive findings. A sizable part of the legal case focused on the laboratory's testing for picograms of therapeutic drugs, which was a new level of test sophistication at that time in Colorado, but it also brought up concerns about the security of the test barn.

Lavern Fein, then an assistant to trainer Brad Bolen who had taken Cedar Creek to the test barn, had been appalled when she saw how easily people could access the area where split samples were stored, even before she had any reason to think there would be a positive test on the horse in her care. People came in and out to chat with test barn employees, open and closed unlocked refrigerators at will, and stored their lunches and caffeinated drinks in the same fridge as blood samples.

Fein is a former law enforcement officer and said she was “blown away” by the “violations of all the procedures.”

“The handling of evidence is something I've done my whole life,” she said. “I expect these splits to be handled at the level of law enforcement. This is a government position so there should be rules and standards.”

Fein said she later learned the records of samples en route to the testing lab were also unclear. There are supposed to be records showing who mails samples to the lab and when, but Fein said samples were frequently handed off to people who happened to be heading in the direction of the mailing center, rather than taken by authorized employees.

“It was insanity the whole way,” she said. “I'd never seen it like that before. You couldn't get anywhere when you made complaints. It was really a good ol' boys system like I'd never seen before.”

Fein took videos of the conditions she found at the test lab (with permission of the test lab employees and horsemen's representative Shannon Rushton) and said she remembers submitting them to the commission. She said no one she complained to seemed concerned.

The case goes forward

Pena and Kemper declined to have Industrial Labs send out the remainder of their primary samples in place of a split, so Colorado stewards issued rulings against them without split sample tests.

Colorado adheres to ARCI model rules with regard to medication classification, which means that due to its ability to block pain, lidocaine is considered a Class 2 substance. Class 2 drugs are those that “have a high potential for affecting the outcome of a race.” The most common use for lidocaine in a veterinary setting is as part of a lameness exam, where a veterinarian will use it as a nerve block to knock out pain to select structures in a leg in order to localize the source of a problem.

Of course, lidocaine entered the consciousness of many racing fans last year when embattled trainer Bob Baffert fought sanctions for two lidocaine positives in Arkansas, attributing them to contamination from an over-the-counter pain patch used by one of his employees. In that case, stewards disqualified Charlatan from a win in the 2020 Arkansas Derby and Gamine from an allowance win on that undercard. They also issued a 15-day suspension for Baffert. On appeal, the commission rescinded both the suspension and the two disqualifications, and issued a $5,000 fine per positive.

Colorado stewards hit Pena and Kemper with fines of $2,500 and 180 days of suspension. Initially, the commission told them they would require that suspensions run over racing days, not calendar days. Because the state only hosts a single, short meet in the summer, that means that in practical effect, the suspension would have gone on for six or seven years, depending on the number of race cards in future seasons.

Both trainers decided to fight the suspensions.

“I don't like how the commission handled it,” Pena said. “It was very vindictive, and they didn't really want to investigate anything at all … they wanted to make an example out of us, in a bad way. It's like they know they're in the wrong and they just want me to quit fighting it.”

The appeals hearing before the commission focused primarily on the language of Colorado's code and whether licensees have a legal right to a split sample test or not. Kemper and Pena argued they did, while the commission's attorneys argued they did only if the split sample was available to be tested.

In the end, the commission not only upheld the stewards' suspension, but increased the fine to $5,000. They did retreat from their earlier position regarding the suspension, agreeing that it could be served on calendar days instead of race dates, but also waited to start the clock on the suspension until May of this year.

Kemper and Pena both say they have appealed the commission's ruling, as well as its refusal to grant them a stay of the suspension. Both recently received notice in the mail that their fines have been increased to $10,000 for nonpayment, even as their cases await a court hearing.

So, who committed the burglary?

Perhaps strangely, the issue of who may have been responsible for stealing the split samples didn't seem to come up in either trainer's appeal hearing before the commission.

Around the time of the test barn burglary, Pena and Kemper found themselves the instigators of a battle within the Colorado Horsemen's Association. Before the start of the 2020 meet, longtime CHA executive director Shannon Rushton had taken on the role of racing secretary for the racetrack while remaining in his position with the CHA. Some board members, including Pena and Kemper, worried that this was a conflict of interest. Pena and Kemper say they believe that by the end of the 2020 race meet, Rushton knew they wanted him out of his CHA role.

One of Rushton's duties prior to taking on the racing secretary job was to use the CHA key to open the test barn each morning. When he began working for both the CHA and the racetrack, the board decided someone else should represent trainers during barn searches and in the test barn.

According to testimony from Dr. Joni Smith, state veterinarian during the 2020 meet, Rushton's stand-in for test barn access was Jim Weimer, who was then vice president of the CHA. Weimer was also approved by the commission earlier that year as a security worker for the racetrack, but in practice served as the track's stall man, with his role as a security officer more of an accessory. He was also licensed as an owner and trainer at the time.

When news of the stewards' suspension reached the backstretch, Kemper remembers that Rushton immediately tried to get both trainers removed from the board in the middle of a regularly-scheduled board meeting. He was unsuccessful because the cases were under appeal and the CHA's bylaws were unclear on grounds for removing board members based on regulatory action against their licenses.

Ultimately, Rushton resigned from his position as executive director of the CHA following a disputed vote of its board members. As the Paulick Report detailed earlier this year, board members were asked to vote on whether they wanted to renew Rushton's contract ahead of the 2021 race meet. Board members submitted their votes via text to the organization's then-president, Kent Bamford. Bamford reported that the board had voted to keep Rushton, but some board members, including Kemper and Pena, later discovered that five of the eight had voted not to renew his contract. Rushton, Bamford, and Weimer resigned before a new vote could be taken.

“I find it very weird, because me and Kerry, we've been trying to make a change, trying to make things better around here,” said Pena. “Anytime somebody has a bad test on the backside or any kind of problem with the division or the commission, they go to my barn instead of going to Shannon for me to represent them because I know the rules. I know how to defend myself a little bit and I think that pisses them off a lot.”

Pena said he was never provided with any copies of police or investigative reports, or any photo or video evidence of the burglary. Until he learned from this reporter that a police report existed, he doubted whether the crime had taken place at all.

“I personally believe there was never a break-in,” he said. “Both of us getting a lidocaine test…that's just something you don't do. We all know as horsemen, you can't block horses' legs. It's going to test. We're not going to do it. The two people that are trying to make changes and trying to make people's lives better get a bad test … it's pretty suspicious to me.”

If investigators had wanted to look for licensees with a motive to burglarize the test barn, the two trainers agree they should have been targets of the investigation. Kemper has a fairly clean record, with only one drug violation since he became a licensed trainer in 2011. That was for a high flunixin meglamine level in 2013. For that, Kemper said he knew he had given the therapeutic medication and accepted his penalty without appealing.

Pena, on the other hand, has a somewhat more checkered history with regulators, although he has no medication violations on his record.

In 2019, he ran into trouble in Oklahoma when he and another man allegedly broke into the dorm room of a groom and assaulted the groom, resulting in a summary suspension that stretched on for several weeks.

In 2018 Pena was discovered with needles and syringes in Colorado around the same time he had a confirmed drug positive for clenbuterol. Pena observed the packaging of a split sample in that case along with commission representatives, but when it arrived at his chosen lab for testing, technicians determined the sample had been “destroyed” during shipping.

As a result, the division informed Pena it was dropping the charges related to the clenbuterol finding – demonstrating, he believes now, that standard procedure in absence of a split should be the commission dropping the case.

When the Paulick Report submitted a Colorado Open Records Act request seeking correspondence between commission personnel about the 2020 test barn burglary, there was only one email responsive to the request. It was a note sent from Tyra Barnett, the safety steward at Arapahoe Park that season, who indicated she'd only just heard about the burglary weeks after it occurred.

“My question is, what happens now?” Barnett wrote in the email, sent to the Zach Ceriani, legal assistant for the Division of Racing. “Does the case just go away or can we use the 'prima facie' element to proceed with the case? This is an unbelievable turn of events that seems to surround the trainers involved, and destroying evidence has happened with at least one of them. Although it was never been proven, lightning doesn't seem to strike twice in the same place.”

Pena maintains he had nothing to do with any destruction of samples.

“I know they hate me because sometimes I get people out of trouble who aren't supposed to be in trouble,” said Pena, who recalled one investigator who contacted him after retiring from the division. “He went down to the barn and said, 'Miguel, if I were you, I wouldn't come back here next year. You have a target on your back.'”

The post Case Of Missing Horse Blood Reveals Oddities, Gaps In Colorado’s Integrity System appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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All overnight races will have their purses raised by $2,000 each starting with the racing program on September 29. In addition, the purse for the Gold Rush Futurity for 2-year-olds over 6 furlongs that will take place on closing day, Saturday, October 16, will see its purse increased from $35,000 to $100,000. The Butch Gleason Classic for older horses at 1 1/8 miles that will also be run on closing day will now be a $50,000 race, having been increased from $20,000. Nominations for those two stakes races will close on Thursday, October 7.

Racing for the remainder of the 2021 season will take place on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, as well as a special closing day Saturday card on October 16. First post time each day will be at 1 p.m.

This week will feature the return to Colorado of three-time Darley Award Horse of the Year Paddys Day in Thursday's Emirates Breeders VIP Stakes. Paddys Day, now 10 years old, debuted at Bally's Arapahoe Park in 2014 and has since gone on to win 22 stakes races at 12 racetracks in seven U.S. states, as well as the United Arab Emirates.

This Friday will be the Colorado Day of Champions run in association with the Colorado Thoroughbred Breeders Association with five stakes races for Colorado-breds, as well as an open allowance race at the end of the card featuring eight-time Arapahoe stakes winner Collusionist.

There will be a horse sale presented by Vaughn Long, Auctioneers, LLC for weanlings, yearlings, horses of racing age, and breeding stock on Friday, October 8.

The post Arapahoe Park Boosts Purses For Final Month Of Meet appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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In this series, participants throughout the Thoroughbred industry share the names and stories of the horses that have taught them the most about life, revealing the limitless ways that horses can impact the people around them. Some came early on in their careers and helped them set a course for the rest of their lives, while others brought valuable lessons to veterans of the business.

Question: Which horse has taught you the most about life?

Ashley Horowitz, Super G Sporthorses: “Chita” has helped me with being kind and patient. When I got her, she was barely three years old, and she just did everything. Everything was easy for her, and by four years old, she was teaching people how to ride.

Then, while I was teaching them on her, I'd say, “You did that, now you should be able to do this on her,” and they didn't have as quick a learning curve as she did. She never cared that they were messing up, and however long it took, she just went with the flow.

To sit back and take guidance from your horse, who's teaching these kids how to ride…if it took them longer to figure out how to go over a jump and not pop the horse in the face, she just absorbed that and was okay with it. She's just been so steady and easy with so many different types of riders, so many different ages and emotions.

She was even-keeled through all of it, and I haven't always been that way. I've gotten that way in my teaching, but I'll get tough and get results out of people, but definitely when I was younger, before, I'd say, “This is what I expect from you, and we're going to make this happen.” You're not always going to get that to work. Seeing how steady and consistent she is at all times is pretty impressive, and is definitely something most people should aspire to.

A lot of people talk about their perfect lesson horses that have been doing this for years, and they're so awesome, and they're 25 or so. Chita's 10. She's been doing this since she was four years old, so she's got a lot of years under her belt, but she started this amazing. A lot of times, the good lesson horses have decades in their pocket. She's only 10 years old, and she's already influenced so many people, and helped so many people learn how to ride.

Ashley Horowitz and Churchita

Jonathan Horowitz, Announcer at Arapahoe Park: I wanted to evolve from being someone that just talks about horses to getting to spend time around them, to ride them, and to ultimately be able to make a difference by working with these horses after they retire. It's changed my entire approach to horse racing, and frankly, my entire life.

To have a horse like Chita be the horse that I learn from gave me the opportunity to learn to ride and event on Thoroughbreds. From that experience, I've been able to work with other horses off the track, and really feel like I can make a difference for a cause that is important to me, in a sport and with athletes that have given me so much. Now, I get to play a role and give back, and if I didn't have a horse with Chita's disposition, I don't think I would be in the same position that I'm at. It took a really unique Thoroughbred to give me a chance to learn on Thoroughbreds, and then be able to start to take those steps with the horses that I'm now working with coming off the track.

Jonathan Horowitz and Churchita

About Churchita
(2011, m., Churchhill x Slewita, by Tsunami Slew)

Churchita was bred in Texas by Laurie Rosenwasser, who dispersed her breeding stock before the large filly entered training.

She was listed on the CANTER Texas website, where she first caught the attention of Ashley Horowitz, but Churchita instead sold to an owner in California. Shortly after the transaction, the filly was listed for sale again, and Horowitz jumped at the opportunity, bringing Churchita to her Colorado base. Churchita was already a towering 16.3 hands tall as a 3-year-old, but Horowitz said she hasn't grown since then.

Churchita is currently pregnant for the first time, after being bred to Easter Man, Arabian racing's 2019 Horse of the Year. Not content with living a sedentary life as a pregnant mare, she still gives lessons to young riders as she awaits her foal.

The post Lesson Horses Presented By John Deere Equine Discount Program: Jonathan And Ashley Horowitz On Churchita appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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In addition to the purse increase, Arapahoe is offering a new bonus structure for Colorado-breds competing against open company, with up to $2,000 in additional purse funds for a top-three finish.

First post will be 12 p.m. (Noon) MT, Wednesdays to Fridays, through Oct 15.

The mixed meet will offer Arabian, American Quarter Horse, and Thoroughbred racing. Select Thoroughbred races will be broadcast live on TVG and/or TVG2. All races are available on every prominent wagering platform.

Wednesday's Opening Day program kicks off with an Arabian maiden special weight, followed by six Thoroughbred races. The featured seventh race is a $15,500 allowance for non-winners of four races or non-winners in 2021 going 5 1/2 furlongs. The competitive field includes Docs Holiday, winner of last year's Colorado Thoroughbred Breeders Association (CTBA) Derby; Collusionist, a two-time stakes winner at Arapahoe in 2020; Doby, who ran one of the fastest races of the meet last year as a 3-year-old but was disqualified for interference; Maius, champion of the 2019 Gold Rush Futurity, the meet's most prestigious race; and King Parker, on the board in seven of 12 starts this year.

Opening week also includes Quarter Horse trials for the $75,000 Mile High Futurity (Thursday) and the $75,000 Mile High Derby (Friday). The stakes schedule features 15 Thoroughbred stakes, including six for Colorado-breds, as well as seven for Quarter Horses and three for Arabians.

Last year's leading trainer, Stetson Mitchell, is back to defend his title with 60 horses stabled here. Adrian Ramos is favored to lead the jockey standings after sharing last year's title with the legendary Scott Stevens, who retired in March.

Admission will be free for live racing. Much of the grandstand will be closed due to precautionary measures for COVID-19 but the ground-level concessions and bar will be open.

The post Arapahoe Park To See Purse Increases For 2021 Meet appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The source of the discord, according to discussion at a recent public meeting of the group, may have been a disputed vote count on whether or not to retain longtime executive director Shannon Rushton.

Since the early 1990s, the horsemen's group had been led by Rushton, whose son, father, and brother all train horses at Arapahoe. At the start of 2020, Bill Powers, director of racing for Arapahoe Park, died suddenly and Rushton was chosen to fill the role with the racetrack while continuing on in his capacity as head of the horsemen's organization.

According to minutes taken from a March 2020 meeting of the Colorado Racing Commission, there were concerns about whether Rushton's serving in both roles would be a conflict of interest. Bradford Jones, senior assistant attorney general for the Division of Racing Events, presented a petition for declaratory order to terminate controversy, requesting commissioners consider whether Rushton could serve in both jobs and take an official stance on the question.

Donia Amick, director of the Division of Racing Events, said that “the division has received emails, phone calls and also spoken to people in-person who were opposed to Mr. Rushton holding both roles,” according to meeting minutes. “Director Amick explained many of those people, if not all of them, wish to remain anonymous.”

(Amick's experience of concerned horsemen wanting to keep their names off the record matches the experience of this reporter.)

The commission heard testimony from a number of people present at the meeting that day, most of whom spoke in support of Rushton. Bruce Seymour, director of Mile High Racing and Entertainment, represented that Rushton is “the most knowledgeable and in-touch person in matters pertaining to the backside of Arapahoe Park. [Seymour] stated that the experience would make Mr. Rushton the best person for the racing secretary position at Arapahoe Park.”

Indeed, Rushton said the CHA board had voted unanimously to allow him to perform both roles. Board members said that at the time, it seemed to them the best available temporary solution to help the track get through its 2020 meet.

The commission unanimously voted to allow Rushton to fill both roles, with the requirement the commission review a job description of his position at Arapahoe and monitor all meetings of the conditions book committee. The commission also requested an update from the track at the July meeting and an official query of CHA members to learn more about their feelings on any potential conflicts of interest. But, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the July meeting never happened, and remaining meetings leading into the 2020 racing season were taken up with coronavirus safety protocols and scheduling approvals.

Certain tasks normally handled by the CHA executive director, like serving as the designated horsemen's representative during barn searches and for test barn security purposes, were taken out of Rushton's hands due to his dual role.

Some horsemen who dialed into a July 9, 2021, telephone meeting of the CHA said they had heard no complaints about Rushton maintaining both positions last racing season and saw Rushton's familiarity with the track and the horseman as useful skills in the role of racing secretary. Others said there were serious concerns, primarily about whether the racing office was carding races to favor some horsemen over others. Shannon Rushton has never saddled a horse, according to Equibase, although he did own two runners in 2014. He does breed horses, and is on record as the purchaser of at least one horse at auction for his family's Rushton Farms, which sends horses to race at Arapahoe. Plus, CHA members who spoke with the Paulick Report say the horsemen's interests and the racetrack's interests are often at odds, particularly when it comes to expenditures on track maintenance. How could they feel comfortable a track employee would advocate for them when needed?

“There was a very big conflict of interest,” said owner/trainer Howie Chavers at the July 9 meeting of the CHA. “I was approached by a few people last year who said, 'What do you have against the Rushton family?' I said, 'Nothing. I have a problem with there being a conflict of interest working for the racetrack and the horsemen, and a lot of other people feel the same way.' I've talked to dozens of them in the past couple of days. That was a major issue there. I do think we need to stay positive and I do think we have to move forward.”

Chavers had been the only person willing to go on the record before the commission in April 2020 to express concern about conflicts of interest regarding Rushton's dual roles.

When the 2020 meet was over, multiple CHA board members began asking then-president Kent Bamford about the best way to source a new executive director. Kim Oliver, then a CHA board member, told horsemen at the July 2021 CHA meeting she and others brought up the issue with Bamford repeatedly and received pushback. Bamford told her he had already done some scouting and no one but Rushton wanted the job.

Rushton wasn't the only member of CHA governance going into the 2021 meet while holding a racetrack job – CHA vice president Jim Weimer was part of a two-person security staff for Arapahoe during the 2020 meet, and was approved by the commission to reprise his role for 2021.

Rushton's job with the CHA was a contract position, and when a question came up following discussion from board members in June about whether to renew his contract, the board decided to take a secret vote, which was conducted via text messages sent to Bamford. Board members said they agreed to the idea of a secret vote because they thought it would be the best way for voters who wanted to keep their stance private to avoid blowback either from Rushton and his supporters or from people who wanted him out. Bamford, whose position as president granted him a vote only in the event of a tie, tallied the eight votes.

Bamford told board members the vote results had been to renew Rushton's contract, although he did not provide a tally of the yes/no votes. It was only later, in private discussions, that several members who had voted 'no' began comparing notes.

Screenshots from five of the eight board members – Victor Cervantes, Mark Schultz, Kim Oliver, Kerry Kemper, and Miguel Pena – reveal all five had texted Bamford “no” in response to the call for the secret vote.

The CHA board held a special meeting via telephone conference on July 6 with the purpose of conducting a new, roll call vote on the issue. According to minutes taken at the meeting, immediately after attendance was recorded and before a vote could be called, Bamford tendered his resignation, followed by Weimer and then Rushton, all of whom hung up.

Rushton and Bamford did not return calls seeking comment on their departures from the CHA.

In a public meeting of the CHA membership held via telephone on July 9, board members Vaughn Long and Sandy Miller also resigned.

“I'm not saying it was the best situation, and it was not the best situation for Shannon to be in both positions, but if we got by with it last summer … horses are coming in there, and this is just not good,” Miller said. “It was handled so poorly, and this is just not good. I don't like the way the whole thing was handled. It was so wrong on so many levels.”

Longtime racing executive Jim Mulvihill was made interim executive director and new board members were installed July 13. Rushton supporters have hinted the new administration will have a long road ahead.

“The ramifications of this are going to be tough,” said one CHA member. “The new director, if he thinks the racetrack's going to be easy to get along with … I don't know.”

Ty Rushton, brother to Shannon Rushton, also dialed into the July 9 meeting to express outrage over the way Shannon had been treated by the board, given his years of service. He had a message for the group's new management.

“If you're wanting a peaceful transition, I hope you get it, but if anybody was after me and out to fire me, that's a witch hunt,” said Rushton. “So, good luck. Good luck.”

He hung up the phone.

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Reportedly, the 50-year-old Texan succumbed to devastating injuries he sustained in a March accident while riding in an unsanctioned horse race in Georgia. During his hospitalization, a family member said he spent 45 days in a medically-induced coma.

Because of his recent inability to gain licensure at many of the Southwest tracks where he had once been a leading Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse jockey, Chapa had attempted over the past six years to earn a living by riding at “bush tracks” that exist primarily in the South.

Although it is not a crime in most jurisdictions to race horses–nor is it against the law for people to gather and watch them–these unlicensed tracks generally host match races held on makeshift straightaways and profit from unregulated betting on those events.

On what is known as the “carril” circuit from New Mexico all the way up to the Carolinas, the drugging of horses, the fixing of races, and the permissibility of shocking devices are often the norm. The fact that there is no state-regulated veterinary oversight for horses, no safety standards for the tracks, and generally no ambulance service for jockeys who ride there only amplifies the danger.

The Blood-Horse first reported Chapa's death, citing social media postings from his wife and family members.

“He leaves behind three beautiful daughters, precious grandkids, two families on both sides who loved him,” a sister-in-law, Danya Jegede, wrote on Facebook.

TDN could not immediately confirm the racing-related details of Chapa's accident in Georgia.

But if true, it would be the second catastrophic fall from a racehorse at a bush track that Chapa had sustained in the past four years.

On July 30, 2017, Chapa–arguably the most accomplished professional rider on the bush circuit–fell awkwardly after his Quarter Horse mount in a 250-yard match race veered in sharply and bumped with a rival runner at a Memphis, Tennessee, track known as “Carril el Gringo.”

Numerous Facebook photos and videos documented the spill at the time. Both rails of the Memphis straightaway were packed with tailgating fans who cheered lustily. Festive music blared and beer flowed. Horses broke from a rusty, four-stall gate and there was even a photo-finish camera to settle close races.

When Chapa went down, chaos ensued. Onlookers rushed to the stricken rider as the announcer shouted shrilly over the loudspeaker for people to stay off the track.

In subsequent weeks, Chapa's family members posted medical updates on social media. His injuries were detailed as three broken ribs in front, five broken ribs in back, a collapsed lung, three fractured vertebrae, and kidney function difficulties.

But Chapa came around and began to improve. On Aug. 22, 2017, his daughter, Samantha Chapa, posted on Facebook several photos of her father leaving Regional One Health Extended Care Hospital in Memphis. Even though he was wearing a back brace, in one shot Chapa's arms were raised in the familiar salute-to-God pose that was his customary winner's circle gesture.

Past troubles

Chapa, a graded stakes-winning jockey who won 1,722 races and earned $25.9 million in purses at sanctioned Thoroughbred tracks, began his career at now-defunct Bandera Downs in Texas on Apr. 25, 1993.

In 1994, when Chapa was still an apprentice, investigators found a nail wrapped in tape (to form a small handle) in his belongings prior to a race at Gillespie County Fair in Texas. Chapa denied that the nail was intended to scare a horse in to running faster, claiming that he instead used it to make holes in his stirrups. He served a nine-month suspension and was fined $2,500.

The Houston Press reported that in 2001, Chapa was charged with one felony count of cruelty to animals when a sheriff's deputy responded to a call about a man reportedly beating a Boxer dog with a leather strap. Chapa pled guilty to a lesser offense and served 10 days in jail.

At Sunland Park in 2007, Chapa was caught with an electrical shocking device in a Quarter Horse race. New Mexico regulators gave him a five-year suspension, but his license ended up getting reinstated on a probationary basis in May 2011.

Bizarrely, Chapa's most highly-publicized infraction involved self-implication when he became aware that a small section of a finish-line photograph showed him holding an illegal electrical horse shocking device while winning a stakes race at Sam Houston Race Park (SHRP) on Jan. 17, 2015.

That tiny photographic detail that was only observable under magnification–and then only if you were looking for it–might have gone unnoticed until Chapa, in a panic, contacted the track photographer the next day, demanding the removal of that fairly standard inside-rail photograph from the SHRP website because it was a “bad” picture.

The track photographer initially told Chapa he had no idea what the jockey was talking about. But upon closer inspection, an enlarged portion of that photograph revealed a tan, palm-sized device with protruding prongs in Chapa's partially closed left hand where the underside of his fist met the reins. The photographer contacted track executives, who passed the case along to regulators and law enforcement officials.

The Texas Racing Commission suspended Chapa for five years and fined him $100,000, believed to be the highest monetary penalty ever issued to a United States jockey.

Chapa also faced criminal charges related to that buzzer case. In 2017 he pled guilty to felony criminal charges of making false statements to a state investigator (lying about his knowledge of the photograph). Chapa was given an order of deferred adjudication and placed on “community supervision” probation for 10 years, while a related felony charge of “unlawful influence on racing” was dismissed.

Chapa was granted early release from his probation in 2019 and managed to pay off his massive six-figure fine–presumably with money he earned by riding at bush tracks during his banishment from sanctioned circuits.

On Feb. 27, 2020, Chapa got his riding license reinstated by the Texas commission. But SHRP officials immediately issued a “permanent exclusion” order when he tried to ride there, using private property rights to keep him off the racetrack.

Chapa was similarly rebuffed after meeting with stewards at New Mexico's Sunland Park in March 2020. Several weeks later, the Quarter Horse stewards at Remington Park in Oklahoma denied his application, citing “conduct throughout his career [that] has been unsportsmanlike and detrimental to the best interest of horse racing.”

When TDN reached Chapa via phone the day after he regained his Texas license, he texted the following statement:

“I am profoundly humbled by these past five years. It has been very hard on me and my family. I wholeheartedly apologize to everyone that my actions affected. I was wrong. I used a buzzer when I knew full well it was wrong. I cheated, and I got caught.

“That is not how I was raised and that is not the man I am now. I want to spend the rest of my career as a jockey earning back the trust of everyone.

“Horse racing has received bad publicity recently and I can't help thinking that I was part of the reason. That saddens me deeply. I want to be part of good publicity for this beautiful sport.

“Mine was the largest fine, $100,000, and the longest suspension, five years, in Texas racing history. It was deserved … I love horses and horse racing. Horses are my life. My actions five years ago betrayed their beauty and grace as athletes. I am capable of doing better. I will do better. I'm doing better now. See you in the starting gate.”

Return to riding

On June 8, 2020, Arapahoe Park in Colorado was the first sanctioned track to allow Chapa to resume riding.

Bruce Seymore, Arapahoe's general manager, told TDN at the time that “Everybody that wants to try to get themselves straight deserves a second chance … I think [if] somebody goes to jail and serves their time, they have a right to rebuild their life.”

Chapa won eight Thoroughbred races and three Quarter Horse races at Arapahoe last summer before moving on to win one race with each breed at Sweetwater Downs in Wyoming in September.

It is unclear whether Chapa sought additional licensure at other sanctioned tracks after last autumn. His prospects might have dried up when the smaller mixed-meet circuits out west stopped racing for the season. Trying to rebuild his riding career as a traveling jockey during the height of pandemic restrictions likely also added to his difficulties.

Although races on the carril circuit are openly advertised and promoted on social media, there are no formal race records to trace where and when Chapa might have spent the time between October 2020 and March 2021 trying to earn a living as a jockey.

As news of his death got around over the past several days (funeral service info here), a number of carril racing social media pages posted condolences to Chapa.

But underscoring the black-market nature of that form of racing, several of those carril pages featured tributes in Chapa's honor that were published alongside postings advertising performance-enhancing equine pharmaceuticals designed to give bush-track horses an edge to run faster.

One other aspect about Chapa deserves mentioning: The private, more spiritual, side of this embattled jockey contrasted sharply with his criminally-tarnished public persona.

At the time of his Memphis accident, many of the social media postings authored by friends and family highlighted what a deeply religious man Chapa was, noting how often he discussed, referred to, and quoted scripture from the Holy Bible.

“We are tested every day with temptation to do what we know is wrong. We wonder if it's a way for God to test us or Satan to defeat us,” Chapa wrote in an Aug. 28, 2017 text message that was shared at that time on social media by his daughter, Samantha.

“I've been wondering [if] what [I've] been going [through] is because God is testing my faith, or because Satan is tempting me to doubt God can provide,” Chapa wrote.

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