arizona horsemen's benevolent and protective association

California’s Purse-Cut Woes Driving Horses To Turf Paradise

Turf Paradise, which only weeks ago seemed either destined to remain dormant and in disrepair or perhaps even ready to face the wrecking ball, appears to be in the midst of orchestrating a remarkable comeback.

Track management, horsemen, and regulators all expressed confidence and a renewed sense of optimism during Thursday's Arizona Racing Commission (AZRC) meeting that the Phoenix track was on target to hit a Jan. 29 start date for the first commercial-track meet in the state since May.

Several stakeholders underscored during the Dec. 14 meeting that a better-than-expected demand for stall space at Turf Paradise is being driven by recently reported purse cuts in neighboring California, where both the soon-to-close Golden Gate Fields (-25%) and Santa Anita Park (-5%) are projected to offer less money this winter.

“We are getting, at this time, more horses wanting to come in to Turf than we had previously anticipated,” Turf Paradise's general manager, Vincent Francia, told commissioners.

“I think we are benefitting–and I don't like to benefit from someone else's misfortune–but what's going on in California is producing an influx of horses to come over for the race meet,” Francia continued.

“I'm sure everybody has seen that Santa Anita is going to have to reduce their purses. No track wants to do that. But business is what guides that decision, and the primary reason is they're running six- and seven-horse fields, and our sport cannot survive on six-and seven-horse fields,” Francia said.

“The reason why I'm saying that [is] the anticipation of horses has exceeded our expectation for the upcoming meet. That is healthy for the Arizona racing industry to get back on its feet,” Francia said.

The projected slashing of purses in California and the resulting out-of-state migration was also discussed later on Thursday at the California Horse Racing Board's monthly meeting, where that commission's vice-chair, Oscar Gonzales, castigated Santa Anita and Golden Gate for contributing to the horse outflux.

“We have Arizona that's getting ready to reopen with higher purses,” Gonzales said. “Meanwhile, [California tracks are] cutting them. I just don't think that there's anybody paying very close attention about how we make sure we're retaining quality horses and quality horsemen.”

J. Lloyd Yother | Coady Photography

J. Lloyd Yother, the president of the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, said during the AZRC meeting that Turf Paradise has gone from a situation of concern over possibly not being able to fill entries to potentially not having enough stabling to house all the horses that reportedly are on their way to Phoenix.

“The fear in the beginning was that we wouldn't have enough horses,” Yother said. “But according to the racing secretary [Robbie Junk], we're getting more than we anticipated, which is a good thing. So we may have ample number of horses. The only thing I'm concerned with is that we have enough barn area in the event that we do have those horses.”

Neither Francia nor Yother mentioned a specific number of horses that are expected to be on the grounds.

But Francia did confirm that only barns A through D and barn K would be used for stabling.

Yother said barns H through L “possibly need to be condemned.”

Trainers and their crews will be allowed on the backside starting Friday to set up stalls. Horses can begin arriving Monday, Dec. 18.

Francia said the previously problematic main track and rail, which had come under scrutiny from the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority earlier this year, has now been brought up to spec.

“It took two weeks [of] 12-hour days, and the track is unlike anything that I have ever seen,” Francia said.

Yother offered this assessment: “The track was in horrible condition. It was unsafe. The rail wasn't right. But the management did step up [and] did a marvelous, marvelous job….

“The rail is excellent,” Yother continued. “The [dirt] track is good. The turf [seems] great. I'm just worried maybe [there's] overseeding with the rye grass and how much [use it will be able] to handle and [whether] the root system will be able to hold up. That's to be seen.”

Yother did articulate concerns about the half-mile training track at Turf Paradise.

“The training track is in bad, bad condition, and it needs to be [made safe],” Yother said. “I encourage management to do something to get the training track in as good shape as the main track.”

Back on Dec. 5, the AZRC gave unanimous but conditional approval for Turf Paradise's current owner, Jerry Simms, to conduct a Jan. 29-May 4 race meet.

Simms and Arizona horsemen have had an acrimonious business relationship for the better part of two decades, and permission for the upcoming meet was granted after one proposed sale of the track property fell through in September and another quickly-put-together sale is currently stalled but reportedly ongoing.

The conditions attached to the licensure have to do with Turf Paradise either complying with or getting the HISA Authority to waive its requirement that stipulates a 90-day advance notice from any track before the start of racing. In addition, the Authority still has to accredit Turf Paradise in terms of overall safety standards.

Rudy Casillas, the deputy director of the AZRC's racing division, told commissioners on Thursday that “From a regulatory standpoint, the [AZRC] and HISA are doing everything reasonably possible to expedite the process while maintaining integrity and safety.”

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AZHBPA: ‘No Earthly Idea When And If A Meet Will Be Performed At Turf Paradise’

The ownership group that wants to buy the currently closed Turf Paradise is reportedly at the escrow stage of closing on the sale, but a projected Jan. 13 opening day was met with skepticism when the prospective majority buyer was pressed to name a start date at Thursday's Arizona Racing Commission (AZRC) meeting.

“At this point where we're at, and not having the complete [new ownership] application, there may be a delay from January moving forward,” said Rudy Casillas, the deputy director of the AZRC's racing division, told commissioners after brief comments by Richard Moore, the chief executive officer for potential buyer Turf Paradise Land Trust.

Casillas cited both the commission's own lengthy approval process for a new track licensee and what he said was a federal requirement imposed by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) that stipulates “a 90-day advance notice from any track before their implementation of racing.”

“Racing may not start until February or March depending on how things go with the vetting and background investigation,” Casillas said.

Lloyd Yother, the president of the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (AZHBPA), expressed a feeling of being left out of the loop on the status of what might happen at the last remaining commercially active track on a circuit that hasn't hosted Thoroughbred racing for six months.

“We're still in our state of confusion in how things are going down and what's transpiring, what's taking place,” Yother said. “There's so many moving targets [and] we still are at the mercy and going through our normal frustrations with how things are to come about…. We have no earthly idea when and if a meet will be performed at Turf Paradise.”

Despite that sense of helplessness, the AZHBPA does have one important cudgel of control within its grasp: Its board of directors will be meeting Friday to vote on whether to extend the required interstate simulcasting permissions beyond Nov. 12 so Turf Paradise's 37 off-track betting parlors won't go dark.

Yother said that meeting will determine “whether or not to terminate our signal [permission] or move it forward to [Dec. 31] giving the opportunity for all parties to get their act together and make this happen.”

The vote will likely come down to weighing the benefits of keeping the OTBs open (which would allow the new Turf Paradise owner to build up revenue for the purse account) versus closing them (which would make it clear that the AZHBPA has had it with constantly being asked to extend simulcasting privileges to entities that don't conduct live racing).

Turf Paradise ended its racing season back in May with a different buyer doing due diligence to purchase the property. On Aug. 1, track owner Jerry Simms announced Turf Paradise wouldn't be opening in November as scheduled for its traditional six-month meet.

On Sept. 18, the months-long purported sale with the first buyer was publicly declared dead. Then 10 days later, Simms announced a new buyer had suddenly emerged with a desire to purchase the 213-acre property and save racing at the 67-year-old track.

The AZRC met on Sept. 28 and Oct. 12 without anyone from the new prospective buying group speaking in person. But during the Nov. 9 meeting, Simms introduced Moore of Turf Paradise Land Trust, noting that the two parties have been at the escrow stage of the deal since Oct. 18.

“We're going through that contract and executing that contract and hopefully everything goes well and we're going to buy the track and continue on with the racing there in Arizona,” Moore said. “That's our main goal.

“We're very excited about this,” Moore said. “We're looking forward to it. And we're getting up to speed on where it's at [to] bring the track up to par and to also make it better and to move forward. And we're definitely committed to bring in the necessary funds and commitment and support to make this a destination. And we have a lot of dreams and hopes and things that we'd like to accomplish once we gain ownership.”

The Arizona Corporations Commission's website lists no active registration for Turf Paradise Land Trust other than a name reservation made on Oct. 2.

Beyond one question from commissioner Linda York about specifics on the buying group's timetable, Moore was not asked by the AZRC to detail anything about Turf Paradise Land Trust or its plans for the future of the Phoenix track.

Starting Gate at Turf Paradise | Coady Photography

York's question about the timing of the meet yielded a response from Moore that the season is projected to start Jan. 13 and would last “to May.” Moore added that the sale of the property would likely close before the end of 2023.

After Casillas weighed in that such a timetable might be a stretch, Simms told commissioners that he has already been in talks with the HISA Authority about fast-tracking the process for accreditation, and he claimed to have an assurance that “they could probably get that done a lot quicker [to] work with our time frames.”

Turf Paradise has been plagued by safety issues in recent seasons, and as recently as the Oct. 12 commission meeting, Simms and Yother sparred over whether or not extensive repairs are needed for the main track rail.

Yother claimed the fencing is not up to spec and Simms countered that Turf Paradise had fixed problems related to a non-compliance warning issued by the HISA Authority earlier this year after an inspection turned up “numerous gaps and exposed edges in the railing material that could inflict serious harm upon jockeys…”

At the Nov. 9 meeting, Arizona's chief state steward, Jason Hart, said he has been making regular visits to Turf Paradise over the past few weeks. Although Hart acknowledged that the rail had been “in pretty bad shape” at end of the last meet, he said every time he has visited since Oct. 23, he has observed workers shoring it up.

“My expertise or my opinion would be the rail looks very safe at this point,” Hart said. “There's a couple of things that don't look pretty with the rail, but it is absolutely safe in my opinion.”

Hart added that the turf course well pump has been fixed, and that the grass course is being watered regularly after being seeded and fertilized.

Hart also detailed how six barns have had the copper wiring cut out of them, but that he has been assured by current track management that electricians have been hired to re-wire those stables.

Hart also said frontside windows that appeared to have been blown out in a storm show evidence of being worked on prior to glass replacement.

The post AZHBPA: ‘No Earthly Idea When And If A Meet Will Be Performed At Turf Paradise’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Week in Review: HBPA Tries to Derail HISA in Federal Court–But Also Wants Its Help in Arizona

If the saga over the supposedly pending sale of now-closed Turf Paradise was a soap opera, its title would surely be “AZ the World Turns.” The state's racing is hanging in the balance amid an increasingly acrimonious long-term feud between the track's owner and horsemen, leading one trainer at last Thursday's Arizona Racing Commission meeting to liken the horse community's predicament to children “being used as pawns in a divorce battle” by vindictive parents on the verge of a nasty split.

Although TDN's original story about that Oct. 12 commission meeting didn't have the space to cover all aspects of the ongoing bickering among the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (AZHBPA) and Turf Paradise's owner, Jerry Simms, one subplot is worth further mention here, because its irony resonates at the federal level (and perhaps soon all the way to the United States Supreme Court).

Lloyd Yother, the president of the AZHBPA, alleged on Thursday that Simms is so far behind in making necessary repairs and upkeep that a new, incoming owner would never be able to open Turf Paradise for a race meet in January, a target date that Simms has said is perfectly reasonable as he attempts to execute a purchase-and-sale agreement with a buyer who has thus far refused to speak publicly about the deal at Arizona commission meetings.

In particular, Yother and Simms sparred verbally over the specific issue of whether or not extensive repairs are needed for the main track railing, with Yother claiming the fencing is not up to spec and Simms countering that Turf Paradise had fixed problems related to a non-compliance warning issued by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety (HISA) Authority earlier this year after an inspection turned up “numerous gaps and exposed edges in the railing material that could inflict serious harm upon jockeys…”

Darrell Haire, the western regional manager for The Jockeys' Guild, told commissioners on Thursday that the Turf Paradise rail during the 2022-23 season “was patched up the whole meet. And I don't know what condition it's in now, because it's just getting older. It's just deteriorated. So I believe that it has to be replaced. The patchwork they did was finished the last week of the meet, and it was supposed to be done at the beginning of the [last] meet.”

Haire's points are well-taken. But to understand where things got interesting in this particular argument, you have to widen the lens to encompass the HBPA's 2 1/2-year-old legal quest to kill off HISA over alleged constitutional violations. Keep that court fight in mind when considering what Yother next suggested at that meeting:

“I have a recommendation that maybe we ought to ask HISA to come back in and take a look at the track, to maybe get a step ahead of some of the delays that we're encountering now,” Yother said. “If we get HISA to send somebody in to look at the track [we can] see what's going to have to be done before anybody will be able to race, whether it be current owner, future owner, or whatever.”

Yes, that's the president of an HBPA affiliate, whose own organization–plus its national parent and 11 other HBPA affiliates–have written in court documents that the HISA Authority functions like “a private police department” with sweeping powers that equate to “oligarchic tyranny,” now calling upon that very same Authority to intervene when the AZHBPA needs an entity with federal clout to advocate for its own cause.

This unlikely juxtaposition of the AZHBPA asking the HISA Authority for help while it's simultaneously trying to eradicate that regulator and its enabling law would be stunning were it not overshadowed by the truly dire overall predicament that Arizona racing now faces.

'Notion' is 'Great' in two states

Saturday's win by Witty in the $100,000 Maryland Million Turf Sprint S. over 5 1/2 furlongs at Laurel Park extended an impressive streak set by Great Notion, the state's top stallion by progeny earnings every year since 2018 (and the leader so far this season). His offspring have now won at least one Maryland Million Day stakes in 14 runnings of that event, dating to 2010.

But the Maryland Million win wasn't even the biggest payday for a Great Notion-sired runner in a state-restricted stakes on Saturday. Later that evening, Coastal Mission splashed home by 5 3/4 lengths in the $300,000 Sam Huff West Virginia Breeders' Classic at Charles Town. Despite racing beyond seven furlongs for the first time, the 4-year-old was pounded to 1-5 favoritism and delivered by wiring the field over the three-turn, nine-furlong distance.

Owned, bred and trained by Jeff Runco in partnership with his wife, Susan (Coleswood Farm), the win was the sixth straight for Coastal Mission. The gray has won nine of his last 10 dating to December, with all of the victories coming at Charles Town. His lone defeat was a fifth back in March when the gelding ventured to Laurel for a stakes engagement. In West Virginia, he's scored in state-bred stakes, open allowances, and also in the open-company $250,000 Russell Road S. last time out.

Coastal Mission's lifetime mark stands at 11-3-1 from 16 starts, with $572,728 in earnings.

Bred, owned, and trained by Elizabeth Merryman, Witty is a 4-year-old half-brother to last year's GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint victress Caravel (Mizzen Mast). She was also bred and initially trained by Merryman prior to joining trainer Brad Cox for owners Qatar Racing, Marc Detampel and Madaket Stables.

On Sunday, the 6-year-old Caravel just missed giving her dam, Zeezee Zoomzoom, two six-figure stakes winners on the weekend. She ran second as the odds-on favorite in the GII Franklin S. at Keeneland.

Jockeying for Graded Stakes

Flavien Prat won that aforementioned Franklin S., closing the gap to one victory in the North American jockey race for most graded stakes wins in 2023. Heading into the lucrative Breeders' Cup championships, this battle is shaping up as a two-rider run-off, with Irad Ortiz, Jr., (36) narrowly ahead of Prat (35).

Through Sunday's races, the next closest jockeys are Juan Hernandez (24), Luis Saez (21), then Tyler Gaffalione and Joel Rosario (20 each).

Ortiz has ridden in 11 more graded stakes than Prat. Interestingly, Hernandez is the top percentage rider among the leaders, winning graded stakes at a 31% clip from only 77 chances (everyone else mentioned has ridden in at least 121 graded stakes).

Last year Ortiz topped Prat 50-42.

The post The Week in Review: HBPA Tries to Derail HISA in Federal Court–But Also Wants Its Help in Arizona appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Simms Portrays Turf Paradise Sale as Lifeline, but Arizona Horsemen Grow Skeptical

A report that a purchase-and-sale agreement for the currently closed Turf Paradise is just days away from being inked was met with skepticism, frustration and even derision from horsemen at Thursday's Arizona Racing Commission meeting.

Although the track's owner, Jerry Simms, framed the ongoing negotiations as a lifeline for Thoroughbred racing in a state that currently has no operational commercial track, J. Lloyd Yother, the president of the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (AZHBPA), said that Simms's oft-stated expectations of a new owner being able to conduct a race meet as soon as January are unrealistic, underscoring that, “my horsemen are getting pretty restless, and their livelihoods are at stake.”

Complicating matters for everyone is that the prospective deal has been shrouded in mystery since the buyer was first publicly named Sept. 28.

For the second commission meeting in as many weeks, no representatives of that would-be buying group appeared to speak about their plans for keeping racing alive at Turf Paradise during the Oct. 12 online-only meeting.

In fact, the name of that buying group–Turf Paradise Trust, LLC, whose principal is said to Frank Nickens–didn't even get mentioned by any party during Thursday's often-testy, back-and-forth testimony. Most references were generic, as in “the buyer.”

The Turf Paradise sale wasn't even officially on the meeting's agenda, either. But it was by far the dominant topic.

Commissioners largely just listened to Simms, the horsemen, and representatives from non-operational Arizona Downs spar verbally, and the board concluded the meeting without voting on or outlining any direct actions that would bring clarity to an increasingly confusing and controversial inflection point.

AZRC chairman Chuck Coolidge said toward the end of the heated discussion that the commission remained hopeful that “everything expedites in the right way.”

Other stakeholders used quite a bit more emotion when voicing their opinions on the Turf Paradise predicament, which stems from a months-in-the-making deal to sell the track falling apart on Sept. 18 and Simms announcing 10 days later that a new buyer had suddenly emerged with a desire to buy the 213-acre property and save the 67-year-old track from the wrecking ball.

“The state of Arizona horse racing is ridiculous. It's an absolute nightmare. Horsemen get fed information, some of it legitimate, some of it rumors,” said owner and trainer Cynthia George. “We're literally like children being used as pawns in a divorce battle [and] it's just absolutely unbelievable that horsemen get torn in every single direction…

“All these people want horsemen to have faith in the system,” George continued, “But what has really happened besides a lot of hot air? I don't know how else to explain it. Nothing real has happened…. We're trying to make life decisions. We're people with families…. And none of it is right. It should be completely unethical. It's fraudulent to keep posting media propaganda saying that Turf Paradise is going to open in January, when you can clearly go to Turf Paradise and see the walls falling off the grandstand.”

George's comments came after Simms testified that the deal was very close to coming together, and he repeated several times–like he had also stated on multiple occasions at the Sept. 28 meeting–that horsemen should be aware that he turned down offers of more money so he could try to make a sale to someone who wants to keep the sport going at Turf Paradise instead of developing the Phoenix property.

“I would say the contract should be signed this week. Could be [Friday]. Could be Monday or Tuesday,” Simms said. “There's just some other refinements to an agreement that have to be made. But I would say next week, for sure, and we'd have a signed contract. We already have a signed letter of agreement. This would be the purchase-and-sale agreement.”

Simms stated–but did not elaborate on–the fact that the buying group has had to change lawyers in the middle of these hectic negotiations.

In recent years, the relationship between the Arizona horsemen and Simms has been acrimonious. An extraordinarily long pandemic closure, multiple racetrack safety issues, and prolonged fights over off-track betting (OTB) privileges, simulcast signals, and how the horsemen's purse money can be used have roiled in the courts and at racing commission meetings.

Turf Paradise ended its racing season back in May with a separate buyer doing due diligence to purchase the property. But on Aug. 1, seven weeks before that sale was publicly called off, Simms announced the track wouldn't be opening in November as scheduled for its traditional six-month meet.

Arizona's horsemen have been dealing with heightened anxiety ever since.

“I understand it takes time and it's a big project to [arrive at] an escrow date and closing. But we're on such a tight time frame that my horsemen and my board are really uneasy,” Yother said. “This will be two weeks since we gave [Turf Paradise] the extension for the OTBs to run through Nov. 12, with the caveat that we can cut the signal at any time if something's not moving forward, and it seems to be at a stalemate.”

Even though Turf Paradise backed out of live racing for this autumn, Yother said the AZHBPA still gave its required permission for Turf Paradise to continue operating its 37 OTB outlets because the horsemen were led to believe those revenues would be used by Simms for repairs and upkeep that would allow the new buyer to begin a race meet in January.

“In the meantime, Turf Paradise has not started any work on repairs to the track to get ready for a meet,” Yother said. “Mr. [Vincent] Francia, the general manager of Turf Paradise, has expressed that he could possibly get ready in 60 days, but it would more likely be 90 days to get the track ready, to get horses in there. [So] we're not even close to being able to run in January. I think, in my interpretation, it's going to be either February or even later unless something happens between now and then.”

Yother said a number of outfits currently racing at Albuquerque Downs initially believed they would be allowed to remain at that New Mexico racino for a short while after the end of the Oct. 29 meet to keep their horses in training for Turf Paradise, but that is no longer an option.

“They've told them now they can't stay and they've got to go,” Yother said. “When Albuquerque's over, they've got to have a place to go. All we're trying to do is save racing in Arizona and try to find a place that we can bring our horsemen to and have a race meet. But [the Turf Paradise deal] is just being kicked down the road and kicked down the road, [and] it's at the point now where we have to do something or go to Plan B.”

Simms disputed that 60-90 day time frame for getting the track ready as “not an accurate number.” The dirt track just needs to be opened up, he said, and the turf course only needs a rye grass planting atop its current root system.

“There's nothing that has to be done to the barn area for the horsemen to come in,” Simms said. “Those barns are the same way they are now as when you left them” in May. “We're ready to go.”

Yother then responded with more specific list of repairs, including extensive work to the main track rail. Simms then disputed that needed to be done, claiming all the fencing had been fixed last spring.

“I'm just telling you that my horsemen and my board are extremely upset that nothing has taken place at this time. No good faith, nothing that's been happening at the track,” Yother said.

David Auther, a co-owner of Arizona Downs, wanted horsemen and commissioners to know that his track could provide the “Plan B” that Yother referred to.

“We still want to have our meet in May, or sooner, depending on what happens with Turf,” Auther said.

Arizona Downs didn't apply for a June-through-September race meet this year because of financial difficulties. The track formerly operated as Yavapai Downs between 2000 and 2010, when the ownership at that time filed for bankruptcy. It currently faces a Nov. 2 state administrative hearing on whether or not the AZRC should revoke its permit to operate because it hasn't been conducting live racing.

Permitting problems aside, Yother told the commission there is another problem that would give horsemen pause about working with Arizona Downs: He said both that non-operational track and Rillito Park, which traditionally runs weekends from early February through early April, are both in arrears for overdue purse money.

“They've been [put] on notice that if they do not get the horsemen's purse money paid, then we're not negotiating a new contract with them,” Yother said. “We have to get paid. We can't keep using our money when we're struggling and not getting paid on time.”

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