Arlington Park | Horse Racing Free Tips

‘It’s A Reality Now’: Arlington Issues Layoff Notices To Employees

Arlington Park employees received formal notice over the weekend that they will be laid off at the end of the race meet, reports the Chicago Daily Herald. The Arlington Heights, Ill. track was listed for sale by parent company Churchill Downs earlier this year, which the layoff notice indicates “will result in the closure of Arlington International Racecourse.”

Layoffs are expected to begin on Sept. 25, the final day of racing.

Churchill has been evaluating offers for Arlington Park's 326-acre property since June 16, but Nick Micaletti, business agent for Teamsters Local 727, doesn't expect CDI will sell to horse racing interests.

“It's a reality now, whereas before it was, well, hopefully somebody comes in and buys it and does the right things and helps Illinois horse racing,” Micaletti told the Daily Herald.

Read more at the Chicago Daily Herald.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: ‘Keep Showing Up’ Motto Pays Off For Davis

It only took four and a half years for trainer Chris Davis to progress from saddling his first winner to his 100th, and shortly thereafter to his first graded stakes win. Statistically speaking, he's ahead of the curve. Watching the filly Naval Laughter crossing the wire first in the Grade 3 Modesty Stakes last Saturday at Arlington, Davis' 105th winner overall, the 32-year-old trainer let the emotion show.

He celebrated, of course, but like all lifelong horsemen he was right back in the barn before sunrise on Sunday morning.

“It's funny, when you go back and listen to some of these top-tier trainers, and they say the first 100 wins were the hardest to get,” Davis said. “You just keep doing your job, keep showing up and it'll happen. It's a marathon, not a sprint.”

The same could be said for Naval Laughter's career. The 4-year-old daughter of Midshipman was making just her fourth start in the Modesty, having missed the entirety of her sophomore season.

Breeder Anthony Braddock sold the filly as a yearling for $90,000 at Fasig-Tipton's July sale, then watched her run a game third in her first start in November of her 2-year-old season for trainer Ken McPeek. Naval Laughter developed an issue after that race, and the owners decided to run her back through another sale.

Braddock bought her back for $17,000 at the February Mixed sale in 2020, and gave her plenty of time to recover at his Two Hearts Farm. Meanwhile, the owner had been introduced to Davis through jockey Sophie Doyle.

Doyle got her first graded stakes win in the United States for Braddock in 2015 aboard Fioretti, and was aboard Naval Laughter for last Saturday's win to complete the full circle.

Trainer Chris Davis and jockey Sophie Doyle celebrate Naval Laughter's graded stakes win in the Modesty

“Tony has been extremely patient with this filly, basically allowing us to have free rein with determining what her schedule is going to be,” Davis said. “She'd had plenty of time off, so there was no sense of rushing her back to the races only to get her hurt again. We really just let her take us to her first race.”

That collective “we” refers to Davis' assistant trainer Mynor Ortiz. The man has been with Davis since the beginning of his training career, and works hard to keep both the horses and the stable staff happy. He was instrumental in bringing Naval Laughter back to the races.

In her first start off the layoff, the filly “just blew us away,” Davis said.

That first start in nearly 18 months came on June 3 in a maiden special weight on the synthetic at Arlington, which Naval Laughter won by an impressive 19 ¾ lengths.

In her second start, Davis had tried to get the filly on the turf course but the race was rained off and held on the synthetic once again. Naval Laughter went a bit too quickly early and had a 3 ½-length lead at the head of the lane, but was run down in the stretch and had to settle for second.

Davis finally got Naval Laughter on the turf for the Modesty, and the filly relaxed off the pace to run down the leaders in the stretch and win by a half-length. She completed 1 1/16 miles on the firm Arlington course in 1:54.58.

“It was a pretty awesome feeling,” Davis said.

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Davis has had horse racing ingrained in his soul since his earliest memories of toddling around his mother Liane Davis' shed rows throughout Chicago. She never trained more than 10 to 20 horses at a time, so their care was a family affair; Davis' father was her assistant, an exercise rider, and also served as an assistant starter on the gate in the afternoons.

There was, however, a brief period when Davis considered working outside the racetrack, he admits.

“I was really into movies and acting and theater when I was younger,” Davis said. “I worked at Medieval Times in Chicago, jousting, and I got into film school but I decided not to go. It was more about who you know than where you go to school, so I decided to go to community college and get a business degree instead while I worked at the track.

“I may have done a lot of acting stuff, but I've also always loved the racetrack; once it gets into your blood it's hard to get it out.”

Though he'd already passed the test to take out a trainer's license by the time he graduated, Davis knew he wanted to learn more before setting out on his own. He exercised horses for trainers like Richard Hazelton, Rusty Hellman, Wayne Catalano, and Pat Byrne, then took his first assistant's job for Mike Stidham.

Davis spent 5 ½ years with Stidham, then another two out on the west coast for Phil D'Amato.

“I was fortunate enough to see a lot,” Davis said. “People train so differently from coast to coast. I'd spent a lot of time in the Midwest, gone to New Orleans, New York, Gulfstream, shipping in to other trainers' barns and watching how they do things, but I hadn't spent a lot of time in California. Obviously there are trainers out there that are really strong in the game, so you figure there's got to be some reason for that. I wanted to be able to see what they were doing, how they trained.

“Out West, they train a little bit harder, just the way they breeze their horses and the work schedules are a little bit different.”

Today, Davis puts all his varied experience to good use when developing individualized schedules for his 35-horse string in Chicago.

“I never worked for a straight 'program guy,'” he explained. “Whether there were 50 or 150 in the barn, every horse got individual attention every day. So I'm always adapting different things to individualize it for each horse.”

A big part of his success has been Davis' ability to read both horses and people.

“I really try to individualize every client to their needs, just like the horses,” he said. “I think honesty is the most important thing; you're less likely to have a poor effort that's unexplained.”

Trainer Chris Davis

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CDI Reportedly Asks for ’22 Illinois Dates Application

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton

Two months before Arlington International Racecourse is scheduled to run what is feared to be the historic track's final race, Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), the gaming corporation that owns the up-for-sale landmark, has reportedly requested an application for 2022 race dates from the Illinois Racing Board.

But as columnist Jim O'Donnell of the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago put it in his Friday scoop of this story, “What the carnivorous CDI will do with the application remains to be seen.”

With a July 30 deadline looming to apply for next year's dates, this pull-the-papers move could just end up being a gambit to make sure CDI has various contingencies lined up.

Requesting an application doesn't mean a track owner has to actually file for dates.

Nor does it mean CDI intends to file for dates at Arlington. The corporation could be eyeballing some other still-secret Illinois location.

Nevertheless, this news is likely to kindle hope (perhaps of the false variety) that Arlington could survive the wrecking ball–at least for another few race meets while CDI reaps the benefits of entitlements related to live racing licensure, like off-track betting and advance-deposit wagering.

O'Donnell also notes that CDI could also be using the move as a ploy to replenish its “depleted goodwill” with regulators and elected officials in Illinois. This could come in the form of using another season or two at Arlington as an olive branch while simultaneously pursuing bigger-picture casino endeavors at two lucrative locations where CDI wants to expand its gaming footprint in and near Chicago.

It was last July 30 that Bill Carstanjen, the chief executive officer of CDI, first outlined the corporation's desire to rid itself of Chicago's premier Thoroughbred venue. In February, CDI put the 326-acre property up for sale. It has since attracted four known bidders, only one of whom has publicly disclosed an interest in keeping Arlington operational as a Thoroughbred track.

TDN emailed Arlington's president Tony Petrillo on Saturday to ask if either Arlington or CDI actually intended to file a 2022 dates application. No response was received prior to Sunday's deadline for this column.

Carstanjen also was silent when asked by the Daily Herald to explain what was going on.

For the latest rundown in this ongoing saga, it's best to absorb O'Donnell's full column here.

But the two biggest points that O'Donnell brings up relative to continued racing in Illinois are:

1.) The possibility that CDI could be planning to either run a race meet itself, or partner with and/or enter into some sort of lease arrangement with a new owner (because large-parcel developments such as this take years to happen, such as when CDI sold Hollywood Park in 2006, and racing continued there under different management until 2013).

2.) What will Hawthorne Race Course do? O'Donnell reported that Arlington's rival racetrack 35 miles to the south is “preparing two dates applications predicated upon what Churchill does. If CDI or a nominee request a summer Thoroughbred meet, [Hawthorne] will simply repeat their spring-and-fall Thoroughbreds of 2021, bookending a midyear [Standardbred] season. If CDI completely exits the 2022 Illinois racing frame, Hawthorne will apply to run a summer Thoroughbred season with harness racing in the spring and fall.”

Fundraiser for Fallen Rider

Crooked River Roundup in central Oregon is about as far off the horse racing grid as you can get in America. Yet racegoers there passed the hat to raise a reported $3,500 July 14 upon learning they had witnessed the death of jockey Eduardo Gutierrez-Sosa in the first race of the meet when his mount collided with the inner rail and flipped the 29-year-old rider headfirst into the infield.

According to published reports, racetrackers gave another $16,000 the next night to help Gutierrez-Sosa's widow and three children (ages four, eight and one in high school). The outpouring of aid continued via donation bins in the betting area over the weekend.

The fundraising effort has now gone digital, with this GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs having already brought in another $18,000 as of Sunday afternoon.

Gutierrez-Sosa rode both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, primarily on the mixed-meet circuit in the Pacific Northwest. The Mexican native who was a longtime Oregon resident was remembered by friends in this televised KTVZ tribute as an always-smiling family man who was easily identified on horseback for his distinctively pink riding attire.

The Quarter Horse that Gutierrez-Sosa rode in his final race, Godfather Advice (who walked off the track after the accident), was a 2-year-old Quarter Horse maiden trained by his wife, Rosa Rodriguez. According to members of the backstretch community, Rodriguez was standing at trackside after saddling her horse to watch the running of the race.

“She was on the race track when it happened,” Jennifer Abraham told KTVZ. “My heart breaks for Rosa that that's her last time with him. I hope she cherishes the memories they had together.”

Crooked River Roundup (aka Prineville Turf Club) annually hosts a four-date, under-the-lights meet on the four-track Oregon summer fairs circuit. It was questionable whether the racing there would even continue there this year after the track was forced to cancel its meet in 2020 because of the pandemic.

There was also some sentiment about canceling the rest of the meet after Wednesday's accident. But after abandoning the July 14 card following the second race, the decision was made to continue racing as scheduled Thursday through Saturday in honor of Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard for some of us,” Dustie Crystal, one of his backstretch friends, told KTVZ. “Some of us [just wanted] to go home and not have the rest of the race meet. But we all know that, Sosa being the person he is, he'd want us to stay.”

When racing resumed Thursday night, KTVZ reported that the entire jockey colony was wearing some form of pink to honor Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard to describe, but I feel like I lost my brother,” jockey Jose Figueroa told KTVZ. “We're going to ride for him.”

Nebraska the New Wild West?

No fewer than five new racetracks were proposed at last Friday's Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission meeting. According to published reports, no action was taken on any of the applications, which were triggered by the passage of a trio of ballot initiatives last year that authorized casinos at licensed horse race tracks.

The gold rush-like flurry of proposals were tied to new locations in Bellevue, York, Norfolk, North Platte and Gering. According to the Sioux City Journal, the most lucrative sites are considered to be in the eastern part of the state near the Iowa border.

A standing-room crowd at that July 16 meeting generated plenty of opposition from Thoroughbred horsemen, who fear that a sudden glut of racing venues will only water down Nebraska's recently resurgent racing product.

According to the Journal, Lynne McNally, the executive vice president of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protection Association, said that new tracks in places like Bellevue and York “will gut the purse structure.”

The Norfolk Daily News reported that Garald Wollesen, president of the NHBPA, said at the meeting that, “Building up casinos should build up the racing industry, not line the pockets of others.”

Robert Moser Jr., the former president of the NHBPA, testified that if both the Bellevue and York proposals are approved, it would put four tracks within 100 miles of each other on the eastern edge of the state. According to the Journal, he said that the only place in the country where that exists is in New York, in an area with 20 million people.

Nebraska has six racetracks that are currently eligible for racino licensure. Fonner Park in Grand Island races the only extended Thoroughbred season, with other limited Thoroughbred dates at Omaha, Lincoln and Columbus. Quarter Horse mini-meets occur at South Sioux City and Hastings.

Major purse upswing at Timonium

At last Thursday's Maryland Racing Commission meeting, officials from the Maryland State Fair in Timonium told commissioners that purses at the Aug. 27-Sept. 6 race meet would be level with what Thoroughbreds race for at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course.

The surge in daily average purses from $175,000 last season to a hefty $287,000 in 2021 will represent the highest amounts ever offered at the five-furlong fairgrounds track with the distinctively banked turns.

Although late summer is the most competitive time on the calendar for racing in the mid-Atlantic region, Timonium should benefit from an expected equine population boost this season from the 600 horses that have been stabled on the grounds since late spring because of the closure of the stable area at Laurel, which

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‘Onwards And Upwards’: 500th Career Win, Promising Juveniles Bring Optimism To Trainer Ingrid Mason

Trainer Ingrid Mason registered her 500^th career win on Sunday at Arlington Park in Arlington Heights, Ill., when Storminside scored a wire-to-wire victory as an odds-on favorite in the day's second race, a $4,000 claiming event going six furlongs.

A former exercise rider and jockey who in the early 1990s traveled to Dubai to work in Sheikh Mohammed's stable, Mason began training in 2004, saddling her first winner with her eighth career starter the following February. She lost the few horses in her stable, went back to exercising horses for a few more years, then returned to training in 2009. She hasn't looked back since.

“I started at the bottom and worked my way up,” said Mason, 50, who has stabled primarily at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas and Arlington and Hawthorne in Illinois. “When I restarted my career at Arlington, I had three horses and was work riding for Steve Asmussen. I'd start at 4 a.m. and work till 1 p.m. then come back to feed.”

Mason grew her stable to 40 horses at one point (she's now at about 28) and put together six consecutive $1-million plus earnings years beginning in 2014, her best season coming in 2016 when her runners earned $1,432,666. Much of that was earned by stable star Sarah Sis, a five-time graded stakes winner for Mason. The trainer's winningest year was in 2014 when she won 56 races from 287 starts.

“I've had a rough couple of years after some great years, but that happens to everybody,” Mason said. “If you don't have the animals to back you, it's hard. It's a challenging sport and so many things can go wrong. My biggest thing is to try and do as much preventive management as possible.

“I've got some nice babies this year, so it's onwards and upwards,” she added. “That's the fun and exciting part of our sport, the youngsters coming up and getting to watch them develop and progress. It's exhilarating and the best part of the game.”

Storminside is anything but a youngster. The 7-year-old gelding by Hansen was bought privately early in 2019 by Mason's “significant other,” Mike Waters, who races as Muddy Waters Stables. In his second start for Mason, Karl Broberg claimed Storminside for $10,000. Nine weeks later when Broberg ran him for the first time in a $6,250 claiming race, Mason and Waters claimed him back. He's been in the stable ever since, winning four of 21 starts, including his last three.

He was claimed out of Sunday's winning effort.

“I'm very fortunate,” Mason said. “I've got a lot of great owners who have supported me through the years and have never left my side, even during some difficult times. I'm very grateful for that. It's hard to find loyal people in this business, especially when they see this guy or that guy winning races at high percentages.”

Mason could not be at Arlington for her milestone win, watching the race at home after being hospitalized for two days with a kidney issue. She is hoping this will not be her final year of racing at Arlington, which has been put up for sale by the track's corporate owner, Churchill Downs Inc., and could be shut down for development.

“There is optimism here, because there are a lot of good people in the industry who want to buy Arlington Park and keep racing going,” she said. “To see Arlington Park close would be the saddest thing in the world.”

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