Bentley Combs | Horse Racing Free Tips

Jason Barkley, Norm Casse, Bentley Combs Elected To Kentucky HBPA Board

A trio of thirty-something trainers has been elected as newcomers to the Kentucky HBPA board with the addition of Jason Barkley, Norm Casse and Bentley Combs.

Rick Hiles was re-elected as Kentucky HBPA president, with Frank Jones re-elected as the owner vice president and Dale Romans as the trainer vice president. Also re-elected to the board were owners Mark Bacon, Buff Bradley (who switches over from the trainer side), Mike Bruder and Travis Foley and trainer John Hancock. Trainer R.C. Sturgeon and owner James Williams will serve as alternates.

Hiles, who has been president for 21 years with another 16 spent serving on the board, said he welcomes getting the millennials involved. Barkley (32), Casse (37) and Combs (33) join 37-year-old Foley, who was elected to a third term.

“Everything we've got we fought for,” Hiles said. “Every purse, every benefit, every program back here, the HBPA has fought for. I'm glad to see some young guys getting involved. I'm getting old, and so is Marty (executive director Marty Maline). They need to learn, because they're going to have to take this over. It's good to see some new young people coming to get involved. I'm tickled. It will be good for the organization.”

Barkley and Combs are graduates of the University of Louisville's Equine Industry Program in the College of Business. Casse is a graduate of Bellarmine University in Louisville. All three understand well the headwinds encountered when trying to build a stable.

Barkley and Combs said they both learned a lot participating in their first meeting when the board was seated and officers elected on Nov. 23.

“I was just trying to get my bearings, see how everybody goes about their business,” said Barkley, a fourth-generation horseman from the Evansville-Henderson area who began training full-time in 2017. “A lot of those guys have been there for a while. You try to take your cues from them. I want to be an advocate for the horsemen. Sometimes I feel like the big things get handled and maybe the smaller things can fall through the cracks — things we talk about on the rail, (I can) take those to the meetings.

“I hope there are things that I learned at U of L that I can bring over; hopefully give a fresh look to some of the things that the guys have been fighting for.”

Combs, participating remotely from Oaklawn Park, said he was amazed how much he learned from just that session, including possible repercussions with the scheduled implementation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA).

“I learned a ton of stuff I didn't even know existed, frankly,” said Combs, who grew up in Lexington and also has an MBA from Ole Miss. “… Being on the HBPA board, you get to see the overall business side of it, as far as the money taken in, where it's going, the good causes. The health and welfare stuff they were talking about, I had no idea.”

Having stuck his toe in the water, Combs, who began training in 2017, said he's even more glad he ran for the board, adding, “I want to be a part of the conversation.”

Casse is a third-generation horseman from Louisville who began training in 2018 after 12 years as an assistant trainer for his father, Mark. Casse said his goal is to be “a great representative for the horsemen” and being on the board is one way he can give back to the industry.

“I feel like I've got a finger on the pulse, so to speak, of what we need,” he said. “I owe horse racing everything. It's the right thing for me to do, to start giving my time and helping other people as well.

“It's not like I have any preconceived notions. I'm very green when it comes to this type of the thing. But I want to look out for the horsemen and the best interest of the trainer. I feel it's part of my obligation to give the time to do that.”

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Letter to the Editor: Bentley Combs

Over the last few days an idea has been floated to replace the current American claiming system with that of a rating system. With a list of concerns and questions in my head, two things jump out immediately as being stifled by a rating system: Ease of access to horses and the possibility of growth for both potential new owners and smaller trainers. In my opinion these are two things American racing does better than anywhere in the world. Why do we want to change this to be more like other countries?

Love it or hate it, the claiming game is the closest thing to instant gratification we as an industry can offer in the arena of ownership. There are rules to this game just like any other. There are jail rules, void rules, waiver rules all of which are in place to protect the buyer, the seller, and the horse.

For those only familiar with the stakes and allowance portions of your condition books, let’s break down how a claim is made. Person calls a trainer, puts money in a horsemen’s account, picks out a horse, drops a slip, and now that person owns a new horse. It is a very egalitarian system. The seller knew the deal when they entered the horse for the tag and the buyer knew the deal when they dropped the slip. Both have agreed upon the value of the horse.

A horse breaks its maiden in a maiden special weight. Now the horse enters allowance company only to find that the horse can only consistently beat the water truck across the line. Doing this repeatedly so the horse won’t be “devalued” by entering the claiming ranks is an example of a sunk cost fallacy.

What was paid for the horse or what the horse cost in stud fees, board bills and training does not equal the horse’s skill or worth. If this were true, The Green Monkey would have won the Triple Crown and a horse that was bought for $40,000 should’ve never won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies last year. Sales price and cost does not denote talent. The claiming system allows owners to sell a horse quickly and possibly reinvest that money almost immediately. In contrast, a rating system would seem to slow down sales or possibly prevent them, along with additional costs to the owner if they go through the auction process.

This notion of “devaluing” also does not consider the possibility of the horse getting claimed and going on to win stakes; some trainers have made a name for themselves doing just that.

Let’s look at the trainer angle. Smaller trainers must have access to horses to grow and get noticed by other owners. The claiming system is the quickest way for these smaller trainers to grow and showcase their horsemanship abilities. Auctions have been mentioned as a way within this rating system idea to disperse stock to smaller barns. Take a poll and see how many of the 81 horses sold in July at Fasig went to a barn with 15 horses or less, my guess would be not many, if any.

A total of 9,885 trainers made a start in 2000; that number declined to 4,959 in 2019. This roughly 49% drop can be attributed to a number of things, including the rise of “mega trainers” and a focus of owners on the almighty win percentage. Limiting the growth of smaller trainers or new trainers who do not have huge backing in the first place, as a rating system would do, would only further this drop over the next 20 years.

There are other concerns. Such as does anyone think state legislatures are going to look favorably on racing after racing eliminates their tax revenue from claimed horses? Ask Oaklawn Park, the state of Arkansas and the city of Hot Springs how much money was made from taxes during the meet strictly through the claim box. Also, who would be doing the rating and how would it translate from track to track? In a claiming system the owner and trainer do the rating as to whether their horse who won for $10,000 at one track could win for $10,000 at a different track. Handcuffing owners and trainers in a subjective rating system, plus limiting the ease of access to horses for potential new owners, plus the further shrinking of an already rapidly shrinking trainer pool, is the start to a bad algebraic equation for American horse racing.

Kentucky-based Bentley Combs began training horses in late 2017 after serving as assistant trainer to Dallas Stewart. The Lexington native graduated from the University of Louisville’s Equine Industry Program in the College of Business and received an MBA from the University of Mississippi.

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Open Letter to the Industry: Bentley Combs

Last week I was disheartened to read the Maryland horsemen had relented to outside pressure to hold 2-year-old racing without Lasix. However, I saw a silver lining in the mentioning of a possible three-year study. No matter what side of the debate you fall on, we can all agree that the race-day administration of Lasix might be the most divisive issue in an industry full of divides.

In the back and forth debate over Lasix and its need, I have heard differing numbers. I have heard anti-Lasix people say between five and 10 percent of horses experience Exercise Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhaging (EIPH), commonly known as bleeding. On the pro-Lasix side I’ve heard over 50 percent. This three-year study gives us the chance to answer that debate.

We have decades of anecdotal evidence through experience at the track and through studies such as the South African study partially funded by the Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation. That landmark study demonstrated the effectiveness of Lasix and, also importantly, showed no harm with its usage. Knowing this, the prevalence of EIPH should be the deciding factor in the administration of race-day Lasix. What if we had a large comprehensive study answering the question of prevalence of EIPH under real-world racing conditions in horses running in the United States that have not been administered Lasix on race day?

Vital to truly understanding the extent of EIPH, we must determine the numbers of horses who might not bleed through the nostrils, to where it can be observed by the naked eye, but who experience blood in the airways that is detected only by endoscopic exam. Whether visible or not, bleeding is damaging to a horse and often is progressive.

Not having the expertise to come up with the conceptual framework of a peer-reviewed study, this just seems like the most common-sense approach to me: We scope all 2-year-olds that run in a race in Maryland for the next three years. Scope them all 45 minutes to an hour post race. This would be for the simple binary ruling of yes or no. Other things will need to be recorded as well such as sex, surface, distance, weather conditions and track conditions as these things could be contributing factors.

Certainly any such study will face hurdles, including owners and trainers objecting to participation for fear of their horses being put on some sort of bleeder list. Submitting to the study would be a condition of entry. Also people’s minds can be put to rest with the condition of anonymity for the horse. The only purpose for identifying the horse post race is to confirm that the horse was in fact one that ran in that race.

Also: who will do the scoping and who will pay for this study? I think it should be the veterinarians currently working at Maryland tracks doing the endoscopic exams. Vets aren’t going to scope horses for free, so who will pay for the scoping and compiling of the data? This might be pie in the sky, but I think every industry stakeholder should make an effort to chip in for such a study because it benefits everybody and most of all our horses. This issue of prevalence of EIPH brings us to a new starting point in a conversation over Lasix based in science.

I think any owner, trainer, breeder or stakeholder who is genuinely curious and willing to learn would contribute. Such a study would give the world as a whole a chance to learn and grow.

So many decisions in this industry seem to be emotionally based. A study like this gives the industry a chance to base policy-making on Lasix on science rather than emotion.

Given the importance of such a study, the industry shouldn’t limit the scope to just Maryland. Every racing jurisdiction that has adopted a no-Lasix policy for 2-year-old racing–whether by regulatory authority or utilizing a track’s “house rules”–should launch a parallel project.

I sincerely hope the anti-Lasix camp with their numbers of between 5 and 10 percent are correct. Given my own experiences, I don’t believe the anti-Lasix camp’s numbers to be accurate (or they’re only counting horses who visibly bleed), but I don’t know for sure. A study like this would give us a clear view moving forward in our policy-making rather than the emotionally blinded view it seems we’ve been using thus far.

Kentucky-based Bentley Combs began training horses in late 2017 after serving as assistant trainer to Dallas Stewart. The Lexington product graduated from the University of Louisville’s Equine Industry Program in the College of Business and received an MBA from the University of Mississippi.

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