Bill Finley | Horse Racing Free Tips

Letters to the Editor: John Evans’s Retirement

by Paul H. Saylor

Over the years I have read a lot of Bill Finley's articles, and his summary of John Evans's work at Lowell Correctional is one of the best (Having Made a 'Huge Difference', TRF's John Evans Retires). It shines a light on not only the man but also the TRF's work to save horses and humans over the last 40 years.

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Todd Pletcher Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

It's that time of the year, when Todd Pletcher is in the headlines virtually every weekend. He won last Saturday's GII Louisiana Derby with Kingsbarns (Uncle Mo), has the favorite in Saturday's GI Curlin Florida Derby in Forte (Violence) and the following week will head to Keeneland for the GI Toyota Blue Grass, where Tapit Trice (Tapit) could be the horse to beat. To get Pletcher's latest thoughts on his wealth of 3-year-old talent we had him join us on this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Pletcher was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

A key topic was the draw for the Florida Derby. A small field was expected, but when the entries came out, the Florida Derby had a field of 12 and Forte drew the 11 post. That's a big disadvantage, which Pletcher was quick to acknowledge. The 11 post is just 2-for-49 at a mile-and-an-eighth on the dirt at Gulfstream.

“There's no bones about it. I don't like it,” he said. “It wouldn't have been one of my first five choices. I read the other day that since 2006, post 11 is 2-for-49 at Gulfstream going a mile-and-an-eighth. The one thing I will say, you'd have to go back and look at all 49 horses who broke from that post. But I would doubt that too many of them have the credentials that Forte does.”

He said that when the new Gulfstream was being built the Stronach team asked him his opinion as to whether or not they should build a mile-and-an-eighth main track. He told them he was against it.

“If you could go back 20 years, they actually did ask me when they were looking at the blueprints,” he said. “They asked me 'What do you think of a mile-and-an-eighth track?' I told them that I didn't care for it at all. It compromises your race and potentially could compromise anyone who draws an outside post. I've always felt it's not really a fair race for everyone. Between the Florida Derby and the Pegasus, you just hate to see the two most significant races of the meet potentially affected by post position.”

In the Louisiana Derby, Kingsbarns benefitted from a heady ride by Flavien Prat, who got his mount to the lead and slowed the pace down to a crawl. Pletcher said the plan was to be aggressive from the gate.

“Flavien and I spoke about the race,” he said. “We wanted to make sure we were kind of seeing the pace scenario the same way and that we both agreed. There didn't appear to be a lot of pace on paper. We felt like we would come out running, try to establish some position. We felt like the horse was versatile enough that if he made the lead the right way we'd be fine with that. And if someone else was ambitious and wanted to take it, then we could put ourselves in a good stalking position. At the elbow of the first turn, we were a length in front and it was pretty much all good from there.”

Scouting the competition, Pletcher admitted he was impressed with Derma Sotogake (Jpn) (Mind Your Biscuits), the winner of the G2 UAE Derby, who will now be headed to the GI Kentucky Derby.

“I thought it was a very impressive performance,” he said. “I think the track might have been a little bit speed favoring, but I didn't get to watch the whole card. The Japanese horses have just been performing phenomenally everywhere that their horses run. So, yes, I'm concerned. They're certainly improving by leaps and bounds in the way that their horses are performing globally.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore,https://lanesend.com/ the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Woodford Thoroughbreds, Lane's End, XBTV, 1/st Racing, WinStar Farm and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman dissected last week's Louisiana Derby and the impressive win by Two Phil's (Hard Spun) in the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks. Did he move up on the synthetic surface or is he a horse that has improved quickly? The trio also gave their handicapping thoughts for this week's Florida Derby and the GI Arkansas Derby.

For the video only version, click here and for Audio only, click here.

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HISA’s Lisa Lazarus Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

On Monday, there will be a seismic shift in horse racing. That's when the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority will launch its Anti-Doping and Medication Control program and, in most states, will take over the responsibilities of drug testing and drug adjudications. With that date right around the corner, the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland brought in HISA's CEO Lisa Lazarus to give an update on what to expect once HISA takes over. Lazarus was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

Lazarus made it clear that one of HISA's major goals is to do everything in its power to stop anyone who tries to use performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge. To do so, they will go beyond drug testing and will rely on investigations and intelligence.

“Our test distribution plan is going to be investigations and intelligence led,” she said. “We are not going to be relying primarily on post-race testing in order to discern who actually is breaking the rules. We've got a very robust investigative team headed by Shaun Richards, who is a former FBI agent. He is actually the one who worked up all the evidence in the prosecutions in the Southern District involving Navarro and Servis, et cetera. We really are focusing on the intelligence.”

Lazarus said she knows there are still those in the industry who are anti-HISA and have a lot of trepidation about it taking over when it comes to drug testing. She said one of her main goals for HISA is to change that narrative.

“I would like to have gained the trust of the majority of horsemen and players in the industry,” she said when asked about her goals for the coming year. “You may agree or disagree about a rule here or there, and that's all good. That's all part of the dialogue. But I really hope that and believe that we'll have the majority saying that this is actually needed. That we needed a uniform system. We needed uniform rules. This is good. And this is this actually professionalizes our sport to a different level. I hope that horsemen will feel like there is a level playing field. I hope the public sees racing horse racing in a different way, that it is safer and with more integrity.”

Another change that HISA will usher in is that it will differentiate between drugs that are true performance-enhancers and therapeutic medications that were still in a horse's system when they were tested. They will also have a separate category for positives that appear to be the result of environmental contamination.

“We completely separated the rule book into two categories, the banned substances, which are the doping substances; versus the controlled medications, which are the therapeutics,” she said. “And we take a very different philosophical approach to those two categories. If you have a banned substance in a horse, which is a performance enhancement that should never be in a horse, the penalties are severe. They're severe, they're swift, and they will be game-changing. If you make a mistake or if you have a therapeutic overage, there will be consequences, but they'll be proportionate to the to the violation. We also have a policy called the Atypical Findings Policy, which basically has 27 different substances that, if detected in a horse's system, we know it's almost certain to be result of contamination. Those will go through a different process. If we are satisfied after looking at those a little bit more deeply that it really is contamination, there's no loss of purse, there's no sanction. It's like it never happened.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Woodford Thoroughbreds, The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, XBTV, 1/st Racing, WinStar Farm and West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss and Bill Finley took a look at the remarkable year 87-year-old trainer Wayne Lukas is having. Lukas won last weekend's biggest race, the GIII Essex H. at Oaklawn Park with Last Samurai (Malibu Moon). There was also a discussion of the promising numbers that came out of the Equine Injury Database for 2022. The 2022 figure of 1.25 fatalities per 1,000 starters was the lowest since The Jockey Club began compiling fatality numbers in 2009. Looking ahead to this weekend's racing, the team gave their thoughts on the major races at the Fair Grounds and Turfway Park, which include key GI Kentucky Derby preps in the GII Louisiana Derby and the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks S.

Click for the Writers' Room Podcast's Audio or Video.

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After “Spreading Like Rabbits,” The Plug Has Been Pulled On Gray Games In Kentucky

They first showed up in Kentucky in 2021. Called gray games, they looked and acted like a slot machines, but the companies that manufactured the machines made the spurious claim that they were legal because they were actually games of skill. Before long, the machines grew to be so popular that, by some estimates, there were more than 5,000 of them, taking up residence in bars, restaurants and convenience stores across the state.

“They spread like rabbits,” said Majority Floor Leader Senator Damon Thayer of the games that got their name because, when it comes to legality, they operate in a gray area. “Before you knew it they were everywhere. These were mom and pop small businesses who were basically running illegal casinos in the back rooms of their gas stations, convenience stores, bars and restaurants.”

“This was their business model,” Thayer continued. “They'd come into a state where the games were illegal but there might have been a loophole in the law of a gray area in the law that gave them enough impetus with local businesses to go in and install the machines.”

The American Gaming Association (AGA) estimated that there are 580,000 gray games machines nationwide, including 67,000 in Pennsylvania, another state where the racing industry is dependent upon revenues from legal slot machines at its racetracks. The AGA also estimated that gray machines generated $27 billion a year in revenue. In 2021, the games were banned in Virginia, another state where racing benefits from revenue generated by HHR machines.

To Thayer, a staunch supporter of horse racing, gray games were a problem that was about to get much worse as the number of the machines in the state continued to climb. Not only did he believe that the machines were illegal but he recognized the threat they posed to racing. Purses have exploded in Kentucky in recent years, in large part because of the success of Historical Horse Racing (HHR) machines. The gray games machines gave HHR players another outlet, a place to spend their gambling dollars that would be of no help to horse racing.

“On behalf of the 60,000 jobs and billions of economic activity our signature horse industry provides, I proudly vote aye,” Thayer said when casting his vote in favor of the ban.

During the 2022 fiscal year, a total of $4.5 billion was bet through HHR machines in Kentucky.

“We went through so much to get HHR legalized and the machines are very popular and have led to huge purse growth that we all predicted,” Thayer said. “And along comes this illegal threat to pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing as well as charitable gaming and the lottery. The gray games machines were viewed as an existential threat to all forms of legalized gambling in Kentucky.”

The problem was solved on March 16 when Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed House Bill 594, which outlawed the machines.

“They're entirely unregulated,” Beshear said after signing the bill. “I don't believe that they were legal, yet they came into Kentucky and just set up and were taking dollars from Kentuckians and taking them out of State with zero regulation, zero taxation, zero system to help those that might develop any issues from using them for gambling.”

Despite having key politicians like Beshear and Thayer in favor of a ban, nothing came easily when it came to gray games. Just two weeks before Beshear signed the bill a plurality of lawmakers voted to table the bill. That group wanted to create a state gaming commission to regulate and tax the machines. And in 2022, the Kentucky House passed a bill to ban the machines, but it got sidetracked when the Senate amended the bill and the House would not agree to the changes. Thayer said that gray games were gaining such momentum that he feared that if they weren't banned when they were their proponents were going to find a way to make them, officially, legal.

“They wanted to go another year with the machines continuing to multiply,” Thayer said. “They knew that if they made it another year with no ban there wouldn't be much the state could do to get rid of them. There was a real sense of urgency to pass a bill. The feeling was if there was another year of uncontrolled growth of these machines they'd be here for good. That's because the more businesses that installed the machines the more advocates they would have calling representatives and senators to convince them not to ban them.”

Gray games had their advocates, primarily from the businesses, many of whom were, as Thayer described them “mom and pop” operations, who said they could not stay in business if the revenue they received from the gray games disappeared. Thayer said the gray games operators and manufacturers had “an army of advocates” and spent heavily on lobbyists and campaign contributions.

“You had this big freewheeling group of gray game operators spending an incredible amount of money on lobbyists and campaign contributions” he said. “Of all things, they aligned with group of Southern Baptist legislators who voted against HHR who were arguing to keep the gray games going. They did so because they had people in their district who owned places where they had the gray games machines. It was a strange group of bedfellows, one of the weirder things I have ever seen.”

The bill banning gray games goes into effect July 1, at which time they will disappear from a state where the horse racing and breeding industries can usually count on support from the state's lawmakers.

“There were a lot of reasons to be against gray machines,” Thayer said. “Everyone who voted to ban the machines had different reasons for doing so. There certainly was a big group of legislators who thought it was an illegal form of gaming that was a big group that saw it as a threat to horse racing.”

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