Calder Race Course | Horse Racing Free Tips

Florida Horsewomen Come Together To Save Calder’s Resident Barn Cats

When Gulfstream Park West, still known to most as Calder Race Course, closed its gates earlier this month, it was the end of an era. After five decades of the familiar cycle of horses, people, and equipment moving in and out of barns, the last van has carried the last hoof off the property and the tack rooms have been emptied for the final time.

But that doesn't mean that all signs of life were gone from the property.

Madeleine Sciametta and Allison Hickey, lifelong racetrackers who had called Calder home for years, began asking around as the track approached its end – what about the barn cats?

Like most racetracks, Calder was crawling with cats, from pets who arrived with the horses and were tucked into tack rooms at night to completely feral creatures who would come out to be fed and vanish again. Sciametta and Hickey each brought food to separate colonies of cats on different ends of the property and say there were at least four feeding stations, each with its own group of cats. Sciametta said a number of stables would arrive with cats and then leave them behind when they packed up and went to the next track. Then there were people who, knowing feral cats were fed at the track, would dump their household pets still wearing their collars off at the gate, assuming someone else would care for them.

Horses and people were supposed to be off the grounds by April 5. As the date approached, it became clear to Sciametta and Hickey that while lots of people said they wanted to help, no one else was stepping up. On April 15, The Stronach Group's lease of the property will expire and it will be transferred back to Churchill Downs. Most horsemen expect the remaining buildings (the grandstand was leveled in 2015) will be razed once CDI takes possession of the track again.

Buddy, who is known as the “ambassador of Calder” used to monitor morning training alongside the paramedics and sit in a chair in the walking ring during afternoon racing. Randy Halvorsrod photo

“I was looking at all the cats there and knew nobody was going to do anything about it,” said Hickey. “I think a lot of people on the track wanted to help, but they didn't know what to do, or they were busy working. I think Madeleine and I, we see something that needs to be done and we just find a way to do it.”

Sciametta and Hickey waited to begin collecting cats until near the move-out date, not wanting to inadvertently scoop up someone's pet. When it became clear the deadline was approaching, they began setting traps, still not sure what to do with the animals they caught.

“I used to say, I don't want any barn cats, they're always underfoot,” Sciametta said. “But since I started feeding them, you start to get attached to them. Especially the ones in my colony, they were like someone's pet … when it came time to close, I couldn't just put my stuff in my car and drive out the stable gate and leave those cats sitting there, waiting for me to come feed them the next day and not be there.”

The pair began gathering up the cats they could and posting to social media looking for help. Hickey said that at most of the tracks where she and her husband, trainer Bill Hickey, have stabled, there are people who take it upon themselves to feed and fix the resident cat population. Sometimes they're part of a coordinated effort, as is true at Saratoga, and sometimes it's just racetrackers taking cats to the nearest veterinary clinic and paying for a spay/neuter surgery. Miami-Dade County Animal Services had also trapped and spayed or neutered cats, releasing them back on the track through the years. So, while most of the cats had been fixed, a number had other medical needs like dental work or infectious disease testing that would need to be done. Additionally, most of them – Sciametta estimated 70 percent – were feral or semi-feral. She found takers for the friendly cats quickly, but those that couldn't be lap cats were more challenging to place.

Through the power of the Facebook algorithms, Sciametta's call for help reached Randy Halvorsrod, who owns Halvorsrod Farm in Wellington, Fla., and happens to foster cats for Bella's Promise Pet Rescue in Boca Raton, Fla. Bella's Promise is based completely on foster care homes and works with local county animal control centers to source animals to homes. Halvorsrod said that perhaps surprisingly, while there is an overpopulation of stray dogs and cats in South Florida, there is an underpopulation of needy pets in the Northeast, specifically in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Nearly all the animals saved by Bella's Promise are transported north for successful adoptions.

“I knew the scale [of the problem]; I didn't know I could save this many cats with her,” said Halvorsrod. “Rescues usually prefer kittens and pretty cats. That's how it is because everyone wants a kitten. I called the head of Bella's Promise and she said, 'Take them. We'll figure it all out.' The scale is huge but I think at most racetracks you have a huge amount of cats.”

Patty, an older cat, lived in the same tack room for a decade as trainers came and went. Randy Halvorsrod photo

To date, the network of advocates for the Calder cats have trapped and placed more than 50 cats in barn homes, adoptive homes, or foster care. As of this week, Hickey estimated there were only 10 or so left on the Calder property. Sciametta's posts also reached Desiree Barbazon, an Ocala-based realtor who specializes in selling horse farms. Thanks to Barbazon, Sciametta says a large number of the trapped cats went to barn placements in Ocala and Wellington.

“I just put it out there, like hey guys these cats need help,” said Barbazon. “It went viral. I kind of guilted everybody into it – can't you open your heart to one cat? I had people on my Facebook saying, 'I used to gallop horses at Calder, I'll take one.'”

At one point, the demand was so great that Sciametta and Hickey coordinated a ride for 18 cats to the Central Florida area in a specially-outfitted air-conditioned van hired by The Stronach Group to take the kitties to new assignments in barns in Barbazon's area.

For the women who came together to help the cats, it's a fitting way to say goodbye to a property that featured prominently in their racing journeys.

“Everybody talks about the horse community doesn't come together and stand by each other, but in this venture it really worked out,” said Sciametta.

“I walked hots at Hialeah as a kid; Calder was more of a factory type,” said Halvorsrod, who also ran the shed for The Oaks Thoroughbreds at Calder and worked the auctions that were held there through the years. “It was a good, working track. It's sad, the whole thing. I was born and raised in Miami. The track's 50 years old and I'm 66. It's been there the whole time.”

The buildings may soon be gone, but the dozens of adopters will keep their own little piece of life at Calder with them a bit longer.

As the rehoming effort draws to a close, Sciametta and Hickey say the best way the public can help is by donating to Bella's Promise, which took on the significant cost of vetting dozens of cats to prepare them for rehoming. For more information or to donate, visit its Facebook page here.

The post Florida Horsewomen Come Together To Save Calder’s Resident Barn Cats appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This Side Up: Horsemen Worthy of Their Heritage Will Enhance it

What is it, beyond our obvious bond in the Thoroughbred, that most vitally comprises the fabric of the Turf?

It’s a question answerable in too many ways, requiring definition of too many intangibles, to be easily condensed. But I think we’ll get somewhere close if we ponder the retirement this week of Stan Hough, an old-school horseman of a type largely overwhelmed in the era of the super-trainer. And especially because his departure from the stage coincides with the removal of two key features of the scenery: Calder Race Course, where Hough won five consecutive training titles from 1976; and Sagamore, his final patron, now being disbanded as a Thoroughbred farm.

For three such names to recede simultaneously from our sporting theater is surely a prompt to reflect on those elements in our heritage as precious as they are liable to slip through our grasp.

That is not to invite any conflation of the factors determining each of these withdrawals; nor any presumption about their validity. But each will perhaps remind us of a collective stake in the way individual strands are entwined in our sport, and its history.

Hough’s personal legacy has long been secure, having nurtured many important horses and horsemen. The latest of these, of course, is GI Breeders’ Cup Classic third Global Campaign (Curlin)–whose return to WinStar, where he was bred, circumscribes a two-year comeback for a trainer who picked him out, along with Sagamore president Hunter Rankin, as a yearling.

Without deprecating the opportunities available to those apprenticed to the industrial trainers of today, Rankin prizes the disappearing privilege of a mentor who, in turn, directly represents not just the era of Woody Stephens and Allen Jerkens but also a forgotten generation of hardboots. Hough learned the ropes under one William Tompkins at River Downs, whom he describes as “still the best horseman I’ve ever been around.”

“There’s no better description of Stan Hough than ‘old-school’,” Rankin says warmly. “He just is the consummate horseman. He knows his horses really well. He loves his horses. Everybody knows about Stan, and everybody respects the way he went about his business: the way he trained horses, the way he interacted with the horsemen.

Global Campaign took the Sept. 5 Woodward | Sarah Andrew

“But ‘old school’ doesn’t necessarily mean stuck in his ways. He’s really innovative in the way he trains. He works horses from a lot of different poles. He gallops them different every day. He doesn’t jog a whole lot. He obsesses over what they’re going to do next day–and not just Global Campaign. It’s every horse. I would say, ‘Stan, you don’t need to worry so much about this one, or that one.’ He can’t help it, you know?

“I think that’s the mark of a true horseman. Not that you’re right all the time, but just that you’d do anything to make it work. He’s a master. Doesn’t say a whole lot, doesn’t have any interest in being the center of attention. He has always just loved the game.”

Rankin’s admiration, moreover, is not confined to the horse lore. Hough has seen a lot of life. He was only 16 when he joined Tompkins; and little older, when becoming a husband and father for the first time.

“Trust me, no matter how great a horseman he is, he’s an even better man,” he says. “He’s like a second dad. We are borderline inseparable. My dad is the best, but Stan has just been such a gift to me. I can’t imagine my life without him, really. You won’t find anybody that would say a bad word about him.”

Part of what we are losing, in the retreat of men like this, is the trainer whose “eye” oversees the whole process: not just the conditioning, but the original discovery of potential. If the focus was wrong, when Hough worked the sales or made a claim, he would have to tighten that belt an extra notch. That kind of thing concentrated the mind in a fashion you don’t see so often, now that barns are largely stocked by agents and managers and so on.

While Hough did gain one or two powerful patrons, along the way, he started out claiming horses at places like Hazel Park, Detroit. As Rankin says: “For the most part, he did it on his own; and he did it his own way.” In time, he gathered the seedcorn to buy Proud Appeal (Valid Appeal) at the Hialeah 2-year-old sales in 1980, with a partner, for $37,000. True to that old-school grounding, the following year he trained him up to Kentucky Derby favoritism with five stakes wins in 10 weeks, culminating in the GI Blue Grass S. In the meantime, John Gaines and Robert Entenmann gave seven figures for a stake in the horse. Clients similarly profited from his talent, as when Paul Robsham sold Discreet Cat (Forestry) to Godolphin after he won on debut at Saratoga. Or they just banked the purses, as when Half Iced (Hatchet Man) won the 1982 Japan Cup in the Firestone silks, his 16th sophomore start.

Discreet Cat eventually won the 2006 Cigar Mile | Sarah Andrew

But what gives ultimate symmetry to Hough’s retirement, aged 72 and after 2,212 winners, is that Calder closed its doors the same day. That was where Hough made his name, and you can’t help but feel that its loss should focus our community’s attention on what it is prepared to forfeit, what it wishes to preserve, and how. That is not a simple process.

Everyone would agree that the fate of Sagamore, for instance, is the unique prerogative of its owner. Yes, it’s gratifying that Hough should have secured for Global Campaign the chance to extend a sire line tracing to the “Gray Ghost” himself, Native Dancer. And we’d all be delighted should someone, someday, decide that the Kevin Plank chapter in Sagamore’s Turf history need not be the last. In the meantime, however, everyone accepts that he can do as he wishes with his own property. Presumably the only way to salvage the farm, for Thoroughbreds, would be an offer to purchase sufficient for him to abandon whatever other purposes he may be favoring.

Now it must be said that the same indulgence is seldom extended to the owners of “Gulfstream Park West,” as Calder was unhappily rebranded. They are not in this business as knights in shining armor; not trustees for our community. They are here to get the best possible dividends out of their property for their shareholders. Without a neutral authority to arbitrate a South Florida racing calendar, it’s a perfectly coherent accounting decision to decide that competition with Gulfstream isn’t sufficiently viable for their purposes.

Horses leave the starting gate for the last time at Gulfstream Park West Nov. 28 | Nicole Thomas

Few of us have any idea about how things unravelled over the lease that had brought Gulfstream’s owners into play for Calder’s final years; or, indeed, what the future priorities of that operation may be, for its hugely valuable real estate round the country. In the case of Churchill Downs Inc., however, people know exactly what they are dealing with. And while we may despair over the consequences for Calder or Arlington, then we must at least acknowledge that when they do commit to a track, as a sustainable business proposition, they will do a professional job of making it work. Seeing what they are doing up the road at Turfway, certainly, they seem likely to make Kentucky the sport’s center of gravity even as the opposing coasts are bogged down by diverse problems.

Looking around, and looking ahead, you have to ask how vigorous competition is likely to be among track owners. That’s a concern, whether or not Churchill themselves prove interested in other historic sites that may become available. If they are, well, we all know that stronger competition would be healthier for the consumer. And if they aren’t, then just who is going to step up?

Running a racetrack as a profitable business is not straightforward, especially when so much can hinge on state regulation, slots, etc. E.P. Taylor famously led the consolidation of the sport in Ontario, shutting down the leaky-roof circuit and throwing everything at a state-of-the-art track at Woodbine. That kind of process can be brutal, and there can also be undesirable side-effects. After Calder’s closure, for instance, you seriously fear for the surfaces at Gulfstream, most obviously the turf course.

Nonetheless, Taylor’s vision and leadership showed the fearlessness required for the grasping of nettles like this.

The fact is that ruthless pursuit of profit can only be thwarted by its removal as a consideration. In Britain, The Jockey Club has surrendered its original function as a governing body and evolved into custodian of such historic racetracks as Newmarket and Epsom, where it also owns the communal training facilities. And Ascot, of course, is owned by the Queen herself–not terribly likely, you would say, to sell up for housing any time soon.

That’s not a solution available to Americans, of course, since 1776. But it’s no good wringing your hands over the cynical indifference of commercial operators to tradition, or community, or legacy. If enough people of sufficient wealth are sufficiently concerned, perhaps something might yet be done.

Hough, center, in the 2019 Peter Pan winner’s circle | Coglianese

The Breeders’ Cup, after all, was founded on communal contribution toward the corporate benefit of the industry. It’s not as though all racetracks are doomed to lose money. Otherwise Churchill wouldn’t be in the game. And if the profits of tracks owned and run by stakeholders were routinely ploughed back, then you could aspire to a virtuous circle: better product, better handle, better gates, better television, better purses.

So, as ever, it comes down to the caliber of people. Let’s return to the question asked at the outset, about the fabric of the Turf. Many would suggest that a horseman like Hough is where the answer starts. He guarantees the interests of the horse, whatever it takes. The question is whether the same standards can be met by everyone else involved in getting the show on the road. Because the choice is either to keep blaming other people for neglecting the interests of our sport, or to get together and do a better job ourselves.

The fabric of the business is never more literal than in the bricks and mortar of a racetrack. But those, too, no less than the condition of a horse prepared by Stan Hough, will always reflect the quality of the people responsible.

Remember what Rankin said about Hough. It’s not that you’re right all the time, just “that you’d do anything to make it work.”

The King of Calder has abdicated, and his kingdom has disappeared. But the wider realm can still be defended, and those who can afford a suit of armor should maybe get together and show some knightly qualities of their own.

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The Week in Review: For Plesa, a Bittersweet Ending to Calder Saga

From a racing standpoint, there could not have been a more appropriate way for Calder to go out. There when the track ran its first ever race in 1971, trainer Eddie Plesa, Jr. won the last race run at the track that had been rebranded as Gulfstream Park West. Plesa won for the 1,326th time at Calder/GPW Saturday when Diligent (Temple City) won the final race that will ever be run at the South Florida racetrack.

“I didn’t ask anybody to put me in the last race. It just happened. Like it was meant to be,” said Plesa, a member of the Calder Hall of Fame.

It was an emotional day for Plesa, made even more so by the twist of fate that saw him win the final race. Calder wasn’t beautiful like Hialeah and the racing could never compare to Gulfstream, but to those who called it home, it was a special place where careers and great memories were made. That it is gone is hard to accept.

“To see it go, that’s life,” Plesa said. “But it’s like losing someone that was close to you. And I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

Plesa was working for his father, who had a string at the time for Fred W. Hooper, when Calder opened in 1971 and drew so many people for the first ever card that thousands of fans had to be turned away because the stands were filled to capacity. He would later take on the role of assistant racing secretary at Calder before opening up his own stable there. Calder is also where he me his wife, Laurie.

Over the years, Plesa has learned to accept change, and he knows that Calder is far from the first track to close in an era where it is hard to make a profit operating a racetrack. The hard part, for him, has been watching racing become so impersonal, much less of a sport than it was 1971 and, now, much more a business.

Calder was purchased in 1999 by Churchill Downs, a company where little else matters but the bottom line. When Churchill opened a casino at Calder in 2010, it needed racing because, without offering some sort of pari-mutuel wagering, it could not have a casino license. So eager to get out of the racing business in South Florida, Churchill entered into a six-year agreement in 2014 with the Stronach Group (TSG), the owners of Gulfstream. The Stronach Group would take over the racing operation at Calder, which was renamed Gulfstream Park West. Well before the lease expired, Churchill had the Calder grandstand torn down in 2015.

Some four years later and with the deal with the Stronach Group about to expire, Churchill made an argument to the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering that any form of pari-mutuel wagering would suffice when it came to the casino license. Churchill announced plans to go forward with a jai alia fronton, which is much less expensive to operate than a racetrack. Both the regulators and the courts signed off on their plan, which sealed Calder’s fate.

“Churchill Downs, they’re business oriented,” Plesa said. “But to a lot of people, horse racing isn’t a business, per se. The owners, they’re not in it to make money. They are in it because they enjoy the sport. They don’t want to lose a ton of money but, to them, this is not a business. For Churchill Downs, all that matters is the business aspect. So you have a clashing of cultures, so to speak. Who’s right and who’s wrong? It depends on what side of the fence you are sitting on.”

Sitting on the racing side of the fence, Plesa said Churchill did everything it could to run Calder into the ground.

“Absolutely, there is a lot of anger among the horsemen and it’s all directed at one company, Churchill Downs,” he said. “From my standpoint, they took a viable racetrack that was important, not just to South Florida, but to horse racing as a whole and they had no regard for it. To see what they did, there are many examples I can talk about. There was the time the escalator up to the second floor broke and they never bothered to fix it for the longest period of time. That was part of the plan. They didn’t want to spend any money. When they closed down the floor that housed the Hall of Fame, people asked what did you do with all the pictures and there was no answer. They must have thrown them all away. They stopped maintaining the barn area. They literally tore down the clubhouse and the grandstand. Then Churchill Downs snuck behind everyone’s back and they got a jai alia license so they could extricate themselves from the agreement that brought them a casino in the first place and so that they don’t have to pay the horsemen any money.”

It wasn’t that long ago that South Florida had three racetracks and Calder, Hialeah and Gulfstream were in a never-ending fight for the choicest dates. Now, Gulfstream is all that is left and will go forward in 2021 with the unenviable task of having to operate year-round. It remains to be seen how its turf course will hold up without getting any sort of meaningful break.

“There are some issues that will have to be looked at,” Plesa said. “Can you race 12 months of the year on one racetrack and on a turf course that is used so frequently? I don’t know. Will there be a little break in between meets? I don’t know. How long of a break would it be? It’s going to be an interesting transition without the two months of racing away from Gulfstream Park.”

After Diligent’s victory, Plesa, who did not attend Saturday’s card, said he heard from about 100 people who reached out to congratulate him on winning the race. Many of them wanted to share their own memories of Calder with him.

“It was something special,” he said of the many messages he received. “I didn’t think I would get so emotional over something like that. It brought back a lot of memories. That was heartwarming, but it was under sad circumstances. It was almost like someone had passed away.”

Whales Cash In Again

At some point racing has to take a look at its love affair with jackpot bets. At the expense of the everyday player, they are too often won by the bettors who have the resources to plow a huge amount of money into the pools and rely on sophisticated computer programs to place their wagers.

The latest example occurred Saturday at Aqueduct. According to the Daily Racing Form‘s David Grening, the winning ticket on the Empire Six was purchased through the Elite Turf Club, which is the go-to wagering platform for some of the sport’s biggest bettors and is based in Curacao. The winning payout was $482,817.70.

Later that same day, an Elite Turf Club customer cashed in for $55,157.16 at the Meadowlands. The player had the only winning ticket on the Pick-5 and included a 75-1 winner on his or her tickets.

While those wins may be good news for some high rollers, the sport shouldn’t lose sight of where that money came from. It is the $10 and $20 bettor who is responsible for those pools building up. With so much money often ending up in the hands of a high-volume player, the run-of-the-mill bettor is going broke.

Tracks cater to the big players because they wager such huge amounts. But what’s happening is not sustainable. The bettors from places like Elite Turf Club are so dominating the wagering that they are making it that much harder for everyone else to keep their heads above water. The risk is that the big players will cause their competition to go broke, driving them out of the game. Some day, it will just be whales-versus-whale. That’s something the sport can ill afford.

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Kenny McPeek Lets Loose On TDN Writers’ Room

It takes a certain kind of personality to enter a filly against the boys in a leg of the Triple Crown, and Kenny McPeek showed all of that personality on Wednesday’s TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, McPeek talked about his successful, outside-the-box campaign of Peter Callahan’s GI Preakness S. winner Swiss Skydiver (Daredevil), why he subbed in Robby Albarado to ride the chestnut, his approach to training 2-year-olds and much more.

Swiss Skydiver has run nine times this year, starting her campaign Jan. 18 at Tampa. Winning five of those starts, she beat 22 of 23 males combined in her two attempts against them and raced at nine different tracks. Already a top contender for champion 3-year-old filly, Saturday’s scintillating and game Preakness victory over GI Kentucky Derby hero Authentic (Into Mischief) has vaulted Swiss Skydiver into a wide-open Horse of the Year discussion, and McPeek was asked what he thinks she has to do to earn that trophy.

“She needs to run well in the Breeders’ Cup,” he said. “We haven’t decided where we’re going to run yet [Classic or Distaff]. We’ve still got some analyzing to do of who’s going to be out there and possible starters, but she’s run all year. If they call it Horse of the Year, she ran all year, so what else can you do? I think it’d be fitting, but she’s just really solid and that’s more credit to her than it is me. She kept telling us she wanted to go and the schedule really lined up well for us over the course of the year. And the fact that she ran East Coast, West Coast, North, South, Midwest, she’s entertained the racing world all year, all over the country.”

In addition to bouncing around to different venues, Swiss Skydiver has been ridden by six different jockeys through this campaign, with Albarado taking the reins for the first time in the Preakness. McPeek aired his frustrations as to why Tyler Gaffalione didn’t take the call.

“I announced that we’re going to run in the Preakness and Tyler was on board,” he said. “By maybe 6:00 that night, his agent tells us that he can’t ride. And I’m like, ‘Look, you’ve given us a two-race commitment [GI Kentucky Oaks and Preakness].’ He said, ‘Oh well, sorry, I’ve got to ride for Chad Brown at Keeneland.’ I said, ‘You can’t do this. It’s dishonorable.’ I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I’ve never had something like that happen. I still find it dishonorable. Shame on Tyler Gaffalione and his agent. So all the riders in New York were taken, most of the Keeneland riders were taken, and Robby Albarado had been breezing horses for me on a regular basis. I called him and said, ‘Robby, here’s the deal, I’m going to tell Peter Callahan you’re going down to Baltimore, Rob is filling in for the Preakness.’ He says, ‘All right, I’m ready.’ It gives me goosebumps thinking that we pulled it off. Sometimes you’ve got to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Robby needed the break and he was hungry. He knows what to do, and he deserves to ride more horses than he’s been riding. And I think he pretty well proved it. Put him on a big stage and he can handle it.”

Also touched on in the wide-ranging interview were McPeek’s GI Darley Alcibiades romper Simply Ravishing (Laoban), why he stepped away from training in the mid-2000s and why making video and data more accessible is the improvement he sees as most necessary to change racing’s fortunes.

Elsewhere on the show, the writers recapped and analyzed the rest of the action from a monster weekend of stakes across the globe and, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, discussed how the demise of Calder is the latest in a troubling trend of Churchill-owned tracks shutting down. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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