Churchill Downs | Horse Racing Free Tips

Letter to the Editor: John Sikura

The case of Bob Baffert has been, sad but fascinating to watch. It has served to be the perfect foil for agenda-driven companies and organizations to attach a face to 'the cause.' Due process and the right to defend oneself with veracity is the foundational tenet of this country. It protects citizens from overreaching by entities such as Churchill, NYRA and others banning Baffert from running at their tracks until adjudication is reached–not dictated. The actions of Churchill Downs clearly prioritize what we already know, which is that the value proposition of the Kentucky Derby is their one commitment to racing. The serial monetizing of racetracks, and devotion to casino and historical racing revenue leave them without a credible position except as very good drivers of CDI stock value. The leading face of racing is excluded from racing at Churchill and cannot earn Derby points while the premise argument (veterinary-prescribed topical skin cream) has proven to be validated. Will the NYRA now reverse itself or cling to its ban? Admonished by a judge for sidestepping due process and a new hearing scheduled to decide the right of Baffert to race at their tracks, this new evidence is assuredly exculpatory for Baffert. What about The Jockey Club? They have taken a lead position on HISA and have committed to exposing cheats while fairly dealing with violations. They joined the NYRA suit in their brief and therefore should publicly state a position. This is a good test for them as well.

I wish to make my position clear that I am against all forms of cheating or illegal drug use. Those convicted of such should face the harshest of penalties. I also believe that jealousy and innuendo without proof are unfair and tarnish the reputation of our game and can cost people their careers. Ignoring thresholds of therapeutic drugs, inconsistent withdrawal times, human error or environmental contamination is not realistic testing. The intent should be to eliminate all illegal drugs from our game and deal with 'positives' in a manner which attaches penalties uniformly and fairly. I hope and trust that HISA will accomplish all of this and more.

In the interim, the Baffert barn is responsible for following the rules and protocols of racing in each jurisdiction he races and that is not debated by me. I do contest the piling on in advance of final proof and draconian punishment of banishment as commensurate penalty for the 'violations.' None have included illegal drugs and none have tested at a threshold to enhance performance.

I close by admitting that it was probably best if this letter was not written and I said nothing publicly. Bob Baffert has been a friend and an important part of my life and business so you can question my objectivity. I would counter by saying that those who know me know I speak candidly and without adherence to public opinion or consensus. I don't absolve him of being responsible for his barn, I only write the letter as his detractors have been vocal, organized and many. I for one wish to tilt the scales and offer my support.

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Knicks Go Gets Back to Work

Korea Racing Authority's Knicks Go (Paynter), seeking to become the first repeat winner of Gulfstream Park's $3- million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational, recorded his first workout since capturing the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Classic a month ago.

The dark gray worked what was clocked as a three-eighths of a mile breeze in :36.20 (2/2) under exercise rider Edvin Vargas early Saturday morning at Churchill Downs. Trainer Brad Cox said he timed Knicks Go galloping out a half-mile in :48 1/5.

“Well in hand, and I think he was out the five-eighths in 1:01 and 3,” Cox said. “He definitely hasn't regressed since the Breeders' Cup. He's been training extremely well, galloping great. Wanting to do more. You could definitely tell that the last week, 10 days, he was wanting to do more. He was very strong throughout this morning, around both turns and even up the backside [afterward]. The outrider collected him around the half-mile pole, so he seems to be the same Knicks Go that we saw before the Classic.”

Knicks Go is the prohibitive favorite to be voted Horse of the Year and champion older male champion.

Cox, who is seeking to repeat as the Eclipse Award recipient as North America's outstanding trainer, said Knicks Go will ship in a few days to the trainer's New Orleans division at the Fair Grounds.

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Report: CDI Exploring Selling Off Twinspires

Churchill Downs Inc. is reportedly exploring selling off TwinSpires Racing, which the gaming corporation describes as the “premier online horse racing wagering platform in the United States.”

The financial news site Bloomberg first broke the CDI scoop at 3:40 p.m. Eastern Dec. 2, citing several sources who requested anonymity because they were sharing information that hadn't yet been divulged by the publicly traded company. A CDI official declined comment.

Bloomberg reported that CDI “is working with an adviser to solicit potential interest in the wagering platform.”

One of the sources estimated “TwinSpires could fetch $1.5 billion in any transaction.”

Bloomberg reported CDI itself has a market value of $8.8 billion.

But one of the sources quoted in that story also cautioned that “no final decision has been made,” noting that CDI could continue to own the platform.

During an Oct. 28 third-quarter earnings conference call, CDI's president and chief operating officer, Bill Mudd, gave no hint of a sale of the advance-deposit wagering platform when he answered an investor's question about what to expect regarding TwinSpires in the near future.

“I'd say, first of all, on the fourth quarter [of 2021], we're kind of entering now a very stable period for TwinSpires,” Mudd said.

At a different point in that earnings call, Bill Carstanjen, CDI's chief executive officer, noted that the TwinSpires racing handle was up 31% in the third quarter, driven by a 23% increase in active users compared to 2019, resulting in an increase of $113 million.

And Carstanjen said CDI would be devoting resources to making TwinSpires better.

“The majority of our fourth quarter maintenance capital [for 2021] is related to finishing the new turf course of Churchill Downs Racetrack, new slot purchases, and ongoing improvements to our TwinSpires horse racing platform,” Carstanjen said on that call five weeks ago.

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Ken McPeek Talks 2YOs, HISA, Lasix, Training Future On Writers’ Room

The story of a high-quality Thanksgiving weekend of racing at Churchill Downs was undoubtedly Ken McPeek, who sent out four impressive winners on Saturday's all-2-year-old Stars of Tomorrow card, including GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. hero Smile Happy (Runhappy) and 'TDN Rising Star' Cocktail Moments (Uncle Mo), to follow up a six-length victory by his Envoutante (Uncle Mo) in Thursday's GII Falls City S. Tuesday, the thoughtful McPeek sat down for an expansive interview with the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland to talk about his loaded barn of promising juveniles, how much longer he sees himself training, his thoughts on the first proposed rule set of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act and more.

Despite having two graded stakes winners over the weekend, one could argue Cocktail Moments was McPeek's most impressive runner at Churchill. Drifting all the way up to 26-1 off a modest worktab, the $190,000 Keeneland September graduate dropped all the way back to 10th in the 12-horse field before steadily advancing while wide on the turn. Taking charge in mid-stretch, the Dixiana Farms colorbearer put on a show in the final furlong, rocketing away to a 9 1/4-length romp.

“That was a pleasant surprise,” said McPeek, this week's Green Group Guest of the Week. “But I'll tell you, she had been training fantastic going into the race. Typically when we get a young horse ready, we don't force the issue. We let them come [around]. I like to get a race under their belt. I'd almost call the first race a schooling race. I tell the rider to take a little bit of a hold, settle, wait, wait, finish. When they do that, they take dirt in their face, they've got all this adversity, and you lose races doing that, but you also teach them. The young horses that we've gunned away from the gate, they don't learn as much as the ones that take dirt, learn to negotiate the traffic and finish. Well, she finished alright. She came like a bullet. She's been a really happy filly the last couple of weeks, but to be able to predict that first time out is difficult.”

Already with a trio of winners Saturday, Lucky Seven Stable's Smile Happy cemented the day as one to remember for McPeek, settling off the pace and blowing past 7-5 chalk Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) in the stretch to a 3 1/4-length score in the Kentucky Jockey Club. That was the second victory in two starts for the $185,000 Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearling buy, who joined fellow graded stakes winners Rattle N Roll (Connect) and Tiz the Bomb (Hit It a Bomb) in the McPeek barn as potential GI Kentucky Derby contenders.

“This horse has out-trained just about every horse he's worked against,” McPeek said. “He's a very physically imposing horse to be around, and he's fast. I stretched him out long the first time and he handled it like a pro, and to beat some of the horses he ran against second time out–he's got the mind of a good horse. I think there's still some fitness that's needed there too. We're going to shelve him for a little while, and I think you're going to see an even better horse when we get to the spring … He's got an interesting pedigree. There wasn't much black type, the first three dams were practically blank. But his second dam is by Relaunch, third dam by Graustark, fourth dam by Bold Ruler, and Funny Cide is under his fourth dam. We're really excited to have him.”

The conversation later turned to McPeek's increasingly impressive training resume. Starting in 1985, his career took off in the 2000s and the 59-year-old now boasts over 1,800 winners and over $95 million in total earnings. Asked to reflect on his career, McPeek went on to break a bit of news in saying he doesn't plan on training for all that much longer–with a caveat.

“I'm probably most proud of finding a lot of these horses at auction, even for modest prices,” he said. “The first 10 years that I trained, I struggled, but I convinced Roy Monroe to let me buy yearlings for him. The first yearling I bought was a Lord At War (Arg) filly that ended up running first, second or third in 15 stakes in her career for Roy and me. Then he let me buy [millionaire and 1995 Derby second] Tejano Run, who launched me. Training horses is not rocket science, but you've got to get good horses to train, and I'm in a unique stage right now where people are giving me bigger budgets. But I'm still buying for what I call the under-50 [thousand] people. I still like working the back end of the sales. I'll wear out a pair of tennis shoes. And Dominic [Brennan] is probably deserving of as much credit as me, because he's been in the trenches with me for 30-plus years. He's one of those unsung heroes–a rock-solid Irish horseman … But I'm going to lay something out there that I don't know if most people want to hear or not. I'm going to do this for 10 or 11 more years. I'm going to train until I'm 70. Unless, of course, I have horses like I've got in the barn right now. But I'm looking at doing it until I'm 70 and then I'd like to work horse auctions for people worldwide.”

Asked for his thoughts on the early HISA rules as proposed by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, McPeek offered, “I think it's fantastic stuff. I think they need to unify the licensing. If I get a driver's license in Kentucky, I can drive all over the country. And then allow reciprocity to take effect when you have a violation. These rules need to be streamlined, there's no question. They need a horseman on those committees making those decisions that has the power to say, 'Hey, wait a second, time out, you're going too far.' But at this point, there aren't horsemen sitting on those, and that bothers me.”

Elsewhere on the Writers' Room, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, West Point Thoroughbreds, Lane's End, XBTV and Legacy Bloodstock, Joe Bianca, Bill Finley and Jon Green discussed the implications of Gun Runner breaking the earnings record for first-crop sires and looked forward to an intriguing GI Cigar Mile H. card Saturday at Aqueduct. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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