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Ward Duo Target Royal Ascot

Group 1 winner Campanelle (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) and Breeders' Cup victor Golden Pal (Uncle Mo) are both targeting the 2021 Royal Ascot meeting trainer Wesley Ward has announced.

The filly, a Stonestreet Stables colourbearer, will line up for the G1 Commonwealth Cup during the Royal Meeting. In 2020, Campanelle captured the G3 Queen Mary S. and then returned to Europe to add the G1 Prix Morny to her haul later in the summer. Although she has been entered in the G1 1000 Guineas and Irish equivalent, it is more likely that the six furlongs of the Commonwealth Cup holds greater appeal.

“Barbara [Banke, owner of Stonestreet Stables] is really keen on Ascot and I think six furlongs–and that's a stiff six at Ascot for the Commonwealth–with a little weight break for being a filly, that will be our main target,” Ward said via Zoom to the British Horseracing Authorityi's 2-year-old classifications press conference. “I'm kind of working from that race backwards–the Guineas really don't come into play right now unless when she's at the farm, the team gets together and decides to go in another direction.

“Our main goal would be the Commonwealth. Barbara and her whole team are really looking forward to getting back [to Royal Ascot]. She worked last week for the first time at Barbara's farm at Ocala and she looked like she's ready to go, so we're all excited.”

Golden Pal, owned by Ranlow Investments, ran second in the G2 Norfolk S. in just his second start before successful efforts in Saratoga's Skidmore S. on Sept. 21 and the GII Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland on Nov. 6. The plan is the G1 King's Stand S. at Royal Ascot.

“We're really excited about this guy,” said Ward. “He will come back opening day at Keeneland, which is Apr. 1. Every year they have a straight, 3-year-old, $100-$150,000 stakes race over five and a half furlongs and that will crack off the season for him.

“He's doing fantastic–he came out of the Breeders' Cup in great shape and we're going to try the same route we did with Lady Aurelia (Scat Daddy) and go to the King's Stand with him. I think the five should see him right between the ears there. He's grown in height and he's broadening out–he's a really beautiful colt right now. I think he's going to be a tremendous sprinter this year.”

However, the King's Stand S. is not the only overseas goal for the colt. The G1 Nunthorpe S. against elders has been set as a longer-term target for Golden Pal.

“The Nunthorpe has eluded me and that will almost be the main goal for this guy,” Ward continued. “We're going back to the King's Stand [first], but as the summer progresses the 3-year-olds catch up to the 4-year-olds and I'm really looking forward to that race at York.

“This guy [Golden Pal] has proven he can go on all types of ground–he's a very exciting sprinter, one of the best I've ever trained and hopefully could be the best with the accomplishments we've set out for him this spring, summer and hopefully culminating in the fall.

“He's a really, really exciting horse to train, so we're looking forward to it. Battaash (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) is a very worthy opponent. The years are hopefully behind him, but I'm a big fan of his and when you get these good sprinters matched together, it just brings excitement to everyone involved in racing.”

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Saudi Arabian Dirt Likely for Oxted

Group 1 winner Oxted (GB) (Mayson {GB}) is likely for the six-furlong Riyadh Dirt Sprint instead of the 1351 Turf Sprint at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 20. A winner of the G3 Abernant S. last June, the bay gelding added the G1 July Cup at Newmarket one month later. After undergoing wind surgery, Oxted resumed with a fifth in the Oct. 17 QIPCO British Champions Sprint S.

“At the moment we are favouring the dirt really because it's six furlongs,” said trainer Roger Teal, whose son Harry will accompany his stable star to Saudi Arabia, at a Saudi Cup press conference. “Obviously, it's an unknown surface for us but because it's a flat six furlongs I think that is where we are going to go. He's a good-moving horse. He likes the top of the ground and handles all sorts of ground.

“He trains on an all-weather surface every day, so I'm just hoping. The reports are very good about the dirt track in Saudi. That gives me confidence. There's not too much kickback apparently. As long as there wasn't going to be tons of kickback, I think we're going to be happy to run him on it.”

He added, “The timing of the race was good for us. It was enough time to give him a break and then prepare him for the season ahead. We can go to Saudi, come back, maybe go to Dubai for World Cup night if things go to plan. We can then prepare for Ascot and another go at the July Cup. We'll be a little bit wiser after the event. He's pretty straightforward and takes things in his stride, but you don't know until you do it. He should be fine.”

Regularly ridden by Cieren Fallon, Jr., the now 5-year-old gelding would reunite with Fallon in Saudi Arabia.

“He definitely gets on so well with the horse,” said Teal. “Hopefully when Cieren's available he can ride him whenever. This horse has got good gate speed. He travels strong. He's got early pace so I think the pace of the race will suit him fine. The pace beat us at Ascot [on Champions Day] last year. There wasn't enough pace for him.”

“Harry will go with him out there,” he added, but was non-committal on his own attendance. “You can't make any firm plans yet, but we'd like to be there if we can. He's pretty much on track. He's been stepping up weekly. We're very happy. We'll just keep tipping away with what we're doing and get him there in good shape.

“If we're allowed to I'm looking to getting him to Wolverhampton just to have one good sprint round the turn because he's never run round a bend. That's another thing we've got to find out about him. He's in good shape. He had a short break after Ascot. He had a month away and came back looking tremendous. He's really blossomed through the winter.”

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Turf Paradise Operating Group Suing Insurance Company For COVID-Related Losses

TP Racing LLP, which operates Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Ariz., filed a civil lawsuit against American Home Assurance Company last week for what the racing group says is a failure to pay for COVID-related losses covered under the group's insurance policy. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, seeks a jury trial for the racing group's claim on its American Home policy, which the company denied in July 2020.

According to TP Racing, the organization maintained a policy with American Home which promised to pay for business income losses, losses caused by loss of property or restriction of access to properties, and interruption of business due to orders of a civil authority. TP Racing's complaint states that the insurance policy does not specifically contain an exemption for viruses or bacteria.

The insurance company has not yet filed a response to the allegations.

Turf Paradise and its affiliated 55 OTBs in Arizona were shut down for various periods throughout 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten of those OTBs closed permanently because they were housed in bars that shuttered. The suit also states that there have been confirmed COVID-19 cases at the track, though it did not specify how many or whether those cases came from track or stable personnel. Once the track could resume racing and OTB operations, it says, it could only do so with drastically reduced capacity, hampering normal business. TP Racing considers that restriction of access to its properties is one of several aspects of the COVID-19 closures that are covered by its policy.

According to the suit, TP Racing filed an insurance claim with American Home in April 2020, referring to policy limits of $2.5 million for accounts receivable coverage, $500,000 in preservation of property coverage, $10 million in extra expense coverage and $1 million in coverage for 30 days' of civil authority action.

In July, the suit states American Home responded, disputing the track's characterization of “direct physical loss or damage to covered property or leased property” and stating that a clause listing exclusions for “pollutants or contaminants” would apply to viruses.

TP Racing filed eight civil counts against the company and is seeking declaratory judgments, damages, attorneys' fees, and interest.

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Decision to Close HHR has brought Urgency to the Forefront

Two days after Keeneland Association and Red Mile announced they would be shutting their joint historical horse racing (HHR) venture at the Lexington harness racino while imploring the Kentucky legislature to provide “more clarity” regarding the disputed legal status of HHR, Vince Gabbert, Keeneland's vice president and chief operating officer, was called upon during the Jan. 26 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) teleconference to explain why that decision was made in the absence of any formal order from state officials to cease HHR, which is ongoing at other licensed locations despite an apparent dead-end to the case in the courts.

“We did, as you can imagine, some significant research and going back and forth to ensure that we were making the right decision as it relates to our joint entities between us and Red Mile,” Gabbard said. “I will tell you that we feel like we took a very conservative approach.

“But I think in every way possible we've seen the measures that we took over the weekend have helped bring the urgency even more to the forefront than what we had so that the legislature understands the impact that not only racing, but HHR has on the economy in the commonwealth,” Gabbert continued. “And hopefully, we will see a legislative remedy in the next couple of weeks.”

The KTDF, which is funded by three-quarters of 1% of all money wagered on both live Thoroughbred races and HHR gaming, plus 2% of all money wagered on Thoroughbred races via inter-track wagering and whole-card simulcasting, has had a rough go of trying to supplement purses at Kentucky's five Thoroughbred racetracks over the past year.

The COVID-19 pandemic first wreaked havoc with Kentucky's ability to generate purses derived from gaming revenue last March, and the effects are still causing major ripples because of spectator-free race meets and capacity limitations at gaming facilities.

Then last week, on Jan. 21, the Kentucky Supreme Court denied a petition for rehearing its 7-0 Sept. 24 judgment that told a lower court to re-examine the legality of historical horse race (HHR) gaming in the commonwealth.

Although the Supreme Court case only involves HHR machines made by Exacta Systems, whose machines are approved for use at Red Mile, Kentucky Downs and Ellis Park, the gaming systems operate in broadly the same manner throughout Kentucky, meaning that a precedent established for one version is likely to affect all forms of HHR gaming.

The racing industry's urgent focus is now on Kentucky lawmakers to legalize HHR, but roadblocks loom in the form of conservative resistance to the expansion of gambling in the state and the fact that the legislature only meets for 30 days in odd-numbered years, with the 2021 session scheduled to end Mar. 30.

The articulation of Keeneland's position and the political leverage it could possibly generate came several hours after a dire Tuesday morning announcement by Ellis Park that its racino could go out of business without the legalization of HHR.

“Without the revenue associated with HHR, there is no realistic path forward for Ellis Park,” Ellis general manager Jeffery Inman said in a statement released to Kentucky's Eyewitness News. “Were we to rely only on racing and simulcast revenue, we could not even keep this 99-year-old facility maintained, let alone provide the financial investment necessary to prepare for and conduct a world-class live race meet. Without HHR support, purses would drop dramatically, resulting in a greatly diminished live racing product. In short, the loss of HHR revenue at Ellis Park would likely threaten the very survival of one of Kentucky's iconic racing venues.”

It's also been nearly four months now since Churchill Downs Inc., (CDI), the gaming corporation that owns the tracks and HHR licenses associated with Churchill Downs Racetrack and Turfway Park, has already halted reconstruction on its demolished Turfway grandstand, vowing not to continue the planned rebuild until HHR's legality gets sorted out.

As Bill Landes III, the chairman of the KTDF advisory committee, glumly put it during Tuesday's meeting, “As if we all don't know, we could use some remediation of HHR.”

But outside of writing letters seeking help to elected and appointed officials in Kentucky (which the KTDF board voted unanimously to do), there were no other concrete ideas proposed to put HHR back on firmer legal footing.

KTDF board member J. David Richardson suggested emphasizing in those letters that “our perspective is a bit unique in that we actually delve into what [HHR revenue] means to Kentucky racing, probably more deeply than virtually any group, I think.”

Richardson said it was important “to let people know that the stewardship of these monies are very closely monitored by this committee and by our staff and are really appropriately used.

“This isn't 'funny money,'” Richardson summed up. “I think it's important to reiterate every now and then how closely we follow every dime.”

To that end, the KTDF voted unanimously to forward approval recommendations to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission for $2,061,900 in KTDF funds for Keeneland's spring meet and a range of $4.3 to $4.9 million for the Churchill Downs meet that spans April-June.

Gabbert said that Keeneland's “goal, from an overall purse standpoint, would be to be on par with where we were in spring of 2019.” He did not cite specific dollar amounts.

Ben Huffman, who serves in the dual capacities of racing secretary at Keeneland and the director of racing at Churchill, said that for Keeneland, “I'm kind of putting on the finishing touches of the condition book; actually may go to the printer with it in about 10 days or so. But the maiden special weights will be $79,000. And the 'non-winners of two' allowance race will be $81,000 at Keeneland this spring.”

As for Churchill's levels, Huffman said, “we haven't even met here collectively about spring purses yet,” but that he expects those figures to be available by mid-February.

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