Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards Finalists And Runners-Up Named, TDN’s Sara Gordon A Finalist

The finalists and runners-up for the 2023 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards (TIEA), set for Tuesday, Oct. 17 at Keeneland, were named in a release by Godolphin late Thursday.

Sara Gordon, TDN's Social Media Manager, is a finalist for the Newcomer Award. Gordon, a native of Woodbine, Maryland, is a lifelong equestrian who parlayed her love of horses into a career in turf writing. She is based in Lexington, Kentucky.

With finalists in six categories, the winner and runner-up of the seventh category, the Dr. J. David “Doc” Richardson Community Award, have already been decided with Linda Doane of The Healing Place in Louisville, Kentucky awarded the top prize, and Francisco Torres, with the Backstretch Employee Service Team, placing second.

Out-of-town finalists and a guest will be provided with travel and accommodations, while those named will tour a local horse farm and attend a ceremony dinner before an afternoon of racing the following day at Keeneland.

The shortlist judging panel, the first of two, met on Tuesday, Aug. 1 to determine the finalists and runners-up in each category as well as the Community Award winner and finalist. Their meeting was hosted by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. The second and final stage of judging will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 17, when finalists will meet with the judges for in-person interviews.

Panel Chair Tom Law commented, “It's hard to put into words what it means to be involved with these awards. Everyone in our industry knows someone that works tirelessly, day-in and day-out, to take care of our magnificent two-legged and four-legged friends because they love what they do. The nominees, year-on-year, are a tremendous group, and while we wish we could reward them all, I do hope they feel honored that someone thought enough about them to submit a nomination.

“I'd also like to thank the National HBPA, TOBA, The Jockey Club, Breeders' Cup, and Godolphin, without whose underwriting and support these awards would not be possible to implement. Lastly, a heartfelt thanks to our media partners--The Thoroughbred Daily News, BloodHorse Publications, Daily Racing Form, FanDuel, Paulick Report and America's Day at the Races–for helping to spread the reach of the awards.”

Sponsors of the awards include Hallway Feeds, NTRA, Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, Keeneland, NYRA and Churchill Downs, and first-time sponsor 1/ST Racing.

The winners of the Katherine McKee Administration, Dedication to Breeding, Dedication to Racing, Leadership and Support Services Awards will receive a prize of $7,500, with an additional $1,000 to their farm, stable or organization, with two finalists receiving $2,500 each and $1,000 to their farm, stable or organization as well. For the first time in 2023, separate from the winners and two finalists, two runners-up will receive $2,000 each.

The winner of the Newcomer Award will receive $5,000 with $1,000 going to their farm, stable, or organization. Two finalists will receive $2,500 each, and separate from the winners and two finalists, two runners-up receive $1,000 each.

As the winner of the Dr. J. David “Doc” Richardson Community Award, Linda Doane will receive a prize of $7,500 and an additional prize of $2,500 will be donated to the charity of her choice. Francisco Torres will receive $2,500 as the other finalist in this category, and separate from the winners and finalist, two runners-up receive $1,500 each.

The 2023 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards finalists are:
Katherine McKee Administration Award sponsored by Keeneland

  • Kelly Danner, Churchill Downs
  • Samantha McGreevy, Taylor Made Sales Agency
  • Jamie Bradley, Asmussen Racing

Runners-up

  • Gwenn Pierce, WB Payson Park LLC
  • Eleanor Poppe, NY Race Track Chaplaincy

Support Services Award sponsored by 1/ST Racing

  • Bill Vest, Churchill Downs
  • Tracy Attfield, Tlore
  • Rita Cutler, NYRA

Runners-up

  • Raul Gutierrez, Santa Anita Park
  • Julie Adair, Self

Dedication to Breeding Award sponsored by Hallway Feeds

  • Jimmy Tate, Winstar Farm
  • Phillip Hampton, Godolphin
  • Rafael Zambrano, War Horse Place

Runners-up

  • Harmon Sullivan, New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program
  • Abel Garibay, Four Pillars Holdings LLC

Dedication to Racing Award sponsored by National Thoroughbred Racing Association

  • Laura Tilbury, Todd Pletcher
  • Kathy Sanchez, Tom Amoss Racing Stable
  • Moises Morales, Gustavo Delgado

Runners-up

  • Myra Hall, Herringswell Stables
  • Carlos Davila, Craig Wheeler

Leadership Award sponsored by Hagyard Equine Medical Institute

  • Lorretta Lusteg, John C. Kimmel
  • Gene Guy, Glencrest Farm
  • Manuel Hernandez, Walmac Farm, LLC

Runners-up

  • Juan Aguilar, Indian Creek
  • Christine Jones, Pleasant Acres Stallions

Newcomer Award sponsored by New York Racing Association

  • Deja Robinson, Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital
  • Sara Gordon, Thoroughbred Daily News
  • Dominick Merrit, Todd Pletcher

Runners-up

  • Adrianne DeVaux, Cherie Devaux Racing Stable
  • Susan Kemper, Coolmore America, Ashford Stud

Dr. J. David “Doc” Richardson Community Award sponsored by Churchill Downs

  • Linda Doane, The Healing Place (Winner)
  • Francisco Torres, Backstretch Employee Service Team (Runner-up)

Runners-Up

  • Merlin Cano, Backside Learning Center
  • Diana Varon, Keeneland

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This Side Up: The Heart of the Matter

You would think the heart has enough on its plate. It literally never gets a break, not for one second, never mind a vacation. Never a morning's fishing, a bourbon after dinner. Yet somehow we have ended up charging this most vital of our organs with a second burden, figurative but scarcely less momentous, as the vessel of love.

So when the tireless engine of life finally fails, in one we cherish, we speak of our own hearts as being “broken.” And there were many such, in Lexington on Friday, when mourners bade farewell to the distinguished veterinarian Dr. Thomas Swerczek.

We reserve to their private grief the tribute that Dr. Swerczek was evidently no less exceptional in his dedication, as a family man, than in his professional accomplishments through decades of service at the local university. For those of us outside the reach of his own heart, however, the professor's name will always evoke the epic proportions of another.

For it was Dr. Swerczek who famously conducted the necropsy, in 1989, on perhaps the greatest Thoroughbred in the story of the breed. He estimated Secretariat's heart to be twice the average size, maybe over 20 pounds. This discovery conformed so obligingly with the horse's overall prowess, with his physical magnificence and almost supernatural running power, that it nourished some pretty excitable extrapolations.

Secretariat's heart is literally the stuff of legend. It places him in the same register as warrior heroes of Norse mythology, with their limbs like cedar trees. But legend is not even history, never mind science. And the perennial quest for an edge, in our business, has allowed a whole ancillary industry of theory and analysis to be energized by the freakish heart of a freak among racehorses.

On some level, no doubt, this can only have been encouraged by the very cultural duality we just noted in the human heart. In a racehorse, of course, the metaphorical dimension is not love, but courage. But it's obviously tempting, if only subliminally, to conflate the “heart” we celebrate in a horse that gives everything in a finish with the sheer physical proportions of the organ housed in its chest. We literally describe such animals as “big-hearted”.

After all, the same intangibility unites “heart,” in the sense of competitive ardor under the whip, and the physical organ that we can only ever see for ourselves at a post-mortem. Sure, nowadays we have technology that allows external estimation of cardiac capacity. But as is axiomatic in a less decorous context, there's a limit to the satisfactions available in size alone.

Another man of science recently mourned in Kentucky, Dr. David Richardson, once cautioned me that data available across the horse population does not permit pronouncement on the specimen in front of you. And cardiac physiology, being so complex, was his chosen example.

“They talk about heart size,” he said. “But the real question is: how does it squeeze? (What's called the ejection fraction.) How fast can it pump blood? How efficiently, in terms of oxygen use? So it's not just heart, but lungs. So people try to assess that, too, on a treadmill. But that's still not like running a race at distance. But even if you could get the cardiovascular bit right, then how about the legs? And the mind? You can gauge some of those things, sometimes–but it's very hard to say how the whole package will stand up to raceday pressures.”

As it happens, Dr. Swerczek also performed the necropsy on Bold Ruler. Though he would have been one of the greatest stallions in history even without Secretariat, apparently he did not have a large heart. But you know who did? The second largest one Dr. Swerczek ever saw, at 19 pounds, belonged to none other than Secretariat's hapless punchbag, Sham.

What an amazing coincidence. But what an obvious coincidence, too. Because Dr. Swerczek performed the same procedure thousands of times, including elite athletes from many different crops. And none of them, he said, ever came close to that pair.

So instead of this inadvertent legacy, in all the controversies and occult dogmas stimulated by Secretariat's heart, let's instead celebrate the many years of unsung contribution made by Dr. Swerczek to the welfare of the animal he loved. He made vital advances in several horrible diseases that afflict the Thoroughbred and was always in the frontline trenches in the trauma of Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome.

He understood how many different factors, notably in environment and nutrition, can erode or assist the fulfilment of a racehorse. He knew that the system of flesh and blood maintained by those miraculous pumps is always too complex to permit glib answers.

Dostoyevsky identified two types of unhappy fool: the one with a heart and no sense, and the one with sense and no heart. By all means, go ahead and find out all you can about the heart. Maybe you can discern something instructive even in those of immature Thoroughbreds. But do keep your sense, all the same, along with their hearts.

Maybe ventricular capacity can indeed tell us something about stamina, caliber even, and heritability. To me, however, anything that remotely smacks of a “system,” any formula that claims to cut right through the mysteries of our vocation, deserves its place somewhere on the spectrum that starts, at one end, with snake-oil.

Science, with its scrupulous standards of evidence, will doubtless keep inching its way forwards through this whole maze. But in a business where the fast buck is never quite fast enough, some people will never want to hang around and wait.

Needless to say, we all know of highly professional horsemen exploring some of these potential edges. The responsible ones, invariably, will stress that the insights they seek can only address a single facet of what will always remain a very jagged diamond. And, actually, even the people who make it all sound very simple tend to be little more than credulous; fanatical, rather than fraudulent. But while it's a free country, and up to you how to spend your money in this very expensive game, I know what I'd suggest if anybody comes to you with a key to the single, secret lock on Thoroughbred potential. Give them your iciest smile, and wish them good day.

Apart from anything else, in claiming to be able to remove the guesswork, such people are inimical to precisely that element of inspiration which feels, to some of us anyway, most essential to the whole romance of what we do. Yes, some will be supported by wonderful gadgets; all, nowadays, by persuasive software. But give me the unadorned instinct of a seasoned horsemen, every time, and we'll see you out on that proving ground. First to the wooden stick.

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Churchill Schedules Memorial For Doc Richardson On Oct. 2

A public memorial to celebrate the life of the late Dr. J. David “Doc” Richardson will be held Saturday (Oct. 2) at Churchill Downs.

Richardson, the distinguished Louisville surgeon who was an owner, breeder and widely-respected leader in the horse racing industry, died Sept. 7 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. from complications due to a breakthrough COVID infection. He was 76.

The celebration will take place Saturday from 2-4 p.m. (all times Eastern) in the Starting Gate Suites 4th Floor. Guests should enter Churchill Downs via the Executive Gate, which is located next to the Kentucky Derby Museum near the Barbaro horse statue.

Saturday's sixth race, which is scheduled to run at approximately 3:18 p.m., will be dedicated to “Doc” and the “J. David 'Doc' Richardson Celebration of Life” trophy will be presented to the winning connections.

For additional information, visit: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/louisville/name/james-richardson-obituary?pid=200087583.

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‘Tremendous Champion Of Thoroughbred Racing’: Dr. David Richardson Dies At 76

Dr. J. David “Doc” Richardson, the distinguished Louisville surgeon who was an owner, breeder and widely-respected leader in the horse racing industry, died Tuesday at the age of 76. According to the Daily Racing Form, Dr. Richardson had been admitted to a hospital in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. with pneumonia following a COVID-19 diagnosis, then suffered a cardiac event.

“Dr. Richardson positively impacted the lives of countless individuals and meant so much to so many people in this community as well as the horse racing industry,” said Churchill Downs president Mike Anderson. “The Churchill Downs family is absolutely devastated to learn of his passing. He was such a fantastic man of the highest integrity and a tremendous champion of Thoroughbred racing. Our deepest condolences are extended to his numerous friends and family and especially to his children Melissa, Amy and Britton, his wife Maxine and brother Dr. Ron Richardson. Churchill Downs won't be the same without 'Doc' Richardson around.”

Born in Morehead, Ky., Dr. Richardson graduated from Morehead State University and the University of Kentucky's School of Medicine. Dr. Richardson rose to become chief of surgery and vice chair of the University of Louisville's department of surgery. He also was the former chair of the American Board of Surgery and a Regent of the American College of Surgeons.

A cousin of legendary late Hall of Fame trainer Woody Stephens, he bought his first horse in 1975 at age 30 and campaigned his first stakes winner in 1978. Either by himself or in partnerships with others, Dr. Richardson raised and sold more than 1,000 horses that ultimately won races. As an owner, he won more than 100 races in his career. Three-year-old homebred filly Lady Edith provided Richardson and partner Sandra New with a thrill on May 8, 2021 when she won the $108,075 Mamzelle Overnight Stakes at Churchill Downs by a neck at odds of 24-1.

In partnership with his medical and racing colleague Dr. Hiram Polk, Richardson bred and raced multiple stakes winner Mrs. Revere, who won four Churchill Downs stakes races during a two-year reign in 1984-85. Mrs. Revere collected three of those stakes during her 3-year-old season, thus providing Churchill Downs an opportunity to appropriately honor the filly with a Grade 2 stakes event for 3-year-old fillies on turf each fall. They also campaigned the Grade 1 winner Northern Emerald and stakes winners Maria Balastiere, Liz Cee and Harrods Creek.

Dr. Richardson was a member of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and The Jockey Club, also serving on the executive committee and board of trustees for the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, for which he'd been chairman, vice chairman and secretary, and also chaired TOBA's graded stakes committee.

Richardson was on Churchill Downs' racing committee comprised of racetrack representatives and horsemen. He also was a longtime Breeders' Cup board member and past president of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders.

“We are heartbroken and saddened by the passing of Dr. J. David Richardson, a remarkable man both in the medical community and the Thoroughbred industry,” said TOBA president Dan Metzger. “Dr. Richardson gave selflessly of his time in supporting many of our sport's organizations, including four years as TOBA chairman and nine years on the American Graded Stakes Committee, including seven as chairman. He was admired and loved by the countless he touched throughout the industry and we will forever be indebted to him for his steady leadership at TOBA. We send our heartfelt condolences to his wife Maxine, his children Amy, Britt and Melissa, his brothers Ron and Paul and to his entire family. A life well-lived, he will be dearly missed.”

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