Mandy Lynn Delahoussaye, Daughter of Eddie D, Passes at 47

Mandy Lynn Delahoussaye, daughter of retired Hall of Fame jockey Eddie Delahoussaye and his wife Juanita, succumbed to a series of ailments this past Friday at age 47. Mandy, whose aunt, Rose Ann Delahoussaye, was her primary nanny and “Second Momma,” was known to racegoers at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, as she often accompanied her family prior to moving to Louisiana from Arcadia in 2014.

“Mandy was an Angel sent from God to show us the world through her precious, innocent eyes,” reads an obituary posted by her family at www.mourning.com. “When asked, 'Mandy, who you betting on?' She would reply, 'Eddie D!' Mandy loved to bowl, Cajun dance, loved country music and chocolate chip cookies. She could have eaten shrimp every which way, every meal, every day. Mandy loved Christmas and Halloween and anything that involved cake. She loved Lucy, Golden Girls, Little House on the Prairie and last but not least, Everybody Loves Raymond. She will be missed by all who knew her and were blessed to see her smile. Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes.”

Mandy Delahoussaye is survived by family that includes her parents, brother Loren and aunt Rose Ann, as well as longtime close friends Dot and Ray Sibille. Memorial services are scheduled for Wednesday at Martin & Castille Funeral Home in Lafayette at 1 p.m. CT.

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Lighting Safety Concerns Again Delay Return Of Night Racing At Delta Downs

Renewed concerns over the safety of a new LED lighting system installed at Delta Downs prevented the Louisiana State Racing Commission from approving a return to night racing at the Vinton, La. racetrack, reports the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The new system was necessitated by a hurricane wiping out the old lights in August of 2020. Delta first raced under the new lights at night on Oct. 15, when a horse fell at the top of the stretch in the third race and the rest of the card, as well as the Oct. 16 program, were cancelled. Delta has only raced afternoon cards since then, which management maintains is not ideal for handle.

Since then, new lights have been added to the system, and the original ones have been re-aimed to improve coverage. Training in the mornings has occurred under the updated system since Dec. 2, but jockeys like Ty Kennedy, Gerard Melancon, and Tim Thornton expressed that they still don't feel the lights are safe.

Delta's vice president and general manager Steve Kuypers countered by referencing a report written by lighting specialist John Stewart, brought in on Dec. 1, which states that “the only track in the nation with a better lighting system was Churchill Downs.”

“We can't agree on okaying this if the lighting system's not safe for these riders,” Commissioner Eddie Delahoussaye, a retired Hall-of-Fame jockey, told the other commissioners. “Somebody goes and gets killed–I don't want that on my head.”

The LSRC wound up voting unanimously to extend Delta's afternoon racing schedule for an additional 30 days, unless the two parties can agree on the safety of the lights and desire an expedited re-vote prior to that timeframe.

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

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Dispute Over Safety of New Lights Keeps Delta Dark at Night

Strenuous safety-related objections from Delta Downs jockeys about the allegedly inconsistent lighting from a new system that has been installed and tweaked over the course of several months kept the Louisiana State Racing Commission (LSRC) from approving a return to night racing when regulators met for an emergency session to address that one item Monday morning.

Mindy Coleman, an attorney representing The Jockeys' Guild, told commissioners on the Dec. 13 Zoom call that while the Delta-based riders recognize and appreciate the efforts track management has made to try to improve the situation, “there are still some grave concerns” with the recently installed light-emitting diode (LED) system, which was necessitated by the old lights getting wrecked by a hurricane in August 2020.

“It's not the amount of lighting per se. It's more inconsistencies with the distribution of the lighting, and the various shadows and the hot spots on the racetrack,” Coleman said.

Steve Kuypers, Delta's vice president and general manager, disagreed. He said that since the  jockeys first aired their concerns before the LSRC Oct. 26, a lighting contractor has added lower support brackets to 36 poles and attached 64 new light fixtures. These additional lights, in conjunction with the ones installed earlier in the process, have since been re-aimed to improve coverage.

And, Kuypers said, Delta also hired a “highly recognized specialist,” John Stewart, the president of a Kentucky-based entertainment venue design firm, who further offered lighting advice that was implemented Dec. 1.

Kuypers said management, horsemen, and jockeys then walked the track with Stewart while the lights were turned on Dec. 2. He said Delta executives came away from that meeting with the belief that all parties felt the problems had been acceptably rectified.

Kuypers referenced a report Stewart had written that proclaimed the new Delta lights to be “tremendously better than the pre-hurricane lighting.” Kuypers said Stewart also noted in his report that the only track in the nation with a better lighting system was Churchill Downs.

Kuypers also added that “Delta Downs has turned on all the lights and the jockeys [have been training in the pre-dawn hours] without complaint or incident.”

But jockey Ty Kennedy said morning training under the lights isn't the same as night racing in a 10-horse field.

“Yes, we do train under these lights every morning. However, breezing a horse by yourself is a lot different than riding in a race with nine other horses,” Kennedy said.

The first version of Delta's new lighting system was only operational for three races on the first night program of the season Oct. 15 before a horse fell at the top of the stretch.

Fueled by complaints from some jockeys and trainers that areas on the turns were dangerously dark and shadowy, the remainder of that card and the Oct. 16 program were cancelled. Delta, a longtime night-racing fixture, has raced only afternoons since then.

“We haven't seen shadows like these at any other [night] racetrack,” Kennedy said. “These shadows are very inconsistent, and we feel that they can potentially create hazardous situations.”

Jockey Gerard Melancon told commissioners he's walked Delta's track with 20+ riders on several occasions during various stages of the project. He explained that the consensus view among jockeys is that “from the get-go, the lighting wasn't put up high enough…. The lower the lights are, the more it causes shadows.”

Coleman disputed allegations that the jockeys are citing safety concerns because they just don't want to go back to night racing, period. Delta hasn't raced nights since February 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first halted racing. Then the hurricane hit six months later, wiping out the old lights.

Delta management has expressed a belief that a blend of two afternoons and two nights per week is the ideal schedule right now to maximize handle, and the hybrid plan for the current meet was supposed to be Wednesday and Thursday cards at 12:55 p.m. (Central) and Friday and Saturday programs under the lights at 5:55 p.m.

Jockey Tim Thornton also disputed that notion.

“We want to make money,” he said. “If the lights were completely fine, we'd run at two o'clock in the morning. I know that the handle is a big issue. [But] we don't feel that our safety should be in jeopardy because of the handle going down.”

Benard Chatters, the president of the Louisiana Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, has maintained since October that the lights are fine and that his organization wants to go back to night racing.

“I think we have a fabulous lighting system here,” Chatters said.

At a later point, Chatters stated that the Guild's position regarding safety doesn't apply to all Delta-based riders. He offered the analogy that just because some people don't feel safe driving a vehicle at night, that doesn't mean we shut down the entire interstate highway system. The way he sees it, jockeys have a personal choice whether they want to ride or not at night.

“I guarantee there are going to be people who are willing to ride, and that's the reality of this situation,” Chatters said.

Commissioner Tom Calvert wanted to know if any of the jockeys who testified would go on the record as saying the situation was so unsafe that they wouldn't ride at all under the present lights. “Or,” he postulated, “are we in search of optimization, I guess is my question.”

Coleman voiced an opinion that individual riders could answer that question if they wanted to. But she also stated that it could be dangerous for jockeys–either in terms of retaliation or intimidation–if they didn't address the situation by one unified vote as a riding colony.

Kennedy answered the commissioner's question anyway.

“We've had several votes in the room, and it's always been unanimously 'no,'” he said, meaning that riders as a group would not ride at night under the current lighting. Thornton seconded that opinion.

Commissioner Eddie Delahoussaye, a retired Hall-of-Fame jockey, urged fellow commissioners not to vote for allowing Delta to resume night racing until they felt safety was 100% assured.

“We can't agree on okaying this if the lighting system's not safe for these riders,” Delahoussaye said. “Somebody goes and gets killed–I don't want that on my head.”

The LSRC ended up ruling by unanimous voice vote to extend Delta's permission to race days instead of nights for another 30-day period, with the stipulation that both sides can come back to the commission for an expedited re-vote if they reach consensus on the safety of the lighting system before the next commission meeting occurs.

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Hurricane Ida Behind Him, Eddie D At Santa Anita In Spirit For Stakes In His Honor

Eddie Delahoussaye turned 70 on Sept. 21.

Time flies.

Seems like yesterday the Hall of Fame member and Louisiana native was roaring down the stretch at Santa Anita to capture another thrilling victory in a photo finish, or winning the Kentucky Derby back-to-back, on Gato Del Sol in 1982 and Sunny's Halo in 1983.

Delahoussaye is one of only seven jockeys to register consecutive triumphs in 147 editions of the Run for the Roses, the others being Isaac Murphy, Jimmy Winkfield, Ron Turcotte, Calvin Borel, Victor Espinoza and John Velazquez.

Arguably one of the most popular jockeys ever to ride at Santa Anita, Eddie D as he is known among racing aficionados, has been honored at The Great Place by having one of Friday's stakes races named for him.

The $200,000 Eddie D Stakes, for three-year-olds and up, marks a return to Santa Anita's unique hillside turf course at about 6 ½ furlongs, that venue having not been used since March 2019.

The Eddie D is one of four opening day stakes, three of them graded, including the Grade 1 American Pharoah for 2-year-olds at a mile and 1 1/16 miles and the Grade 2 Chandelier Stakes for two-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles. Although not graded, for good measure there's the $100,000 Speakeasy Stakes for two-year-olds at five furlongs on turf.

The latter three are Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” Challenge events giving the winner a fees-paid berth in their respective Breeders' Cup races Nov. 5 and 6 at Del Mar.

Due to Covid 19 both last year and this, and Hurricane Ida, a deadly and destructive Category 4 hurricane that ravaged Louisiana a month ago, Delahoussaye will miss being on hand to present a trophy to the winning connections of the Eddie D for the second year in a row.

But he and his family, wife Juanita, sister Rose Anne and daughter Mandy, who has special needs, escaped serious harm from the second-most damaging and intense hurricane ever to strike Louisiana.

“We got lucky,” Delahoussaye said by phone from his home in Lafayette. “People on both sides of us got hit the worst. We were right in the middle and had winds and rain, but nothing serious. Baton Rouge and most of the coast lines really got blasted.”

Meanwhile, Juanita and Mandy, now 46, are recovering from ailments unrelated to Ida, but otherwise, “Everything's OK. We're just getting older.

“I'm doing all right but Mandy's been sick for over a year,” said Delahoussaye, a Hall of Fame member since 1993 who retired early in 2003 with 6,384 victories after suffering head and neck injuries in a spill at Del Mar on Aug. 30, 2002. “She's still not 100 percent so we've been going through a lot with her, and Juanita had a rotator cuff operation six weeks ago, but she's getting better. I'm lucky my sister and I are healthy to help out.”

Eddie is still “fiddling around” with more than a visceral involvement in the bloodstock business and is a relatively new member of the Louisiana Racing Commission.

“A partner and I have a mare and Juanita and I have another mare, with some babies coming in,” Delahoussaye said. “One's in training right now and another we're putting in a two-year-old in training sale. I've been on the racing commission for about a year, so it all keeps me busy.”

Eddie still maintains contact with his Hall of Fame peers periodically as well.

“I talk with Chris (McCarron) once in a while, and I spoke with Alex (Solis) a couple months ago,” Eddie said. “He was in Florida with Jose Velez, so we got to chattin'.

“I talk to Pat Day once in a while but I haven't talked with Laffit (Pincay Jr.) lately. Usually, I do that once a year, but since the pandemic, I haven't talked to him at all the last two years.”

As to racing's future, what with members of the medical field, politicians and lawyers seemingly in the news as much if not more than the horses, Delahoussaye maintains a wait-and-see attitude.

“The way things are right now, with bad tests and so forth, that needs to be cleaned up,” he said with a hint of acuity. “They should reconsider the use of therapeutic medication being measured in picograms and nanograms which are so small it's almost out of a horse's system. Either we do with it or we do without it.

“If you do without it completely, we won't have racing, because let's face it: football players, baseball players, they all use therapeutic medicine. As long as it's not a stimulant to enhance performance and it's just to help them do what comes naturally, it should be used.

“Get rid of the clenbuterol that enhances their performance. Lasix is a diuretic and is not an enhancer, yet they want to do away with that.

“There are a lot of smart people out there and a lot of science. They can put their heads together and do it right.”

The Eddie D, race seven: Gregorian Chant, Juan Hernandez, 4-1; Caribou Club, Drayden Van Dyke, 6-1; Mesut, Umberto Rispoli, 12-1; Charmaine's Mia, Flavien Prat, 10-1; Law Abidin Citizen, Abel Cedillo, 5-1; Chaos Theory, Kent Desormeaux, 15-1; Lieutenant Dan, Geovanni Franco, 7-2; Whisper Not, John Velazquez, 6-1; and Snapper Sinclair, Joel Rosario, 4-1.

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