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TVG Live On Site For Opening Days At Gulfstream, Oaklawn Park

Two of America's premier race meets will open this weekend and TVG will bring live coverage of opening day at Oaklawn Park and Gulfstream Park's Championship Meet into the homes of horse racing fans across the country.

TVG's Mike Joyce will be reporting live from Arkansas throughout the weekend as Oaklawn Park kicks off the racing season on Friday with a nine-race card featuring the $150,000 Advent Stakes for 2-year-olds. The race has drawn a field of ten including the 5-2 morning line favorite Cairama for Steve Asmussen. A $525,000 purchase at OBS in March, the son of Cairo Prince will have Ricardo Santana, Jr. in the irons. The stakes action will continue on Saturday with the $150,000 Mistletoe Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

Gulfstream Park's Championship Meet will begin on Saturday and TVG's coverage will include the addition of the Jockey Cam which allows the viewers to view the action through the eyes of some of the best jockeys in the world. This popular technology debuted in California this summer. Larry Collmus will be on-site daily with expert insight and analysis throughout the meet. Saturday's opening day card features two stakes races for 2-year-olds – the $75,000 Pulpit Stakes and the $75,000 Wait a While Stakes for fillies. Both races are scheduled to be run at one mile on the turf.

The Championship Meet runs through April 3rd and is highlighted by the $3 million Pegasus World Cup (G1) on Jan. 29 and the $1 million Florida Derby (GI) on April 2.

In addition to racing from Oaklawn Park and Gulfstream Park, TVG will be featuring racing from Los Alamitos, Tampa Bay Downs, Fair Grounds, Aqueduct and more. Fans can tune in on TVG, TVG2 and the Watch TVG app which is available on Amazon Fire, Roku and connected Apple TV devices.

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Letter To The Editor: John Good

An open letter to Ben Huffman, Chris Polzin, Dan Bork, and Tyler Picklesimer, racing secretaries at CD & KEE, IND, ELP and KD, respectively–

The Thoroughbred racing industry continues to demonstrate its willingness to embrace technology, innovation and transparency for the long-term good of the sport. Our recent flagship events and race meets have been a credit to the sport– a phenomenal product showcasing the equine and human stars and stories, and generating record handle. There is national TV exposure that we could have once only dreamed of. History will look kindly on those who had the resolve to pursue HISA, and 2022 promises to usher in a new era that will finally standardize regulations and practices within the sport. The much-needed increase in purse money in Kentucky and elsewhere has helped create a more viable environment for owners and trainers, and is finally offsetting years of stagnation in purses, while the costs of raising and training Thoroughbreds appreciated unabated.

Moments like these can also be opportunities to re-evaluate business models and think outside the box. A bold proposal would be to double the claiming price of every race when the condition books are written for Keeneland, Churchill and Indiana Grand next spring. With the current purse structure, the horses should be worth more. The horses are worth more. This explains the absolute claiming frenzy of today–sometimes dozens of claims in for a single horse–resulting in millions of dollars each racing week going unspent. This presents an opportunity to impact the economic outlook of buying at the yearling and 2-year-old-in-training sales. Of course, anytime you buy an unraced youngster at an auction, you're trying to buy a classic contender, and the dream is always alive until proven otherwise. But if an increase in claiming prices, one that appreciated in tandem with increased purses (double), supported the idea that “my thirty-grand claimer would now be a sixty-grand claimer”, that would have a dramatic effect on the mentality of buyers at auction, serving as an incentive to have more would-be claiming owners participate in auctions. It would be the ultimate shot in the arm for that precarious “middle market,” and could impact the economics of breeding and raising Thoroughbreds for a generation to come.

How to implement? The condition could read something like: Claiming Price $50,000. For horses that have not started for more than $25,000 in their last 2 starts (races where entered in Kentucky or Indiana since April 8, 2022 not considered). This would imply that once the horse had started twice under the new structure, the connections would be free to enter for any price. Upper-echelon claimers could be raised by a declining percentage scale if deemed appropriate. If this continued through the fall, it would achieve a significant rebalancing of value in the Thoroughbreds racing in Kentucky and Indiana, and galvanize other circuits to reciprocate.

As a fringe benefit, we'd also achieve a more palatable ratio of equine value to available purse money, removing a potential focal point from those who will use any hint of prosperity within the sport as propaganda to further their cause of seeking the demise of the whole industry.

If we don't do it now, when do we do it? When does the baseline value of the horse, so easily definable once he is racing, appreciate in value to reflect his earning potential? Is a $30,000 horse still a $30,000 horse in 2045, as he was in 1997? If so, how does the early development of these Thoroughbreds remain feasible, given the inflation experienced with the associated costs?

John Good is a former trainer on the Kentucky circuit, who served prior to that as a longtime assistant to Bob Baffert and also worked under legendary Irish trainer Dermot Weld. Good transitioned away from Thoroughbreds in 2015, but remains an avid fan of racing

The post Letter To The Editor: John Good appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Hall Of Famer John Velazquez Will Ride Full-Time At Santa Anita This Winter

For the first time in his illustrious 32-year career, Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez will ride full-time this winter at Santa Anita, beginning with the track's opening day, Sunday, Dec. 26.

A 50-year-old native of Puerto Rico, “Johnny V.” as he's affectionately known, is Thoroughbred racing's all-time leading money winning jockey, with career purse earnings of more than $446 million from 6,357 wins. A winner of four Kentucky Derbies, including this year's running with Medina Spirit, Velazquez has won 17 Breeders' Cup races, including the 2020 Breeders' Cup Classic with Authentic.

A dominant force on the East Coast for many years, Velazquez, who broke his maiden in Puerto Rico on Jan. 3, 1990, began riding full-time in New York later that year and was soon befriended by legendary Puerto Rican Hall of Famer Angel Cordero, Jr., who served as an invaluable mentor as Velazquez sought to immerse himself in American culture.

When Cordero retired from the saddle, he became Velazquez's agent in 1998. The results were instantaneous and they were remarkable, as Velazquez, who rode “first-call” for top trainer Todd Pletcher, would go on to become Saratoga's all-time leading jockey and become America's leading rider by money-won in 2004 and 2005, winning Eclipse Award Champion Jockey honors in both years as well.

Although he enjoyed tremendous success with Cordero, Velazquez shifted gears in late 2019, as he hired superstar agent Ron Anderson, who at the time was working for Joel Rosario, whom he continues to represent.

“We're looking to winter out there instead of going to Florida, we're looking for some sort of change,” said Anderson, himself a Southern California native. “Johnny's at a point, we're looking for good horses, graded stakes and the like…He'll be in and out (of town) a little bit, but something different. I think he's very excited about being there. His wife Leona went out and got a place over the weekend.

“He'll be riding for everybody, Bob Baffert, Doug O'Neill, Richie Baltas, Dick Mandella, everybody. I'll piece that together as we go. The first condition book came out (Monday) and I've already got a few guys that are knocking on the door.”

Far beyond his tremendous success as a rider, John Velazquez, who also serves as Chairman of the Board of the National Jockeys' Guild and as a board member of the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, is revered by jockeys and horsemen nationwide for his unwavering commitment to his fellow riders and the betterment of the sport in general.

“He's one of the greatest guys ever,” said Anderson. “What he does for the Jockeys' Guild and all the time he puts in, the meetings and following up with individual riders through a lot of situations…He's just different. He's really, really a special person at the end of the day. He's positive, he's classy, he's considerate, he's kind to everybody.

“As a rider, his numbers and his records speak for themselves. He's the number one leading rider of all-time. You'll see, he's just a special person.”

Anderson also noted that although Velazquez will be based at Santa Anita through the month of March, he will also be flying out of town to ride in major stakes such as the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park Jan. 29 and other races nationally and internationally as well.

Velazquez, a winner of Santa Anita's 2009 George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award, also notched a significant milestone at Santa Anita, when he passed retired Hall of Famer Jerry Bailey with his 661st graded stakes winner aboard the Baffert-trained Bast in the Grade 1 Chandelier Stakes here on Sept. 27, 2019—making him racing's all-time leading graded stakes winning jockey.

Velazquez will be joining a star-studded riding colony headed by the likes of Flavien Prat, Juan Hernandez, Umberto Rispoli, Joe Bravo, Abel Cedillo and fellow Hall of Famers Kent Desormeaux, Victor Espinoza and Mike Smith.

First post time for an 11-race card on Santa Anita's Winter/Spring Meet opening day, Dec. 26, is at 11 a.m. For additional information, please visit santaanita.com or call (626) 574-RACE.

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Oaklawn Park Kicks Off December Racing With Ten 2-Year-Olds In $150,000 Advent Stakes

Friday's $150,000 Advent, Oaklawn's first stakes race for 2-year-olds in almost 50 years, has drawn of a field 10, including unbeaten maiden special weights graduate Higher Standard for trainer Tom Amoss.

Probable post time for the 6-furlong Advent, is 3:46 p.m. (Central). It goes as the eighth of nine races for Oaklawn's first of 66 scheduled live programs during the expanded 2021-2022 season.

Higher Standard, a son of super sire Into Mischief, was a 5 ¾-length debut winner sprinting Nov. 14 at Churchill Downs for Amoss. Higher Standard recorded a 5-furlong bullet workout (:59.20) Nov. 24 at Churchill Downs in advance of the Advent.

“Getting him ready to run at the Churchill Downs fall meet, he did everything right,” the Fair Grounds-based Amoss said. “We were really excited about our first start with him. First-time starters, sometimes they don't perform up to standards and they need that race to learn from. He was a real pro. He broke very sharp. He took it to that field and he really won with ease. I don't usually come back with a horse that quick off a debut win. But assessing our options, and hoping to get black type, this seemed like a really good fit.”

Advent entrants from the rail out:

Charter Oak, Luis Contreras to ride, 117 pounds, 5-1 on the morning line
Kavod, Francisco Arrieta, 117, 6-1
Forty Stripes, David Cohen, 117, 10-1
Ruggs, Martin Garcia, 117, 10-1
Oro Azteca, Ramon Vazquez, 117, 10-1
B Sudd, David Cabrera, 117, 6-1
Sonnyisnotsofunny, Cristian Torres, 117, 15-1
Impulsus, Luis Quinonez, 114, 30-1
Cairama, Ricardo Santana Jr., 117, 5-2
Higher Standard, Florent Geroux, 117, 3-1

“I think outside posts at Oaklawn, the farther you get outside, the worse off you are,” Amoss said. “But I'm hearing the rumor that there will be a couple of scratches and it will be a more compact field, so I will say, based on that, it's a good post to have. We're an athletic and quick horse at the gate. There are a few others that are, also, and normally when you get into that situation, it's nice to have that outside post to be able to kind of look over and see what everybody's doing before you make your decision whether to continue forward or sit off the pace a little bit.”

Cairama, a supplemental nominee, will be racing on Lasix for the first time for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen. Cairama cuts back to a sprint after finishing fifth in the $150,000 Nashua Stakes (G3) at 1 mile Nov. 7 at Belmont Park.

Ruggs was a three-length debut winner Nov. 15 at Remington Park for trainer Ron Moquett of Hot Springs. Ruggs is the first scheduled Oaklawn starter for Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year and North America's leading freshman sire in 2021.

The inaugural Advent is among three 2-year-old races on Friday's card, which marks Oaklawn's earliest season opener in history. Oaklawn's last stakes race for 2-year-olds was the split Ballerina for fillies April 5, 1973. Oaklawn's last race for 2-year-olds was March 27, 1975.

First post Friday is 12:30 p.m. (Central).

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