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D. Wayne Lukas Will Deliver Keynote Address At National HBPA Convention

D. Wayne Lukas — the most transformative horse trainer in the modern era — will be the keynote speaker at the National HBPA's annual convention in March in Hot Springs, Ark.

“When we seek out our keynote speaker, we look for inspiration and passion,” said Eric Hamelback, chief executive officer of the National Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association. “Not only do we get that in spades with D. Wayne Lukas, but his overall legacy is unmatched in horse racing.

“Yet it's not only that Wayne has impacted so many aspects of racing with his well-known accomplishments and vision. He also has been an extraordinary ambassador for our industry in so many unpublicized and behind-the-scenes ways. There's no telling how many little kids will become diehard racing enthusiasts because D. Wayne invited them into the winner's circle after one of his victories.”

Lukas will address the convention on March 2, the first full day of the HBPA convention at Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, Ark. Details on registration and agenda will be available soon at nationalhbpa.com. The convention, staged in Oaklawn's new hotel overlooking the track's first turn, kicks off March 1 with a cocktail reception at the track, with program sessions March 2, 3 and the morning of March 4, followed by an afternoon at the races. The HBPA's full board convenes March 5 to wrap up the event.

“This is a step forward for me to be involved in a horsemen's association as strong as the HBPA,” said Lukas, long known as horse racing's No. 1 motivational speaker. “I'm looking forward to it. I'll try to stimulate them and give the attendees a good feeling as to where we're going and what's about to happen. All of my speeches try to influence people as to what their capabilities are and how to enjoy them.

“I'm 86. Very few men or women in that room will be 86. So I've been where they haven't: I've been 45, 50, 60, 70 and they haven't. I want to bring that experience — good and bad — about our industry to the table.”

In a Thoroughbred career that began in 1974 when he was a leading Quarter Horse trainer, Lukas set record after record. That includes being the first trainer to earn $100 million and then $200 million in purses, possessing the most Breeders' Cup victories (20), the most Triple Crown race wins (14, before being passed by Bob Baffert) and a record 26 individual horses to be crowned an Eclipse Award champion, including three that were voted Horse of the Year.

Lukas has won both the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes four times and the Preakness six times, most recently with Oxbow in 2013 at age 77. He is the only trainer to sweep the Triple Crown races in one year with two different horses and at one stage won a record six consecutive Triple Crown races (1994 Preakness through the 1996 Derby). Lukas also is the only trainer enshrined in both the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame (1999) for Thoroughbreds and the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame (2007).

The basketball coach turned horse trainer transformed American racing at the top end, meshing a more corporate-focused approach to a tireless work ethic.

His divisions across the country shared a certain look and feel. The pristine barn, surrounded by immaculate landscaping, with polished tack boxes and shedrow raked in a herringbone pattern became part of a marketing strategy and attention to detail designed to appeal to affluent owners. Lukas made white bridles famous and sparked the handicapping maxim “Wayne off the plane” for flying horses around the country for big stakes, seemingly going straight from touch down to winner's circle.

Aspiring to get as many of his clients to the big races as possible, Lukas never hesitated to run stablemates against each other, saying they had to beat the best to be the best. That included when his 2-year-old champion Timber Country beat 1995 Kentucky Derby winner Thunder Gulch in the Preakness, perhaps costing himself a Triple Crown sweep as Thunder Gulch went on to win the Belmont Stakes.

“We'll never see another trainer like Wayne — certainly not one who at age 86 not only competes at a high level but is still accompanying every set to the track on his pony,” Hamelback said. “There are Hall of Famers, there are icons, and there is D. Wayne Lukas.”

The HBPA convention also will include legal topics and discussions centering on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, scheduled to go into effect July 1 amid serious questions and court challenges; crisis-management recommendations; creating positive interactions with local, state and federal representatives; utilizing the guest-worker visa programs; fixed odds' place in American racing, and the annual Kent Stirling Memorial Medication Panel addressing the need for screening limits.

Also: Louis Cella, president of Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, will address the assembly on March 4; the HBPA's Claiming Horse of the Year for 2021 will be honored; and Friday the 4th, Oaklawn and the Arkansas HBPA will host an afternoon at the races for conference participants.

“The HBPA convention is designed to provide or work toward solutions for complex issues facing the industry, while also sharing information and programs that make a difference,” Hamelback said. “We can't thank Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort management and staff and the Arkansas HBPA enough for all their assistance in staging what we are proud to call one of the industry's most informative gatherings.”

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Op/Ed: Horsemen’s Groups Turn Their Backs on Honest Trainers, Owners

If you are an owner and trainer who plays by the rules, the last several years should have been hard to swallow. Racing, with its broken system, has proven unable to police itself and the result has been that cheaters have prospered and have done so at the expense of the vast majority of horsemen who do things right. Armed with syringes, the bad guys have been stealing money from the good guys. Lots of it.

Which is exactly why every honest horsemen should be 100% behind the Horseracing Integrity Safety and Integrity Act (HISA). It will give them a fighting chance.

HISA is not a magic bullet and it will not solve all of the sport's problems. Cheating will never go away totally. What HISA will do is to usher in a competent, effective system to police the sport. Instead of relying on each individual state and a system of drug testing that never really catches anybody, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) will take over, responsible for leveling what has been, for far too long, an uneven playing field. There is no doubt that USADA is going to make it a lot harder to get away with cheating.

Many prominent horsemen have come out in favor of HISA, but their voice was drowned out by the news that broke Monday that the National HBPA, along with 11 individual state horsemen's groups, was suing to put the brakes on HISA. This would be like Citibank suing for more lenient penalties for bank robbers. It makes absolutely no sense.

The lawsuit was filed by the Liberty Justice Center, which calls itself a non-profit public-interest litigation center that was founded to fight against political privilege. In a statement the group released Monday, USADA was never mentioned. Instead, the group contended that HISA is unconstitutional and, therefore, should be struck down.

It's hard to imagine that there is one horsemen anywhere who cares one bit whether or not HISA is unconstitutional or not. Instead, one is left to connect the dots and after doing so, it wouldn't be hard to reach the conclusion that the only reason to have HISA overturned would be that they prefer the status quo over a new system under the control of USADA. That is to say that they are fine with a system that rewards cheats at the expense of the very people who make up the majority of their membership. Trainers and owners represented by the groups that are part of the suit should be outraged.

It's not at all clear that the actions taken by the National HBPA and its affiliate groups even have the backing of the majority of horsemen nationwide. Many prominent trainers and owners have been outspoken in their belief that something must change and that HISA is the best route out of this morass. And several key state horsemen's groups were nowhere to be found among the press releases and statements issued Monday. Some of them have, in fact, come out in favor of HISA.

That doesn't mean that there aren't trainers who side with the HBPAs. The National HBPA issued a press release that included comments of support from a handful of owners or trainers, among them Ron Moquett, who said, “My job is to take care of horses and the people who help me take care of horses. I don't see how this does any of that. I definitely agree there are some things we should do to better the industry. But this legislation takes you down a bunch of back, curvy roads where you don't know where you're going. Change for the sake of change does not solve problems and is likely to create new ones.”

Moquett is exactly the type of trainer who should enthusiastically support HISA. There's every reason to believe that he is as honest as they come. The trainer of the venerable Whitmore (Pleasantly Perfect), he has never been involved in any sort of scandal and his lifetime winning rate of 12% suggests that his horses are running on nothing more than hay, oats and water. It's the Ron Moquetts of the world who are getting pounded by those who have a chemical edge. If he does not believe that he has never been beaten by a cheater, I suggest that he is hopelessly naive. It's probably happened dozens, if not hundreds, of times.

The backers of HISA, including The Jockey Club, seem confident that the horsemen's lawsuit will eventually end in defeat. That doesn't mean there won't be damage done. HISA is supposed to go in effect by July 1, 2022. Because of the lawsuit, that date could be in jeopardy. If the HBPAs and the Liberty Justice Center want to go to the mat on this one, they very well could tie things up for years in the courts. That would do demonstrable harm to a sport that is trying to clean up its act and send a message to its many critics that it takes the issues of doping and horse safety very seriously.

A horsemen's group should be looking out for all of its members, which means it should be leading the fight for integrity. That they are standing in its way is very sad.

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Iowa HBPA’s Moss Wants To Stop Recently Signed HISA Law From Being Implemented

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, signed into law on Dec. 27, 2020, has been billed as the impetus for significant changes in the United States horse racing industry. The Iowa Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association executive director Jon Moss isn't sure that's a good thing, according to radioiowa.com.

“This new group that is being formed is unchecked in how much they can charge us as the state of Iowa in order to actually regulate the racing industry within the state,” Moss told radioiowa.com. “There's going to be a reckoning coming — we're going to be in a tough position. We may reach out and request something of your assistance to try and help stop this from being implemented.”

By law, the latest HISA can go into effect is July 1, 2022. The previously formed nominating committee is in the process of selecting the nine members who will comprise the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (five independent members from outside of the horse industry, four from within the industry but without current investments or conflicts of interest). The Authority has been charged with contracting with the United States Anti-Doping Agency to oversee the anti-doping/medication control program on a national basis.

Two working committees also will be named. For more information on what comes next, read answers to frequently asked questions, as supplied by Marc Summers, vice president and general counsel for The Jockey Club, which helped steer the legislation through Congress.

The Week in Review: HBPA Says ‘Ramrodded’ Integrity Act Could Get Challenged As ‘Unconstitutional’

If the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) gets passed by the United States Senate and then signed into federal law, the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) could launch a legal challenge against it based on the alleged unconstitutionality of the independently overseen anti-doping, drug testing, and racetrack safety standard programs that the new federal law would create.

Leroy Gessmann, who serves as both the NHBPA president and as Arizona HBPA’s executive director, told commissioners at the Oct. 8 Arizona Racing Commission (AZRC) meeting that “this thing is being ramrodded right now by [U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell…. We feel this thing is unconstitutional, just as the ban on sports betting was unconstitutional. We have the same attorneys looking into it.”

Gessmann did not speak in specifics about which aspects of the bill the NHBPA considered unconstitutional. Nor did he outline what the purported similarities were to the federal ban on sports betting that got overturned by a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Although previous versions of the Integrity Act have existed in the House of Representatives since 2015, the Senate version of the HISA (SB 4547) that was introduced by McConnell Sept. 9 has language that now matches the amended House version that passed with bipartisan support Sept. 29. As the majority leader, McConnell determines which bills come up for action in the Senate, and the longtime Kentucky legislator has consistently indicated he’s strongly in favor of a vote on HISA happening prior to the end of the current legislative session.

Gessmann’s comments came 22 minutes into an AZRC presentation last Thursday that detailed possible implications of the HISA on the sport’s regulation in Arizona. He was asked by the commission if he’d like to speak on the issue, and to clarify if he’d be commenting personally or as an HBPA representative.

“I’m going to speak on this topic as the National HBPA president,” Gessmann said. “Although there are a few good things in this bill, there’s a lot of concerns…. There’s been a version of this bill for six years in the House, and it’s never gone anywhere. And then when McConnell teamed up with Keeneland, Churchill, The Jockey Club, this thing all of a sudden took off.

“National HBPA is against this bill because of the Lasix issue [and] because of the formation of the Authority,” Gessmann said. “The Authority is made up of nine members, and they are appointed, they’re not elected [and] they can have nothing to do with the horse industry. They can have no experience or be involved in any way in the horse industry. [So] how [you] take people that don’t know anything about a horse and put them in charge of such an operation is beyond me.

“The other key issue [is] the expense of this is going to be a burden on the horsemen,” Gessmann continued. “Every start, you’re going to be assessed. The tracks are going to be assessed, and the state is going to be assessed to pay for this Authority and to oversee this thing on a national basis. Although we feel as horsemen the safety of the tracks are important, [there] is going to be major concerns with the safety of the racetracks, especially in Arizona.”

Gessmann did not elaborate on why Arizona, in particular, would face outsized concerns about racetrack safety.

At a later point in the discussion, Gessmann was asked how McConnell’s re-election bid factored into the outcome of the HISA bill.

“McConnell is trying to get it passed through in the ‘lame duck’ session before it ends, before his term ends,” Gessmann said. “If they don’t get it done in the lame duck session, then the bill dies, and they have to start all over.”

GovTrack, a legislative transparency organization that uses logistic regression analysis to rank the likelihood of passage of the 10,000 bills that come up annually in Congress, currently gives HR 1754 a 63% chance of being enacted.

SB 4547 is ranked at 21% chance to be enacted. The discrepancy between the two numbers no doubt reflects that the House version has already been passed by that chamber; McConnell’s considerable political clout is apparently not factored into the algorithm.

Either way, both prediction rates are astounding considering that GovTrack gave the Integrity Act only a 2% chance of being enacted when the first version of the bill debuted back in 2015.

An Unlikely 0-Fer

Considering his dauntingly long list of graded-stakes-winning achievements, it was a bit of surprise to learn that trainer Todd Pletcher had been shut out of the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup until Saturday, when ‘TDN Rising Star’ Happy Saver (Super Saver) shot through at the rail to claw out a three-quarter-length victory in the traditional season-capping highlight of the Belmont Park autumn meet.

According to the count by the New York Racing Association press department, Pletcher had been 0-for-23 in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, with seven second-place finishes.

That included last year’s version of the Gold Cup, in which Vino Rosso crossed the wire first but was disqualified and placed second for causing interference in the stretch. (Vino Rosso avenged that DQ by winning the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic in his next start).

“Not only had we not won it, we’d suffered some really close defeats. And then throw in a disqualification on top of that, and it’s been a frustrating one over the years,” Pletcher said. “This one was fun. It’s one of the races that has been hard on us. We’ve had some tough losses and it was very fulfilling to win it today.”

Five of those runner-up efforts were by margins of a length or less, including near-misses by Lawyer Ron to Curlin (a neck in 2007) and by Newfoundland to Funny Cide (three-quarters of a length in 2004).

BC Juvenile Getting Interesting

With a pair of undefeated colts now on a collision course for the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the premier campaign-capping race for 2-year-old males is shaping up to be one of the more anticipated showdowns on the docket for the Nov. 6-7 championships at Keeneland.

Jackie’s Warrior (Maclean’s Music) commandeered the early pace in confident fashion, then was hand-ridden home after edging away under pressure in the stretch to romp home by 5 1/2 lengths in Saturday’s GI Champagne S. at Belmont. He’s now a perfect four-for-four and looms as the top East Coast-based juvenile heading to Lexington.

It’s presumed he’ll vie for favoritism in the Juvenile with home-court hopeful Essential Quality (Tapit), a ‘TDN Rising Star’ who broke his maiden by four lengths when favored on the GI Kentucky Derby undercard, then pasted the GI Breeders’ Futurity field at Keeneland Oct. 3 by employing assertive, pace-pressing tactics to engineer an at-will 3 1/2-length score.

The Juvenile itself is very much in need of a reboot after last year’s edition proved to be one of the weakest in the race’s history. Storm the Court (Court Vision) was the $93.80 winner. But he, and the race’s other top four finishers, have yet to win another race.

In fact, the field of eight that contested last year’s Juvenile now stands as a collective 2-for-33. The only horses to subsequently visit the winner’s circle have been the Japan-based Full Flat (Speightstown), who won the Saudi Derby Cup in Saudi Arabia back on Feb. 29, and Shoplifted (Into Mischief), who won the Springboard Mile at Remington Park last Dec. 15.

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