The New York Racing Association Inc. [NYRA] will host a Cross Country Pick 5 on Saturday featuring stakes action from both Belmont Park and Churchill Downs.
Belmont will host the first two legs, starting with the $100,000 Seek Again for 4-year-olds and up going one mile on the Widener turf in Race 9 at 5:12 p.m. Eastern. Grade 1-winner Decorated Invader will headline the field, with the Christophe Clement trainee, who won the 2020 Grade 2 Pennine Ridge and the Grade 2 Hall of Fame, facing talented competition.
Among those contenders will be Get Smokin, who started his 4-year-old campaign with a three-quarter length score in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay going 1 1/16 miles on February 6.
Trainer Chad Brown will send out a pair of contenders, with Delaware, who won the Danger's Hour at Aqueduct last month to mark his first North American win in seven starts since arriving from Europe in 2019, and Flavius, who ran second to Count Again in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap in November at Del Mar.
Belmont's 10th race finale at 5:44 p.m. will see a field of filly and mare maiden claimers 3-years-old and up compete at 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf. The hard-luck Emma and I, who has ran second by a neck in both of her last two starts, has been knocking on the door for trainer James Ryerson, with three runner-up finishes and two third-place efforts in seven career starts. Emma and I earned a field-best 60 Beyer Speed Figure last out going 1/16 miles on May 1 over the Belmont turf, marking her first start on grass after her three previous outings were on the main track.
Night racing at Churchill will comprise the final three legs, with a 1 1/16-mile main track maiden special weight slated for Race 7 at 9:05 p.m. Closet Shopper, a $600,000 purchase at the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, has twice placed in five career starts, with the Gregory Foley trainee running third last out on April 9 going one mile at Keeneland. Foley will also send out Kizzy B, 0-5-2 in 10 career races, but has earned placings in three consecutive starts.
A one-mile allowance optional claiming tilt will be the wager's penultimate contest in Race 8 at 9:39 p.m. Finnick the Fierce, who was on the early 2020 Triple Crown trail with a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby and later a seventh-place finish in the Grade 2 Blue Grass in July. Finnick the Fierce ran seventh in a turf optional claimer last out on April 30 at Churchill but will be returning to the main track on Saturday.
The Cross Country Pick 5 finale will showcase the $110,000 Keertana for older fillies and mares going 1 1/2 miles on the turf set for Race 9 at 10:11 p.m. Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott will send out Delta's Kingdom, who has twice finished as the runner-up in graded stakes competition in the Grade 3 Bewitch last out in April at Keeneland and the Grade 3 La Prevoyante in January at Gulfstream Park sandwiched around a fourth-place effort in the Grade 3 Orchid in March in Florida. The field also includes Silverton Hill's homebred Pass the Plate, who finished a neck behind Delta's Kingdom in the Bewitch at Keeneland when stretching out to 1 ½ miles for the first time.
The minimum bet for the multi-track, multi-race wager is 50 cents. Wagering on the Cross Country Pick 5 is also available on ADW platforms and at simulcast facilities across the country. Every week will feature a mandatory payout of the net pool.
The Cross Country Pick 5 will continue each Saturday throughout the year. For more information, visit NYRABets.com.
Cross Country Pick 5 – Saturday, May 22:
Leg A: Belmont– Race 9, Seek Again (5:12 p.m.)
Leg B: Belmont – Race 10 (5:44 p.m.)
Leg C: Churchill – Race 7 (9:05 p.m.)
Leg D: Churchill – Race 8 (9:39 p.m.)
Leg E: Churchill – Race 9, Keertana (10:11 p.m.)
In one corner of racing's integrity infrastructure, one trillionth of a gram – a picogram – is regulated.
In the other, jockeys and trainers go unquestioned about in-race decisions or tactics, state veterinarians are not required to report publicly about episodes of bleeding or lameness after races, provide detailed reasons for scratches and voided claims, thrown shoes, or other measures which are standard across the rest of the racing world.
The gap must be narrowed.
In the concluding installment of “Wagering Insecurity,” we offer four observations from the process of compiling this series.
PART 12 – PRAVDA
In this final installment of “Wagering Insecurity,” we make four observations which have become clear. These are the product of input from many individuals, both named and anonymous, whose support throughout this series and whose assistance made it possible. .
The Thoroughbred Idea Foundation supports the growth of the North American Thoroughbred racing industry. We want more horseplayers and more horse owners. That sort of future is impossible without beginning the process of adopting the recommendations offered previously and considering the observations below.
OBSERVATION #1
Medication use has dominated public discourse on North American racing integrity over the last three decades. The history is long and contentious.
For context, the 2021 Kentucky Derby was the first run since 1985 where the entire field ran without Lasix. Five years after that, the topic was front and center on Derby Day as exemplified in this video below, of the 1990 Kentucky Derby broadcast, where Al Michaels and Dave Johnson spoke of a Jockey Club study about the potential impact of Lasix use.
Michaels said it would be a story to follow throughout the summer. Regardless of the study's specifics, it took more than three decades for action.
Anti-doping control programs are a necessary component of a broader suite of integrity measures. But balance is needed; progress must be shown in other areas of the integrity arena, too.
There are many factors which have contributed to North American racing's issues with doping, including a weak regulatory structure, a laissez-faire culture about drugs and a general failure to be active overseers of the sport, protecting the betting public.
One area where racing has gotten it right is in constantly improving thresholds of testing. A wealth of well-educated experts has ensured that as science and testing improve, racing's approach to testing evolves as well.
But the contrast with other forms of racing's integrity infrastructure should not be lost.
In one corner, one-trillionth of a gram can be measured. Penalties may be assessed becaue of that microscopic finding. In another corner, jockeys and trainers go unquestioned about in-race decisions or tactics, state veterinarians are not required to report publicly any episodes of bleeding or lameness noticed after a race or provide reasons for scratches and voided claims, thrown shoes, or other measures which are standard across the rest of the racing world.
That gap needs to be closed.
OBSERVATION #2
North American stewards fall short of those in the rest of the developed racing world. The blame resides with the regulators and track operators (yes, sometimes stewards are hired directly by the tracks) who have allowed these roles to degrade over time.
They have less training, are paid less and have not been given responsibilities commensurate with the worldwide expectations for such positions. As many veterans of the stewards' stand and other officials have retired, their replacements are often even less prepared.
A positive development in this space came in August 2019 when the Jockey Club and Racing Officials Accreditation Program announced the launch of a global exchange program which would give North American stewards the opportunity to learn and practice in other countries. The pandemic delayed implementation, but the program should be embraced as the world reopens.
The Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority (HISA) presents a vehicle for uplifting these standards.
TIF founder Craig Bernick is hopeful HISA evolves to tackle these issues, and the opportunities raised in Part 11 of this series.
“This time, it actually feels different. HISA offers racing a unique opportunity because it has superseding power over existing industry organizations.
“Past efforts to reform our sport have failed because of two main reasons – either the groups or organizations involved were not empowered to effect change or those involved were too focused on their own bottom line or retaining some semblance of control.”
While many horse and racetrack owners may have enjoyed slot-supplemented revenues and purses over more than the last two decades, additional funding has not found its way to racing's integrity infrastructure and the neglect shows.
Several stewards and racing officials consulted during TIF's research for the “Wagering Insecurity” series, who all requested anonymity to speak forthrightly, shared examples of poor working conditions, obsolete technology and general concerns over their ability to do their job well at present.
Uplifting standards will not be cheap, but the cost of not improving will be far greater for everyone who makes their living in racing.
OBSERVATION #3
A troublesome factor which belies all of the detail shared in this series is the absence of a robust, independent racing media in North America.
While racing has several influential trade publications and broadcasts with some very talented, knowledgable staff which contribute significantly to the sport, mainstream, independent coverage is practically non-existent.
Steve Crist, former publisher of the Daily Racing Form, lamented the state of racing coverage in March 2021 remarks to TIF for this series.
“Anyone from the outside who has seen the evolution of coverage of the sport can say that the kind of journalism which existed, even 10 years ago, is just not being done.
“This is a huge issue. It's nearly impossible to hold anyone accountable for anything.”
Crist recalled a time when he was a young reporter for the New York Times in the early 1980s, covering the ongoing hearings and legal wranglings around race-fixing from the 1970s. The coverage was endless, Crist recalls.
“I was working for the Times and there were three other racing beat reporters from each of the tabloids doing the same. Everyone wanted to be first.”
His work included eye-popping ledes, like the following from a 1981 piece:
“A former New York-based trainer has identified Jacinto Vasquez, a leading rider who has twice won the Kentucky Derby, as the man who offered the jockey Mike Hole a $5,000 bribe to hold back a horse at Saratoga in 1974, according to a deposition given to the State Racing and Wagering Board.”
Adjusting for inflation, a $5,000 bribe in 1974 would be about $26,000 today, the equivalent jockey's cut for winning a race with a purse of more than $400,000.
Most public racing coverage is restrained because advertising dollars come from within the industry itself. Mainstream coverage, when it happens, is often fleeting.
Crist thinks this is dangerous for a sport whose foundation is grounded in wagering.
“A media outlet in racing should not be compared to a propaganda machine like Pravda from the old Soviet Union, but in at least one case, that's what we now have.”
The line between journalism and publicity has been increasingly blurred.
Industry publications are hard-pressed to hold tracks, tote companies, ADWs and other-related organizations accountable for the degradation of the sport's integrity infrastructure when those same entities are their primary source of income through advertising. Years ago when he was with the New York Times, Crist and his mainstream media colleagues were in those roles. Today, coverage is mostly limited to the trades.
Several racing writers and broadcasters questioned by TIF acknowledged these issues are ever-present in their daily work. They all asked to remain anonymous because of a fear of reprisal from their employers and contacts within the industry. Staffing within industry media has contracted substantially in recent years, reducing the opportunity for deep coverage. Those in place are doing the best they can with what they have, but it is a delicate balance. One said the situation has devolved to such a degree that they know instinctively what topics are off-limits.
Criticism about the industry's integrity failings and other myriad issues could come at significant cost to racing media.
Those with substantial investments in horses, farms, associated agribusiness and other economic drivers of the sport should recognize that racing media must be given the freedom to hold the business to a higher standard than at present.
In the long run, the truth benefits the greatest number of stakeholders.
OBSERVATION #4
The overall wagering space is changing rapidly. Fixed odds betting for racing in North America is a necessity for one key reason – all new betting customers expect to know what price they are getting on their bets. While pari-mutuel betting still has a future, particularly in exotic wagers, the tote monopoly which has existed for generations on U.S. racing is coming to an end, as it should.
The tote protocol in use now, relying on a decades-old approach known in the industry as ITSP, is likely on its way out. Global commingling is more important than ever and TIF has learned from several major players in the pari-mutuel wagering technology space that a much-revised modern system of bet processing and information sharing will be needed. Support for antiquated tote technology is fading fast.
Customers must still be protected in the interim, and whatever new systems are developed should have proper oversight measures at its core.
CONCLUSION
The “Wagering Insecurity” series is unlike anything we have researched and published at the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation. We hope lessons can be learned from it.
“TIF was created to improve the prospects of horse owners and horseplayers, whose participation fuels racing's sustainability,” said Bernick.
“We have focused on issues related to pricing, transparency, technology and access to data. Racing has huge obligations too – now more than ever: aftercare, backstretch programs, jockey health and equine research. The best way to meet these obligations and sustain the business is to grow revenue through wagering. Doing so will be impossible without the greater industry accepting the serious issues raised and recommendations provided by this series.”
Ensuring integrity in horse racing takes a team effort. It's hard work. And it requires drive and support from horse owners, breeders, racing fans and most especially, the customers who need the most significant protection – the horseplayers.
It will take significant capital from the greater industry, investing in the appropriate resources to build an acceptable standard of integrity oversight. That does not go unnoticed. Under no circumstances should the costs for such programs come from increasing takeout – the cost of betting. There would be no more counterproductive effort than that.
The long-term costs to racing and its stakeholders' investments, if we do not upgrade racing's integrity infrastructure, will be far more substantial than the short-term costs of filling those needs.
We must restore and build confidence in existing horseplayers and horse owners, which will help us attract future customers. Little that racing in North America is doing now will accomplish that, particularly given our general embrace of opaque practices.
Racing must be operated more sustainably than it is now and we need to adopt the measures recommended here, and others, to bring the industry forward.
The path to better securing racing's wagering business is challenging and getting there will require exposing some long-standing failings.
For sports and racing integrity expert Jack Anderson, there is no choice.
“In the immediate, U.S. racing needs to look within. It needs to consult and review its own stakeholders and undertake a clear-eyed, hard-headed analysis of the state of the sport.
“That process may be a painful one. It may shock the racing public. It may, in the short term, undermine the reputation of the sport even amongst the most sympathetic of its supporters in the wider American sporting public.”
These improvements are needed to make North American racing better, to sustain the interest of bettors and secure the substantial investments of owners and breeders, as well as the reach of racing's economic impact.
The role of the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority offers a tremendous opportunity for ALL parties in the sport going forward and should be leveraged in every capacity to yield much-needed, uniform control over the integrity of U.S. racing. As previously outlined, HISA is required to report to the Federal Trade Commission.
Outside the FTC's Washington D.C. headquarters are a pair of sculptures created by Michael Lantz in 1942 entitled “Man Controlling Trade.” Each sculpture depicts a man holding a horse.
Our collective opportunity for improvement is real. There are countless examples for North American racing to follow.
Miss a previous installment? Click on the links to read more.
One of the strongest fields to ever contest the Group 1 Doomben Cup is headed by a pair of English expats – equine and human – who are rapidly rising to prominence Down Under. Six-year-old Zaaki (9-5) sits on the cusp of a first G1 success this Friday night, two months after his 30-year-old trainer, Annabel Neasham, achieved the feat.
Despite having no experience of horse racing growing up, Annabel Neasham had horse history in England through show jumping, point-to-point, and eventing. She came to Australia on a working vacation with legendary Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse, expecting to stay no more than a year. However, Neasham was subsequently hired as assistant trainer to the formidable partnership of Ciaron Maher and David Eustace. Amid her four-year stint with Maher and Eustace, she took time out to compete in the Mongol Derby, a 625-mile endurance race on horseback across the Mongolian steppe. Through monsoon rain, fog and heat, while subsisting for six days on cereal bars and purified water, Neasham won.
In the middle of 2020, ready for another challenge, Neasham branched out on her own. She won with her first runner and, with the support of prominent owner Aquis Farm, acquired several horses from champion trainer Chris Waller. In her first year of training, Mo'unga gave Neasham a G1 victory in the Rosehill Guineas during Sydney's recent “Autumn Racing Carnival.” Now, she is playing a major role in Queensland's “Winter Carnival” with her latest star performer, Zaaki.
Curiously, only three favorites have won the Doomben Cup in the past two decades. Should Zaaki buck that trend, both he and his trainer will embody the Arabic meaning of his name: one who increases in growth and goodness.
Friday night's nine-race Doomben card includes several supporting stakes named for famous Queenslanders. The fourth and fifth races honor trailblazing jockeys Darby McCarthy and Pam O'Neill. McCarthy, who died last year at 76, was an Indigenous Australian who rose from the humblest of beginnings in Outback Queensland to become one of the nation's top riders of the 1960s. He won more than 1,000 races in Australia, England, and France.
O'Neill campaigned for more than a decade before being granted a license – in 1979, at the age of 34 – as Australia's first female jockey. Her career tally of more than 400 winners includes several during a month-long stint in Japan. Australia now boasts a world-high ratio of female-to-male jockeys. Jamie Kah is the star of Melbourne's riding colony, while Rachel King is third in the Sydney standings.
Race 6 is named for the ultimate “horse for a course.” Chief de Beers recorded minor placings at multiple tracks during his 51-start career in the 1990s – but every one of his 20 victories came at Doomben. Upon retirement, he served for a decade on the Queensland Police Force, receiving a prestigious Blue Cross Medal for his service to the force and community. Chief de Beers died last year at Living Legends Farm, aged 28.
The Doomben card will be broadcast live on TVG this Friday night (first post: 9:34 p.m. ET / 6:34 p.m. PT) alongside cards from Rosehill, Newcastle and Gold Coast. All races will be live-streamed in HD on the new Sky Racing World App, skyracingworld.com and major ADW platforms such as TVG, TwinSpires, Xpressbet, NYRABets, WatchandWager, HPIbet, and AmWager. Wagering is also available via these ADW platforms. Fans can get free access to livestreaming, past performances and expert picks on all races at skyracingworld.com.
A native of Brisbane, Australia, Michael Wrona has called races in six countries. Wrona's vast U.S. experience includes race calling at Los Alamitos, Hollywood Park, Arlington and Santa Anita, calling the 2000 Preakness on a national radio network and the 2016 Breeders' Cup on the international simulcast network. Wrona also performed a race call voiceover for a Seinfeld episode called The Subway.
America's Day at the Races, the acclaimed national telecast produced by the New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) in partnership with FOX Sports, will air 23 hours of coverage Thursday through Sunday, with stakes action from Belmont Park and Churchill Downs.
Presented by America's Best Racing and Claiborne Farm, America's Day at the Races will broadcast live racing action this week, highlighted by Saturday's $100,000 Seek Again for 4-year-olds and up going one mile on the Belmont Park turf course.
Churchill Downs, located in Louisville, Kentucky, will offer two stakes on Saturday, with the Grade 3, $150,000 Winning Colors for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up going six furlongs, and the $110,000 Keertana for older fillies and mares in a 1 1/2-mile turf test.
Broadcast schedule for America's Day at the Races (all times Eastern):
Saturday's marathon coverage will see Grade 1-winner Decorated Invader headline a field of older horses in the Seek Again, taking on formidable challengers including Get Smokin, who started his 4-year-old campaign with a three-quarter length score in the Grade 3 Tampa Bay going 1 1/16 miles on February 6.
Trainer Chad Brown will send out a pair of contenders, with Delaware, who won the Danger's Hour at Aqueduct last month to mark his first North American win in seven starts since arriving from Europe in 2019, and Flavius, who ran second to Count Again in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap in November at Del Mar.
Carded as Race 9, the Seek Again has a post time of 5:12 p.m.
The Winning Colors will see a compact six-horse field compete at six furlongs. Frank's Rockette, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, started her 4-year-old season with a win in the American Beauty in January at Oaklawn, after ending 2020 with an 11th-place effort in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint against males. Sconsin, who ran fourth in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Fillies and Mare Sprint after winning the Grade 2 Eight Belles in September at Churchill, will also be part of an accomplished group in Churchill's fifth race at 7:57 p.m.
Evening action will continue at Churchill with the late-night Keertana in Race 9 at 10:11 p.m. Mott will send out Delta's Kingdom who has twice finished as the runner-up in graded stakes competition in the Grade 3 Bewitch last out in April at Keeneland and the Grade 3 La Prevoyante in January at Gulfstream Park sandwiched around a fourth-place effort in the Grade 3 Orchid in March in Florida. The field also includes Silverton Hill's homebred Pass the Plate, who finished a neck behind Delta's Kingdom in the Bewitch at Keeneland when stretching out to 1 ½ miles for the first time.
Churchill's 11-race card will conclude at 11:10 p.m. on Saturday.
America's Day at the Races is also broadcast on NYRA's YouTube channel which boasts more than 70,000 subscribers. Fans can subscribe to NYRA's channel and set a reminder to watch the show on YouTube Live. NYRA's YouTube channel also hosts a plethora of race replays, special features, America's Day at the Races replays and more.
Free Equibase-provided past performances are available for races that are part of the America's Day at the Races broadcast and can be accessed at https://www.nyra.com/belmont/racing/tv-schedule.
NYRA Bets is the official wagering platform of Belmont Park, and the best way to bet every race of the spring/summer meet. Available to horseplayers nationwide, the NYRA Bets app is available for download today on iOS and Android at www.NYRABets.com.
