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Total Handle Increases at Turfway Meet

All-sources handle on the Turfway Park Winter/Spring Meet, which concluded Saturday, increased 62% from a year ago, while purse money awarded jumped 43%, according to a release from the Kentucky track. More than $145 million was wagered at the meeting, nearly $56 million more than 2022. Connections who raced at Turfway Park were rewarded with more than $19 million in prize money, an increase of more than $5.5 million (including funds from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund). Turfway Park ran nine additional days this year and had an increase of more than 900 starters.

“The racing season at Turfway Park Racing & Gaming was a huge success across the board,” Turfway Park President Michael Taylor said. “Our team at Turfway Park delivered a competitive racing product while welcoming back fans to our newly renovated facility.”

Five-pound apprentice jockey Walter Rodriguez led the standings with 48 victories from 250 starts. Rodriguez's outstanding meet was highlighted by stakes wins in the Dust Commander S. and the Wishing Well S.

Wesley Ward topped the trainer's standings with 22 wins and tied for leading owner with six wins. Kirk Wycoff's Three Diamonds Farm also tabbed six victories at the stand. Roy Jackson's Lael Stables broke the tie for the champion owner with the highest earnings of $341,365.

“We're so thankful for all of our owners, trainers, jockeys and horseplayers for their continued support of our racing season,” Turfway Park General Manager Chip Bach said. “Thanks to Churchill Downs Incorporated's continued investments in Turfway Park's facility and racing product, we can confidently look forward to a thriving future of horse racing in Florence.”

Horses will remain stabled at Turfway Park throughout the spring and summer. Racing is set to resume Nov. 29.

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Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Caps Big Year with December Sale Tuesday

Fasig-Tipton Midlantic concludes its 2022 calendar of auctions with the one-session December Mixed and Horses of Racing Age Sale Tuesday at the Maryland Sate Fairgrounds in Timonium. Bidding for the first of 286 catalogued horses begins at 11 a.m. The auction opens with an offering of weanlings and broodmares and continues with a selection of yearlings before concluding with horses of racing age.

“We have had a lot of interest,” Fasig-Tipton Midlantic's sales director Paget Bennett said ahead of Tuesday's sale. “We have a bunch of weanlings by Kentucky sires and that always piques everybody's interest. And some of our covering sires are flavors that everybody is after. So I think we have enough of what it takes to get people to come to the sale.”

Bennet continued, “You never know what you have until you see who is walking around the sales grounds and the people you want to see on the sales grounds at a mixed sale are here.”

This will be the fifth year the December auction will offer horses of racing age, but the section really took off when it was dominated by the dispersal of Joseph Besecker in 2019. Besecker's race horse offerings also topped the December sale in 2020 and 2021. The prolific owner will offer 25 racehorses through the Northview Stallion Station consignment Tuesday.

“[Besecker] kind of gave the racehorse section the shot in the arm that it needed,” Bennett said. “So between Besecker and [Three Diamonds Farm's] Kirk Wycoff and his son adding horses this year, I think people realize there is a spot to sell here at the end of the of the year–if they don't go south and turf racing just stopped at Laurel a week or so ago. The horses still have some conditions on them, so people can buy them and go right on, if that's what they choose to do.”

Fasig-Tipton continued to add horses with current form to the catalogue in the week before the auction as Besecker's Bazinga C (Exaggerator), who finished third in the Safely Kept S. at Laurel Nov. 26 was added to the line-up last Thursday.

“From what I'm hearing, everybody is needing racehorses,” Bennett said. “They can go south with them. And we've had people from California inquiring about horses. Our representative out there called me to say people were desperate for horses out there.”

The Fasig-Tipton Midlantic season opened in May with a record-setting 2-Year-Olds in Training sale and graduates of the Timonium sale ring continue to find success on the racetrack.

“It's been a pretty exciting year,” Bennett said. “The 2-year-old sale was amazing. And the yearling grads have done really well. It's nice to see when a horse jumps up and does something big and you say where did he come from, and it came from Midlantic. It speaks a lot and we are very proud of our accomplishments and look forward to having more.”

Fasig-Tipton Midlantic will be hosting a second 2-year-old sale in 2023, with the inaugural June sale slated for June 28. The under-tack show for the auction is scheduled for June 26. With the absence of the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale on the 2023 calendar, the June sale will give sellers another opportunity to work their horses over a dirt track and in an area with strong regional racing programs.

“We turn so many horses away for the May sale and the number of horses we turn away is a sale in itself,” Bennett said. “People had inquired whether we would have a second sale last year. We weren't able to make it happen last year, but it was something we wanted to put on the calendar for 2023 and it just worked out. I think it will be a win-win for a lot of people. If you don't make May, you can make later June. Or for horses that are broken and trained up here, they don't have to feel like they are behind the eight ball with winter weather. With all the racing options around here, with Colonial Downs, with Delaware and the Delaware-certified program and the Pennsylvania-breds and sired stakes that they just created this year and ran for the first time, there is just a lot of interest. The venues are making it interesting and appealing to buy horses to run in these areas.”

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Mini-Golf Challenge Supports NY Backstretch Charities

NYRA TV analysts Andy Serling and Anthony Stabile, who kiddingly challenged one another to mini-golf during the July 18 broadcast of Talking Horses, joined forces with Three Diamonds Farm's Kirk Wycoff and Nové Italian Restaurant's Louis Lazzinnaro and by the conclusion of the mini-golf game at the Goony Golf in Lake George, N.Y. Aug. 2, the two-on-two matchup had raised $100,000 for New York-based backstretch organizations. Bolstered by Wycoff's three holes-in-one, the Serling/Wycoff team defeated Stabile and Lazzinnaro, otherwise known as “Team Nové,” by 15 strokes.

“It's a testament to the generosity of people in horse racing,” said Serling. “And it shows what can happen when a lot of people gather and are ready to have some fun, which affords the opportunity to create real benefit. That's one of the beauties of Saratoga, which lends itself very well to that.”

Sharing the donations: the Saratoga-based aftercare organizations Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation; Old Friends at Cabin Creek; the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America, New York Division; and the Belmont Child Care Association (BCCA), which serve backstretch communities in New York.

“Kirk Wycoff is one of the greatest mini-golfers I've ever seen,” said Stabile, who serves as a member on the BCCA advisory board. “In this case, it's just fine to be on the short end. There's never a bad time to donate. But given that the BCCA has just opened its Saratoga child care center to go along with the one they operate at Belmont Park, it's great timing.”

Lazzinnaro added, “All are superstar organizations. The people who work there have dedicated their lives to what they do. That's why it's great this worked out.”

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Saratoga Mini-Golf Challenge Leads To A Bonanza For Backstretch Charities

When NYRA TV analysts Andy Serling and Anthony Stabile kiddingly challenged one another to a mini-golf game during the Sunday, July 18 broadcast of Talking Horses at Saratoga Race Course, neither could ever have dreamed the outcome.

The joke quickly gained traction after Serling received a text from Kirk Wycoff of Three Diamonds Farm. “Make it a foursome – two-on-two. Get the losing team to donate $5,000 to New York-based backstretch charities,” Wycoff suggested.

And with that, the on-air challenge became a reality.

More texts and many more donations proceeded to pour in, including $5,000 from thoroughbred owner Louis Lazzinnaro of Nové Italian Restaurant in Wilton, N.Y., who encouraged some friends to give as well. And by the time the mini-golf game ended on Monday, Aug. 2, it had raised $100,000 for New York-based backstretch organizations.

“It's a testament to the generosity of people in horse racing,” said Serling, half of the Serling/Wycoff mini-golf team which took on Stabile and Lazzinnaro amidst the waterfalls and rotating windmill hazards at Goony Golf in Lake George, N.Y. “And it shows what can happen when a lot of people gather and are ready to have some fun, which affords the opportunity to create real benefit. That's one of the beauties of Saratoga, which lends itself very well to that.”

Sharing the donations will be another foursome – the Saratoga-based aftercare organizations Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and Old Friends at Cabin Creek; as well as the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America, New York Division, and the Belmont Child Care Association (BCCA), which serve backstretch communities in New York.

“The horse racing family is the greatest family in the world,” said Stabile. “While we're competing for the same dollars, we're still a family and when the chips are down, we're there to lift each other up. We're fortunate enough to be able to make our living at the track, so giving a little back to the people and to the horses who keep it going is the least we can do.”

Serling said the unique concept grew thanks to the generosity of Wycoff, Lazzinnaro and a lot of like-minded racing enthusiasts.

“It shows the commitment of people involved in horse racing and the importance of doing something for the workers on the backstretch and the horses, all of whom give so much to us,” he said. “Who would ever have figured that this is where a game of mini-golf would lead?”

Ah yes, the game.

“Kirk Wycoff is one of the greatest mini-golfers I've ever seen,” said Stabile.

Fortified by Wycoff's three holes-in-one, the Serling/Wycoff team defeated Stabile and Lazzinnaro, otherwise known as “Team Nové,” by 15 strokes.

“In this case, it's just fine to be on the short end,” said Stabile. “There's no such thing as a donation that's too small. But raising $100,000 for these great charities? I could never have predicted that – and it comes at an amazing time.”

Stabile refers specifically to the BCCA, where he serves as a member of the advisory board.

“There's never a bad time to donate,” he said. “But given that the BCCA has just opened its Saratoga child care center to go along with the one they operate at Belmont Park, it's great timing.”

Lazzinnaro agreed. “All are superstar organizations,” he said of the donation's recipients. “The people who work there have dedicated their lives to what they do. That's why it's great this worked out.”

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