Letter to the Editor | Horse Racing Free Tips

Letter To The Editor: The Implications of Choosing Not To Run in This Year’s Derby

The Derby is not just any race. It is the pinnacle of American horse racing from virtually every angle: breeding, owning, training, riding and yes, even betting (who doesn't want bragging rights for picking the winner?).

And the Derby race/event has grown to such importance for the entire industry (the hoopla around the Derby as an event got bigger in the preceding years even while horse racing has been struggling), that its import flows far beyond the private parameters of ownership of Churchill Downs, Inc. Derby day is an industry-wide event even though it is run by a private entity. And herein emerges the problem that begs for a resolution.

The owners of horses trained by Bob Baffert, in refusing to switch barns in order to get their horses eligible to the Derby race, are, in essence, calling out the management of the Derby race by Churchill and boycotting the race.

I write this from the perspective of years of graduate study in political economy during my Ph.D. work. These owners have made (and undoubtedly not deliberately so) a huge first step in challenging the balance of power in the industry between owners/breeders and the racetracks.

Churchill, in arbitrarily extending the ban on their trainer and shortening the time for the required transfer of their horses from their chosen trainer to someone else (the transfer date was conspicuously set days before the Robert Lewis prep race at Santa Anita), had, apparently gone too far. Churchill was intrinsically questioning both the owner's management and judgment in the care of their horses. The owners, in turn, by not transferring their horses to another trainer and thus choosing not to run in the Derby, are questioning the management of the Derby race itself by Churchill Inc.

The implications from this small group of owner's decisions go far beyond themselves, their trainer and Churchill itself. Not only are these owners challenging Churchill's authority to interfere with the management and use of their property rights, by boycotting this year's Derby, they are preventing (again not deliberately) the breeders of the horses in question from participating in the Derby.

This battle of the power of Churchill Inc. over the Derby race with these owners has rippling effects on the breeding industry itself. You breed a top horse, it gets sold and then doesn't get to participate in the Derby because of a battle between Churchill Inc. and a specific trainer that leads to the owners withholding the horse.

This situation needs to be resolved.

And the power of Churchill Inc. over a race that is now, de facto, an industry race (while proprietary to Churchill Inc.) needs to be curbed so that any similar situation doesn't re-occur. Decisions directly impacting the Derby race need to be subject to countervailing power by the key interest groupings in the industry-with representatives actually in the boardroom concerning key decisions on the Derby race. Such arrangements are not uncommon in business. Even the trainers do not have a voice regarding their own eligibility and seemingly arbitrary decisions regarding their participation.

The Derby is the Derby because everyone wants to run their top horses if they are ready for the race. As soon as capable, top horses are not put on the path to the Derby, the race can lose its significance before too long. The Derby race is too important to the industry to be allowed to be run without Industry-wide input to assure its continued impact.
–Armen Antonian Ph.D

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Letter to the Editor: ‘Absolute Insure Rule is a Farce’

I appreciated Bill Finley's conversation with Alan Foreman on TDN Writers' Room. Your question to him about trainers who are not guilty of cheating hit home for me. As a trainer who is dealing with this same issue prior to HISA in the state of Florida, I was hoping to make a brief comment.

The banned substances provisions are more complicated than they want it to be in an era where the testing has become so fine any trainer can get a banned substance positive at any time no matter what precautions and provisions have been implemented. Nanogram results can pick up any contamination that occurs in places that the trainer cannot protect the horse from. Inadvertent touching by anyone between the morning of the race up to and in the test barn can cause a positive. Receiving barns where horses are housed prior to racing are notorious for contamination (see testing at Charles Town).

This issue of “Testing” becoming so fine was not addressed in your conversation with Mr. Foreman. He and HISA still blame the trainers. Not their protocols. The trainer still spends many thousands of dollars defending themselves from something they cannot control. The absolute insure rule is a farce in this regard. No one at HISA wants to discuss this aspect of the problem.

Sincerely,
Donald L. Brown

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Letter to the Editor – The Aftermath of Disqualifications

I retired in 2019 as the most prolific bugler in horse racing history with over 60,000 performances of “First Call” at a record-setting 51 racetracks in 23 states and Canada. My herald trumpet, which I used at NYRA for most of my time there, has been on display at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame for the past three years. Of this, I am very proud.

But this is not the subject of my email.

The subject is betting on horses, and I had some success in this endeavor. In fact, after my Pick Six score at Aqueduct in January of 1992, I maintained a flat-bet profit of $60,000 for 29 years. The CAWS and past-posting and the drug problem caused me to blow all of that in just three years. I played a few more years and then abruptly quit betting horses (forever!) last September. After sending about $1.5 million dollars through the windows, my net loss over 37 years amounts to $35 a week. Less than the price of a ball game at Fenway Park.

The point of this email, however, is the aftermath of disqualifications. I can recall how angry this game made me and certainly other horse players when our horses were disqualified. We put in a lot of time and effort handicapping, and when we are right, we expect to get paid. And then we don't. This is the only sport where if your team wins you still might not get paid. That's not an attractive thing to market to newbies. “Hey, your horse may win, but you might not get paid.” This never happens in poker. But chopped pots happen all the time and it keeps the game moving.

Why do I mention “chopped pots”? Because this is the idea, I have to help horse racing stay alive. If your horse wins, but the horse is disqualified for any reason, you still get paid-but like a dead heat. You chop the pot with the horse that got moved up. Everything. WPS, all exactas and other exotics. Chop the pot. BUT ONLY FOR THE BETTORS. The connections of the DQd horse are still penalized the same way they are now. They lose the purse, and the purse gets redistributed to the connections of the horse who was moved up via DQ. But the bettors still get paid.

Maybe it's an idea already floated by others, but I hope that this idea might be helpful to the game that sustained me for 32 years. There's not a lot I can do to give back, so maybe this idea will catch on and suffice.

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Letter to the Editor: A Tale of Two Frankels

I think we can all agree that Juddmonte both know what they are doing and have an eye on the bottom line.

Last year they had two Group 1-winning Frankel colts with stud potential. Both have similar profile dam-lines and both are good-looking colts. One was rated seven pounds superior to the other.

You can't get in to the winner of the less-than-vintage renewal of the 2,000 Guineas the 119-rated Chaldean (GB) at Banstead, meanwhile the 126-rated Irish Derby winner Westover (GB) was quietly shuffled off to Japan without a whimper and I would suspect at a fraction of the €12million Prix du Jockey Club winner and his Arc conqueror Ace Impact is being syndicated for in France. Frankel's last son to win the Irish Derby is standing at Coolmore's National Hunt division for €6,000. There's your valuation.

Juddmonte know they would hardly get a Flat mare to Westover and certainly not at £25,000 because he is a mile-and-a-half horse and Flat breeders aren't interested in them, but the Champion two-year-old and Guineas winner is a different proposition altogether. We can also assume that Juddmonte believe that Chaldean is the better stallion prospect and they would prefer to use him for their own mares rather than Westover, who was by far the better racehorse.

Would Westover have won the same Irish Derby at 10 furlongs? As he only beat a Group 3 winner and a horse that never even won a Listed race (sadly the norm these days) we can assume so. Would he then have been worth considerably more? Yes.

So because the race is run at a distance that no longer interests European mare owners and, after all they are the ones that decide a stallion's value, Juddmonte's racing arm has missed out on the extra millions that a potential bidding war between European and Japanese interests would have attracted, and Japan has ended up with the better of the two Frankels.

The Prix du Jockey Cub is without any doubt the preeminent stallion-making race for middle-distance horses in Europe. The reason is simple. It is a 10.5-furlong race and a proven success in the stallion-making business since it became so. St Mark's Basilica (Fr), Vadeni (Fr) and Ace Impact (Ire) are the next three in line. All will be given a proper shot.

Westover is just the latest example of an Irish Derby winner who was both unloved and unwanted by European breeders. The present format makes no sense for owner, breeder, fan or even for the breed in Europe.

Shorten the Irish Derby.

Patrick Cooper, BBA Ireland

Do you agree or disagree with this view? Please let us know your thoughts by emailing emmaberry@thetdn.com.

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