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Played Hard Carries the Rigney Motto to Ogden Phipps

One short elevator ride from the top of the Churchill Downs grandstand down to the ground floor was all the time it took for Phil Bauer to officially become a Grade I-winning trainer.

On Kentucky Oaks Friday, Bauer was watching from upstairs as his trainee Played Hard (Into Mischief) took the lead going into the stretch of the GI La Troienne S. and, with Johnny Velazquez aboard, fought off last year's Oaks victress Secret Oath (Arrogate) to win by a neck. When Bauer and an elated crew of Rigney Racing supporters raced to the elevator to get their picture taken, they unknowingly avoided the hair-raising anxiety of sitting through an objection raised by Secret Oath's rider Tyler Gaffalione. By the time the group made it to the winner's circle, it had been determined that there would be no change. Richard and Tammy Rigney's Rigney Racing and their trainer Phil Bauer had just earned their first Grade I win.

“It was such a special day, I guess a dream come true,” reflected Bauer, who grew up in Louisville. “You obviously strive to reach that level and to finally do it was just, I don't want to say a relief because relief is almost expecting something. You dream about it and then once it's real, it's something you can reflect on and be proud of. It all boils down to the team and how everybody came together. You think back to when we first bought the filly and then to get there, it's so satisfying and you're very happy for the Rigneys for what they've put into the game. It's long overdue and hopefully many more to come.”

Much of Played Hard's success, and the rise of Rigney Racing in the past few years, Bauer credits to a change in game plan.

Bauer was working as an assistant for Kenny McPeek when Richard Rigney–owner of the Louisville-based beverage company Clarendon Flavor Engineering–offered him the opportunity to become the private trainer for Rigney Racing. The operation launched in 2013 and, despite winning their very first race, saw very little success in their early years together. After earning only 27 wins from 250 starts in their first five years, they decided to enlist the help of bloodstock agent John Moynihan.

Played Hard, a $280,000 Keeneland September purchase, was part of one of the first Rigney Racing crops put together with Moynihan's assistance.

“John Moynihan was a big piece of the puzzle and made a world of difference in the last five years with bringing in quality racehorses,” explained Bauer. “The proof is in the pudding. You can see in the last five years for us, we've really started to excel and it boils down to the horse. [Richard and I] go to the sales, look at the short list and pick the ones that we like the most, but John is driving the boat and it has helped a lot.”

Bauer had high hopes for Played Hard when they took her home after the Keeneland sale and his faith in the daughter of Into Mischief grew after each trip to Ocala to visit the youngster. The filly didn't make the races at two and was unsuccessful in her first three starts at six furlongs, but once she stretched out, she stepped up to a new level. She ran second in the GIII Comely S. as a sophomore and at four, she bookended a third-place finish in the GI Spinster S. with two Grade III wins at Churchill Downs. Her victory in the La Troienne, where she went off at close to 9-1, was her first start since winning the GIII Falls City S. last November.

“I was a little nervous that she wasn't tight enough, but I think she has matured into a racehorse that knows the game now,” Bauer explained. “Just in daily training, she hates horses in front of her and she'll want to get to them. With her overall demeanor as an athlete, she's a competitor. It's something that some horses lack, but she's got plenty of it.”

Bauer is hoping that the 5-year-old's winning ways will continue on into this weekend, when she'll have another matchup with Secret Oath in the GI Ogden Phipps S. Played Hard will once again team up with John Velazquez to face a six-horse field that also includes last year's Ogden Phipps winner Clairiere (Curlin), plus GISW Search Results (Flatter).

“We originally thought, 'Well, let's just come back in the Fleur de Lis at the end of the Churchill meet,'” said Bauer. “We kept an eye on the Ogden Phipps and while it's not coming up light, it's just coming up with a reduced field. The fact that she's got the grade one, we felt like in the big picture if we can win or be extremely competitive in it, it's only going to help her credentials as the year comes to an end and hopefully keep her name in the conversation for an Eclipse Award or hopefully the Breeders' Cup.”

The Rigney Racing operation comes into Belmont weekend riding a hot streak at Churchill Downs.

GISP Xigera returns a winner in her 3-year-old debut on June 2 at Churchill Downs | Coady

Xigera (Nyquist) got the ball rolling last Friday when she took an allowance contest going a mile on the turf in her 3-year-old debut. A maiden winner last summer in Saratoga, the filly was third in the GI Darley Alcibiades but then finished last in a field of 14 when she took her connections to their first Breeders' Cup for the Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“We felt so confident going into the Breeders' Cup and to run as bad as she did was just a hard pill to swallow,” Bauer admitted. “She never grabbed the bit that day and there was no major excuse that we could point at, so we decided to give her the winter and let her develop. She came back much more mature physically and mentally. We were anxious to get a start in her and hoping she would return to form so when she did, it was just like a sigh of relief. We're hopeful that she can continue to climb the ladder and hopefully produce some stakes wins for us this year.”

Bauer said that everything, quite literally, is on the table for the filly's next start. While Xigera has always shown an affinity for turf, she trains well on the main track in the morning and performed well in the Alcibiades on dirt last fall.

Xigera's efforts were followed up with a win on Sunday from Warrior Johny (Cairo Prince). The 4-year-old gelding came in off a seven-month layoff to take an allowance optional claimer by four lengths.

Also last weekend, Bauer had two second-place finishes with Anna's Arabesque (Munnings), who was third last month in an overnight stake at Churchill Downs, and Little Prankster (Practical Joke), a $425,000 yearling purchase who has now finished second in her first two career starts.

“I think she's one to definitely keep an eye on,” reported Bauer. “She actually works in company with a lot of the horses we've already covered, so you know her ability is there.”

Phil Bauer and Richard Rigney | Keeneland

With 27 horses currently stabled at Churchill Downs and more trainees returning off layoffs or joining the barn as 2-year-olds this summer, Bauer said they have high hopes for Rigney Racing this year. They'll have to work hard to meet last year's achievements, when they were the leading owner at the Churchill Downs spring meet, took home six of their 13 starts at Saratoga and finished the year with a record 21 wins.

“It's something that we felt was coming,” Bauer said as he reflected on their recent achievements. “You don't always anticipate extreme success in this game, but you have a general idea that you can at least be competitive in certain areas based on what horses you have in the barn and how they're training. That has been the case the last couple of years. The whole program has finally gotten legs and taken off. It's what we were striving for and for it to be here, it's been a lot of fun.”

Bauer's connection with the Rigneys runs much deeper than a trainer-owner relationship.

“[Richard] is one of my best friends,” he shared. “We golf together all the time. I'm very fortunate and blessed that [the Rigneys] stuck with me and continued to build around what we started out together. That means a lot to me. They're great people and they care about everybody and want to have a family atmosphere here at the barn. It's a pleasure to train for them and it's even sweeter when we're able to be victorious.”

Played Hard's name originated from what has come to be a meaningful adage for the Rigneys.

“The name came from their motto of life of if you lived well, you played hard,” Bauer explained. “And they enjoy life. I think when their time is gone, people will be able to look back and say, 'Well they did about all you can do.' At the same time, they make everyone's lives around them better.”

While there was a host of over 60 of the Rigneys' closest friends and family present at their home track in Louisville for the La Troienne victory, come this weekend it will be a much different experience as Bauer and Richard Rigney take on Belmont together for Played Hard's bid in the Ogden Phipps.

“I don't know if I'll ever be able to top the feeling of our first grade one being at home with the cast that Richard had present at the races, but obviously winning a grade one at Belmont on Belmont Day would be surreal as well,” Baur said. “Richard and I are the only ones going up Saturday, that was just the way it kind of worked out, so maybe it would be even sweeter if we can celebrate together and focus how we started and where we've gotten to be.”

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The Week in Review: It’s Official, Derby Generates $400M Economic Impact

Thomas Lambert, an applied economist at the University of Louisville's College of Business, wasn't quite sure if he could trust the dollar amounts that were routinely cited regarding the impact of the GI Kentucky Derby on the region's economy. So he took on the task of finding out for himself, and has just published the results in a study titled, “Horse Sense or Horse Hype? Estimating the True Economic Impact of Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby on the Louisville Metro Area.”

Lambert started by noting that the results of quick internet searches (which bring up the type of oft-repeated data that economists everywhere regard with healthy skepticism) generally yielded two familiar figures: Churchill Downs's own Kentucky Derby Museum pegged the race's economic impact at $217 million without citing a source. A significantly higher figure of $400 million was often “mentioned in various press accounts and by local city leaders,” but its source, too, wasn't immediately clear.

A little digging by Lambert revealed that the Derby Museum's $217-million number came from a 2001 study by a marketing firm and was now two decades outdated. And he found the $400-million figure came from the civic marketing organization Louisville Tourism, which used a modeling system to make projections.

But, Lambert noted, “if one multiplies the 2001 study result by an inflation factor of 1.72 to account for inflation from 2001 to 2023, the result is approximately $375 million. This is close, but not quite the same as $400 million, and it also does not take into consideration declines in Derby attendance since 2015.”

Lambert then researched and fed a wide range of publicly available data on Derby-related spending, revenue, taxation, employment, hotel stays, restaurant visits, and on-track betting and attendance into a complex economic input-output modeling system known as IMPLAN to come up with the estimated financial impact of what happens at Churchill Downs on and around the first Saturday in May.

He ended up finding out that the oft-cited $400-million estimate for the regional economic impact of the Derby is about as on-the-money a projection as one can make.

“The findings corroborate estimates that put the economic impact of a normal Derby week at $400 million,” Lambert wrote. “The economic impact of the [GI Kentucky] Oaks, Derby, and other races that week appear to have a substantive effect on the region's economy.”

Lambert continued: “For businesses, this is good news. During the pandemic and for state government, there is not much of a gain regarding tax revenues, and for local governments there are tax losses.

“However, during usual [non-pandemic] years, there are significant gains,” Lambert wrote. “It also can be argued that Derby week also serves as a promotional tool to bring in new residents, investment, and businesses to the area, and the value of this is much greater than any possible tax losses or sacrifices. In other words, the events of Derby week can help keep the name of the city circulating throughout the nation just as professional sports teams help to keep the names of their host cities in the media.”

There are caveats, however.

Lambert wrote that “the employment conjecture of almost 2,000 employed at the facility is very high and needs to be qualified by noting that during the Oaks and Derby more than 10,000 temporary workers are hired to help with large attendance numbers.

“Hence, the track employment numbers are probably 10 times that of what would usually appear for a typical horse racing track and much higher than what resources usually report is the normal, year-round, average employment at the track of between 200 and 500 employees. This range is due to the seasonal nature of horse racing and the fact that during much of the year, facilities sit idle.

“Nonetheless,” Lambert wrote, “the number of nearly 2,000 is legitimate given that IMPLAN has averaged the employment numbers and considers all jobs created by an employer, regardless of whether part or full-time, or permanent or temporary within a given time period.”

Lambert also cautioned that horse racing itself is not the prime economic driver it once was.

“Overall racing attendance and gambling has been in decline in the U.S. during the current century, and it is the growth of historical horse racing machines and its gaming centers that has been Churchill's main star in its product portfolio over the last 10 years or so,” Lambert wrote.

As a result, Lambert wrote, when adjusted for inflation based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “the 2022 wagering for the Derby and all Derby day races falls short of 2019 revenues.”

That adjusted-for-inflation finding stands out in contrast against Churchill's reporting last year of record 2022 Derby handle figures across numerous betting categories.

The difference? Racetracks don't report handle figures that include tweaks for inflation, while economists–especially during this current period of high inflation–view such adjustments as vital to seeing the overall picture more accurately.

Taxation strategies that are favorable to Churchill Downs also come into play, Lambert wrote.

“Churchill Downs has received tax breaks over the years by its inclusion in a tax increment financing district and by signing over many parcels of land on its [track] premises to Louisville city government, [which] helps Churchill to avoid and/or underpay local and state taxes,” Lambert wrote.

Other civic perks don't hurt Churchill's bottom line, either, Lambert postulated.

“Additionally, the Oaks and Derby days receive the benefits of hundreds of local police and Kentucky National Guard troops being deployed to help manage crowds at no cost to the track, and of the state pari-mutuel tax imposed on wagering at the track, only a small portion goes to the state's general budget,” Lambert wrote. “Most if it goes for paying for equine industry and equine health related programs, which provides an indirect benefit to Churchill and other tracks as well as horse farms in the state.

“Even music to play 'My Old Kentucky Home' by the University of Louisville Marching Band is provided without charge,” Lambert wrote–although perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek considering his connection to the school. (He did concede that amount is “fairly small when compared to the general economic activity of Derby week.”)

Still, Lambert rationalized some of the economic subsidies that Churchill gets by writing that they aren't much different from those received by sports teams all across America.

“Of course, many professional sports teams in the NFL, NBA, or MLB have relied upon subsidies and other concessions granted by local governments. Municipal officials have to weigh the benefits and costs of any tax or subsidy decisions. If there are losses, perhaps there are gains in other, non-tangible areas that can offset them. On the other hand, the money sacrificed and taken away from basic public services such as schools, police, fire, and sanitation should only be justified if it serves a bigger public purpose.”

In summation, Lambert wrote that, “In general, the economic benefits of Churchill and Derby week activities appear to create more benefit than loss to the Louisville area, and so any governmental assistance given to Churchill for Derby week probably can be justified easily by policymakers.”

The post The Week in Review: It’s Official, Derby Generates $400M Economic Impact appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Second Stride Derby Week Fundraiser Returns May 1

Edited Press Release

A horse ownership stake with Skychai Racing, an outdoor cigar lounge and multiple ready-for-Instagram backgrounds are just a few of the new features added this year to Second Stride's 12th annual Derby week Champions Night at Molly Malone's in the Highlands section of Louisville Monday, May 1 from 6-9 pm.

Of all fundraisers taking place Derby week, it is the only event raising money for the horses, enabling the Louisville-based organization to continue to provide professional rehabilitation, retraining and placement of retired thoroughbred racehorses. Placing over 100 horses per year, Second Stride aims to increase that figure significantly and relies heavily upon money raised during this pinnacle event.

The event, sponsored by Skychai, will feature a timely handicapping session as the Kentucky Oaks and Derby draw will have occurred only hours earlier. The discussion will be moderated by Byron King of Blood-Horse and panelists include: Fanduel/TVG's Andie Biancone, At the Races host Steve Byk, Churchill Downs Director of Racing Gary Palmisano and St. Louis radio show host and handicapper Doug Nachman.

“Being involved in the sport of kings is an immense privilege which comes with great responsibility,” said Biancone. “Aftercare is everything and Second Stride does such a great job. They have even helped re-home some of my dad's horses and I'm happy to lend my support for this event.”

Champions Night will host auctions and raffles throughout the evening. The online silent auction featuring exclusive items is already open for bidding closing Derby Day, Saturday, May 6.

Champions Night looks forward to welcoming back in person the many trainers, owners, jockeys, fans and other industry notables who faithfully attend in support of the horses. The event is open to the public. Tickets are not required but there is a suggested donation of $20 at the door.

Click here for more details.

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Pearce, Platten Set to Perform Derby Weekend

Grammy® Award-winning country music singer, songwriter and Kentucky native Carly Pearce will sing the National Anthem at this year's GI Kentucky Derby, which will be contested for the 149th time on May 6, Churchill Downs announced Tuesday. Also, singer and songwriter Rachel Platten will kick off Derby weekend by performing the National Anthem and her hit “Fight Song” during the Kentucky Oaks Survivor's Parade at the GI Longines Kentucky Oaks May 5.

“Carly Pearce has been taking the country music world by storm with an impressive year of musical performances,” Mike Anderson, President of Churchill Downs Racetrack, said. “We are excited for her to take center stage in Louisville to sing our National Anthem and kick off this storied celebration.”

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