The Week in Review: In 2024, the Sport Needs to Do Better

The remaining days in 2023 dwindled to a few last week, a welcome development considering the year that it was. Yes, there was some good news. Arcangelo (Arrogate) winning the GI Belmont S. for trainer Jena Antonucci was as good a story as we've seen in some time. The saga of Cody's Wish (Curlin) continued to tug at our heartstrings. The sales continue to post huge numbers. Purses have soared in Kentucky and at Oaklawn, with maidens running for pots in excess of $100,000.

But for every good story there seemed to be 10 bad ones.

With the animal rights community and some portions of the media putting unrelenting pressure on the sport, there's never a good time to go through a rash of breakdowns, but for it to happen surrounding the running of the GI Kentucky Derby was bad timing at its worst. There were 12 deaths at Churchill Downs crammed into just a few weeks and it got so bad that racetrack management decided to pull the plug on the remainder of the meet and move everything to Ellis Park.

Then Saratoga happened. When New York Thunder (Nyquist) broke down strides before the wire in the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S. the number of horse fatalities at the meet had soared to 12. It was a horrible sight to behold for a national television audience and the 48,292 in attendance. And it was a ghastly reminder of what happened three weeks earlier to Maple Leaf Mel (Cross Traffic) in the GI Test S. She, too, broke down right before the wire in a spill that was as ugly as it gets.

The Breeders' Cup was not immune to tragedy. Though no one was seriously injured on the day of the races, Geaux Rocket Ride (Candy Ride {Arg}) and broke down and had to be euthanized and Practical Move (Practical Joke) suffered an apparent heart attack and died, both while training for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic.

The fatalities obviously caught the attention of 60 Minutes, which, in November, aired a story that focused on the breakdowns and the sport's doping problems while casting a brutally negative light on the sport. Then we learned that we will get more of the same sometime in 2024. In December, FX, a subsidiary of Disney Entertainment, announced that there would be an upcoming documentary, “The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses,” which it said would examine “systemic issues, questionable practices and urgent calls for change that have shaken horse racing to its core.”

When it comes to the economics of the sport, there was more troubling news. Through November, handle was down nearly $500 million on the year or 4.39%. That means we are on our way to seeing the steepest declines in handle, outside of the COVID year of 2020, since 2011. Does that have anything to do with the computer-assisted wagering (CAW) players? Probably. They have tilted the pari-mutuel pools to a point where the regular horseplayer is getting killed and getting out.

In July, 1/ST Racing announced that Golden Gate Fields would be shutting down for good at the end of the year, throwing the Northern California circuit into chaos. The track got a reprieve, but a brief one. It is now scheduled to cease operations on June 11. That's when it will join Arlington Park, Calder, Hollywood Park, Bay Meadows and others that couldn't make it to the finish line. Some wonder whether Santa Anita, which sits on property that is estimated to be worth $1 billion, will someday join them.

Racing can't afford to have another year like this. Things need to change. While there are no magic bullets, here are what I believe are some practical and common sense solutions to some of the problems.

The sport needs to fully embrace StrideSAFE. StrideSAFE is a biometric sensor mechanism that slips into the saddle cloth to detect minute changes in a horses' gait at high speed. Those changes can, and often do, signal that a horse is in the early stages of having a problem that could lead to a fatal injury. The technology has been around since 2011 and, while it has been experimented with here and there, it remains largely absent from the backstretch of America's racetracks. Why? There's no doubt that widespread employment of StrideSAFE will cut down on the number of horses that break down and there's no excuse for the sport to continue to drag its feet when it comes to embracing the concept.

The CAW factor is a major issue that's not going to go away, no matter what harm it might be doing to the overall health of the sport. It has become an unmanageable runaway train, with these players betting so much money that no track is going to turn away their business. But some guardrails would help. More tracks need to do what NYRA has done. They have effectively closed the CAW players out of the win pool by no longer allowing them to place bets at the very last second. They have also been excluded from NYRA's Late Pick 5 and the Cross Country Pick 5.

The betting product also needs to be better and more geared toward the booming market that is made up of sports bettors. The sport has not been nearly aggressive enough when it comes to getting the on-line sports betting websites to start accepting bets on racing. To date, the only one that has been signed up is FanDuel. That also means adopting fixed-odds wagers, which are what the sports bettors know. Only Monmouth Park has gone down this road and two years after it was implemented in New Jersey the concept is limping along. No other tracks or states have tried fixed-odds betting and, in New Jersey, only the second-level tracks are available to the fixed odds bettors.

The takeout remains too high. With betting on a horse race often involving a rake of around 20%, the game is always going to have a tough time competing with other forms of gambling, where the effective takeout rate is lower. We're seeing some progress in this area, with a number of tracks lowering the takeout on horizontal wagers like the Pick Four and Pick Five. In 2023, Hawthorne took a major step in the right direction by lowering its takeout on win, place and show wagers to 12%. But we need a lot more of the same. With so much of purse money now coming from alternative sources like slot machines, there's no reason why tracks in places like New York and Kentucky can't at least experiment with reduced takeout rates.

Fix the Triple Crown. It needs it. The GI Preakness S. is no longer coveted by the sport's major trainers and has become a weak link in the Triple Crown. Everyone wants to run in the Derby and then they scramble, some pointing for the GI Belmont S., some ready to put their horses on the shelf until the big summer races. The 2022 Derby winner, Rich Strike (Keen Ice) passed on the Preakness and, this year, Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) was the only horse to go in the first two legs of the Triple Crown. The result is that the Preakness is less important than it has ever been and that only weakens the Triple Crown as a whole. When 1/ST floated the idea of running the Preakness four weeks after the Derby, NYRA reacted by announcing that it had no intention of moving the date of the Belmont. Yes, a Belmont run five weeks after the Derby works well for NYRA, but it needs to put its self interests aside and do what's best for the sport and shift the Belmont to late June or early July.

While we're at it, the purses for the Triple Crown races are too small. In this day and age, the $1.5-million purse for the Preakness is not going to motivate anyone to run. These are supposed to be the most important races in the sport and their purses should reflect as much. For all three races, the purses should be raised immediately to $3 million with the goal of eventually making them $5-million races.

These are things that can be done. Let's not let another year go by in which the sport embraces the status quo while the outlook for its future continues to get worse. The year 2024 is upon us, let it be the year where the sport takes much needed steps in the right direction.

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The Most-Read TDN Stories Of 2023

As the year winds down, now is a relatively quiet time for horse racing. But there was nothing quiet about 2023, a year, it seems, where the bad news stories overshadowed the good news stories. What resonated most with TDN readers? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be our stories that reported on some of the darker aspects of the sport. Here are the top 10 most widely read stories of 2023 and the number of views they received:

1) Europeans Unleashed As Santa Anita is Struck by Tragedy, by Emma Berry (96,627 views). TDN European Editor Emma Berry arrived at Santa Anita as the sport and the Breeders' Cup was dealing with another blow, the death of Practical Move (Practical Joke) and the injury suffered by Geaux Rocket Ride (Candy Ride {Arg}), who would eventually be euthanized. She marveled at the beauty of Santa Anita and watched the European contingent prepare for the races, but found it hard to forget that it had been another difficult week for the sport. “Even with such brilliant beauty close at hand, it was hard to revel in what should have been a joyful morning as the image of the prone Practical Move lingered on in the mind's eye,” she wrote.

2) Racing Word Mourns Death of Lady O'Reilly, by Emma Berry (96,536 views). Berry reported on the passing of highly successful and longstanding owner-breeder Lady Chryss O'Reilly, the owner of Haras de la Louviere in Normandy, who died at the age of 73.

3) Fatalities Mar Travers Saturday at Saratoga, by Bill Finley (51,660 views). The Saratoga meet saw an unusually high number of breakdowns, but two stood out. Maple Leaf Mel (Cross Traffic) broke down a jump or two before the finish of the GI Test S., a race she was well on her way to winning. In an eerily similar scenario that had occurred on the GI Travers S. card, New York Thunder (Nyquist) had the GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S. all but won before breaking down a few feet before the finish. On the same card, a horse named Nobel (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire} was also euthanized. Bill Finley wrote of a Travers Day that was supposed to be about everything that is great with the sport turning into one of the ugliest afternoons ever at Saratoga.

4) Everything Was Done to Save Him: Derby Hero Desert Crown Euthanized, Staff Report (50,946 views). The story reports on the death of Desert Crown (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), the brilliant winner of the 2022 Derby, who was euthanized at Newmarket Equine Hospital after failing to recover from an injury sustained on the gallops in August.

5) Jockey Alex Canchari Passes Away, by Bill Finley (50,438). In one of the sadder stories of the year, Midwest-based jockey Alex Canchari passed away in March at the age of 29 after taking his own life, sparking discussions about jockeys' mental health.

6) Horse of the Year Havre De Grace Passes Away, by Alan Carasso (48,136). Havre de Grace (Saint Liam), the 2011 Horse of the Year, passed away in April. Wayne Sweezey, who boarded Havre de Grace at his Timber Town Farm, confirmed that the 16-year-old mare hemorrhaged multiple times and died after producing a colt by Into Mischief the afternoon of Apr. 28.

7) Pretty Mischievous Wins Test; Maple Leaf Mel Breaks Down at Wire, is Euthanized, Staff Report (41,426). Like the breakdown of New York Thunder later on in the meet, the breakdown of Maple Leaf Mel in the Test S. shook Saratoga and cast a pall over the meet.

8) HIWU Descends Upon a Shedrow, Upending Life For a Mom-and-Pop Stable, by TD Thornton (30,863). John Pimental is a small-time trainer who was well-liked, worked hard and had never been in any trouble during his long career. That all changed when agents for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) descended upon John's stable and upended his world: one of his horses had tested positive for 193 picograms per milliliter of methamphetamine, a street drug of abuse that is classified as a “banned” substance in racing. The story details Pimental's fight to clear his name and takes a look at the tactics HIWU used to make the case that Pimental had violated its rules.

9) Sire Of Sires, WinStar Farm's Champion Speightstown Euthanized, Staff Report (30,066). The story reports on the passing of WinStar Farm's top sire Speightstown (Gone West) and his remarkable career as a sire.

10) The Week in Review: With Forte Non-DQ, NYRA Stewards Owe Public an Explanation, by Bill Finley (29,977). The Saratoga stewards decided not to disqualify Forte (Violence) from his win in the GII Jim Dandy S. at Saratoga, despite what appeared to be rough-riding tactics by Irad Ortiz Jr. that caused Forte to bump Angel of Empire (Classic Empire). But writer Bill Finley thought the bigger story was that there is next to no transparency in racing when it comes to stewards' decisions and that the bettors deserved an explanation over why there was no disqualification.

The post The Most-Read TDN Stories Of 2023 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Friday Insights: Godolphin Colt Leads Late-Night Action At Turfway

9th-TP, $70K, Msw, 2yo, 6f (AWT), 9:55 p.m.

A Godolphin homebred, HOLD OUT (Street Boss) will carry the royal blue for the first time Friday night. The colt is a son of Wipe Out, already the dam of GISP Degree of Risk (Cairo Prince). She also produced the dam of the ill-fated GSW New York Thunder (Nyquist). Wipe Out is herself a half to GI Forego S. winner Emcee (Unbridled's Song), GSW/G1SP Surfer (Distorted Humor) along with the dam of GSW Marzo (Medaglia d'Oro). Notably, her half-sister Baffled (Distorted Humor) produced MGISW and sire Constitution (Tapit) before selling for $3.5m at the 2016 FTKNOV Sale. Don Alberto, one of two buyers to sign the ticket then, would buy out Bridlewood Farm for $1.8m when she last sold at the same sale in 2019. Hold Out blitzed four furlongs in :47 (1/95) Dec. 2 for Eoin Harty and will debut with Gerardo Corrales in the irons. TJCIS PPS

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The Week In Review: The Year In Which Saratoga Lost Its Mojo

At the conclusion of racing on Monday, Saratoga will have handled about $800 million for the meet, the third highest handle figure ever for the track. On-track attendance was at 1,055,543 after Saturday's GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Day card, setting an all-time record with two racing days to go.

Yet, by just about any measure, it was not a good meet. Saratoga came into 2023 with the wind at its back. Every year the racing seemed to get bigger, the handle would grow and more and more fans would pile into the historic racecourse. Taking out the covid year, handle had risen at Saratoga for five straight years.

Would Saratoga ever lose its momentum or would it keep growing exponentially?

It turned this year. The 12 fatalities, including two particularly gruesome ones that occurred in full view of packed grandstand and before a national TV audience, were as bad as it gets. How many racing fans were turned into ex-racing fans on those days? NYRA has always taken the safety of the horses and jockeys very seriously and will no doubt continue to put in place measures to keep both safe.

They have some control over horse safety, but none over the weather, which was a huge problem at the meet. During the 2022 meet, only 15 races came off the grass. Through Sunday of the 2023 meet, 65 races had come off the grass. There had been 189 grass races run in 2022 versus 129 this year. That always leads to the same problems. When races come off the turf there are always a number of scratches, typically creating off-the-turf races with four or five-horse fields. On Aug. 10, an off-the-turf race actually turned into a match race. This is stuff no one wants to bet on.

NYRA is ready to do what it can to address that problem. NYRA President and CEO Dave O'Rourke has said that there is serious interest in installing a synthetic track at Saratoga by the 2025 meet. It wouldn't replace either the dirt main track or the two turf courses but would give NYRA a third option when it comes to racing surfaces and the synthetic track would largely be put to use when the rains washed races off of the turf.

The weather has been a problem, but if you dig a bit further you can find some signs that Saratoga handle was affected by more than the rain. On GI Travers Day 2023, when two races came off the turf, the handle was $50,183,71. In 2022, the handle was $55,559,315 when one race came off the grass. This past Saturday, on GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Day, they bet $27,400,509 on a day not impacted by weather. The year before the handle was $32,505,600.

“I think what happened is with all the earlier rain we lost some momentum and when that happened it's hard to get it back,” O'Rourke said.

Field size fell by 2.5 percent, from 7.75 to 7.56. A more telling number was the average handle per betting interest. It was $255,773 this year and $272,599 last year, for a drop of 6.2%.

What's done is done and there's nothing to do now but turn the page and hope Saratoga 2024 is one of the safest meets in history and the weather is gorgeous from opening day to closing day. The place is still magical and popular, but everything peaks at some point. Maybe that's happened to Saratoga.

European Dominance On The Turf

This is getting a bit ridiculous. U.S. racing is used to second-flight European horses coming over and winning some of our biggest grass race, but the year European shippers are having this year shows that our grass horses are vastly inferior. Take Saturday's GIII $2 million Mint Millions at Kentucky Downs. There was only one European shipper in the field, Ancient Rome (War Front), who is trained by Charlie Hills and was ridden by Jamie Spencer. Facing the likes of GI winner Annapolis (War Front), he came into it off a win in a handicap race. Before that you had to go all the way back to 2021 for his last graded win, a victory in the GIII Prix des Chenes in France. He won that by a half-length. He won the Mint Millions by a half-length.

A week earlier, it was Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). He came into the GI Sword Dancer after losing by 21 1/2 lengths in the GI King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I Stakes, where he went off at 125-1. Yet, that was good enough to win the Sword Dancer by 4 1/2 lengths. The win broke a nine-race losing streak, going back to the 2021 GI Belmont Derby where he also took advantage of a weak group of U.S. turf horses.

Then there's Aspen Grove (Ire) (Justify). She was sent off at 50-1 in the GI Irish 1,000 Guineas and finished last beaten 14 1/2 lengths. But that was good enough for her to take home first prize of $500,000 in the GI Belmont Oaks Invitational in her next outing.

Good luck to our horses in the Breeders' Cup turf races.

Surprise, Surprise, Still No News Out Of Saudi Arabia

Back in 2020, Maximum Security (New Year's Day) crossed the line in front in the 2020 $20 million Saudi Cup. Just a few days later, his trainer, Jason Servis, was arrested and charged with using performance-enhancing drugs on most of the horses in his barn. When that news broke, the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia said it was withholding the purses until it could investigate the situation

It's been 29 months since Servis was indicted, he has pled guilty and in November will begin a four-year prison sentence. The case is over, but the Saudis still haven't paid out the purse. Presumably, the winner's share of $10 million will eventually go to Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute). But no one has been paid as the Saudis, who should have all the evidence they'll ever need, do nothing and don't seem to be in any hurry to write a check. We tried to get an update on the situation this week, but the answer we got didn't really answer anything.

“Due to the extended nature of the judicial process in the USA, the JCSA has been unable to fully conduct its own investigation into the awarding of the winner's prize for The Saudi Cup 2020,” wrote the JCSA's Sarah Tregoning in response to an email sent by the TDN. “Now that the legal process in the USA has finished, the JCSA expects to swiftly conclude its own investigation and make an announcement in the coming weeks.”

I wouldn't hold your breath.

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