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Derby Preps Highlight Aqueduct Winter Stakes Schedule

A trio of GI Kentucky Derby preps highlight the Aqueduct 2023 winter meet stakes schedule, which was released by NYRA Wednesday. The 44-day winter meet, which begins Jan. 1 and runs through Mar. 26, will offer a total of 25 stakes races worth $3.2 million. Live racing will be conducted Thursday to Sunday until Feb. 12 and will move to a Friday to Sunday schedule from Feb. 17 through the end of the meet.

Stakes action kicks off on opening day with the first Derby prep, the $150,000 Jerome S., which offers 10 qualifying points to the winner. The next Derby qualifier will be the 20-point, $250,000 GIII Withers S. Feb. 4 and the third is the $300,000 GIII Gotham S., worth 50 points, to be held Mar. 4.

The winter meet also includes two prep races for the GI Kentucky Oaks, starting with the $100,000 Busanda S., a 20-point qualifying race. The other is the $200,000 Busher S. Mar. 4, worth 50 qualifying points.

The first graded race will be the $150,000 GIII Toboggan S. Jan. 28 and the final graded event takes place on Gotham day, the GIII Tom Fool H.

Aqueduct will host a special President's Day card Monday, Feb. 20, which will be highlighted by the $100,000 Haynesfield S. for older New York-bred males.

The final weekend of the winter meet will feature the $100,000 East View S. for New York-bred sophomore fillies Mar. 24, followed by New York Claiming Championship Day Saturday, Mar. 25 with six starter events offering a combined $380,000 in purse money.

Click here for the full winter meet stakes schedule.

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Inaugural Big Data Derby Winner Announced

The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) and the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) announced that a team led by Brendan Kumagai has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Big Data Derby competition, beating out 105 other submissions for first prize. Kumagai, together with Gurashish Bagga, Kimberly Kroetch, Tyrel Stokes, and Liam Welsh, took the $20,000 first prize with the submission, “Bayesian Velocity Models for Horse Race Simulation.”

Kumagai's team created a dynamic model that focused on horses' forward versus lateral speed and examined the results of sustained momentum and velocity within races. The team also studied jockey performance and how that would impact a horse's running style in addition to biometric data, leading to the possibility of calculating a horse's welfare and injury probability.

“We're honored to be named the winners of the inaugural Big Data Derby competition,” Kumagai said. “Our team primarily works in financial analytics and hockey statistics, so working with horse racing data has been a unique challenge which allowed us to apply our skills to a relatively new and unexplored domain.”

The Big Data Derby was launched with the goal of analyzing the vast amounts of data available to racing organizations, and to understand how the results of those studies could impact traditional methods of racing and training. The competition was sponsored NYRA and the NYTHA in partnership with the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Equibase, The Jockey Club, Breeders' Cup and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA).

Other models in the competition shed light on injury prevention, jockey decision making metrics, race tactics, track bias and more. Kumagai, a Data Science intern at Zelus Analytics, was previously part of a team that won the 2022 Big Data Bowl offered by the National Football League. The competition was judged by data analyst Rob Bingel, Rhodes College Economics Professor, horseplayer and thoroughbred owner Marshall Gramm, and Craig Milkowski of TimeformUS.

An open notebook of user-created content and data can be viewed at: https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/big-data-derby-2022/code.

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NYRA’s Renovation of Belmont’s Pony Track Complete

The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) has installed a Tapeta Footings synthetic surface at Belmont's pony track, located just to the northeast of Belmont's training track. The quarter-mile pony track, which is used mostly for jogging horses, will be open seven days a week from 5:30-10:30 a.m. beginning Tuesday, Dec. 6.

“Modern synthetic surfaces have a wide range of applications for horsemen and track operators alike, and we look forward to working with the product every day and in all seasons at Belmont Park,” said Glen Kozak, NYRA Senior Vice President, Operations and Capital Projects.

NYRA plans to collect data from the new pony track to help decide whether to add a synthetic track as the fourth Belmont Park racing surface.

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NYRA Racing Secretary Doleshel to Appeal Fine

Keith Doleshel, fined $2,000 by the New York Gaming Commission for “failing to conduct business in a professional manner,” will appeal that ruling before the commission, and has retained attorney Drew Mollica to represent him, according to Mollica.

The ruling stemmed from an incident at Saratoga in which an unauthorized agent was allowed to claim a horse this past summer. The New York State rules of racing require that an individual be licensed with the Gaming Commission and registered with The Jockey Club. After the claim, NYRA officials informed the Gaming Commission of the error, and Doleshel was fined on October 20.

The fine was one of four levied upon NYRA employees this year: Doleshel was fined $2,000 in April after a horse not fully registered as a New York-bred competed in two New York-bred races; NYRA Senior Vice President of Racing Frank Gabriel was fined $4,000 for failure to follow proper claiming protocol, and clocker Richie Gazer was fined $2,500 for reporting the half-mile time of a five-furlong workout.

“Keith Doleshel is a valued employee who conducts himself with a high degree of professionalism at all times,” said NYRA's Vice President of Communications Pat McKenna. “He has every right to appeal this decision, and NYRA continues to question the rationale for issuing significant financial penalties for alleged errors that are inadvertent and administrative or clerical in nature.”

“Anyone who knows Mr. Doleshel during his tenure at NYRA knows that he always conducts business in a professional manner,” said Mollica, “and he denies that he has not done so in this case. He has never been able to confront this charge, because he has never been told what he did wrong. As such, the scarlet letter of unprofessionalism cannot stand and we must appeal.”

“Mr. Doleshel had a competent person acting as the claims clerk,” said Mollica. “A mistake may have been made in the office or by The Jockey Club, but it had nothing to do with him acting unprofessionally.”

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