Irwin: With Horseracing Integrity And Safety Authority, Will The Culture Change?

Sixteen years after I first suggested in an Op/Ed in The Blood-Horse that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) should be hired to oversee drugs in American racing and eight years after like-minded horse folks founded the grass roots organization named the Water Hay Oats Alliance (whose mission statement mirrored my original suggestion), the sport of horse racing in the United States is on the verge of seeing this goal at long last come to fruition with Monday's announcement that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will push for the creation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

USADA supremo Travis Tygart will not be beaten in his attempt to rein in cheaters, just as the current investigations that have led to the initial arrests of accused trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis have shown what can be accomplished when real G-men go after rule breakers.

To me it is a given that systems, protocols and policing practices will be put in place by USADA and dedicated investigators will be hired to put a stop to cheating with the illegal designer drugs that have turned hitherto unknown horsemen into trainers with Hall of Fame credentials.

As far as I am concerned, the hard work that is to come is finally in the hands of those who can be trusted to make this happen.

We are now ready to focus on the next elephant in the room: the culture of the North American backstretch community, which includes those trainers, owners, veterinarians and other assorted enablers and misfits that do not want to follow the rules.

I look at the past decade as a time in racing that is reminiscent of the Black Sox Scandal in baseball. While our scandal in some regards is still unfolding as the investigations continue for the next year or so, it is time for all of us to take a strong look at the culture that made it happen, because unless this culture can change, racing cannot hope to turn the page and seek recognition as a clean sport.

Cheating by trainers, vets and owners with illegal and unknown Performance Enhancing Drugs has until very recently gone largely unchecked because those agencies charged with regulating the sport have shown no interest in addressing the problem.

Horsemen's organizations, State regulators, racetrack operators, racing boards and the media with few exceptions have not done their job of creating a positive culture. Trainers bent on cheating come up with any number of reasons that are as lame as the unsoundest horse in the barn to be able to keep their candy. State regulators will not rock the boat for fear of losing their jobs. Racetrack owners have been operating under the false notion that exposing cheaters will hurt their business. Racing boards are peopled by political appointees that want to defer rather than regulate. The media has enough clued-in writers and analysts to make a difference, but instead of being real they have made a light industry of glorifying trainers that cheat because that is what is expected of them.

OK, so now that a rejuvenating breath of fresh air is about to be ushered into the sport thanks to installing USADA to oversee drugs in racing and the horsemen's pleas to retain all of their drugs has been silenced, will those movers and shakers in racing agree to play the game on the level?

I am extremely worried the answer may be “no” given the history of the sport and the unbridled energy of the worst aspects of human nature. I do believe that plenty of horsemen and owners seek an edge only because they think everybody who is winning does the same thing. I think these people can and will adapt to a more normal way of doing business. I know plenty of them really appreciate the change.

The ones I fear are those horsemen that have seen the awesome power of illegal drugs and no matter what happens will always seek an edge because they have been emasculated by the power of drugs and think their skills will never be good enough to allow them to win on the square.

While most horsemen outwardly behave as though they have confidence in themselves, the truth is that very few of them really do and they live in mortal fear of being found out as a fraud.

I reckon that many of these will fall by the wayside, because if they are forced to stop cheating, their stats will reflect the new normal and fewer owners will supply them with horses. Others who are smarter than the average fellow will continue to cheat and, for a time, may continue to get away with it. But eventually the axe will fall not only them but their enablers—the owners who supply them with drugs, the money to buy drugs and expensive horses.

My hope for racing—and it is just that, a hope—is that those individuals who have enjoyed phenomenal success because of their cheating and only play a game they can dominate if they can cheat—will fade from view and go back to other money games on Wall Street or the corporate jungle and return to swindling their peers, while leaving the rest of us cases of arrested development to conduct our silly contests of equine speed.

Once the landscape has been cleared, racing in my fantasy world would take place on a level playing field for the first time in an entire human generation and those folks who really like the horses will produce a product that can be embraced by all of those horseplayers, fans, owners and trainers who love the greatest game played outdoors.

It could happen.

Barry Irwin is the founder and CEO of Team Valor International.

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The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: A Breakthrough On Integrity And Safety?

The pre-race activities of Kentucky Derby week were superseded briefly on Monday by a press conference at the Keeneland sale pavilion in Lexington, Ky., featuring United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Congressman Andy Barr and representatives of Keeneland, Churchill Downs Inc., Breeders' Cup Ltd., and The Jockey Club.

The purpose of the gathering was the announcement that the various parties had reached agreement on federal legislation to create the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which would provide oversight – relying on the expertise of the United States Anti-Doping Agency – on medication policy and enforcement for the Thoroughbred industry through bi-partisan legislation.

In this week's edition of the Friday Show, publisher Ray Paulick and editor-in-chief Natalie Voss raise questions about the proposal – which came without specifics as to how much this national oversight office would cost, who would foot the bill and who would appoint the oversight board. They point out that the current system – with regulatory oversight completely controlled by various state racing commissions, many of them either conflicted or incompetent – is not working.

Watch the Friday Show below.

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Derby History: Ansel Williamson, The Former Slave Who Trained The First Kentucky Derby Winner

Our readers here at the Paulick Report seem to love a good lookback at horse racing history. In considering the best subjects for our 2020 Triple Crown coverage, this seemed like a good time to make note of the crucial role Black horsemen have played in the early days of our sport, and in this series of races. Many of the sport's most revered heroes around the turn of the 20th century were ridden, cared for, trained, and sometimes owned by Black horsemen whose equine expertise sometimes stretched back generations. While some, like jockeys Jimmy Winkfield and Isaac Murphy, have been the subjects of well-researched biographies in recent years, others may be less known to racing fans. It is clear that their contributions played an essential role in the lives of horses that became influential in American Thoroughbred history and bloodlines.

Today, the Paulick Report continues our series on Black horsemen of Triple Crown racing history which we started before the Belmont Stakes with a profile on Edward Dudley Brown. If you missed it, you can access that piece here.

In a normal Kentucky Derby year, one of the most popular places for that perfect pre-race selfie is the Aristides statue which overlooks the paddock at Churchill Downs. Aristides is well-known in racing circles as the winner of the first Derby in 1875, but beyond this point of trivial pursuit many people don't know much about him – including the role Black horsemen played in getting him to the post that day.

Of the 15 horses who went to the post that first Derby Day, 13 did so with Black jockeys, including the eventual winner. Aristides had Oliver Lewis aboard, who was legged up by a former slave named Ansel Williamson.

Williamson was born an enslaved person in Virginia around 1810. The earliest accounts of his career as a trainer don't appear until the 1850s, by which time he was in Alabama, where he was enslaved as a trainer by T.G. Goldsby. It's likely his experience with horses started well before age 40. Williamson's specialty during this time was training horses for three-mile heats, including the nationally-known runner called Brown Dick.

Williamson was then sold to A. Keene Richards, for whom he trained Australian and Glycera. Richards, who was based in Kentucky, would become known as an influential breeder. Interestingly, Richards was perhaps best-known for importing a number of Arabian horses into the United States to reinvigorate what he saw as an inferior, weakened Thoroughbred which had strayed too far from its roots. The Thoroughbred of the time, in Richards' view, lacked durability and stamina of days past (sound familiar?). Richards' view of stamina was a minimum of a four-mile contest, which he judged the English Thoroughbred could not withstand without injury. The horses resulting from Richards' breeding experiment would unfortunately become spoils of the Civil War, which broke out just after he imported and bred Arabian stallions to Thoroughbred mares.

By now, having developed a reputation for his horsemanship skills, Williamson was sold in 1864 to Robert Alexander, owner of Woodburn Farm. Alexander seems to have had a fondness for Williamson before this, naming a colt Ansel after him in 1856. While at Woodburn, Williamson trained Asteroid, who was one of the most successful racehorses of his day, undefeated in 12 starts and earner of $9,700 by the time of his retirement.

Of course, Williamson made the move to Woodburn in the thick of the Civil War, when both the Confederate and Union armies were constantly in search of horses. According to Katherine Mooney's 'Race Horse Men,' Southern Thoroughbred owners were particularly nervous throughout this period, as horses were generally perceived as symbols of the Confederacy, making them attractive trophies for Union forces.

Writings from the period recall one nighttime raid on Woodburn by Confederate guerrilla Bill Quantrill, who rode with his men to the door and demanded horses. It seemed Quantrill was familiar with racing and with Woodburn, because he began requesting specific animals. Williamson negotiated with Quantrill in the dark and when the soldier requested Asteroid, quick-thinking Williamson was able to pull a young horse from a nearby stall who, under the cover of night, looked passable for Asteroid. Although Quantrill made off with 15 of Alexander's runners, he didn't get the stable's biggest star.

What Williamson may have felt in those moments, or indeed his feelings on any part of his career, is mostly absent from available historical accounts, which was true for many of the period's Black horsemen. There are small glimpses into the personalities of some, with jockeys more commonly being described in detail than trainers. In fact, their being noted at all was offensive to some turf devotees after their emancipation.

An artist's depiction of Aristides

“Freedom was a daily series of tiny revolutions,” Mooney wrote in 'Race Horse Men.' “The world had fundamentally changed, as the Spirit of the Times impatiently reminded its readers, after the magazine received a few letters from racing enthusiasts uncomfortable with Black competitors. Their scruples were ridiculous, the Spirit scoffed. 'Does any man with a pennyweight of brains think the less of Charles Littlefield or Gilpatrick because they ride against Abe or Albert or Alexander's Dick?' Between the rails of the racetrack, at least, Black men were to be the acknowledged equals of white ones.”

After the Civil War, this designation came in one small way to Williamson, who took his last name upon being granted his freedom. Many Black jockeys and trainers, like those noted in the quote from the Spirit of the Times, were identified only by their first name, but the Spirit printed Williamson's full name along with his horse's entries, just as it did for white trainers.

One account recalls a Spirit reporter rushing over to Abe Hawkins, the most famous of the very first well-known Black jockeys, to shake his hand in the crowd at the Jersey Derby. It seemed that by the end of the war, those who knew horses respected the immense talent of Black horsemen, even if they couldn't see them as equal people.

Williamson worked for Alexander after emancipation, and later went to train for H.P. McGrath of McGranthiana Farm. Williamson wasn't the only former Alexander employee who ended up at McGranthiana – Edward Dudley Brown, eventual trainer of Ben Brush and Plaudit, also worked there. It was common then, as it is now, for trainers and riders to mentor each other, and it seems Williamson nurtured Brown's early career as a rider. Brown began as a jockey before he was a trainer, and presumably his association with Williamson continued to benefit him when he transitioned to training. Brown mentored William Walker, the Black jockey who rode Baden Baden to victory in the Derby when he was still a teenager.

“In freedom, older men could pass on their skills to younger ones and hope to see privilege and experience accrue increasing rewards over the generations,” wrote Mooney. “Free men could afford to think of themselves as friends, colleagues, and mentors, as members of a group governed by more than individual interest.

“Williamson and others with insider knowledge also tried to take care of Black horsemen outside their immediate circle. Black men laid their money down at the betting windows with assurance, because they had inside information that had come from African American trainers and jockeys.”

When Williamson brought Aristides to the post at Churchill (then called the Louisville Jockey Club), the horse was not expected to win. Aristides had been entered as a pacesetter for McGrath's other runner, Chesapeake. He was small, and he was a front-runner in what was then a 1 ½-mile race.

Lewis took Aristides to the lead as he'd been instructed by McGrath, maintaining good position and a little surprised that after half a mile he'd had no challengers. Chesapeake, who had broken poorly, was no threat. Legend has it Lewis could be seen looking around, somehow spotting McGrath in a crowd reported to number 10,000, and hearing McGrath call out “Go on!” Lewis slipped the reins and on Aristides went, down the stretch and into history.

Williamson's name appears in relatively few modern books on Derby history outside of a passing mention in a table of past winners. In one, it's misspelled as Ansel Williams in both the index and his single mention in the entirety of the main text – an insult if ever there was one. Most racing historians would say however that his legacy wasn't really Aristides so much as the superstar Asteroid, who made his name known far and wide, to people he'd never met. His mark on the sport also includes Tom Bowling, Merrill, Virgil, Aaron Pennington, Susan Ann and yes, — Chesapeake. As a trainer, he won the Belmont, Travers, Jerome, Phoenix, and the Withers.

Williamson was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1998.

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Beat Ray At Del Mar: The Beach Boss Mayne Event

Kenny Mayne has hosted racing telecasts on ESPN, emceed the Eclipse Awards, covered the Palio in Italy, sung with famous jockeys, did the cha-cha on “Dancing With the Stars” and even called a race at Santa Anita.

But can he Beat Ray at Del Mar in the seaside track's Beach Boss competition?

Mayne is no Johnny-come-lately to horse racing. Growing up around Seattle, Wash., he started tagging along with a horseplayer uncle at the age of 8 to the old Longacres racetrack in Renton, learning to read the Daily Racing Form and cheering on his favorite horses and jockeys.

Since becoming a mainstay on ESPN, he's been a great ambassador for racing, bridging the gap between the old-school horseplayer and the modern-day sports fan who may not fully appreciate or understand what it is about our game that is so appealing.

Bottom line is, the way my luck and picks have been performing, all he has to do is show up to win.

Kenny will join fellow handicapper Michelle Yu and me on Saturday at 11 a.m. PT on Del Mar's social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) to handicap the Grade 2 Pat O'Brien Stakes, a Win and You're In Breeders' Cup Challenge Series race for the Big Ass Fans Dirt Mile division. Tune in to hear our handicapping strategies and bets for the contest.

Beat Ray Everyday is an online contest offered every racing day of the Del Mar summer meet. It's free to play and you can sign up here. Bet a mythical $100 each day on the selected contest race in win, place or show bets on any horse or horses.  At the end of the meet, the player with the highest bankroll from those wagers becomes the “Beach Boss” and wins two VIP tickets to the 2021 Breeders' Cup at Del Mar. Other prizes are available to top finishers and anyone who finishes ahead of me is entered in a drawing for even more prizes.

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