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Junior Alvarado Wins 2023 Mike Venezia Award

Veteran jockey Junior Alvarado has been named the winner of the 2023 Mike Venezia Memorial Award. Alvarado, based this summer at Saratoga Race Course and the regular rider of GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner Cody's Wish, was chosen by a committee comprised of members of the Venezia family, representatives of the Jockeys' Guild and retired Eclipse Award-winning jockey Richard Migliore. Alvarado will be recognized in a winner's circle ceremony at Saratoga Saturday.

“The Venezia Memorial Award is about representing the sport we love so much in the best way possible,” said Alvarado. “I am thankful and proud to be chosen as this year's winner and I look forward to celebrating with my family and thanking the Venezia family here at Saratoga Race Course.”

The Mike Venezia Memorial Award is presented annually by the New York Racing Association to a jockey who displays the extraordinary sportsmanship and citizenship that personified Venezia, who died as the result of injuries suffered in a spill in 1988. Venezia, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., won more than 2,300 races during his 25-year career.

“Junior is a true professional at what he does, both as a top jockey and as a role model,” said Terry Meyocks, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jockeys' Guild. “The winners of the Venezia Award are ambassadors for Thoroughbred racing; they're champions on and off the track. We welcome Junior to the ranks of those who have previously been honored with the Venezia Award.”

A native of Barquisimeto, Venezuela and the son of jockey Rafael Alvarado, Junior Alvarado, 37, rode his first winner in 2005 at La Rinconada Hippodrome in Caracas before moving to the U.S. in 2007 when he rode his first winner at Gulfstream Park. After earning the 2009 riding title at Arlington Park, Alvarado moved to New York in 2010 and he has been a mainstay on the circuit ever since, winning the 2014 GI Whitney S. on Moreno and racking up more than 1,400 wins and more than $106 million in earnings at the NYRA tracks. For his career, Alvarado has more than 2,000 wins and more than $126.9 million in earnings.

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Thursday’s Insights: Constitution Colt Looks To Author Juvenile Score

10th-KD, $150K, Msw, 2yo, 1mT, 6:28 p.m.
The European-style grass course situated on the Kentucky side of the southern border with Tennessee cards a maiden finale which draws $450,000 Keeneland September graduate from last year, PUBLIUS (Constitution). Bred by Twin Creeks Farm, the bay colt debuts out of Sharp Instinct (Awesome Again), who is the dam of seven winners from nine to race. The Brad Cox trainee, ridden by Florent Geroux, is a half-brother to GIII Excelsior S. hero Send It In (Big Brown).

Also entered is the well-bred Tapitoro (Tapit), who was purchased by De Meric Sales for $170,000 at the Keeneland September Sale and was pinhooked for $300,000 during OBS April Sale. Trained by Brian Lynch and ridden by James Graham, the gray colt is a half-sibling to Canadian champion turf male and GI Ricoh Woodbine Mile winner El Tormenta (Stormy Atlantic), GIII Las Cienegas S. victor Zero Tolerance (Mizzen Mast) and Strut the Ring (Strut the Stage).

Out of an extended female family which includes Canadian Horse of the Year Dance Smartly (Danzig), multiple leading sire Smart Strike (Mr. Prospector) and champion 2-year-old colt trio Sky Classic (Nijinsky II), Regal Classic (Vice Regent) and Grey Classic (Grey Dawn II), Tapitoro's dam Torreadora (El Prado {Ire}) is a half-sister to MGSW His Race To Win (Stormy Atlantic) and the dam of MSW Galilean (Uncle Mo). TJCIS PPS

2nd-SAR, $136K, Msw, 2yo, f, 1m, 1:44 p.m.
Up at Saratoga, first timer Paradise Lane (Quality Road) will debut for Hall fo Fame trainer Bill Mott with regular rider Junior Alvarado up. Bred and part-owned by Pam and Martin Wygod, the bay filly is the first offspring out of GI Santa Anita Oaks and GI Zenyatta S. heroine and 'TDN Rising Star' Paradise Woods (Union Rags). Second dam Wild Forest (Forest Wildcat) is a half-sister to GSW and English GSW Tajaaweed (Dynaformer) and digging a little deeper under the fourth dam we find MGSW and GISP Mr. Greeley (Gone West) and GISW Mona de Momma (Speightstown). TJCIS PPS

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An Argument for Dirt: Letter to the Editor, by Steven Crist

To the Editor: The campaign to abolish dirt racing in favor of synthetic surfaces may be well-intentioned, but is a dangerous knee-jerk overreaction that would accomplish little but the destruction of Thoroughbred racing as we know it.

These advocates seem to have forgotten that we tried this a generation ago, when Southern California, Keeneland, and Dubai all switched to synthetic racing–and then tore out those tracks when it became obvious that they were producing misleading results and undeserving Grade I winners and champions. As Bob Baffert correctly said at the time, synthetic surfaces make mediocre horses look good and good horses look mediocre.

Do we really want to return to a randomizing form of racing under which Street Sense struggled home in the Breeders' Futurity and Blue Grass on synthetics, as opposed to his definitive dirt victories in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Kentucky Derby? Would Curlin be the breed-changing stallion he has become if his dull fourth-place finish on synthetic in the Breeders' Cup Classic was as good as we had ever seen from him?

The raw data that has led people to conclude that synthetics are safer is deceptive, an apples-to-oranges comparison that disregards the poor condition of the nation's lower-tier dirt tracks and ignores the anecdotal evidence of increased soft-tissue injuries on synthetic surfaces. The more important data is the sharp reduction in breakdowns on dirt tracks in the last decade. That is a record of major improvement that, coupled with other new procedures and technology, can continue to the point where dirt is every bit as “safe” as synthetics without discarding centuries of breeding for dirt and grass.

There have been more catastrophic deaths on grass than dirt this summer at Saratoga. Should we therefore abolish grass racing too, and continue signaling our alleged virtue by urging the rest of the world to uproot its grass courses and go all-synthetic as well?

Switching to synthetics will irreparably harm American racing and breeding and will not placate a single foe of our sport.

Steven Crist

Hempstead, NY

The writer covered racing for nearly 40 years for The New York Times, Racing Times and Daily Racing Form. He was among the inaugural inductees to the Racing Hall of Fame's media honor roll in 2011 and received the Eclipse Award of Merit in 2016.

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Eight Juveniles Face Off in With Anticipation

A field of eight juveniles will head postward in the 1 1/16-mile GIII With Anticipation S. over the lawn at Saratoga Thursday. West Point Thoroughbreds and Steven Bouchey's Carson's Run (Cupid) is already a winner over the course and trip where he broke his maiden by a late-running neck July 29. Carson's Run has worked back three times since his victory, most recently covering five furlongs in 1:03.25 (3/4) over the Oklahoma turf training track last Thursday.

“He had a good work on the grass the other day. He's trained very forwardly and we're looking forward to running him again here at Saratoga,” said Miguel Clement, son and assistant to Christophe Clement. “[Jockey] Dylan [Davis] has been breezing him in the mornings. He's always been high on the horse from Day One. The horse has a good turn of foot, and I wouldn't swap positions with anyone else heading into this race.”

While Carson's Run enters his first start against winners as the 7-2 co-second choice on the morning line, he will be an emotional favorite for the Saratoga faithful. The colt's namesake Carson Jost, 30, suffers from a genetic condition called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome. His father, Wade Jost, is a longtime friend of West Point Thoroughbreds' President and CEO Terry Finley and is a partner in the horse's ownership.

Christophe Clement will also saddle the With Anticipation's 3-1 morning-line favorite Spirit Prince (Cairo Prince), who adds blinkers after finishing a narrowly beaten runner-up in his July 22 unveiling over the same course and distance. The gray colt finished a half-length adrift of Noted (Cairo Prince) that day and that rival returned to win the Aug. 26 Sapling S. at Monmouth Park.

The Bill Mott-trained Gala Brand (Violence), scratched from Wednesday's one-mile off-turf P.G. Johnson S. versus her own sex, is the lone filly in the field. She was flying from far back to win her 5 1/2-furlong unveiling at Saratoga Aug. 3, kicking clear in the lane to a 2 1/4-length score that was awarded a field-best 71 Beyer Speed Figure.

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