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Letter to the Editor: Racing Owner Conversations

by Edd Roggenkamp, Versailles, Kentucky

Racehorse owners are the lifeblood of this industry. Without owners, there is no need for breeding farms, sales companies, consigners, vets, feed companies, et al. But the number of licensed racehorse owners is declining in most states, which is a seriously negative trend for the horseracing industry.

Over the nearly 30 years that I have owned and raced Thoroughbreds, I have always found it most interesting to sit down and have a candid conversation with another racehorse owner. It lets me find out how they manage their stable, design their tactics and adjust their racing strategy. Universally, their love for the sport and enthusiasm is contagious. These conversations, often over coffee in the track kitchen, have been a big help as I climbed up the steep learning curve of owning race horses. I was lucky early-on to meet some knowledgeable owners, that were enthusiastic, but realistic, and willing to share their “how to” tactics. Some of my best conversations were with small guys, often operating on a budget, but smart, careful, and having great fun owning racehorses and winning races. But such conversations are not always easily available to folks that want to own a race horse, or a new owner that wants to learn fast, or even a veteran who wants to hear different ownership strategies.

There are lots of articles and videos covering high-flying trainers and jockeys talking about their Grade 1 racing success, but how about the day-to-day ideas and strategies of the dedicated people that own the horses and write the checks?

So, the idea was hatched. Let's record a series of candid and freewheeling Racehorse Owner Conversations with all kinds of experienced and successful owners. We'll ask them to share their strategy, their level of involvement, how they acquire good racing stock, and how they find and develop relationships with quality support people. Then we will share these conversations freely with anybody interested in owning racehorses.

Luckily, modern podcast technology makes this possible. The first of these conversations (podcasts) are now available free on major podcast sites: Spotify, Google podcasts, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and many others. Anyone can download and listen to these conversations at their leisure.

The conversations will not be just about winning graded stakes races because 80% of our sport is claiming races, and thousands of ardent owners, enjoy winning races at their local track. Ownership situations are generally the same…only the budget is different. Our first three podcast conversations are with successful owners that have won major graded stakes races (Texas-based Jerry Namy, a Grade I-winning owner at Keeneland; 2022's leading owner in Maryland Larry Johnson; and West Coast-based Grade I-winning owner Jack Hodge), but all three have started a claimer within the last year.

So go to a podcast site, search for Racehorse Owner Conversations and listen in for free to the first 3 Episodes available now. More conversations will be added shortly, and all podcasts will be archived and available indefinitely. We think you'll find these sessions with the candid, thoughtful and colorful people who share their ideas on Racehorse Owner Conversations interesting, helpful and enlightening.

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What You Need to Know About the New Belmont Park

There was a lot to celebrate earlier this month when it was confirmed that the New York State's budget will include a $455-million loan to the New York Racing Association that will go toward a complete rebuild of Belmont Park. That means Belmont will be torn down and replaced by a new structure and that once the new building is up, racing will cease at Aqueduct. But when will it happen? What will the new track look like? And what does it mean for the yearly racing schedule? Here are some of the most important questions and answers involving this dramatic change for New York racing.

When will the new building open?

The plan is to have the new track ready to go for the 2026 spring meet. Construction will start after the 2024 spring meet at Belmont ends. Shortly thereafter, the current building, which opened in 1968, will be torn down.

“It is very early on in the process, but our goal is to have the new facility ready for the 2026 Belmont,” said NYRA CEO and President Dave O'Rourke. “The specifics, we're still working through that and I'll have a much better answer for you this summer.”

With the Belmont grandstand closing in 2024 and not ready to open until 2026, what does that mean for the 2025 racing schedule and the 2025 Belmont?

That might be the single biggest issue that remains unresolved. There are a handful of options. They could run that spring at Aqueduct and hold the Belmont there. The Belmont was run at Aqueduct from 1963 to 1967 while the current Belmont was being built. From a logistical standpoint, that's probably the easiest solution, but the aesthetics of Aqueduct leave a lot to be desired. They could try to run at Belmont during the construction and without stands. That's what Arlington did in 1985 after a fire ravaged the track, just a few weeks before the running of the GI Arlington Million. Gulfstream found a way to conduct racing in the period between the destruction of the old stands and the opening of the new building. You can do a lot these days with tents and temporary seating. Or how about this? Run most of the spring meet at Aqueduct, but head north for Belmont week and have a Belmont-at-Saratoga meet for four or five days.

“Everything is on the table and we will look at all our options,” O'Rourke said.

NYRA has confirmed that all of the traditional fall Belmont meets between now and the re-opening of the new Belmont will be held at Aqueduct.

What will the new grandstand look like? How big will it be?

It will take up roughly 275,000 square feet, making it about one fourth the size of the current building, which covers 1.25 million square feet. As is the case with any new sports facility being built today, there will be an emphasis on amenities. Expect luxury boxes, a high-end restaurant and tents and other temporary facilities catering to the well-heeled.

If it's going to be that small, how will they accommodate the types of crowds you get for the Belmont S. and, in the future, the Breeders' Cup?

“They're going to lay down the infrastructure so that they can put up high-end temporary hospitality for the big days,” O'Rourke said. “It will be something like what you see at Royal Ascot. We're building that into the plan.”

The new Belmont will also be able to place fans in the infield, something not currently available at the existing facility.

Belmont struggles mightily when it comes to attendance, particularly on the week days. Can a new, shiny facility change that narrative?

“I think those attendances will be greater than you might think,” O'Rourke said. “Right now, if you come out here on a nice Saturday in the spring, every green area is packed. It's the building. The building itself is a warehouse built for betting. We're going to have a lot more green space at the new track. By creating a park-like atmosphere, I think you're going to a see a different kind of draw on a regular day. It's also going to be a facility that will cater more to the owner and horsemen. This is New York and a lot of the owners live here. We want to build something they'll want to come out to. That's what Saratoga does. It brings everyone, fans, owners, out. I know it's a different market, but we think by having a smaller, high-end building we can accomplish some of that.

With no Aqueduct, Belmont will be open for 44 weeks. Is that too much? Could we see an expanded Saratoga meet?

“As of now, the plan is to run the traditional meet at Saratoga with Belmont hosting the rest of the days,” O'Rourke said. “We will see how that works out. If we need to adjust or try something different, we'll have to figure out what that might be. What that might be, I don't know.”

With all the changes, this was NYRA's chance to downsize its racing surfaces. You need a mile-and-a-half main track for exactly one race a year. Why not go to a smaller main track?

“Some things you just don't want to mess with,” O'Rourke said. “We had many different variations drawn up, but we're not going to change. The Belmont Stakes is the biggest event held here and the mile-and-a-half track works for that. There will be one change, though. The turf courses are going to widened with more lanes.

What's the latest on the synthetic track at Belmont?

“The synthetic track is going in this year and will be ready for the 2024 spring meet at Belmont,” O'Rourke said. “Once we leave for Saratoga, the synthetic goes in, the inner turf gets redone and more tunnels go in. The flavor of winter racing in New York is going to change. We will have more options. Our circuit, we become a dirt circuit every year for four, five months. With a synthetic track, there will be more of an opportunity for turf-focused horses and they will have a place to run up north.”

The post What You Need to Know About the New Belmont Park appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Week in Review: Sure, the Derby Had Its Moments, but this was a Really Bad Day

In our insular world, the story Saturday evening was that Mage (Good Magic) won the 149th GI Kentucky Derby. There were some feel-good storylines, particularly the one about well-liked 45-year-old jockey Javier Castellano winning his first Derby. Handle set a record. Attendance was up from last year. Plenty of A-list celebrities were in attendance. As always, the playing of “My Old Kentucky Home” could bring a tear to your eye.

To many in racing those were the stories, but only because there are not enough of us who are worried sick about this sport's future because of its problems with animal rights issues and the growing belief among the general public that the sport is cruel to the animal. Because seven horses died in the lead-up to the Derby, including two on Derby day itself, this was a horrible day for the sport. It was as bad as anything that happened at Santa Anita in 2019, and still another wake-up call that everything that can be done to protect these animals needs to be done.

On the Sunday morning that followed, very few Americans could have told you Mage is, who Castellano is, what the running time was. But just about everyone of them knew that seven horses died at Churchill Downs.

How could they not? The racing publications, the Thoroughbred Daily News among them, trod lightly when it came to reporting the news that Chloe's Dream (Honor Code) and Freezing Point (Frosted) suffered life-ending injuries on the Derby card. The mainstream media did not. The public was inundated with bad news.

Many of the stories were similar to the one that run in USA Today under the headline “Mage's magical Kentucky Derby win overshadowed by specter of death.” They all kind of went like this: “Seven horses have died at Churchill Downs and, oh, by the way, a horse named Mage won the Kentucky Derby.”

“Unfortunately, it is not the image that America is going to take away from the 149th Kentucky Derby,” writer Dan Wolken wrote in reference to the picture the sport likes to paint when it comes to the Derby, its pomp and circumstance, its majesty, the fancy hats, etc. “Instead, it is going to be the specter of animal death that hangs over this sport and the unwillingness of anyone in a position of authority in horse racing to either explain it or own it.”

Here's what Joe Drape in the New York Times had to say in his post-race coverage that had the headline “Mage Captures the Derby After an Agonizing Week at Churchill Downs.”

“The best thing you can say about the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby is that the 18 horses who made it to the starting gate on Saturday survived. That came as a relief after at least seven horses died at Churchill Downs in the past week, two of them on Saturday in races leading up to America's most famous race.

“By the time the horses edged into the starting gate for what is an annual Thoroughbred celebration on the first Saturday in May, all anyone who loves the sport was thinking–no, praying–was that these ethereal creatures and their riders get around the mile and a quarter race safely.

“Could you blame them?”

He didn't mention Mage until the 11th paragraph of his story.

I find myself disagreeing with Drape more often than not, but he wasn't wrong. It was very hard to enjoy watching the running of the race when you knew that the possibility, as slim as it might have been, existed that still one more horse would die.

The Wall Street Journal ran the story “Mage Wins the Kentucky Derby Amid String of Horse Deaths at Churchill Downs.” The lede paragraph read: “Mage won the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby on a day when an abnormal string of horse deaths continued earlier in the day, casting a long shadow over racing's marquee event.”

In a column he wrote titled “Stench of death overwhelms Kentucky Derby,” Associated Press writer Paul Newberry wrote “Horse racing needs to demonstrate once and for all that it truly cares about the athletes at the heart of its sport.”

I could go on. There are dozens more stories like that out there. But you get the point.

So on the one day when the public is actually paying attention to racing and the sport has an opportunity to showcase all that is right with it, it blows up in our face. We invited the public in, asked them to watch, learn and enjoy and what we wound up giving them was a nightmare that put racing in the worst possible light. Where does this end and when does the American public say “we've had enough?”

This all comes amid the sport heading in the right direction. The fatality numbers go down every year and some racetrack owners and regulators have put new protocols in place that have clearly worked. Del Mar and Santa Anita both have made great strides of late when it comes to safety. This new mentality was on display at Churchill. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission ordered that all horses trained by Saffie Joseph Jr. be scratched after two horses he trained died of unknown causes. That probably wouldn't have happened 10 years ago. The racing commission vet also scratched Derby favorite Forte (Violence) over a bruised foot even though it appeared that trainer Todd Pletcher wanted to run the horse. That probably wouldn't have happened 10 years ago either.

But the awful fact remains that a lot of horses still die each year. Based on figures from The Jockey Club's Equine Injury Data Base, about 350 horses died in races alone last year. So this is what we have left to tell the public, “we don't kill as many horses as we used to.” That's never going to work.

The sobering part of this is that there are no magic bullets. Yes, we are doing better, but we're never going to see a day when race horses just don't die anymore. The Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act is a step in the right direction and those who are standing in its way are doing a great disservice to the sport. But HISA is not a panacea.

We are left to soldier on, vow to do our very best to keep these horses safe and, well, keep our fingers crossed. Efforts to end the sport picked up a lot of momentum Saturday, and that's a very scary thing.

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Dams of Oaks, Derby Winner, Sold Three Hips, 10 Minutes, Apart

For a sales company, selling the dam of a future Classic winner at your mixed sale is about as good a marketing tool as there is. Imagine selling two of them, three hips and 10 minutes apart, at the same sale.

After the dust cleared from Derby weekend, a closer look at the results revealed just that: Pretty City Dancer, the dam of GI Kentucky Oaks winner Pretty Mischievous, sold as hip 122 at the 2018 Fasig-Tipton November Sale; and Puca, the dam of the Kentucky Derby winner Mage, sold a few minutes later as hip 125.

Stroud Coleman Bloodstock acquired Pretty City Dancer on behalf of Godolphin for $3.5 million at the sale while she was carrying her first foal, now the winning 4-year-old Medaglia d'Oro filly Ornamental. She was the co-third-highest price that year, and was offered by Taylor Made Sales.

Puca was knocked down at $475,000 by Robert Clay from the Denali Sales consignment, in foal to Gun Runner, then standing his first year at stud. That Gun Runner filly, Gunning, has twice been stakes-placed, and Clay bred her back to another first-year sire in Good Magic in 2019.

How unusual is the occurrence? “It's highly unusual,” said Boyd Browning, the President and CEO of Fasig-Tipton. “I'd have to do the research, but in 35 years, I can't ever remember the Oaks and Derby winners' dams being sold the same night-never mind within 10 minutes of each other.”

Browning said when Mage hit the wire, he didn't quite realize the significance of what had happened.

“Last night, I was reviewing the pedigree of the dam, like I do after most major graded stakes races. I knew we had sold the dam of Pretty Mischievous because I had communicated with the team at Godolphin and Darley on Friday night and congratulated them. Then, an hour after the Derby, I was like, `wow, we sold Puca as well.'

Browning dug a little deeper, saw that both were sold in 2018, and as mares sell in name-order, realized that they must have been close together. That's when he discovered how close. “Statistically, it would be off the charts.”

Each mare had similarities, too. Each was carrying their first foal at the sale, and produced the Classic winner on a subsequent cover.

“That's what makes our game so good,” said Browning. “You've got Godolphin through Anthony Stroud buying a Grade I winner by Tapit carrying her first foal, and we knew it was going to be one of the highlights of the sale, a mare like her. Then you have Puca, in foal to the first-year stallion that everybody likes in Gun Runner. We figured she was going to sell well.”

But while both mares went to seasoned industry participants in Godolphin and Robert Clay, “the offspring, really take two divergent paths and end up in two divergent camps,” said Browning. “And that truly is the great thing about our game. You've got a fascinating group of owners on Mage with the trainer, Gustavo Delgado, only coming to the United States in 2014 after a tremendous career in Venezuela, and you've got Brendan Walsh and the Goldphin team, one of the most powerful stables in the world acquiring Pretty City Dancer, and Grandview Equine with a limited number of mares buying Puca. And they reach the highest success we can reach in our game.”

And at the end of the day, Browning said, that's good for everyone.

“It fuels the dream, whether you're buying mares or you're buying yearlings or you're buying two-year-olds, and to just watch the emotion that the connections experienced is what makes what we do so special.”

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