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Industry Voices: Bob Feld On What it Means to Try

The man lying in the hospital bed silent and completely still was a good man and led a good life. A loving husband, amazing father and a relentless provider for his family was slipping closer to death. My dad was a man of conviction, integrity and faith and I try every day to be the man he was. I won't get there, but I try. It's all about trying. He lived a full life and gave up a lot of the freedoms of his youth when he got married, which included owning racehorses.

My mom and dad raised five children on very low incomes. We all grew up thinking we were a middle-class family but in hindsight we were far from it. My parents created a way of life for us so that we never questioned our status growing up. We were happy and lacked nothing, especially love. In his younger days, John Feld dressed well, drove fancy cars, loved to bet on the horses and his getaway was Las Vegas. He was quite the bachelor and lived a fun and adventurous single life and a bit beyond his means because he could.

On one fortuitous trip to Las Vegas, he made a nice chunk of change over the weekend by hitting number 17 on the roulette wheel multiple times. The number 17 became the “Feld family lucky number” and includes events like his first born son born on February 17. The number 17's karmatic showing continues to this day.

My dad had slowly but surely gone into a coma as he was slowly but surely dying in front of his family. My mom, brother, sister, brother-in-law and I were all in the room to be in his presence as he passed. The doctor had told us that his coma was so deep that we would not be able to communicate with him nor would we see any response from him. As the hours went by, it became very apparent that the end of his life was near.

My son Sean and his “Pop” were close because they shared the passion of horse racing. Pop was the quintessential two-dollar bettor who loved the puzzle of picking the winner more than the gamble. In the 1980's, the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita started a tradition of giving away a commemorative stein each year on Opening Day of the meet. Pop started his own personal tradition of taking his oldest grandson, Sean, to Opening Day each year to get his stein. Annually on a Wednesday, his Mom and I allowed him to ditch school each year to go with Pop to add to his collection of steins.

I decided since Pop's life was about to end, to call Sean on my cell phone to see if he would like to say goodbye to his grandpa. He agreed. The room was deafeningly silent as if a vigil for my dad had already started. I held my phone up to Pop's ear and I could hear Sean through the phone tell his grandpa, “We are going to win the Kentucky Derby for you Pop.”

At that moment, my dad made a grunting sound. Time stood still. All of us in attendance could not believe there was this fleeting moment of “life” coming from my father to his grandson as he was about to take his last breath. Teary-eyed, I hung the phone up and the silence continued. It wasn't much later when my dad did take his very last breath. It was 9:17 a.m. and of course, on April 17th.

During the past 21 years since Pop passed, like everyone else in the Thoroughbred business, we have “tried” to win the Kentucky Derby, not for ourselves really but for Pop. Our budgets have ebbed and flowed over the years but with any and all budgets we try. That's what we do, it's all about trying. We got close a few years ago when a $61,000 yearling purchase, Sueno, would have been the last horse “scratched” into the race but he chipped his ankle Kentucky Derby week and did not enter. This year, our (not kidding) $17,000 yearling purchase is second in the point standings and has the look of a real contender coming off an impressive win in the Louisiana Derby.

My brother Jude trained on the Southern California circuit for 20 years so Pop knew the game well and he knew how tough it was to win a race, any race. Hot Rod Charlie doesn't have to win on the first Saturday in May and he still has to get there. The fact we have come this far with a $17,000 horse while knowing that Pop was “with us” when we bought him at that price is a victory in itself. I know Pop is proud of us already for trying, but if a 14-year-old boy could keep his promise to his dying grandfather, that would be the most satisfying and greatest victory of all and I have a feeling time will stand still once again for Pop!

Bob Feld, posted on Facebook and published with his permission

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NYRA Announces New Partner For Concussion Management

The New York Racing Association (NYRA) has announced a collaboration with the New York Institute of Technology's Center for Sports Medicine that establishes the CSM as the official concussion management team for NYRA.

The CSM will play a leading role in continuing to develop concussion protocols for jockeys at Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct.

“NYRA clearly prioritizes the health and safety of the world class athletes riding at their racetracks,” said Hallie Zwibel, D.O., medical director and director of the Center for Sports Medicine at New York Institute of Technology. “This collaboration is a reflection of that fact and will result in a concussion management plan that can serve as a national blueprint for thoroughbred racing.”

In December 2020, the Center for Sports Medicine launched a concussion baseline testing program for jockeys competing at the 2020-21 winter meet at Aqueduct. This program is ongoing, with additional baseline testing to be performed during the spring/summer meet at Belmont and the summer meet at Saratoga.

The Center for Sports Medicine has teamed in recent years with current and former jockeys, including Ramon Dominguez, who was force to retire in 2013 as the result.

“I am very encouraged that NYRA is collaborating with New York Institute of Technology to enhance jockey safety,” said Dominguez. “As awareness for concussion safety has risen, so has the level of protection for these amazing athletes and this collaboration continues those important efforts.”

“The Center for Sports Medicine is at the forefront of concussion science, research and prevention,” said Martin Panza, NYRA Senior Vice President of Racing Operations. “Dr. Zwibel and his team will be a tremendous addition as we work together to finalize comprehensive protocols to further protect jockeys in New York.”

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The Week in Review: 31 Shades (and Counting) of Derby Gray

Gray horses have been in a GI Kentucky Derby rut the past 15 years. No fewer than 31 consecutive grays (or roans) have gone to post without winning on the first Saturday in May (or September) since Giacomo roared home in front at 50-1 in 2005.

That's the longest Derby drought for grays in terms of consecutive starts since 1930, when Churchill Downs began compiling detailed records related to horse colors. There's an asterisk as to whether it's the longest stretch in terms of years. There was a 17-year gap between Decidedly (1962) and Spectacular Bid (1979), but during that span, fellow gray Dancer's Image (1968) crossed the finish wire first, then was subsequently disqualified for a controversial Butazolidin positive.

This Saturday's torch-bearers to snap the streak are juvenile champ and 'TDN Rising Star' Essential Quality (Tapit) and GI Florida Derby runner-up Soup and Sandwich (Into Mischief).

Gray horses have a special place in racing lore, with both negative and positive connotations largely rooted in superstition. You've probably heard the phrase, “They say a gray won't earn its hay” around the backstretch. Yet you know full well that Derby-winning Hall of Famer Silver Charm (1997) did okay in the earnings department, bankrolling $6.9 million in purses.

“Never bet an unknown gray” (a horse picked out of the program without first seeing its coat color) is another alleged trackside taboo. “Gray horses for gray days,” suggests that horses of the fairer color have some unexplained edge in the mud (someone with access to a more extensive database than me, please run a long-term query).

Some natural selection theorists have proposed that grays evolved as faster horses in the wild because their distinctly lighter color made them more visible to predators. Purportedly, this enabled surviving grays to pass along some form of superior speed to their offspring.

The modern era of fascination with gray Thoroughbreds traces to the advent of television. Can you imagine the heady rush of witnessing “The Gray Ghost” streak around the track as a luminescent blur on your cutting-edge, black-and-white, rabbit-ears set back in the early 1950s?

That would be Native Dancer, who racked up a jaw-dropping 21-for-22 lifetime record. But his one race that gets talked about the most is when the sport's first TV hero suffered his only career loss–in the 1953 Derby.

Other high-profile grays who tasted Derby defeat include Holy Bull (1994) and Skip Away (1996), both of whom still managed to win 3-year-old championship honors. Tapit lost the 2004 edition prior to rising to prolific status as a stallion.

This column has mentioned four of the eight gray or roan Derby winners since 1930 (those two separate color distinctions got merged into one descriptor by The Jockey Club in 1993). Care to pause before reading the next paragraph to name the remaining four?

You probably got champion filly Winning Colors (1988) right off the bat. The others were Monarchos (2001), Gato Del Sol (1982) and Determine (1954).

Safest Surfaces?

Two stories in the news last week involved racetrack safety on the mid-Atlantic circuit. On Apr. 20, the chairman of the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) went on the record as wanting Charles Town Races to consider installing a synthetic surface (read it here). Two days later, the idea of going to synth at Laurel Park was batted around at the Maryland Racing Commission meeting after it was revealed that a dirt-track repair project there was likely to take about 40 days to complete (story here).

During the WVRC meeting, chairman Ken Lowe, Jr. asked Mick Peterson–the director of the Racetrack Safety Program, who is familiar with the work at both tracks–to tell the board at which track in North America he'd choose to train and race a Thoroughbred if he owned one.

Peterson answered that provocative question by citing positive safety profiles for three tracks on the continent.

“For the last three years, the safest racetrack in North America has been Del Mar,” Peterson said, noting that the record stands out considering “how many strikes they have against them.”

Peterson explained that Del Mar's dirt track annually gets used by “way too many horses.” Plus, he added, the seasonal meet is traditionally preceded by a county fair that allows the dirt to be compacted by heavy equipment that would ideally never cross most racetrack surfaces.

“But what they've got going for them is it never rains and the weather varies about five degrees the whole year,” Peterson said. “That's huge.”

Peterson said the recently installed Tapeta surface at Turfway Park also rates highly, and he gave a positive assessment of its predecessor, Polytrack.

“They were giving Woodbine [Tapeta since 2016] a run for the money on being the safest racetrack in North America,” Peterson said. “And that's with [Turfway] running some lower-level horses during the winter…. Running during the winter, that synthetic track has been incredibly successful there.”

Lowe seemed to be nudging Peterson to share his advocacy for switching to synthetic at Charles Town. But Peterson stopped short of doing so, underscoring that synthetic racing surfaces are not his specific area of expertise.

“There are definitely some biomechanical issues that a number of the horsemen have identified, the hind-end and soft-tissue injuries on synthetic,” Peterson said. “I don't think they're perfect right now. I think there's ways that we can improve them and improve the maintenance of them. But you just look at Turfway on their synthetics, I mean that's just incredible the record they've had over the last 10 years.”

Retreats from Racing in Illinois

During the same Apr. 22 earnings conference call in which Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI) tried to spin it as a positive that it was abandoning its plans to build a $300-million hotel and historical horse race (HHR) gaming facility on the first turn of its flagship racetrack, the CEO of the corporation that put an end to racing at both Hollywood Park and Calder Race Course termed it “all good” as the process continues to sell Arlington International Racecourse for non-racing purposes (full story here).

“With respect to the Arlington Park land sale, a preliminary bid date has been set, and as those bids come in in the second quarter, we'll evaluate them and figure out next steps,” said CDI's CEO Bill Carstanjen. “The ultimate conclusion of that process is something I can't responsibly predict for you because we'll have to see the nature of the bids…. This is what it takes to run a complex process to sell a big piece of land with a lot of value like that one.”

As for whether CDI would seek to transfer its Arlington license to another part of Illinois, Carstanjen said the corporation would take a wait-and-see approach to determine, “whether there's opportunities to move the racetrack elsewhere in the state as well.”

Arlington's opening day is Friday. Another Illinois track opens for the season Tuesday, but you might not recognize the name when you see it on the simulcast calendar.

“FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing” is the track formerly known as Fairmount Park.

Obviously, Fairmount's recent decision to toss 95 years of naming history into the nearby Mississippi River isn't as harmful as CDI's decision to entirely wipe away a cherished 94-year-old racetrack itself. But both decisions speak to the disquieting nature of horse racing's supposed “partnerships” with corporate gaming entities.

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Record Purses for Ellis Park

Average daily purses are expected to top $350,000 at this summer's Ellis Park meeting, highest in the track's 99-year history, according to racing secretary Dan Bork. Bork said purses for maiden races will likely top the record $50,000 achieved in 2019 before the pandemic forced cutbacks last year in the wake of a three-month shutdown. Those numbers include Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund supplements.

Ellis Park released its 2021 stakes schedule Sunday. The schedule features 14 stakes races and the Henderson track has expanded its Kentucky Downs Preview Day to an entire weekend, Aug. 7-8. The Preview races–all on grass and designed as stepping stones to Kentucky Downs' lucrative stakes in early September–now total seven with the addition of the $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Dueling Grounds Oaks for 3-year-old fillies at a mile and a sixteenth and the $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Dueling Grounds Derby for 3-year-olds at a mile and an eighth.

All the Kentucky Downs Preview stakes carry a purse of $100,000 with the exception of the $125,000 Preview Turf Cup, a 1 1/4-mile prelude to Kentucky Downs' $1-million GII Calumet Turf Cup at 1 1/2 miles. The winner of each of the Preview Weekend stakes receives an automatic spot with the entry fees waived in the corresponding stakes at Kentucky Downs.

Five dirt stakes take center stage Aug. 15, headlined by the $200,000 Ellis Park Derby. Also on the Aug. 15 card: the Groupie Doll S. for fillies and mares, the Ellis Park Juvenile and Ellis Park Debutante–each increased to $125,000–along with the $100,000 Audubon Oaks at seven-eighths of a mile.

“We've been delighted with how horseplayers and fans have responded to our stakes being super-sized into festival-type days,” said Jeff Hall, Ellis Park's director of racing operations. “Now we're going from two to three days that will provide some of the best racing programs outside of Saratoga and Del Mar. And I dare say on the two stakes-packed Sundays that we could be right up there with both coasts. Since creating Kentucky Downs Preview Day in 2018, the program has just blossomed and succeeded in its mission of providing launching pads to Kentucky Downs. We're thrilled to add two more stakes, filling a void in the 3-year-old grass divisions and expanding the series to a weekend.”

Ellis Park's purse increases are attributable to its relationship with Kentucky Downs, which through an arrangement with the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association will transfer $4.2 million into Ellis' purse account this year. That money will be split equally between unrestricted association purses and KTDF funds, for which the transfer requires approval of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and its KTDF advisory committee.

“The three-way deal among Kentucky Downs, Ellis Park and the Kentucky HBPA has proven a win-win-win for all parties and the state and really helps strengthen the entire circuit,” said Marty Maline, executive director of the Kentucky HBPA. “Kentucky Downs Preview Weekend is so fitting because it also casts the limelight on Kentucky Downs several weeks before they open. Ellis adding two 3-year-old turf stakes will keep those horses in Kentucky throughout the summer and heading into Kentucky Downs.”

The Ellis Park meeting runs from June 27 through Sept. 4.

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