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Hello Hot Rod Goes from Winner’s Circle to Fasig Sales Ring

Hello Hot Rod (Mosler), fresh off a gritty score in the Jimmy Winkfield S. at Aqueduct last Sunday, will make his next appearance in the sales ring during Tuesday's second session of the Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale. The 3-year-old (hip 672), owned by Dark Horse Racing and Brittany Russell and trained by Russell, was a late supplement to the two-day auction and will be consigned by Elite.

Russell and Dark Horse Racing's Jodi Quinn already had a favorable impression of the son of Mosler before they purchased him for $10,000 at the 2019 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic October Yearling Sale. They had purchased his half-sister Hello Beautiful (Golden Lad) for $6,500 at the Midlantic December Mixed Sale the previous year.

“Hello Beautiful had just broken her maiden at the time he was being sold, but we really liked her and we knew she had some ability,” Russell said of the colt's appeal as a yearling. “He had good bone on him, he was a good-looking little horse. He had a few minor flaws that we could deal with, so it was nice we could get him bought for that price back then.”

Shortly after they purchased Hello Hot Rod, Hello Beautiful won the Maryland Million Lassie S. and the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship. She has since added wins in the 2020 Maryland Million Distaff and Safely Kept S. and opened 2021 with a win in the What a Summer S.

Despite his half-sister's accomplishments, Russell kept her initial expectations for Hello Hot Rod in check.

“I think when you buy a horse like that for that kind of money, you don't have those high expectations,” Russell said. “You just hope you are going to have a useful racehorse. It's a nice price where, if they're going to be a lower level horse, you paid just $10,000. And if they are a nice horse, it's great because you only paid $10,000.”

But Russell's husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, knew early on the colt had talent.

“My husband does all the work on my babies in the morning and he had been on him in the morning and he liked him,” Russell said. “He said, 'This is going to be a pretty decent little horse, we'll have fun with him.'”

Hello Hot Rod got his racing career off to a promising start, closing to miss by just a neck in a six-furlong waiver maiden claiming race at Laurel Oct. 30.

“You'd love to win first time, but we were kind of just trying to give him a run and he nearly got his first start won,” Russell said. “Sheldon took him back and taught him something and he came with a run and nearly won it. He probably needed that race, anyway, from a physical standpoint.”

The dark bay colt came back to win by a front-running 4 1/4 lengths going seven furlongs in similar company Nov. 13 and added a one-mile optional claimer tally Dec. 13.

“We sort of expected for him to come back and win the way he did,” Russell said of Hello Hot Rod's second start. “And I thought he would like the mile and he did everything right in that allowance race as well.”

Hello Hot Rod jumped up to the stakes ranks for his sophomore debut and went wire-to-wire in the seven-furlong Jimmy Winkfield S., digging in gamely in the final strides to keep his nose in front on the wire (video).

“I loved him to be fair, but you don't love the one hole going seven-eighths, so that was a concern,” Russell said of expectations going into the race. “But [jockey] Trevor [McCarthy] and the horse handled it and got the job done. It's tough in the winter, these winter tracks are hard racetracks for horses to run on and he jumped out of there and he showed some speed and he kept going. He showed he's a tough racehorse and that's what you want.”

The idea of selling the colt had been percolating for some time before the final decision to enter him in the Fasig February sale.

“I had some interest [in buying him] after he broke his maiden,” Russell said. “Actually after both of his wins, we had some interest. It's kind of the goal in the game, right? To make a $10,000 horse into a more expensive horse. This is how you make money in the game, it's a tough game.”

She continued, “We own 50% of him and it was always in the back of our minds that we might try to sell him. I'd love to keep him in the barn, naturally, but I have some friends who work with Fasig and we bounced some ideas back and forth. After he won, it just seemed like maybe a smart business move.”

While the decision to sell may be a smart business move, Russell agreed it was still an emotional one.

“Oh absolutely, I love him,” she said. “He means a lot to us. We have his sister in the barn and he's our other big horse, so to see him go will be sad. But who knows, maybe we'll end up getting him back in the barn.”

Russell sees plenty of upside for potential buyers in the newly minted stakes winner.

“He's very easy to train and he's sound,” Russell said. “He's not a bleeder, so moving forward with what we are dealing with with Lasix, I think that's a huge attribute. And I think he'll go farther. He's smart, he has a good mind on him. He can go or he can sit, so as the races get longer, he has options. I think that's going to be a huge thing.”

Asked how Hello Hot Rod exited his first stakes win, Russell said, “Awesome. He's in great form.”

The Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale will be held next Monday and Tuesday at the company's Newtown Paddocks. Each session begins at 10 a.m.

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Greatest Adventure Beckons Courtlandt

We sometimes talk of the moment in a young horse's career when the bulb switches on. When the resulting illumination is as brilliant as was the case with Greatest Honour (Tapit) at Gulfstream last Saturday, however, it feels as though the whole sport can bask in the glow. Those few strides in the GIII Holy Bull S. when he clicked into top gear, before running clear in the stretch, not only announced his own candidature but cast into exciting new perspective the whole road to Churchill on the first Saturday in May.

The way ahead looks particularly auspicious for Tapit, whose career at Gainesway plainly deserves the final gilding of a GI Kentucky Derby success. With champion Essential Quality already setting the standard, he now also has one to head all the emerging talent in these initial sophomore skirmishes. Both horses, moreover, vindicate acorn-to-oak development by a breeding program.

And what acorns, in this case! For the second and fourth dams of Greatest Honour are Broodmares of the Year, with a GI Kentucky Oaks winner in between, and the family seeded by distaff influences of corresponding stature in Street Cry (Ire), Deputy Minister and Blushing Groom (Fr). Every forward step now, then, will only add to the appeal of Greatest Honour as a stallion prospect. As such, even after a solitary start outside maidens, he already appears potentially the most significant horse in the history of Courtlandt Farm.

Its principal achiever to date remains Grade I winner Film Maker (Dynaformer), placed in three consecutive runnings of the GI Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf. But Donald Adam and his wife Donna, the farm's owners, remain as enthusiastic as ever judging from their acquisition of half a dozen yearlings in the first two sessions at Keeneland last September for $4,325,000. This reflects a new strategy over the past five years or so, Courtlandt having primarily raced homebreds to that point. For octogenarian owners, clearly, that's a pretty natural evolution.

“I think Mr. Adam just felt that by the time you have planned your mating, and the gestation is 11 months, and then it's another year and a half before you're breaking them…time goes along pretty quick on you,” explains Ernie Retamoza, their farm manager. “Whereas when you go to the yearling sales and you're defining athletes you think fit your program, you get them home and they're under tack within two or three weeks. But it was a process. We didn't just lead all the mares over there and sell them. We went through them case by case.”

The net result is a broodmare band trimmed from around 25 to seven or eight. And actually Tiffany's Honour (Street Cry {Ire}), the dam of Greatest Honour, fell right into that mix, spending just three years on the Courtlandt books before being moved on. Yet while her stay was relatively brief, it had ample span for destiny to incorporate extremes of tragedy and hope.

As a daughter of $14-million broodmare icon Better Than Honour (Deputy Minister), and duly a half-sister to GI Belmont S. winners Rags To Riches (A.P. Indy) and Jazil (Seeking The Gold), the 4-year-old Tiffany's Honour did not meet her reserve even at $2.3 million when offered with a maiden cover by Tapit at Fasig-Tipton in November 2015–despite finishing stone last in all three starts for breeder Southern Equine Stables. And even though Courtlandt was then just beginning its transition, Adam couldn't resist the idea of a Tapit out of that family. He secured a private deal and, sure enough, Tiffany's Honour delivered a beauty.

“Just an unbelievable colt,” Retamoza recalls. “Lane's End has a pretty good client media section, they take real good care of us, and we always get pictures from Alys Emson through email of our foals and mares. But with this particular colt, I got a picture one day from [long-serving farm manager] Mike Cline. Mike never sends me pictures! I thought that spoke volumes.”

Tiffany's Honour had meanwhile been sent to War Front and, consistent with the new policy, was slated for sale that November. But then disaster struck: the Tapit colt was lost in a paddock accident.

“That just broke our hearts,” Retamoza says. “We knew this was the reason Mr. Adam had pursued the mare, we knew what Lane's End thought of him, it had looked like everything was working out. And then this unfortunate thing happened.”

Undaunted, Adam resolved to seek redress from fate and retained the mare for another visit to Tapit. With a colt safely delivered in April 2018, Tiffany's Honour was sent to Keeneland that November with a Medaglia d'Oro cover, and realized $2.2 million from Katsumi Yoshida.

Her War Front colt had been sold in the same ring a couple of months previously, for $1.1 million. Sadly he didn't work out, vanned off the track when making his second start in a maiden claimer at Belterra Park last year. As the mare's own track career had shown, even genes like these can slip their cogs in the wheel of fortune.

“Boy, it just shows you,” Retamoza mused. “That gene pool, it might skip one–but when it's in place, it's strong. I think Mr. Adam understood that and he really hung his hat on getting a Tapit from this mare. All the credit on Greatest Honour goes to Mr. Adam. He found the mare at the sale, he pursued her after the R.N.A., and he persevered after we lost her colt. He decided to see it through. That's what makes this truly special. The plan came to fruition, and Mr. Adam did all the work himself.”

Here his patron would surely demur, because this version of events modestly passes over another key contributor to the development of Greatest Honour: Ernie Retamoza. Son of a Kentucky trainer, Retamoza has long done the groundwork on the farm–and done such a good job that Lane's End have ended up sending some of their own young stock alongside the Courtlandt weanlings when they migrate to Ocala every winter. It was Retamoza, for instance, who broke in eventual Derby runner-up Code Of Honour (Noble Mission {GB}). Another elite outfit doing the same is St Elias Stable.

“That's a big endorsement and I'm humbled by that,” admits Retamoza, who has been at Courtlandt since 1996. “I'm very hands-on, I'm there every moment. I bridle and saddle and handle as many horses a day as my help. With these young horses, it only takes one bad experience and you're trying to fix something for two or three weeks. So we're diligent about not making those mistakes. And I have great staff here. They know what I want, and that I'm there with them as part of the process. So, as soon as they feel like, 'Hey, that horse didn't have a good day,' then I'm directly involved.

“Especially at the beginning stages, the bridling and all that stuff, it's such a fine line. And as they develop–as they start to gain fitness and pick up the pace, and learn how to rate and relax–the biggest challenge is the mental side. So, what I always tell my guys is, 'I want to get them fit, but I don't want them to know they're fit.' That's the key, that's the challenge. Anybody can gallop, gallop, gallop. But there's always so many nuances you have to see.”

It was into skilled hands, then, that the yearling Greatest Honour arrived from Lane's End in August 2019, ready to be broken alongside the yearlings recruited at the imminent sales.

“And right off the van he was 'as advertised',” Retamoza recalls. “The whole package. A big, leggy, scopey, rangy horse; correct, well-made, good bone, everything. We were excited. And he took the breaking fine, took to the training great. No issues at all. And as we got into January, February, March, when we start to get a little more serious, he was always a horse that had high energy. Always wanted to do more than you wanted–and I don't mean that in a bad way. You'd pull up after a mile, mile-and-a-quarter gallop, and he'd always be like: 'That all we're doing today?'”

Retamoza has been around enough good horses to recognize what he saw here.

“Code of Honor was very, very similar,” he remarked. “You could never do enough with him in the morning. And once he got to breezing, you could almost see it: 'Yeah, this is what I was meant to do.' Greatest Honour was more imposing, as an individual; Code of Honor was a little smaller in stature, lighter in frame. But we knew he was a runner. Horses are different in terms of pedigree, how they're made, how they move. But what's always a great sign is the horse that meets you at the webbing every morning, ears forward, what's going on.”

The next stage of Greatest Honour's education took him to Fair Hill, where Shug McGaughey inducts juveniles into his program. And, as it happens, this was another respect in which the sails of this horse–as one of relatively few homebreds these days broken alongside the sales athletes–have been filled with a wind of change at Courtlandt. Because it was just around this time that the track division was transferred (while stressing undiminished regard for previous trainer Mark Hennig) to McGaughey.

There was, of course, already a relationship through Lane's End, all parties having seen things fall into place with Code Of Honor.

“The Phipps family had started to sell some yearlings, and we thought it might be an opportune time,” Retamoza says. “We had a little bit of a record, breaking here at the farm for Mr. Farish, and so it just like a natural fit. We reached out to Shug, and he was able to come and look at our young ones. We didn't want him to take anything he didn't want. We didn't know the situation on numbers or anything. We just let Shug dictate that and it's worked out beautiful.”

McGaughey now has around 10 for Courtlandt, while others are stabled with Steve Asmussen. And the new regime has certainly landed running.

“Greatest Honour was only in Fair Hill about a month before Shug moved him to Belmont,” Retamoza says. “Tapit has a bit of a reputation for horses that can be a little challenging, and I think at Fair Hill he was bored, wanting to do more. So, I really credit the job Shug has done getting him to this point, in terms of the mental side. Even going into this race, Shug felt like the horse was still just figuring it all out. I think that speaks volumes for how much better he can be, and that's exciting.”

Hence the old-school grounding for Greatest Honour, who started out by closing from off the pace in a couple of sprints before stretching out to duel with Known Agenda (Curlin) at Aqueduct and then breaking his maiden on his fourth start at Gulfstream.

“It's been such a good process,” Retamoza says. “I thought he grew up a ton in the race in New York, where they hooked up at the top of the lane. Very rarely do you see young maidens run that professionally for that long. And then the day he won, it wasn't the smoothest trip, the horse on his inside had some issues and he got knocked sideways. The horse has grown up a lot and it's just a credit to Shug. Because he didn't put a lot of pressure on him early, didn't ever force it.”

Unfortunately, Ten For Ten (Frosted), a $410,000 Keeneland yearling who was beaten a neck in the GII Remsen S., has required a break at the farm but there are no major issues and Retamoza believes he will resume among the good sophomores in the summer. And meanwhile he's excited about the next batch off the belt, headlined by a $1.05 million Into Mischief filly whose third dam is Hall of Famer Personal Ensign.

“They're doing wonderful,” Retamoza enthuses. “We do take a bit of a slower approach: bring them home, let them acclimate two or three weeks, and then begin the breaking process. And the whole time they're getting the value of going outside every morning for two or three hours. Just now we're beginning to stop turnout, and get them into more of a race-type program: put four shoes on them, bandages every day, all the stuff to prepare them for when it's time to ship in April or May. But we've got some really nice prospects and I'm delighted with how they've handled everything we've thrown at them so far.”

Fulfilling times, then, for one so immersed in the mute, daily signaling of an adolescent racehorse.

“I work seven days a week, but it's never like work with these young horses,” he said. “Because you're always seeing an evolution. 'Oh, man, that horse really is starting to figure things out.' Or, on the flip side: 'Why did this horse have a bad day yesterday?' So, your mind is always working. And that's the passion that drives you. To see them progress from day one on the farm, and then go on and turn into something on the racetrack. And when ultimately you end up with a horse like this, that's obviously where we're trying to get with all of them.”

And you can hear in Retamoza's s voice just how much the blossoming of Greatest Honour means to the whole Courtlandt team.

“Mr. Adam is an absolute gentleman to work for,” he stressed. “He has been unbelievable for myself and my family. He has multiple businesses and I'm sure that all the employees would say exactly the same.

“He does everything first-class. I mean, it's done the right way or don't do it. And his horses are his passion. We've fields of horses that we bred: some raced successful, some didn't. But they're all right here, being taken care of. He does the right thing every step of the way–by his people, his horses and his family. All the credit goes to him: for his perseverance in the business, and the way he treats us. We're all very excited about this horse and, hopefully, where we're headed from here. Mr. Adam has been at this a long time and in my view there would be no better person that could have a colt like this.”

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Crew Dragon Proves Ready to Launch

Kinsman Stable's Crew Dragon (Exaggerator) overcame a case of third-itis and plenty of traffic trouble to graduate by a gritty neck when trying nine furlongs for the first time at Gulfstream Park Sunday for trainer Bill Mott.

“Our team was very impressed with the gameness he showed fighting through horses to get them at the wire,” Kevin Adler, Kinsman's Vice President and Director of Racing, said. “Bill has liked this horse since the summer and Crew Dragon showed his versatility by getting the mile and an eighth.”

The Steinbrenner family's Kinsman Farm purchased Crew Dragon for $110,000 at the 2019 Keeneland September sale.

“[Kinsman President] Jessica Steinbrenner takes our team to Keeneland to try and buy a few athletes at a reasonable price to send to Ocala to train on her farm,” Adler said. “Crew Dragon had a nice athletic walk, good conformation in front, good shoulder, was decent size with an early birthday [Jan. 23], so physically he checked our boxes. We also liked that he is by Exaggerator from a female family with Distorted Humor in the third dam, so the bloodlines were there as well.”

Crew Dragon is the first foal out of Go Go Dana, a half-sister to graded stakes winner Liam's Dream (Liam's Map). His third dam is Danzig's Beauty (Danzig), dam of Distorted Humor.

The original plan was to offer the colt at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale last spring. That was until the coronavirus pandemic intervened.

“[Kinsman Farm's Ocala-based trainer] Emily Dawson has done a great job getting the babies to the sales the past few years and Crew Dragon was training nicely on the farm early,” Adler said. “So we had the intention of taking him to the sale down at Gulfstream. The pandemic forced Fasig-Tipton to cancel the sale, leaving us to navigate around all the changes to the sale dates. We were stuck in limbo not knowing if we would have any sales, so we babied him along, making sure he was sound and happy. Once we had firm dates, we were able to get him ready to send him over to the OBS sale in June to see how he would perform. He breezed well, galloped out strong and vetted clean, so our team decided that we would take the chance and run him. So a few days later, he was on a van to Bill Mott.”

Crew Dragon opened his racing career three months later, closing from off the pace to be third without challenging the top two while going one mile over the Belmont turf Sept. 18. Closer to the pace in his next start, he was unable to keep pace with runaway winner Original (Quality Road) when third again going 1 1/16 miles over the Aqueduct turf. He raced greenly to be third again going that same distance at Gulfstream Park Jan. 2.

“His first two races in New York were encouraging enough, but his third kind of disappointed us, even though he ran against what looks like two really nice horses,” Adler said. “Turf racing is tough, so you have to be patient with the young horses as they are still figuring out how to race and compete.”

Crew Dragon finally put it all together Sunday. Behind a wall of horses at the top of the lane, the handsome chestnut gamely surged between foes when he finally found daylight and just got up in the shadow of the wire for a determined victory.

“Very exciting to watch for sure,” Adler said of Sunday's effort. “You would love to have a barn full of horses with the guts he displayed.”

As for where Crew Dragon might start next, Adler said, “We have been doing this for quite a few years and one thing we have learned is it is best we let the Hall of Famer Bill Mott make those decisions.”

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No Handout: Just A Level Playing Field

As the calendar turns to February and the countdown continues towards the adjournment of the Kentucky State Legislature on March 30, 2021, the Kentucky HBPA hosted a media event Tuesday morning at Skylight Training Center to get the word out on what Historical Horse Racing means to Kentucky racing and the impacts that would be felt by citizens across the Commonwealth if it were not protected by state legislature.

Certain Historical Horse Racing (HHR) machines, electronic gambling systems that allow people to bet on replays of past horse races, cannot continue unless the Kentucky Supreme Court creates legislation to allow them to qualify as pari-mutual racing per the definition they alone can define.

Local Louisville-based television stations were on hand to hear the stories of several people who have built their careers in racing as they explained how their lives would change if a solution was not found to maintain the status quo for historical horse racing facilities.

Trainer Tom Drury, who has been in the spotlight in recent months with 2020 GII Blue Grass S. winner Art Collector (Bernardini), bases his outfit at Skylight and hosted the event outside his barn.

“I think the average person in Kentucky obviously knows of the Derby and they know Keeneland, but there are some that don't realize that Kentucky racing happens year round,” he said. “For me as an individual, I've got a family here so being able to travel around the country is just not something that's feasible for me.”

Drury said that this issue is not only relevant to horsemen, but to the entire equine industry. He explained how he has used the same hay farmer outside of Louisville for over 15 years and spoke of the local tack shop where he purchases all his stable's feed and supplies.

“The trickle-down effect that the equine community has is going to affect us all,” he said. “There are a lot of people that rely on horse racing to feed their families. It even trickles down to Skylight Country Store, where my employees have lunch after work. This is something that has to go through in order for us to survive.”

Along with the direct effect that would be felt by the equine community, Drury said the entire state would be negatively impacted.

“You're talking about 100,000 jobs in Kentucky,” he noted. “And that's just the equine part of it. When you start looking at the people who work at the racetracks- the parking attendant, the people who sell programs, the people who work in concessions, this is huge for the state of Kentucky.”

He continued, “I think the frustrating part of it for horse trainers is that we're not asking for a bailout or a handout, we're just asking for a level playing field to be able to compete with the rest of the country. We want to stop losing our horses to other places because they have the expanded gaming and things of that nature.”

Even with the purse benefits obtained through HHR, Drury said that keeping owners in Kentucky has been an increasing challenge.

“I think the big majority of owners would love to have their horses in Kentucky year-round, or at least the Kentucky owners would,” he said. “Most of them are very passionate about their horses. They want to go to the races and watch their horses run. The last few years have really came down to a dollars-and-cents thing. If you can run at Turfway Park for $30,000 versus going to Oaklawn and running for $80,000, it's hard to tell a man not to move his horse. The playing field is so uneven right now for the state of Kentucky and it's frustrating at times because we're supposed to be the leaders of this industry.”

Jockey Declan Cannon has traveled the Kentucky circuit for the past five years. The Irishman spoke on the global perception he's seen of Kentucky racing.

“I've only been here five years but I've had so many conversations with people I've met on planes and when they ask where you're going and you say Kentucky, they know that's the home of horse racing. It's a great place to be and it's so important that we keep it protected.”

If Historical Horse Racing were to leave Kentucky, Cannon said that he too would be forced to go.

“It's my living, it's all I know to do,” he said. “For me, it's a huge effect and it will be for a lot of other people too, so hopefully the right thing is done.”

Gary Churchman has been a farrier in Kentucky for over 40 years. He's worked for Drury along with Dale Romans and other local horsemen his entire career. While he did travel to Florida and New Orleans for about four years, ultimately he chose to stay home for the majority of his career.

“My father was a horse trainer and I've worked for many top-tier outfits,” he said. “I've rased a couple of sons and put them through college with this industry. It's been good to me and I want that for all my friends, but it's going the wrong way.

Churchman estimated that roughly 40 farriers work on the backsides of both Louisville and Lexington, although some do travel during the wintertime.

“They talk about all the jobs here in Kentucky, but I don't like statistics and numbers,” he said. “It's lives. It's people. People who raised their families and are putting them back into this industry. Like Tommy said, we don't want to be bailed out, we just want a leg up. These are good people, and people [outside of the industry] don't understand how big of a team it takes to get these horses to the races.”

Marty Maline, the executive director of Kentucky's HBPA, spoke on those who would be most impacted if Kentucky trainers started to look elsewhere to race.

“We have a contingent of people who race at Belterra in the summer and Turfway in the winter,” he said. “There are hundreds of grooms and hotwalkers who live on the backside. If all of a sudden Turfway ceases to be, they will be homeless during the wintertime because their home in the winter is a tackroom at Turfway. Trainers can move their outfits, even though it would be difficult, but what happens to all those people? They want to work. Seven days a week they get up in the freezing cold to take care of horses that they love. It's their job, and not only that, it's their home.”

When the announcement was made last October that the construction of Turfway Park's new grandstand and historical racing machine facility would halt until the HHR ambiguity was sorted out, Maline said that reality set in for many Kentucky trainers.

“Anyone who's been to Turfway knows that Churchill Downs had grand plans to rebuild the whole structure and redo the whole barn area,” he said. “We have leaking tack rooms and a lot of problems on the backside. All that was going to be remedied by the revenue they were going to see from HHR. So right now the horsemen are dealing with the most difficult of situations as there's no facility. The backside is there, but the facility is gone.”

Drury echoed the uncertainty felt by many Turfway trainers in the past months.

“We've been struggling at Turfway for years and all of a sudden Churchill comes out that they're buying it and there's this excitement in the air and people are thinking that finally this is going to go the right way,” he recalled. “You've got guys that normally leave the state in the winter and are suddenly making arrangements to stay here and be back in their own home year-round. Now it kind of feels like the rug got pulled out from underneath us. I can't stress enough how there are so many little guys out there that don't have the luxury to go to Gulfstream or Oaklawn. They rely on Kentucky to feed their families. Without this being addressed, there's going to be a lot of them that aren't going to make it.”

Maline has been in touch with management from tracks across the state and said none have had a positive outlook on if HHR funding were to cease.

“If this isn't resolved, I talked to Ellis Park's management just last week and in no uncertain terms, they're gone. Kentucky Downs will cease to be and it's a pretty good indication that when Churchill stopped all construction, if this doesn't get resolved, Turfway will be cease to be. These are not just idle threats by horsemen, these are real concerns.”

Maline added that his team has already been in touch with the Ohio HBPA, explaining that if the situation gets worse, Ohio's program would also be hurt as the number of trainers who race at Belterra Park in the summer would decrease significantly.

When asked what sentiments he's seen expressed from horsemen across the state, Maline said that most people have been more confused than angry.

“They're so concerned that this has to be resolved,” he said. “It hard for people to understand because they mention that horse racing in so many states benefits from casinos. So here we had an opportunity- HHR is based on horse racing, it has a racing motif to it, so it's our vehicle to get finances rolling into our sport. It's very hard for them to understand, what happened?”

Steve Wade is the owner of Skylight Supply, a tack shop located a few miles down the road from Skylight Trainer Center. The store has been a family business since 1985 and Wade said he is a fourth-generation horseman. Without the training center in Goshen and other Thoroughbred farms and training outfits in the surrounding Louisville area, Wade said their business would be forced to close.

“The Thoroughbred industry is the largest amount of business we do,” he said. “If it weren't for Tommy [Drury] and every other trainer, we wouldn't exist and I wouldn't be doing this any longer. This is in our blood, our DNA. It's all we've ever known and it's very devastating to think it could end.”

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