Taking Stock | Horse Racing Free Tips

Taking Stock: Tampa Bay’s Big Day Showcased Top Outfits, Bloodstock

Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Florida, is a gem of a racecourse that doesn't get the accolades it should. Owned by Stella Thayer, president of the track and a member of The Jockey Club, and her brother, Howell Ferguson, Tampa Bay Downs is expertly managed day to day by Peter Berube, vice president and general manager, and Margo Flynn, vice president of marketing. This was obvious on Saturday–“Festival Day 42”–when the track showcased its signature event, the Gll Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby, one of five black-type events on the day that attracted some of the best horsemen and outfits on the East Coast as well as a full house of racegoers and bettors. Handle for the day was a record $20.7 million.

The track is one of the few successes in N. America that operates without the benefit of slots money, although a card room does contribute minimally. Purses, therefore, pale next to other tracks with casino affiliations, but Tampa Bay Downs is the model for sustainable racing without the slots subsidies and it continues to attract South Florida-based powerhouses like Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, Mark Casse, Graham Motion, and Shug McGaughey, to name a few, for the quality of its racing on turf and dirt, despite its lower overall purse structure.

The big stables usually have the better stock, and this was evident in the black-type events Saturday. Heavy rain had pelted the track before noon, notably softening the turf course, but by race time for the first stakes race on the 12-race program, the Gll Hillsborough S. at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares, carded as the seventh race, the weather was sunny and windy and both the main course and the turf were labelled as “good.”

Bleecker Street

Chad Brown had two in the $225,000 race for owner Peter Brant, Bleecker Street (Quality Road), the favorite; and imported Rocky Sky (Ire) (Rock of Gibralter {Ire}). They ran one-two, with Bleeker Street almost four lengths the better as the easiest kind of winner. Charles Fipke's Grade l winner Lady Speightspeare (Speightstown), the second choice trained by Roger Attfield, had a dream trip prompting the pace but the give in the ground and her first attempt past a mile and a sixteenth took its toll. She finished fourth, almost a length behind Gladys (Medaglia d'Oro), Rachel Alexandra's full sister, in third.

Bleecker Street is a lightly raced 4-year-old filly and is a star in the making, and it's important to note that she's done most of her important work to date at Tampa. Undefeated now in five starts, Bleecker Street's Hillsborough was her third consecutive race at Tampa, following an earlier defeat of the aforementioned Lady Speightspeare in the Glll Endeavour over the same course at a mile and a sixteenth last month. She's now ready to take on Grade l competition, perhaps at Keeneland next, and will likely become a full-fledged star on the national stage as the year progresses. If she does, it's because Tampa Bay Downs afforded her the early opportunity for development.

Bleecker Street's sire Quality Road is one of the elite stallions in N. America and is adept at getting high-quality horses on dirt and turf; he stands for $150,000 at Lane's End. Bred in Kentucky by Branch Equine, Bleecker Street was purchased by Brant's White Birch Farm for $400,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select sale. From the restricted stakes-placed Exchange Rate mare Lemon Liqueur, she's her dam's first black-type winner. The next dam, the stakes-placed Lemon Drop Kid mare Limoncella, had only one stakes horse–Bleecker Street's dam. This isn't a particularly strong pedigree in terms of black-type production until the fourth dam, Key to Flight, by Key to the Kingdom. She's a half-sister to Group 1 winner and Irish champion 2-year-old filly Minstrella and Grade ll winner Misty Gallore–all of them produced by the influential Flight Dancer, Bleecker Street's fifth dam and Gun Runner's (Candy Ride) fourth dam.

Ned Evans owned Flight Dancer and bred Key to Flight as well as her Halo daughter Trip Around Heaven, Bleecker Street's third dam, and there's some symmetry to this mating as Evans also bred and raced Quality Road, giving Bleecker Street Evans's touch on top and bottom.

Bleecker Street is one of six black-type winners bred on the Quality Road/Danzig cross and others include Illuminant, a Grade l winner on the turf; and Captain Scotty, a Grade ll winner on dirt.

Tampa Bay Downs carded its five black-type races consecutively and the winners of those races are discussed in order below.

Scalding

Scalding (Nyquist), a 4-year-old colt trained by McGaughey for Grandview Equine, Cheyenne Stable, and LNJ Foxwoods, won the $100,000 Glll Michelob Ultra Challenger S. by a neck on the main track at a mile and a sixteenth from the Mott-trained and Godolphin-owned Cody's Wish (Curlin). Dynamic One (Union Rags), trained by Pletcher and owned by Repole Stable, Phipps Stable, and St. Elias Stable, was third. McGaughey's highly regarded Greatest Honour (Tapit) finished sixth of seven. The colts in this race were an incredibly well-bred and well-connected group.

Scalding was bred by Godolphin and Cobalt Investments and was purchased by Solis/Litt at the same sale and for the same price as Bleecker Street. He's a first-crop son of Nyquist, who led the freshman sire list in 2020, and he's the second black-type winner and graded winner for his sire this year. The 3-year-old Nyquist filly Turnerloose won the Gll Rachel Alexandra S. at Fair Grounds last month.

Scalding's dam is the unraced Medaglia d'Oro mare Hot Water, who also is the dam of Grade lll-placed black-type winner Tracksmith (Street Sense) and black-type placed Tortuga (Bodemeister). The next dam is the Elusive Quality Grade lll-placed restricted black-type winner Elusive Heat, one of two black-type winners for her Grade l-winning champion dam Xtra Heat, a daughter of Dixieland Heat who won 26 races from 34 starts and earned $2.4 million.

Dolce Zel (Fr)

Chad Brown was back at it again on the turf in the $200,000 Glll Florida Oaks at a mile and sixteenth, running one-two again, this time with French import Dolce Zel (Fr) (Zelzal {Fr}) getting the better of stablemate Spicer (Quality Road) by a head. The McGaughey-trained On Alert (Medaglia d'Oro) was third. The latter was a $500,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling while Spicer sold for $300,000 at Keeneland September.

Michael Dubb, Madaket, and Robert LaPenta purchased the pint-sized Dolce Zel privately. She is from the first crop of Zelzal, a Group 1 winner by Sea the Stars (Ire) who stands this year for 15,000 euros at Haras de Bouquetot and is represented by three black-type winners to date, including Ouraika (Fr), who also happens to be campaigned by Madaket and Michael Dubb. Ouraika won the Glll Sweet Life S. on the downhill turf at Santa Anita last month for Graham Motion, also by a head like Dolce Zel. Madaket and partners clearly know how to source lightly raced European runners off the beaten path for N. America and spread them out among top trainers here. And they're lucky in photo finishes, too.

Madaket is also involved with “The Avengers” group of SF Bloodstock and Starlight Racing that have campaigned so many notable 3-year-olds with Bob Baffert, including Gl Kentucky Derby winner Authentic, and, earlier, Triple Crown winner Justify.

Dolce Zel is a member of a strong and productive American family after the first dam, the Dr Fong mare Dolce Attesa (GB), who is also the dam of Group 2-placed black-type winner Pure Zen (Fr) (Zoffany {Ire}). Dolce Zel's second dam is the Saint Ballado black-type winner Lady Gin, and this is the immediate family of Grade l winners Musical Romance (Concorde's Tune), a champion sprinter; and the ill-fated Battle of Midway (Smart Strike).

Heaven Street

Trainer Christophe Clement got into the action in the next race, the Listed $75,000 Columbia S. at a mile on turf for 3-year-olds, winning with Heaven Street (Street Sense). Bred by Siena Farms, Heaven Street was a $275,000 RNA at Keeneland September. He's now campaigned by Siena and Asmussenequine.com and entered the Columbia a winner of two of six starts, both wins, however, on turf.

Heaven Street won the Columbia by a length, defeating horses trained by such as McGaughey, Rusty Arnold, Jonathan Thomas, Arnaud Delacour, and Brian Lynch, among others.

Street Sense stands for $75,000 at Darley and has been on a tear the last few years. His Azure Coast won the G3 UAE 2000 Guineas last month. One of Street Sense's best is Grade l winner Maxfield, who was produced from a Bernardini mare. Speaker's Corner, who won the Gll Gulfstream Park Mile S. the weekend before, is also from a Bernardini mare, and this larger cross of Street Sense/A.P. Indy is at work with Heaven Street, who is from a mare by Congrats, a son of A.P. Indy like Bernardini.

Heaven Street's dam Heavenly View is a half-sister to four black-type winners, including Mr Freeze (To Honor and Serve), a millionaire Grade ll winner who was also second in the Gl Pegasus World Cup, and she's also a half-sister to the Bernardini mare Zayanna–dam of Grade l winner Wicked Whisper (Liam's Map) and Grade ll winner and Grade l-placed Point of Honor (Curlin). This is a strong and productive black-type family and it's not surprising that Heaven Street was offered for sale on day one at Keeneland.

Classic Causeway

The Brian Lynch-trained Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) won the $350,000 Gll Tampa Bay Derby at a mile and a sixteenth as the favorite, duplicating his effort from last month's Glll Sam F. Davis at the same distance at Tampa Bay. In both races, Classic Causeway, a homebred for Kentucky West Racing and Clarke Cooper, broke like a shot and won wire-to-wire, and he's done everything that's been asked of him but nevertheless gets the Rodney Dangerfield treatment. He now sports a record of three wins from five starts, but the 84 Beyer Speed Figure that he earned in the Tampa Bay Derby–he'd run an 88 in the Sam F. Davis–has led to speculation that he may not be good enough to win the Gl Kentucky Derby.

Part of this comes from the competition he's beaten. Classic Causeway defeated 38-1 shot Grantham (Declaration of War) by 2 1/2 lengths in the Tampa Bay Derby, but Grantham's previous high Beyer was a 71, though he'd finished fourth in the Glll Withers with a 68 Beyer. Shipsational (Midshipman), a New York-bred, was third in the race and had run an 83 in the Sam F. Davis when second to Classic Causeway.

Perhaps more telling was the performance of the Graham Motion-trained Belgrade (Hard Spun) in seventh, beaten about six-plus lengths by Classic Causeway. Belgrade had debuted in a six-furlong maiden special restricted to horses sold at auction for $45,000 or less at Fair Grounds in December and won by six lengths with a 79 Beyer, and off that race he'd been sold for an astonishing $700,000 at Keeneland January. The runner-up in that Fair Grounds race, Tee Burns (Klimt), finished eighth of nine in a $50,000 maiden claimer at Fair Grounds last month at 10-1.

Belgrade reappeared at Tampa last month for Motion to win a seven-furlong optional claimer by a head from a local horse with a 72 Beyer, and he probably ran an even better race in the Tampa Bay Derby, suggesting that Classic Causeway's figure is probably legitimate.

Speed figures aside, Classic Causeway is one of three winners from Giant's Causeway's last crop of three foals. One of the others is Giant Game, who was third in the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile but eighth in the Tampa Bay Derby, and the other is Monaadah, who won his debut at Meydan two weeks ago.

Giant's Causeway, who died in 2018, has sired 195 black-type winners, many of them from mares with some of the best pedigrees in the world. That's not the case with Classic Causeway, whose stakes-winning Thunder Gulch dam Private World was the only black-type winner under the first three dams of the pedigree until Classic Causeway arrived.

Private World won two stakes races at two, the Listed Anoakia S. at Oak Tree at six furlongs and the Moccasin S. at Hollywood Park at seven furlongs. She either led or prompted the pace in both races and her son obviously gets some of his speedy tendencies from her.

Giant's Causeway, however, can provide the stamina required for Classic Causeway to keep progressing up the distance ladder, and so far, all Classic Causeway does is win, which is hard not to like.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Taking Stock: Quality of Baffert and Hancock with The Avengers

Bob Baffert is banned from Churchill Downs for two years and his 3-year-olds are ineligible for points in qualifying races for the Gl Kentucky Derby and Gl Kentucky Oaks. He may also get banned (again) from NYRA, which hosts the Gl Belmont S., which could leave only the Gl Preakness open to horses from his barn. So perhaps it's appropriate that he won a race over the weekend–the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate–that gives the winner a guaranteed entry to the middle leg of the Triple Crown.

Blackadder, a son of top sire Quality Road, won the listed race in the colors of Sol Kumin's Madaket Stable from Mackinnon, an American Pharoah colt also flying the Madaket silks but trained by Doug O'Neill. If you haven't noticed, the Madaket silks are ubiquitous across the country these days, particularly in Baffert's barn, which is loaded with well-bred Triple Crown hopefuls belonging to “The Avengers” partnership that includes many entities, headed by principals SF Bloodstock, Madaket, and Starlight Racing. Aside from the three named, Blackadder, a $620,000 Keeneland September yearling, is owned by Robert E. Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Jay A. Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital, Catherine Donovan, Golconda Stable, and Siena Farm. All of the 3-year-olds owned by this group run either in the colors of Madaket or Starlight, and they have become a familiar sight in the winner's circle of quite a few Derby preps lately.

Blackadder is the latest. The colt, who was bred in Kentucky by Arthur Hancock III's Stone Farm, won the race with a rousing finish, and the farm was quick to tweet the news of its latest stakes winner. Stone Farm also bred Baffert's 2019 Gl Santa Anita Derby winner Roadster, another son of Quality Road who was on the Triple Crown trail for the Speedway Stable of Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner, with Hancock retaining a 10% interest. Speedway picked up an Eclipse Award last week when its undefeated colt Corniche, also by Quality Road and trained by Baffert to win the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Gl American Pharoah S. last year, was named the champion juvenile male for 2021–the third Eclipse winner for his sire after champion juvenile filly Caledonia Road and champion 3-year-old filly Abel Tasman.

Baffert trained Abel Tasman, the 2017 Kentucky Oaks winner, for China Horse Club and breeder Clearsky Farm, and he clearly has an affinity for the offspring of the Lane's End-based sire, who stands for $150,000 live foal this year. One reason for this is that the Quality Roads like West Coast tracks. Baffert also trained the Quality Road son Klimt for Kaleem Shah when that colt won the Gl Del Mar Futurity in 2016.

All told, Baffert has trained two of Quality Road's three champions, and four of the stallion's 12 Grade l winners to date, and any owner or breeder with a classic hopeful by Quality Road in Baffert's barn would be understandably hyped. At the end of the day, winning championships and races at the highest level boost bloodstock values, and that's what it's all about to owners and breeders who play at the top of the market.

Abel Tasman, for instance, won six Grade l races and earned nearly $2.8 million on the track but made the ultimate score when selling for $5 million as a broodmare prospect at the 2019 Keeneland January sale. Likewise, the breeding rights to Corniche have already been sold for $17 million, I've been told, even though the colt is unlikely to make the Derby after a lengthy freshening. And that's miniscule compared to the more than $100 million for the breeding rights generated together by the Baffert-trained Justify (Scat Daddy) and Authentic (Into Mischief)–the former a Triple Crown winner, the latter a Derby winner, and both Horses of the Year. SF, Madaket, and Starlight were involved in Justify and Authentic, as they were in Charlatan (Speightstown), another Baffert trainee whose breeding rights made significant millions. There are several others as well, and it's one reason why the group has been loyal to Baffert through the trainer's recent travails.

Hancock connection

Blackadder isn't the only colt for the SF/Madaket/Starlight group with Baffert with a Stone Farm/Quality Road connection. On Jan. 21, the Quality Road 3-year-old Armagnac, flying the Madaket silks and under the same ownership as Blackadder, won a mile and a sixteenth maiden special at Santa Anita by 2 1/4 lengths in his second start. He appears to be another with future stakes potential. Armagnac was bred in Kentucky by Stone Farm and Joseph W. Sutton, and he was purchased by the SF group at the 2020 Keeneland September sale for $210,000 from the same Stone Farm consignment as Blackadder, as mentioned earlier a $620,000 buy.

There's no question that Arthur Hancock knows how to breed and raise a good horse at Stone Farm. He raised Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence, stood his sire, Halo, and raced him with trainer Charlie Whittingham and another partner before selling him to Zenya Yoshida for a reported $10 million (after initially selling a quarter of the 1989 Horse of the Year to Yoshida for $2.25 million in early 1990 when the colt was four); bred and raced 1982 Derby winner Gato del Sol with Leon J. Peters; bred with Peters and sold 1988 Preakness and Belmont S. winner Risen Star; and bred with Stonerside and sold Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus for $4 million at the 1998 Keeneland July sale, among others of note. And he's raced more than a few partnership horses in the Derby aside from the colts mentioned, including homebreds Menifee, who lost the Derby by a neck in 1999; and Strodes Creek, a Whittingham-trained colt who was second in the 1994 Derby.

A savvy commercial breeder with a great understanding of the potential of winning big races on the values of sires, dams, and female families, Hancock has tasted Derby success doing things his way and knows how the sausage gets made with the right trainer, such as a Charlie Whittingham, at the helm.

After Fluor and Weiner, clients and friends of Baffert, purchased Roadster for $525,000 from the 2017 Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September, they offered Hancock the opportunity to stay in for 10%, and Hancock took them up because he was well in the black on the colt and was high on his chances for success. He'd bred Roadster when the Ned Evans-raced Quality Road was standing for just $35,000, and he'd purchased the colt's dam, Ghost Dancing, a few years earlier from the Ned Evans dispersal for $220,000, in foal to Candy Ride (Arg).

The Candy Ride, named Ascend, was gelded and initially raced by Hancock with Graham Motion, but sometime in 2016 when Ascend was four, Madaket became a partner in the gelding with Hancock. In 2017, a few months before Roadster was sold at Keeneland, Ascend won the Gl Manhattan at Belmont, which was pivotal in enhancing Roadster's value at auction.

After Roadster won the Santa Anita Derby–defeating Baffert's juvenile champ, Game Winner–and was headed to Churchill Downs, Hancock was sitting pretty because his mare Ghost Dancing was now the dam of two Grade l winners, something that would greatly enhance the value of her Twirling Candy yearling; and Hancock had a minority stake in a potential Derby winner, trained by Baffert.

In an interview with Zoe Cadman in the week before the 2019 Derby, Hancock was asked about his trainer, who'd won five Derbys at the time, including two Triple Crowns, and he said: “I can see, just being around Bob, his record speaks for itself. I told him the other day, you're Charlie junior, talking about Charlie Whittingham. He laughed.”

Unfortunately, Roadster finished 16th of 19, but, thanks to Baffert, he did have that Grade l on his resume, which helped Hancock later that year when his Twirling Candy half-brother made $950,000 at Keeneland September. Twirling Candy's stud fee the year the colt was conceived was $20,000.

Blackadder is from the Pulpit mare Chapel, a Hancock homebred from a family he has cultivated through generations. Baffert jumpstarted this mare and her family as well, training Chapel's first foal, the Hancock-bred Quality Road filly Gingham. She'd been purchased by Sarah Kelly for $420,000 from the Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September in 2018.

For Baffert, Gingham won a listed race at Santa Anita and was Grade ll-placed and Grade lll-placed, earning $214,000. The black type helped her realize a price of $1 million at the 2020 Keeneland November sale as a broodmare prospect.

Moreover, her black-type success with Baffert obviously contributed to SF/Madaket/Starlight paying Hancock $620,000 for her full brother, who is now a black-type winner himself and one with a pedigree suggesting further improvement. With two Quality Road stakes winners on her resume, Chapel's value has skyrocketed, especially as she was bred to Quality Road for a 2022 foal.

But with the Baffert runners out of the Derby as things now stand and the Avengers group showing no signs of switching trainers to make the Derby despite holding a full house of promising candidates, the financial ramifications for the ownership group potentially extend to the breeders of these colts as well.

That's something that must be disappointing for Hancock and others.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Taking Stock: Constitutionality Matters

Last Friday, on the same day that Bob Baffert's New York Racing Association (NYRA) suspension hearing was ending in New York, the Texas attorney general filed a motion in a Texas federal court to join the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (National HBPA), et al., in arguing that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), enacted late last year, was unconstitutional.

Baffert had challenged his suspension, which was summarily instituted by NYRA without a hearing May 17 after the Baffert-trained Medina Spirit (Protonico) had tested positive for betamethasone in the Gl Kentucky Derby. Baffert had sought an injunction to stop the suspension so that he could race at NYRA tracks last summer. United States District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon granted the injunction July 14. She wrote: “In sum, I find that Baffert has established a likelihood of proving that NYRA's suspension constituted state action, and that the process by which it suspended him violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

Judge Amon also wrote that “the public has no interest in having the 'integrity of the sport' enforced by unconstitutional means.”

That's a profound statement, but it may not mean much to those horse racing folks on social media who'd like to ban Baffert and others with medication positives through any means necessary, constitutional or not. As members of the peanut gallery, they have a right to that sort of chatter.

Journalists, however, are another matter and should be held to a higher standard. They should be impartial in reportage and knowledgeable about the issues in editorials. In their eagerness to support HISA, for instance, some who cover racing have shown little critical thinking about its constitutionality. In fact, my colleague Bill Finley wrote a pro-HISA Op/Ed piece in these pages that implied the National HBPA was challenging HISA in court simply to retain the status quo, rather than having valid concerns about HISA's constitutionality. He wrote: “It's hard to imagine that there is one horseman anywhere who cares one bit whether or not HISA is unconstitutional or not.” That's his opinion, but there are valid concerns about HISA nonetheless. And taken at face value, his comment could easily apply to those that backed the passage of HISA as well.

With an avalanche of “doping” publicity in the game over the past few years, many writers, like many fans on social media, were understandably smitten with the concept that HISA, with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)'s Travis Tygart playing a major role, would form the centralized leadership the sport direly needs, particularly in the area of medication and anti-doping reform. But Tygart, who'd famously nailed Lance Armstrong, and USADA couldn't come to an agreement with HISA's governing board, and they appear to be out of the equation for the moment. That's led to many of these same journalists penning handwringing Chicken Little pieces.

Lost in these articles and editorials were the legitimate concerns–now being litigated–about HISA's constitutionality.

The sport does need to be enforced, but not, as Judge Amon said, “by unconstitutional means.” That should be a concern that any journalist can comprehend.

This is why it's important for those entities challenging HISA to have their days in the courts. It's to everyone's benefit to get judicial opinions on the matter as soon as possible one way or the other. Instead, prominent journalists and organizations have disparaged groups like the National HBPA that are challenging HISA, and in doing so, they seem to be supporting the one powerful segment of the racing industry, headed by The Jockey Club (TJC), which advocated heavily for HISA. The journalistic optics of this are awful.

By the way, TJC, in an amicus brief filed June 30, supported the unconstitutional NYRA ban on Baffert.

Some Issues

There are some, including constitutional scholars, who question if HISA potentially infringes on states' rights. Anyone who followed the Baffert hearing last week got a glimpse of the complex and intertwined relationships that exist between state regulatory agencies, racetracks, and participants, and it's these states' rights issues, for example, that put Texas into the fray and add heft to the National HBPA's suit.

Three years ago, in a column from Feb. 7, 2019 titled “Issues With the Integrity Act,” I presaged some of these constitutional concerns, citing the Supreme Court's landmark decision from May of 2018 that held the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) was unconstitutional. I wrote: “A central tenet to this decision was something called the 'anticommandeering principle' of the Tenth Amendment, which was previously established in the Supreme Court decisions of New York v. United States and Printz v. United States, both of which were invoked” in the case.

Racing at Sam Houston | Coady

The court explained “anticommandeering” in the PASPA decision: “…conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The anticommandeering doctrine simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority.”

Last Friday, the attorney general of Texas specifically addressed this exact issue in his motion, which states, in part: “HISA unconstitutionally commandeers the legislative and executive branches of state government and puts Congress in control of state branches of government in violation of the Tenth Amendment.”

As to specifics, the motion noted these points in part (“Authority” here is the private nonprofit corporation–Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority–established by HISA):

HISA requires Texas and the Texas Racing Commission (TRC) to cooperate and share information with the Authority; forces them to remit taxes and fees to fund the Authority or lose the ability to collect taxes and fees for their own anti-doping, medication-control, and racetrack-safety programs; and preempts some of Texas's laws and regulations.
If the State of Texas refuses to assess, collect, and remit fees to the Authority, HISA strips from Texas its right to “impose or collect from any person a fee or tax relating to anti-doping and medication control or racetrack safety matters for covered horseraces.”
HISA requires Texas “law enforcement authorities” to “cooperate and share information” with the Authority whenever a person's conduct may violate both a rule of the Authority and Texas law. HISA § 1211(b), 134 Stat. at 3275. HISA thus forces the State of Texas to spend time and resources to help the Authority carry out a federal regulatory program.
HISA preempts state laws and regulations on which Texans and the regulated industry have long relied to ensure the safety and integrity of horseracing.

These are valid concerns, and no amount of back and forth bickering between TJC lawyers, pro-HISA journalists, and other HISA supporters, versus those bringing the suits opposing HISA, will amount to anything but hot air until the courts decide.

So, why don't we sit back, chill, and let the judicial process take place?

Constitutionality, after all, matters.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Taking Stock: Courting Rituals of Breeders and Stud Farms

In about three weeks, another breeding season will begin, but that's the easy part for stud farms.

Getting those mares was the hard part, and that process played out over the last four or five months, an annual courting ritual of farms and breeders. It includes behind-the-scenes hustling, heavy-duty advertising campaigns, and some occasional arm twisting or deal making, because except for a handful of elite or popular sires that breeders are banging doors down to get into, most stallions need mares, usually as many as possible to fill books that can sometimes number more than 200.

The Jockey Club will take an active role in changing that somewhat, beginning with stallions born in 2020 and later. The organization issued a ruling that will limit books to 140 mares a year when those colts go to stud in a few years. Well, that's if TJC ends up prevailing, because there are some lawsuits, brought by a few farms that would like to keep things as they are now, floating around to challenge that rule. Some of these farms are big-time players and they're not going to go away quietly, but that's a story for another day.

In the meantime, stud farms need as many mares as they can get to stallions, as I said. It's either to recoup their initial investments in these stallions or, if they're lucky, to make money. The most commercial stallion prospects–the champions and “horses of a lifetime”–cost an arm and a leg to procure off the track, and lesser recruits are always in danger of not getting enough mares to cover costs. That's why you see so many ads for them in that important first year they enter stud. These days, you see even more of this on social media, where everyone seems to be attending one stallion show or another and then posting amateur photos that in many cases will make farms cringe, but, hey, that's the price of publicity, and most folks on Twitter or Facebook see everything as either “sexy,” “handsome,” or a “hunk,” so it's not all bad.

Stud farms need to front load new horses, meaning they will try to breed as many mares as they can, not only for the income it generates but also to guarantee that they have as many first-crop runners as possible to have a chance at success.

Everyone, of course, wants to find the next Gun Runner (Candy Ride {Arg}), who had a phenomenal run in 2021 with his first 2-year-olds, but most horses are destined for failure, at least in the commercial sense–which is how the breeding industry operates. You've probably noticed that even some leading freshman sires have been sold abroad after they couldn't sustain the pace constructed for them with boatloads of mares, numbers which most are unlikely to see again, in their first books. And once the numbers and quality drop off, so too does sire performance, for the most part.

If a farm has an elite stallion or a particularly attractive first-crop horse, a stallion director sometimes might let you in to him if you'll send a mare or two to a lesser stallion in his third or fourth year on its roster, a classic case of scratching your back if you'll scratch his, except in this case you might get a couple of foals you don't really want just to get the one you do.

Or maybe a stallion director will give you a good deal on a stud fee if you send multiple mares to a stallion, which is usually more common with horses after their first year, when demand and stud fees drop off. There are plenty of deals like that to be found because these types of horses aren't popular with commercial breeders, and it's a simple enough concept to understand.

I once explained this to a guy at TJC. Look, I said, imagine you're a commercial breeder for a moment. Would you want to breed to a horse in his third year at stud, when you know that you're going to sell a yearling by him when his oldest foals are three? What if that stallion has bombed with his 3-year-olds and 2-year-olds by the time you're sending your yearling into the ring? You'll likely get hammered in sales ring, right? Can you see why breeders, I said, prefer to patronize first-year horses who don't have black marks against them when their first yearlings sell? He slowly and deliberately nodded in agreement, but his expression–a light bulb going on–had already beaten the nod to the punch.

What was left unsaid in that conversation was that that paradigm isn't going to change just because you limit a stallion to 140 mares.

What it will do, however, is give more stallions a shot at stud, because more farms will have more first-year horses to sate commercial demand, and by the numbers alone, that will reduce books for each horse at each price point as more stallions enter the market. The net effect will mean more diversity and more cheaper horses at stud, too, which isn't a bad thing at all, right?

Of course, there will be more churn and burn, too, with stallions getting even shorter leashes on which to operate, but there's a Darwinian element to this that's fair enough: Either make it with your first 2-year-olds or get sent to Korea or Turkey or Louisiana, because we don't have time to see how the 3-year-olds will do, as commercial breeders aren't interested in breeding to a horse in his fifth season at stud unless he's a star.

That's what happened to Daredevil (More Than Ready). Sold to the Turks before his 3-year-olds raced, he was brought back to Kentucky after the success of Swiss Skydiver and Shedaresthedevil, but with a twist. He's owned by the Jockey Club of Turkey, and that entity is standing him at Lane's End. So, we might be seeing a new trend with hastily exported horses, if they succeed after they've been sold and are then brought back by their foreign ownership entities to capitalize on commercial demand in North America.

In fact, Horse of the Year Knicks Go (Paynter) is owned and raced by Koreans in North America and was initially destined for stud duty in Korea, but after his success last year, his owners decided to stand him here, at Taylor Made. If he doesn't make it here, he can always be sent home, but if he's a success, the foreigners will reap the financial rewards.

Paradigms, therefore, are also shifting within the overall commercial scheme we're operating under, which is yet another change to a series of changes that began when tightly held syndicates that limited horses to 40 mares gave way to increasingly bigger books that were fashioned to make money, necessitated by bidding wars for the most desirable stud prospects.

Change is necessary for growth, and one change that'd be refreshing to see is a move away from the commercialism that's dominating the breeding industry. How? Well, how about more people racing the horses they breed?

Homebreeders once made this a sustainable business– in fact, they also made it more sporting and more humane, because there's a tendency to give a horse more time if you've foaled and raised him–and though we're far removed from that model these days, a wider array of cheaper stallions might spur some growth in that area and make it viable again to breed to race, particularly as purses have risen to levels never seen before. And at the top end, those multi-member partnerships speculating on yearling colts as potential stallion prospects may in the future form multi-ownership groups to race some of the foals of their most successful prospects.

If some of that were to happen, it would strengthen the underpinnings of a business that's way too top heavy on selling alone.

Wishful thinking? It's a thought, anyway.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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