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Unbeaten Lady Speightspeare Makes All-Weather Debut in Bessarabian

'TDN Rising Star' Lady Speightspeare (Speightstown), three-for-three on turf to start her career, will try all-weather racing for the first time Saturday at Woodbine, going seven furlongs on the Tapeta in the GII Bessarabian S.

A sharp 3 3/4-length frontrunning winner debuting on the local turf last August to earn her 'Rising Star' badge, the Chuck Fipke homebred quickly backed up that distinction with a score in the GI Natalma S. The chestnut was sidelined for nearly a year after that, however, before returning with an optional claiming success in a turf route here Sept. 6. She recently was scratched out of the GIII Rubicon Valley View S. at Keeneland in favor of this spot.

The favorite on the morning line at 2-1 is Gary Barber's Our Secret Agent (Secret Circle), who looks for her second straight graded stakes tally. Breaking her maiden by seven lengths in her local bow last July, she repeated in an allowance a month later, but went winless in her next seven outings while placing in six black-type events. She broke through with the addition of blinkers last out in Woodbine's GIII Hendrie S. Oct. 23, running away to a 3 1/2-length triumph.

Other contenders include Gidgetta (Fast Anna), who moved from Richard Baltas's barn to the Josie Carroll stable following a fast-closing optional claiming win in a Santa Anita turf sprint Oct. 8, and Aug Lutes (Midnight Lute), who's notched four wins and a second in five starts to open her career and upset the Glen Cove S. at 19-1 on the Belmont lawn Oct. 15.

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1/ST Racing COO Aidan Butler Joins Writers’ Room

In the news plenty recently for cracking down on clenbuterol violations with out-of-competition testing, suspending a jockey over a suspected betting coup and overseeing the successful installation of a third, synthetic surface at Gulfsteam Park, 1/ST Racing's Chief Operations Officer Aidan Butler is making a name for himself in the industry as a proactive, no-nonsense executive. Wednesday, he joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss all of those recent stories, the improved safety record at Santa Anita, long-term plans for Maryland racing and more.

“[Out-of-competition testing] is a really good tried and tested format of catching medication violations well before they become an issue during a race,” Butler said. “There's not a great deal of out-of-competition testing done in Florida, so I felt that rather than waiting for HISA to eventually kick in or waiting for the state [to act], we've got house rules we can implement ourselves and we should start to use them. I was pretty disappointed with the amount [of positives] that came back from the first round. But we've done a bunch more testing since and I've had a 0% positivity rate. I'm not everybody's cup of tea because I'm a little bit blunt. I do run out of words eventually to spin things. And I am sick to death of people not doing it the right way. We've got enough problems in the game, so the silly things like this where people are either not paying attention or not giving a crap, we aren't going to stand for it and we're going to keep pushing.”

Butler also spearheaded the suspension of jockey Carlos Lugo for being suspected of stiffing a horse in a race earlier this month that contained irregular betting patterns. Once again, Butler had words of warning for any other riders or trainers looking to pull off similar schemes in the future.

“You haven't heard the last of me reacting like I did with anybody caught messing around,” he said. “My background was as a bookie so reading races was my shtick. How stupid can you be? All of us see it. Maybe things in the past were a little bit laxer. They bloody ain't now. So if people want to keep trying it, great, but things are going to gradually get worse and worse for them. And if people start to skirt it that much, they are absolutely not going to be welcome at any track I have anything to do with. It's, again, one of those really, really disappointing things that people think they can get away with.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, West Point Thoroughbreds, the New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers reacted to the extra scrutiny Bob Baffert's horses will be subject to for the Breeders' Cup, analyzed the trends in the 2021 report of mares bred and discussed what the role of the NTRA should be going forward under new leadership. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Newcastle New Host of All-Weather Championships in 2022

The All-Weather Championships Finals Day will be held at Newcastle for the first time on Good Friday, Apr. 15, 2022. Started by the Arena Racing Company in 2013, the All-Weather Championships are now in its ninth season which begins on Tuesday, Oct. 19. There are six All-Weather Championships races, and the Listed Coral Burradon S. carded for Good Friday with total prizemoney on offer over £1 million.

Lingfield, which previously hosted the meeting, will instead hold the new £395,000 All-Weather Vase that same day. The All-Weather Vase card, featuring six races, is for those horses who regularly compete on the all-weather circuit, but who are not rated high enough to get into the All-Weather Championships proper. The current requirement for horses to undertake three runs in order to qualify to run on Finals Day also applies to the Vase card.

Coral and MansionBet are also new partners alongside Betway for the fixtures. For more information, please visit the All-Weather Championships website.

Mark Spincer, Managing Director of ARC's Racing Division, said, “All-Weather Championships Finals Day has, over the years, become a mainstay of the Easter programme in Britain. As we saw prior to the disruption of the last two years, people want to come racing on Good Friday and we feel that Newcastle offers a real opportunity to develop the day even further. Equal to this is the popularity of the track and racing surface, as has been proved since the installation of the Tapeta in 2016. The six All-Weather Championships Finals alongside the Listed Coral Burradon S. will be a premier fixture befitting of the fantastic racing facilities that have been developed at Gosforth Park.

“We are confident that the new All-Weather Championships Vase fixture at Lingfield Park will be equally popular with racegoers and horsemen alike. There are plenty of owners and trainers who support the Championships throughout the winter, but who often don't compete on Finals Day. We wanted to make sure that we could introduce a new flagship event to cater for this cohort of horses, as a real end of season target for their winter campaigns.

“We hope that these changes, along with the other smaller amendments to the Fast-Track Qualifier programme, will mean that Season 9 continues to provide everyone concerned with a fantastic competition to follow over the course of the winter months.”

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Two Weeks Of Tapeta: Closers A Good Bet Over Gulfstream’s New Course

Frontrunners beware! Closers continued to dominate during the second week of action on the newly installed Tapeta track at Gulfstream Park.

Only two frontrunners were successful on the all-weather surface during Week 2, one more than during Week 1. In the 19 races contested over the all-weather surface in Week 2, 11 horses came from mid-pack or farther back to win, following the trend of the first week of Tapeta action, when 11 of 18 winners came from mid-pack or off the pace. The other races were won by horses that stalked or pressed the pace.

Horses with turf experience have also been dominating during the first two weeks of racing on the all-weather surface. During Week 2, all winners went into their races with turf starts on their resumes, whereas there were two winners (one a first-time starter) with no turf races on their records during Week 1.

Chalk bettors were rewarded in 11 of the 18 (61%) races run on Tapeta during Week 1, but favorites were less successful during Week 2, winning 7 of 19 races (35 %). Four of the seven winning favorites ran on last Sunday's program.

After two weeks of racing on Tapeta, 37 races have been run on the all-weather surface. Eighteen favorites came through for their backers. Only 3 frontrunners successfully carried their speed to hit the finish line first, while 22 races were won by horses coming from mid-pack or off the pace. Twelve horses who pressed or stalked the early pace visited the winner's circle. One first-time starter won at first asking, while 28 horses who made their last starts on turf and eight horses who most recently ran on dirt (including off-the-turf starts) won their first races on Tapeta.

Edwin Gonzalez leads all jockeys with six wins on the all-weather surface, including four trips to the winner's circle on horses trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, who is tied with Antonio Sano in the Tapeta training standings with five winners.

Rainbow 6, Super Hi-5 Carryovers Thursday

Live racing returns Thursday with an eight-race program and a first-race post of 12:50 p.m.

Thursday's card features a guaranteed pool in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 of $75,000, a Super Hi-5 carryover of $7,553.77, and three races on Tapeta. The fifth race, an allowance optional claimer at 6 ½ furlongs on the main track, drew a field of six including stakes-placed Restofthestory and Liza Star, and track-record holder Nacho Mama.

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