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Coolmore’s Adrian Wallace Talks 2022 Stallion Roster On Writers’ Room

One day after Coolmore released its star-studded Ashford Stud stallion roster and fees for the 2022 breeding season, Coolmore's nomination sales head Adrian Wallace joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Wallace talked about his upbringing in the Irish racing and breeding world, the surging Munnings and Caravaggio and early returns on Triple Crown winner Justify.

Asked about Munnings, whose stud fee has jumped all the way from $40,000 to $85,000 in recent years, Wallace said, “He's a very interesting horse because if you study how his stallion career has evolved, he's really, really done it the hard way. He was a high-priced juvenile at $1.7 million, a three-time Grade II winner, Grade I placed, he obviously had the speed and the precocity, but he retired without winning the all-important Grade I. We introduced him at a fee of $12,500 and while he was always popular, he was covering workmanlike, middle of the range mares. The thing that he seems to transmit that helped him through that sort of lull in his early books is [he produces] very durable horses. It's amazing how many four, five, six, seven, 8-year-olds he has that are still running. I think when you've got horses in your stable, as a trainer, as an owner, that are constantly earning a check at whatever level you're at, it leaves a good taste in your mouth. It's very important in keeping him relevant and popular in owners, buyers and breeders' minds. And now he's at a stage where he's receiving very good support from some of the best breeders in the world. The best is yet to come with him and I think is a horse we'll eventually stand for $100,000 having done it the hard way.”

New to Ashford this year was Caravaggio, who has gotten off to a rip-roaring start in Europe and currently boasts 21 winners. Wallace discussed the decision to bring the gray son of Scat Daddy, originally bred in America, back to the States.

“He was a horse that we wanted to have back here pretty much from the moment we heard he was going to retire,” he said. “So we begged to have him and luckily, we got him in his fourth year. I think when you look at him, he's very much an American type of horse. He's very well built. He's very broad across his chest. He's got a great forearm, a great gaskin on him. He looks fast. He looked like he should have been a dirt horse rather than a turf sprinter. Certainly he's off to a flying start in Europe and he bred 170 mares here in his first book of mares. He was very popular. American breeders like him physically, so I think he's a horse with a lot to offer.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, West Point Thoroughbreds, the New York Thoroughbred Breeders and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers picked the winner of their “Name the Colt” contest sponsored by Lane's End and Honor Code, broke down the implications of the Breeders' Cup decision on Bob Baffert, reacted to some troubling news out of Delaware Park and more. 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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NBC, NYRA TV Host Laffit Pincay Joins Writers’ Room

As one of the most recognizable television personalities in racing, Laffit Pincay has a front-row seat to some of the grandest spectacles in the sport, and as the son of one of the greatest jockeys who ever lived, he also has had first-hand experience with some of racing's most iconic moments from a very young age. Wednesday, the excellent broadcaster for NBC and the New York Racing Association joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to preview next month's Breeders' Cup, relive some of his favorite memories from growing up in a household steeped in racing and talk about how his perspective has shifted as he has become one of the faces of the sport.

Asked about his upbringing and when he figured out that he wanted to work in racing, Pincay said, “I didn't grow up following [racing] all that closely. I was a huge baseball, football, basketball fan. I always knew I wanted to be involved in sports in some capacity. Riding was never an option. I was wearing my dad's suits to the track on the rare occasion when I would go when I was 12 or 13. Even if I wanted to ride, he wouldn't have allowed it. He said, 'If you do it, you'd better be really good, because it's a really difficult life.' It's not quite what it's made out to be. The way he had to starve himself. No offseason.

“It wasn't something, even if I was built to be a jockey, that he would have allowed. It wasn't until my teenage years that I took an interest in the sport and that was just father and son figuring out a way to bond. It was me taking an interest in his business. I found cabinets full of VHS tapes of big races he had won. I watched those over and over and over again. So I kind of taught myself the history of the sport in that way. When it came time to decide what I wanted to do for a living, as much as I love sports, I wasn't going to be an athlete. Television seemed like the right avenue. My first job was at News 12 in The Bronx. Covering high school sports and occasionally the Yankees. Then I fell into horse racing just looking for a job when I got back from New York, and it's gone on from there.”

Pincay also reflected on the importance of being able to broadcast racing last year during the COVID-induced shutdown, saying, “We were going through such a trying time and the anxiety that comes with that, with no other sports going on. So many people told us that was their escape on a day-to-day basis. To just check out. We didn't have to watch the news and worry about everything for those few hours during the course of an afternoon and what a difference that made to [people], it was special for us to hear that. If ever there was a sport designed to thrive during the course of the pandemic, it was horse racing, where you don't have a lot of human-to-human contact. We were fortunate to be distracted and be able to do our jobs. I can't tell you how many people I know in the media, in sports media specifically, who weren't able to work or who were laid off or lost jobs, adding more anxiety to an already anxious situation.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers appreciated the consistency of presumptive champion Letruska (Super Saver), debated the idea of penalizing trainers for equine fatalities and discussed the alleged Gulfstream betting coup that led to a jockey suspension. 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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Legendary Handicapper, Turf Writer Steve Crist Joins Writers’ Room

Revolutionary handicapper and racing writer Steve Crist has been out of a public eye after retiring five years ago, but still has as much passion and enthusiasm for racing as he's ever had, and Wednesday morning, he joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland for an expansive discussion on a variety of industry issues. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Crist discussed his increasing involvement in the game from an ownership standpoint, racing's progress on detecting and punishing cheaters, the Bob Baffert saga of 2021 and much more.

Asked for his reaction to the FBI indictments of Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro and the potential enactment of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, Crist said, “The Servis/Navarro stuff, I think every horseplayer knew that these guys were cheating. This was not exactly something you were shocked to learn; you knew what these guys were doing, with the routine form reversals and the accompanying floods of money on their horses. I'm delighted that racing finally went after actual cheaters, instead of continuing to dither about Lasix and accusing every prominent trainer who wins at 25% of cheating. These are two different things, and I hate to see racing having wasted so much time on issues like Lasix instead of going after real cheaters.”

Crist mainly spent his career as a horseplayer and writer, but now owns a handful of horses, and spoke about how that's changed his perspective on the game.

“I've got to say, it's been more fun than I expected,” he said. “It really is. There's a different kind of enjoyment and a different kind of rooting that goes on when it's your horses, I've thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. But I've also had my eyes even more opened to the fact that it's so difficult for people to stay in this game now. Unless you're a plutocrat or a super trainer, this industry had become very, very hard to make a living in. Our trainer, Phil Gleaves, retired at the end of the Saratoga meeting, in part because it's just so hard to make a go of it as a small stable these days. Hiring help, dealing with workman's comp, and all these other issues have made it really hard for smaller trainers to stay in business. That's not a healthy thing long term for the game. And I don't think we want to end up with 10 super stables and no small outfits in American racing. That's not going to be good.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, Legacy Bloodstock and Woodford Thoroughbreds, Joe Bianca and Bill Finley broke down the ramifications of Bob Baffert's loss in court Tuesday, reacted to the strong handle numbers thus far for 2021 and applauded Gulfstream for its suspensions of trainers for clenbuterol use. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version of find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Legendary Handicapper, Turf Writer Steve Crist Joins Writers’ Room appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Red-Hot Charlie Appleby Talks Arc, Breeders’ Cup On Writers’ Room

It takes a lot for a European trainer to become the biggest story in North American racing, but that's exactly what Charlie Appleby has accomplished, among many other things, this year. Capturing three of the four Grade I races at Woodbine plus the Jockey Club Derby at Belmont last weekend to follow up several other successful raids of top-level events in the U.S. this summer, Appleby has quite simply taken the racing world by storm at just 46 years old. Wednesday, during a short break from shopping the Goffs Orby Sale in Ireland, Appleby joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland to talk about his whirlwind year, his contenders for the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and Breeders' Cup and all the history he is still trying to make.

Asked about this weekend's Arc, where he has two of the top contenders in standout 3-year-olds Adayar (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) and Hurricane Lane (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), Appleby, calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week said, “Adayar won the [Epsom] Derby and went on to win the King George, the first horse since Galileo to do so. We met with a minor setback in preparation for a trial [for the Arc], which was always annoying, you don't want to have a setback at any stage, but I told myself during that point, no horse has actually won the Arc trial and gone on to win an Arc, so I took it as a positive that someone was telling me not to go. Subsequently since then, he's not missed a beat and he couldn't afford to miss a beat either. So he looks great, and he's the best horse in the race. Hurricane Lane is a rock-solid horse, he's won an Irish Derby, a Grand Prix de Paris and a St. Leger. No horse has won a St. Leger and gone on to win an Arc. So along with the excitement of running in the 100th Arc, there's the potential to create history with Hurricane Lane. We don't look back on history, we try to make history. So we'll have a crack at it.”

Appleby also discussed his upbringing in racing and the wealth of experience he accrued that has allowed for his unprecedented success in recent years, saying, “I was brought up in the west country of England. You become more hands-on down there in dealing with the horses. From there, I moved up the country and went to my first stable in Newmarket with [11-time British champion jockey] Lester Piggott. In terms of racing knowledge, I don't think I could have been in better hands. I spent a lot of time watching racing with Lester and the great [trainer] Barney Curley. I learned how to read a race out there and understand the styles of racing and the pace of a race. Then I went on to David Loder's yard, which was a force to be reckoned with in the '90s and 2000s, where I learned a lot about 2-year-olds, how far to push them and what we needed to achieve to get them to Group 1 status. Then I joined Godolphin at the age of 19 or 20 and from then on have been very lucky. I've had a management position throughout my whole career in Godolphin. It allowed me to travel worldwide and go overseas. I spent a lot of time at Arlington and Belmont. It allows you to meet people out there who I never normally would have met in the racing world. You see these entrepreneurs and they influence you, you get a buzz, and you learn how they strive for success. It gets instilled in you in a way. So 'can't' isn't in our vocabulary. We strive to achieve, and if it doesn't happen, we take the positives out of it and move on. The negatives are brushed aside.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Spendthrift Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers reacted to the news of Arlington Park's official sale to the Chicago Bears, lamented the case of a horse who shouldn't have been allowed to race at Belterra Park and looked forward to a massive weekend of racing on both sides of the Atlantic. 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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