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Christophe Clement Joins TDN Writers’ Room

There was no hotter trainer on the grounds through opening weekend at Saratoga than Christophe Clement, which is saying something considering the array of champion and Hall of Fame conditioners that occupy the backstretch of America’s premier race meet. After winning five races from 13 starters in the first four days of the stand, including a pair of graded stakes victories, Clement joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland to discuss his hot start.

Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, the French-born trainer also touched on the increased competition for imports from Europe, summer and fall plans for his leading 3-year-old turfers and how his stable bounced back from tragedy earlier in the year.

Asked about hitting the ground running following the coronavirus-forced interruption of racing in New York, Clement said, “The pandemic has been a challenge regarding the workforce and the organization of the barn, but I think we’re very lucky in New York. NYRA and Martin Panza did a great job and we’re just lucky to race here. It’s probably more challenging for the people who only have one string, but we’re lucky because we do have a string in Saratoga before the meet. That makes it much easier.”

In addition to capturing the GII Hall of Fame S. and GII Lake Placid S. last weekend at the Spa, Clement also unveiled a ‘TDN Rising Star’ with Momos (Distorted Humor) romping in the first 2-year-old race of the meet.

“I’ve got a very good group of 2-year-olds this year,” Clement said. “Momos is all about speed. He’s built like a very fast horse. He’s not big, but he’s very well balanced. My only instruction to [Manny] Franco was, ‘We know the horse is very fast, don’t make it too complicated.’ He gave a very good ride and he was always in control. That’s pretty exciting.”

Clement’s operation is likely a sentimental favorite for many in the industry this year after dealing with the devastation of losing 10 horses in a trailer fire on the New Jersey Turnpike last month. Speaking candidly about how to cope with that kind of loss, Clement said simply, you can’t.

“I don’t think you cope with that,” he said. “That phone call, I think it was 3:45 or 4:00 in the morning from the state trooper, it’s the worst of the worst. I’m lucky in a way because I train for amazing owners, so in a way they made it easy on me. But no, nobody can cope with that. That’s the worst.”

Elsewhere on the show, the writers gave their takeaways from the rest of the weekend’s big racing including the GI Haskell S., discussed the temporary closure of Del Mar and the increasing unlikelihood of fans in the stands for the GI Kentucky Derby. Then, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, they used the return of Maximum Security (New Year’s Day) as an opportunity to look back on whether anything has changed with racing’s drug problems in the four-plus months since the bombshell FBI indictments. Click here to listen to the podcast and click here to watch it on Vimeo.

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Blue Grass-Winning Trainer Drury Tells His Story On TDN Writers’ Room

It took a long journey for trainer Tom Drury to get to where he is now, with a GII Toyota Blue Grass S. winner and major GI Kentucky Derby contender in his barn. There were years when Drury didn’t win any races, which had him questioning whether he was made out for the training business. But life is good now for Drury, largely thanks to a Bruce Lunsford homebred named Art Collector (Bernardini), and he joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday to talk about his prized pupil and his bumpy ride to success.

Calling in as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Drury was asked how he came to train Art Collector, who ran the first five races in his career for Joe Sharp. The colt was transferred to Drury by owner/breeder Bruce Lunsford following his disqualification from an allowance victory for a levamisole positive under Sharp.

“I’ve been working for Bruce for a long time. We had Madcap Escapade for him as a 2-year old,” Drury said of his time assisting longtime Lunsford trainer Frankie Brothers. “I’ve always done more behind the scenes kind of work, legging up young horses and taking horses when they needed a break and things of that nature. Along that path, he’s always left a few horses with me to race and given me some opportunities to win some really nice races. He contacted me and just said he was going to be shuffling the deck a little bit and wasn’t exactly sure which horses were going where, and just asked if I could help him out, which we were obviously happy to do. Art Collector was one of those horses.”

As for Art Collector’s temperament and development, Drury commented, “He’s really been easy. He’s just a very kind, classy individual, nothing seems to rattle him. He just kind of fell right into the routine. Gosh, he’s probably been as easy of a horse to train as I’ve ever had in the barn. I would definitely tell you that the horse handled Saturday a whole lot better than the trainer did. He’s just been a pleasure to work with.”

Drury has walked a winding road to where he is now, and he recalled some of the tougher times, saying, “It took me a while to figure out what my niche was going to be in the business. I kind of had to do the same thing my dad did. I had a few horses, but I had to gallop on the side to cover the expenses. It’s just been slow coming. There were some years that we didn’t win a race and the opportunities weren’t happening. You think to yourself, ‘Man, what did I do here?’ At one point, I wasn’t sure that I was going to make it as a trainer, but fortunately things turned around and here I am. It’s been good stuff. We never gave up. Finally things just started to kind of go the right way.”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers discussed the outbreak of COVID-19 among the jockey community and looked forward to the Saratoga meet. Click here to listen to the podcast and click here to watch it on Vimeo.

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Gabby Gaudet Joins TDN Writers’ Room

Like everyone else, Gabby Gaudet is looking forward to Keeneland’s special summer meet, which kicks off Wednesday. With 10 graded stakes races packed into a five-day schedule, she knows the meet will be special, but also different. Keeneland has never run in the summer before, and, for this meet, no spectators will be allowed to attend. As one of the hosts of the track’s simulcast feed, Gaudet’s job will be to deliver the “Keeneland experience” to people’s living rooms.

“I know people will miss Keeneland and miss being on track,” said Gaudet, this week’s Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland. “Hopefully, we’ll be back in the fall. I think what we will be doing will make the transition a little bit easier for the passionate racing fan.”

Because fans aren’t allowed to attend, Keeneland is enhancing its simulcast production as part of the “Keeneland at Home” theme that will be part of the meet. Gaudet, along with Scott Hazelton, will kick things off each racing day at 11:30 with a 30-minute simulcast show previewing the day’s races. It can be viewed on Keeneland.com, the Keeneland Race Day app, Keeneland Select or CWKYT locally in Lexington. During the meet, the Keeneland simulcasting feed will also be available on the TDN website.

Once the races start, Gaudet, a regular on TVG, and Hazelton will be giving blanket coverage of the meet. Gaudet will, of course, handicap the races and give her opinions on the looks of the horses in the paddock. Since the media is not allowed in, she will also conduct numerous post-race interviews in an effort to make as much information as possible available to the writers and the fans.

“We’ll be trying to do more with the interviews after the races,” she said. “We’ll talk to the winners but also to a trainer who has a heavy favorite that loses. We will be trying to provide as much information as possible for the media and for the fans and for the public who cannot be onsite.”

Not everything will be about who wins and loses.

“There will be the entertainment and the fun element,” she said. “Keeneland will be posting some of their famous recipes, like burgoo, online. Burgoo in July doesn’t sound too appetizing, but you can print it out and put it in the cookbook for later.”

Gaudet has become one of the most visible personalities in racing. When asked what others can do to follow in her footsteps, she said the easiest way to get there is to put in a maximum effort.

“Work hard, ask questions, and don’t pretend that you know everything because you won’t get very far,” Gaudet said.

Gaudet made history earlier this year when she worked as an announcer at the Keeneland January sale, becoming the first woman to do so. She said she felt immense pressure, but would like to work more in that role in the future.

“Yes, I would definitely like to do more of it and I believe I might be doing some more at the September sale,” she said. “I haven’t confirmed that with anybody, but I believe that’s in the pipeline. That whole experience was such a whirlwind. And honestly, because of the pandemic, it feels like that happened maybe five years ago. It was a historic moment.”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers discussed the latest developments out of Arkansas, where, according to reports, two Bob Baffert-trained horses, Gamine and Charlatan, tested positive for the banned substance lidocaine. Earlier in the week, the split samples from both horses confirmed the positive, but Baffert has vowed to fight the impending penalties. The consensus among the writers was that Baffert was fighting an uphill battle because of the trainer’s responsibility rule.

The writers also dove into the story of Tom VanMeter, the Lexington area consignor who made racist posts on social media. Click here to listen to the podcast and click here to watch it on Vimeo.

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OBS President Tom Ventura Joins TDN Writers’ Room

As president of the sale company that conducted the final auction before the coronavirus pandemic shut down society as well as the first one after restrictions were lifted, OBS’s Tom Ventura has had to learn on the fly. Wednesday, he joined the TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland to offer his advice for the rest of the industry on keeping business going amidst COVID-19 and his impressions of the rebounding sale market.

Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Ventura said of the lessons gleaned through the pandemic, “One of the things that we learned real quickly, that you had to be pretty flexible and be able to adapt on the fly. There were restrictions coming down the pike, literally, as we were about to hold the March sale … As things were tightening up, it became very hectic, almost on an hourly basis as things were being changed. So we met with the local government officials and we got the advice, at the state level, what things were being required and what we could do. It was still feel your own way, because there wasn’t a lot of dramatic restrictions that were being put in place.”

Ventura noted that while phone bidding was ramped up for the March sale, the key to pulling off the delayed April sale in June was the incorporation of online bidding, something that will likely be a permanent feature in the auction world going forward.

“As we had to ramp back up for June, we put the online bidding into overdrive,” he said. “That was in play in terms of something that we wanted to get done, but it got moved to the head of the class real quick. And I really have to appreciate the work that [Tampa-based software company] Xcira did, because from OBS’s perspective, it’s obviously a super high priority for us. We were able and willing to work 24/7 to get it up and running for the spring sale and fortunately, Xcira jumped in right there with us to get it up. Now, it worked. I thought it was very good. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that it will down the road, but it certainly [did the job].”

Things looked ominous for both the racing and sales worlds at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but tracks resuming operations and positive results from Fasig-Tipton Midlantic this week suggest a rebound is underway. Ventura agreed that the mindset has changed and pointed to the upcoming OBS July sale as another barometer for the industry.

“The [July] sale, we’ll get a real true test of the depth of the market. We have another thousand horses on the market,” he said. “I’m hopeful, and I think based on our sale and the Fasig-Tipton sale, they held up pretty well comparatively, and they had a lot of participation. I think the other thing that’s going to benefit us now is that all the racetracks for the most part are up and running. There’s a positive frame of mind now, compared to March, as we were just in the beginning of this, as things were shutting down.”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers recapped Fasig-Tipton Midlantic and expressed concern about the vague safety protocols announced for the GI Kentucky Derby. Later on, in light of the number of top horses who have dropped off the Derby trail, they each picked one supplemental horse for their 3-year-old fantasy stables. Click here to listen to the podcast and click here to watch it on Vimeo.

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