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NTRA President, CEO Rooney Joins Writers’ Room Podcast

Tom Rooney, a former Congressman, a lawyer and an Army veteran, was hired to take over as the top man at the NTRA because the NTRA Board knew he could make a difference in Washington. Some two years later and with the swinging pendulum that is the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA), Rooney has his hands full. This week, Rooney sat down with the team on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss what he and his staff are doing to advocate for the sport. Rooney was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

The NTRA is pro-HISA, which means that Rooney was working behind the scenes to lobby lawmakers to back legislation in which language that covered HISA was changed so that it would satisfy issues brought up by a federal appeals court that declared that HISA was unconstitutional. Had the language not been changed, HISA very well could have been dead. Rooney said his efforts included discussions with both Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. Ultimately, the NTRA and pro-HISA forces got their wish.

“[Schumer and McConnell] both recognized that it was important for our industry to have uniform standards and to have racetrack safety and accountability and integrity for us to move forward,” Rooney said. “We made it incumbent upon those two men especially that we needed this language fixed and we were able to get it done despite a pretty good opposition with regard to people that opposed HISA. So we had to work very hard to make sure that we pressed the issue again with those two men and the rest of the members that were going to vote that had problems with it. I was making phone calls days before to members of the Senate that I'm friends with explaining this to them. A lot of people just didn't know what it meant. They thought it meant more of a government overreach rather than something that would help our industry. And I think that once they understood that, they moved on to the next thing.”

Despite his success, Rooney said he was worried that his efforts would fall short.

“I was not optimistic at all,” he said. “I think I told the people on the phone call that we met with on a daily basis or a weekly basis that we probably had a 5% chance of success.”

The key now, is whether or not the new language will mean that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will be satisfied when it comes to the constitutionality issues and allow HISA to proceed.

“I'm confident and that's because I think that we addressed exactly what the court's problems were,” Rooney said. “There is going to be litigation and there's going to be shots taken in other parts of the bill that don't have to do with the ruling. I don't think that those are fatal. And even if they were ruled against, I think that they could be separated without having to try again with a legislative fix, which would be even more difficult with this Congress.”

Looking to the future, Rooney said horse racing needs to join forces with sports betting websites so that their customers can bet on racing and be exposed to the sport. Currently, most on-line wagering on racing is restricted to the traditional ADW outlets like TwinSpires, TVG and XpressBet and sports bettors do not have access to racing.

“The one thing that I'm focused on which will help reach the next generation is what I can do at the federal level to try to get what's called a single wallet on the sports betting apps,” he said. “One of my biggest focuses for the sake of the gambler is to try to figure out a way to integrate horse racing, which, as you all know, was the only legal sport in our country to gamble on for the longest time. And now we're competing in certain states with all sports. FanDuel is one of my board members, and we were able to work with them to get horse racing on a FanDuel shared application. So you don't have to go off one app to get on another one…I remember my son asking me, 'Dad, who's going to win the Kentucky Derby? And then he's like, 'Why can't find it on my app?'”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, XBTV and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley discussed the GIII Sham S. and the incredible amount of depth the Bob Baffert has in the 3-year-old male division. Baffert finished one-two-three in the Sham and has three of the top seven horses in T.D. Thornton's Derby Top 12. There was also talk of the 2022 year-end statistics released by Equibase in which purses were up by 10.92 percent even though handle fell, by 0.87 percent. The group noted that, unfortunately, the growth of purses is attributable not to growth of the sport but solely to outside revenue from casino games. The podcastended on an upbeat note with a discussion of the remarkable recovery of jockey Joree Scriver after it was feared she was paralyzed in a spill at Sunland Park.

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Dettori Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Riding full-time in the U.S. for the first time in his storied career, Frankie Dettori has brought his talents to Arcadia, California, where he has settled in as a regular in the Santa Anita jockey's colony. Dettori joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to discuss his three wins on opening day, his expectations for the Santa Anita meet, his search for a contender for the GI Kentucky Derby and his plans to retire after this year's Breeders' Cup. Dettori was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

“I couldn't really have asked for more,” he said of his opening day heroics, which included a win aboard Saudi-bound Country Grammer (Tonalist) in the GII San Antonio S. “Had Country Grammer been my only winner it would have been a great day. To get three on the board, it was amazing.”

Among the reasons Dettori came to the U.S. was the hope that he could land a Derby mount. He doesn't have one yet, but the jockey and his agent, Ron Anderson, are working on finding a candidate. He has ridden in just one Derby, finishing sixth in 2000 with China Visit (Red Ransom), an experience he called “amazing.”

“Everything is open,” he said. “I did mention to Bob Baffert that if he's got a nice 3-year-old for me to put me on. He can just give me the thumbs up. Around the time of the Big 'Cap I will have a pretty good idea if I have a nice 3-year-old or not. If I do, I will extend my stay. Usually all the trials are beginning to develop in March and April, like the Santa Derby. So everything's open. At the moment I've got two good 3-year-olds in Europe, colts and fillies. But you know, if I get an American Pharoah, that's a different ball game. I'm not saying no to anything.”

There has been a lot of news out of the Dettori camp of late. First there was the announcement that he was coming to Santa Anita, which was followed by him revealing that this will be his last year. Why stop now?

“I still get the good rides and I still feel good,” he said. “But by the end of next year I'll be 53. I want to leave a legacy where I finish on the top. This game is very fickle. You can go from hero to zero in the space of a few days. At the moment, physically, I feel that I can give my owners and my horses and my trainers 200%. I feel that if I can have one more good year, it is time to move on. My heart wants to carry on. I mean Mike Smith is a classic example. He's 57 and he is still riding at his very best. I don't want racing to stop me. I want myself to stop.”

And what will he do after he stops riding?

“I'd like to get into the media,” Dettori said. “I'd like to be a commentator. I still want to be involved in racing, but I want to be young enough that I can jump in and start something else.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, XBTV and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley discussed their picks in various Eclipse Award races. In a 3-year-old male division where nothing is clear cut, Finley said he voted for GI Runhappy Malibu S. winner Taiba (Gun Runner), while Cadman and Moss voted for Epicenter (Not This Time). All three agreed that the Eclipse committee sends out the ballots too early and that no votes should be accepted before Jan. 1.

Another subject was the retirements of trainers Dale Capuano and Rick Schosberg. Two well respected successful horsemen left the sport at the end of the year and what does that say about a game where it seems that the super trainers prosper and everyone else struggles to make a go if it?

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ARCI’S Ed Martins Joins The TDN Writers’ Room

Confusion has reigned ever since an appellate court ruled last week that the Horse Racing and Integrity Act (HISA) is unconstitutional. So what does that mean for the state racing commissions and what should they do going forward? The TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland called upon Ed Martin, the chairman and CEO of the Association of Racing Commissioners International to help clear up the situation. Martin was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

Martin believes that considering the situation HISA should drop the Jan. 1 date and put off taking over drug testing until after the situation has been fully resolved in the courts.

“HISA could fix this themselves by going back to the FTC and saying we're going to put off enforcement of our drug rules,” Martin said. “And they could put it off six months and hopefully we'll get a final court answer by then. But it doesn't look like we're going to get a final determination of their constitutionality any time soon. So this is going to go into a great gray area.”

Martin said he feared that if HISA were to sanction someone after taking over drug testing and enforcement from the state racing commissions that the ruling could be thrown out because the court has said that HISA is unconstitutional.

“We're in a situation where we have a sport where the HISA rules will apply on January 1st and people will get sanctioned for a drug violation or a doping violation under the HISA Rule,” Martin said. “Then if HISA is ultimately declared unconstitutional and invalid, then that violation goes away. It doesn't exist. The penalty goes away. And you've redistributed purses. So this has the potential to be an enormous, chaotic situation.

“There's also been a number of jockeys across the country who have been sanctioned for HISA crap rule violations. Well, if there aren't constitutional, those violations really don't exist. So expect litigation.”

Martin said he is hearing that should HISA go through some tracks will elect not to take part. That would mean they cannot send out their simulcast signal, a price some may be willing to pay.

“There are tracks that, and I'm not at liberty to say who they are, that are considering not simulcasting their signal to come out from under HISA,” Martin said. “And there are states where the tracks in that state, some of them will simulcast and some of them won't. It depends on their economic viability. This was supposed to bring uniformity to the sport. Right now, it's kind of going in the other way. It's off the rails right now. ”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, XBTV and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, Bill Finley, Zoe Cadman and Randy Moss gave their own take on the HISA mess. They also looked at Frankie Dettori's decision to join the Santa Anita riding colony starting on Dec. 26 and hue and cry over overly aggressive riding in New York and the feeling that the NYRA stewards are not doing enough to discipline jockeys who go over the line.

To listen to the audio version only, click here. To watch the entire video, click here.

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Finley Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast, Talks Flightline

Within a 48-hour period, Flightline (Tapit) won the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, was then retired and then a share in the future stallion sold for $4.6 million at Keeneland. With that in mind, the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland called upon co-owner Terry Finley of West Point Thoroughbreds to wrap up the horse's racing career and to look ahead to his next career as a stallion. Finley was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

On the decision to retire Flightline, when asked if he understood why people were upset that the horse would no longer be racing, Finley said that he did, but added that he was comfortable with the way things worked out.

“There are a lot of factors that went into it,” he said. “We fully acknowledge that there are some other ways to look at it, but we are very comfortable in the spot that we're in and the impact that Flightline has had. I love to talk about that because when you step back in the light of day, I think he had an incredible amount of impact on our business. There were stories in the Athletic, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today. There were all the blogs, all the videos, all the chatter on social media. He had an impact, and that impact is going to continue. So when you put all that together, yes, we had to make a tough decision. That's what leaders do, they make tough decisions.”

Because Flightline only ran six times some pundits are saying he does not deserve to be compared to the all-time greats who had much longer careers. Finley wasn't necessarily ready to disagree.

“I think that foundationally that viewpoint is sound,” he said. “I've had discussions with people who I really respect that have been in the game for a long time and are leaders. Their outlook is exactly the outlook that you put forth and I don't argue with them. Now, I'd like to think that if anybody owned this horse, albeit a piece of them like we do, you'd focus on the good things. You'd focus on his charisma and his brilliance and his undefeated status and the fact that he's given our industry a jolt. But you can't have everything.”

Finley was indeed “focused on the good things” after Flightline's Classic win, so much so that he wept for joy.

“I just thought it was probably our best moment in the business,” he said. “And on top of that, I was able to share it with my family and with other people. You put all those things together and if you can't get emotional in a moment like that, I'm not sure you ever can get emotional.”

Finley gave an update on the stallion plans for Flightline, revealing that he will be bred to about 160 mares and added that “it's going to take a very significant mare with a pedigree and a race record to get to Flightline.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, XBTV and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss and Bill Finley talked more about Flightline's place in racing history and a revelation from a voter that he will not be voting for Flightline for Horse of the Year. Flightline's retirement also brought about a conversation regarding whether or not there is any way for racing to keep its stars on the racetrack. Moss and Finley wondered out loud if it's not time for the Thoroughbred industry to allow, like all other racing breeds, artificial insemination. In other equine sports that has allowed horses to continue to race while being bred in their off seasons. Another topic was the incredible year turned in so far by Beverly Park (Munnings), who made his 26th start this season in last week's Claiming Crown at Churchill Downs. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version.

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