TDN Writers' Room Podcast | Horse Racing Free Tips

On TDN Writers’ Room Podcast, HISA’s Lazarus Admits Mistakes Have Been Made

Because of a number of developments over the last few weeks that can be characterized as missteps, Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) Chief Executive Officer Lisa Lazarus has had a chance to reflect on what's gone right and what's gone wrong since the Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program went into effect in May. Appearing as this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Lazarus addressed the problems and made no attempt to sugarcoat them.

“If we look at the main thing that people are talking about, which is the rules covering intra-articular injections, workouts and races, we just got it wrong,” she said, referring to a rule that puts horses on a 30-day suspended list when they have had a workout within seven days of an injection or have raced with 14 days of the injection. HISA did not always enforce its own rules and several horses raced and/or worked while suspended.

She continued: “There's really nothing more I can say. But what I'm proud of is that we're a team and when we realize we get something wrong, we don't sort of sit on ego or stand on principle and say, we don't care. We're going to just power through. We try to fix it. So I realize that's going to always yield some criticism. And I accept that because, sure, ideally it will be better not to have gotten it wrong.”

Another issue was the initial rule which imposed a 60-day suspension on a trainer violating the intra-articular rule, which many saw as being too harsh of a penalty. HISA has amended the rule and first time offenders will no longer be subject to a suspension.

“The sanction was way too onerous given if you look at the entire structure of the sanctioning system,” she said. “It was just way too severe of a sanction to penalize a trainer for 60 days.”

One area in which HISA does not appear to be ready to make changes is how it deals with trainers who receive positives for substances that are on the banned substance list. In that case, the trainer is provisionally suspended almost immediately, before they have had a hearing and before the results of a split sample have come back. HISA critics have called this a case of “guilty until proven innocent.”

“I'm a huge believer in the provisional suspension,” she said. “I know it's tough and people have got to adjust to it and we've got to make sure that everything is okay in terms of how it operates. But it's a game changer because otherwise there's just too much incentive to kick things down the road. Do you really believe that any trainer would have come forward within 48 hours of a notification with information that was exculpatory if he or she was not really suspended? We need to get these things moving more quickly.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, NYRABets.com, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com andhttps://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman fondly remembered 2003 GI Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide (Distorted Humor), who died earlier in the week of colic. The impending closure of Golden Gate Fields, announced Sunday by 1/ST Racing, was another major topic of discussion as was the coming weekend of racing, which will be topped by the GI Haskell S. at Monmouth. On the betting front, an explosive op/ed in the TDN written by Thoro-Graph's Jerry Brown about Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) was on the menu, with the team agreeing with Brown's main premise, that CAW play is a serious problem that has to be addressed.

Click here to watch the Writers' Room podcast or here for the audio-only version.

The post On TDN Writers’ Room Podcast, HISA’s Lazarus Admits Mistakes Have Been Made appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Attorney Alan Pincus Joins The TDN Writers’ Room To Discuss HIWU Suspensions

With the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) issuing provisional suspensions in what seems like a rapid-fire manner, attorney Alan Pincus has been busy. He is representing trainer Mario Dominguez, who was hit with a provisional suspension after a horse he trained allegedly tested positive for cobalt, and has worked with trainer Jonathan Wong on his case. A Wong-trained horse allegedly tested positive for the banned substance Metformin.

Pincus joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast sponsored by Keeneland to discuss his cases and to express his views on what has transpired since HIWU took over drug testing and enforcement on May 22. Pincus, to put it mildly, is not a fan of what is going on. He was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

“The HISA regulations are written in a way that is truly evil,” Pincus said.

His complaints were many, starting with how violations of banned substances are dealt with by HISU. Once a positive has been determined for substances that are on the banned list, the trainer involved is immediately suspended. That takes place before a hearing can be held and before the results of a split sample are received.

“They give you very little chance to defend yourself,” Pincus said. “The worst part of it is that when you have a banned substance, they come to you. They give you a letter that says you have a positive for this drug. They tell you 'get out' and you're out that next day. What happens to a trainer who is told to get out? Their horses must be relocated to different trainers in different stalls. You lose your owners, you lose your horses, you lose your ability to make a living. In the case of Mr. Dominguez, he had a dozen horses. He was a small trainer working his way through and was doing okay. But like most trainers, he is living month to month. Now you've taken away his ability to make a living. You haven't charged him with anything, but he's dead. That's against due process.”

He continued: “He's yet to be charged with anything. They won't charge you until the split sample comes back. It's due momentarily. But his life has long since been over. He hasn't been charged with anything. What happens if the split sample comes back and it's under the level? What do they say? 'Oops, sorry that I destroyed your life.' The whole system is unconstitutional. It's based on the fact that you're guilty until proven innocent.”

Pincus also opined that there are substances on the banned substance list that don't belong there, that should be treated as relatively minor issues.

“Mac Robertson (who also received a provisional suspension from HIWU) got a positive for Regumate, another very low-level drug,” Pincus said. “It can't possibly be a banned substance. You're supposed to be looking for a Etorphine and EPO and things like that as banned substances. Not these things. It's ridiculous. You're going to see more, one a week. It's like Russian roulette out there. These guys, they're not cheaters. And besides the fact, you have very little chance under their system of winning. It has to stop.”

Pincus said the old way of doing things is preferable to a world under HIWU and the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA).

“They're not going to be able to do it better than the racing commissioners,” Pincus. “The racing commissions know about the game. They have experience in the game. The stewards are the most knowledgeable people in racing. Now we've gone and replaced them with a bunch of people who say things like, 'Let's change the whip to a popsicle stick with a piece of cotton on the end of it and look at some grainy films and see if that was a jockey winding up or he actually hit the horse.' It's stupid. The seventh whip strike is animal cruelty? Then what was the sixth whip strike, which is allowed?”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, WinStar Farm, Lane's End, XBTV.com andhttps://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman, jumped into the controversy surrounding the extension of Bob Baffert's ban by Churchill Downs. Moss predicted that Baffert would fight the extension in court and that, this time, he would prevail. The team also took a look back at the win by West Will Power (Bernardini) in the GI Stephen Foster S., run this year at Ellis Park, and the game victory by Fort Bragg (Tapit) in the GIII Dwyer S. Looking ahead at this weekend's action, Finley focused in on the GII Suburban S. at Belmont. A race with a long history and one won by some of the sport's all-time greats, the Suburban, Finley said, has turned into a second-tier race. He argued that there are too many races on the NYRA calendar for older dirt males and said the best solution would be to discontinue the Suburban, which, this year, drew only five horses.

Click here to watch the Writers' Room podcast or here for the audio-only version.

The post Attorney Alan Pincus Joins The TDN Writers’ Room To Discuss HIWU Suspensions appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Pat Cummings Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) has been a hot topic of late. What we know is that there are a handful gamblers that use computer algorithms to formulate their wagers, are allowed to make their bets at the very last second and receive substantial rebates. But there's a lot we don't know, like how much are they betting, what pools they most prefer and what affect has that had on the “regular” player? In his latest report for the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation (TIF), entitled Sharks & Minnows, TIF Executive Director Pat Cummings dug into the issue. To find out more about his findings, the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland was joined this week by Cummings. He was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

Using data from Del Mar, Cummings concluded that CAW players are betting more each year and that the amount of betting from “everyone else” is declining.

“Not only are the sharks growing, but the minnows are declining,” he said. “For the first time in this paper, were able to really separate how the CAW play has grown and how all other customers have in almost every pool shrunk. Total handle figures are often marketed in the industry press releases, they're touted. It looks like on an annual basis that not a whole lot has changed. That's not telling us the accurate picture. For years now, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation has wanted to really dive into who's betting, how are they betting, how are they participating and how is the market changing? What we're seeing now more clearly than ever before is what's happening with all other customers. We're talking about people that may bet $10 a year or maybe even $2 million a year. They are a smaller percentage of the pools and declining.”

When asked if this could lead to a “doomsday” scenario, whereby the “sharks” have driven all the “minnows” out of the game, Cummings said that is in fact a concern.

“I'd call it a real threat,” he said. “And I would suggest that some of the biggest sharks are eating some of the smaller ones too.”

He estimated that CAW players now account for 33% of the total handle in U.S. racing

Cummings is not in favor of banning CAW players. He recognizes that if they go away overall handle would plummet, which could be catastrophic. The answer he says is to find ways to level the playing field when it comes to the sharks versus the minnows, starting with the takeout.

“Takeout rates have not come down commensurate with all of this money coming in (from CAW players) at low price points and driven by technology,” he said. “That's the opposite experience that investors have had in almost all other areas, where we have seen costs for customers come crashing down. The days of the $35 stock commission are long gone. And yet 50, 60, maybe even 70% of all trading on the stock market now is high-frequency trading. Ordinary investors in 401Ks and IRAs, regular mutual fund holders, exchange traded funds, different products have been created to allow ordinary investors to buy and hold. And their costs have come down from where they were 20 years ago. We have not seen that same evolution in American horse racing wagering, which remains one of the most expensive gambles out there.”

Cummings also called on the industry to end all jackpot bets. He has found that not only do they keep money out of circulation by cutting down on churn, but that the CAW players often come in and take home a disproportionate amount of the pool at the expense of the regular player.

“If you run a parimutuel wagering business and your goal is to keep collecting commissions on parimutuel wagering, then why introduce a bet that limits the number of times that a customer can keep coming back to your window and churning their money?” he said. “You're going in the complete opposite direction to all traditional business logic, which is you should drive customers back into your wagering pools. Yet, tracks continued to persist with these bets. The jackpots need to go as quickly as possible. Tracks need to revert to a traditional play, get that daily payout, get that churn up. The sport needs churn. It's better for every stakeholder along the way.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore,https://lanesend.com/ the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, 1/st Racing, WinStar Farm, Lane's End, XBTV.com and https://www.threechimneys.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and T.D. Thornton, took a look at the win by Two Phil's (Hard Spun) in the GIII Ohio Derby and his subsequent injury and retirement. There was a look back at the Royal Ascot meet, where one of the highlights was the win by the U.S. based 2-year-old filly Crimson Advocate (Nyquist) in the G2 Queen Mary S., and a look ahead at Saturday's GI Stephen Foster S. at Ellis Park. The podcastwrapped up with a discussion on a new proposed rule by the New York Gaming Commission which would require all horses to undergo checks by a veterinarian 72 hours prior to a race or a workout.

Click here to watch the Writers' Room podcast or here for the audio-only version.

The post Pat Cummings Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Jena Antonucci Joins the TDN Writers’ Room

Prior to the running of the GI Belmont S., Jena Antonucci was hardly a household name, even within racing circles. Not anymore. The win she pulled off with Arcangelo (Arrogate) in the Belmont and the story it involved, a female trainer with a small stable and her $35,000 yearling creating history at Belmont Park, has energized an industry that was desperate for some good news.

How did she do it and what did the win mean to her? Those were among the questions we asked her when Antonucci joined the team for this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. Antonucci was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

So far as why her story has been such a popular one, Antonucci believes people relate to someone who keeps going in the face of adversity.

“There have been opportunities that I have wanted or that I have been asking for and the answers were no. And no is two letters,” she said. “It doesn't define where you're going and what you're doing. It's a no right now, but it may be a yes later. So handle yourself appropriately. But if you're not happy with what's happening in your space, don't be a victim to that. It's up to you to take ownership of that and to pivot.”

It remains to be seen if the Belmont win will change the course of Antonucci's career and improve the type of horses she gets to train. Whether it does or not, the trainer said she will keep doing things the way she has always done them, focusing on surrounding herself with quality people and doing her best by the horses.

“My focus is to deal with good people,” she said. “When you deal with good people, good things will happen and our focus will never change with that. As for the horses, we're going to do our best to steward the best possible outcomes for the horses that come into our hands. That's always been a core foundation of who I am as a person. I've said it from day one–I'll never train a million horses, but any horse that comes through our hands, we're going to do our absolute best to make responsible decisions and steward the best possible outcomes we can no matter what those outcomes are.”

Antonucci has been on a whirlwind media tour since the Belmont and has been an ambassador for the sport. What is the message she wants to convey about racing?

“That it's amazing and it's full of amazing people,” she said. “I'll talk about the taboo topic and I don't have a problem talking about it. It's breakdowns and fatalities. I very clearly understand that the general public views our industry as [if] we're profiting from horses and we're killing them. That's the thread that we are all trying to navigate and do better with. So if we aren't telling our story and if we aren't sharing with people how we're doing better, whether you want to lean into HISA or not, we have to. We have to and we are. We are doing better and we will continue to do better. It's about setting realistic expectations and educating people on what amazing things happen and what amazing lives these horses have and how much they enrich life for so many people.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, 1/st Racing, WinStar Farm, XBTV, Lane's End and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Bill Finley, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman reviewed the Belmont and the races on the Belmont undercard and delved into the recent developments involving Linda Rice and Kent Desormeaux.

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