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O’Rourke, Serling, Ortiz Join 100th Writers’ Room

The crew of the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland celebrated a major milestone Tuesday, recording the 100th episode of the ever-growing podcast, and did so with a star-studded show shot from the New York Racing Association's television stand overlooking the majestic paddock at Saratoga. Welcoming as guests NYRA CEO David O'Rourke, America's Day at the Races analyst and Saratoga veteran Andy Serling and Eclipse champion jockey Jose Ortiz, the writers got insight on the future of New York racing both upstate and downstate, the significance of fans returning to Saratoga, what it takes to win a Spa meet rider's title and much more.

First up on the set as the Green Group Guest of the Week was O'Rourke, who touched on a variety of industry issues, including the moral imperative to institute major drug reform, the way forward on partnering with sports betting outfits and whether closing Aqueduct and/or downsizing Belmont figures into NYRA's long-term plans.

“Five, ten years out, if there's one facility [downstate] it will be Belmont Park,” O'Rourke said. “That's really our hub. That's what we're going to attack this winter in terms of planning. What are our options? There are three. You can knock [Belmont] down and build a smaller building, you can redo it, or, one of the things we did this year was build the Triple Crown room on the second floor. That was, in a sense, an experiment. What would it start to look like if we took sections of this building, and build out rooms that we need for big dates like Belmont Stakes Day, or potential Breeders' Cups? So those answers will start to flow out. What you're looking at is a smaller conditioned footprint at Belmont for 10 months a year, and the ability to expand out for something like the Belmont Stakes or Breeders' Cup.”

Next up was Serling, who has been coming to Saratoga for decades and has recently become a key cog in NYRA and FOX Sports' successful daily broadcast from Saratoga and Belmont. Known to many as an outspoken, opinionated personality, Serling was asked whether or not he gets blowback, personally or professionally, for his style of speaking candidly on air.

“I never get that from NYRA,” he said. “[NYRA Bets President and TV Executive Producer] Tony Allevato and Dave O'Rourke have my back actually. If I said something out of line, Tony might say, 'You might want to tone that down,' but he would be right if he said it. I don't understand this whole notion that I'm this incredibly outspoken person, because I've been betting horses my whole life. Horseplayers are argumentative, that's what we do. Isn't that what we like about racing? That we have differing opinions? We throw them around, we say, 'You're an idiot,' 'I'm an idiot', then they run the race and we're probably both wrong, and you move on and try to learn from it. What do people want? Do they want people who say, 'I like the 4-5 favorite, I don't dislike anybody, they're all beautiful.' I thought that's what people want to do about racing is, argue about it. So I'm not going to change what I do. It seems to be working. I mean, at least they're listening. Love, hate, they're all listening.”

Last but not least on the set was Jose Ortiz, 2017's Eclipse Champion Jockey, currently enjoying a successful meet, sitting second as of this writing in the Saratoga jockey standings. He was asked about how the Puerto Rican jockey school and older Puerto Rican trailblazers have helped him and other young riders successfully transition to America.

“It's huge,” Ortiz said of the Escuela Vocacional Hipica. “Angel [Cordero] and Johnny [Velazquez] set the path for us, and hopefully we're setting the path for the ones coming behind us. And it's good for the school because it works on government funds. So if the government keeps seeing the results like they see now, they're going to keep helping the school, and we need that. We work hard, because I have in the back of my head that everything I do is going to be reflected on the school back home and the kids that look up to us now. You've got to keep that in mind at all times.”

Elsewhere on the milestone Writers' Room, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, Spendthrift Farm, Legacy Bloodstock and the 2021 Minnesota Thoroughbred Assoication Yearling Sale, the crew celebrated being back together along with fans at Saratoga, reacted to a huge weekend of turf racing and the unceremonious goodbye some got from Arlington Park, and discussed the suspension of leading trainer Wayne Potts at Monmouth. 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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New Hall of Famer Mark Casse Joins Writers’ Room

Fresh off of a year-delayed induction into racing's Hall of Fame Friday, Mark Casse joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning for an expansive discussion on his career and the sport at large. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Casse reflected on his family's growing legacy in the sport, remembered arguably his most famous pupil Tepin (Bernstein) and assessed where the industry stands on stamping out its drug problems.

Asked about the emotion of his Hall of Fame speech, Casse said, “[Racing] is all I've ever done. I was raised on the racetrack. Saratoga has been my life since I was a little boy. Horse racing has been my life. My father passed away five years ago, and I have so many memories of him at Saratoga and in the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion and the Hall of Fame. Then I sired my first graded stakes-winning trainer son. It wasn't easy to get out, but to have him there and have the family continue on, I know my dad would be very proud.”

Casse has been instrumental in the movement to ban clenbuterol in racing ever since he penned an op/ed in the TDN talking about its performance-enhancing effects. Since then, a number of jurisdictions and racetracks have moved to restrict its use or ban it altogether. Casse was asked about the progress racing is making on that drug and others that have plagued the sport for years.

“I'm very proud of that,” he said of his letter and its aftereffects. “I just felt that at this time of my life, it was time to give back to sport, and the sport has some issues with it that need to be cleaned up. I just felt, you know what, I really don't care who I upset. I'm going to tell it the way I feel it is. I think there's been some serious movement. We saw a quick turnaround in Canada. They moved quickly. Things have changed in New York and Kentucky has been a little slow to adapt, but they're getting there. What's the one thing still going on that is disappointing to me? We've made a lot of new rules and rules are good, but they're only good if they can be enforced. So what happens is the men and women that play by the rules, every time you add a rule, it gives us that much bigger disadvantage. There's a lot of people out there that they only live for today and they're not looking long term. I just recently had a conversation with a big official and I said, if we're going to have these rules, it's your job to make sure that they're abided by. When they're not, [trainers] need to go. If we could do that, it would make our sport much better. It's very, very frustrating to me. Very frustrating.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, Spendthrift Farm, Legacy Bloodstock and the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association's 2021 Yearling Sale, the writers reacted to a huge weekend of racing at Saratoga that included Steve Asmussen's record-breaking victory, and, in late-breaking news, analyzed the development of Jorge Navarro's guilty plea. 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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NYRA, FOX Sports TV Analyst Acacia Courtney Joins Writers’ Room

One of the stars of the successful New York Racing Association and Fox Sports daily broadcast from Saratoga, Acacia Courtney joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Courtney gave her impressions on the early part of the Saratoga meet and talked strategy when it comes to analyzing the 2-year-old races that are so integral to the programs at the Spa.

Asked about the different feeling in the air at tracks this year with fans back in attendance, Courtney said, “One of the greatest things about horse racing is the swell of the crowd and people cheering. If there's a photo finish, you hear the groan one way or the other. I think that throughout the past year, we almost kind of got used to it being quiet. So opening day just felt so great. Everybody seemed happy, everybody was enjoying themselves, even if their tickets were losing, and getting a chance to see some of the fans, people coming over and saying that they had watched our show during quarantine and how much they appreciated what we had been doing really meant a lot because–and I always say you don't want to sound spoiled because I was one of the few people that got to be at Saratoga last summer. But you were drained at the end of the day because there was no crowd. There wasn't the same level of excitement as there is this year.”

Elsewhere in the show, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, Spendthrift Farm, Legacy Bloodstock, Woodford Thoroughbreds and the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association's 2021 Yearling Sale, the writers talked about what the latest developments in the FBI indictments case mean, remembered the great Bernardini and looked forward to a monster weekend of racing. 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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Eric Gustavson Joins the TDN Writers’ Room

Following the tragic loss of Coolmore's cornerstone stallion Galileo, champion sire Into Mischief has suddenly found himself at center stage as the top stallion in the world in just about every category. On this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, the crew sat down with Eric Gustavson of Spendthrift Farm, a new sponsor of the show, to talk about their rise of success with the son of Harlan's Holiday.

“For us to have Into Mischief is the classic case of how a rising tide lifts all boats,” said Gustavson, who joined in as the Green Group Guest of the Week. “He's our rising tide and he brings so much attention to the farm. He's so powerful and dominant in so many categories as a stallion and it's mind blowing that you could ever have one like this. That he is considered one of the all-time greats, if not the best in the world, is really humbling.”

Gustavson, who serves on the Board of the Directors for Breeders' Cup, also spoke out on racing's urgent need for change.

“The industry is so fractious…with the issues of lack of uniformity in medications and things like that,” he said. “The industry cannot grow unless these things start to change. We need to have innovation. We need to have inclusion. We need to have uniformity to the point where we're not dysfunctional and referring to a weak regulatory system. These are the kinds of things that I would like to help change because we're just stuck. There is a lot of talk about the pros and cons of the government coming in and being involved with control over the drug issues. A lot of people are against it, but my feelings are that we have to do something and if this is the only way to do it, then so be it. Let's have the uniformity and have some kind of oversight that has some teeth.”

Elsewhere on Wednesday's podcast, which welcomed the Minnesota Thoroughbred Association 2021 Yearling Sale in joining additional sponsors West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, the writers recapped another great week of racing at Saratoga, discussed the recent controversy with trainer Marcus Vitali and looked forward to this weekend's racing at the Spa and beyond.

Click here to watch the podcast on YouTube.

Click here for the audio-only version.

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