TDN Writers' Room | Horse Racing Free Tips

Mike Smith Talks Honor A. P., Derby Memories On TDN Writers’ Room

As a Hall of Fame jockey and two-time winning rider of the GI Kentucky Derby, Mike Smith knows his way around Churchill Downs. After having his morning-line favored mount Omaha Beach (War Front) scratched the week of the race last year, Smith is back aboard a major contender in Saturday’s Run for the Roses. Wednesday, the 55-year-old rider who’s still at the top of his game joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland. Calling in via Zoom from Louisville as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Smith talked about his mount Honor A. P. (Honor Code), his past Derby wins, Holy Bull, Arrogate, whether he thinks about retirement and more.

Honor A. P. punched his ticket for the Derby with a win in the GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby, but was second at 1-5 last out in the Shared Belief S. at Del Mar Smith said he thinks the colt’s improved training and distance capabilities give him confidence in a peak effort Saturday.

“The Santa Anita Derby was a mile and an eighth, Shared Belief was a mile and a sixteenth, so he shortened back up,” Smith said. “And he didn’t get a whole lot of serious training in between the two races. They certainly wanted him to be peaking at this time and not then. I think his best work going into that race was 1:02 something, so he kind of ran a bit sluggishly and finally came running at the end. And actually still ran really well. He ran a 102 Beyer. But since then, we’ve really stepped up his training and put some sharp works into him. Then after his two really sharp works, we did a maintenance work and he did it so nice. He went seven-eighths in 1:27 and galloped out in 40, which was really good. He did that all on his own. So he’s coming into the Derby training extremely well, really fine-tuned and fit to run his best effort.”

Smith has chosen to stay aboard the John Shirreffs trainee instead of taking the return call on Authentic (Into Mischief), who he rode to victory for Bob Baffert in the GI Haskell Invitational.

“They’re tied with each other. The first time they ran against each other [in the GII San Felipe S.], Authentic beat Honor A. P.,” he said. “We’d come off a foot injury, had missed some time, so I knew he wasn’t 100% going into that race. In the Santa Anita Derby, I knew he was. And I thought that the distance would really suit him well. I just truly think that when we’re going to go a mile and an eighth and further, that’s when you see Honor A. P. really start to shine, really start to stand out. And that’s just what made my mind up. I can’t wait to see what he does going a mile and a quarter.”

Smith reminisced on his previous two Derby wins, first aboard 50-1 shot Giacomo (Holy Bull) and second on undefeated favorite Justify (Scat Daddy).

“We were running out west [with Giacomo] where the tracks were really fast at the time,” Smith remembered. “They weren’t suiting him, but he would run second or third and really gallop out strong, so I knew that once we got off the West Coast racetracks, he was going to excel. He was going to run better. Was it going to be good enough for him to win the Derby? I wasn’t really sure, but I was talking myself into it. I’d ridden his father in the Derby. He was a big favorite and ran probably his worst race, so I wanted to redeem his father’s name. I was using that to keep me pumped up and keep me excited. Then the more I looked at the race, I saw that this pace is going to be really hot. This could really set up for me. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“When I was with Justify, it was a whole different story,” he said. “We had all the hype, he was the horse to beat. We actually believed that he had the kind of talent to be a Triple Crown winner. He was that kind of horse. So there was a whole lot more pressure with him.”

Asked about the secret to his longevity and whether or not he thinks about retiring, Smith said, “At times I think about it, but then I think, ‘Well, where else am I going to have this kind of fun?’ I’m having a blast right now, getting the opportunity to ride in these big races. And if I did anything right early on in my career, I really took up physical fitness instead of going out and playing golf and not doing a whole lot. Every morning, I just made it a way of life. I train every morning. If I’m not training myself, I have two different personal trainers that train me at least five times a week. I go at it pretty, pretty hard. I’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s starting to pay off in my later years. I’m still as fit as I was 10 years ago. So for some reason I’m hanging in there. And as long as I can continue to do that, I plan to ride another few years.”

Elsewhere on the show, the crew broke down the Derby and Oaks fields from all angles and, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, reacted to the creation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act and its corresponding alliance. Then, host Joe Bianca addressed the comments made by Barclay Tagg Tuesday about the racial unrest in Louisville. Click here to watch the podcast, click here for the audio-only version.

The post Mike Smith Talks Honor A. P., Derby Memories On TDN Writers’ Room appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

MJC President Sal Sinatra Talks Cleaning Up Racing On TDN Writers’ Room

In a sport crying out for more strict, no-nonsense regulators and administrators, Maryland Jockey Club president Sal Sinatra fits the bill. Just in the past week and a half, Sinatra has made major waves in the industry, first by calling for the eventual end to claiming races at The Jockey Club Round Table and then by busting Wayne Potts for “paper training” for a banned trainer in Maryland. Wednesday, Sinatra joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss an array of issues plaguing racing and the steps, big and small, that can be taken to clean up the game for good.

“When I see forged health certificates, when I have repeated claims for not paying bills, when there’s theft, when I’m watching horses race and return and run under others’ names, [situations] that everybody’s aware of, action should’ve been before it gets to my desk,” Sinatra said of the challenges he faces as a head regulator. “Unfortunately, since I’ve been in Maryland, [Potts] is the sixth person I’ve actually tossed. And I don’t know why I seem to be the only one doing it.”

Sinatra went on to say that one of the reasons cheating trainers aren’t more severely punished is that they fill races, a byproduct of there being too much racing on the whole in America and specifically too much cheap claiming races.

“Coming from the racing secretary side, we’ve got too many races,” he said. “Most of these [cheating] guys run their horses a lot. They help you when you call them. So they’re kind of racing office favorites, and the gray area becomes not so gray when you need the horse to make six or seven to fill the entries and close.”

Sinatra added that while racing is making strides in certain areas of correcting itself, there remains one more basic long-term problem it hasn’t addressed: the morality of its participants.

“We’re all trying to make a living. We’re trying to be proud. We’re trying to clean our image as best as we can,” he said. “We have to make ourselves look better. We’re trying with the breakdowns. We’re trying with the medications. But there’s a character flaw. There has become a real character issue. There’s people in the game right now that–I hate to say it–but they shouldn’t be around animals, let alone horses.”

Sinatra caused a stir when he suggested at the Round Table that America should move toward a future without claiming races. He expounded on how a transition to that future could look.

“For one, we have too many categories for horses to enter into,” he said. “You got non-two, non-three, non-four, one win in six months, two wins in six months. I think a ratings system reduces that, so if you put two horses at a rating of 80, maybe a horse that only has three wins runs against a horse with nine wins. You could hypothetically replace starter allowances with these ratings races. There may be a way of combining claiming and letting people who don’t want to lose their horse run their horse against like horses.”

Sinatra further lamented the lack of growth in the worth of claimers over the years, despite inflation and higher purses, leading inevitably to animal welfare issues.

“We’ve created this arena, and especially with the [revenue from] slots, we never valued the horse part of it. When I worked at Monmouth in the mid-80s, the last race was always a Jersey-bred nickel [claimer]. And today the bottom is a Jersey-bred nickel. We’re talking 35 years later. That horse has to be worth a little more than that. But we keep it low so people can get in the game, and then the poor horse gets chewed up. We have to fix it.”

Sinatra said that a lot of racing’s ills come back to the core issue that has been discussed at length on the Writers’ Room in the past: an oversupply of races that exists despite the realities of declining foal crops and horses who run less frequently overall.

“A lot of things got broken down over time because we have too much racing, there’s too many opportunities and we’re trying to fill all this stuff with no supply,” he said. “That’s really the biggest problem. A horse used to run eight or nine times a year. And you have the same amount of stalls that aren’t filled as much. You do the math. Most of the tracks now are propped up by slot machines. Companies can afford to lose $5-10 million on racing when they’re printing money across the parking lot. It’s not good for our sport. So we need to clean it up. We need to look at the whole model and reboot or it’s going to go away.”

Elsewhere on the show, the writers recapped the weekend’s Grade I action and, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, applauded Churchill Downs for making the decision to race without spectators for the GI Kentucky Derby and broke down the Karl Broberg situation at Remington. Click here to watch the podcast, click here for the audio-only version.

The post MJC President Sal Sinatra Talks Cleaning Up Racing On TDN Writers’ Room appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

TDN Writers’ Room Celebrates 50 Episodes

It was a special day Wednesday for everyone who works on the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland, as the crew celebrated its 50th episode of the industry-leading weekly podcast. In a tribute to the show’s creator, the four hosts welcomed producer Patty Wolfe as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss her original vision for the Writers’ Room, how it has evolved since then and how she’d like to see it develop in the future.

“I’m a big podcast person and there’s one podcast that I love, NPR Politics’ Weekly Roundup, because it’s reporters, people that are used to just reporting the stories at NPR, never being celebrities themselves,” Wolfe said. “And it was so fascinating to get people who really knew their stuff as opposed to people who just are slick on camera. So I said to Sue [Finley], you’ve got such a smart staff, can we get some writers to sit around and do this? Sue said, ‘We’ve got buy-in here. We’ll do it. We’ll give it a try.'”

Originally intended as a medium to recap and preview racing and sales based out of a refashioned conference room in the TDN offices, the podcast quickly morphed into an opportunity for the writers to delve into deep, structural issues within the sport and speak candidly in pursuit of finding solutions. It also has now turned into a video recording done over Zoom, an innovation of necessity in response to the pandemic shutting down the original “studio”.

“From show one, I said. ‘Oh, this thing’s got a life of its own,”” Wolfe added. “It changed a lot from the initial thought, for the better. Who knew the kinds of stories that were going to come your way? This crazy year that has been in the sport, outside the sport, there was no topic [the hosts] weren’t willing to tackle. One of the things I enjoy the most is how honest it is. There’s no feeling of, ‘Hey, let’s take this polite approach and be deferential.’ No, you let it out. And that’s been the biggest surprise and treat for me. It just went its own way.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, there was plenty to discuss from The Jockey Club’s Round Table, and the writers zeroed in on the debate over whether and how to shrink the disproportionate number of claiming races run in America with the goal of creating a safer environment for lower-level horses. They then explored Bill Finley’s article from Wednesday’s TDN about the issues plaguing Equibase’s new Gmax timing system at tracks across the country and the wide-ranging implications that come from incorrect clockings. In the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the topic turned to the extensive delay of Monmouth paying out its purses and how it particularly affects smaller stables. Click here to watch the podcast, click here for the audio-only version.

The post TDN Writers’ Room Celebrates 50 Episodes appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Jack Sisterson Talks Vexatious, Returning Calumet to Glory On TDN Writers’ Room

Two years ago, when it was announced that legendary Calumet Farm was hiring Jack Sisterson as its primary trainer, there was skepticism. At just 33 years old, with only experience as an assistant to his name, it was fair to question whether or not Sisterson was prepared to carry the flag for such a powerful racing and breeding brand. Those questions have now been answered–resoundingly in the affirmative, as just a short while later, Sisterson has not only proved equal to the task, but appears on his way to the even larger accomplishment of restoring historic Calumet to the glory of its heyday.

Still in the afterglow of pulling off a colossal upset of champion Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) with Calumet’s Vexatious (Giant’s Causeway) in the GI Personal Ensign S. at Saratoga, Sisterson joined the TDN Writers’ Room podcast presented by Keeneland Wednesday to talk about his first Grade I victory, his hands-on education in racing and the bright future for him and Calumet.

Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Sisterson spoke on how he adapted his training approach to fit Vexatious, who is reaching her career peak at the age of six.

“She has an extremely high cruising speed, and she can carry that over a distance of ground,” he said. “What we found with her, she’s a filly that loves to train at 5:30. She goes right out when the track opens, because that’s what she wants. She’s very businesslike and wants to get on with it. And when I initially got her, if I asked her to go three-quarters of a mile in a workout, she would put so much effort into it that she was doing too much in the mornings and not leaving it for the afternoon. So we decided to back up all of her works to half a mile and crossed our fingers that would result in her being a little bit more energetic in the afternoons. It’s slightly worrisome when you just breeze them half a mile–do they have enough foundation in them to compete at that classic type of distance on the dirt? But with her, she puts so much effort into her gallops and half-mile breezes that she’s in that happy stage of her career at the moment.”

Asked about the process that led to his hiring by Calumet, Sisterson credited former boss Doug O’Neill and compared the aura of Calumet to another iconic brand from his upbringing playing soccer in England.

“Initially, when I had this small conversation with them, I’d never been to the farm before,” he said. “I was working for Doug at the time, who still to this day is very supportive of everything I do, which I’m very grateful for. It was Doug who pushed me out there, saying, ‘If you don’t do it, I’m going to do it.’ Being from England and a soccer player, when you grow up, there’s Manchester United, at the top of the league with so much history and success. I assumed Calumet was the Manchester United of farms. Why would they want someone like me? I’m nobody. It was honoring, humbling. I’m just a very, very, very small piece of so much hard work that goes in behind the scenes that people don’t see.”

It was soccer that first brought Sisterson to the United States and sent him on his path to stardom in the Thoroughbred racing world. Having a lifelong passion for both sports, Sisterson killed two birds with one stone by enrolling at the University of Louisville, which led to a first racing gig working alongside a Hall of Fame trainer.

“From as far as I can remember, there was racing on TV or we were going to some big racing events in the Northeast of England,” he recalled. “I fell in love with it from day one and always wanted to have some involvement in it. I was fortunate enough to be offered a soccer scholarship at Louisville, which offered the equine program. And in return, I worked summers for Todd Pletcher. That was my first introduction to the American side of racing.”

Elsewhere on the show, the writers analyzed last weekend’s major stakes action, previewed Saturday’s GI Runhappy Travers S. and took stock of where the 3-year-old picture stands exactly one month away from the GI Kentucky Derby. Then, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, they reacted to the news of increased restrictions on out-of-state jockeys attempting the ride in the Derby, even as fans are still slated to be on track with much more lax requirements. Click here to watch the podcast on Vimeo, and click here for the audio-only version.

The post Jack Sisterson Talks Vexatious, Returning Calumet to Glory On TDN Writers’ Room appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post