TDN Writers' Room | Horse Racing Free Tips

Louis Cella Joins the TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Another Oaklawn meet is underway and with the Arkansas track offering the highest purse structure in the country during the winter months, expectations are that it will be another banner season in Hot Springs. To discuss the Oaklawn season, the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland called upon track president Louis Cella to explain why Oaklawn has become such a phenomenon. Cella was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

“It's because we don't charge $12 for a beer,” Cella said when asked how Oaklawn continues to draw such big crowds. “We just gave away six tons of corned beef, two sandwiches and a Coke for a dollar last Saturday. To put that in perspective, we had thunderstorms and rolling electric blackouts all day Saturday. Yet we had close to 15,000 people giving away six tons of corned beef because that's their expectation. That's what they want to do. It's all part of having fun. It's part of the excitement of what we offer. We continually focus on affordability and the $2 bettor and more importantly, family.”

Cella has made some changes since taking over as track president in 2017, including the building of a hotel on track grounds. Another is a longer meet. For this meet, Oaklawn will be open from Dec. 9 through May 6. Cella said the extended season has been a success.

“It is working,” he said. “More importantly, our horsemen seem to love it. It fills in a gap. Equally important is that the city of Hot Springs and our community love it.”

And when it comes to the question that always seems to come up whenever Oaklawn is involved…

“I get asked that all the time, when are you going to put in a turf course?” Cella said. “We're not going to put in a turf course. The time of year that we run, call it December to April to May, means we might have to start turf racing in April. It's just not conducive for us.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, XBTV and West Point Thoroughbreds, Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley discussed the latest chapter of the Jason Servis story. Servis is facing four years in prison, which Finley said would be a surprisingly light sentence considering that Jorge Navarro got five years. Other subjects included the announcement by the Federal Trade Commission that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority cannot go ahead with plans to start its anti-doping and medication control (ADMC) program on Jan. 1 and the suspension handed down by the New York Gaming Commission to NYRA clocker Rich Gazer for changing the distance of a workout. Moss called Gazer's suspension “an absolute joke.”

In on-the-track news, the crew took a look back at the win by Faiza (Girvin) in the GI Starlet S. at Los Alamitos and looked ahead to this weekend's action, which includes the GII Los Alamitos Futurity and the Springboard Mile at Remington Park.

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

Source of original post

Lynn Cash Joins the TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Don't tell owner-trainer Norman (Lynn) Cash that horses need eight weeks between races and can only run four or five times a year. Cash, who has been training only since April, 2021, has found success running his horses as often as possible. Led by the remarkable Beverly Park (Munnings), who, on Monday at Mahoning Valley, will make his 29th start of the year, Cash's stable has earned $3,816,293 on the year. He says it has been profitable in 17 of the 18 months it has been in business.

Brought in to talk about his unique approach to training and owning horses (Cash owns every horse in his stable), Cash was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland.

“I personally think that 11 or 12 days between races is absolutely perfect and it works for me,” Cash said. “If you go 10 or 11 days between races you can get 98% out of what the horse has to give you back. That's enough for them to recuperate. They're ready to go. Usually, you're working the horse anyway after a race; you're giving him a work that is a lot like a race. I thought maybe we should just race them into fitness instead of working them into fitness.”

On Beverly Park, Cash said he is a horse who loves to get out there and run.

“He's just such a competitor,” Cash said. “An iron horse, that absolutely fits him. We've not had to do any work on him. He's just an incredibly sound horse. He's just the epitome of a workhorse. Every time he gives everything that he has. He's just such a such a sweet and amazing horse.”

Cash owns a roofing business, which was his primary source of income before getting into racing. He has turned the day-to-day operation of that business over to his sons, so that he can focus on racing. He couldn't be happier with the decision to change careers midstream.

“I'm having the time of my life here,” he said. “They say I've changed careers. But I don't know about that because I don't call this work. This horse racing, it is addictive.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, XBTV and West Point Thoroughbreds, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley took a look back at the GI Cigar Mile H. win by the ultra-game Mind Control (Stay Thirsty), as well as last week's GII Remsen S. and GII Demoiselle S. They also discussed the latest news on alleged drug cheat Jason Servis, who appears ready to enter a guilty plea. Cadman and Finley also touched on the story of Maryland-bred star Post Time (Frosted), who is undefeated in three starts while being ridden in the afternoons by his regular exercise rider, Eric Camacho.

Click here to watch the show.

Click here for the audio-only version.

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

Source of original post

Lisa Lazarus Joins the TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

In less than 12 weeks the Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU), a branch of the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA), will get to work, handling all drug testing and enforcement across the country. With that in mind, the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland called on HISA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Lazarus to bring us up to speed on the latest developments regarding her organization. Lazarus was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

Lazarus said that seven of the racing commissions in the 14 states where racing will be held on Jan. 1 have reached an agreement with HISA and are ready to pay the assessment fee necessary to be involved with the program. In states where no agreement has been reached, HISA will have to hire its own staff to perform services like drug testing that used to fall under the racing commissions. She said she has been pleased that the tracks and racing commissions seem to grow more comfortable with HISA by the day.

“Honestly, I certainly can't sit here and say that everybody is on board now,” Lazarus said. “But I definitely feel that each day we get closer and closer to acceptance and support. And I think that's really about the tone that we set and that my staff sets in terms of wanting to help make the industry better. We're not looking to make things more difficult or more complicated. We're looking to provide this foundation of safety and integrity that everyone in racing can build their businesses around.”

She reiterated that HIWU will rely on more than drug testing to police the sport. They will work closely with 5 Stones Intelligence, which was instrumental in the arrests of Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and more than two dozen others in 2020.

“The Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit is also building their own internal capability, their own internal investigations team, which is very strong and is going to include some well-known and well-established faces,” she said. “I think probably why you ask the question, and it really resonates with me, is that you want to know if the new program is going to be very much intelligence and investigations based. It's not going to be based solely on conducting a whole lot of tests. If you look at all the top-end programs in the world, equine and otherwise, you'll see that the successful ones that really deliver integrity to their sports rely heavily on investigations. That's great. What 5 Stones has uncovered over the past couple of years has really changed this industry for the better. They truly have. They have certainly done a terrific job and we're lucky to have them as part of the sport.”

On a related subject, Lazarus said she was pleased that jockeys seemed to have adapted to HISA's rules regarding the whip.

“When (the new whip rule) was first introduced back in July, there was a learning curve to get all the jockeys on the same page and fairly so because they've been operating with different rules across multiple jurisdictions,” Lazarus said. “But now a number of months in, we're seeing a lot of very encouraging signs. First of all, if you watch the Breeders' Cup, I think it was an extraordinary display of why excessive crop use is not necessary and doesn't enhance the sport. Second of all, we're seeing a real plateau on the number of violations across the country. There had been concern and negative feedback, most of which revolved around the fact that if you were over nine strikes, you would face disqualification. We believed, or at least the Racetrack Safety Committee believed, that if you were going to actually genuinely have an impact on properties, you'd have to bring in stakeholders who had more at stake than just the jockeys. And those are only 6% of our overall number of of crop violations, which I think is quite a low number. So I think over time, we'll be able to prove that these sort of balanced crop rules are better for the sport. They don't change the sport and they haven't changed anything with the betting public.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, XBTV, West Point Thoroughbreds, Lane's End, Adena Springs and the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, panelists Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley reviewed the Breeders' Cup and all things Flightline (Tapit). The crew all agreed that the GI Breeders' Cup Classic was the best race of his six-race career and that he deserves to be considered one of the all-time greats in the sport's history. Flightline got a 121 Beyer in the Classic, five points lower than in his win the GI Pacific Classic. Moss, who makes speed figures for the Beyer team, explained why his number fell off a bit. The domination of the European-based horses brought out some interesting insights from the trio and had Finley declaring that he will never again pick against any horse Charlie Appleby sends over to run in North America. The group also looked at the few Eclipse Award races that are not complete no-brainers and all agreed that Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), War Like Goddess (English Channel), Epicenter (Not This Time) and Elite Power (Curlin) should be named champion in their respective divisions.

Click here to watch the show.

Click here for the audio-only version.

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

Source of original post

Nick Luck Joins the TDN Writers’ Room, Talks BC European Contingent

The Green Group Guest of the Week on the latest edition of the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, commentator Nick Luck, who works both sides of the Atlantic, was asked what are the best storylines out of Europe when it comes to this year's Breeders' Cup. With a deep and talented group of shippers coming to Keeneland, there was no shortage of answers, starting with the story of Highfield Princess (Fr) (Night of Thunder {Ire}).

“I think Highfield Princess is right up there as one of the great storylines,” Luck said of the Europen sprinting star who will contest the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. “She's in the Turf Sprint against Golden Pal, so this is one of those races where you can genuinely say the best American in his or her division is facing the best European in his or her division, both with brazen speed. That sets up as a perfect clash. You have the Coolmore ownership on one hand with Golden Pal against the slightly more blue collar origins on the other. It's got everything that a Breeders Cup race should have.”

Then there's jockey Hollie Doyle. She could have two favorites in Nashwa (GB) (Frankel {GB}) in the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf and The Platinum Queen (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}) in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

“Hollie Doyle is the most successful female jockey that's ever been in Europe,” Luck said. “She's a ground-breaker, someone who's really threatened to shatter the glass ceiling more than any other female rider has before. She's got meaningful chances with The Platinum Queen and Nashwa in the in the Breeders Cup Filly & Mare Turf, and that's a race that will test her a little bit more against some of the best American turf riders. So we'll see what she's made of tactically there.”

Trainer Charlie Appleby will be well represented with a group led by Modern Games (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), the likely favorite in the Breeders' Cup Mile. Appleby is 14-for-28 in North America since 2021, including wins with Modern Games, Space Blues (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Yibir (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) in last year's Breeders' Cup. He is making it look easy.

“If you have the depth of talent that he has, obviously, that makes it easier,” Luck said. “But there have been plenty of high-profile trainers who've had the patronage of high-profile owners before who haven't done as well as him. Even Aidan O'Brien, who has a great record in the United States, pales by comparison when you look at strike rates. One of the things that motivates Appleby most is finding the right opportunities for his horses. And if he has a whole bunch of Grade I or Grade II horses finding where they fit best. He likes to use the international calendar to exploit that. If he has three dozen beautifully bred horses by Dubawi, he knows he can't target them all at the British classics. They'll find their natural metier running in those turf races in the United States. He's just exploited that to a tee. Then he gets them to get confident, then they get better still.

Elsewhere on the show, panelists Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley took a look back at the stunning defeat suffered by Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) in the GI Champion S. at Ascot and a look ahead at the prospective fields for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic and the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff. The podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, XBTV, The Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Three Chimneys, West Point Thoroughbreds and Legacy Bloodstock, also included a discussion of what's next for Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux, whose return is unclear after he recently served a 60-day suspension. The writers jumped on the opportunity to implore other states beyond Kentucky to give the bettors a break and revert to penny breakage, but didn't hold out much hope that it would happen. The penny breakage system in Kentucky has meant an additional $1.1 million has been returned to bettors since the system was implemented at the start of the Ellis Park meet.

Click here to watch the podcast and here to listen.

The post Nick Luck Joins the TDN Writers’ Room, Talks BC European Contingent appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post