Tag: The Biz

Five stakes worth a combined $700,000 highlight the 2023 Winter Thoroughbred meet at Los Alamitos.

The six-day season will begin Friday, Dec. 8 and continue through Sunday, Dec. 17. Racing will be conducted Friday-Sunday both weeks (Dec. 8-10 and Dec. 15-17). Post time will be 12:30 p.m.

The first of the stakes races is the Grade 2, $200,000-guaranteed Starlet for 2-year-old fillies. The race at 1 1/16 miles will be run Saturday, Dec. 9.

One week later – Saturday, Dec. 16 – the Grade 2, $200,000-guaranteed Los Alamitos Futurity will be offered. The race – which will also be run at 1 1/16 miles – is for 2-year-olds.

The schedule also includes a pair of races at one mile for 2-year-olds bred or sired in California. The $100,000-guaranteed Soviet Problem – for fillies – will be run Sunday, Dec. 10 while the King Glorious – for colts and geldings – will be contested Sunday, Dec. 17.

The other stakes is the Grade 3, $100,000 Bayakoa for fillies and mares – 3-year-olds & up – at 1 1/16 miles. The Bayakoa will be contested Friday, Dec. 15.

Grandstand admission is $3 and $2 for seniors 62 and older. Admission to Burgart's is $10 and Vessels Club is $10. Tickets can also be purchased online at http://losalamitos.com/. Los Alamitos offers free general parking. Preferred parking is $5.

The wagering menu includes a pair of $1 Pick 4's on races 2-5 and the final four races along with a $2 Pick Six as well as the Players' Pick 5 – a 50-cent minimum bet with a reduced takeout rate of 14% rate – on the first five races.

The Pick Six will have the standard 70-30 split with 70% of the pool going to those tickets with six winners with the remaining 30% going to tickets with five of six winners.

There will also be a handicapping contest Saturday, Dec. 16 and the Los Alamitos Racing Association will offer a cash prize and a pair of berths in the 2024 National Thoroughbred Racing Association Handicapping Championship in Las Vegas.

Cost to enter is $500. Of that amount, $100 will be placed in the contest prize pool with the remaining $400 going towards a live money wagering card.

Tournament races will include the entire card at Los Alamitos with permitted wagers including win, place, show, exactas, trifectas and daily doubles.

The player with the highest bankroll at the end of the day will be declared the winner and the player with the second highest bankroll will be the runner-up.

The winner will receive 50% of the prize pool. The remaining payoffs: 20% (2^nd place), 15% (3^rd place), 7.5 % (4^th place) and 7.5% (Most Money Wagered).

Entries for opening day of the Winter Thoroughbred meet will be taken Tuesday, Dec. 5.

The post Five Stakes Worth $700,000 Highlight Los Alamitos’ Winter Thoroughbred Meet appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Federal Trade Commission has issued an Order approving a modification to the Anti-Doping and Medication Control rules proposed by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. The rule modification, which adds iron dextran to the list of prohibited substances, takes effect immediately.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act requires the Authority to submit proposed rules (or rule modifications) to the FTC for approval. The Act requires the FTC to approve submitted rules if it finds that they are “consistent with” the Act and the FTC's procedural rules governing the submission process.

On September 25, 2023, the FTC published the proposed rule modification in the Federal Register and provided the public an opportunity to comment. Under the Act, the FTC has 60 days from the date of publication to approve or disapprove the proposed rule. The Commission Order announced today finds that the proposed rule is consistent with the Act, and that the Authority complied with the FTC's procedural requirements.

The Commission vote to approve the rule was 3-0.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition, and protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and report scams, fraud, and bad business practices online at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Follow the FTC on social media, read our blogs and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.

The post Federal Trade Commission Approves HISA’s Addition Of Iron Dextran To Prohibited Substances List appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This is part of a new series we are piloting looking back at what was going on this week during a past year in horse racing history. Find our previous editions here and here and here.

It behooves horse racing regulators to pay attention to what's going on in other sports, even if the participants have two legs instead of four. On this week 20 years ago, a short news item toward the front of the Nov. 29, 2003 edition of The Blood-Horse served as a reminder that if you want to stay on top of doping, it's best to keep an ear to the ground.

In late 2003, the broader sports world was reeling from the fallout of the BALCO case. The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was investigated by federal law enforcement as well as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which discovered the facility was distributing EPO, human growth hormone, and anabolic steroids to professional and Olympic athletes. Athletes who names were linked to the BALCO investigation included Major League Baseball's all-time home run king Barry Bonds, track and field stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, and the National Football League's all-pro linebacker Bill Romanowski, among others.

Leading the USADA investigation was Jeff Novitzky, who would go on to investigate Lance Armstrong and was later part of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's Anti-Doping and Medication Control Standing Committee. He has since resigned from that committee.

USADA investigators were given a syringe with trace amounts of what would turn out to be a steroid called tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG. Don Catlin, renowned chemist at the University of California-Los Angeles, helped identify and create a test for THG, raising questions in the horse racing world about whether the industry needed to worry about the drug.

Probably not, officials told Blood-Horse writer Victor Ryan.

Dr. Scot Waterman, then executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, and Lonny Powell, then president of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, told Ryan they hadn't heard any anecdotal accounts of people using THG on racehorses.

“Frankly, I would be surprised if it was that prevalent on backstretches because it's an anabolic steroid and there's lots of evidence that what they are used for in human athletes do not transfer to horses,” Waterman said. “But that doesn't mean you don't keep an eye on these things.”

Part of the reason people in horse racing were concerned was that THG was known by the nickname of “The Clear” for its ability to evade human anti-doping testing. As is true now, chemists must have a known sample of a substance in order to develop a test for it. These days, that's because modern testing methods rely on knowing the chemical structure of a molecule of the substance they're looking for. Testing technology was somewhat different in the horse racing world in 2003, but chemists still required a sample of a drug – called a “reference standard” – to develop an effective test.

I asked Dr. Rick Sams, former executive director of HFL Sport Science Lab, about whether that initial belief, that THG was no threat to horse racing, was likely correct.

“We were concerned about it in horse racing because we didn't have any of it to administer it to horses to determine whether it was excreted in the urine as an identifiable substance and we couldn't develop tests to detect it in blood or urine,” Sams said. “By the time reference standards became available, BALCO had been shut down and [BALCO founder Victor] Conte had been convicted. We did not know anything about the origins of THG and therefore didn't know whether it was widely available or restricted to clients of BALCO. Since it proved to be the latter, I suspect that it was never available for use in horse racing and doubt that any horse was treated with it to affect its performance.”

Sams said that once a reference standard was available for THG, it was added to his lab's rotation of drug tests. The lab never detected the drug in test samples.

We now know, however, that while the androgen receptor in horses that interacts with testosterone and anabolic steroids is slightly different from humans, anabolics have the same impact on muscle-building through this receptor. So while THG didn't turn out to be a doping concern, other substances that mime anabolics can be.

The problem of reference standards is what continues to stump regulators charged with catching doping in the human and equine sports worlds. In 2017, we reported on Sams' concern that designer drugs – of which THG was one – are making chemists' jobs more complicated. A simple change to a drug's molecular architecture can help it evade even rigorous tests, and the broadening of the internet black market makes it easier for people to get ahold of doping substances shipped to their door labeled as “research chemicals.”

Sams' suggestion – then and now – is something chemists have known for some time, and it's something that was on display in the BALCO case: that drug testing is not going to be what stops cheaters in sport. Investigative resources, like those used by USADA, and those promised by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, are the only way to get ahead of the problem.

Netflix recently aired a documentary on the BALCO scandal UNTOLD: Hall of Shame. Here is the trailer.

The post This Week In History: The Doping Threat That (Probably) Wasn’t appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The new turf course at Gulfstream Park received rave reviews from jockeys Edgard Zayas and Luca Panici after riding a pair of Saffie Joseph Jr.-trained horses in company for a half-mile Monday morning.

“It feels great. It's beautiful,” said Zayas, who captured the riding title during the Sunshine Meet that concluded Saturday. “I can't wait to ride on it Friday.”

The 2023-2024 Championship Meet gets underway on Friday while offering the first turf races at Gulfstream since the renovation of the grass course began in May.

Zayas was aboard Sunshine Frolic, a 3-year-old son of California Chrome who worked inside General Ledger, a 2-year-old son of Summer Front ridden by Panici.

“Right now, the turf isn't dry. It's nice and moist. They got over it great,” Zayas said. “I can't wait. I love turf racing. It's my favorite. I'm really excited about the new turf and I'm excited turf racing's back.”

Sunshine Frolic, who broke his maiden on Tapeta in his second career start, and General Ledger, who won his debut impressively on dirt, ran as a team from the half-mile pole to the finish line before galloping out with energy. Both horses were timed in 48.14 seconds.

“It's nice, very consistent. They got over it nice,” Panici said. “It's not hard. It's looking good.”

Joseph used the opportunity to participate in the first workouts on the new turf course to introduce Sunshine Frolic and General Ledger to grass.

“Both of them have never run on the grass. Both of them most likely want to run on the grass, most likely,” Joseph said. “One has won on the Tapeta and the other is bred for all grass.”

Joseph was visually taken by the pristine surface.

“It's a beautiful piece of ground,” Joseph said.

Two races on turf have been carded for Friday's opening day program, including a $72,000 optional claiming allowance, a five-furlong sprint featuring the return of Yes I Am Free, who has won the last two runnings of the Gulfstream Turf Sprint (G3). Multiple graded stakes-placed Bad Beat Brian is slated to make his local debut for owner/trainer Brittany Vanden Berg in the Race 9 feature.

Three races on turf are scheduled for Saturday, when the Tropical Turf Pick Three will debut. The $3 minimum wager, which has a low 15-percent takeout, will be available on the last three turf races every Saturday and Sunday. Races 1, 8 and 11 will make up Saturday's Tropical Turf Pick Three. Atone, who won this year's $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf (G1), is scheduled to make his return to Gulfstream in Race 8.

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