Op/Ed: ‘Even More Transparency’ Needed At California Tracks

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board acknowledged improved equine safety measures at Santa Anita Park over the past two years, reducing equine fatalities from 37 over the 2019 season to 16 over the same period in 2020. Still, the editorial board insists there are more steps to be taken to prevent further on-track fatalities across the entire state of California.

First, there should be public postings of all necropsy and fatality reviews on horses that die on California tracks.

“The horse racing board already posts annual overall reports on fatalities and types of injuries, but even more transparency is called for,” wrote the editorial board.

Another suggestion was a centralized pharmacy at the racetrack, which is the only source for medications. 

Finally, while Santa Anita's PET scan has been a good investment, the editorial board believes the machine should be used on asymptomatic horses prior to a race. Additionally, a 3D walk-in CAT scanner could be added to track veterinarians' tool kit.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.

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How We Brought You The Most Important Stories Of This Most Strange Year Of Racing

As we all prepare to close the book on 2020 (slam it shut enthusiastically in most cases), it's time for our traditional look back at the stories we brought to you this year. This year has been a busy one for us at the Paulick Report, as we've covered major stories within racing and news from the broader world spilling over into the sport.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic was a central focus of our reporting this year, from the initial series of racetrack closures to the rescheduling of major events like the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. As it became clear the disruptions to daily life were not going away, we reported on the uncertainty and stress of horsemen across the country, and have continued our follow-up on from Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New Mexico, where the loss of wagering revenue has hobbled already-fragile circuits. In the face of the stress and fear that was common in the early days of the pandemic, we also brought you tales of kindness – horsemen helping each other feed their animals, helping to feed their communities, and an entire series on the dogged perseverance of the men and women who rise early each day to care for the horses we love. The economic disruption of the virus will not vanish when the calendars flip to 2021, and international racing experts have expressed concern about long-term impacts of the virus on public interest in wagering and ownership.

Activity in the national legislature became more impactful on racing this year than it has been before, as the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act was introduced, passed, and finally signed into law in December when it was attached to a broader government spending bill. We've endeavored to answer your questions about the basics of the new authority that will be created by the bill. We've also published responses from key industry figures and organizations – some of whom enthusiastically support the bill, some of whom oppose it, and others who have advised caution in the face of scant details about the funding of the new group.

It's been a big year for news within racing, too. Several of our most-read stories of the year dealt with the indictment earlier this year of more than two dozen trainers, assistants, veterinarians, and others in connection with what the FBI says was an illegal racehorse doping ring. High profile horsemen Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis were among those arrested on charges of drug adulteration and misbranding, with horses in their stables extensively tested and transferred to other trainers. They have entered pleas of not guilty to the federal charges against them in the case. Other racing connections, both from the harness and flat racing worlds, would be indicted later, with authorities all the while hinting throughout 2020 since that more arrests could be coming. We sought to better understand what the health and welfare risks to the horses who had allegedly received the drugs described in the federal indictments, and to learn more about the history of SGF-1000, the drug Servis is accused of giving to the majority of horses in his barn. All indicted licensees saw their racing licenses suspended in March, but a Paulick Report investigation into the business of paper training questioned how easy it really is for a bad actor to be kept out of the sport.

Of course, Servis's arrest dredged up debate about the record of Maximum Security, the colt who crossed the finish line first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby but was later disqualified for interference. Owner Gary West had not finished his legal fight to have his horse declared the race's winner at the time of the indictments. West continued pursuing his civil case until three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court's ruling dismissing the suit in August. Meanwhile, West sent Maximum Security for a series of tests and a thorough medical examination by Dr. Larry Bramlage before resting the colt and sending him on to trainer Bob Baffert for a 4-year-old campaign. Though earlier in the year, Maximum Security had won the world's richest race at the inaugural Saudi Cup, the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia later withheld the winner's share of the purse pending an independent investigation into whether the colt ran the race under the influence of performance-enhancing drugs. As the colt's legacy continued to be a subject of debate, Maximum Security was retired to Coolmore, and a subsequent stallion ad touting the purity of his performances prompted some critical analysis from our publisher.

If there was one subject that ignited readers more than Maximum Security or the federal indictments, it was trainer Bob Baffert. Although he won this year's Kentucky Derby (and Breeders' Cup Classic) with Authentic, Baffert stumbled on the Derby trail when Charlatan tested positive for lidocaine after his win in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. Subsequently, Baffert runner Gamine would come up positive for betamethasone in initial post-race testing after the Kentucky Oaks and Merneith would test positive for dextromethorphan after a run at Del Mar in July. Baffert released statements explaining each result and is in the process of appealing the ruling in Arkansas. We took a look at whether having multiple medication violations in so short a time would be likely to compound penalties for the Hall of Fame trainer, and why test results for the split sample from Arkansas seemed to come so slowly.

At the start of 2020, Triple Crown-winning owner Ahmed Zayat became embroiled in an ever-more complicated legal battle stemming from a multi-million-dollar loan he failed to repay to New York firm MGG Investments. A judge appointed a receiver to manage and liquidate the Zayat Stable roster over the course of the 2020 racing season, and MGG eventually received a summary judgment against Zayat Stables in the amount of $24 million. As news spread of the civil case, trainers and other creditors came forward to say the stable owed them money, too. Zayat himself would later declare bankruptcy. The case made lots of documents publicly available that most people never get to see, including contracts for the sales of breeding rights, high-end bloodstock, and appraisals for horses in the Zayat program. We took a look at those documents to better understand how stud deals are made, how horses are appraised, and to sort out the legal process for Zayat's trainers and other industry creditors awaiting payment.

It hasn't all been court documents and COVID-19, though. As always, we aimed to bring you warm and fuzzy stories, too. Our weekly Connections series, authored by Chelsea Hackbarth, tells the story behind a recent winner – often a stakes winner, but sometimes the winner of a bread-and-butter race that meant so much more to a horse's connections. We've brought you monthly perspective from announcer and eventer Jonathan Horowitz in our Thoroughbred Makeover Diaries series as he navigates the highs and lows of retraining an off-track horse while still a novice rider himself.

In an effort to better serve our readers, we've also overhauled the section of our website we call The Paddock to bring you opinion and editorial content from a variety of voices. Mostly, it's dedicated to written commentary but expect to see a return of The Friday Show appearing there soon.

Our goal at the Paulick Report has always been to present you with the most important stories from the racing and equine industries and to shine light on their challenges and their triumphs. We could not do this work without our readers. Thanks to all of you for your support, and best wishes for the new year.

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Tiz The Law: Best-Laid Plans For A 4-Year-Old Campaign Go Awry

To borrow a term used by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I was skeptically hopeful when Coolmore announced it had bought the breeding rights to Tiz the Law following the Constitution colt's 3 ¾-length victory in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, shortened to 1 1/8 miles and run as the opening leg of the Triple Crown on June 20.

Hopeful because of the comment made at the time by Jack Knowlton, managing partner of Tiz the Law's owner, Sackatoga Stable, that the partnership was “excited to see what Tiz the Law has in store on the track for the remainder of his 3-year-old year and beyond…”

Skeptical because I know what kind of pressure stallion operations like Coolmore can place on owners and trainers when they get their tentacles into a top prospect. And let's face it: Coolmore's emphasis is on acquiring stallion prospects with early racing success. Only two horses on the sizable stallion roster at Coolmore's Ashford Stud in Versailles, Ky., raced as 4-year-olds after winning Grade 1 races at 2 or 3: Mo Town and Maximum Security.

So when I saw the news release from Coolmore stating that Tiz the Law had been retired from racing “on veterinary advice” and with no further explanation, my hopefulness turned to flat-out skepticism. I'd seen this movie before.

After seeing the Tweet, Knowlton called to assure me this was not some manufactured excuse to shuffle Tiz the Law into his next career before the 2021 breeding season begins.

“We're crushed,” Knowlton said, saying he called Sackatoga's 30-some partners with the bad news. “Believe me, nobody wanted him running next year more than me. We were so looking forward to the Pegasus (Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., on Jan. 23).”

He added that the race he really wanted to win this coming year was Saratoga's G1 Whitney at his hometown track in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Knowlton called Tiz the Law's G1 Travers win at Saratoga his personal highlight of the stable star's 3-year-old season.

Knowlton said Robin Smullen, assistant to trainer Barclay Tagg, “sensed something wasn't right” after she took Tiz the Law out for a routine gallop Tuesday morning at Palm Meadows training center. He was scheduled to breeze on Jan. 3 in what would have been his sixth workout since a disappointing sixth-place finish as the favorite in the G1 Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland on Nov. 7.

“I got the call from Barclay that I always dread,” Knowlton said. “Our vet took X-rays and found there was significant bone bruising in the lower part of the cannon bone in a front leg. We had another vet take a look at it and both said the same thing: 'You really don't have any choice.'

“I'm really thankful that Robin caught it when she did.”

We're rarely privy to stallion contracts between a stud farm and a horse's owner, a major exception being Coolmore's deal to buy the breeding interests of American Pharoah from Ahmed Zayat. That contract became an exhibit in a lawsuit filed against Zayat by a lender.

The stallion deal, signed in January of the eventual Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup Classic winner's 3-year-old season, spelled out the retirement plans for the horse, specifically saying it could be no later than Nov. 30, 2015. Prior to then, the contract stated, “In the event that the horse is under performing or is injured, a panel of Ahmed Zayat, Paul Shanahan (a Coolmore associate) and (trainer) Bob Baffert will meet to discuss and decide whether to modify or terminate the horse's racing career. Each person shall be entitled to one vote. Any decision to modify or terminate the horse's racing career will be made upon the affirmative vote of at least two persons.”

Knowlton said he negotiated the contract to ensure Tiz the Law had the opportunity race at 4. He said there were contingencies for himself, Tagg and an Ashford representative to discuss what to do if the horse went off form.

But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. That's especially true when you're dealing with a finely tuned athlete like a Thoroughbred racehorse.

Tiz the Law goes off to stud with six wins from nine starts over two racing seasons, including four Grade 1 victories. He was defeated in his final two starts, beaten on the square by Authentic to be second in the G1 Kentucky Derby and then failing to hit the board for the only time in the Breeders' Cup.

He was in good hands throughout his career, trained by someone whose “numbers” may not fit the criteria for some Hall of Fame voters but whose wisdom and old school horsemanship have earned the respect of his peers.

Tiz the Law's owners are in the game for the fun of racing, not the business of breeding like the corporate stables that now dominate – a band of Davids competing against an army of Goliaths. Like kids on a Ferris wheel, they wanted to go around one more time.

I remain skeptically hopeful that someday soon we'll see another horse who was a Grade 1 winner at 2 and a Classic winner at 3 that will be pointed for and complete a full campaign at 4.

But I'm not holding my breath.

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Breeders, It’s Time To Step Up: Good Stewardship Means A Commitment To Aftercare

As the end of this long, strange year approaches, I'm sure you're getting them too. My mailbox is overflowing with them – solicitations from every nonprofit I've ever bought a calendar from, making one last pitch for year-end giving. Among them for me (and probably for you) will be lots of requests from Thoroughbred aftercare organizations. As the owner of an off-track Thoroughbred, I'm happy to do whatever I can to support them. How can you not feel good about giving to charity?

The thing is, this particular cause shouldn't be so reliant on charity.

Last year, before the pandemic hobbled fundraising and operations for many non-profits, I wrote a three-part series about what is and isn't working in Thoroughbred aftercare. (You can find it here, here, and here.) It was clear then that while we have come a long way as an industry in the infrastructure and funding dedicated to this cause, the enormity of the problem dwarfs the solutions we've come up with so far. One of the biggest hurdles has always been paying for the care of horses permanently retired or the temporary care, assessment and training of horses waiting to go to a good home.

The racing industry has grappled with this, setting up voluntary check-off funding programs and more recently implementing a few mandatory ones. It's generally believed that everyone who benefits financially from a racehorse's life cycle should chip in to his retirement, but in lieu of serious mandatory funding mechanisms delineating how this should be done, people spend a lot of time 1) justifying why it's someone else's problem to solve or 2) crying poverty.

I was fortunate enough to enter the racing world under the tutelage of Virginia owner/breeder Nellie Cox, who took aftercare seriously long before it became a national discussion. Cox was lucky in that she had the space to retire horses onto her properties in Goochland and Cumberland Counties if suitable homes couldn't be found for them. Her daughter Lisa put training into many before selling them on to homes as eventers, foxhunters, or show jumpers. She never thought she owed them anything less and that's what I grew up believing the role of a breeder was supposed to be – a sense of stewardship for your land, for your bloodlines, for the horses. Stewardship doesn't expire when a colt is gelded or a horse is sold or a mare fails to produce. That's the point of it.

I agree that everyone who uses a horse during its racing life should bear some responsibility for the horse's safe delivery to a home after racing. But I am not afraid to say the thing that I'm pretty sure people in high places don't want me to: it's the breeder who decides a horse should exist, and who spends thousands of dollars to bring about that existence. It's time they be required to take more meaningful responsibility for that existence after the horse has expended its usefulness to them.

I'm not the first person to think of this. In 2011, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent a letter to The Jockey Club proposing a $360 mandatory retirement fee be paid at the time of a foal registration, along with a $360 fee for ownership transfers to fund aftercare. This, the organization pointed out, is less than $1 a day and is (I'm pointing out) less than the minimum bid at any of the major Thoroughbred auctions in this country. It also pointed to the appallingly low participation in voluntary programs available at the time – in 2010, the letter claimed voluntary foal registration contributions totaled $43,000 from 30,000 registrations.

Of course there are now mandatory programs – breeders must now pay $25 for each report of a mare bred and $25 for each foal registration. (For context, $25 buys about a bag of grain.) Earlier this year, Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland announced their voluntary checkoff programs would become mandatory – but only for sellers, who would be charged 0.05% on each sale. The auction houses would continue to pay 0.05% on each sale, and buyers would be given the choice to opt out of paying 0.05% of each horse's sale price to aftercare.  (That's $50 from the seller and $50 from the auction house on the sale of a $100,000 horse.)

The trouble is, when one funding stream becomes mandatory, those who had opted in to voluntary programs often opt back out of them, so the total amount of cash coming in doesn't change as much as you would hope. In some cases, farms that previously committed to a percentage of the stud fee for each mare bred have eliminated that and actually pay less in aftercare funding under the current system.

How is the system currently working to address the needs of aftercare organizations? Let's take a look at the best-case scenario in a random selection of real-life cases. For the purposes of this study, I'll be generous. I'll assume that the people in the horse's journey have opted in to voluntary funding programs, and I'll also add the numbers based on programs and percentages of December 2020, even though they may have been different or absent when today's horses were bred, foaled or sold.

As I write this, it's late on Dec. 28. If I randomly select a handful of entrants in upcoming races in the major racing states – New York, Kentucky, and Florida – I should have some idea how much an average group of horses generates for the aftercare system.

The next racing card in New York will be on Dec. 31. The first runner in the first race at Aqueduct that day is Hail Da King. If the current funding mechanisms had been in place at the time of his birth in 2017, he would have put $25 into the system at his conception and another $25 at the time of his registration for a total of $50. He has not sold through public auction, so he did not contribute there. He's never started before, so he also hasn't contributed via New York's mandatory $10 per start program yet. If he were claimed from this race, 1.5% of his claiming price will be automatically donated to aftercare.

Total: $50

All right, he's a maiden claimer – bad example? Let's look at Race 2. The first horse we come to there is Ok Honey, a 4-year-old who also hasn't gone through the auction ring, but she has made her entire career in New York – 42 starts so far. That means the horsemen gave $10 for each of those starts, on top of the $50 her breeders gave when she was conceived and registered.

Total: $470 

What about another state? Let's look at Kentucky, where Turfway Park is also running Dec. 31. The first horse on the day is Irish-bred Mila's Dream. Mila's Dream was born and sold twice in Ireland, so no contributions there. She has run twice in California, once in Illinois, and three times in West Virginia. In California, she might have contributed through CARMA, which is an opt-out program. If her jockey, owner and trainer all remained opted in to the program, then .03% of the purse money she earned there would be donated to aftercare. She earned $19,860 in California, so that would be $5.96 total. Her start at Arlington generated a $1 donation from the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Her start in Kentucky will generate a $5 donation from the Kentucky horsemen to aftercare, which Turfway Park will match.

Total: $16.96

Ok, ok – surely we can apply the new mandatory sale donation programs to a current runner and see those totals go up, right? Let's switch to Florida, where a lot of young horses get their starts and where a lot of big commercial stables are wintering right now.

The first runner at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 31 is actually Sister Is Devil, who some readers may remember from a heartfelt piece by our own Chelsea Hackbarth in October 2019. I did not know she was entered on this date, but I looked at the first races on the other two cards so will analyze her as well. She has run six times previously, all in Florida, where the Florida HBPA provides a monthly contribution to aftercare based on a percentage of the purses given out that month. It's not immediately clear to me what the rate is per horse; let's be generous and say it's $10 per start. She went through the sale ring twice – selling for $2,000 as a short yearling and $11,000 at Keeneland September. Assuming everyone involved opted in to aftercare contributions at both sales, that would have generated .15% of each sale price, or $3 and $16.50 respectively.

Total = $129.50 

This is far from a scientific inquiry. Of course, the entrants early on a weekday card will have generated less in purses and sale fees than Saturday horses. But we also have more weekday horses in this sport than we do Saturday horses – a lot more. And the Saturday horses probably have a greater chance of going on to breeding careers where aftercare won't be necessary. (I must concede here that experts estimate about 30 percent of Thoroughbreds who race will go on to breeding careers, so some horses whose connections pay into the aftercare system will never need it.)

How do those estimated totals stack up to the need?

When I was doing research on aftercare costs for my series last year, the executive director of one organization estimated the living and care costs for retired horses is $300 to $400 a month, or $3,600 to $4,800 per year. For horses that need retraining and adoption, monthly costs are higher but their stays are shorter. At New Vocations, for example, there's board, training and veterinary work to think about, and even a quick adoption can cost the organization $750 or $1,000 at minimum. That's assuming the horse is healthy and needs no rehabilitation time from an injury, that vet work to assess the horse's condition is minimal, and the horse can be marketed, the adopter vetted, and the horse picked up in less than four weeks. It also assumes the horse is conformationally correct enough to attract an adopter and has no serious mental or physical limitations for its next career. Horses who don't fit these qualifications (and many, many do not) will cost more.

The Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance is doing the work it was created to do – accrediting nonprofits, promoting ex-racehorses, and raising funds. It's just that the need is growing faster than the money, because key stakeholders don't want to pony up. (Wondering who? See who's absent from the TAA's supporters list.)

The current system isn't working. It's time The Jockey Club stopped asking the industry's most powerful stakeholders to be kind. It's time our breed registry required them to become good stewards.

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