Tag: The Paddock

There is no doubt that Kentucky-bred Thoroughbreds are the most sought-after racing stock on planet Earth. For sprint and distance races on dirt, Kentucky bred horses simply excel; it's an undisputed fact.

That said, I see a challenge to Kentucky breeding supremacy looming on the horizon.  As a consequence, you might wish to re-think your position with respect to Hall of Fame Trainer Bob Baffert.

Please hear me out.

We all know the story.  That first Saturday of May 2021 Bob Baffert became the all-time winning trainer of the Kentucky Derby when Medina Spirit won the most recent edition of this outstanding American spectacle, indeed “The Greatest Two Minutes In Sports.”

However, a few days later it was discovered that Medina Spirit tested positive for betamethasone at a level of 21 picograms per milliliter of blood. Betamethasone is a regulated corticosteroid which is legal to use, but not allowed on race day. Baffert's lawyers have argued it was administered via a topical ointment, not an injection. (Was it given by Bob's veterinarian? We currently don't know.)

On June 3, Churchill Downs Inc. banned trainer Bob Baffert from entering any horses in races at any of its tracks for two years.  Thus, Baffert-trained horses are ineligible to earn points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby (both the Derby and Oaks)… and Bob is not allowed on CDI properties.

It's apparently your tracks, your rules.

And now this 90-day suspension for Mr. Baffert, which began Monday April 4.

I speak for no other horseplayers here, but to my thinking ALL of this feels like (over time) Kentuckians have developed a great jealousy of Mr. Baffert's Derby & Triple Crown success.

The Medina Spirit victory would have given Baffert seven Derby victories, one more than legendary Calumet Farm trainer Ben Jones' six. Folks, all Mr. Baffert has done is to stable, feed & nurture YOUR wonderful Kentucky bred horses, developing them to win more Kentucky Derbies than any trainer in history.

It truly feels like the Commonwealth of Kentucky has decided “if we can't beat him… we'll delete him.”

However, you might wish to rethink your position.

In reality, it may not be much longer until Kentucky Thoroughbred dominance in dirt sprint & distance races is severely challenged. In the not-too-distant future it's quite possible that Japanese-owned, bred, and trained horses will be winning Kentucky Oaks & Derby races those first Fridays & Saturdays in May… unless, of course, you somehow disqualify the Japanese from participation as well.  You no doubt witnessed their two victories in last year's Breeders' Cup, along with four recent wins at the Saudi Cup in February of this year, as well as five more triumphs at the Dubai World Cup the last weekend of March.

The bottom line here is that you are going to need a top trainer such as Mr. Baffert to prevent this… otherwise, you'll soon find yourselves not only shocked, but likely depressed, as you s-l-o-w-l-y make your way back to your Ol' Kentucky Homes… lamenting the fact that your previously unbeatable Kentucky bred horses are not quite so invincible.

Be Healthy, Everyone.

God Bless the Thoroughbred!

Roger Schutt

Grass Valley, California

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The post Letter To The Editor: Dear Kentucky, You Might Need Bob Baffert appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The seventh race at Santa Anita on March 27 was a maiden turf sprint for California-breds, 3-year-olds and up, that attracted a field of nine runners, three of which were making their debuts. Another four starters had raced just once, including a Gallant Son gelding named Fast Buck, who is owned and trained by Cesar De Alba and was ridden by Edgar Payeras.

Sixth of eight runners at 15-1 odds in his racing debut at Del Mar in a dirt sprint for maidens last Aug. 14, Fast Buck was pegged at 12-1 on the morning line and 17-1 when horses were being loaded into the gate at the Arcadia, Calif., track on March 27.

Breaking slowly from the rail post position, Fast Buck rushed up to take command in the opening furlong, set fractions of :21.27 and :44.07 for the first half mile, then pulled away down the stretch to win by 7 ½ lengths, stopping the timer in :55.42 for five furlongs.

Fast Buck paid $16 to win, meaning his odds dropped from 17-1 to 7-1 while the field was loading into the starting gate.

Wild, last-minute swings in the odds have become commonplace at some tracks since the arrival of computer assisted wagering (CAW) players who have accounts with legal offshore rebate operations. It's not clear if the computer players have built programs that handicap races from a traditional standpoint, comparing each horse's win probabilities against actual odds, or if the computer bets are placed strictly on perceived inefficiencies in the market.

Horseplayers almost always notice when a horse like Fast Buck gets pounded in last-minute bets and wins as impressively as he did. But the computer players are not always right; many times a horse that has significant action in the closing seconds will lose.

Successful computer players do not have to win in a traditional sense to show a profit, thanks to the rebates they receive. If, for example, a computer player bets $100,000 and has a return of $95,000 in winning payoffs, you might think the player lost $5,000. In reality, rebates of 10 percent or higher (depending on the track and type of wager/takeout percentage), can take that same computer player out of the red and into profitability. A 10 percent rebate would give that same player $105,000 on $100,000 in bets. Over the long haul, a 5 percent return on investment is significant when millions of dollars are churned through betting pools.

In the case of Fast Buck, according to the California Horse Racing Board, a single player made 13 win bets totaling $11,206 in the final 40 seconds before wagering closed. The total win pool for the race was $159,078, so one player in the last 40 seconds accounted for 7 percent of all win bets.

Those $11,206 in win bets returned $89,648.

According to the CHRB, these bets were made through Elite Turf Club, an offshore account wagering company in Curacao owned in part by The Stronach Group and NYRA Bets LLC. Elite is a unique business in that it establishes wagering accounts for a handful of high-volume gamblers believed to number less than 20.

Here is the is the log of bets provided by the CHRB from the Elite Turf Club player on the March 27 race up until wagering was closed at 16:17.21 p.m. PT.

Time bet placed	Elite Turf Club win wager	Time before betting stops
16:16.41	$41	40 seconds
16:16.41	$1,822	40 seconds
16:16.53	$131	28 seconds
16:16.53	$3,386	28 seconds
16:16.55	$6	26 seconds
16:17.02	$38	19 seconds
16:17.01	$3	18 seconds
16:17.06	$496	15 seconds
16:17.08	$3	13 seconds
16:17.11	$2,890	10 seconds
16:17.12	$2,276	9 seconds
16:17.18	$74	3 seconds
16:17.19	$40	2 seconds

There is no way of knowing why this particular Elite Turf Club bettor landed on Fast Buck. The horse was moving from dirt in his first start to turf after showing little in his debut seven months earlier. The quality and size of of the field appear similar to his debut. Fast Buck's past performances did show that three of his last five workouts at Los Alamitos were designated with a bullet as best of the morning breezes. There were no apparent jockey/trainer angles that would appear to enhance the horse's chances.

Maybe it was simply a matter of a horse having perceived value since he was 17-1 odds compared to a morning line of 12-1.

In the end, however, based on the final odds of 7-1, Fast Buck was an underlay.

I didn't have a dog in this fight at Santa Anita on March 27 but in previous instances have both benefited and been negatively impacted by late odds swings created by computer players. It is frustrating to wager with the expectation of a certain payoff and then see the odds cut in half in a matter of seconds. Occasionally, the odds on a winner will rise in the final click of the tote when the computer players misfire.

Last year, the New York Racing Association restricted computer players by cutting off their ability to place win bets at three minutes to post. They were still allowed to make other types of bets up until post time. Many tracks are hesitant to follow suit out of fear they will lose significant wagering dollars from some of their biggest customers. But if racing officials do not address this issue, they will continue to lose the confidence of the everyday horseplayer, the supposed backbone of the industry.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From The Eighth Pole: Will Racing Address Impact Of Computer Assisted Wagering? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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When the holders of extreme views vie for attention, they often rely on the cheap tricks of skilled propagandists, like using highly charged and often outrageous language to make emotional appeals infused with urgency. Claims are often built around a kernel of truth so that they seem credible. And comparisons are made between their issues and common human experiences; the more emotional the better.

A recent Albany Times Union opinion column entitled “There's No Getting Around It: Horse Racing Is Immoral,” by Patrick Battuello of Horse Racing Wrongs is a classic attempt to mainstream fringe ideas.

Mr. Battuello's column bends and fabricates information to create outrage and sympathy by pulling at heartstrings. He uses phrases such as, “torn from his mother as a mere babe,” “like a child being locked in a closet,” “thrust into intensive training,” or “alone and terrified” while paying little attention to the facts or science of domesticated animals.

Mr. Battuello has published opinion columns and made media appearances for years in which he consistently ignores facts and relies on emotional rants and false claims. In his recent article, he made several outrageous claims with little or no supporting evidence. Like his claim of 2,000 annual racehorse deaths that he admits in his own blog is made up using the classic fact dodge, “we estimate.”

Instead of spreading lies, the horse racing industry is working to keep the wellbeing of the horses front and center with new laws like the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) of 2020. Early on, this bill was championed by The Jockey Club, which is the Thoroughbred breed registry in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, and other leading industry organizations, including the New York Racing Association. HISA is a prime example of how the industry is working to protect horses, in this case by establishing the first national anti-doping program and numerous provisions aimed at the health and safety of racehorses.

And at the state level, governments and organizations are constantly working to make racing safer for horses and jockeys. Within the past two decades, California has seen a 60% decrease in horse fatalities due to reforms by the California Horse Racing Board. Numerous safety measures have also been adopted in other states, including New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

Mr. Battuello also wants people to believe that things like weaning, breaking, stalling, and other terms are cruel for horses. On the contrary, these practices are beneficial to a horse. Weaning isn't tearing a foal from its mother but is the transition period from mare's milk to increased levels and various types of foods. Breaking is training a horse to be ridden and is used for all breeds and all disciplines of riding.

Tools such as lip chains and eye blinders are used to help horses, not torture them as Mr. Battuello would have people believe.

What people should know, including Mr. Battuello, is how seriously the industry is addressing the health and safety of horses. In 2008, The Jockey Club created the Equine Injury Database (EID) to track race injuries. In contrast to Mr. Battuello's “estimated” claim of 2,000 deaths per year, the actual fatality rate is more than 50% lower, and it was at its lowest by 29.5% since 2009 last year.

Mr. Battuello's emotion-laced rhetoric proclaiming the horrors of 2-year-old racehorses ignores facts and science. Data has shown raced 2-year-olds live longer and healthier lives than horses that don't start until 3 or older. Dr. Larry Bramlage, a prominent veterinary surgeon and member of The Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Safety Committee, and Dr. Tim Parkin, veterinary epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow who consults on the EID, have presented this research, which was determined using scientific evidence, to members of the industry.

But Mr. Battuello's outrageous claims shouldn't surprise because Horse Racing Wrongs' goal isn't to just end horse racing, but end all use of domesticated animals for food, as pets, or as service animals. In a now-deleted statement on his website, Battuello wrote, “We hold that no animal should be bred, domesticated, and used for human purposes. The evil, as we see it, begins and ends with animal property.”

And Mr. Battuello's status as an extremist representative from a fringe group is evidenced in a now-deleted blog he wrote for the Times Union in 2014. His writing advocated for living in a “pet-less society” and called for every domesticated animal to be “sterilized to extinction” to stop future generations from ever existing.

“Sterilization to extinction” and lies are not the answer to making racing safer for horses and riders. Progress, however, is what all the people involved in horse racing will continue to work toward now and in the future.

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David Fuscus is CEO of Xenophon Strategies, a Washington, D.C., communications company, which has been engaged in the past by The Jockey Club and other industry organizations. He is a lifelong racing enthusiast and an occasional fractional racehorse owner.

 

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It's difficult to imagine what horse racing in North America is going to look like 10 or 15 years from now. This much seems certain: It's going to look different.

It is almost certain that some tracks will follow the same path as now-defunct Bay Meadows, Hollywood Park, Calder, Arlington Park, and others before them. In some cases, the land is too valuable to justify standalone horse racing operations that eke out low-margin profits. A growing number of racetracks connected to slots parlors are owned by casino companies that would like nothing better than to decouple the two gambling activities. That spells disaster for racing. And then there is the challenge of societal changes where more than a few people view the use of animals for sports or entertainment as cruel. That is a real threat in some states.

The only new tracks built in recent years are those that are coupled by necessity with casinos. Horse racing proponents in Georgia continue to push for legalization of pari-mutuel wagering so a racetrack can be built in the Peach State. But wasn't that tried in Alabama with the colossal failure of the Birmingham Turf Club more than 30 years ago? What would make Georgia any different?

No state's horse racing picture seems brighter than Kentucky, which has solidified its future with races from the past. Historical horse racing, whose legality was very much in doubt just a few years ago, is now the foundation for a strong purse structure for horse owners and a profitable bottom line for the racetracks. That's all thanks to state legislators who recognized the importance of Kentucky's signature industry and made the historical horse racing machines legal, expanding their reach to virtually every corner of the state.

Churchill Downs in Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby, has been regularly expanding its hospitality offerings and will continue to do so for as long as enough people put America's most famous horse race on their bucket list.

The future of the host sites for the second and third legs of the Triple Crown is not quite as certain.

Pimlico Race Course in Maryland is an aging relic that needs to be demolished and replaced if the Preakness is to remain in Baltimore. Legislation in 2020 authorized financing of up to $375 million to rebuild Pimlico and renovate Laurel Park, its sister track 25 miles down the road, but those projects have stalled during the coronavirus pandemic and there is no firm timetable or definitive plan for what those tracks will look like.

Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., where the final Triple Crown leg, the Belmont Stakes, is run, has already undergone a partial transformation. Just behind the massive grandstand is the UBS Arena, home of the National Hockey League's New York Islanders. The Arena will also be a concert venue, with restaurants and bars expected to spring up around the property at some point.

But that's just the first phase of what could be major changes at Belmont Park. The editorial board of Newsday wrote recently about a potential new grandstand that could be used for winter racing with the anticipated closure of Aqueduct. A tunnel into the infield could help accommodate the large crowds that Belmont Park gets one day a year on Belmont Stakes Day, especially if a new grandstand is smaller than the current one. It's also hoped that a new structure would bring Belmont Park back into the picture as a potential host site for the Breeders' Cup.

Those who long for the good old days are going to be disappointed, because they're not coming back. But change isn't necessarily bad; it is, however, inevitable.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From The Eighth Pole: The Inevitability Of Change appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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