The Week in Review | Horse Racing Free Tips

Glut of Early Speed in The Classic? Not So Fast

The Week in Review

We're inside the five-week mark to the Breeders' Cup, and the top five contenders for the GI Classic all won their final graded stakes prep starts over the last two weekends.

This past Saturday, three of those horses wired 1 1/8-miles graded stakes and earned roughly equal Beyer Speed Figures of 107, 107 and 104.

At first blush, those performances look similar on paper, and it's tempting to make the leap to say the Classic will be glutted with early gunners who could hook each other into a sacrificial, multi-horse speed duel.

But closer scrutiny suggests that not all of those Classic aspirants truly need the lead to succeed.

Parsing the front-running wins by Medina Spirit (Protonico), Art Collector (Bernardini) and Knicks Go (Paynter) reveals that each is dangerous for different reasons heading into the Classic.

So which of those three produced the most authoritative wire job on Saturday?

The narrow advantage goes to Medina Spirit in the GI Awesome Again S. at Santa Anita Park.

Pace elements of his performance stand out from the other two. Medina Spirit ran the fastest opening quarter mile of those three nine-furlong stakes (:23.34), yet also uncorked the quickest final furlong (:12.62).

In between, however, jockey John Velazquez expertly gave Medina Spirit a breather in the fourth quarter-mile segment. That soft internal fraction of :25.29 was a full 1.33 seconds slower than the :23.96 fourth quarter cranked out by the under-pressure Art Collector in the GI Woodward S. at Belmont Park and 1.03 seconds slower than the :24.26 clocking produced by home-free Knicks Go in the GIII Lukas Classic S. at Churchill Downs.

Back in February, when the overachieving (based on auction prices of $1,000 at OBSWIN and $35,000 at OBSOPN) Medina Spirit was still only about fourth-best on trainer Bob Baffert's GI Kentucky Derby depth chart, Baffert expressed a belief that this colt was more effective pressing the pace rather than setting it.

That theory got abandoned after Medina Spirit seized the lead when no one else was keen to take up the early running in the Derby. His withstood several mid-race attacks then held off a cavalry charge of legit closers in the stretch to win over 10 furlongs.

Although Medina Spirit looked like a spent horse when running a no-impact third on the lead in the GI Preakness S., he rebounded capably to wire the Aug. 29 Shared Belief S. at Del Mar, then upped the ante with a career-best 107 Beyer in the Awesome Again S. while facing older horses for the first time.

Heading into the Classic, Medina Spirit has now won at 1 1/4 miles, over the Breeders' Cup surface (Del Mar), and against his elders. In sports wagering, there is a maxim about not betting against overachievers who keep winning “must” or “elimination” games. Plucky, hard-trying Medina Spirit is the pari-mutuel equivalent.

One irony that is unlikely to play out in the Classic is a rematch with 'TDN Rising Star' Life Is Good, the Into Mischief colt who is the only rival to have beaten Medina Spirit twice this year. That former Baffert trainee was the early Derby favorite until he got sidelined in March by ankle chip surgery. Now trained by Todd Pletcher, Life Is Good is instead aiming for the GI Dirt Mile, chiefly because he's never raced beyond 1 1/16 miles.

Work of 'Art'

Art Collector wasn't a major presence in the Classic picture prior to his 107-Beyer score on Saturday. Yet he's now riding a three-race win streak since being turned over to trainer Bill Mott. One of those wins was in an ungraded stakes at Saratoga and another was in the GII Charles Town Classic. He wasn't even favored for his gate-to-wire Woodward S. win.

But the professionalism Art Collector displayed under sustained pressure marks him as a sneaky-good Breeders' Cup contender who is just now rounding back into the form he displayed last year before a minor foot injury caused him to miss the pandemic-delayed Derby in September.

For the first time since 2005, the Woodward was run at Belmont instead of Saratoga, which meant that it was once again contested around a one-turn configuration. Art Collector never had to swat back multiple attacks on Saturday. But that's largely because he continuously held the all-out competition at bay with a workmanlike, grind-it-out win on the front end.

Art Collector's Woodward rates a distinct edge in terms of field quality among Saturday's preps for the Classic. While Medina Spirit's next closest competitor was a 54-1 shot and Knicks Go was 1-10 in the betting against five softies who are unlikely for the Breeders' Cup, Art Collector was pulsing away from the likes of odds-on Maxfield (Street Sense) and several other graded stakes stalwarts.

The Woodward win was the fifth in Mott's career, the most ever for a trainer in that stakes. The victory also gave Art Collector the unique distinction of having won three straight nine-furlong stakes under three different track configurations: two turns (Saratoga), three turns (Charles Town), and one turn (Belmont).

Art Collector has crossed the finish wire first nine times (one DQ), and in seven of them he has either led or pressed in second for most of the trip. But his GII Blue Grass S. win from last July provides a prime example of how this colt is fully capable of executing stalking tactics: He applied pressure from third behind dueling leaders, then ratcheted up the tempo to wrest control through a length-of-stretch slugfest.

Despite all of these pluses, Mott will be hunting for a new jockey for the Breeders' Cup, because winning rider Luis Saez is committed to ride likely Classic favorite Essential Quality (Tapit).

In an August 2020 pre-Derby analysis I wrote that “Art Collector looms like a quietly intimidating bruiser, speaking softly while carrying a big kick.”

Some 13 months later, I'll stick with that assessment heading into the Classic.

Fast, but Can He Last?

Knicks Go (104 Beyer) had the easiest tour around the track on Saturday among the three Classic contenders. He utterly toyed with overmatched competition, allowing them to creep closer before edging away at several points in a largely even-paced race.

His final eighth (while wrapped up and cruising home solo through the stretch) was a respectable :12.69, only .07 seconds slower than the last-furlong clocking turned in by Medina Spirit.

And Knick's Go's final time of 1:47.85 was only .57 seconds off Victory Gallop's 22-year-old track record.

Beyond those numbers, Knicks Go carries himself with a confident swagger that doesn't immediately register when watching Medina Spirit or Art Collector.

But of those three, it is also evident that Knicks Go is the horse whose success is most closely tied to attaining the top spot at the head of affairs.

Knicks Go has nine lifetime wins. Eight of them sport “all ones” running lines indicating he was on the lead at every point of call. The only (very minor) deviation from that pattern was in Knicks Go's career debut, when he was second at the start, then rushed up to grab the lead.

It was one year ago—Oct. 4, 2020, to be precise—that Knicks Go wired an $80,000 optional claimer/3x allowance at Keeneland by 10 1/4 lengths while making just his second start for trainer Brad Cox. It was then on to the Dirt Mile, which seemed a touch ambitious considering the Breeders' Cup would only be the gray's third start off an extended layoff.

Knicks Go won the Dirt Mile with unexpected aplomb and then the GI Pegasus World Cup by open lengths (both 108 Beyers) before faltering in a pair of one-turn 1 1/8 mile races, the $20-million Saudi Cup and the GI Metropolitan H. This summer he regrouped with easy two-turn scores in the GIII Cornhusker H. at Prairie Meadows and GI Whitney S. at Saratoga.

But Knicks Go's Beyer numbers have tailed off (113, 111, 104 last three races) even as his winning ways have resumed. That's not an enviable pattern for a horse who is locked into a set style of running and has never before attempted 10 furlongs, the distance of the Classic.

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The Week in Review: Vitali Starting a Horse at Saratoga Is Not OK

The system, whatever that has come to mean, failed badly last week when Marcus Vitali, one of the sport's most controversial trainers, was allowed to start a horse at Saratoga. Then again, should anyone have been surprised? This was just the latest example of this being a sport that is so dysfunctional, its regulatory systems so weak, that it is completely unable to police itself.

Help is on its way. Some day, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) will be implemented and a central body led by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) will begin the process of herding the cats to replace the current system with one that actually works. In the meantime, Marcus Vitali, despite dozens upon dozens of violations, is free to compete at the most important, most high-profile meet in the sport. That's an embarrassment.

In a story last week in the TDN covering Vitali's appearance at Saratoga, T.D. Thornton put together what amounts to a rap sheet detailing all of Vitali's offenses. Where to start?

There are 84 docket entries under his name in The Jockey Club's online rulings database, many of them for medication violations. Between 2011 and the start of 2016, Vitali was hit with 23 medication violations in Florida alone.

Thornton writes that he was also investigated over a complaint of animal cruelty.

He voluntarily relinquished his Florida license, the strategy appearing to be that he could not be fined or suspended if he didn't have a license. He later negotiated a deal with Florida regulators in which he accepted a 120-day suspension.

That didn't mean that he stayed out of trouble. In 2016 and while under suspension, Vitali was banned at Gulfstream by The Stronach Group, which alleged that he was running horses under another trainer's name. There was another incident at Delaware Park in July of 2019, when, during an inspection of the dorm room of a Vitali employee, Vitali allegedly ran into the room, grabbed a package out of a refrigerator and ran off with it, the security guard giving chase. He was involved in another scandal last year when the Maryland Jockey Club alleged that he was again running horses under another trainer's name.

For some tracks and racing commissions, enough was finally enough. Vitali could not find a racing commission that would give him a license or a track to look the other way. He disappeared after running a horse on July 21, 2019 at Gulfstream. Had this feckless sport finally gotten rid of someone for good whose record of infractions should have been more than enough for lifetime banishment? Of course not.

One thing Vitali has always been good at is finding the weakest link in the system. There has always been a track willing to accept his entries and a racing commission either so clueless or so impotent that it will issue him a license. Late last year, he found just such a commission in Arizona, where he was granted a license. A dereliction of if its duties to protect the integrity of the sport, the Arizona commission pumped new life into Vitali's career.

Turf Paradise looked the other way and opened its doors to him. After 17 months away from the sport, he started a horse on Jan, 4, 2021 at Turf Paradise. Since, he has also raced in Pennsylvania at Presque Isle Downs and in Texas at Lone Star Park. With Vitali having been granted a license in Arizona, the options became limited when it comes to other racing commissions banning him. But there doesn't appear to be any reason why the privately-owned track could not have banned him on their own.

Running at Turf Paradise, Lone Star Park and Presque Isle Downs is one thing. Saratoga is another.

Vitali ran a horse named Red Venus (Candy Ride {Arg}), who finished a non-threatening seventh in an optional claimer last Thursday at Saratoga. Once the entry was made, the finger-pointing began, as many were outraged that Vitali was permitted to set foot on such hallowed ground. Who was at fault? That gets complicated.

Vitali had secured a valid license from the New York Gaming Commission, but that didn't mean that NYRA couldn't have refused to accept the entry. That's essentially the course NYRA took when, with the GI Belmont S. coming up, it suspended Bob Baffert after Medina Spirit (Protonico) tested positive for betamethasone after crossing the wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby. Think what you want of Baffert, but his history of violations is far less egregious than Vitali's. Why the double standard? When Thornton reached out to NYRA for an explanation as to why Baffert had been banned and Vitali was not, NYRA had little to say.

However, it's not hard to understand NYRA's logic. The racing organization was only a few days removed from losing a round in court when a federal judge ruled that it violated Baffert's due process rights when suspending him without a hearing. With that precedent having been set, it's clear to see why they were hesitant to ban Vitali.

That doesn't mean that NYRA should roll over and let Vitali race in New York whenever he wants. Follow the lead set by the judge in the Baffert matter, give Vitali a hearing, and then, if the evidence suggests it is not in NYRA's best interests to let him race, then ban him.

In the meantime, HISA is in a holding pattern. The act is supposed to go into effect and USADA is supposed to take over the role of drug tester and regulator in less than a year, on July 1, 2022. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen because of the lawsuits filed by the National HBPA and others contesting its constitutionality. So far as the bigger picture goes, those lawsuits figure to go nowhere but, at the same time, they will no doubt gum up the works and keep HISA from becoming a reality for some time to come, maybe even for years.

Were HISA here and had USADA already been put in charge, it's unimaginable that Vitali could have kept getting away with what he has been getting away with. But he had two in Monday at Presque Isle and will start another one there Tuesday and may, who knows, show up for an encore performance at Saratoga. It's come to the point where this is all a joke; a very sad joke.

Montalvo Did Not Deserve Days

When the Monmouth Park-based jockeys complained that a whip ban would put their safety in jeopardy, the counter-argument was that their complaints were unfounded because they could in fact use the whip on occasions when safety was a factor. It's time to rethink that.

Jockey Carlos Montalvo used his whip in a July 11 race aboard a horse named M I Six (Mission Impazible), who was clearly getting out on the turn. He obviously felt that he needed to use the whip to get his mount under control and in no way was he using it to encourage the horse to run faster. While it's debatable as to how much danger Montalvo was actually in, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. He felt he was in a precarious situation, one that could be corrected with help from the whip. He did not use the whip to try to win the race. If that's not a situation where use of the whip was justified because of safety concerns, what is? Nonetheless, the stewards suspended him for five days. He has appealed.

Why did the stewards suspend him? No one knows. The Kremlin-like New Jersey Racing Commission does not permit the stewards to speak to the media and New Jersey Racing Commission Executive Director Judith Nasson might as well be in the witness protection program. That's how inaccessible she is.

The bottom line is that how can jockeys, after the Montalvo decision, possibly expect that they will be permitted to use the whip in actual situations where they are concerned about their safety and not be suspended? They can't, and that's a problem.

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CDI Reportedly Asks for ’22 Illinois Dates Application

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton

Two months before Arlington International Racecourse is scheduled to run what is feared to be the historic track's final race, Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), the gaming corporation that owns the up-for-sale landmark, has reportedly requested an application for 2022 race dates from the Illinois Racing Board.

But as columnist Jim O'Donnell of the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago put it in his Friday scoop of this story, “What the carnivorous CDI will do with the application remains to be seen.”

With a July 30 deadline looming to apply for next year's dates, this pull-the-papers move could just end up being a gambit to make sure CDI has various contingencies lined up.

Requesting an application doesn't mean a track owner has to actually file for dates.

Nor does it mean CDI intends to file for dates at Arlington. The corporation could be eyeballing some other still-secret Illinois location.

Nevertheless, this news is likely to kindle hope (perhaps of the false variety) that Arlington could survive the wrecking ball–at least for another few race meets while CDI reaps the benefits of entitlements related to live racing licensure, like off-track betting and advance-deposit wagering.

O'Donnell also notes that CDI could also be using the move as a ploy to replenish its “depleted goodwill” with regulators and elected officials in Illinois. This could come in the form of using another season or two at Arlington as an olive branch while simultaneously pursuing bigger-picture casino endeavors at two lucrative locations where CDI wants to expand its gaming footprint in and near Chicago.

It was last July 30 that Bill Carstanjen, the chief executive officer of CDI, first outlined the corporation's desire to rid itself of Chicago's premier Thoroughbred venue. In February, CDI put the 326-acre property up for sale. It has since attracted four known bidders, only one of whom has publicly disclosed an interest in keeping Arlington operational as a Thoroughbred track.

TDN emailed Arlington's president Tony Petrillo on Saturday to ask if either Arlington or CDI actually intended to file a 2022 dates application. No response was received prior to Sunday's deadline for this column.

Carstanjen also was silent when asked by the Daily Herald to explain what was going on.

For the latest rundown in this ongoing saga, it's best to absorb O'Donnell's full column here.

But the two biggest points that O'Donnell brings up relative to continued racing in Illinois are:

1.) The possibility that CDI could be planning to either run a race meet itself, or partner with and/or enter into some sort of lease arrangement with a new owner (because large-parcel developments such as this take years to happen, such as when CDI sold Hollywood Park in 2006, and racing continued there under different management until 2013).

2.) What will Hawthorne Race Course do? O'Donnell reported that Arlington's rival racetrack 35 miles to the south is “preparing two dates applications predicated upon what Churchill does. If CDI or a nominee request a summer Thoroughbred meet, [Hawthorne] will simply repeat their spring-and-fall Thoroughbreds of 2021, bookending a midyear [Standardbred] season. If CDI completely exits the 2022 Illinois racing frame, Hawthorne will apply to run a summer Thoroughbred season with harness racing in the spring and fall.”

Fundraiser for Fallen Rider

Crooked River Roundup in central Oregon is about as far off the horse racing grid as you can get in America. Yet racegoers there passed the hat to raise a reported $3,500 July 14 upon learning they had witnessed the death of jockey Eduardo Gutierrez-Sosa in the first race of the meet when his mount collided with the inner rail and flipped the 29-year-old rider headfirst into the infield.

According to published reports, racetrackers gave another $16,000 the next night to help Gutierrez-Sosa's widow and three children (ages four, eight and one in high school). The outpouring of aid continued via donation bins in the betting area over the weekend.

The fundraising effort has now gone digital, with this GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs having already brought in another $18,000 as of Sunday afternoon.

Gutierrez-Sosa rode both Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, primarily on the mixed-meet circuit in the Pacific Northwest. The Mexican native who was a longtime Oregon resident was remembered by friends in this televised KTVZ tribute as an always-smiling family man who was easily identified on horseback for his distinctively pink riding attire.

The Quarter Horse that Gutierrez-Sosa rode in his final race, Godfather Advice (who walked off the track after the accident), was a 2-year-old Quarter Horse maiden trained by his wife, Rosa Rodriguez. According to members of the backstretch community, Rodriguez was standing at trackside after saddling her horse to watch the running of the race.

“She was on the race track when it happened,” Jennifer Abraham told KTVZ. “My heart breaks for Rosa that that's her last time with him. I hope she cherishes the memories they had together.”

Crooked River Roundup (aka Prineville Turf Club) annually hosts a four-date, under-the-lights meet on the four-track Oregon summer fairs circuit. It was questionable whether the racing there would even continue there this year after the track was forced to cancel its meet in 2020 because of the pandemic.

There was also some sentiment about canceling the rest of the meet after Wednesday's accident. But after abandoning the July 14 card following the second race, the decision was made to continue racing as scheduled Thursday through Saturday in honor of Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard for some of us,” Dustie Crystal, one of his backstretch friends, told KTVZ. “Some of us [just wanted] to go home and not have the rest of the race meet. But we all know that, Sosa being the person he is, he'd want us to stay.”

When racing resumed Thursday night, KTVZ reported that the entire jockey colony was wearing some form of pink to honor Gutierrez-Sosa.

“It's hard to describe, but I feel like I lost my brother,” jockey Jose Figueroa told KTVZ. “We're going to ride for him.”

Nebraska the New Wild West?

No fewer than five new racetracks were proposed at last Friday's Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission meeting. According to published reports, no action was taken on any of the applications, which were triggered by the passage of a trio of ballot initiatives last year that authorized casinos at licensed horse race tracks.

The gold rush-like flurry of proposals were tied to new locations in Bellevue, York, Norfolk, North Platte and Gering. According to the Sioux City Journal, the most lucrative sites are considered to be in the eastern part of the state near the Iowa border.

A standing-room crowd at that July 16 meeting generated plenty of opposition from Thoroughbred horsemen, who fear that a sudden glut of racing venues will only water down Nebraska's recently resurgent racing product.

According to the Journal, Lynne McNally, the executive vice president of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protection Association, said that new tracks in places like Bellevue and York “will gut the purse structure.”

The Norfolk Daily News reported that Garald Wollesen, president of the NHBPA, said at the meeting that, “Building up casinos should build up the racing industry, not line the pockets of others.”

Robert Moser Jr., the former president of the NHBPA, testified that if both the Bellevue and York proposals are approved, it would put four tracks within 100 miles of each other on the eastern edge of the state. According to the Journal, he said that the only place in the country where that exists is in New York, in an area with 20 million people.

Nebraska has six racetracks that are currently eligible for racino licensure. Fonner Park in Grand Island races the only extended Thoroughbred season, with other limited Thoroughbred dates at Omaha, Lincoln and Columbus. Quarter Horse mini-meets occur at South Sioux City and Hastings.

Major purse upswing at Timonium

At last Thursday's Maryland Racing Commission meeting, officials from the Maryland State Fair in Timonium told commissioners that purses at the Aug. 27-Sept. 6 race meet would be level with what Thoroughbreds race for at Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course.

The surge in daily average purses from $175,000 last season to a hefty $287,000 in 2021 will represent the highest amounts ever offered at the five-furlong fairgrounds track with the distinctively banked turns.

Although late summer is the most competitive time on the calendar for racing in the mid-Atlantic region, Timonium should benefit from an expected equine population boost this season from the 600 horses that have been stabled on the grounds since late spring because of the closure of the stable area at Laurel, which

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Eight Wins Already in ’21–And It’s Only June

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton

We're not even at the midpoint of 2021, and one North American Thoroughbred is already taking aim at a ninth win on the season.

For perspective, the eight wins racked up so far this year by Arizona-based Six Ninety One (Congrats) are equal to the number of victories achieved by the four horses who co-led the continent during the entirety of 2020.

Such a fast start through the first 5 1/2 months puts Six Ninety One on a trajectory to blast past what has evolved as the standard for wins in a calendar year. Over the last decade, that number has ranged between eight and 12 wins annually.

You have to go back to 2011 to find the last exception. That was the explosively aberrational year Rapid Redux ran the table with a 19-for-19 record, largely by pillaging the starter-allowance ranks throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

Six Ninety One, at age nine, is also a starter-allowance stalwart, as are a good number of horses who routinely dominate the continent's most-wins category.

While it can be argued that these horses are able to pad their records by being eligible for soft conditions against thin competition while shielded from being claimed (if those starter races fill), it's still no small feat to amass eight trips to the winner's circle (with one second and a third), like Six Ninety One has done from 11 starts so far this year. In fact, it's even more of a challenge for the less physically gifted horses who populate the lower end of the claiming structure.

Six Ninety One was bred in Kentucky by Edwin and Melissa Anthony. He sold for $75,000 at KEESEP in 2013, then hammered for $59,000 at OBSOPN eight months later. Jim Thares, who bought the gelding at the Ocala auction, campaigned Six Ninety One between 2014 and 2019, earning four wins in Minnesota and Arizona before losing him via claim for $6,250 in the midst of a seven-race losing streak.

A speed-on-the-lead specialist over short distances, Six Ninety One's first-off-claim connections tried him in an 870-yard Quarter Horse dash at Arizona Downs in June 2019, which he won by 10 1/2 lengths. He then won at that same distance at Arapahoe Park, but didn't score again until 2020 when stretched back out to five furlongs against Thoroughbreds.

After a five-month break, Six Ninety One started off 2021 with five wins in eight sprints at Turf Paradise. He was claimed twice between February and April, for $3,000 and $6,250.

Current trainer Alfredo Asprino owns the gelding in partnership with Jesus Vielma, and they've kept Six Ninety One in optional-claiming and starter spots where he has not been offered for sale. He's now won three straight for those connections, and six consecutive starts since March.

Six Ninety One is entered Tuesday in the sixth race at Arizona Downs. He's favored at 3-5 on the morning line to get win number nine on the season. The gelding meets the starter eligibility by virtue of running in a $2,500 claimer last summer in Colorado.

Can Horses & Bears co-exist?

The Daily Herald of suburban Chicago ran two stories Saturday that are worth reading if you're following the Arlington International Racecourse sale by Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI), which reportedly closed its opening bid process last week. You can click through to find both articles here (then scroll down).

The first, a column by Jim O'Donnell, underscores that beyond the money involved, last Thursday's announcement that the Chicago Bears football team has submitted a bid for the 326-acre property to build a new stadium could have significant political appeal for the gaming corporation because “CDI needs to cash out of Arlington 'clean.'”

By that O'Donnell means that CDI will attempt to deflect the ill will of shutting down a nearly century-old historic landmark by delivering to the community “a global-class sports/entertainment facility and lush adjacent residential development.”

O'Donnell explained it like this: “There is already an issue of 'trustworthiness' between the more clearheaded citizens of Illinois and the Kentucky-based corporation. That directly stems from CDI's somewhat stunning decision to not add a full casino at [Arlington] two years ago after close to 20 years of lobbying for such enabling legislation.”

O'Donnell then alluded to the two Thoroughbred tracks CDI has already shuttered in the past decade (Hollywood Park and Calder Race Course), noting how regulators in other states are growing increasingly leery of CDI as a suitable steward to preserve the sport of racing.

“That question of CDI's 'trustworthiness' in Illinois could bleed over not only to its future gaming licensing in [Illinois] but also into other jurisdictions,” O'Donnell wrote.

The second Herald article, by Christopher Placek, noted that the bid for Arlington that was submitted last Tuesday by the track's former president, Roy Arnold, in partnership with a consortium of developers and investors, calls for the track's grandstand to remain in place, while a mid-size arena for a minor-league hockey team is constructed as part of a 60-acre entertainment district alongside a 300-unit housing development and 60 acres of industrial space.

But after the headline-dominating announcement by the Bears (these are the only two bids that have been publicly disclosed), Arlington Heights mayor Tom Hayes endorsed the idea of combining the two projects. He acknowledged, though, that there are challenges to building a football stadium and horse track together on the same property within his village, because some of the racing infrastructure might have to be relocated.

“In a perfect world, you'd have–and you do have–enough land to do it,” Hayes told the Herald. “The only question is would you have to at least partially tear down or reconfigure the existing grandstand … That's my only concern about trying to do both. I don't know if you could do it given the existing location.”

Hayes told the Herald that the industry-standard size for a National Football League stadium and associated parking is 160 acres. Placek wrote that Arlington's track, stables and parking come to about 125 acres. “That would leave some 40 acres on the massive site” for other purposes, he wrote–which may or may not be enough to fit in the other aspects of the desired mixed-use development.

The trustees of the Arlington Heights Village are expected to vote Monday night on zoning changes that would expressly prohibit certain uses on the property, like adult businesses, kiddie theme parks, or warehouses.

Baffert judge has 'court' experience…

The federal lawsuit that trainer Bob Baffert filed last Monday against the New York Racing Association in an effort to get his banishment there reversed on the basis that it allegedly violates his right to due process got assigned to a judge who is no stranger to handling sports-scandal cases.

Carol Bagley Amon, a Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, is the judge who in 2008 sentenced former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy to 15 months in prison for his admitted role in fixing the outcomes of pro hoops games he officiated.

Selective mastery…

Can you name the jockey who currently leads the continent with a hefty 41% winning percentage among all riders who have had at least 50 mounts this year?

Here's a hint: He's 57 years old and is a master of riding selectively and exclusively at Finger Lakes.

The answer is John R. Davila, Jr., with a 26-14-7 record from 63 rides. That 75% in-the-money strike rate also grabs your attention.

Davila, who began riding at Finger Lakes in 1982, is the track's all-time winningest jockey. He rides first call for trainer Chris Englehart, the track's all-time winningest trainer. They'll partner on three horses at Finger Lakes on Tuesday.

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