Mighty Heart Doubles Up as Canadian Horse of the Year

Canada's 2020 Horse of the Year Mighty Heart (Dramedy) took home the same honors for the 2021 season at the 47th Annual Sovereign Awards, hosted by The Jockey Club of Canada Thursday at the Universal Eventspace just outside of Toronto. A homebred for Larry Cordes, Mighty Heart won the GII Autumn S. and GIII Dominion Day S. in Canada, as well as the Blame S. at Churchill Downs. The popular one-eyed 4-year-old had won the same award last year on the strength of his victories in the Queen's Plate and Prince of Wales S. The Josie Carroll-trained Mighty defeated Pink Lloyd (Old Forester) for Horse of the Year honors by a margin of 63 votes to 55 votes. Town Cruise (Town Prize) was third in the voting with 34. Mighty Heart was also named Champion Older Main Track Male.

Robert Tiller's Pink Lloyd, the now-retired Entourage Stables campaigner, added to his long list of accomplishments and was named Champion Male Sprinter for the fifth consecutive year. Pink Lloyd was the Canadian Horse of the Year in 2017 and had also previously been Champion Older Dirt Male and Champion Older Horse.

The Brandon Evan Greer-owned and -trained Town Cruise was named Champion Male Turf Horse after winning the GI Woodbine Mile S.

Canadian Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse was named Outstanding Trainer for the 11th straight year and for the 14th time overall. His 27 Canadian stakes wins in 2021 were a personal record and his list of champions continues to grow with an additional four champions in 2021: God of Love (Cupid) was named Champion 2-Year-old Male, Mrs. Barbara (Bodemeister) was named Champion 2-Year-Old Female, Frosted Over (Frosted) was named Champion 3-Year-Old Male, and Skygaze (American Pharoah) was named Champion Older Main Track Female.

Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Plantation, who sends a number of horses to Casse, won its second straight Sovereign Award for Outstanding Owner with 19 Canadian wins and more than $1.4 million in earnings. Outstanding Breeder honors went to Sam-Son Farm, which led Canadian breeders in purse earnings with just over $2.6 million. Sam-Son has been a major player in Canadian racing for more than 50 years. It was the iconic farm's ninth outstanding breeder Sovereign Award. The Outstanding Groom award went to Denzil Fonseca, who has been a part of the Woodbine backstretch for 40 years. He has been with trainer Mike Doyle for the last 14 of those years.

Other equine awards went to Munnyfor Ro (Munnings) for Champion 3-Year-Old Female, Amalfi Coast (Tapizar) as Champion Female Sprinter, and Jolie Olimpica (Drosselmeyer) as Champion Female Turf Horse. Avie's Empire (Empire Maker) was named Canadian Broodmare of the Year. The 14-year-old unraced mare has produced 2018 2-year-old champion Avie's Flatter (Flatter), who won the GII Nearctic S. and GII Connaught Cup S. in 2021, as well as SW Avie's Mineshaft (Mineshaft) and GSP Avie's Mesa (Sky Mesa).

The Sovereign Award for Outstanding Jockey went to wunderkind Kazushi Kimura, who was a first-time nominee after only his fourth season riding in Canada. He had already won the Sovereign Award as Outstanding Apprentice twice, as well as an Eclipse Award for the same honor in the U.S. His 19% win rate in 2021 included 140 victories and over $5.1 million in purses. Boxer-turned-jockey Mauricio Malvaez won Outstanding Apprentice for the second consecutive year with a total of 28 victories and over $470,000 in earnings for the season.

Ivan Dalos, proprietor of Tall Oaks Farm, was recipient of the E. P. Taylor Award of Merit. Tall Oaks won its first Sovereign for Outstanding Breeder in 2018 and repeated the honor in 2020. It was his mare, Avie's Empire, who took home the aforementioned Outstanding Broodmare award. His broodmare band numbers more than three dozen with many a part of several generations of breeding by Dalos.

The final Sovereign Awards bestowed Thursday included Outstanding Photograph to Will Wong for his image entitled “Welcome Back,” Outstanding Writing to Hayley Morrison for the story “New Races, New Faces: How I Fell for The Fort,” which appeared on the Canadian Thoroughbred website,  and Outstanding Audio Visual/Digital Broadcast to Woodbine Entertainment for airing of The Queen's Plate.

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Avie’s Flatter Returns to Winner’s Circle In Nearctic Stakes At Woodbine

Avie's Flatter returned to the familiar confines of the winner's circle at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario with a victory in the Grade 2 Nearctic Stakes.

In the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile last out, the 5-year-old horse finished ninth behind upset winner Town Cruise, who was also part of the Nearctic field. At the break, Momos grabbed the lead, with Town Cruise and Turned Aside second and third early. Avie's Flatter and Luis Contreras were third entering the race's only turn, going wide into the Woodbine straight.

In the stretch, Avie's Flatter showed no trouble with the yielding turf, building up momentum on the outside of Town Cruise and taking the lead with a furlong to go to win by a half-length. Turned Aside came on late to take second. Olympic Runner passed Momos to take third. Town Cruise, Jolie Olimpica, White Flag, Reconfigure, Admiralty Pier, and Lucky Curlin rounded out the order of finish.

The final time for the six-furlong Nearctic was 1:10.52. Find this race's chart here.

Avie's Flatter paid $16.50, $7.30, and $5.60. Turned Aside paid $17.50 and $10.40. Olympic Runner paid $5.20.

Bred in Ontario by Tall Oaks Farm, Avie's Flatter is by Flatter out of the Empire Maker mare Avie's Empire. Owned by Ivan Dalos, the 5-year-old horse is trained by Josie Carroll. With his win in the G2 Nearctic, Avie's Flatter has three wins in five starts in 2021, for a lifetime record of seven wins in 18 starts and career earnings of $932,937.

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Woodbine Mile Winner Town Cruise Will Be Supplemented To Breeders’ Cup

Owner, trainer, and breeder Brandon Greer has changed his mind, and will pay the $100,000 fee to supplement his Woodbine Mile winner Town Cruise to the Breeders' Cup Mile at Del Mar, reports the Daily Racing Form. The 6-year-old son of Town Prize is not Breeders' Cup nominated, hence the fee, and Greer had originally planned to let the gelding rest for the remainder of 2021.

Instead, Town Cruise has been showing Greer he's ready for more.

“I breezed him the other day, and tried to keep him as slow as possible,” Greer told DRF. “He was a little up that day. You remember when I won the Mile, I'd said I'd have to ask the horse. I stopped asking because two days later he said: 'Let's go again'. I was hoping he'd tell me: 'No I'm good, let's go home for the season', but he was anything but that.”

The winner of three of his four starts this season, Town Cruise has an overall record of 6-2-1 from 14 starts, with earnings of $789,642.

Read more at the Daily Racing Form.

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The Odds They Are A Changin’ … At The Last Minute

Dramatic shifts in the win odds of horses just before the close of betting have become an annoying way of life for horseplayers in most major racing jurisdictions in North America. In most – but not all –  of those cases, last-minute bets by computer-assisted robotic wagering groups affiliated with licensed off-shore rebate shops are responsible.

The wagering groups employ computer programs that compare win probabilities with current odds, then dump wagers at the last second on those horses whose odds offer perceived value. Similar wagers take place in exotic pools by these computer players.

The bets can cause wild swings in the odds, especially when one or more of those computer wagering teams (there may be a dozen or more of them currently active) land on the same horse or horses. That can be especially annoying if you've bet on a horse at 9-2 while he's in the gate and who then crosses the finish in front at odds of 9-5. Because these computer assisted groups don't always win, sometimes the odds on a winner have gone up at the last minute.

These groups are betting significant amounts of money, as much as one-third of the total pari-mutuel wagering pools.

Computer players don't need to have a positive return on investment to make a profit – an advantage they have over everyday players because of the rebates they receive from off-shore (and some U.S.-based) advance deposit wagering companies. For example, if an on-track player gets a $950,000 return on $1 million in wagers, he or she loses $50,000. A rebate player getting a $950,000 return on $1 million in wagers will break even after a 5% rebate. Most computer players get a larger rebate  than that, depending on the jurisdiction and wager type. So even if they aren't winning, they are coming out ahead.

One of the most recent examples of how these computer assisted wagering groups affect the odds came in last Saturday's Grade 1 Ricoh Woodbine Mile, a race won by Town Cruise, a horse with just one previous stakes appearance in 13 starts but with a big advantage: he was the lone speed.

Town Cruise was 23-1 with just over one minute before the start of the race. When betting closed, he was 8-1 and paid $19.30 for a $2 wager, far short of what many backers thought they would get.

Sanny Lee, senior manager of wagering operations for Woodbine, confirmed that a significant percentage of wagers on the race came in during the final 78 seconds before the start of the Woodbine Mile.

In an email to the Paulick Report in response to a question about the late odds shift of Town Cruise, Lee wrote: “We have reviewed all bets placed in the Win pool for Race 10 (Woodbine Mile) from this past Saturday, and we can confirm that in the final 1 minute and 18 sec of betting, the amount bet in the win pool increased by $128,482.26 making up 20% of the total pool for the race ($607,623.89) and bets were placed by most wagering outlets across the network during this time.

“When looking at the odds progression, we see that at 1 min and 18 sec before the race start, horse #1 (Town Cruise) was 23-1, horse #2 (Olympic Runner) was at 16-1, horse #8 (Avie's Flatter) was 31-1 and the favourite #5 (Set Piece) was 6-5. At the start of the race, the final odds changed on these 4 horses to #1 at 8-1, #2 at 9-1, #8 at 17-1 and the favourite #5 increased in odds to 8-5. It appears that compared to prior betting patterns, a relatively significant amount of bets were placed on these 3 horses compared to the other horses, just before the race started.”

The Paulick Report also asked Lee if Woodbine accepted wagers from computer-assisted wagering groups and whether they were responsible for the late odds changes in the Woodbine Mile.

“We can also confirm that we do allow CAW outlets to wager into our pools, and that about half of the $128,482.26 was wagered by CAW in the final 1 min and 18 sec of betting,” Lee wrote.

The New York Racing Association in August said it was restricting computer wagering groups' access to the win pools by cutting them off at three minutes to post. That has reduced big odds swings at the last minute. No other racing associations have announced similar moves.

Lee added that the Paulick Report inquiry and the Woodbine response would be forwarded to the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency for review.

Not all late odds changes are the result of computer-assisted wagering groups.

During the summer meet at Del Mar, there were a number of significant late odds changes presumably driven by the computer assisted wagering groups. But in the final race of the meet, there was a curious change in the odds that didn't make a lot of sense.

Algeria, the No. 4 horse was favored at around 2-1 for much of the wagering, then plunged to 2-5 just as horses were loading. He then went back up to 2-1 almost as quickly. The winner of the race, Cane Creek Road, went from 16-1 to 7-1 at the last minute and won by a nose, paying $16.

Paulick Report asked Mike Marten, public information officer for the California Horse Racing Board, about the unusual wagering on that Sept. 6 race.

Here is Marten's written response: “We determined that a known large bettor was on track closing day and made those transactions. The teller recalls the bettor asking for $140,000 to win on the 9. The teller proceeded to punch out tickets in $10,000 increments. Each transaction took about one second. While the teller was issuing the tickets, the bettor checked his bankroll and determined that he had less than $140,000 on him, so he asked the teller to stop and asked the teller to cancel some of the tickets, which the teller did. The detailed transaction report shows that 11 tickets were issued for a total of $110,000 and that five of those tickets were canceled, leaving the customer with $60,000 to win on the 9. The entire process, from the first $10,000 wager to the last cancelation, took a total of 18 seconds, indicating there was no attempt to manipulate the odds/pool. The odds cycle report shows the 9 was under 2-1 for less than one minute.”

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Marten said the CHRB has no rules that pertain directly to cancellations or pool manipulation, adding that the regulatory board does have the authority to deal with such situations.

“More importantly, the racetracks and ADWS are fully cooperative in such matters,” Marten wrote. “This is the third incident I've dealt with involving cancelations. One previous one, like this one, involved an on-track bettor who was known to the teller. We determined on that occasion that there was no attempt to manipulate pools. The third instance involved a quirky ADW customer, again not perceived to be manipulative, just strange. The ADW company spoke with him and that behavior stopped.”

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