turf paradise | Horse Racing Free Tips

Longtime Track Super ‘Bob’ Beaubien Passes Away

Robert “Bob” Beaubien, a longtime track superintendent at tracks including Penn National Race Course, Prairie Meadows, Turf Paradise and Delta Downs, passed away on Sept. 1.

Beaubien was widely known and respected among his peers, and he was an active participant at the annual Track Superintendent Field Day helping to share his knowledge with others. Beubein always attended the track supers event and facilitated interesting topics for conversation.

“Bob was a very nice guy and very knowledgeable,” said Jake Leitzel, director of track maintenance at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course. “He was the type of guy that would do anything for you. I learned from him at Penn National when he was my boss. We worked great together.”

Leitzel recalled that Beabien became track superintendent at Penn National around 1990 after previously working in Michigan as a blacksmith and starter. Beabien left Penn National in 2000 and worked at several tracks after that before retiring.

“It's a shame that any young guy coming up in this business won't have the chance to work with Bob because he was so knowledgeable,” added Leitzel. “A lot of track supers would talk to him. Even when I had the job here as track super, I still called him with questions or he would call me with questions. He's definitely going to be missed.”

The post Longtime Track Super ‘Bob’ Beaubien Passes Away appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Turf Paradise Race Dates Approved, But Doubts Remain Over Meet

In a special meeting Monday morning, the Arizona Racing Commission formally approved the proposed 2021-2022 race dates for Turf Paradise–Nov. 5 through May 7–but hard practical questions remain over what participation at that meet could look like due to an ongoing standoff between the Arizona horsemen and Turf Paradise management.

As a result of welfare concerns springing from a 2020-2021 Turf Paradise race meet marred by a high number of equine fatalities, the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (AZHBPA) have stated they will not sign any race-meet contract until a list of track safety upgrades and other facility management-related requests have been satisfied.

Turf Paradise representatives argue that the Arizona HBPA's requests cannot be met in full, and that their efforts to get the facility up to code are sufficient to begin racing Nov. 5.

When asked whether the commission could step in to dictate track safety standards and protocols in the event the two parties fail to reach an agreement in time, commissioner Rory Goree demurred.

“We definitely want to stay out of the negotiation process,” Goree told TDN Monday after the meeting. “I don't want them living under fear that we might do something. I want to give them a chance to come together and do what they need to do.”

In a July 30 letter to Turf Paradise, the Arizona HBPA itemized 25 safety issues and broader management concerns, the primary one being track surface quality.

“Too many horses last year were euthanized or injured to the point they could no longer race,” the letter stated, before asking that Mick Peterson, director of the Racetrack Safety Program, be brought in to examine the surfaces.

During the whole of 2020 and thus far in 2021, 67 Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses have suffered equine fatalities at Turf Paradise–18 during morning training, 31 during racing, and 18 due to other circumstances–according to results from a public record act request.

The other 24 demands in the letter include upgrades and repairs to the backstretch, grandstand and clubhouse, along with a different track veterinarian.

The HBPA takes issue with current Turf Paradise veterinarian, Dr. Verlin Jones. “HBPA will pay 50% as long as it is not Dr. Jones,” the letter states.

To help substantiate their requests, the Arizona HBPA have shared at the last monthly commission meeting Aug. 12 and on social media a variety of pictures of Turf Paradise in various states of disrepair.

In a further ratcheting up of tensions, subsequent to that last meeting–during which Turf Paradise owner, Jerry Simms, stated that the facility could operate a meet this fall “without a contract” with the horsemen–Turf Paradise management issued a proposed stall application, parts of which the Arizona HBPA have taken exception to.

The proposed agreement gives Turf Paradise “the right to end the meet at any time.”

This contradicts one of the HBPA's 25 requests–namely, that the meet be run in its entirety, “unless the commission rules it is not safe to run. We can use the same language as the last agreement.”

Another sticking point for the horsemen concerns new language in the proposed agreement which places the onus of safety and risk squarely onto the trainer's shoulders.

The agreement states: “Applicant agrees that neither Turf Paradise, nor its officers, directors, employees or agents shall be liable for any loss, damage, death or injury of any kind to Applicant or to Applicant's employees, agents, invitees, exercise riders, jockeys or any member of their respective families, property or animals, regardless of whether such injury, loss, death or damage is caused by a condition of the facilities at Turf Paradise and/or any negligent act or omission of Turf Paradise, its directors, officers, employees and agents from any other cause.

“Applicant hereto specifically and knowingly assumes all risks of such injury, loss, death or damage, fully and completely.”

Last week, Simms issued a letter responding to the HBPA's concerns about certain language in the stall application.

The reason Turf Paradise has demanded it retains the right to end the meet at any time is “because of the threat by the AZHBPA to end Turf's ability to simulcast races from other tracks Sept. 23. The line was added to protect the track from a very real threat that would have brought an end to racing,” Simms writes.

In that same letter, Simms also claims that the language concerning liability is taken verbatim from Canterbury Park's stall application.

“It's not a problem for Turf Paradise's trainers to agree to and sign a stall application with this language in Minnesota but it's somehow a violation of those same trainers' rights here in Arizona,” Simms writes.

According to Bob Hutton, AZHBPA president, he has asked to meet with the Arizona Department of Gaming's director, Ted Vogt, and Racing Division director, Rudy Casillas, prior to any sit-down negotiations with Turf Paradise.

“I want to make sure that if we have something in writing with Turf Paradise that they're going to regulate them,” Hutton said, of the department of gaming.

TDN reached out to the department for a response but did not hear back before deadline.

Those attempting to bring together both sides are staking out a position from the fence.

“Obviously it is a facility that needs to have some money put into it,” said Goree, of Turf Paradise. “We can't keep coming back every year making a big to-do–it needs to come up with a long-term plan for our survival.”

At the same time, Goree takes issue with a one-sided levelling of blame, using his experience in greyhound racing as a point of comparison.

“The kennels always blame the track, and the track blame the kennels. There's blame between both of them,” said Goree. “The kennels sometimes would be running dogs they shouldn't have been running. They were running dogs that should have been in adoption.”

And using the fate of greyhound industry in places like Florida–the state last year voted to successfully ban the sport–Goree warned that the very public and acrimonious nature of these negotiations weigh heavily on an industry already under intense public scrutiny for its equine safety record.

“People who want to end racing see this and they will use it,” he said. “Public perception is going to kill us.”

The post Turf Paradise Race Dates Approved, But Doubts Remain Over Meet appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Turf Paradise Fall Race Dates in Jeopardy Over Safety Concerns

The upcoming fall race meet at Turf Paradise, scheduled to run Nov. 5 through May 7, hangs in the balance over equine safety concerns after another contentious Arizona Racing Commission Meeting, Thursday.

The Arizona horsemen, headed by the Arizona Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (AZHBPA), currently refuse to sign the race-meet contract until a set of track maintenance upgrades, along with various other welfare and management-related requests, have been met.

These concerns spring from a 2020-2021 Turf Paradise race-meet marred by a high number of equine fatalities.

“We would like a clean and safe facility,” said AZHBPA president, Bob Hutton. Until Turf Paradise is willing to comply with its statutory safety obligations, “the HBPA does not support running a meet there this fall,” he added.

Representatives for Turf Paradise argued that the Arizona HBPA's requests cannot be met, and that some of the blame for the high equine fatality rate should rest with the horsemen.

“I don't go down the shedrow and say, 'you ought to have better horses and you wouldn't have as many breakdowns,'” said Turf Paradise owner, Jerry Simms, before adding that an agreement with the horsemen isn't necessary for the facility to conduct a race-meet this fall.

“We can run without a contract,” Simms stated.

In a July 30th letter to Turf Paradise, the Arizona HBPA listed 25 detailed safety issues and broader management concerns, the primary one being track surface quality.

“The condition that both tracks were in last year were will be unacceptable for the upcoming meet,” the letter stated, before asking that Mick Peterson, director of the Racetrack Safety Program, be brought in to examine the surfaces.

“Too many horses last year were euthanized or injured to the point they could no longer race,” the letter added.

The other 24 demands in the letter include upgrades and repairs to the backstretch, grandstand and clubhouse, along with another track veterinarian. The HBPA takes issue with current Turf Paradise veterinarian, Dr. Verlin Jones. “HBPA will pay 50% as long as it is not Dr. Jones,” the letter states.

“This racetrack last year was in the worst condition I've ever seen,” said trainer Kevin Eikleberry, at Thursday's commission meeting. “This can't happen again.”

According to Turf Paradise general manager, Vince Francia, he's listening.

A “firm” has already been hired to remove the track cushion so as to examine the limestone base, Francia said. “It's going to take a week's worth of work,” he added.

Francia also took umbridge with the horsemen for sharing on social media an assortment of damning pictures showing various parts of Turf Paradise in states of disrepair and dilapidation.

Francia argued that the 54 days between now and the scheduled start of the fall meet is sufficient to bring the track up to code.

“Guys, you're getting a little silly,” he said, urging the AZHBPA to the negotiation table. “The door to my office is open,” he said.

The commissioners chastised the stakeholders for negotiating the contract during the meeting rather than in a private forum.

“I dread every single meeting here,” lamented commissioner Chuck Coolidge, noting the contentious relationship between Turf Paradise and the horsemen's group. “One thing the commission sees often is a lot of rock-throwing by all parties.”

This isn't the first time Arizona has been under the spotlight for its equine welfare record. Rising equine fatality rates prompted the commission to conduct a report into equine safety the 2017-2018 season.

Turf Paradise doesn't make its fatality data public on the Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database.

Last week, the TDN asked the Arizona Department of Gaming for statewide equine fatality statistics beginning at the start of 2018. The request is currently being processed.

The post Turf Paradise Fall Race Dates in Jeopardy Over Safety Concerns appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

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.

The post The Week in Review: Vitali Starting a Horse at Saratoga Is Not OK appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post