Week in Review | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Week In Review: Can A Racetrack Have A Perfect Safety Record? Del Mar Is Getting Close

It's often been said that, no matter how hard the sport works to become safer, there will never come a time when there are zero fatalities. Unfortunately, that's probably true. But at the recently concluded Del Mar meet, not a single horse suffered a fatal breakdown during a race. Not once did a horse break a leg, crumple to the ground and then have to be euthanized behind a curtain blocking the view of a horrified public, the story making its way into the newspapers or the local news and on to PETA's list of reasons why horse racing should be banned.

(One horse was injured during a dirt race, had to be operated on and, five days after the accident, had to be put down due to complications. Three horses died during morning training due to traditional musculoskeletal injuries.)

In a meet where there were plenty of highlights, Arabian Knight (Uncle Mo) winning the GI Pacific Classic, the brilliant victory by Tamara (Bolt d'Oro) in the GI Del Mar Debutante, the dominance of Jockey Juan Hernandez, nothing was more important than Del Mar's safety record. These are the types of stories racing so badly needs in the midst of so many other tracks having nightmarish meets when it comes to breakdowns and these are the types of numbers that give you hope other tracks can get their fatality levels down to Del Mar levels.

And the story was much the same in 2022. There was not a single fatality that occurred during a race that year either. Officially, Del Mar had two equine deaths in 2022 that were once again the results of horses being injured in race only to be put down a few days later after attempts to save their lives were unsuccessful. Del Mar has not had a fatality during a race since 2021, when one horse died during a 2-year-old dirt race.

“We've been very fortunate and have put in a lot of hard work,” said Del Mar President Josh Rubinstein. “This is more a California story than just a Del Mar story. The numbers at Santa Anita have also been very good and both tracks have benefitted from the efforts from the CHRB. The biggest thing is there's clearly been a culture change and our horseman and horsewomen have really embraced the reforms we've implemented, which hasn't always been easy. Without their buy-in we wouldn't have gotten to where we are now.”

This was not always the case. Before there was Santa Anita 2019 when 30 horses had to be euthanized over a six-month period, Del Mar was having some high-profile problems of its own. When it took out its synthetic track after the 2014 meet, the number of fatalities per 1,000 starts jumped from .69 to 2.28 But it was not until the 2016 meet where the numbers went completely south and turned Del Mar into what may have been the deadliest racetrack in the country. During 54 days of racing, there were 12 fatalities during racing and they occurred at a rate of 3.01 per 1,000 starts. The national rate was 1.54 per 1,000 starts. Worse yet, 11 horses broke down during training hours, giving Del Mar 23 total fatalities for the meet that lasted just 54 days.

“You hate for this to happen anywhere but when something like this happens in California there is a massive spotlight on you, something you don't want to see. It was difficult. It really forced us to look at every single piece of the racing operation. We spent a lot of long days and nights figuring out how we could improve and get better, starting with 2017. Fortunately, we have continued in the right direction.”

Del Mar management realized that something had to be done and that if the numbers did not improve that could have a cataclysmic effect on the sport. Much of the reforms now seen throughout California, began at Del Mar after the 2016 meet. The number of fatalities per 1,000 starts dropped to 1.50 for 2017. Since, that number has been .79, .62, .28 and .56. Depending upon how the case of the horse who died a few days after surgery is handled, the 2023 number could be zero.

The California/Del Mar play book is to have veterinarians examine a horse again and again and again before they are given the green light to race.

“There are all the veterinarian checks and the things that go into getting a horse ready to go on race day,” Rubinstein said. “With all the vet checks, the CHRB they've been terrific. While we do have our own track vets that oversee morning training and assist with the exams, the majority of the vet checks are by the CHRB. They have been terrific to work with as have industry stakeholders like the TOC. It costs more to get a horse to the races with these reforms and checks and for the most part the owners have been very much on board. It really has been a team effort.”

After 2016, the Del Mar team also realized that vet checks alone would not be enough.

Dennis Moore was brought in to oversee the main track and John Beggin was hired to oversee the turf course.

“We believe we have the best in the business in our main track superintendent, Dennis Moore, and John Beggin, who handles the turf course,” Rubinstein said. “They've both done a terrific job. On the main track, Dennis puts in a tremendous amount of hard work in the off season getting the track ready. Every day, he's looking at different levels, compaction levels, moisture levels. He works to insure the track is dialed in to be consistent, safe and fair. You talk to the horsemen and overall they are extremely pleased with main track and turf course here.”

Most tracks don't have the resources Del Mar has and can't afford to hire extra veterinarians, expert track superintendents or to put in such things like PET scans. But that doesn't mean they can't do better. Though the rate of breakdowns in this country is still way too high, Del Mar has proven that no track should settle for the status quo. They went from one of the most dangerous tracks in the country to one of the safest and all it really took was some effort and determination to solve an awful problem. They've done so well that perfection seems like an attainable goal.

At Gulfstream, Playing the Name Game

You might have noticed that trainer Jose Di Angelo won both divisions of the Florida Stallion S. Saturday at Gulfstream, taking the filly version with Welcome Back (Adios Charlie). Three races later he won the division for males with a horse named Bentornato (Valiant Minister). Bentornato means “welcome back” in Italian. The horses are owned by different owners, and the names are simply a coincidence.

“With Bentornato, I picked the horse out when he was at a baby sale at OBS (where he was bought for $45,000),” Di Angelo explained. “The owner pinhooked the horse and the guy that bought him from him returned the horse. That's why he named him Bentornato or Welcome Back. The other horse was always named Welcome Back.”

Saratoga Horse of the Meet

Each year Del Mar announced its “Horse of the Meet”, a long-standing tradition that takes place at the conclusion of the meet. It was Pacific Classic winner Arabian Knight. The voting is conducted among a panel of experts. How about Saratoga doing the same thing, bestowing what would be an important honor of the most outstanding horse at the sport's most important meet? My vote would have gone to Casa Creed (Jimmy Creed), but strong cases could have been made for Echo Zulu (Gun Runner) and Arcangelo (Arrogate). In addition to handing out the award, how about giving a cash prize to the groom, hotwalker and exercise rider of the winner. Say $25,000 each, money that can go a long way toward helping the unsung heroes of the backstretch.

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The Week In Review: The Year In Which Saratoga Lost Its Mojo

At the conclusion of racing on Monday, Saratoga will have handled about $800 million for the meet, the third highest handle figure ever for the track. On-track attendance was at 1,055,543 after Saturday's GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Day card, setting an all-time record with two racing days to go.

Yet, by just about any measure, it was not a good meet. Saratoga came into 2023 with the wind at its back. Every year the racing seemed to get bigger, the handle would grow and more and more fans would pile into the historic racecourse. Taking out the covid year, handle had risen at Saratoga for five straight years.

Would Saratoga ever lose its momentum or would it keep growing exponentially?

It turned this year. The 12 fatalities, including two particularly gruesome ones that occurred in full view of packed grandstand and before a national TV audience, were as bad as it gets. How many racing fans were turned into ex-racing fans on those days? NYRA has always taken the safety of the horses and jockeys very seriously and will no doubt continue to put in place measures to keep both safe.

They have some control over horse safety, but none over the weather, which was a huge problem at the meet. During the 2022 meet, only 15 races came off the grass. Through Sunday of the 2023 meet, 65 races had come off the grass. There had been 189 grass races run in 2022 versus 129 this year. That always leads to the same problems. When races come off the turf there are always a number of scratches, typically creating off-the-turf races with four or five-horse fields. On Aug. 10, an off-the-turf race actually turned into a match race. This is stuff no one wants to bet on.

NYRA is ready to do what it can to address that problem. NYRA President and CEO Dave O'Rourke has said that there is serious interest in installing a synthetic track at Saratoga by the 2025 meet. It wouldn't replace either the dirt main track or the two turf courses but would give NYRA a third option when it comes to racing surfaces and the synthetic track would largely be put to use when the rains washed races off of the turf.

The weather has been a problem, but if you dig a bit further you can find some signs that Saratoga handle was affected by more than the rain. On GI Travers Day 2023, when two races came off the turf, the handle was $50,183,71. In 2022, the handle was $55,559,315 when one race came off the grass. This past Saturday, on GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Day, they bet $27,400,509 on a day not impacted by weather. The year before the handle was $32,505,600.

“I think what happened is with all the earlier rain we lost some momentum and when that happened it's hard to get it back,” O'Rourke said.

Field size fell by 2.5 percent, from 7.75 to 7.56. A more telling number was the average handle per betting interest. It was $255,773 this year and $272,599 last year, for a drop of 6.2%.

What's done is done and there's nothing to do now but turn the page and hope Saratoga 2024 is one of the safest meets in history and the weather is gorgeous from opening day to closing day. The place is still magical and popular, but everything peaks at some point. Maybe that's happened to Saratoga.

European Dominance On The Turf

This is getting a bit ridiculous. U.S. racing is used to second-flight European horses coming over and winning some of our biggest grass race, but the year European shippers are having this year shows that our grass horses are vastly inferior. Take Saturday's GIII $2 million Mint Millions at Kentucky Downs. There was only one European shipper in the field, Ancient Rome (War Front), who is trained by Charlie Hills and was ridden by Jamie Spencer. Facing the likes of GI winner Annapolis (War Front), he came into it off a win in a handicap race. Before that you had to go all the way back to 2021 for his last graded win, a victory in the GIII Prix des Chenes in France. He won that by a half-length. He won the Mint Millions by a half-length.

A week earlier, it was Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). He came into the GI Sword Dancer after losing by 21 1/2 lengths in the GI King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I Stakes, where he went off at 125-1. Yet, that was good enough to win the Sword Dancer by 4 1/2 lengths. The win broke a nine-race losing streak, going back to the 2021 GI Belmont Derby where he also took advantage of a weak group of U.S. turf horses.

Then there's Aspen Grove (Ire) (Justify). She was sent off at 50-1 in the GI Irish 1,000 Guineas and finished last beaten 14 1/2 lengths. But that was good enough for her to take home first prize of $500,000 in the GI Belmont Oaks Invitational in her next outing.

Good luck to our horses in the Breeders' Cup turf races.

Surprise, Surprise, Still No News Out Of Saudi Arabia

Back in 2020, Maximum Security (New Year's Day) crossed the line in front in the 2020 $20 million Saudi Cup. Just a few days later, his trainer, Jason Servis, was arrested and charged with using performance-enhancing drugs on most of the horses in his barn. When that news broke, the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia said it was withholding the purses until it could investigate the situation

It's been 29 months since Servis was indicted, he has pled guilty and in November will begin a four-year prison sentence. The case is over, but the Saudis still haven't paid out the purse. Presumably, the winner's share of $10 million will eventually go to Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute). But no one has been paid as the Saudis, who should have all the evidence they'll ever need, do nothing and don't seem to be in any hurry to write a check. We tried to get an update on the situation this week, but the answer we got didn't really answer anything.

“Due to the extended nature of the judicial process in the USA, the JCSA has been unable to fully conduct its own investigation into the awarding of the winner's prize for The Saudi Cup 2020,” wrote the JCSA's Sarah Tregoning in response to an email sent by the TDN. “Now that the legal process in the USA has finished, the JCSA expects to swiftly conclude its own investigation and make an announcement in the coming weeks.”

I wouldn't hold your breath.

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The Week In Review: After 2,000 Wins The Hard Way, Next Goal For Murphy Is Retirement

After 3 1/2 decades in the saddle, Cindy Murphy knows all too well how fate lurks with every hoofbeat when you're a jockey. Occasionally though, chance and risk manifest themselves in the form of good karma on the racetrack. On Saturday night at Prairie Meadows, the rewarding circumstances of the 61-year-old jockey's 2,000th career win seemed almost too scripted to be true.

Murphy's landmark victory aboard Crypto Mo (Mohaymen) in the July 8 GIII Iowa Oaks was her first lifetime graded stakes win after 18,131 lifetime mounts. It was also a neat “full circle” score for the Iowa native, because Murphy (who previously rode under the last names Springman and Noll) had piloted the first-ever winner in the history of Prairie Meadows when that track first opened in 1989.

Win number 2,000 also came with a family connection–Crypto Mo is trained and part-owned by her husband, Travis Murphy. Redemption also played a starring role: A little more than a year ago, that very same filly, then age two, flipped out in the starting gate at Prairie Meadows prior to her debut. Murphy sustained eight broken ribs, four pelvic fractures, and a tear in her abdominal wall, knocking her out of action until Apr. 1 this year.

“I know the screenwriters' guild is on strike, but Hollywood is missing out on a fantastic story here,” quipped the Prairie Meadows racing secretary, Stuart Slagle, when TDN phoned the racing office Sunday morning to track down a phone number for Murphy.

“It was perfect,” Murphy said with a buoyant laugh when reached a few minutes later. “I couldn't have planned it better, to be honest with you.”

Murphy–unlike some jockeys who seem to linger for a long time on the cusp of a milestone win–had only been parked at the 1,999 plateau for six days and a span of just four mounts. But that round number of two grand had been in her head as a target for almost half her lifetime.

“When I first started, I could envision 2,000 wins because I was rolling as a younger rider,” Murphy said. “The first thousand came along a little easier and quicker than the second thousand. I thought it would come a lot sooner, to be honest with you. I started getting injured. Then I stopped to have a few children, so it took me awhile. But if you had asked me five years ago? I would have said no, I'm not going to make it.”

Murphy graduated from Iowa's Muscatine High School in 1980 as an all-state track and cross-country runner. She starred in those two sports at Northeast Missouri State University, where she graduated with a focus in equine studies as one of the top 10 agriculture students in her class. She was later inducted into that college's athletic hall of fame, but by the time that happened in 1999, Murphy had long since transitioned from running in races to horsebacking in them instead.

Starting first as an exercise rider, and then trying her luck as a jockey in South America, Murphy's first victory came in Argentina in 1986. She relocated to Florida and won her first stateside race at Tampa Bay Downs on Dec. 8, 1987. After stints in the mid-Atlantic and a brief foray to New York, Murphy returned to the Midwest after outriding her apprentice allowances.

By 1994, Murphy was a Prairie Meadows mainstay at or near the top of the standings. Through the remainder of that decade she emerged as the nation's winningest woman rider on several occasions. She racked up lifetime score number 1,000 at Hawthorne Race Course in 1998, and also that year established a Prairie Meadows meet record with 112 victories.

A spate of injuries took their toll on Murphy as the 21st Century dawned, slowing her down, but not stopping her. In 2001, she fractured six bones, including her pelvis and ribs, in an Oaklawn Park accident. In 2004, she was sidelined by a broken wrist.

For a while, May 11, 2006, looked like it would be not only Murphy's last day in the saddle, but perhaps the last day she ever walked: A Prairie Meadows mount stumbled out of the gate, veered into another horse, and sent Murphy careening headfirst into the dirt.

“I broke my neck, and I had to be life-flighted to the hospital,” Murphy said on Sunday, recalling the accident matter-of-factly. “I was kind of paralyzed for a week, and I slowly came out of it. They weren't sure I was going to come out of it. But I'm one of the lucky ones, and I did.”

The severity of the spill was initially enough to cause Murphy to call it quits, acting upon the advice of her doctors. She had a surgery that fused her C5, C6 and C7 vertebrae together, and wistfully told the Des Moines Register, “I sure wanted to reach 2,000 wins, but my health is more important to me.”

Murphy and her husband, Travis, had bought a 160-acre farm near Remington Park in Oklahoma shortly before that accident, and she began contemplating other career choices, like going back to school to get a nursing degree. The couple, at that time, had begun focusing on legging up horses for outside clients. But eventually, without the pressure of pointing for another comeback or the day-to-day rigors of the racetrack, Murphy said the farm work with the horses won her over again. In 2008, she returned to competing in races at age 46.

“I really wasn't going to come back to riding,” she said. “But I started messing around, getting on a few. And then I guess I'm a little bit on the crazy side, and I wanted to ride a few more. And then I started creeping closer to 2,000, so I thought, 'Well, why not give it a shot?'”

Although that number remained etched in her brain, Murphy told TDN that the one thing she wouldn't grant any headspace to was the thought of getting hurt.

“I always tell the younger riders, if you get scared out there, you better hang it up. Because that's not a good thing when you're riding scared,” Murphy said.

Murphy's riding workload isn't what it used to be, and she hasn't topped 27 wins in a year in any of the past 15 seasons. She had a 2-for-26 record in 2022, with that season being cut short on June 19 when Crypto Mo sent Murphy on yet another unplanned vacation of rehab and recuperation, just eight wins shy of 2,000.

Despite her gate histrionics, the filly herself was not injured. With Cassidy Fletcher subbing for Murphy, Crypto Mo eventually debuted on July 17, 2022, and managed to win one of her first five starts. Early on as a sprinter, she didn't flash enough talent to suggest she'd be a future graded stakes victress.

But that changed on May 28, 2023, when, after having been reunited with Murphy, Crypto Mo stretched out to two turns for the first time and wired a first-level allowance at Prairie Meadows by a whopping 17 3/4 lengths.

Cindy Murphy rides Crypto Mo | Coady Photography

Crypto Mo, who cost $20,000 as a KEESEP yearling, then wired the $50,000 Panthers S. over a mile at Prairie Meadows June 10. On Saturday night, Murphy again asked her for speed from the get-go, and Crypto Mo was never headed in the $225,000 stakes, running her record to 4-for-8 while bankrolling $210,870 in earnings for the partnership of Travis Murphy, Matt Trent, and Triple V Racing. On Sunday, Crypto Mo was supplemented to the Fasig-Tipton July Selected Horses of Racing Age Sale.

“I thought win number 2,000 would come the previous weekend, when I was on a couple of live horses,” Murphy said. “And then [Friday} I had a horse that had a shot, but he didn't do it. But when the win finally came on Saturday, it was even better, because this was the filly I got hurt on last year, and it's one of ours, from our connections.

“We had a lot of supportive crowd there, so that meant a lot. Even trainer Dale Romans, he came in [and won] one of the big races, and he congratulated me and said, 'Man, ever since I set foot in Iowa, nobody can quit talking about you and hoping you would get your 2,000th win.'” Murphy recalled.

Asked what goal is next now that she's equaled the benchmark she's been chasing for decades, Murphy didn't hesitate in replying.

“I am almost 62 years old, and I promised my kids and my grandkids that I would retire soon. So I am going to finish up the Prairie Meadows meet and I am going to hang up my tack,” Murphy said.

“I need to spend more time with the grandkids. I've got five of them now. I go trail riding with them at the farm. We've got a bunch of soccer players in the family, so I'm always going to the kids' games. And my youngest son is going into his sophomore year at college. He's a big track star, and I go to all of his track meets. It will just give me more time to get to things like this, to spend more time with the family,” Murphy said.

“I'll probably help Travis train, and be his right-hand woman, so to speak. I'll probably still gallop and work horses for him. I don't get on the babies that much anymore; they're a little bit more unpredictable. But I am going to retire from race riding,” Murphy said.

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The Week In Review: On Another Day Dominated By Super Trainers, Jason Cook Wins One For The Little Guy

There were 13 graded stakes races run in North America Saturday and the combination of Bob Baffert, Chad Brown, Steve Asmussen, Brad Cox and Mark Casse won eight of them. That's three Hall of Famers and two future Hall of Famers. Not that any of this should come as a surprise. The so-called super trainer stables seem to only be getting bigger and more powerful by the day, leaving everyone else to fight over the leftover scraps.

So what chance did Jason Cook have in the GII John A. Nerud S. at Belmont? He has a four-horse stable and in the 34 years he's been training, had never won a graded stakes race.

Now he has.

Three Technique (Mr. Speaker), a horse Cook claimed for $40,000, won the seven-furlong sprint by 3 3/4 lengths, beating, among others, horses trained by Todd Pletcher and Bill Mott.

“To tell you the truth, it didn't sink in until later,” Cook said. “But it was great to win a graded stakes. That's what make this sport so great. Anybody can win on any given day. That's why we run them.”

That Cook has persevered the way he has is admirable. For the last 11 years, he has raised his daughter Peyton by himself. Cook's wife Tracey died from sepsis when Peyton was just 2 1/2 years old. He has had to balance being a single parent, taking his daughter to her soccer games and attending parent-teacher conferences with training horses. He admits it hasn't been easy and that he hasn't been able to devote all his time to training.

“I have raised my daughter by myself,” the 49-year-old Cook said. “That's one of the reasons things have been pretty slow for me. I'm spending a lot of my time going to her soccer games. There are trade offs in life.”

Cook grew up on the racetrack. His father Lois Cook was a jockey who won the 1957 Kentucky Oaks with Lori-El and finished tenth in the 1955 Kentucky Derby. Jason Cook started out as a hotwalker when he was 13 and took out his trainer's license when he was 17. He won his first race in 1993 when he was just 19.

“I never really thought about doing anything else other than training,” Cook said. “It was what I wanted to do when I younger. At that age, you think being a trainer is the greatest thing in the world. You find out it's not. Its not as easy as you thought it would be.”

He won three stakes in 1996 and another in 1997, but his win totals remained modest. Based on wins, his best year was 2008 when he won 18 races. There have also been plenty of years like 2020, when he went 1-for-19, and 2018 when he was 1-for-24. He said he never got discouraged, but the right horses never seemed to find their way into his barn.

“There are a lot of capable people that given the chance might be the next big trainer,” he said. “There's somebody training horses somewhere out there not doing any good and the reason why is they don't have the stock that allows them to show their talent. It all comes down to the horse. You have to have the horses.”

But he says he can see why so many owners flock to the same top five or six trainers.

“Those people who have those big stables, I've never begrudged them,” Cook said. “Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, they are at the top of the game because they produce very good results. You can't be mad at somebody because of their success.”

To help make ends meet over the years, Cook would haul horses, something he no longer does. His main client was Dale Romans.

“That was something I did to help me make a living,” he said. “I used to go to all the stakes races for Dale. I trained a few horses, I hauled horses for Dale. That's how I got by.”

In the fall of 2021 Cook, who had just two winners on the year at the time, was surprised to see Three Technique show up in a $40,000 claimer at Churchill. Four starts earlier, he had finished third in the same John A. Nerud S. for trainer Jeremiah Englehart and owner Bill Parcells's August Dawn Farm. Just prior to the claiming race, he RNA'd for $47,000 at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale.

“It looked like they were giving up on him,” Cook said. “Yes, I was worried that it was a suspicious drop in class.”

But to be able to acquire a horse for $40,000 that had, only a few months earlier, hit the board in a graded stakes race was something Cook and owners David Miller, Eric Grindley and John Werner couldn't resist. They weren't alone. There were 27 claims put in for Three Technique that day.

“Someone asked me what did you see in this horse to claim him,” Cook said. “I just got lucky and hit the lottery.”

Three Technique lost his first five races for Cook, but broke through to win last year's Knicks Go S. at Churchill Downs at 36-1, giving Cook his first stakes win in 25 years. He would go on a six-race losing streak before winning a May 27 allowance at Churchill. Cook couldn't decide between the Nerud and the July 2 Hanshin S. at Ellis Park, the same race in which he almost beat Cody's Wish (Curlin) last year, losing by just a neck. He decided on the Nerud because he thought his horse preferred one turn.

Three Technique | Joe Labozzetta

Prior to the Nerud, he had never started a horse at Belmont. His lone starter in New York had come in a 1997 claiming race at Saratoga.

“I'm going to try and buck the trend and win one in New York,” Cook said prior to the race. “My dad was a jockey and I like history and that track has a lot of history. My dad was one of the leading riders in the country in the '50s.”

With Javier Castellano aboard, Three Technique won comfortably, looking like a horse who can hold his own against top sprinters.

“I just got to sit back and watch,” Cook said. “The horse had to do all the hard work. He is a very determined horse and he always runs his race.”

One of the first calls he got after Three Technique crossed the wire was from Peyton. She usually joins her father at the track whenever he has a horse in a race, but she didn't make the trip to New York.

“This was one of the few trips she didn't make,” Cook said. “She was home with some friends. She was so excited. She was crying and screaming she was so excited. I wish she would have been here.”

Cook isn't sure where Three Technique will run next. One concern he has is that the horse doesn't like the heat, which could be a factor later this summer in places like Saratoga. That's a problem for another day. For now, he's going to sit back and relax and enjoy the day he beat the big boys.

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