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Michael Blowen Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Michael Blowen had no money, no farm, no horses and no backers. But he did have an idea. He wanted to open a farm that would be a sanctuary for some of the sport's biggest names who were either gelded or no longer being used as sires or broodmares. Somehow moving mountains, he pulled it off and his Old Friends Farm became home to hundreds of Thoroughbreds and a popular tourist attraction.

But now he has decided to retire, 20 years after he opened Old Friends, and turn the reins over to John Nicholson. On this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland, Blowen discussed why he is retiring and some of his fondest memories from a job he instantly loved.

“When you get a certain age and you can see the finish line, you know,” Blowen said. “It's like you're turning for home and you go, 'Oh, there's a finish line.' So you better figure out what's going to be happening or what you can do to make everything a little better. And so I started looking for somebody a couple of years ago to take over, and I could never find the right person. Then I ran into John Nicholson. And I would probably still be doing this if I hadn't run into John, because John was the perfect person. I thought, 'boy, oh boy, if he'll do this, it would be great'. People who know John know that he ran Kentucky Horse Park for a long time. He loves the horses.”

His favorite horse? Silver Charm.

“It's hard for me to explain it in one way, because it's hard to explain why you fall in love with somebody,” Blowen said. “No matter who or what you fall in love with your life is going to change. When Sandy Hatfield called me in November of 2015 and said, how would you like an old gray stallion at your farm, I freaked out. The only problem was I couldn't tell anybody. They're supposed to keep it a secret. And then I did keep it a secret, which is probably the only secret I ever kept in my life. But I kept that one. And when he got here on Dec. 1, 2015 that was the greatest day of my life. I didn't even know him, because the first time I ever laid eyes on him in person is when he got off the trailer on that day, but I know I was totally enthralled.'

Though retiring, Blowen plans to spend plenty of time at Old Friends.

“You'll have to drag me out of here,” he said. “I told my wife, when I die, the house where we live in, we have a great house here, and the back backyard is one of the two places where we have cemeteries. I told my wife, when I die, get me cremated, throw my ashes out the back. Just don't put my lifetime earnings on the side.

This week's look at a Coolmore sire focused on Jack Christopher (Munnings). He won three Grade I races and was five-for-five around one turn. He was such a special specimen that Zoe Cadman never forgot her impressions of him when she saw him at Saratoga before he ever raced, noting that he was so perfectly put together that she knew he would be a star.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Elite Power, WinStar Farm, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association,https://www.kentuckybred.org/https://www.nyrabets.com/ 1/ST Racing, the Green Group, West Point Thoroughbreds and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Cadman and Bill Finley expressed their gratitude for having earned an Eclipse Award in the Multi-Media category. Our interview with Wade Jost was selected as the winner. Jost is the father of Carson Jost, who, like Cody Dorman, suffers from Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome. Jost, a classmate of Terry Finley at West Point, went in with his syndicate on Carson's Run–named in his son's honor. All agreed that it was Jost who made the podcast so memorable and the team decided it will gift the Eclipse Award trophy to the family.

The team also touched on the big shakeup in Maryland, where a new entity, the Maryland Thoroughbred Operating Authority, which will be similar to NYRA, is set to take over the operation of Maryland tracks and, finally, will rebuild Pimlico. That will also mean that the GI Preakness S. will be run at Laurel in 2025, 2026 and 2027. The group also examined the 2024 economic indicators for racing, which included a 3.7% decline in total handle and a small decrease in purses.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Michael Blowen Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Linda Rice Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

It's been a remarkable year for trainer Linda Rice, who either won outright or tied for the lead at five straight meets at the NYRA tracks, and it might get even better. She entered the week with 157 wins at the three NYRA courses this year and needs just eight more to break the single-season record held by David Jacobson. Her stable has already amassed $10 million in earnings, a record for her barn, and $4.3 million more than her stable made last year.

How has she done it? Those were among the question she was asked when she joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast sponsored by Keeneland. Rice was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

“I would say some of the things that really moved me forward in my business was the decision to stay in New York year-round,” she said. “I used to split my stable in the winter and send a division to Miami while keeping the main division here in New York. I found out over the years that it was expensive. I spent all winter trying to recover my expenses, and I didn't feel like it moved us forward in any way. So when the VLT money kicked in in New York and was added to the purses, which was about 2013, I abandoned ship on Miami. I said, 'look, we're going to try something different. We're going to stay in New York.' I'm going to consolidate my workforce. Frankly, we had a lot of work right here in New York in the winter. It's a tough job in the winter. And I needed all my best people right in front of me. So I think that is the one thing that I see on my career that was very helpful was to consolidate and consolidate in New York when the VLT money showed up.”

She also largely abandoned buying at the sales.

“I used to buy a lot of young horses, yearlings, 2-year-olds in training and I'd shop all of the auctions, which I loved to do,” Rice said. “But I became it became very frustrating to me. We would go to the auctions. We'd spend a lot of money and there were all the expenses between hotels and everything else involved. And we had to invest a lot of time. I felt frustrated when we came home and we weren't getting the horses bought that we wanted. We were buying horses that really weren't on the list of horses to take home. So you go home with nothing. So I changed it up and I said, 'Well, let's try something different.' And that's when I started claiming more horses.”

She is so New York-centric that she has won only two races outside of the NYRA tracks all year, which has put her in position to break Jacobson's record. Is that something that is important to her?

Linda Rice | Coglianese

“I really hadn't thought about it much, but a few of my friends have been prompting me lately that I need to become a little more aggressive with my entries for the next couple of weeks,” Rice said. “I think we only have about eight days of racing left. The wins have been coming kind of slow and hard the last couple of weeks. So I don't know. And I told them, 'look, no matter what, it's been a great year.' And they pooh poohed that idea. They said, 'Oh, no, oh, no, you need to dig down, dig deep, get this done.'”

Rice also scored a major victory in the courtroom during the year. The New York Gaming Commission was looking to suspend her for three years for allegedly receiving favorable treatment from the racing office that could have given her an advantage over her rivals. The courts intervened and called the three-year suspension “shockingly unfair,” which forced the Gaming Commission to drop the ban.

“It was a very trying long process to finally get there,” she said. “My family has told me, that the fact that I've been able to maintain the level that I have professionally under that type of pressure is quite amazing. But it has been a huge relief to have it finally behind me. It was very stressful, very hard on myself, my family, to watch me go through that. But we were very pleased with the appellate decision and glad to have it over.”

Also on the show the hosts discussed the Coolmore Stallion of the Week, Corniche (Quality Road), an undefeated champion two-year-old now standing at stud at Coolmore America.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association,https://www.kentuckybred.org/https://www.nyrabets.com/ West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar Farm and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss and Bill Finley debated NYRA's decision to move the GI Belmont S. to Saratoga for 2024 and, most likely 2025. Finley was all in favor of the move and while Moss conceded that Saratoga was probably the right place to hold the race the distance should not have been shifted from 1 1/2 to a 1 1/4. Moss and Finley also discussed Pat Valenzuela's plans to begin riding again after a seven-year absence brought about by knee problems. Both agreed that he has an uphill climb in front of him.

Click for the video of the latest podcast or the audio-only version.

The post Linda Rice Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Pat Day Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Just a few days removed from his 70th birthday, Pat Day joined the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to talk his career, what he's been up to since retiring in 2005 and, most of all, the Breeders' Cup. Day rode Wild Again to victory in the inaugural GI Breeders' Cup Classic in 1984 and it was an historic win that helped turn the future Hall of Famer into one of the biggest stars in the sport. Day was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

“What that race meant for my career was monumental,” Day said. “First of all, let me back up. In January of 84, that was when I came to Christ. I was a stone alcoholic and a drug addict and was still highly successful in the midst of that. On January 27th of 1984, I accepted Christ into my life and got set free from that addictive lifestyle. I recognized that God had blessed me with tremendous talent and ability and opportunities and I started treating that with the respect that it deserved. Subsequently, I had an incredible year capped by the victory with Wild Again in the inaugural Breeders' Cup. That helped secure my first of four Eclipse Awards. I don't know that you could put a price on just what that did for my career. It was tremendous and catapulted me to the next level. I started getting opportunities after that to participate in the major races all over the country and to ride some of the top choices in those races.

If the Wild Again win was Day's top Breeders' Cup moment, his loss to Sunday Silence aboard Easy Goer in the 1989 Classic was surely his worst.

“When they came off the turn, Easy Goer was slow to change leads,” Day said. “He finally did. When he did, he caught on and accelerated, but obviously it was too little, too late. There was just so much hanging in the balance. The Eclipse Award for top 3-year-old. Horse of the Year. There were some tremendous accolades that hung in the balance. That Breeders' Cup was hard and the second hardest pill to swallow with him would have been the Preakness. I think I rode a horrible race and I think that I cost him the race in the Preakness. Easy Goer was a great horse. The best I ever rode. I know the record doesn't reflect it but I still think he was better than Sunday Silence.”

Who was his toughest opponent?

“Day in and day out, the smartest, strongest rider I rode against on a regular basis was Jerry Bailey,” Day said. “He would draw up a game plan and he was able to implement that game plan just about every time.”

Who was the most competitive rider he ever went up against?

“With that subject, Angel Cordero's name always comes up,” he said. “We would laughingly say he could ride two or three horses in a race. Angel, I love you, man. He was an astute handicapper. And if he handicapped the race and he felt that you had the horse to beat, he was going to beat you. He felt like if he beat you he would win the race. He was very competitive.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by 1/ST Racing, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, WinStar Farm, the KTOB, XBTV and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley discussed Frankie Dettori's decision to postpone his retirement and focus on U.S. racing in 2024 and the GI Kentucky Derby. The team agreed that Dettori, who has been riding in top form this year, deserved at least one more year. Finley predicted he might decide to keep riding for two or three more years. They also reviewed last week's action which included a win by European shipper Mawj (Ire) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) in the GI Queen Elizabeth Challenge Cup S. at Keeneland and the ultra-impressive win by City of Troy (Justify) in the G1 Dewhurst S. at Newmarket.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Pat Day Joins The TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Keeneland’s Cormac Breathnach Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

It's a busy time at Keeneland. The September sale has just ended, the fall race meet is upon us and the November sale is right around the corner. With that in mind, the TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland called upon Keeneland Director of Sales Operations Cormac Breathnach to fill us in on the latest from one of America's favorite racetracks. Breathnach was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.

The foal crop keeps dropping every year, but that doesn't seem to affect the September sale. There were 4,215 horses entered in the sale this year, the second straight year that number had increased. Breathnach was asked how Keeneland has avoided a downturn in the number of horses entered in the sale.

“It's a great question, and I'm not sure there's an easy answer, but there's a lot of things that we look at in there,” Breathnach said. “We're very grateful for the support that we get. Twenty-four percent of the entire North American foal crop goes through the Keeneland September sale, which is staggering. It's a tribute to the people who came long before Tony (Lacy) and I, people like Rogers Beasley and Geoffrey Russell and everybody else that made this sale what it is today. We're just trying to be stewards to advance that as far as we can. There are a lot of very clever, very experienced, very dedicated commercial breeders. And thankfully for us, they're looking to our September sale as a large outlet for their for their stock every year. That's a privilege for us, but also a huge responsibility that we do the best we can with what they're bringing us.”

The November sale will feature stars like GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel (Mizzen Mast), Grade I winner Dalika (GER) (Pastorious {GER}) and Puca (Big Brown). Puca is the dam of GI Kentucky Derby winner Mage (Good Magic) and will also be carrying a foal who is a full sibling to Mage. The sale will also give buyers their first chance to buy mares who are in foal to 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline (Tapit).

“We've had a lot of calls about Flightline already from all over the world about what mares are going to be in the catalog that he was bred to and how many and so on,” Breathnach said. “I think he's going to create the splash that everybody expects. People still remember that last year we sold a 2 1/2 percent share in him that went for $4.6 million. We're excited to continue that story.”

Keeneland opened Oct. 6 with its Fall Stars Weekend. Like everyone else, Breathnach is looking forward to what should be a great weekend of racing.

“It's going to be fantastic,” he said. “We have 11 stakes this weekend. Eight of them are Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' races. It's three unparalleled days of action here. One race that I think really jumps out to me is the Darley Alcibiades. I think that race is loaded. Look at the morning line, you've got fillies like Alys Beach at 20-1. It could be one of the best races of the year. The whole weekend, it's going to be action packed, turf and dirt sprints, races going long on the turf and dirt. I can't wait for it.”

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Retired Racehorse Project, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar Farm, XBTV.com and 1/ST Racing, Lane's End, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss discussed a story in the TDN in which John Sikura called for a massive purse increase for the GI Kentucky Derby and the GI Kentucky Oaks. While agreeing with Sikura, Finley pointed out that Churchill Downs has very little incentive to increase the pot. The team reviewed last weekend's big slate of races, which included a win by Cody's Wish (Curlin) in the GII Vosburgh S. Looking ahead, the trio agreed that the GI Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland could be the highlight of the weekend as it could be a showdown of the best turf horse in the U.S. in Up to the Mark (Not This Time) and the Charlie Appleby trained star Master of the Seas (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}).

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Keeneland’s Cormac Breathnach Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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