ThatsAmoreStable.net

Though our races are run in circles, we speak of them as journeys.

Horses are sent off, away from the post.  They have a good trip, or a bad trip.  And most poignantly, they come home.

Except, of course, when they don’t.

And yesterday, in a Kentucky Derby that combined triumph and tragedy in equal measure, the filly Eight Belles did not come home.  Her journey ended in a heap on the racetrack, nearly a quarter mile after the finish line, in a place and a manner that left longtime observers dumbfounded.  A journey that began with 20 horses and a passel of Derby dreams ended with one fewer horse and many more questions than dreams.

What devastated trainer Larry Jones described as the race of Eight Belles’ life cost her, in the final accounting, exactly that: her life.  And now racing is left with the baggage of a journey ended too soon in front of too many: questions, accusations, recriminations. 

The finger-pointing has begun.  Blame over-breeding, too much pressure to race too soon, or dirt race courses.  Point to ego, or greed, or simple callousness.  Some of these may have contributed to Eight Belles’ demise.  Or, perhaps, none of them did; perhaps it was a random outcome having nothing to do with any of these.

Over time, we’ll have answers to some of these questions.  Others will always belong to the realm of conjecture.  Eight Belles’ death will generate news and opinions by the bushelful.

What is less certain is whether it will lead to answers to the question that really matters:  How much risk is too much?

For the simple truth is that neither racing nor any other activity with horses can be risk-free.  Horses are heavy-bodied, spindly-legged animals which are hyper-sensitive to perceived threats in their environment and possessed of only one meaningful defense mechanism, their uncanny ability to carry speed over distance.  That’s a delicate combination of traits.  Horses in the wild, at the race track, and living out placid lives on happy farms are all subject to sudden, gruesome breakdowns.  It comes with the territory.

But while all horses are susceptible to breakdowns, they are not equally so.  Racing, which places extra demands — more speed, more stamina — will at the same time create more risk.  Which again points to the question of how much is too much.

Some will say that any amount of additional risk is too much, because thoroughbreds aren’t choosing their fate as racehorses but rather are forced to perform for our egos, or amusement, or enrichment.  But to watch the babies galloping over the autumn fields, sorting out by speed, or the stallions racing along the fence line, or old John Henry detouring his morning walk to stand in the winner’s circle, is to see that the issue of choice is cloudier than some might imagine.  Thoroughbreds love to run and to compete; they are designed for motion and take joy in speed.  That’s why the story of the older horse, so unhappy in retirement that he’s brought back to training, is so common.

If it is to survive, racing must confront its demons: over-breeding, over-medicating, too-young racing, and others.  These are the bad choices of a disfunctional marketplace that punishes patience.  They are the inevitable result of a system that exhalts horses too young and discards them too soon.  Racing can — it must — do more to reduce risk and protect the equine athletes whose grace and power captivate us so.

But racing’s fans must also come to terms with — and explain to the rest of the world — this fact: some risk is inherent in any activity with horses.  The risks of racing — one to two catastrophic breakdowns per 1,000 starters — don’t seem so overwhelming.  Until, suddenly, they do.  Some horses will not come home.

The linguistic longing for home that pervades horse racing also recalls another endeavor whose risk is unrecognized until it suddenly, unbearably confronts us: going, as the Bible says, “down to the sea in ships.”  And it is from this nautical background that Eight Belles’ name presumably derives.

Eight bells — the chiming of the ship’s bell eight times — signifies the end of one watch and the beginning of the next.  The departing watchman, after an uneventful watch, would report: Eight bells, and all is well.  It is a time of ending, and also a time of beginning.  The old watch departs, the new watch takes over, the cycle begins anew with one bell.

And so, the question for racing: after Eight Belles, when all is most assuredly not well, what then?  When will one bell ring?

Just a few days until the annual rite of julep-quaffing, hat-wearing, C-list celebrity elbow-rubbing, and horse-gawking known as the Kentucky Derby arrives.

My wife and I have gone intermittently to the Derby, but we won’t be in attendance this year.  This means that — at least in theory — my losses for the day should be limited to what I wager, as opposed to the flight, hotel, ticket, and of course, julep money that has leapt from my wallet the last couple of years.

Not being in attendance is good for me. It will prevent me from cluttering up my mind with information that won’t help me. Had I not gone last year, for example, I would never have known what a fit and gorgeous horse Zanjero was. And not knowing that would certainly have saved me some money Derby day.

Moreover, had I not gone last year, I would not have had the opportunity to ignore the virtually unanimous advice of those who’d been poking around the backstretch for the week — that Street Sense was truly in his glory and ready to run a huge effort. Ha! Those “insiders” couldn’t fool me with their dastardly efforts to give everyone within earshot the winner; I didn’t fall for that trick.

Still, some Derbies have been more profitable than that for me.  Here’s a couple of my favorite Derby memories:

* The guy who sidled up to me at the hotel bar and announced that he had a system.  I sighed; systems never work.  But I asked what it was anyway, because I can’t resist the lure of a good story.  Sure enough: “Always bet on a horse whose name has an ‘R’ as the third letter,” he confided.  That year’s winner? Barbaro.  Then, of course, Street Sense.  This year? Pyro?

* The earnest, hardworking waitstaff at various Louisville restaurants who kept assuring us that the Derby Pie was not made on premises (turns out it’s a trademarked product only available from one place).  “Oh, no, we don’t make it,” said one.  “We get it right from the manufacturer.”  A pie manufacturer?

* Of course, they also don’t know what’s in it.  One waiter, when queried, replied, “It’s, uh… chocolate… and pie… filling.”  Got that?

* Pre-Derby Thursday visits to the backstretch the last couple of years, and the chance to gawk at the big-time horses: Street Sense, Barbaro, and a beautiful filly named Rags to Riches.  Perhaps you’ve heard of her…

* The teller’s reaction when I cashed my War Emblem-Proud Citizen exacta: after that race, I couldn’t find the payouts anywhere in our far corner of the grandstand. Finally, when I went to cash the teller asked, smilingly, if I’d hit a big one. I told her that I wasn’t sure but thought I might have.  As the numbers popped up on the screen, her eyes widened and she gasped, “You did hit a big one!”

* The two drunk college-age guys who, after the Derby one year, walked back up to their hotel singing “Where the Turf Meets the Surf,” the Del Mar theme song.  Over and over and over.  Catchy tune, but still…

* Weekends spent with friends old and new at the racetrack — now there’s a can’t miss proposition!

On the other hand, my musings for this year fall in the “likely to miss” category, especially since I’m discussing them in public without, technically, having handicapped for even one second.  Still, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that this race, more than any other, is one that people (read: me) are likely to overthink.

I’ll echo Andy Beyer in this regard: my best Derby scores ultimately came not from an exhaustive survey of every race run by every horse, but from one particular insight. For example, with Funny Cide: if you’d watched the Wood that year, and thrown out Bobby Frankel’s claims that Empire Maker could have won as he pleased, you’d have seen that Funny Cide was getting to Empire Maker at the end, and would have caught him in a longer race. When one of those was the chalk on Derby day and the other a 12-1 outsider, it became an easy choice. So, my best advice is not to overthink this race; find something you can grab onto, and hold it for dear life!

Other thoughts:

* I have a hard time seeing either of Pletcher’s pair — Monba and Cowboy Cal — having much impact on this race.  By the way, kudos to blogging colleague Swifty for informing us of this little tidbit: Todd Pletcher stands on the brink of a Derby record of the sort we’d never associate with the win machine he’s become: first trainer to train the last place finisher in the Derby three straight years and the first to train five tail-enders.

* The hand-wringing over the prep races run on the synthetic surfaces strikes me as somewhat overdone. Still, for myself, I’ll demand that a horse have demonstrated decent form on regular dirt before playing him in the Derby; for example, if you were a Monba fan (which I’m really not) you could argue that his Fountain of Youth was a toss and point back to a good allowance win at Churchill over Macho Again. For others — like Colonel John, impressive in the Santa Anita Derby — you’ve got no regular dirt form at all. Tough to take less than a good number on those types, in my opinion.

* In my mind, the last time a Derby trainer was as publicly confident — bordering on arrogant — as Dutrow is now with Big Brown was Frankel and Empire Maker. How’d that work out?

* You certainly can’t fault Big Brown’s efforts to date; heck, no one’s been anywhere near him even at the stretch call in his three races to date. He dispelled most lingering doubts by thrashing the Florida Derby field in fine style. Still, I’m not sure I’d want short odds on a horse with three starts against competition he absolutely obliterated.  He looks kinda like Curlin — supremely talented, light on seasoning — and that one was one race short of where he needed to be on the first Saturday in May.  On the other hand, for that analogy to work, you also need Street Sense and Hard Spun, and it’s hard to find them here.

* A lot of folks loved Z Fortune’s race in the Arkansas Derby. I’m not one of them.  What was more interesting than his being wide on the turns is that when he ranged up on Gayego, he couldn’t get by. In fact, once he moved within about a length, that was it — no more progress. Had they gone around the track another time, he still wouldn’t have gotten by.  Of the pair, I’ll take Gayego.

* I don’t think Bob Black Jack will win. But I love to watch the horse run; he’s got a beautiful, smooth stride and seems to float across the course.

* I don’t think Eight Belles will win, either, but she could.  She’s earned her shot at the race.

* In that vein, there was a lot of hand-wringing over her being cross-entered.  I suppose if I’d owned one of the bubble horses, I’d have been frustrated, too — but I can’t blame the filly’s connections at all.  Trainers often cross-enter horses in search of the right spot, and I can’t blame Jones for doing it in this case.  It may make the case that the Derby should have an also-eligible list, but it doesn’t make the case that Eight Belles’ connections did anything wrong.  I suspect every owner and trainer in that spot would make the exact same decisions.

The last couple years, I’ve handicapped the Derby absolutely to death, changing and re-changing my picks until they were fine-tuned just perfectly — and wrong.

This year? I’m gonna treat it like the third race on a Thursday at Pimlico, say a $14,000 claimer. Look it through, assess horses’ form, think about the pace, make a decision — get in, get out, get on the way.

I’ll probably still be wrong, but at least I won’t have agonized over the process!

Good luck, everyone!

Meet Irish Colony.

He’s a gelded, eight year-old son of Larrupin’ who’s been kicking around the mid-Atlantic racing scene since the middle of 2003.  Because of an extraordinarily varied career, he’s also the perfect horse to demonstrate the complexities of responsibility in the racing world.

Of course, owners and trainers are responsible for the health and well-being of their equine charges during their racing careers.  No one questions that.  But at career’s end, the question becomes murkier.  Our current system of what amounts to fee-simple ownership means that the owner of the horse in his last race is responsible for the horse’s care ever after, or at least until s/he finds someone else to assume the responsibility.

While it’s an obligation that reputable horsemen — most horsemen — take seriously, the prevalence of negative outcomes for horses leads one to question: Does the system work? Is it fair?  Does it make sense?

And that leads us to Irish Colony.

He began his career in maiden claiming company, debuting for the princely sum of $16,000 and breaking his maiden, in his fourth career start for $11,500.  Two races later, he was yours for just $10,000.

But a curious thing happened on the way to a non-descript career; Irish Colony figured it all out.  Two races after romping for $10,000, he won a starter handicap on Maryland Million Day with a 91 Beyer figure.  Soon enough, he won a couple of allowance races and then, at 38-1 odds, got up for third in the 2004 Jim McKay Handicap at Pimlico while posting a career-best 104 Beyer.

More strong performances followed.  Another allowance win preceeded two more thirds in stakes company, the Find Handicap at Pimlico and the 2004 Maryland Million Classic.  Finally, on November 20 of that year, Irish Colony broke through, upsetting the Hadry Stakes at Pimlico with a 1 1/2 length victory, defeating retiring graded-stakes star Bowman’s Band.

From there, however, things went awry.  After two more good starts in stakes company, injuries forced the horse to the sidelines for nine months.  Returning with three uninspiring starts, Irish Colony found himself dropped in for $7,500 — the first horse I’d ever considered claiming.  He won that day by five lengths, was claimed (not by me), and so began the next phase of his career.

Since then, Irish Colony has been claimed six more times.  His form tailed off so badly in 2006 that he ended up in $2,500 company at Penn National, where, in his first try, he was a well-beaten third.  Next out, he won in the same company and kicked off a five race winning streak.  Gradually, he made his way all the way up to $12,500 company before declining slightly; his last couple of starts have been for $5,000, including his most recent win, in February ‘08.

All in all, Irish Colony has won 21 of 70 starts (with 19 other placings), earned more than $400,000, and won or placed in five stakes races.  He’s run at least 100 Beyer speed figure three times and 90 a few other times.

He’s also had eight different owners and nine different trainers over his five-year career — indeed, over the last two-and-a-half years, since he was a Ryehill Farm homebred runner until December 2005.

His story, while remarkably varied — bottom to top to bottom again — is not that unusual.  In fact, horses in his last race had been claimed, on average, more than three times each.  Most horses end up in the claiming ranks, and when they do, they get passed around.

So, when his career ends — which, as an eight year-old with more than a little mileage on him, could be sooner, rather than later — whose responsibility is he?  And whose should he be?

Of course, under the current system, the last owner (currently owner-trainer Scott MacKinnon, who claimed the horse for $5,000 in January) will bear the responsibility long-term.

The unfortunate prevalence of neglected horses and the ongoing debate about preventing horses from reaching the meat man suggest, however, that this system is less than ideal.  In fact, it perversely encourages owners and trainers to run unsound horses to try to avoid long-term responsibility.  Keeping a horse is an expensive proposition; even keeping one for a couple of months while trying to find a soft landing can cost you into the thousands of dollars (as we discovered a couple of years ago when we retired an injured racemare).  That’s a lot of money to owners with less than deep pockets.

Even if the system worked, is it even fair?  Scott Mackinnon has the responsibility.  But he’s owned the horse for just four races.

On the other hand, Ryehill owned him for the longest time (over 30 races), had the most victories (12), earned the most money, and likely had the most fun.  And of course, several other owners and trainers owned the horse for periods ranging from six weeks to about a year.

Who’s responsible?

It seems to me that the case of Irish Colony makes clear that, for most horses, the right concept is not one of outright ownership but of a chain of responsibility that begins with the breeder and flows through every subsequent owner.  In other words, Irish Colony isn’t just Scott MacKinnon’s responsibility; everyone who’s owned the horse at some point in his career has a stake in the horse’s long-term well-being.

The problem of end-of-career horses doesn’t belong just to their last owner but to an entire industry.  Its prevalence results from innumerable, interweaved factors: the rise of commercial breeding and year-round racing, purses that in many places haven’t kept pace with the cost of living, changing social mores that (rightly) have eliminated the easy option of the meat man, individual decisions and actions, and many more.  Simply put, the problem is not just the result of bad individual decisions but is, in some ways, systemic.  It’s also a problem that won’t simply go away and will, in fact, demonstrate (maybe fairly, maybe not) to the general public whether thoroughbred racing can be the good steward of the animals in its charge that this twenty-first century demands.  Each error that we make — each Ferdinand-type story — reinforces the (incorrect) notion that racing is a cold, callous, and ultimately cruel undertaking.

The answer, clearly, is an industry-wide solution (which, unfortunately, is a synomym for “unlikely to happen”) which enshrines the shared responsibility concept.  The most obvious approach would be the creation of a national fund, the moneys for which would come from a small surcharge on all thoroughbred transactions: from the stud fee to the auction price to the purse payment.  The fund could support existing and, as necessary, new operations that care for and, when possible, retrain retired racehorses for other purposes.  The idea is to provide an easy way out for owners: a guaranteed spot in a horse retirement or retraining facility for their retiring thoroughbreds and the funds, generated by the industry as a whole, to care for the horses in their long post-racing years.

There are, no doubt, many pitfalls to such a proposal; and, as always, the devil would be in the details.  But the current system is no system at all — and no solution at all, either.

Irish Colony finished third the other day in a $5,000 claimer, a couple of lengths behind another eight year-old, former That’s Amore runner Skycrossing, who has himself been claimed four times in a 55-race, $240,000+ career.

The journey continues for both of them.  The question now, for both, is where it will end.

The other day at Pimlico, track handicapper Frank Carulli announced that owner Michael Gill had claimed 56 horses in Maryland in the space of about one month, spending north of half a million dollars — and possibly pretty far north — in the process.

Which, for those of you keeping score at home, is a lot of horses, and a lot of dollars. But if you’d been following the charts, it was no surprise at all, since Gill was showing up multiple times each day in the claim box.

We lost a horse, Terri’s T Bird, to a Gill claim last month. To which, one reader of this blog responded: “Urgh!”  That non-word sums up the feelings of many for Mr. Gill.

I suppose that’s no surprise. Gill comes across as brash, prickly, a bit abrasive. He came from nowhere to winning hundreds of races annually, in the process changing trainers about as often as the rest of us change shoes, earning the undying enmity of some in the business, winning a top owner Eclipse Award, and announcing that he was getting out of the business altogether — a lot of drama in a short time.

For all that, I think it’s good that he’s back. (Let me preface this by saying I have no idea how he treats the horses in his care, including end-of-career horses. He’s had some good horsemen as his trainers, so I assume his horses are about as well cared for as anyone else’s, and I have no idea how he deals with retirees. So take my comments in that light.)

For one thing — the most obvious thing — he brings a lot of money into the game, which is to the benefit of everyone involved.

For another, he’s willing to gore the sacred cows in the game, and that’s a good thing. He’s willing to point out what should be obvious: that the leadership of racing is a small, exclusive club too often concerned with itself and not the betterment of the game. Sometimes — oftentimes — that works to his own detriment, as when he was largely shut out of Delaware after his shopping sprees raised some hackles. But holding the feet of the insiders to the fire is a good thing that promotes increased accountability and responsiveness to the public.

Moreover, I confess an appreciation for a guy with lots of money who chooses to tackle this game the workingman’s way: by claiming hardscrabble horses at hardscrabble tracks like Suffolk and Laurel. He’s got the money to do it the blueblood way, by buying expensive auction babies, but instead he chose a different route — to mingle, so to speak, with the common folk. It’s hard not to suspect that, had he piled his millions into the Keeneland sales rather than the Laurel claim box, he’d be viewed in a different light; his excesses, so outrageous as a claiming owner, might be more acceptable as he accepted the Woodlawn Vase.

Finally, and perhaps most important, there’s this: the claiming game, like any market, depends on sufficient buyers and sellers to work properly. Too few sellers means too few races, or too many races with short fields. Too few buyers relieves the pressure to place your horses prudently; it allows trainers to take more chances to plunge horses to spots below their capabilities, which makes for less competitive races (and less betting).

Moreover, claiming owners depend in part on “churn”; of course, a Lava Man-style home run is the hope of all claims, but in the vast majority of cases, that $10,000 horse you just claimed really is worth about $10,000 — maybe $15,000, maybe $5,000, most likely not, say, $500,000. So then the goal is buy low-sell high; win a couple of races, ideally move the horse up a notch or two, sell him to the next guy.

And unlike the folks who typically populate graded stakes winner circles, most folks in the claiming game are on tight budgets. The economic pressures on them are real, and the need to sell horses at the right moment critical to their ability to stay in the game. For most, they can only take the financial hit of so many retirees before the money runs out.

All of which is to say that Gill, or people like him, are critical to the health of the claiming game. It’s a fascinating game, with more in-depth analysis than handicapping and more bluffs and feints than high-stakes poker. It’s also, ultimately and more importantly, a marketplace that significantly benefits from the presence of aggressive, deep-pocketed owners willing to take a chance.

I’ve lost one horse to Gill’s latest shopping spree, and I suspect it won’t be the last. But that’s the risk you take in this game; by putting a horse in a claiming race, you’ve become a willing seller. You can’t blame the buyers if they’re willing, too.

Spring has sprung on the mid-Atlantic region, which means, among other things, the Pimlico spring meet is upon us.  Good news for racing fans, indeed.

The Pimlico spring meet is Maryland’s marquee racing meet, a stakes-stuffed two-month stand which will, for a time, command the attention of the racing world.  The Preakness (May 17), of course, is the second jewel of the Triple Crown and, with a $1,000,000 purse, the richest racing event in the state.  The meet will also feature 26 other stakes, including nine graded events.  The Grade I Pimlico Special returns from a one-year hiatus, with a reduced purse which the track funded from its own accounts (with help from a sponsor), to join such races as the Grade II Black Eyed Susan and the Grade II Dixie on the calendar.

More than 5,800 fans — which the Washington Post described as a “festive crowd” — turned out for yesterday’s opening day, highlighted by an upset winner in the Star De Naskra Stakes.  This weekend’s racing features four Saturday stakes, including the Federico Tesio, Maryland’s traditional prep for the Preakness, to be shown live on ESPN.  Among the Tesio starters to run well in the middle jewel are 1983 Preakness winner Deputed Testamony — the last Maryland-bred winner of the Preakness — and Preakness runners-up Oliver’s Twist (1995) and Magic Weisner (2002).  The weekend also “features” — well, perhaps that’s a bit strong — That’s Amore runner Abbicadabra in a claimer on Sunday.

The bad news?  For one thing, the numbers are back on Laurel’s winter meet.  Running a reduced, four-day-a-week schedule, the track reported that total wagering dropped by 24 percent.  Even worse, average daily handle, both at the track and via outside sources, declined significantly. 

Maryland Jockey Club president Chris Dragone said that the MJC is planning a marketing push to bring more dollars into the coffers and trying to develop new modes of communicating with bettors.  But, he added, “There are corporate restrictions out there.  We’re not just the Maryland Jockey Club making decisions alone.” 

“Corporate restrictions”?  That, apparently, is a euphemism for whatever it is that Magna Entertainment is trying to accomplish with its Maryland properties.  It’s pretty unusual for executives to step out and criticize, or question, Magna and chairman Frank Stronach.  Which leads one to wonder whether Mr. Dragone will soon meet the fate of seemingly all Magna executives — the unemployment line.

Oh, and of course, there’s this little slots referendum thing hanging out there — and an aggressive, organized opposition that’s already mobilizing to defeat it.

As always in the Free State, it’s a mixed bag.  Which leaves us no choice but to enjoy a sunny spring at Old Hilltop, and hope for the best.

In my last post, I proposed the use of standings at each track as a way to reorganize the condition book, broaden racing’s appeal to the casual fan, and reward local horsemen for supporting the local product.

I was thinking, as I wrote that, primarily about local standings for local tracks — that is, each track creating standings for each specific meet.

But there’s no reason that the standings idea couldn’t be used on a national level.  In fact, the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance keeps national standings.  You can read about the hows and whys here, and you can see the standings at their homepage.

It’s easy enough to quibble with the TBA’s system, and the writeup itself acknowledges the somewhat arbitrary nature of the numbers used.  You can debate whether each level of stakes receives the proper amount of points, whether first place should receive a higher share of the points than it does, or whether horses should receive some additional “bonuses” for extraordinary performances. 

Nevertheless, the TBA’s system enshrines two values that I think are critical to any system of standings: excellence and frequency.  Winning at the highest level ought to be worth a lot more than coming in second, or winning at a lower level, and the TBA’s standings do that.  What’s more, it seems to me that standings ought to reward horses for repeated excellence, and the TBA system does that, too; simply, a horse which races more frequently has more point-scoring opportunities, and that’s all to the good.  If standings ever were adopted broadly, they ought to encourage connections to race their horses; as much as I loved Ghostzapper, a four-race campaign isn’t exactly the stuff of legend, and standings ought not to reward that.

Which brings us to the Kentucky Derby.  And its idiotic system of determining eligibility based on graded stakes earnings.  Sigh.

The problems here are many and have been discussed in other venues.  Briefly:

1. If you’re going to accept the idea that graded stakes are superior to other stakes, then it makes no sense to treat the different grades as equal, but that’s what the Derby system does. 
2. By lumping all the graded races together, it rewards performance in a higher-purse, lower-grade stakes more than performance in a higher-grade stake.
3. It also falls prey to local variations in purse payouts.  Derby eligibility certainly shouldn’t come down to how tracks calculate who gets what share of the purse.

In fact, the Derby is an ideal spot for TBA-style standings.  Most of the time, I suspect, standings would lead you to a Derby field not too dissimilar to the current system.  But it would be a smarter, fairer system — and easier to understand, too.  The public has already demonstrated in other sports its love of Top 20 (or 25) polls — and horse racing publications are rife with Derby Dozens and hotlists, etc. — and true standings could encourage even more fan participation and interaction.

The TBA’s explanation of its standings notes, rightly, that for standings to work properly, there must be an incentive for horses’ connections to seek standings points.   In the long run, racing ought to adopt standings for all categories in which an Eclipse is awarded.  In the short term, though, the Derby — the one moment in the racing year in which standings of a sort really do matter — could blaze a new trail and demonstrate to all of horse racing that standings can work — and make racing a better, more popular sport.

The other day, while watching our horse, Untamed Hero, finish third in a $25,000 never-two-lifetime claimer (details here), I got to thinking about all the buzz and energy that surround the Triple Crown trail — and the total lack of buzz and energy surrounding the rest of the racing season.  Which led me to the following musings…

Why do people like sports?

Many reasons, obviously, but one of the more important ones, I think, is that they present a bonding opportunity, a chance to form a “tribe” (an “us” and a “them”) — and it’s a bond which grows through, among other things, conversation. “What a game last night,” or “How many players on the Nationals are actually major league caliber?” or “I’m gonna break something when the Rangers lose to the Devils in the first round!” not only create and strengthen our bonds to others of our tribe — Nats fans, or loyal, long-suffering Rangers fans, or just sports fans in general — but also bond us to the sports themselves. Our love of, say, baseball grows when we speak with others about it.

Which relates to horse racing — the ostensible topic of this blog — thusly: there is more chatter, more buzz about the Triple Crown trail generally and the Kentucky Derby specifically than about any other American racing events, not because the Derby is a better race than, say, the Breeders’ Cup Classic — it’s not — but precisely because there is something to buzz about: a trail, a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and end.

We can reach out to others of our “tribe” with a shared lingo and understanding. Big Brown stamped himself legit in the Florida Derby; War Pass ran well but has questions; Atoned, not so much. We know the players, we know the races, and we can debate and dissect what each development means. That’s the fun of the season.

This is one of racing’s real problems, I think: that, outside of the Triple Crown trail, the races don’t go anywhere. The day to day racing product is a series of races of no real consequence; victory in one leads nowhere (except to the next condition, sometimes). There’s nothing to talk about (unless you’re a bettor crowing about your handicapping expertise), and therefore no real opportunity to bond people to the sport.

I’m not suggesting that we should reduce racing days; although that’s a proposal that in many places has merit, it’s beyond the scope of what I’m addressing here. I’m also not suggesting that the public would or should only care about better horses; in point of fact, the public doesn’t really understand the myriad class differences in racing and likely never will. Bottom claimers fighting it out head and head to the wire are just as exciting a show as top horses doing the same.

What I am suggesting, however is this: we need to reimagine the purpose of the condition book so that it not only creates competitive races (which most condition books do very well) — which are good for betting — but also creates a “season” so that races throughout each meet lead to something, such as a championship day.

While it could be complicated to pull off, it’s not hard to imagine how this could work. Segment the condition book into categories (e.g., claimers under $10,000, or allowance horses, or claimers $10,000-$25,000, etc.); award points to horses based on how they do in races in each category, so that you have real standings.  At the end of the meet, hold races with stakes-level purses for the horses at the top of the standings.

Such a system could accomplish many goals that tracks struggle with, such as:

• providing real standings that people can follow through the racing season;
• giving meaning to the day to day racing product (that $25,000 never-two now becomes, say, a point-earning opportunity in the novice division);
• marketing the sport creatively — e.g., “The top two horses in the Laurel Championship Division face off in an allowance test on Friday…”;
• encouraging local trainers to keep their horses local, rather than shipping;
• rewarding local horsemen for supporting the local product;
• creating another big racing day, as the championship day becomes the culmination of a journey.

Is this proposal the answer to all of racing’s problems? Of course not.

But our day to day racing product has lost its mojo, and providing more of the same is no answer at all.

Down in the post-race paddock at Laurel the other day, a familiar scene: an excited new owner, a trainer come to take possession of a horse he’s just claimed.

But with a twist: a crying groom, cooling the horse out, snapping, “Give me a minute!” to the trainer, like a grieving relative saying one last goodbye at the hospital bed.

You can’t get attached, they say.  And they’re right.  Horse racing is a business, and the horses are assets.  They must be deployed properly to attain maximum value.  You’ve got to put horses in races they can win; for most horses, that means they must be put somewhere on the claiming ladder.  And, when the horses are spotted properly, it means that you run the risk of losing them via the claim box.  The economics of racing are ruthless: risk the horse to earn a living, or keep the horse and slowly go broke.

You can’t get attached, they say.  But the old trainer tells me how he “cried like a baby” when his best-ever horse broke down.  And another trainer lets slip that his favorite horse lives out his lazy days in the trainer’s backyard.  And our own bills are fattened by the expenses of the never-raced filly and the likable but slow retiree gelding, loving life on the farm.

You can’t get attached.  But then again, you really can’t help but get attached.  After all, these horses, these assets, are also living creatures, with minds, and personalities, and needs, and desires, and histories of their own.  You can’t help but get attached to those who give their all, time after time.  You can’t help but get attached to a horse who struts his way to the winner’s circle, or who keeps fighting all the way to the wire, or who brings you the joy of victory.

That, in fact, is one of the enduring charms of horse racing.  It takes place at the intersection of human-equine interaction, and it rewards those people who successfully unlock the potential of their equine charges.  “Take care of the horses, and they’ll take care of you,” the old saying goes, but you can’t take care of the horses — can’t treat them with kindness and respect, can’t do the right thing for them even when it is financially painful for you — without also feeling an attachment to them.

Which is as it should be.  Attachment is the human reaction to those — family, friends, pets, race horses — who are willing to extend themselves to further our well-being.  Attachment makes the sport harder, more demanding on us — but it makes it better, too, and makes us better for remembering that our “assets” are living beings who put their faith and trust in us. 

And that’s not such a bad tradeoff.

As has been discussed elsewhere, the connections of Rags to Riches have announced her retirement (here’s an article if you missed it) and impending breeding to Giant’s Causeway.

Another compelling star bites the dust, in other words — or, at least, heads off to the breeding shed. This time, they tried to race her again; but the fragile equine body is a tricky thing, so much force crashing down on spindly legs, and hers wouldn’t hold up to the stresses of another racing season.

A couple of personal Rags memories.

Wandering the Churchill backstretch on Oaks eve, all heads turn, all eyes riveted: Who is that horse? we wonder. Who is that beautiful creature? Turns out it’s the undefeated left coast invader Rags to Riches, in Louisville to add the Oaks to her burgeoning collection of stakes wins. There were other magnificent-looking horses around, of course — Zanjero being one standout, appearance-wise, whose efforts on Derby day left some to be desired — but for two days, all my wife spoke of was the beautiful filly we’d just seen. And of course, Rags put the exclamation point on her good looks — to abuse a metaphor — by romping in the Oaks.

Fast-forward to Belmont day. We’re sitting in an OTB in New Haven, watching the races from Belmont. There are more women than usual, though for most of the day, you assume it’s simply because there are more people of every sort — men, women, old, young — than usual. It is Belmont day, after all. Shortly, though, the error in this analysis becomes clear. As the field turns for home, the usual ragtag assortment of shouts and muttered imprecations at the various horses gives way to a tremendous din. Virtually every woman in the place is standing, shouting, screaming, pleading with the filly to get up. The men’s voices are drowned out in a swelling chorus: Girl power, indeed.

TBA colleague Green but Game raises an interesting, barstool sort of question (here): Is Rags a legend?

For myself, I come down on the negative side. She was a terrific filly, and her Belmont performance was certainly the stuff of legend; indeed, that race itself will be legendary and will live on long after most other races are forgotten. But for me, a six-race (five-win) career is simply too short to be, in and of itself, legendary. Another year of excellence most likely would have gotten her to legendary status.

To my mind, a legendary horse needs to sustain their excellence over time. Perhaps the nearest recent analog is Ghostzapper, who made the figures guys blink and shake their heads with his stunning efforts during his Horse of the Year campaign, whose connections tried to bring him back for another year but were foiled by injury after one more great start — but whose period of excellence was only five races long. Great horse — perhaps the best in recent memory — but not a legend.

Still, the debate about “legend” status is, while entertaining, largely beside the point. Rags was a beautiful filly, a talented filly, a filly with heart and courage, and, for one day she created bonds that put millions of American women, in spirit at least, in the Belmont Park winner’s circle.

That’s a pretty nice career for any horse.

At Laurel this past weekend, a bloviating gentleman declared that this year’s three year-old crop was nothing — absolutely nothing — compared to last year’s. It’s a sentiment we’ve heard from others before, but it got me wondering.

I think most everyone agrees that last year’s group — particularly the big three at the top (Curlin, Hard Spun, Street Sense) — was excellent. So, of course, most years’ crops won’t measure up to that standard.

But you’d imagine — based on our rush to judgment about this year’s group — that the leaders of last year’s crop would already have stamped their greatness on the racetrack by this point of the year. As it turns out, by March 1 of 2007:

* Street Sense had yet to make his seasonal debut — and when he did, in the Tampa Derby, he barely prevailed despite an absolute dream trip. And he followed that up with a middling effort in the quirkily run Blue Grass.

* Hard Spun, who’d beaten absolutely nothing as a juvenile, had followed up a smashing win in the LeComte, his first foray into graded company, with a distant fourth in the Southwest, three lengths in arrears of the rather mediocre Teuflesberg.

* Curlin was still eligible for a first-level allowance, having broken his maiden in early February.

And this year? Pyro’s worst-to-first run in the LeComte was as scintillating as they come, no one’s shown the ability to run with the blazingly fast War Pass, and who knows what the future may hold. At this point in the year, three year-olds improve — and regress — with amazing rapidity. Down the road apiece, there’ll be plenty of time to compare this group to its predecessors; for now, seems like more fun to me to enjoy the ride.

* On a related note, last weekend’s Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel was probably the best renewal of that race in recent years. The race, which is the first in Maryland’s three-race leadup to the Preakness (followed by the Private Terms and then the Federico Tesio, the latter at Pimlico) has a modest purse ($70,000, including state-bred funds) and often a modest field. But Saturday’s running featured no fewer than four prior stakes winners — all of whom were left in the wake of the rapidly improving Gattopardo, who bided his time just off the leader, then cruised by to win by a widening margin of nearly three. He’s likely headed to the Bayshore at Aqueduct.