If it’s yesterdays news, does that make it olds?
Regardless, some news and notes from Maryland racing:
- Abel Castellano hit a grand slam of sorts yesterday when he won four races to move to the top of the riding leaderboard. I say “of sorts” because one of the wins, aboard 7-10 Lord Kipling in the second, came via disqualification when Alexis Batista and 8-1 Skip to the North, who had victory all but wrapped up, wandered across the track and cut off Castellano and his mount. Castellano had to steady, his horse did a little bit of a hop step, the inquiry sign went up, the objection sign went up, and soon enough, Skip to the North’s number came down. Too bad, really: Skip’s owner-trainer Richard Sillaman, who won two races in all of 2011, probably could use the win more than Lord Kipling conditioner Jamie Ness, who won 330. Still, kudos to Castellano; he’s been getting a chance to ride some decent horses, and he’s winning races.
- Why, yes, yes I did have Skip to the North in that race, and no, I’m not bitter at all. Not. At. All.
- Pedroia, Franstein, Angels Concerto, and Nightswimming have spent the last couple of months beating up on each other while toiling at the $5,000 level. They all posted yesterday, but it was class-dropping favorite All About Her (4-5) who got the money. Franstein, who led at the stretch call by two lengths, held second, and her nemeses took the third through fifth spots.
- The day featured a pair of second-level allowance races, and both generated strong winning efforts. In the sixth, at one mile, new four year-old Access to Charlie stalked Touch the Birds for a half-mile, disposed of that one, and then held off successive challenges from Omara Devil and All About Alex to earn a hard-fought one length score. At nearly 7-1, Terra Rolla didn’t catch the eye of too many bettors before the eighth, but she made a strong four-wide move to the lead and then held off Floating Alone under what the chart amusingly termed “energetic urging.” She stopped the clock for six furlongs in 1:10 1/5. And her victory got me home in the black – huzzah.
- Bettors showed a lot of what I considered inexplicable love to Jamie Ness-trainee Illusion of Speed in that race, favoring her for quite a while before sending her off as the second favorite at 3-1. I didn’t like her much at all in that spot, and, after looming a brief threat, she faded to a well-beaten third. Later, I learned that it wasn’t so much “bettors,” plural, showing her love as “bettor,” singular. Somebody dropped $800 on the horse — ouch.
- Maidens no more: Parker’s Love, who made his 15th time the charm when he nosed out Gung Ho Bill to win the first race at the $8,000 maiden claiming level; and three year-old Karen’s Saint, who dueled favored Lightning N Hail into submission and drew off to a five-length score.
- Others leaving a condition behind include Access to Charlie (N2X), Myrasira (never-won-two), Terra Rolla (N2X), and Diner Gal (never won two).
- And finally, those looking for evidence that these are sub-optimal days in the Maryland breeding business need look no farther than Saturday’s Dancing Count Stakes — the first stake of the year in the Free State. The six furlong test for three year-olds carries a $75,000 purse, plus $25,000 from the Maryland Bred Fund — a potentially rich payout for a good local-bred horse. But the field of seven includes three Pennsylvania-breds, two from Kentucky, one each from Florida and New York — and not a single Maryland-bred. Only The Camden Comet, by Not for Love, is Maryland-sired. It’s not a pretty state of affairs, and the picture doesn’t improve when you see that three of the trainers, including Chad Brown, who conditions favored (and, in this case, ironically named) Beggarthyneighbor, will make their first start of the year in Maryland in the race. It’s not a particularly accomplished field; no stakes winners, and just three of the horses have even won an allowance race.
Given the size of Saturday’s mutuel pools at Laurel, it’s safe to assume most of, well, everyone in racing wasn’t paying it much attention. I mean — less than $30,000 in the WPS pool for the fourth? On a Saturday? Yeesh.
Still, racing, as it always does, took place. Here’s whatcha missed:
- Peen on the green, and also the brown – Old local saying: Peen on the green. Meaning, bet on Mario Pino when he rides turf races. Also, lesser-known corollary: bet on Pino when he rides in dirt races. Pino rode the talented stakes-winning filly Red’s Round Table to victory in a stakes-caliber (despite the short field) money allowance in Saturday’s eighth. The win gave Pino, now 50, 6,389 triumphs for his career and sole possession of 12th place all-time for wins by a jockey. He needs 82 more to move into the top 10. Pino, best known for piloting Hard Spun during that horse’s stellar three year-old campaign, is a good rider and an astute handicapper, skills which have served him well during his career — including his one win for That’s Amore Stable, aboard Twisted Mister back in 2006.
- Oh, brother! At one level, racing is nothing more than a vast experiment in eugenics. (At another level, it’s the world’s largest insane asylum, but that’s a story for a different day). Breeders employ an array of tools and theories and, yes, superstitions all in pursuit of the big horse. When it all comes together nicely on, say, the first Saturday in May, you end up with a wisely crafted breeding that catches the world by surprise; you end up with Mine That Bird. When it works less well, you might end up with a modest but still useful horse toiling at the bottom of Maryland’s racing hierarchy; you might, for example, end up with Mine That Bird’s half-brother, aptly named Brother Bird. In Saturday’s second, Brother Bird, in for the tag of $4,500, zoomed to the early lead and never looked back, posting a two-length win. He was claimed out of the race.
- Your point is? What drives handle? Outside of a few big races and days, here’s what doesn’t drive handle: the quality of the horses in a race. Here’s what does: large fields of competitive horses. Saturday’s eighth, previously noted, was a stakes-caliber money allowance that, after a scratch, had just four starters; it generated a little over $48,000 in the WPS pool, which was only a bit more than the $41,000 for which the horses were racing. The ninth, on the other hand, drew 11 horses, with a lukewarm favorite going off at 2.2-1. The top four finishers were separated by just a head, a neck, and a nose; and the race generated more than $77,000 in the WPS pool — nearly eight times the purse of $10,000! Might be time to think about connecting purses to field size, eh?
- And finally… The head separating first from second in the ninth also –sigh — separated me from hitting the pick-four. It’d have been pretty chalky, but since I’d only invested nine bucks, that wouldn’t have bugged me much at all. But as the second and third-place finishers — both of which I had — hooked up in the final sixteenth and leaned on each other, 51-1 Ted’s Vision found a gap at the fence and shot past both of them to put his head in front. The chalky P4 I looked to have in the last jumps ended up being somebody else’s $3700 payday. As a friend said the other day after a tough beat, what you love about this game is the character-building aspect. Or something like that.
Last night’s Eclipse awards ceremony — at which racing’s glitterati pretend that the sport’s deck chairs are more important than its listing hull — provoked (in me, anyway) a number of questions. To wit:
- Since Animal Kingdom’s one boffo effort apparently trumped Caleb’s Posse’s clearly superior season — this choice really should have been the very definition of a no-brainer — why is that Drosselmeyer’s one boffo effort can’t even get him a sniff in the Older Male category?
- In the same vein, does this mean that all of the voters’ prior year pieties about the importance of the entire season, etc. were so much pablum spoon-fed the masses to shut them up?
- Given that Ken Ramsey has now won two — count ‘em, two — Owner of the Year trophies since being busted trying to bribe another owner to scratch out of a race to get a Ramsey horse in, has anyone asked him, as the Army asked Arlo Guthrie, “Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?”
- For the fourth straight year, the winner of the Classic at the Breeders’ Cup “World Championships” did not win Horse of the Year. How’s that championship thing working out?
- Old Breeders’ Cup slogan: “The Richest Event in Sports.” Possible new Breeders’ Cup slogan: “Where several of racing’s minor awards may be decided.”
We kid, of course, because we care.
Nah, that’s not it. We kid because, well, self-important awards ceremonies (and, really, there is no other kind) need kidding. Also, because, frankly, the system of racing all year and then having the results determined by a vote seems oddly pointless and silly. On the other hand, if the NFL did it this way, we could soon be talking about your NFL champion Denver Broncos. I could say more, but I have to go Tebow now.
Racing, have you rehabilitated yourself?
In the end, it was all about the beginning.
Though once again a bit reluctant to load into the gate, Rapid Redux knocked down his 21st consecutive victory yesterday, his 19th this year, in a race that was, for all competitve purposes, over before the horses hit the first turn. Three of Rapid’s rivals had led at every call in their last start, but all three ceded the lead to their speedier rival. As a result, Rapid Redux cleared off to a length-and-a-half lead after an opening quarter run in a moderate 24 1/5 seconds. By then, it was pretty much a question of who would fill out the exacta and the triple. Awesome Rhythm, sent off at 7-1, ran gamely to earn second, just a half-length behind the winner, but he was never really a threat to get the money. No Brakes, fingered by Redux’s jockey JD Acosta as the horse that worried him most, rallied late into third. The time for 8.5 furlongs was a legit 1:45.08, equivalent to first-level allowance horses in the following race and about 2/5 slower than second allowance horses in the eighth.
Track announcer Dave Rodman said that Rapid Redux was giving the Laurel fans what they wanted, and surely that was so. Fans were three deep around the paddock before the race, and a baker’s dozen of media outlets covered the race — approximately 13 more than cover Laurel’s normal race day. Owner Robert Cole — who said the word “blessed” approximately 3000 times in his post-race interview — was visibly emotional in the winner’s circle after the victory. And, while there are questions, some serious, about some of Rapid’s prior victories, the field Rapid Redux faced yesterday was certainly solid for the level; both Awesome Rhythm and No Brakes had recent victories over similar, and No Brakes had beaten a field of starters by more than eight lengths just three back, following that up with consecutive good efforts against second allowance horses. Herewith, some pix from the day:
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Walkin’ the paddock.
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Blinks on even before he arrives in the paddock.
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Everybody wants a piece — big crowd around the winner’s circle.
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The star of the show gets his due.
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Post-race – hey, where’d everybody go?!?!
The plot, as the old pot-boilers had it, thickens.
Namely: five days left in the racing season at Laurel, and there is still no agreement on 2012 dates between the tracks and the horsemen. One person tells me that we’ll end up with dates that look more or less the same as this year’s; another tells me we’ll end up with pretty much squat. At least there’s perfect confusion.
Meanwhile, a good — or maybe not — story continues this afternoon at the central Maryland oval as Rapid Redux goes for his 19 win of the year and 21st in a row. Though 19 has been widely considered a one-year record, new research indicates that other horses have exceeded that number. Still, in an era where the average horse straggles to the starting gate just a half-dozen times annually, 19 consecutive wins would be quite a feat.
Unless, of course, the game had been rigged. Which some believe was the case in at least one prior race. The stewards at Charles Town investigated RR’s October 14 race — which became his 18th consecutive victory — after fevered pre-race, backstretch whispering indicated that two Scooter Davis-trained horses — Disco Indy and Valid Venture — would scratch from the race. ‘Lo and behold, Davis’ van broke down, the two horses — presumed to be the major threats to the streak — scratched, and RR cruised to an easy win at 2-5. Certainly, the story — read it here — is a little smoky, but the stewards found no fire.
In today’s sixth, Rapid Redux should gun from the gate and figures to be the controlling speed here. Still, Awesome Rhythm, First Nite, and Zosogood all exit races in which they led at every call. If any — or all — of them commit to being in front early, RR may get a test late when No Brakes and Shamroge — both dropping from allowance company — come rolling along. Barring, of course, late scratches.
Finally, in the unexpected good news category, is this: at its November meeting, the Racing Commission heard testimony that Maryland licensed owners, who are required to pay an assessment to the state’s Jockey Injury Compensation Fund, would have to pony up around $600 each for 2012 — after having paid just $50 for 2011. A change in insurers, a new policy, etc. This news caused extensive weeping and gnashing of teeth, not least from me; $600 is real money. So it was a mild relief to open the license renewal package and find the assessment to be just $100. No explanation as to what happened, but it’s one gift horse whose mouth will likely remained unlooked at.
Today’s Blood-Horse (here) asks, in a headline, if horse ownership is “more about love than money.”
Well, as the kids say, duh.
Anyone who’s owned horses for any period of time can tell you that, from an economic perspective, the numbers in racing simply don’t work. Sure, some horses make money; sure, some owners will make money in this or that year. But the fundamental issue — the reason it’s hard to bring new owners into the game and to keep them involved once they do get in — is summed up in the old joke about how to make a small fortune in racing: first, you start with a large fortune. Horses, on average, don’t even make enough to pay their annual training and vet bills, let alone making back their purchase price.
These days, in some locations, this reality has been obscured — happily, for owners — by slot machine revenues, which have dramatically boosted purses at places like Parx, Delaware Park, Charles Town, and, soon, the NYRA tracks. Because of these purse increases — because the slots bring in revenue that racing does not — owning horses in some places may be, at least for a time, what the gamblers call a positive expectation play.
But for how long?
All businesses are in the same line of work — making money — and the successful (read, rational) ones will be ruthless about culling those elements of their product line which drag down their bottom lines. No one can reasonably expect that slots and gambling hall operators, whether or not they are racetrack companies, will continue to subsidize the racing side of their business indefinitely. Indeed, the good folks who run Penn National Gaming have been all too clear that, in their eyes, racing is a dying business that they tolerate for now, but probably only for now. Later is a different question.
Which gets to racing’s other long-term problem: The sport is failing in really a rather spectacular way. Total handle, which is down more than seven percent this year, declined in six of the seven years from 2004 to 2010. The total drop in that period was more than 24 percent, and, if current numbers hold, the drop from 2004 to 2011 will exceed 30 percent. The 2010 handle of $11 billion and change was the lowest since 1995.
It’s not exactly a news flash that this industry is in what the elder George Bush called deep doo-doo. In fact, the current trends, coupled with dysfunctional leadership with an absolute, unwavering commitment to doing everything the same way it’s always been done regardless of the changing landscape, make it hard to see a bright future for our game.
Still, people do continue to buy horses, to the dismay of their accountants. And that points to at least one factor in racing’s favor: that it inspires a strong, in fact an irrational, passion in some people. The question is whether, in the long run, that will be enough.
The American Graded Stakes Committee this week released its list of graded stakes for the coming year (here). So, what’d we learn?
First, we learned that this must be a true golden age of horse racing. Either that, or that it’s getting easier to earn graded money, which is a boon to breeders (my really rather slow horse is graded stakes-placed!) and to people selling broodmares but not so much to racing fans in general. From 2007 to 2010, the number of races run in the US declined every year, from more than 51,000 to just over 46,000 — a drop of nearly 10 percent, with a further decline of an additional three percent-plus so far in 2011. The number of stakes eligible for grading fell from 722 to 659, a reduction of 8.7 percent that nearly kept up with the loss of race days. And the number of graded stakes? That fell less than two percent, from 474 in 2007 to 465 for the coming year. As a consequence, the percentage of races eligible for grading (unrestricted other than age or sex and carrying a purse of at least $75,000) that actually received a grade has risen from around 65 percent to more than 70 percent, and the percentage of all races that are graded now exceeds one percent.
And the rarified air of Grade ! races? They actually grew in number, from 107 to 112, an increase of nearly five percent.
Second, we learned that, at least to the Committee, it’s always sunny in Philadelphia. Of the 10 non-Breeders’ Cup races to earn a new or increased grade this year, no fewer than four take place at the erstwhile Philadelphia Park, now Parx to you and me. Of those, the Cotillion earned Grade I status for the first time, and three other races earned Grade III status after having been ungraded.
Finally, we learned that somebody on the Committee apparently does not like Delaware Park. Year after year, the Delaware Handicap is one of the best shows in racing — a big-purse race at the American classic distance of 10 furlongs for older fillies and mares. This year’s renewal attracted the two best fillies and mares in training — arguably the two best horses of either sex in training in the US — in Blind Luck and Havre de Grace, as well as millionairess Life at Ten. The race, of course, earned instant classic status, as Blind Luck and Havre de Grace hooked up at the head of the lane and slugged it out heads apart for a quarter mile, with Blind Luck earning the win in a desperate head-bobbing finish. Not good enough for the Committee, however; no grade one for you, it said to Delaware.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask for, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if the actions of any of the sports committees of poobahs actually had some connection to what’s going on in the real world. Still, at least there’s one growth area in our sport — the number of Grade One races.
And in the “huh?” department, we learn that Laurel Park has decided to end its grass racing season for the year (here). Grass races have drawn significantly larger fields than dirt races, which is good for everyone involved, but no matter.
Heavy rains are the official reason that the East Coast’s newest, most technologically advanced grass course is no longer usable this year, though some other tracks, including Aqueduct, continue to card turf races. Still, it makes sense to preserve the course. After all, the Maryland Jockey Club, which owns the track, has proposed to run…. well…. zero days at Laurel next year. That’s zero, like none.
So, you’d want to keep the course pristine for the …umm… grazing that might occur on it? The birds that might land on it during their migration? The deer?
A couple of days before the last Racing Commission meeting, a friend who’d been involved in the talks between the horsemen and the track told me that he didn’t expect any fireworks at the Commission meeting. That sounded like a relief, since last year’s December meeting had been a bloodbath. Of course, what he didn’t tell me is that the scores who came out for the meeting would all leave unsatisfied, as those involved in the meetings said, in essence, “We’re talking. We’re making some progress. Nothing is resolved. We can’t say any more.”
Horsemen had figured that last year’s Governor-brokered, three-year agreement — which enabled the tracks to tap certain slots moneys for operating, rather than capital, expenses in return for maintaining a 146-day racing schedule for each of the three years — had put our racing day of reckoning into the future. The theory was that the breathing room the agreement provided would enable the track and the horsemen to develop a racing model that worked for everyone. Instead, owner Frank Stronach has said he doesn’t want the subsidy and prefers instead to race a very short meet at Pimlico. The knee-jerk “less is more” crowd will cheer this proposal as reducing racing in the region, but the truth appears to be that, when it comes to Stronach’s desire for what he has called a new model of racing, there’s no there there: no proposals for a new model other than less racing. And while less probably needs to be part of the new model, it’s hardly a visionary breakthrough all bit itself.
That the sides are talking privately — and not bashing each other publicly — is perhaps a good sign. Some insiders are optimistic; some, not so much. There is much, short of unilateral disarmament, that tracks and horsemen in the mid-Atlantic can — should — do to strengthen their product. Now would be a good time to start.
Meanwhile, racing will continue at Laurel through December 17. The grass course will still look lovely. It just won’t have any horses to liven it up.
The little horse who could did it again yesterday at Laurel, while another horse who might have been able to now won’t.
Rapid Redux, the gelded son of Pleasantly Perfect whose career, prior to this year, was of no special note, knocked down his record-tying 19th conesecutive victory yesterday in the central Maryland slop, and he did it with one of the grittier efforts of the streak. Facing a short field of just four other horses, Rapid Redux sped to the early lead and was never headed, earning a 2 3/4 length victory while stopping the clock in 1:24.07 for seven furlongs.
But the race was nowhere near as easy as it sounds. Under jockey JD Acosta (who’ll be riding That’s Amore runner Attempting Reentry tonight at Charles Town), Redux had to hustle from the moment the gates opened. Though his streak includes races at distances from five furlongs to nine, his recent efforts were of the longer variety, including a couple around three turns at Charles Town. Dialing back to a sprint, he needed to work hard to make the early lead, and sprinter Rich Hero dogged him every step of the way. Rounding the turn and into the lane, Rich Hero made a bid, and for a moment, it seemed he might have the momentum to get by. But Rapid Redux, as he’s done before, found more and turned back the challenge.
Claimed for $6250 last year, the horse has since won 20 of 21 starts for owner Robert Cole and trainer David Wells, earning over $230,000 in the process. He’s been ultra-sound and ultra-consistent this year, recording 17 victories. It’s safe to say that no connections have ever used starter allowance eligibility more effectively, or more profitably, than Wells and Cole with this horse. Starters are non-claiming races restricted to horses that have run for a specified claiming tag or less within a period of time prior to the race; Rapid Redux has run frequently in starters restricted to horses that have run for a claiming tag of $5,000 or less in 2010 or 2011. Though such races sound cheap, they generally run as considerably more rugged than that. A good handicapping rule of thumb is that the winner of a starter should be worth at least twice the tag specified in the condition. Rapid Redux’s starter allowance eligibility will dry up at the end of 2011.
With one more victory, he’ll pass Zenyatta and Peppers Pride for the record of most consecutive wins. If he wins three more this year, he’ll pass Citation’s record of 19 wins in a single season. He won’t win it, but one can make the case that, in a year with no clear choice, he merits Horse of the Year consideration. Particularly if Havre de Grace runs in, but loses the Breeders’ Cup Classic, every major contender will have considerable holes in their resumes, while Redux’s is spotless.
Meanwhile, another up-from-nowhere horse, one who might have made noise in Louisville at the Breeders’ Cup, instead will make his next start on Saturday at Laurel. Ben’s Cat, winner of the “Win and You’re (sorta) In (if you’re willing to pony up another hundred grand)” Turf Monster at Parx, will stay home for the $75,000 Laurel Dash rather than tackling the tigers in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Breeder/owner/trainer King Leatherbury could have taken his charge to Louisville, but, because the horse is not Breeders’ Cup-nominated, doing so would have cost him a cool hundred thousand dollars. While the horse has earned considerably north of that amount, that is, as Leatherbury reminded anyone who would listen, a lot of money to run in a $1 million race.
A lot of people — including me — thought that Leatherbury should probably go ahead and pay the money and take his shot. But of course, it’s easy for me — and you — to spend his money. No matter how confident he might be in his horse, he also knows the difference between, say, winning and finishing fourth beat a neck and two heads could be nothing more than a troubled trip, a bad break, or pilot error. Of course, the difference between first and fourth is also, roughly, the difference between turning $100,000 into $600,000 and turning a hundred grand into smoke.
All of which points to what I’d said previously: that, as presently constituted, the Win and You’re In program is an incoherent mess that fails to meet even its most basic goal, guaranteeing that the top horses will enter the Breeders’ Cup starting gate. Until it’s fixed, it’s just another sorry joke played on racing fans everywhere.
The return, on Saturday, of the De Francis Dash at Laurel once seemed likely to mark the rebirth of Maryland racing. Flush with slot machine revenue, Maryland would be hailed as the once, and future, king of mid-Atlantic racing.
Or something like that.
Because as it turns out, Saturday’s renewal of the De Francis may prove to be something else altogether. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, etc.
Last year’s acrimonious internecine squabble between horsefolk and the track’s dysfunctional then-ownership group of Frank Stronach and Penn National ended with the Governor’s reluctant intervention, which solved nothing but appeared, at least, to buy the sport some time in the Free State. The agreement that Governor Martin O’Malley brokered allowed the track to tap certain slots moneys, intended for capital improvements to the tracks, for operations for a period of three years. In return, the tracks would maintain racing at its current level of 146 days.
Everyone smiled, shook hands, and agreed that midnight had been delayed for three years.
But time has a funny way of bending where money’s concerned, and that three year agreement has satisfied all parties for not quite one year. Maryland Racing Commission chairman Lou Ulman wisely had asked the Maryland Jockey Club, which owns the tracks, to provide their dates request for 2012 well in advance, in order to avoid the last-minute blood-letting of 2010. Come Tuesday’s meeting, and MJC president Tom Chuckas demurred. No agreement’s been reached with the horsemen, he explained, so no dates request for 2012 would be forthcoming. “We’re staring at the barrel of a shotgun again,” Ulman retorted.
That’s because the two sides are, as Chuckas understated, “far apart.” Like from Secretariat to the field at the Belmont far apart. Rather than requesting the subsidy provided for in last year’s agreement for 2012 in return for 146 racing days, the MJC has proposed running a 40-day meet at Pimlico and leasing Laurel and the Bowie training center to the horsemen to run whatever meets they see fit.
I’ve opined elsewhere that a nonprofit horsemen’s corporation running the tracks might well be the best racing model. That way the horsemen would, as Stronach observed, control their own destiny. The fate of Maryland racing, at least, would not be in the hands of out-of-state ownership.
But this proposal, obviously, is a non-starter. For one thing, it’s a little late in the day to put together an effective management group.
More to the point, there’s an “I’ll eat the meat and you can have the bones” quality to it. And owning, or leasing, Maryland racing without owning the Preakness is, at best, a pretty unappetizing stew. There’s nothing attractive about a business without its single most valuable asset, but that’s the “opportunity” Stronach is offering.
Racing in general, Maryland in particular, needs to rethink its entire approach to everything: ownership structure, dates and amount of racing, presentation of the product on TV (which, of course, is how most bettors receive it), how the condition book can promote fan interest, customer service, wagering menus, etc.
Same old-same old is a recipe for continued failure. But solving problems while staring at the barrel of a gun isn’t necessarily a recipe for success, either. Especially when it’s one of the partners who appears to be holding the gun.
Saturday’s renewal of the De Francis — once a Grade I event that not infrequently decided championships, now ungraded and comprised of a large but not very accomplished field — will feel like old times at the century-old oval. What it will symbolize, however, is much less clear.
