Continue reading »]]> Have you been keeping up with The Racing Biz?

If not — well, there’s no time like the present!

Here’s what you’ll find there today:

• The Racing Biz, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, and the Maryland Horse Breeders Association have joined forces to give away two tickets to the Preakness — plus a $1,000 win wager on the big race!  Check out our Preakness Grand Giveaway!
• Preakness coverage?  We’ve got Preakness coverage — and we’ll have a lot more in the coming days!  Right now, you can find…
  • Audio of Nick Hahn’s interview with Shug McGaughey;
  • Daily updates, including Friday’s Lady Legends for the Cure race;
  • Video of “Ghosts of Preakness Past,” 1960s newsreels of Northern Dancer, Carry Back, and others running for the Susies!
  • And more!
• Maryland’s Thoroughbred Hall of Fame inducted its first class this past Saturday, and we were on the spot.

In the days to come, we’ll use all our tools — words, pictures, video, audio — to bring you the flavor of Maryland’s biggest sporting day and the mid-Atlantic’s biggest racing event.  Check us out!

Continue reading »]]> Here’s what you may have been missing if you’re not reading The Racing Biz…

• Looking for mid-Atlantic connections this Derby weekend?  Sure, you are – and here they are!
• Nick Hahn remembers the last Virginia-bred to win a Triple Crown race, Colonial Affair.  That was also the first — and to date only — time a woman has ridden the winner in such a race…
• In Maryland, are we taking steps towards a program to boost the beleaguered breeding industry.  Quite possibly….
• It was a productive — if brief — meet for Atlantic City Race Course.  Now what?  Teresa Genaro looks for the answer.
• And much more!

Continue reading »]]> Are you checking out The Racing Biz?  If not, you ought to.  Here’s what’s been happening over on The Biz:

• Teresa Genaro became the first person ever to leave Keeneland on a Saturday in order to attend the races at Charles Town.  Was it worth it?  Find out here!
• Game on Dude won the Charles Town Classic — and our man Ted Black was first on the scene with a race analysis demonstrating that the official time was off by more than two seconds.  A day later, Charles Town agreed and revised the time.  Read it here, and here.
• In a two-part interview, Maryland Racing Commission chairman Bruce Quade reflected on the last year and explained why the Commission will continue to be an assertive advocate for what it thinks is best for racing.  Here are part one and part two.
• Didn’t make it out to the Decanter wine festival at Pimlico?  It was all about wine, horses, and song, says our man on the spot — but mostly wine.
• In Pennsylvania, new legislation would allow internet gaming — and boost racing purses (here), while Siete de Oros — a PA-bred who fetched all of $2,000 at auction — ran third in the Illinois Derby, to the delight of breeder Glenn Brok (here).
• And on our Racing page, you’ll find every allowance and stake winner, claimed horse, region-bred winners, and handle figs — all in handy-dandy, easy-to-use tables!

C’mon and check us out!

Continue reading »]]> Over at The Racing Biz…

• Part 2 of our interview with Maryland Racing Commission chairman Bruce Quade touches on why he thinks it’s incumbent on the Commission to play a more active role, and what the future holds for Maryland – check it here and you can find part one here.
• Later today, Ted Black reports on why the Charles Town Classic figures to be a riders’ race.
• Wondering who won the features in the region yesterday?  Which horses got claimed?  Which horses bred in the mid-Atlantic won in the mid-Atlantic?  It’s all there, on the racing page.
• Plus lots more!

Check it out at The Racing Biz!

Continue reading »]]> Check out The Racing Biz!

You may have noticed that it’s been kinda quiet here of late.  That’s because I’ve been putting my energy towards launch of The Racing Biz.

The Racing Biz is something brand new: a website focused on the sport, business, and personalities of Thoroughbred racing and breeding in the mid-Atlantic region.  It’ll be your go-to source for news, information, and entertainment about this great sport.

It may be the first day for The Racing Biz, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of great content already there.

In fact, check out part one of a two-part interview with Maryland Racing Commission chair Bruce Quade.  Learn why Colonial Downs decided to barbeque its turf course last week — just six weeks before horses will run over it.  See who’s in the Charles Town Classic on Saturday.  And catch the video of Xavier Perez’s wild ride aboard Spicer Cub.

All that, and lots more to come — at The Racing Biz!

Continue reading »]]> Laurel ended and Pimlico began this past week, and plenty of news from both.

• Laurel ended with a bang as wagering showed solid gains during the winter meet versus winter 2012.  According to figures provided by the Maryland Jockey Club, total handle — including live handle, export handle (that is, money wagered elsewhere on Laurel races), and import handle (money wagered at Laurel on races run elsewhere) — rose over 21 percent on a year-over-year basis.  Average daily handle was up nearly 18 percent during the stand, which featured 50 live and 39 simulcast days (versus 48 and 36 a year ago).  Average daily handle was just short of $2 million.
• 

  Chelsey Keiser was one of a number of apprentices who enjoyed the Laurel stand. Here, she celebrates her first win. Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.

  Mel Brooks famously said that “it’s good to be the king,” but at Laurel this winter it was just as good to be an apprentice.  Bug boy Yomar Ortiz earned the riding title for the stand with 57 winners, with fellow apprentice Trevor McCarthy close behind in second, with 51.  “It was a battle until the end,” Ortiz noted.

• On the other hand, it’s not bad to be the king — more precisely, the King — either.  King Leatherbury, now just past his 80th birthday, led all owners with 12 wins at Laurel and finished fourth among trainers with 15 wins, though well behind Hugh McMahon’s 34.
• In more King-related news, the old master’s best current runner, Ben’s Cat,
  

  Nice ‘n’ easy does it for Ben’s Cat in the Mr. Diz. Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.

  returned to action in Saturday’s Mister Diz for Maryland-bred older horses going five furlongs on the lawn.  Sent off at 2-5, the seven year-old son of Parker’s Storm Cat was the easiest kind of winner, cruising home by nearly two with little urging from rider Julian Pimentel.  Two races later, Embarr won the Dahlia for fillies and mares going a mile on the lawn.

• Finally, the Maryland Jockey Club announced that Gabby Gaudet, daughter of local racing mainstays Eddie and Linda Gaudet, would take over as the on-air handicapper for Frank Carulli following the Pimlico meet.  MJC president Tom Chuckas described her as “the most well-rounded candidate with a tremendous upside.”  She’ll join Carulli on the air on weekends during the meet.

Continue reading »]]> Got a horse whose racing days might be done?

Looking to get him retrained for a new career — and to do so affordably?

Turns out that February 1 is your lucky day — because the good folks at Thoroughbred Placement Resources are sponsoring the “Constant Star Off-Track Thoroughbreds for Sport Contest,” and one lucky winner will receive 90 days worth of free training from one of the best facilities in the region.

The contest is designed to show the versatility and trainability of Thoroughbreds.  TPR will accept entries from February 1 through March 31, with a winner announced in April or early May.

If you own or train horses, you know that one of the real challenges that horsemen face is what to do with horses that can’t race successfully anymore.  Finding a soft landing for your off-track Thoroughbred is the right thing to do — but how?

Thoroughbred Placement Resources, Inc. is a nonprofit that can help you answer that question.  TPR takes horses off the track, retrains them for other uses, and finds them good homes.  Since 2007, TPR has rehomed more than 800 Thoroughbreds — a huge number on a tiny budget that’s made a big difference to Maryland racing.

Want to know more?  Then check out the contest website — and may the best horse win!

Continue reading »]]> The feel-good stories du jour at Laurel were that….

• … Bullet Catcher did the second most noteworthy thing of his career.  The first — recounted here (here) –came back in January, when the four year-old son of Strong Hope divested
  

  Bullet Catcher wonders, “Which way is Route 1?” Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.

  himself of the pesky encumbrance of a rider and gave himself a cool taste of freedom, Route 1-style.  That is, he dumped his rider, took off up Whiskey Bottom Rd., and then made his way down Route 1 before being recaptured.  Today — boringly enough — he won the $40,000 allowance feature for trainer John Robb with Abel Castellano in the irons.  Also…

• … 10-pound bug rider Mallory Strandberg removed the zero from the win column of her record by nailing down the first victory of her young career in today’s lid-lifter.  She piloted Light of Truth to a comfortable win in her 13th, and the horse’s 15th, career start.  Strandberg, 22, has five other in-the-money finishes.  “I am happy and am ready for more wins,” she said, according to a Maryland Jockey Club release.

Continue reading »]]> As has been widely reported (including here), the Maryland Racing Commission is in the process of adopting a variety of rules in response to the spate of breakdowns in January and February at Laurel.

These include more thorough pre-race vetting, adopting regional medication standards, and seeking a nationally accredited laboratory to test blood samples.  The Commission has also agreed to begin work, with stakeholders, towards a rule that will allow claims of horses to be voided under certain circumstances, including when a horse suffers a fatal injury on the track.

These are all good steps.  They demonstrate one prong of the Commission’s approach.  “When the marshal pays attention,” commissioner John Franzone said, “all the bad guys leave town.”

There were no breakdowns last week, and that’s even better news.

On claiming rules, though, the Commission is clearly feeling its way.  It needs less feel and more data.

Which isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be concerned about the volume of claiming.  In fact, the increase in claiming is unprecedented in Maryland and merits careful study and perhaps action.

But the place to start is by understanding what’s really going on.  Commenter Brian (here), for example, notes on our last post that during this six-month Laurel stand not one of the 27 horses that dropped in price off a claim broke down in their next start and that, moreover, they won at an above-average rate.  That suggests that the rule the Commission adopted on Wednesday to require horses to rise at least 25 percent for 30 days off the claim may be a solution in search of a problem.

Similarly, the Commission also agreed to enter discussions about limiting claiming race purse size to a multiple of the claiming price.  Of course, for obvious economic reasons, the busiest horses on the grounds at every track are always the cheapest — making this another rule more likely to slow the volume of claiming than improve the lot of individual horses. Yet, while the breakdown problem has spurred a lot of discussion about the volume of claiming, six of the 10 horses from the critical period had never been claimed and two of the remaining four had been with the same connections for at least four months.

Right now as regards claiming rules, the Commission is using blunt instruments in service of a general sense that too many horses are being claimed.  A deeper dive into more robust data — which is available — might let it use more targeted approaches to address the roots of the problem.

Also…

• In case you’ve missed it, the Maryland Jockey Club’s longtime linemaker and on-air handicapper, Frank Carulli, will move on to greener pastures — actually, dustier ones, since he’s moving to Las Vegas — at the close of the Pimlico meet.  Four finalists are in the running to replace him, and this week, they’re auditioning on the air.  Former jockey Ryan Fogelsonger tried his hand on Wednesday, and Dylan Smith tackled it in yesterday’s chalk-fest.  Jackie Savoye, assistant trainer to Dale Capuano takes today, and soon-to-be college grad Gabby Gaudet, daughter of current and former trainers Linda and Eddie Gaudet, takes the stage tomorrow.  Good luck to all.
• Also Saturday, Laurel will celebrate King Leatherbury’s 80th birthday (which actually occurs on March 26).  The King — owner of more than 6,300 career victories — is in the midst of a terrific meet with 15 wins during the winter stand.  I could vent about the stupidity of the voters who have not yet put him in the Hall of Fame, which he so richly deserves, but instead, I’ll let Chris McCarron, via Maryland Jockey Club press release, do the honors.  “I think the individuals involved in placing the names on the Hall of Fame nomination ballot need to wake up and exam his record,” said Hall of Fame rider Chris McCarron, who rode for Leatherbury in the mid- 1970’s. “They don’t even have to dig deep on how incredibly successful this man has been and what an influence on Maryland racing he has been all these years. I know emotion doesn’t get you in the Hall of Fame but success does and he has done it.”
• In or out of the Hall, Happy Birthday, King!