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00:00:25Good morning. It is 930 Wednesday, December 8th. This is the TDN Writer's Room presented
00:00:31by Keeneland. My name is Joe Bianca. I'm the Associate Editor of the Thoroughbred Daily
00:00:35News. And last week, unfortunately, that was the beginning of me getting COVID. But I feel
00:00:40way better and there's lots to talk about today.
00:00:42Joe, glad you're feeling better. Of the three of us, I'm the only one that has not gotten
00:00:47COVID. So, knock on wood and welcome back.
00:00:51Jonathan Green, General Manager from DJ Stable. And Joe, it was amazing. In the pre-show,
00:00:56In Your Absence, Bill and I were sitting there saying, man, there's just nothing to talk
00:01:01about. What are we going to do? We're going to try to make chicken soup out of chicken
00:01:04crap. How are we going to? Well, shame on us, Bill Finley, for wishing for more things
00:01:08to talk about because this show is going to be chock full of a lot.
00:01:11Yep. And we're ready. We're ready. I was warming up like a boxer.
00:01:17Stretching.
00:01:18Jumping around. Yeah. The TDN Writers Room is brought to you by Keeneland. Make plans
00:01:25to attend the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale, which has produced the likes
00:01:29of recent matriarch winner Regal Glory, January 10th through the 18th. The catalog is now
00:01:34online at January.Keeneland.com. So, huge, huge, huge news this week. And it's the untimely
00:01:42end of Medina Spirit, obviously, is going to dominate this show. There's so much to
00:01:47talk about. But just start with the fact that it's super sad for him and for everybody
00:01:53who cared for the horse. It's never fun when a horse dies. It's extremely not fun when
00:01:59a horse this talented and this high profile dies because it brings so much negative attention
00:02:05to the sport. And we're going to get into all of that. But I just, first of all, everybody
00:02:09who loved or cared for Medina Spirit this whole time is definitely feeling worse than
00:02:15all of us right now. So that's so I just want to say that off the top. There's a lot
00:02:19of implications to this. Obviously, you know, honestly, this is like the worst possible
00:02:23horse that could have died in terms of the profile of horse racing and the, you know,
00:02:28the discussion of whether racing is going to continue to have the social license to
00:02:32operate. This is the worst possible horse that could have died for that for that cause.
00:02:38The other implication before I talk to the bill, and I'm going to have a lot to say after
00:02:41you guys, but it's I wonder if this is going to affect the Naira case against Bob Baffert
00:02:46or any of the other cases with Bob Baffert, you know, organizations and regulators trying
00:02:53to suspend Bob Baffert. I don't know. You obviously can't point to this and say this
00:02:58horse was drugged. Therefore, Medina Spirit dropped dead of a cardiac event or an apparent
00:03:02cardiac event. You cannot say that. You have no evidence of that, at least until the toxicology
00:03:07reports come back. But I just wonder, you know, circumstantially, if this makes Naira
00:03:12more likely to be able to ban Bob Baffert in the in the next couple of months or whenever
00:03:17that process plays out and whether or not this emboldens the Kentucky Racing Commission
00:03:22to keep up with their Bob Baffert ban. Obviously, the main story is Baffert, and there's a lot
00:03:27to talk about in terms of how this affects the industry. But I'm going to toss it to
00:03:31Bill and see what he thinks. Yeah, Joe, thanks. And there's so many different directions to
00:03:34go on this. Just sort of take, I guess, one thing at a time and get back to the first
00:03:39thing you said. You know, John, Joe, myself, other people understand the story that it's
00:03:47complicated, that in no way, shape or form did this horse get drugged and it killed him
00:03:53or something like that. But what does the public think? And that is what is so unbelievably
00:03:59important right now. And look, you know, how do we explain to the public the this narrative
00:04:05a horse is, quote unquote, drugged, wins the Kentucky Derby is disqualified, the mysteriously
00:04:10drops dead five, six months later. Look, and as I said, again, we know that's not really
00:04:16the story, but to the public, that's all they know. And that's all they see. This was on
00:04:20the national news. It was all over every newspaper in the country. And, you know, you just wonder
00:04:26how many hits can racing continue to take and just go on its merry way like this? And that's
00:04:31what's really scary to me. I did a story this morning, Starbread Daily News, kind of gauging
00:04:37the reaction. The New York Post came out and said horse racing should be banned. There's 600
00:04:43odd comments on the Washington Post story about Medina Spirit breaking down. The vast majority
00:04:50of them saying just awful things about horse racing, comparing it to cockfighting and dogfighting
00:04:55and things like that, that say it should be banned. Joe, you're absolutely right. You don't
00:04:58want to see any horse break down, but the perfect storm. And I don't mean that obviously in a good
00:05:03way of the most controversial horse and horse racing than dying. I mean, you can't in your
00:05:08wildest imagination think like something like that is going to happen. And, you know, I don't
00:05:13have all the answers. I don't know what the magic bullet is. But the bottom line is, no matter what
00:05:17happened here, horse racing has to get better. How? I don't know. It's not going to happen
00:05:23overnight. But, you know, these things are adding up to the point where at some point in time,
00:05:28you really do have to worry about the viability of the sport. And love them or hate them or,
00:05:35you know, anywhere in between. Bob Baffert is the face of the industry and he is a polarizing
00:05:41individual. You don't see too many people who say, I have no opinion on Bob Baffert in the
00:05:47industry at least. And so, Bill, like you said, it is a perfect storm in the sense of you couldn't
00:05:55have picked a worse time or a worse, you know, poster child for a horse breaking down on the
00:06:00racetrack than Medina Spirit. I think, Joe, you mentioned that in your preamble. But if you took
00:06:08the name of the horse and the name of the trainer off of the list, I don't even know if this would
00:06:13be getting, you know, any kind of register. I mean, we're talking about this tragedy and it is
00:06:18a tragedy time. Any horse dies on the racetrack or dies, period. It's it's it's just it's sickening.
00:06:24But what did this knock off? What are the next few stories that it replaced that we'd be talking
00:06:30about today? And tell me if any of them are even positive. Navarro is trying to avoid getting
00:06:35deported for his issues. There were multiple breakdowns on Laurel to the point where they
00:06:41had to close racing for, you know, for you know, for at least a weekend, if not more.
00:06:46There's all kinds of scandals and and everything going on in France. And I will be talking about
00:06:51that later about the Rossi family that had their stables raided by the police and 15 people were
00:06:57indicted there. Peter Miller got fined and suspended again. Dr. Seth Fishman, who was in the Navarro
00:07:04adjacent service indictments, allegedly is still selling performance enhancing drugs that that are
00:07:11that are banned in the industry. And oh, by the way, Heizer also proposed their guidelines on
00:07:16the rules. But like none of these stories are even on, you know, you know, on the on the table
00:07:23right now because we're talking about Medina's spirit. But like out of all those other stories,
00:07:27they're all negative. They're all terrible about the industry. And they're all they all deal with
00:07:32with people who are in the industry that are either taking advantage of the rules or,
00:07:37more importantly, taking advantage of the athletes that they have been entrusted to take care of.
00:07:42And it's just it sickens me as an owner and as somebody who loves the game. And I know you guys
00:07:47love the game as much as I do. And there are so many good people and good stories to be discussed
00:07:55and herald and championed. And we can't even get to them because we're so inept as an industry
00:08:02of constantly shooting ourselves in the foot that we lost the privilege to self moderate
00:08:07and police ourselves. And we've talked about that time and time again. And personally,
00:08:12I am not a Bob Baffert fan. OK, I don't think that the guy necessarily does the best for his
00:08:17athletes. He gets the most out of his athletes, but he doesn't do what I think personally is best
00:08:23for his athletes. But I can't honestly sit here and say to you guys, the horse tested positive
00:08:29for beta methadone, you know, when Medina Spirit, you know, in the post race after after he won the
00:08:34Kentucky Derby and he went on the racetrack and died. And a to B equals C. And that's why the
00:08:42horse died. I can't honestly say that. We personally had a horse earlier in the year who was
00:08:47a two year old that we bought for a lot of money at a two year old sale. We vetted the horse out,
00:08:52tipped the tail, including doing a heart scan, which we don't really do that often.
00:08:56And a couple of months later, he was breezing three films in the racetrack and he died of a
00:09:00heart attack because he burst into an aorta. Now, that doesn't happen that often, but it does
00:09:07happen and it does happen for natural reasons. And again, I'm not I'm not saying that Medina
00:09:12Spirit died of natural causes or didn't die or, you know, something happened to help encourage
00:09:18that that end result. All I'm saying is that we have to wait until we get the necropsy report
00:09:23back and we have to see what's going on before we can point the finger and say, yes, the fact
00:09:29that the horse tested positive for beta methasone was the reason why or was not the reason why this
00:09:34horse passed away. But man, guys, this is a dark day for our industry when we have to sit here and
00:09:39decide which of these really just negative, crappy stories we have to talk about, because they are
00:09:46news and they should be reported and discussed. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, like I said, no one
00:09:51is saying I certainly am not that Medina Spirit died because he was full of drugs. You know,
00:09:56there's no there's no evidence for that, at least yet. We got to wait for the toxicology report.
00:10:01But letting people like Bob Baffert, who has a proven poor safety record and drug record,
00:10:07The Washington Post, their story last year where his breakdowns per thousand starters is something
00:10:13like eight point three, which is the highest in California. He has way too many horses die
00:10:19relative to the amount of horses in his carries or facts. Letting him train the most high profile
00:10:24horses in the game, I think, is a recipe for disaster. And, you know, how many more goddamn
00:10:30times does the sport as a whole have to take a massive PR hit for Bob Baffert? Like at what
00:10:36point will enough be enough? And, you know, the sport get the picture and say, hey, Bob,
00:10:40you know, I'm sorry. You know, I know we're friends, but we can't keep you around anymore,
00:10:44you know, at least not at this level. And let's be real. Bob Baffert was in any other sport. If
00:10:49he had his record in any other major sport, he'd have been banned by now. You know, it's
00:10:53a laughable notion that, you know, he could possibly be this valuable in this industry
00:10:59where, you know, even, you know, nine hundred ninety nine out of a thousand people in America
00:11:02couldn't recognize him if he walked down the street wearing Bob Baffert name tag.
00:11:06But yet the people the way people go to the mat for him in this business, you would think he's
00:11:10the most valuable person in the industry. You know, he just he has his tentacles in so many
00:11:16things and has so many friends in high places. And, you know, we didn't mention this, but Friday
00:11:22his lawyer released the report from the from the the beta methadone positives from the Derby,
00:11:29you know, trying to say that, yeah, it wasn't an injection. It was an ointment. Like, first of all,
00:11:34why is the lawyer, you know, releasing that? Like, why is that not coming from an official
00:11:39regulator or a vet or something? Like, how does Bob Baffert's lawyer break that news to the
00:11:44industry? I think it's because people are scared of Bob Baffert and and his lawyers. And there are
00:11:49many, many Baffert apologists in this industry still couldn't help themselves. You know, they
00:11:54immediately had to start writing op eds and tweets and start waving their finger at anyone who's
00:12:00actually trying to discipline or regulate him. I think that tells you a lot about where we are
00:12:04right now. And couple that with the Peter Miller situation that John mentioned, the guy has had
00:12:10five horses die this year, multiple medication violations, and he gets to go take a six month
00:12:15vacation while still clearly owning and training horses. Just give him another maximum five
00:12:21thousand dollar fine. And let's forget all of this happened. It's it's a joke. And like we're
00:12:27saying, you can't you can't connect A to B and say Bob Baffert drugged his horse, therefore he's dead.
00:12:34But the longer you let people like Bob Baffert and Peter Miller, who have proven poor drug and
00:12:39safety records, continue to train high profile horses, the more likely I think stuff like this
00:12:44is going to happen. Bill? Yeah, Joe, and I'm going to play devil's advocate here. And I I think of
00:12:50the three of us, I'm probably the least hard on Baffert among the three of us. And, you know,
00:12:56I've given this a lot of thought and I don't really have an answer. But and I'm not sticking
00:13:02up for him here. But, you know, and I'll before we go to John, I'll let I'll say what I have to
00:13:08say and then then give you a chance to answer here. I mean, you're talking about the most
00:13:11draconian punishment possible that you're saying that's it. He's gone from the sport, just
00:13:18completely want him banned out now. So take away a man's livelihood. And, you know, he's not good
00:13:26for the game. I'm not going to even pretend that that's obviously not. But, you know, you yourself
00:13:31said the better methadone doesn't mean the horse was drugged and it has nothing to do with him
00:13:36breaking down and dying. Are you willing to give him any benefit of the doubt that, you know,
00:13:42maybe it's nothing more than he's very sloppy and unlucky and that, again, there is no none of these
00:13:50violations have anything to do with performance enhancing drugs. And again, I want to preface
00:13:57this. I'm not sticking up for him. I'm just saying that I'm more conflicted about this
00:14:03than obviously you are. You know, I service Navarro, the easiest thing in the world,
00:14:09put him in jail, throw away the key, lock them up, send the guy back to Panama and just get out
00:14:14of this game forever. It's a lot more complicated with this guy. And I honestly say at the end of
00:14:21the day, I don't know what the right answer is, but I don't think I would advocate for him being
00:14:26completely banned from the sport. I mean, that's fine. And that's you're right. But the thing is,
00:14:30we're talking about a totality of offenses here over decades. We're not talking about one or two
00:14:35things in the past year. And we're talking about the in 2011 to 2013, when they were mixed when
00:14:42they were mixed, supposedly mixing thyroxine into the horse's feed and seven horses ultimately
00:14:47dropped dead. And, you know, the California eventually swept that under the rug and he
00:14:52didn't face any sanctions or any punishments from that. You know, it's just been going on year
00:14:58after year over time to the point where I, you know, yeah, it's hard to say, well, Medina Spirit
00:15:04dropped dead, therefore you're banned for life. The point is that this should have been taken
00:15:08care of and nipped in the butt a long time ago. And if you have to come in and do a makeup call
00:15:13later on, then so be it. And my main point is that the reason that this hasn't happened all this time
00:15:20is because he has so many friends in high places and because he has so many people
00:15:24in the industry sticking up for him and going to bat for him. Like we saw in the op-ed that
00:15:28aged so well over the weekend, there were just so many people in racing, so many decision makers,
00:15:33so many influential people who will go to the mat for Bob Baffert as if he's the most important
00:15:38person in the industry. And that's why he hasn't been banned or meaningfully sanctioned all this
00:15:43time. So, yeah, it's a hard thing to say this thing happens. So therefore you should be banned,
00:15:48Bob Baffert. But over time, over decades now, he's gotten away with breaking and skirting the
00:15:54rules and nothing has come of it, nothing. He hasn't been sat down for 30 days, six months,
00:16:01a year. So if you have to come in and kind of make up for all of the stuff that's been let
00:16:06slide over the years, it's not about this one incident, Bill. It's about the totality of his
00:16:13record and the fact that we all have to take the hit now for this. The entire industry is in peril
00:16:21in large part in the past year, at least, because of Bob Baffert. That's just a fact.
00:16:27And that's something that I wish people in the industry would take more heart to. This is
00:16:33something that's affecting all of us and our ability to make a living in this industry going
00:16:38forward. And I don't care how friendly you are with Bob Baffert, you got to think about more
00:16:42than just you and Bob Baffert when it comes to this kind of stuff. Sorry.
00:16:46Joe Carlasare
00:16:47And I know we talk a lot of baseball here amongst ourselves and also on the show.
00:16:51And there's always that argument for the Hall of Fame of, was the person like Sandy Koufax,
00:16:56where they had a phenomenal record for a short period of time, were they really good over a
00:17:01long stretch of period of time, and it's a no-brainer, or were they a compiler? And I
00:17:04think in this situation, what I'm saying, and I think what you guys are saying also is that
00:17:09Bob Baffert, his sentence is going to be more predicated on what his body of work has been
00:17:17based on history, what his compiling has been over time. And it's not that Medina Spirit
00:17:22tested positive for whatever, for beta methasone, and it was an ointment versus an injection.
00:17:30Who cares? It didn't really affect, in my opinion, didn't affect the fact that the horse
00:17:34ran well and won the Derby because of the ointment or because of however it got the
00:17:39beta methasone. The same as I don't think that, personally, I don't think that if the horse was on
00:17:45a history of steroids or a series of steroids or any illegal performance-enhancing drugs,
00:17:49that that's why it dropped dead after a breeze the other day on the racetrack.
00:17:55It's just all of these years and incidents and time over time of problems and innuendos and
00:18:05more importantly, deaths on the racetrack. It's all those little things added up that are
00:18:09compiling, compiling, compiling that are making such an outcry right now for people to say,
00:18:14enough is enough. This guy has to be addressed. And it's the white elephant in the room. We can't
00:18:20sit here and say definitively whether or not this one instance was the reason why
00:18:25he should have some kind of a sentence. It's all these other things over time.
00:18:30And Joe, let me just take a minute because the Washington Post information and chart
00:18:36has been very, very good. It's been very illuminating in my estimation as far as
00:18:40trainers and whether or not they should be held accountable for deaths and career-enduring
00:18:47injuries on the racetrack. I was doing some research and saw that the National Thoroughbred
00:18:52Welfare Organization, which is a nonprofit out of Kentucky, and they tweaked the numbers a
00:18:57little bit. And they basically compile the first publicly available nationwide collection
00:19:03of fatalities, but they excluded illness, disease, and accidental deaths.
00:19:09So if a horse ran into another horse and died or flipped over and hit its head and died,
00:19:14they took that out of the equation. And what it does is it basically just focuses on
00:19:19catastrophic breakdowns and deaths, similar to what happened with Medina Spirit. It wasn't an
00:19:25accident. It wasn't an illness like the horse collared or anything like that or foundered.
00:19:30It was the horse maybe ruptured in aorta on the racetrack. And they did the analysis from 2018.
00:19:35So they took all of 18 starters, all of 19, 20, and 21, and they compiled those almost four years
00:19:43worth of fatalities and information. And Patty, hopefully you can show this on the screen,
00:19:49but they came up with what I'm terming as a fatality factor. They just call it a percentage.
00:19:54And the national average for horses that die because of breakdowns is 0.89%. So less than 1%.
00:20:02And I know that's too much. We're not saying that that's a passable grade, but just stick
00:20:07with me for a second. It's 0.89%. And when you go down the numbers, you look at it and you say,
00:20:13well, where's Bob Baffert on this? He's at 1.13%. So slightly higher than the average.
00:20:19Not as much as I think in the Washington Post, which I think by excluding those other
00:20:25issues, maybe takes out the, Bill, you use it, the sloppiness quotient of the situation.
00:20:32But when you look down this list, you guys are smart enough and our audience is smart enough to
00:20:37look down the list and go through and say, well, some of these trainers, I'm not surprised they
00:20:43have a higher fatality factor. And some of them, I'm not surprised, have a lower fatality factor.
00:20:49And guys, when I tell you that like, Wesley Ward and Mark Cassie and Graham Motion and
00:20:55Shug McGahee amongst many others are so far below the fatality factor, you wouldn't be surprised.
00:21:02But when you go through this list, and I'm not going to name names on here, but you guys
00:21:06can go through the list and see the trainers that are on here. And I would guarantee you
00:21:10that you will not be surprised some of the trainers that are above the fatality average
00:21:14fatality factor. And I think that's something that causes the question also with our industry,
00:21:19where it's like between the Washington Post story and these set of circumstances of these facts
00:21:25in this database, you have to sit here and say, there are guys that and women that just aren't
00:21:32doing right by the horse. They're not doing right by the horses that are under their charge,
00:21:36and they need to be recognized and admonished for that.
00:21:41Yeah, no, I mean, and yeah, those stats are always pretty revealing, I think, honestly,
00:21:47because you can see day to day, you know, whose horses you feel like are in more danger,
00:21:52you know, than other trainers. I want to go back to the public reaction thing, because
00:21:57Bill mentioned his story in today's TGN about the public outcry, the mainstream media and the
00:22:03general public reacting to this news. And it ain't good. And it's, you know, the nature of
00:22:10these stories are such that you're going to get a lot of negative comments on it. But Bill was
00:22:13saying that you get like, there were like 160, you know, anti racing comments, and maybe one
00:22:18pro racing comment on the New York Times story. And I just think about how people in the industry,
00:22:24I think a lot of people who I'm talking about that defend Bob Baffert, all the way,
00:22:29or just they're so ignorant of this. And, you know, there's so many industry insiders that I
00:22:34think are so insulated by the sport that they don't realize what it looks like to everybody
00:22:39else. And that's why I think it's valuable to have stories like like Bill did where you can
00:22:44you can get the pulse of the public because the public is fed up. And they should be honestly,
00:22:50like, I'm tired of defending it. I'm a passionate diehard racing fan and supporter lifer. And I'm
00:22:57tired of defending this shit. And I know that and I you know, I know that people in racing are
00:23:02tired of defending it. But it's just there's just this this kind of reactionary, you know,
00:23:07oh, well, those people don't know what they're talking about. Like they we shouldn't let them
00:23:11affect what we do in racing. Yeah, actually, we should. And I think about PETA a lot. And,
00:23:17you know, there was this in the TDN story about the median spirits death the other day,
00:23:21there was a little bit a little bit editorializing thing where it was like,
00:23:25predictably, PETA released a statement, you know, you know, lashing out at the sport and
00:23:30calling for Baffert to be banned. We like predictably, they should they should be
00:23:35releasing statements. And let me read you the statement. And you tell me if you think that
00:23:39this is an unreasonable statement, quote, it's premature to say that Medina spirit died of a
00:23:44heart attack, or what the true cause of his fatal collapse was given that many of trainer Bob
00:23:49Baffert's horses have suddenly dropped dead. Seven of Baffert's horses died mysteriously during a
00:23:5416th month 16 month period that was suspiciously linked to his reckless and routine habit of
00:23:58administering the powerful hormone thyroxine to horses without thyroid conditions. Baffert has
00:24:04continued to be embroiled in drug controversy since then, including when Medina spirit tested
00:24:08positive for drugs in the Kentucky Derby, all Medina spirits veterinary records must be seized
00:24:13and a thorough investigation must be conducted. Baffert's attorneys must not be allowed to control
00:24:17the narrative. PETA urges Santa Anita and Del Mar officials to bar Baffert pending the outcome
00:24:23of an investigation and a necropsy. You have a problem with that? Was that was that eminently
00:24:29unreasonable? Did they say that the sport should be nuked? And you know, nobody should ever be
00:24:34allowed to race a horse again? No, everything they said about Bob Baffert was factual. Sorry
00:24:39that you don't like the facts. I mean, it wasn't if you have a problem with what they wrote,
00:24:44honestly, like maybe you just can't handle the truth. And maybe you're just killing the messenger
00:24:49now. And, you know, it's just when you dismiss PETA and say, well, predictably PETA said this,
00:24:57you're acting as if they don't ever raise points or speak truths and they have a huge audience.
00:25:02So it's insane to dismiss them no matter what they say. But just maybe maybe when they call
00:25:08you out on your bullshit, it would be a time to take accountability and say, hey,
00:25:12our industry isn't perfect, but here are the steps we're taking every day to make racing safer and
00:25:17more drug free. Mention Haiza. Do some positive, proactive goddamn PR for once instead of just
00:25:24whining about how PETA is being mean to you after another horse death. And there's just so much of
00:25:30that in this industry that just is just reflexively dismissive of everybody who's not in the business
00:25:36and has a criticism of the way we run our sport as if it's not completely warranted to have those
00:25:41criticisms and as if we don't have those conversations behind closed doors anyway in
00:25:45the sport about how we're going to manage the latest PR crisis. I think they're just you know,
00:25:51that's why we ended up talking about this stuff for like a half hour, 40 minutes, because it's
00:25:54not about Bob Baffert and Medina's spirit. This is a symptom of the sport's ineptitude and
00:26:00inability to get its house in order. And this whiny reaction every time someone calls us out
00:26:07on our bullshit and I'm and I'm sick of it and I'm tired of people. I know it's just really
00:26:12rubbed me the wrong way, the people, the way people were wagging their finger about that
00:26:15Medina spirit, you know, drug result on Friday that just like, oh, well, guess Bob Baffert's
00:26:20all clean now. Don't have to do anything. No regulation, no sanctions, no punishment necessary.
00:26:26Told y'all that after decades, you know, Bob Baffert is a friend of mine. Therefore,
00:26:30he should stay sick around in the industry. That to me is a big problem is the attitude of so many
00:26:35industry insiders who are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
00:26:40Joe, I completely agree. And that was very well said, by the way. And, you know, I'll add to that.
00:26:47So a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a story about two state legislators in New York looking to take
00:26:53all the slot money away from Naira. And last year, it was the governor of Pennsylvania. And
00:27:00every time something like this happens, I mean, I nobody thinks this is going to occur in either
00:27:06instance, but it makes it easier and it makes their case stronger. And you know what? I bet
00:27:11you there's some politicians in California right now that are, you know, thinking, you know,
00:27:18maybe is it time to introduce a bill to ban horse racing in California and people that I think a lot
00:27:25of people don't think this will ever happen. And it's not going to happen tomorrow or the next day
00:27:32probably. And it may not ever happen, but you have to be very scared of this. It is a
00:27:39realistic threat. And look, you know, 15 years ago, if I suggested that the circus
00:27:46would no longer exist, they would have been laughable to think about something like that.
00:27:50And you know what? I kind of off the left field with this. And, you know, and but I'm going to
00:27:55defend myself that I'm the one guy that's anti-whipping among this. And the reason why
00:28:00obviously whipping is nowhere near as serious, not even a million miles as serious as what goes
00:28:05on with Medina Spirit. But by whipping the horses, we give our credit critics
00:28:12one more round of ammunition to go after the sport, which I think is completely unnecessary,
00:28:16as Monmouth Park proved that racing can be held fine without whipping. Don't give me any crap
00:28:21about the Haskell and that horse wouldn't have fought. That's nonsense. It had nothing to do
00:28:25with anything. So, you know, at the end of the day, Joe, I would agree with you, you know,
00:28:30stop making excuses, get the job done right. And maybe you're right. You know, you know,
00:28:36what are we going to do? Again, I don't agree with you. But, you know, if you say that that
00:28:41and I don't know how it will be done because there's no national body, but, you know, every
00:28:45racetrack in the country would have to do what Churchill Downs did and get together and say,
00:28:49Bob, you can't run here anymore. You know, that's what it takes. Maybe you're right, Joe.
00:28:55Yeah. And just to follow up on your point is that I think you're right that I don't I don't think a
00:29:01lot of people realize in racing how easily this could all go away. You know, it's it's
00:29:09a really drove home when I when I read Bill's story with the public reaction. I just think
00:29:14people don't realize, like all your stallion money, all the purses, all the crazy sales numbers
00:29:20that could all be gone, poof, because nobody really cares about anything except protecting
00:29:27their friends and their piece of the pie. But the public is fed up. And I don't know if I'm sure you
00:29:32guys know that meme of the dog sitting in the kitchen with the fire going on around him and
00:29:37he's saying this is fine. That's what I think a lot of people in racing are right now, man.
00:29:42Just a lot of people watching the house burn down around them and thinking, well, I'm making my
00:29:46money. You know, it's it's it's all good on this end. So and and I just think there's no appetite
00:29:52in racing to rid the sport of its of its albatrosses, which is unfortunate because
00:29:56there are some good stories, you know, handle is up. We're going to talk about that a little
00:30:00bit later. You know, reform is hopefully finally on the docket. But you got to be all in on that.
00:30:07You don't you can't just be like, well, you know, yeah, I'm for I'm for reform and I'm for,
00:30:12you know, uniform rules and I'm for Heise. But this guy who's had this, you know, 30 year
00:30:17checkered drug pass, who has these high profile horses who either test positive for drugs or
00:30:21drop dead, he's too valuable. He's too good of a friend of mine. So we're going to keep him and
00:30:27have him train our most famous horses and just cross our fingers and hope nothing bad happens.
00:30:33You got to be all in. And if it means leaving some of your friends behind,
00:30:36you got to do it because the sport is on the precipice right now. And it has been for a little
00:30:41bit. And if you don't see that, you need to talk to some people outside of your little circle.
00:30:46The TDN Writers Room is brought to you by Keeneland. The catalog for the Keeneland
00:30:49January Horses of All Ages Sale is now available online. Keeneland has cataloged over 1500 horses
00:30:55from broodmare and broodmare prospects to yearlings, horses of racing age, stallions and
00:30:59stallion prospects. The four sessions of the sale will all begin at 10 a.m. Book one will be January
00:31:0510th and 11th. Book two will be January 12th and 13th. It's a chance to get yearlings from
00:31:10short yearlings from stallions whose first weanlings were popular this fall with Audible,
00:31:14Catalina Cruiser, Mottoli, Omaha Beach, Vino Rosso, all represented in the Keeneland January
00:31:19Sale. Definitely get involved. Be right back after this message from Keeneland.
00:31:26Start the new year strong at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale.
00:31:31Make the most of your 2022. With a new year comes new exciting opportunities at Keeneland.
00:31:45Be there at the first sale of the year beginning January 10th.
00:32:01Echotown. It's Echotown for Joe Tallamo and Echotown
00:32:09breaks the wave and Echotown is drawing away in the stretch. Echotown wins the
00:32:14Alan Turkin stakes. A sire line so prolific it repeats itself. Echotown.
00:32:25The GDN Writers Room is brought to you by Coolmore. A huge weekend for Uncle Mo.
00:32:28Three juvenile winners on Friday including the wait a while winner Leah Marina for Christophe
00:32:33Clement at Gulfstream. She looked very good. Now on Saturday, Mo Donegal won the grade two
00:32:37Remsen. We're going to talk about that in a little bit for various reasons. Uncle Mo has now sired
00:32:4110 juvenile graded stakes winners from his first seven crops and Caravaggio who we mentioned before
00:32:46is represented by his 25th winner from his first crop on Friday with Tyberflow breaking his maiden
00:32:52in England. Caravaggio now the sire of eight stakes performers including group one winner
00:32:57Tenebrism and taking a look at the TDM first crop North American sire list. Ashford sires are all
00:33:02at the top of the earnings list. Practical Joke second, Classic Empire fourth, Caravaggio fifth,
00:33:08and Cupid seventh. So definitely a lot of power packed into that Ashford roster and good to see
00:33:16Cupid continuing to come on. Caravaggio very, very exciting. Really getting excited to see a lot more
00:33:21of his horses in America now that he's come over. So we're definitely looking forward to that.
00:33:27I feel like Cupid is quickly becoming a fan favorite, not only of ours, but of our listeners.
00:33:32I'm seeing more and more tweets about his foals and where they're running and how they're winning
00:33:37and how good they look. And it's just a phenomenon because the horse stands for $5,000.
00:33:42I mean, which-
00:33:42To make him like the new mascot of the show after Harvey's little Goyle.
00:33:46We really, really, and I think we might have to. I think we might have to start doing Cupid
00:33:51like Joe usually does for Cupid. There's a Cupid grad on Tap because they're running,
00:33:58Joe, they're running all over the freaking place. I mean, it's not just like they're only running
00:34:02well in Canada where he won a couple of, he had a couple of great stake winners. They're running
00:34:05all over the country. So I'm really excited to see how this Sun of Tapa continues to develop.
00:34:11So I thought this was going to be our top story before Monday morning. There was a lot of outcry
00:34:16and a lot of outrage about this. I read Ortiz Jr. on Friday almost put a young jockey into the
00:34:26rail. And there was a lot of backlash about it because he kind of has developed a reputation
00:34:33for being a little bit of a dangerous and careless rider, which is unfortunate because he's such a
00:34:37great rider and he's one of the best we have in terms of talent. But this is, I think, starting
00:34:42to kind of sully his legacy a little bit. And I read a lot of fans out there. He also has a lot of
00:34:47detractors. But this is the kind of thing that I think most people should agree that has no business
00:34:52in the game and is extremely dangerous. I think we're going to show the footage right now if we
00:34:57can show the head on from Friday's eighth race at Aqueduct. I read he's on the lead and he's
00:35:05trying to come over to the rail. Now, if you watch it and you time it, to me, he comes over eight
00:35:11paths in eight seconds. So that's one path per second. And he does not look over to see who's
00:35:18inside of him until he makes contact with the horse. The horse behind him checks. The jockey
00:35:23falls off. It was Omar Hernandez Moreno was a seven pound bug rider in New York. He falls off.
00:35:28Thankfully, he was OK. You just you can see him kind of take a tumble and go under the rail
00:35:33for safety. So glad glad he was OK. But it was it was extremely reckless. It was just it was
00:35:40very damning to watch that head on. You know, you couldn't really tell from the pan how much
00:35:44he interfered. But that that I thought was the textbook definition of reckless and careless
00:35:50riding. And I think what made it worse and we can show this, too, was that even after all of the
00:35:57outcry, they weren't supposed to. They couldn't suspend him before the cigar milecard. Like
00:36:02logistically, you wouldn't be able to do that. But he came back on the cigar milecard. And if
00:36:06we can show the head on of the Remsen with Moe Donegal and the Chad Brown horse to his inside,
00:36:11I forget the horse's name. Zandan, I think, was the name. Yeah. And you can see you can see Irad
00:36:16coming down the stretch, leaning off his horse and basically leaning so far that he kind of hits
00:36:22the horse to his inside in the face with his horse's reign and make it make it made it very,
00:36:28very tight on Johnny. And the Iran's horse won by a nose. They did look at it. The stewards
00:36:34looked at it. They decided not to disqualify him. And that probably was not the right call.
00:36:39I don't know that it was a slam dunk DQ, but it was a situation where the horse probably should
00:36:43have been disqualified. And I think that that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way that,
00:36:47you know, less than a day after he could have killed this bug rider in New York,
00:36:53he's basically out there doing the exact same thing. And that speaks to a lack of mental
00:36:58discipline. And, you know, I don't want to go too strong here. But, you know, when you do stuff
00:37:05like that regularly, it's borderline sociopathic, honestly, because it's such a dangerous sport.
00:37:10We've seen Paco do this. We've seen Paco play pinball all the time with with other riders and
00:37:16not take their safety into account. If you're doing this over and over again, and especially
00:37:20the day after there was so much outcry because you really could have hurt this other rider and
00:37:26this other horse. I think that that's a problem that, you know, is not easily fixed. Now,
00:37:31the Naira stewards did do a good job. They suspended him 30 days, which is not something
00:37:35you see a lot of jockeys get. And especially for a high profile jockey like him, you know,
00:37:40there's not really anything going on the next 30 days. So it's probably a good time, relatively
00:37:43speaking, to get a 30 day suspension. But I thought that that was the least they could have
00:37:47done. I'm glad they did it. And we'll see if he changes his behavior going forward, because a lot
00:37:52of people are saying that if he doesn't, he's going to end up killing somebody. And I can't
00:37:55say I disagree. Bill, what do you think? Yeah, Joe, first of all, a couple points. I disagree
00:38:00with you or to the degree of the ramps. And I can't believe they didn't take them down.
00:38:04You know, everybody loves the best stewards. But, you know, the horse wins by a nose and he's,
00:38:08you know, all over the other horse and, you know, literally like his elbow and the horse's face and
00:38:14that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, the the problem going into the Friday card where he dropped the
00:38:22apprentice and was that there again, you talk about with Baffert deterrence. Where were the
00:38:29deterrence? You know, I'm sure he's gotten along the way, you know, the three and five day
00:38:33suspensions. But, you know, where is when does the hammer come down? And you say, OK, this is going
00:38:39to stop right now. And if not, you know, we're going to give you 30 days and the next time it's
00:38:44going to be 60. And then after that, it's going to be six months. I know Ray Pollack and his
00:38:48coverage of reference, a situation where Eddie Arcaro got a year suspension for something like
00:38:53this. So he said it made him change his behavior. Yeah. So the giving him the 30 days absolutely was
00:39:00the right message. Now, let's see if he changes and does anything. And the fact that he couldn't
00:39:06go one day without getting into trouble again does tell you something about it. And, you know,
00:39:10back to the ride. I don't what was he even thinking? You know, it's fine to get to the rail,
00:39:15but, you know, he acted as if like there were no other horses behind him. You know, the very
00:39:21definition of reckless and careless, like he didn't even have any regard for the other horses in the
00:39:26race, the other riders or anything like that. He's a great rider. He's a young rider. Let's see if he
00:39:31changes. And if not, you know, again, next time, you know, some people say 30 wasn't enough. I'm
00:39:38fine with 30. But then, you know, next time make it six months. You're going to have to do that
00:39:43or else, like you said, you know, God forbid it never happens. But somebody is going to get
00:39:48very seriously hurt here. I'm actually glad that Naira came in and made a definitive statement
00:39:55by giving him 30 days, which is a lot, which is a lot of days. Granted, you can't time it with
00:40:00the calendar. I get it. You know, most of this time, you know, there's not going to be a lot
00:40:03of live racing over that period of time. Don't worry about that part. They came down with a 30
00:40:08day suspension. They came down with an immediate suspension. They didn't kick it down the road.
00:40:13They didn't say, well, we got to wait and see. They recognized that they needed to do something.
00:40:18Naira needed to do something immediate and dramatic in order to get this kid to take
00:40:24notice. And look, Naira has won so many big races in his career. And especially over the past couple
00:40:29of years, you know, nationwide, if not, you know, focused primarily on New York. He is one of the
00:40:34top riders in the country. None of us can argue with that. Statistics show that he is a phenomenal
00:40:39talent. I think the problem right now is that he's a little immature mentally. And, you know,
00:40:46he's going into each race with road rage. He's going into each race with the idea that I'm going
00:40:52to savage anybody as opposed to I'm going to ride my horse to the best of my ability and get this
00:40:57horse to the finish line first. And I don't remember guys seeing this, you know, verbatim
00:41:03in a, you know, in a daily racing form review of the race, the result of the race. But let me just
00:41:10read to you what they said about his ride on the winner of the Ramson. Basically, it was, you know,
00:41:16bump with the rival start, blah, blah, blah, blah. Moved in, dot, dot, dot, moved in closer to the
00:41:22run-up under a right-handed crop at the 16th pole, had the rider, meaning I read, put the crop away
00:41:30and throw repeated exaggerated crosses with the left ring near the face of the runner up and
00:41:36narrowly prevail. Now, I know we all kind of touched upon that, that there was, there was
00:41:41malice involved and, and it was, you know, it was definitely something that he knew he was going to
00:41:47do. It was almost premeditated that he was going to intimidate the horse on the rail if he got to
00:41:52that point. So much so that he went from, you know, like Joe, like you said, the six, seven path all
00:41:56the way to the rail with complete disregard of who else was there. Now, luckily they were 10
00:42:00lengths up on the rest of the field, but it was those two horses going down the stretch.
00:42:04And what if Zandon went down? What if the horse went down and had to, and, and, and we're not
00:42:10talking so much about what goes on with Medina Spirit. We're talking about the fact that,
00:42:15you know, that Zandon broke down because of the absolute malice involved and recklessness
00:42:21of a rider. It wasn't because of anything the horse did. It was because of something that
00:42:25another jockey did on a different mount. It'd be a completely different focal point and discussion
00:42:30for us today. Thankfully it didn't happen. Now, should he have been taken down? Yeah,
00:42:34I think we can all make an argument that, that Modonical should have been taken down because,
00:42:38not because of what the horse did, but because of what Irad Ortiz did. And look, young horses
00:42:44make mistakes and do things that are goofy, especially young colts. And Modonical, this
00:42:49was only his third start. So would I be surprised if, you know, a big uncle Mo like he is was,
00:42:55you know, was dragging Irad to that point in time in the racetrack. And that's why the horse,
00:43:01you know, almost took down the other one. Yeah, I would, I would say I could see that happening in
00:43:06an early two-year-old's career. But it had nothing to do with the horse. It had everything to do with
00:43:10the rider of the horse, in this case, Irad Ortiz. And, you know, we should be thankful that nothing
00:43:16else happened to the jockey the day before and to the horse or the horses in that race,
00:43:22because it would have a completely different, you know, comment section, a completely different
00:43:26focal point on it today. I'm just glad again, if I can recap that Naira took this into their own
00:43:33hands and said, we are not going to stand for this. We don't want this to be, you know, the
00:43:38image of, of our racing standards here. We're going to give a 30-day suspension and we're going
00:43:43to make an immediate end of story next race. Yeah. And I think, you know, to Bill's point that,
00:43:49you know, as if, if this happens again, if this kind of thing happens again, it needs to be three
00:43:54months or six months, you know, it just, this, this should be a starting point in terms of,
00:43:59Hey, we're giving you this chance right here to change your behavior. You keep doing this.
00:44:02You're going to get six months. You're going to get a year. I don't care how big of a name you are.
00:44:07We are not going to tolerate this. And hopefully that this is the start of that. And people
00:44:11getting tough with, with Ira, because, you know, like Bill was saying, and it relates back to the
00:44:16Bob Baffert thing a little bit is that, you know, as is the case in so many racing issues,
00:44:21there's someone who has, who's like very high profiles, got a lot of clout and who repeatedly
00:44:25acts irresponsibly and not in the best interest of people who are not him.
00:44:30Um, but there's no deterrent to his behavior. So he doesn't feel any, any need to change. And
00:44:35hopefully he will with this suspension, then, you know, potentially a longer suspension in
00:44:39the future. If he, if he does this, you know, there's some people on, on, on racing Twitter,
00:44:43who was saying, you know, I ran was, was trying to, to, to do this and put the kid over the rail.
00:44:48That doesn't make any sense to me. He's trying to, he's trying to injure a seven pound bug boy to
00:44:53win a $16,000 claimer on a Friday at aqueduct. I don't think that that's the case. It's more that
00:44:58he doesn't care. And, you know, effectively that's just as bad as, you know, as trying to injure
00:45:03people when stuff like this happens. And I think the other rider safety doesn't even really
00:45:08cross his mind. And that's, that's not much better than, than trying to hurt people.
00:45:12And like, like John says, I think road rage, that's pretty, that's pretty apt. You know,
00:45:17we've talked about this before. We've seen, I read yell at people on the track and the
00:45:21winter circle, we saw him punch Paco Lopez in the face in front of everybody. And I think,
00:45:26you know, he does have a little bit of an anger management issue. And, you know, it's, it's,
00:45:31like I said, it's unfortunate because he's such a great rider and, you know, he's, he's, he's
00:45:34brilliant to watch, you know, tactically he's just, he's, he's amazing, amazing talent, but this is,
00:45:41this is the kind of thing that cannot be tolerated and, and it has been for a long time.
00:45:45So it's good to see the Naira stewards step in, give him the 30 days. And I would love to see him
00:45:50get his act together because it's just an unfortunate, it's a stain on his legacy to
00:45:54ride like this. And I, you know, I hope he realizes that and I hope he has people in his
00:45:58life that can, you know, that can get that through to him that, you know, you're great and all,
00:46:02but people, people aren't going to hate your guts. And there's a chance that someone might
00:46:07want to take a shot at you eventually, if you keep trying to do this. So,
00:46:11so hopefully he changes his behavior, but, but we're going to see, we'll, we'll have to see.
00:46:15The TDN Writer's Room is brought to you by XPTV. The XPTV Workout of the Week,
00:46:19Reader's Cup Philly and Marist Sprint Champion, CeCe back on the track, working four furlongs
00:46:24in 48 and four at Santa Anita on Saturday. You can probably see that right now as I'm talking,
00:46:29possibly going to the Santa Monica, I would think is a great two spot that she could end up in.
00:46:34You know, she's, she's on, she's been on the podium at least for, for Philly and Marist
00:46:38Sprint Champion. She's not going to win. I'm not going to win. Okay, John, I'm not,
00:46:42I'm not dissing Gameen here. Look at that face. He was ready to jump all over me. I'm not saying
00:46:47she's going to win, but she did beat Gameen when it mattered most. So she's going to be nominated
00:46:53homebred for, for Bo Hirsch. So very, very nice for us. And obviously if you want to see her
00:46:58continue to train up, you can go to XPTV.com, check out all of the workouts. So like I said,
00:47:02with the Malibu coming up too, we had flight line working last week. Um, definitely looks very good.
00:47:08So you check in on all the Malibu contenders, all the Pegasus contenders. I saw Nick's go,
00:47:13got back on the work tab, uh, recently. And, and we're obviously looking forward to seeing him in
00:47:18the Pegasus. So if you want to check out any of those horses as they prep for these big races,
00:47:22XPTV.com is your source. We'll be right back after this message from XPTV.
00:47:52The Green Group guest of the week is sponsored by the Green Group, an accounting, tax, consulting,
00:48:02and advisory firm specializing in the thoroughbred industry. With over 500 clients in the horse
00:48:06business, they have proven strategies to save you taxes. Learn more about how they can help
00:48:10you at www.greenco.com. So yesterday, Bill and I sat down with Clint Bentley, who's the director
00:48:18of the upcoming film Jockey, which releases December 29th in New York and LA. Let's hear
00:48:23from Clint. So we're thrilled to be joined right now by the director of the upcoming movie Jockey,
00:48:28which comes out December 29th in New York and LA. Clint Bentley, thanks for coming on with us, man.
00:48:33Thank you guys for having me. It's good to see you. Great to talk to you as well. Um, so you
00:48:37have a little bit of a racing background. So I wanted to start with that and maybe what that
00:48:41racing background, how that led to you creating this film. Yeah, my dad was a jockey. And so I
00:48:49grew up in the barns and I grew up behind the racetrack. And as anybody in the racing world
00:48:55knows, there's quite a few kids back there sometimes. And it was only when I became a
00:49:01filmmaker that I realized that I hadn't really seen a racing movie that told the story of a
00:49:09jockey and felt like I think a lot of these working class tracks feel back there. And so I
00:49:15wanted to really focus on that. It's not the Kentucky Derby. It's not the Preakness. It's
00:49:20not the thing that everybody watches. It's the circuit that a lot of people find themselves on.
00:49:26And sorry, Bill, I just wanted to follow up. Can you just expound on what your experience was
00:49:30growing up? Like what tracks? What did you get used to growing up?
00:49:35I got used to... We lived in Florida. And so we were at a lot of South Florida tracks.
00:49:41But then we were also all over the country, traveling with my dad out in Texas and
00:49:45Louisiana. My sister was born in Oklahoma City, because my dad was racing at Remington at the
00:49:52time. And so just being on that circuit, I mean, so my earliest memories are being
00:49:57babysat by the trainers while my dad is exercising horses in the morning
00:50:01or... And then helping them feed up and helping clean stalls and all that. I was doing my fair
00:50:06share of work once I got a little older. But then also just, yeah, hanging out by the starting gates,
00:50:12oddly enough, as a kid. And so yeah, a lot of my earliest memories feel like they come from
00:50:18a racetrack. Clint, thanks for joining us. And the horse racing movies we're used to
00:50:26usually are uplifting Disney-esque, like Secretariat. Seabiscuit doesn't quite fall
00:50:31into that category. But it also was a story, a heartwarming story of a horse succeeding at
00:50:37the highest level against all odds. What made you want to tell this story versus the glory of
00:50:44someone winning the Triple Crown? One, I feel like we had seen that,
00:50:49to your point. We've seen it a few times. And then two, my dad had a lot of success in his
00:50:57career and had a nice career and got a lot of joy from it. But also, his career didn't go that way.
00:51:04And I think most jockeys, their career doesn't go that way. They don't end up
00:51:08at the Triple Crown. They maybe don't even end up winning the fraternities. And so
00:51:14I really wanted to just show that side of it. But then also, within that, it's not...
00:51:21I didn't see that as a bad thing. I didn't see it as like,
00:51:24oh, you don't get to the Triple Crown. And so therefore, you failed. It's like,
00:51:28you can have a very successful career outside of that. And also the fact that jockeys and trainers,
00:51:36their joy comes from the racing itself. And yes, they want to win. But also, it's not
00:51:44about that. That 1 minute of a race or 2 minutes of a race only encompasses a small part of their
00:51:49life. And so that was really what I wanted to show. And the winning and the losing is
00:51:54circumstantial outside of that. Right. It's a lifestyle and it's all encompassing,
00:52:00which I think is something that you have... It's just from the clips that you have really shown in
00:52:06this movie. But I wanted to ask about what kind of research and background that Clifton did.
00:52:12Because Clifton's performance is really getting a lot of buzz here. And it just seems very
00:52:17believable as a jockey, maybe on his last legs. What did he do? Did he hang out with the racetrack?
00:52:23Did he hang out with other jockeys? What kind of research went into this character?
00:52:27Yeah. He really went deep. My co-writer, Greg, and I, we set him up with a lot of jockeys.
00:52:36And he just really ate it all up. He learned everything that he could from talking to them.
00:52:41But then also, once we got out of it, we went early to Turf Paradise where we shot.
00:52:46And he just spent every waking minute just hanging out with the jockeys and learning
00:52:52the little physical things that they do so that he could sell that not only in terms of saying
00:52:58the right words, but also having the right mannerisms. And then on top of that, he lost a
00:53:04lot of weight and really got that sunken look, that gaunt look that you need as a jockey in the
00:53:14face to really sell that. Yeah, he went deep. I'm sorry, guys.
00:53:19Sorry. No, no. Go for it.
00:53:20On that same topic, a lot of these jockeys wouldn't be familiar to the average moviegoer,
00:53:26but to horse racing fans, guys like Scott Stevens and some of the other Turf Paradise regulars,
00:53:31they were involved in the movie. A lot of them had small parts. And then you had the one jockey
00:53:37Cormier had actually a big part as Leo. How did you decide where to put the real people of Turf
00:53:44Paradise into the movie versus a professional actor? Yeah, that's a good question. And something
00:53:50I'm very proud that we were able to do is incorporate members of the horse racing community
00:53:56into the movie. But that was by design from the beginning of just the very dramatically heavy
00:54:04roles like Jackson and like Ruth and Gabriel were going to be actors. And then everybody else,
00:54:14we were just going to find people and tailor roles to those people. And so all the supporting roles
00:54:21were always going to be people from the world of horse racing. And then it was really just
00:54:27about finding somebody who is just a very interesting person and tailoring a role to
00:54:33them like with Logan Cormier, who does such a beautiful job as Leo. That role was written
00:54:40much smaller than that. And we just found out very quickly that Logan's a great actor
00:54:45and just really expanded it for him. And there's so many stories like that.
00:54:51Right. I mean, that's kind of leads into my next question, which is what do you want people to know
00:54:55people who are coming into this who are novices in racing or don't know anything about it? What
00:54:59do you want them to take away from this film as someone who has a background in racing who has
00:55:03that kind of intimate connection to it that most people don't have, you know, good, bad in between?
00:55:09What do you want people to take film? I think the thing that that I'm glad that it's coming across
00:55:15one just very on a surface level, it's that I would talk to friends and tell them that my dad
00:55:22was a jockey before making this movie. And even if they knew, even if they had been to a horse
00:55:27race, they would say, what's a jockey? And they didn't have any idea what a jockey did or what a
00:55:31jockey goes through. And so just being able to show that I'm very proud of with the movie.
00:55:38But then also, I feel like conversations around horse racing kind of fall into one of two camps
00:55:43a lot of times, and it either falls into like, oh, it's amazing, and there's nothing wrong or
00:55:48it's terrible, and everything's wrong with it. And the truth is right in the middle. And I think
00:55:53being able to show the beauty of it and the beauty of that lifestyle, and not shy away from the warts
00:56:01of it is something that maybe will give us a better understanding and appreciation of it.
00:56:08Sort of a spoiler alert here, because I have seen the movie that the star Jackson Silva,
00:56:12the jockey is kind of down on his luck over the hill has been battered by spills. He's
00:56:20had numerous injuries. He's fighting off an injury that's affecting his ability to ride.
00:56:26Common sense would say it's time for him to ride off in the sunset. Why can't he do it?
00:56:32I think that's a great million dollar question. It's something that I think
00:56:38it's something I asked jockeys a lot. And I think it makes sense of like, this is the thing that
00:56:45has given them, especially if you've been fortunate enough to become an older jockey
00:56:49like Jackson has. It's something that's given you so much meaning in your entire life
00:56:55that it's not just as simple as like, oh, go get another job. It's your life.
00:56:59And to walk away from it's very hard. And G.R. Carter, the great jockey is actually someone
00:57:06who's become a friend and helped out on the movie. And I was talking to him a little bit
00:57:10about this and asking him about it. And I don't think he dealt with this, but he said a lot of
00:57:15jockeys, you know, everybody knows you're finished before you do. And I think that's that leads into
00:57:22this character a little bit as well. Jackson is kind of the last to realize that he's not got long
00:57:29left in the sport. Clint, you kind of touched on this, but Joe and I spend, unfortunately,
00:57:34so much of our time writing about talking about all that's wrong with horse racing.
00:57:40Yesterday, I wrote the awful story of Medina Spirit. You mentioned this a little bit, but
00:57:45I'm always curious about how people, you know, and we tend to be within racing circles and don't
00:57:50venture outside of maybe as much as we should. Obviously, that wouldn't be the case with you.
00:57:54When you tell people you're doing this movie, you said you heard it from both sides. But
00:57:59how often do you hear people say, oh, my God, you're why are you doing horse racing? That's
00:58:03so cruel, or that sport is all fixed, or all they do is drug all the horses. I was curious about,
00:58:08you know, what, if you could elaborate a little bit on the reaction that you get from people.
00:58:13Once they see it, they understand it a little better. And I don't I haven't really had to,
00:58:19you don't really have to have those conversations, because they see it. And they're like, Oh, yeah.
00:58:23And but in the beginning, I just kind of, you know, when I have had those conversations, it's
00:58:30like, not sugarcoating that that does happen. But the reality is that most of the vast majority of
00:58:41the trainers and the jockeys, and the grooms and everybody loves those horses and really want to
00:58:46take care of them. And also those people who really want to take care of their horses don't,
00:58:53from what I've experienced, and when I've talked to them, they don't have a problem with better
00:58:57regulations and things like that and upping the weights for jockeys so that so that you're not
00:59:03having to ride at 124. And you can get up to 128 or 130. Like they're doing very successfully over
00:59:09in over in France and, and London and some other places where the jockeys don't get hurt as much
00:59:14and the horses don't get hurt as much. And so I think just just giving people that nuance.
00:59:20And it is something that they, they respond to and can understand like within any sport.
00:59:30But I think it's it's something that the racing industry itself can do a better job than I can
00:59:38have just by by, you know, implementing different things that that keep people and horses safe.
00:59:46Well, we thank you for telling the story, Clint. We thank you for coming on and talking with us.
00:59:49Best of luck with the release, man.
00:59:51Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. And thank you everyone for watching.
01:00:07Careful with them gaps. You're going to clip heels.
01:00:10It's all right. Dublin hates those outside posts. So how was he on the turns?
01:00:16A little soft. Still stutter stepping into gates like frigging Fred Astaire.
01:00:20Yeah, I don't think we're ever going to break him of that.
01:00:23China cat's up next.
01:00:24Yeah, you're going to have a time with him today. He almost kicked up my teeth this morning.
01:00:29At least he's keeping an interest. I don't like him fighting.
01:00:31Well, he'll have the energy. If you want to get him out first, I think he'll last.
01:00:35Well, he'll have the energy. If you want to get him out first, I think he'll last.
01:00:39Listen, Dublin's owners are here and she really wants to meet you. Would you just come and say
01:00:44hello? Come on, man. She's been on my case for like two weeks. Just say hi. All right.
01:00:50Here he is. Howdy.
01:00:55He's got to change right now.
01:00:59The Green Group guest of the week is sponsored by the Green Group, an accounting, tax,
01:01:02consulting and advisory firm specializing in the industry. As this week's Green Group guest
01:01:07of the week, Clint Bentley, receive a free one hour tax consultation. Learn more at greenco.com.
01:01:13We'll be right back after this message from the Green Group.
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01:02:19The TDN Writer's Room is brought to you by West Point.
01:02:24Joining a West Point Thoroughbreds partnership can vault you into the world of instant camaraderie
01:02:28among people surrounding high-class horses and stakes action for a fraction of the cost of
01:02:32trying to do it on your own. Learn more at westpointtb.com. I want to congratulate West
01:02:37Point because last weekend they reached the $60 million milestone in all-time purses. That's a
01:02:42nice chunk of change. The current win total is 968, so they're on pace to hit a thousand wins
01:02:48as well in 2022. I want to know if you guys know who West Point's all-time leading earner is,
01:02:55Bill or Judd. Any thoughts? Stomped. It's hard not to love.
01:03:02No, this is a good one. This is a good nugget from Katie here. It's Awesome Jem,
01:03:07who earned $2.88 million and was a multiple great stakes winner. Also won the Hollywood
01:03:11Gold Cup in 2010. Now resides at Old Friends in Kentucky. So that just goes to show how many
01:03:17great horses West Point has had. So congratulations to the partners on the milestone and best of luck
01:03:22in 2022. Now we are bringing in our publisher, our boss, Sue Finley, who was in France for the
01:03:29past week. And I don't know if you've heard, but there's a little bit of France drug news going on.
01:03:34So I'm going to let her summarize what's happened in the whirlwind of the past week,
01:03:39and which includes some police raids, which we're well familiar with here in the U.S.
01:03:43Sue, go ahead. Hey Joe, thanks so much. So yeah, so this
01:03:47week in France started out with such really good news in that the Arcana sales company staged their
01:03:54December breeding stock sale and it broke every record. Top price ever sold at Arcana,
01:04:00international clientele, Peter Brandt came over and spent almost $5 million,
01:04:05Roy and Gretchen Jackson came over and spent money, a new consignment first year out of the
01:04:11box, top of the sale, everybody was happy. And then as I was flying home yesterday, the news
01:04:17broke that police had raided the stables of a family in Marseilles. They came in and they raided
01:04:26the stables of trainers, Frederick, Cedric and Charlie Rossi. And the reason the two things are
01:04:32connected is that Cedric Rossi, who hasn't yet been arrested or hasn't been arrested,
01:04:42trained Rougier, who topped the Arcana sale at $3 million and was sold to Peter Brandt.
01:04:47And he also trained Purple Pay, who Roy and Gretchen Jackson bought for $2 million. Both of
01:04:55those horses are headed to America. And of course, now they're going to have to be subjected to
01:05:00additional tests to determine if they tested positive for anything. And it's just, it's really
01:05:08France's version of the service Navarro case, because as it turns out, the police have been
01:05:16working on this investigation since last September, and they just staged the raid
01:05:21Tuesday morning at 6.30, just three days after these record-breaking sales had happened.
01:05:30They arrested Charlie and his wife, Jessica Marcialis, who's a jockey. And then they brought
01:05:36in Frederick and Cedric for questioning. So, all in all, it's just, you know,
01:05:44it's more of the same worldwide. Very disappointing.
01:05:48I wonder how unprecedented this is in European racing, because it was certainly unprecedented
01:05:54when the FBI came in and busted service Navarro and all those people. But I think it was something
01:06:00that we expected them to get caught with something along the lines of drugs sometime,
01:06:07and then we just didn't expect the federal law enforcement to get involved. But I wonder if
01:06:12there's ever been any whispers in France or anything about these people and whether or
01:06:16not they're surprised that this happened. There has been some suspicion and discussion,
01:06:23because the whole family has had a very sudden run of good fortune. They've been training forever
01:06:30but the uncle Frederick just had his first Group One winner last year. They came back,
01:06:36they won races on Arc Day. And so, there's definitely been some talk and there was some
01:06:42reason, obviously, that the police decided to start this inquiry a year ago. You know,
01:06:49and it's just a shame for the buyers who now sort of have purchased these horses who are
01:06:57now under suspicion. It's a shame for the sales company, which was celebrating a justifiable great
01:07:04sale and great performance. It's a shame for the consignors. It's a shame for
01:07:09racing across the world. And the other question I would have for you as someone who's more plugged
01:07:15into French racing and breeding than I am, you know, when service Navarro happened, there was
01:07:20kind of a cascading effect within the industry that got a lot of people to be like, listen,
01:07:26this is a five alarm fire. We got to try to do something about this. And I think that that was
01:07:31kind of the impetus for Heise passing and some of the reforms that we've seen. Do you think that
01:07:36there will be a similar kind of reckoning in France? Or do you think this is more of a one-off?
01:07:41Yeah, I mean, obviously, it's too early to tell. But the additional similarity is that 15 people
01:07:46were brought in for questioning. And under French law, they can keep them all for four days without
01:07:51arresting them. There were veterinarians included. And there are also suggestions
01:07:57reported by the Jour de Gallo, as well as by Emma Berry and our paper, that it's not only
01:08:02doping that's in question, it also may be race fixing. So it's hard to imagine that this isn't
01:08:08going to have some cascading effect throughout the industry.
01:08:12And Sue, you mentioned all the important salient points about not only the breadth of this,
01:08:18the fact that there were 15 people that were brought in, but that it does transcend,
01:08:24you know, I say just blood doping, and goes into possibly race fixing as well, which is,
01:08:30you know, egregious and serious unto itself. How does the sales company react to a situation
01:08:37like this, where, you know, basically, they were given the platform to sell these horses.
01:08:44And now there's there's this, you know, huge cloud that that's kind of overseeing this. I
01:08:49know when we buy horses, usually it's yearlings or racehorses, you can actually draw blood and
01:08:54test for certain instances. Would that be the case for these horses as well?
01:09:00Absolutely. I'm told that the buyers did just as a routine matter, of course, draw blood and test
01:09:07after the sale. Obviously, those tests haven't come back yet. The horses are now
01:09:13being subjected to additional tests, blood, hair and other things to determine whether or not,
01:09:21you know, they'll, they'll test for anything. It's worth mentioning that it's Cedric Rossi,
01:09:26who trained Rougier, who sold for $3 million, and PurplePay, who's euros rather, and PurplePay,
01:09:33who sold for 2 million euros. He was not arrested. He did go to the police station,
01:09:39it's unknown if that was voluntarily to provide more evidence or, you know, if they
01:09:45strongly suggested he come in. So much more to be learned over the coming days.
01:09:51Sure. And we appreciate you breaking that down for us, Sue. We're glad to have you back from France.
01:09:56You escaped all the turmoil. We got back.
01:09:59Just got out in the nick of time.
01:10:01And what a great reporter by not only your spidey senses just made you go to France
01:10:07ahead of the story. I mean, that's why you're our leader.
01:10:10It had nothing to do with the wine and cheese at all.
01:10:14Better ear to the street. What's the French?
01:10:23Thanks, Sue, for coming on and explaining that story. I think there's gonna be a lot of fallout
01:10:26from that as well. So we'll definitely keep you all posted about the French controversy that's
01:10:32going on. But before we wrap up today, I wanted to mention some of the racing. You know, there was
01:10:36racing. Oh, yeah. Imagine that. It wasn't just horses dying and getting drugged. There was the
01:10:43cigar mile day card at Aqueduct, which we were all very excited about. And I think, you know,
01:10:47at least the big race didn't disappoint. And it was American Revolution and following seed
01:10:53ding dong battling down the stretch American Revolution. I was very, very impressed by
01:10:58simply because I said before the race, I didn't think he wanted to go a mile. I thought that was
01:11:02too short for him for him to be able to lay close enough and to be able to wear down following
01:11:06see in the stretch. I thought voted very well for him in the future. And finally, he ran great.
01:11:12Like he was not a horse that I liked at all in that race. I don't. In general, I don't think he's
01:11:17better going a mile. I think he's better going six or seven. You look at the pace. It was twenty
01:11:22three and forty six. But the way that track was playing, look at where Ginobili finished up the
01:11:27race. And then you can see how well following see ran. So that got me thinking about these three
01:11:32soon to be four year olds that Todd Pletcher has in his barn. Life is good. American Revolution
01:11:38and following see arguably to me the three best dirt horses in training, not counting Nick's go
01:11:44because he's going to be retired after the Pegasus World Cup. Could you find three better dirt horses
01:11:49in training? I don't think so. Following see, I think we'll most likely be a sprinter, although
01:11:54you know, Bill or Todd Pletcher talked about having him run a mile next year, which makes sense.
01:12:00But that was that was just what struck me, is how big both of those horses ran. And with the
01:12:05addition of life is good, how loaded Todd Pletcher is going into twenty twenty two. What do you guys
01:12:10think? And of course, adding to the Pletcher story is he won three of the four races on Cigar Mile
01:12:14Day, winning the Remsen, the Demoiselle and then finishing one, two in the Cigar Mile.
01:12:19American Revolution. This was a litmus test for him. You know, he had looked very good earlier
01:12:24in his career, but it only beat New York Reds had never won any sort of open company stake.
01:12:29So he goes all the way from a New York Red race in the Empire Classic into an open grade one.
01:12:34I wasn't as impressed with him, Joe, as apparently you were. And it was an odd performance to me.
01:12:39He was under a stiff drive a half mile out and looked like he wasn't going anywhere. And Luis
01:12:46Saez rode that hair off of that horse and just kept and I don't know if that's his style. Maybe,
01:12:51you know, he needs to be ridden that way. But, you know, it was he was never under cruise control
01:12:56by any stretch of the imagination. But having said that, it was a very good win for him and,
01:13:01you know, defining win in his career. And you're right. You know, he is going to go into 2022
01:13:07as one of them. You know, again, a million things can change. But, you know, as one of
01:13:11the main contenders, perhaps even for a horse of the year title, the sky's the limit for him.
01:13:15The thing that I loved about this race, guys, is that, you know, we talked about it ahead of time
01:13:19and said this was a quote, unquote, legitimate grade one. I mean, you look at the names of the
01:13:23horses that are in the race and, you know, starting with the winner, American Revolution,
01:13:26following C Plainsman, Code of Honor, Ginobili, Independence Hall. I mean, those are all
01:13:32legitimate older horses that all got together and faced off, you know, in this cigar mile.
01:13:39So I was really excited to watch the race. I don't think that any of us, you know, ahead of the time
01:13:45thought that American Revolution was the horse to beat, although he definitely went off as the race
01:13:50favorite. But I think that was more of a case because of who he had run against previously
01:13:55compared to the resumes of all the other respective horses in the race. But it did take,
01:14:01as, you know, as Bill alluded to, it took all of Luis Saez's energies and efforts to get that
01:14:07horse ahead and across the wire in time. And whether or not that the mile is really his best
01:14:12distance is, you know, questionable, to say the least. But man, that was a really fun race to
01:14:18watch, top to bottom, because the lead changed hands a couple of times. There was, you know,
01:14:22there was some tactical race riding amongst the riders. And really, to me, as a race fan,
01:14:28it was a great watching race. And, you know, and it was fun to see a young horse like American
01:14:35Revolution breakthrough, get a grade one and win a big race against open company. And Joe,
01:14:40you're right. It looks like that Pletcher is coming into 2022, kind of the way Brad Cox was
01:14:46ending 2021 with just an embarrassment of riches and some really good older horses, you know,
01:14:52heading into the first quarter of the year. Speaking of Brad Cox, the other graded stakes
01:14:57that Todd Pletcher didn't win on Saturday, but Brad Cox went with Lady Rocket, got a 106 buyer,
01:15:02went off crazy. I don't know where that race came from, but she's a late developing type,
01:15:07it seems. And yeah, it's good to have horses to look forward to in 2022, because, you know,
01:15:12there were a lot of retirements and Nick Scope is going to retire after one more race.
01:15:16So it's just one of those things where you lose a lot of horses that you kind of got attached to
01:15:21throughout the season. But to see horses like American Revolution and following C and Life
01:15:26is Good, at least planning to come back as four-year-olds, we'll see. We'll see. I'm always
01:15:30skeptical that these horses are going to run full four-year-old campaigns, especially after they've
01:15:34won grade ones and American Revolution and Life is Good's case. But yeah, assuming that they
01:15:38actually run in 2022, it's good to have horses like that to look forward to. And next week,
01:15:43we're doing our year in review show where we all pick one horse we're looking forward to most in
01:15:482022. And I think those horses will probably be at the top of our list. The TDN Riders Room is
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01:17:32It's been an eventful show with a lot of bad news and a lot to wring our hands about,
01:17:36but I'd like to end it on a positive note. Just a little ray of sunshine from your friendly host,
01:17:41Joe Bianca here. The handle numbers came out for November the other day from Equibase,
01:17:47and handle's still going up. The handle in November was $961 million, which was up 7.4%
01:17:54from last year's figures. It was more flat with November 2019, but overall for the year,
01:17:59handle has now surpassed $11.4 billion, which is a jump of 12.18% over the total through November
01:18:06in 2020, and a 10.49% improvement on the number from the end of November in 2019.
01:18:13Wagering on US races is likely to top $12 billion by the end of the year. You know the
01:18:18last time that happened? 2009. Betting on horse racing has been steadily going down since the
01:18:24early 2000s. It's been 12 years since it's been $12 billion, and we're going to hit that number.
01:18:30This is an ongoing discussion on this show that we talked about. Bill was saying that it was more
01:18:35of the same money just being divvied up differently when the handle numbers were good last year.
01:18:39Now we have almost a full year of data with racing being basically back to normal.
01:18:44All the purse levels are basically back to where they were pre-pandemic.
01:18:50It's clear now that we've picked up some new betters, some new customers along the way,
01:18:55and that's good news. The only caveat is how does racing capitalize on that? How does racing keep
01:19:02that momentum going and maybe even build some more forward momentum? That's a long discussion
01:19:07for another show, but I just wanted to mention those numbers because it is good news that handle
01:19:12has upticked in the last year or two because it has been so long that it was just a steady
01:19:18downward trend. It was like the full crop. It was like the full crop and the handle numbers
01:19:22kept going down, but now at least we got a little bit of a bump in handle. Give a big shout out to
01:19:27Naira as well for that TV program, and I think there are some people who are doing some good
01:19:31things to bring some new people to the sport and some new betters to the sport, most importantly,
01:19:36so we're happy about that. We'll end the show on that note. With that, that's going to do it for
01:19:41this week's edition of the TDN Writer's Room presented by Keeneland. A reminder that the
01:19:44Keeneland January Horses of All Ages sale is January 10th through the 13th. You can look at
01:19:49the catalog now at keeneland.keeneland.com. I want to thank Bill Finley, John Green, our green group
01:19:55guest of the week, Clint Bentley, our producer, Patty Wolf, our associate producer, Katie Petruniak,
01:20:00and our editors, Anthony LaRocca, Aaliyah LaRocca, and Nathan Wilkinson. Thank you so much for
01:20:04watching. We'll see you next week for our Year in Review show. Can't wait.