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00:00:00They say, the harder the work, the greater the reward.
00:00:18This is our life's work.
00:00:21Good morning.
00:00:25It is 910, Wednesday, June 1st.
00:00:28This is the TDN Writer's Room, presented by Keeneland.
00:00:30My name is Joe Bianca, I'm the Associate Editor of the Thoroughbred Daily News, and
00:00:34as this miracle run continues, boys, I only got three words and four syllables for you.
00:00:39Let's go, Rangers!
00:00:41Good morning, I'm Bill Findlay, a correspondent for Thoroughbred Daily News.
00:00:45I used to be a huge hockey fan, and it dawned on me the other day, I think I can only name
00:00:49one guy in the NHL.
00:00:51Sidney Crosby, is he still around?
00:00:52Yep, but we eliminated his ass.
00:00:54He's home now.
00:00:55Okay, that's it.
00:00:56But man, anyways, good luck to the Rangers, Joe.
00:01:00Thanks.
00:01:01Jonathan Green, General Manager of DJ Stable, and for those of you who are eligible to vote
00:01:05for the Breeders' Cup board, I seriously suggest that you do log on, vote early, vote often.
00:01:13There's 25 of us.
00:01:14Oh, did I mention that I'm one of the 25 people who are running for the board?
00:01:1725 of us, you get to vote for 20 of us, and even if you don't vote for me, please vote
00:01:23early, often, and I approve of this message.
00:01:26It's super, super embarrassing if Jon doesn't get it when you get 20 out of 25 win.
00:01:38So Jon, with all this stuff, you better get there.
00:01:40I better get there.
00:01:41That's exactly right.
00:01:42And you know, DJ Stable has six votes, six votes out of 20,000.
00:01:47So I'm going to need some support and some help for sure.
00:01:50I heard your dad's going to vote against you, Jon.
00:01:53Oh, there's no question.
00:01:54He's got taste and credibility.
00:01:57He's definitely voting against me.
00:01:59The worst thing that can happen is for Jon Green to be on the board of the Breeders'
00:02:01Cup and Len Green not.
00:02:03That would be the ultimate slap in the face.
00:02:07The TDN Writers Room was brought to you by Keeneland.
00:02:09Make plans to attend the Keeneland September Yearling Sale beginning Monday, September
00:02:1312th.
00:02:14You can learn more at theworldseerlingsale.com.
00:02:18So there was some grade one racing over the weekend.
00:02:20We had three grade ones at Santa Anita.
00:02:23Unfortunately, as is the trend, we had a bunch of pretty snoozy five and six horse fields.
00:02:29Count again did punch the first Breeders' Cup ticket in North America by winning the
00:02:33Shoemaker mile.
00:02:34Got a 108 buyers.
00:02:36Horses become kind of a star in the turf mile division as a seven-year-old.
00:02:40Ocean Road won the grade one game league.
00:02:42The nice promising horse for Brennan Walsh.
00:02:45There goes Harvard.
00:02:46Upset the Hollywood Gold Cup for Michael McCarthy and Irat Ortiz Jr., first grade one winner
00:02:51for Will Take Charge as a stallion.
00:02:53But honestly, none of that really gets the pulse racing.
00:02:56So we thought we'd talk to Jon this week because DJ Stable has had some very exciting two-year-olds
00:03:02debut at Woodbine the last couple of weekends.
00:03:07Not just stay on our good side, who we had Skip on to talk about last week.
00:03:12We followed it up this week with a pair of blowout winners, 94 Expos, who love that name.
00:03:18DJ Stable, very good at naming horses.
00:03:20I would say that even if I didn't know, Jon.
00:03:23Those 94 Expos, if you don't know, the Montreal Expos, they were going to be the best team
00:03:28in the league in 1994.
00:03:30They were running away with the pennant, except that was the year of the strike, the Major
00:03:34League Baseball strike.
00:03:35And so that was completely cut off their season and they never, never quite got back to that.
00:03:41They eventually moved away and moved to Washington to be the Nationals.
00:03:45So I love that name.
00:03:46And then Jon, sorry, who's the third one?
00:03:48I slipped my mind.
00:03:51Me and my shadow.
00:03:52Me and my shadow.
00:03:53Yep.
00:03:54That's right.
00:03:55And she looked great too.
00:03:56Really survived a really torrid paystool and ran away by four legs.
00:04:00Jon, I don't remember this, like, do you guys always started your two-year-olds this early
00:04:05or is this kind of a new thing that the Stable is doing?
00:04:07This is a really new thing, Joe.
00:04:08It's probably about two years in the running right now.
00:04:12When we sat down with Mark Cassie three years ago and put together our game plan, one of
00:04:17the advantages that we thought we'd have with a guy like Mark Cassie is that he has his
00:04:20own training facility.
00:04:21So what we did was we started taking our horses out of the yearling, when we bought them out
00:04:25of the yearling sales, and just send them right down to Florida instead of having them
00:04:29get four, six, eight weeks in Kentucky out in the fields.
00:04:34And because of that, Mark has kind of jump-started how early these horses are running.
00:04:39And last year we had Lemieux who won in May and then went on to big races.
00:04:44Helium also ran early on in his career before June.
00:04:49And I think it just gives you a tremendous advantage if they're ready.
00:04:53And not that we buy horses to run four and a half or five furlongs, but if they're ready
00:04:57to run and Mark really doesn't crank on them that much, then these are kind of paid breezes
00:05:03for lack of a better term.
00:05:05And it's just been a wonderful run so far.
00:05:07And as much as we've won and everything like that, Mark Cassie has run in seven two-year-old
00:05:13races.
00:05:14He's got five wins in two-thirds.
00:05:17And that's just an incredible percentage in the grand scheme of things.
00:05:20He's actually the leading trainer in two-year-old victories and win percentage right now.
00:05:25So I give a lot of credit to Mark Cassie.
00:05:27And also, we've had Kim Valerio shortlist for us for the past couple of years.
00:05:33And she's been phenomenal about finding horses that have gone on to not only be ready early,
00:05:36but also gone on to run well as the distances get further.
00:05:41So right now, knock wood, it's really coming together.
00:05:43John, take us to where all these horses are going to go from here.
00:05:47And I know you're looking at Saratoga.
00:05:49Yeah.
00:05:50So Standard Goodside is going to run in the Sanford opening weekend at Saratoga.
00:05:56Me and my shadow who posted a 76 buyer, which for a two-year-old filly first time out, that
00:06:02was pretty impressive.
00:06:04She's going to go to the Schuylerville, which is a great at stake also.
00:06:07I think it's opening day at Saratoga.
00:06:10And then 94 Expos is actually going to stay in Canada.
00:06:14He's obviously Canadian bred, and he's going to run in the Victoria State that same weekend,
00:06:19but at Woodbine.
00:06:20So right now, knock wood, we're hitting on all cylinders.
00:06:22And hopefully, we're working backwards from the Breeders' Cup races at Keeneland.
00:06:28You got a dream, right?
00:06:29Yeah.
00:06:30Yeah, absolutely.
00:06:32I mean, why not?
00:06:33And yeah, shout out to Mark Cassie, who obviously does a great job in Canada.
00:06:38But I agree that his two-year-old presence is starting to develop even more than it used
00:06:42to.
00:06:43And I think you guys are part of that.
00:06:44But none of these horses were huge auction buys.
00:06:47Now, answer me this, John.
00:06:50You guys have obviously spent a lot of money at the two-year-old sales, but then I feel
00:06:53like a lot of your successes happen with cheaper price horses, either at the basic October
00:06:58sale or Keeneland September.
00:07:00Do you think those horses are a little bit more conducive to that early success?
00:07:04Whereas the two-year-olds, I feel like they're cranked on so much to get to those sales and
00:07:09get to those breezes that it seems like they need a little bit more time to start, whereas
00:07:13these horses, you can kind of be with them for six months or so before they get running.
00:07:18Yeah.
00:07:19And Joe, that's an excellent point.
00:07:20Again, without giving away any company secrets, one of the things that we did from an analytics
00:07:23standpoint is look at where graded stake winners come from.
00:07:28And certainly, there's graded stake winners that come from every sale.
00:07:31I mean, literally every sale right down to the digital platform.
00:07:34But what we found is for our program, we like to buy them as yearlings and get them into
00:07:40our process and our program earlier, and then kind of work their way up.
00:07:45The two-year-old sales, it's such an asking to have these horses ready to run.
00:07:51And unfortunately, they really have to be on the razor's edge from Christmas all the
00:07:57way until the sale.
00:07:59So these horses are already cranked on and are peaking for these under-tax shows.
00:08:04You have to give them a little bit of time afterwards.
00:08:07So we've opted to go the route of buying more yearlings.
00:08:10It's not to say we don't buy two-year-olds, but the majority of what we buy are yearlings
00:08:13at a variety of sales.
00:08:14And like you said, we've bought graded stake winners and stake winners at the FASIC October
00:08:21sale and the Keeneland September sale and the OBS January sale and kind of everything
00:08:26in between.
00:08:28So we have to kick up a lot of rocks to find these good horses.
00:08:30And we try to stay within a certain budget.
00:08:32So I'd love to be able to say, well, we just buy the best horse at every sale.
00:08:36It's impossible.
00:08:37It's impossible to do because there are so many well-heeled programs.
00:08:40And now some of these groups are partnering together.
00:08:43So you can't buy the best bred horse anymore that looks the part.
00:08:46You have to look at other options.
00:08:48And not that these horses were inexpensive.
00:08:50I mean, 94X was $80,000 and Standard Goodside was $85,000.
00:08:56And Me and My Shadow was $185,000.
00:08:58But we're not given half a million dollars to win in May or to have a Derby or an Oaks
00:09:04candidate.
00:09:05And I think you have to be disciplined and you have to stay within your budgetary confines.
00:09:10Go ahead, Bill.
00:09:12Yeah, sure.
00:09:13Well, tomorrow or not tomorrow, Friday at Churchill Downs, John, you have another first-time
00:09:19starter, a filly by the name of Wonder Wheel.
00:09:21He's buying into mischief.
00:09:23For an into mischief, relatively cheap, $275,000.
00:09:27What do we know about this filly?
00:09:28Yeah, Wonder Wheel has really been one of the top two horses that we have, we think,
00:09:35in our program.
00:09:37And I know the bar is set kind of high this year just because we're winning a lot of early
00:09:40races.
00:09:41But here's a filly that we thought a lot of.
00:09:43Again, we went out of our comfort range as far as purchasing price.
00:09:47We bought her for $275,000.
00:09:50She's by a multiple great stake winning, tis wonderful mare named Wonder Gal.
00:09:56And we have very high expectations for her.
00:09:58Five and a half furlings probably isn't her preferred distance.
00:10:01And there's certainly a lot of good horses in the race, it looks like.
00:10:04There's an American Pharoah, there's a Curlin filly, there's a Munnings Pioneer of the Nile
00:10:08that Norm Cassie has for $300,000.
00:10:10So there's a lot of well-bred horses coming into this race at Churchill Downs.
00:10:15But I love the fact that she's training great and she's on the outside, which I really prefer
00:10:19for two-year-olds.
00:10:20I prefer that they don't stay in the gate for very long and if they break a little step
00:10:23slow that they have an opportunity to catch up on the outside.
00:10:27And Tyler Gaffneon's riding us.
00:10:29So I feel like that we're in a good spot, but they're babies, so you just never know.
00:10:33You know, one of the things that was interesting about the horses at Woodbine is that they're
00:10:37all pretty heavily bet.
00:10:39So it seemed like they weren't a secret.
00:10:41I don't know if that's John or if that's Len or if that's Len having a big mouth and telling
00:10:46everybody about the horse.
00:10:49I always wonder this with two-year-olds because they're so early in their development.
00:10:53How do you really start to differentiate them this early on?
00:10:57I feel like later on, like they're in Saratoga when they're all working in company and they're
00:11:01all coming around, it's a little bit easier to stack them up against each other.
00:11:05But like this early, how do you figure out which are the better ones?
00:11:08Yeah.
00:11:09And again, that's one of the advantages of having a trainer like Mark Cassie.
00:11:14Mark had, and I'm probably not going to get this number right, but he had over 62-year-olds
00:11:18at his facility at any given time.
00:11:21So it's almost like he has his own group of two-year-olds that he can constantly stack
00:11:26up against each other and figure out, okay, this one's better here.
00:11:29This one needs more time.
00:11:31This one needs more time in company.
00:11:34So in the hierarchy of things, when you're running against in the mornings, when you're
00:11:38training against the well-bred horses of Live Oak and the expensive yearlings and two-year-olds
00:11:45like Gary Barber and Tracy Farmer have, you have a pretty good idea based on that group
00:11:51of where you are in the pecking order.
00:11:54And it's not to say that there aren't other ways to do it.
00:11:58But man, I love the fact that when I talk to Mark, usually I don't ask him about the
00:12:03two-year-olds until about April because they're so young and they do so many different things.
00:12:07But in April, I asked him for a barometer of where we are, and he can tell me very specifically
00:12:13where horses are in the hierarchy of things.
00:12:15And it's not just, okay, we'll beat this poorly bred cheap horse that we're hoping to win
00:12:19first time out.
00:12:20I mean, it's really, really well-bred horses and expensive horses that you would hope would
00:12:26have the propensity to run well.
00:12:27So I think, Joe, that's kind of...
00:12:31It's the old saying that steel sharpens steel.
00:12:34When you're training against really good horses in the morning, you have an idea of whether
00:12:37or not they can handle it in the afternoon.
00:12:39Gotcha.
00:12:40Gotcha.
00:12:41I was actually looking at the stats on Equibase.
00:12:45You guys shattered your earnings record last year and you didn't bring it up on the show.
00:12:49Well, I know you like to think that I'm a narcissist, but I am really humble at heart.
00:12:56This goes back to why I'm running for the Breeders' Cup because I'm a humble guy who
00:12:59wants to do well in the industry.
00:13:02But yeah, we had a very successful year, and I appreciate you bringing it up because I
00:13:07took on the general manager position three years ago, and every year we've successfully
00:13:12gotten more and more earnings and run in more prestigious races.
00:13:16And I think even Bill Finley complimented us the other day on how well we were doing.
00:13:20So that, to me, is the ultimate litmus test.
00:13:22If Bill likes what we're doing, then I appreciate it.
00:13:25But it's always a work in progress.
00:13:27And as you guys know, with this industry, these horses are so fragile that you have
00:13:31to try to maximize the opportunity whenever you can.
00:13:34So I'm very thankful that we're doing it the right way.
00:13:37Mark Cassie and his team are doing a phenomenal job, and hopefully these horses will continue
00:13:41to develop and do well.
00:13:42And when we're at Saratoga opening weekend, come on down to the paddock and say hello
00:13:47and see if we can get you into the winner's circle.
00:13:50Bring the kids.
00:13:51Bring the kiddies, too.
00:13:52Say hello to me, too, if Skip hasn't gotten me drunk by then with all the drinks he owes
00:13:57me.
00:13:58But no, it's super exciting.
00:13:59Always have good two-year-olds in the barn.
00:14:01Is that saying that John didn't say last time that I also won't say?
00:14:04But it's true, man.
00:14:06It's hard to look forward to summer in Saratoga more than if you have a couple of nice two-year-olds
00:14:11in the barn.
00:14:12So shout out to John and Len and Mark Cassie and continued success.
00:14:15I think we're going to throw it to our talk with Randy Moss after this commercial.
00:14:20Randy and I, and the two of us, we gave it to him this week about his triple crown spacing
00:14:27idea.
00:14:28So I think we'll get into that after the break.
00:14:31The TDN Writer's Room is brought to you by Keeneland.
00:14:33Keeneland September sales grads over the weekend included grade three Steve Sexton, mile winner,
00:14:38silver prospector, grade three honeymoon winner, Cairo memories, and grade two triple band
00:14:42winner, American Theorem.
00:14:44Also Chris McGraw, now that I've met him and hung out with him, I have to say his name
00:14:48correctly.
00:14:49He had a story on Sunday about Keeneland September's book one, obviously the premier book of all
00:14:54the yearling sales.
00:14:55It's about the statistics and the trends behind the buyer activity in book one compared to
00:14:59the rest of the sale.
00:15:01And obviously that's where everybody focuses.
00:15:04There's a ton of great action and you can find horses in the second week at Keeneland.
00:15:08Book one is where everybody congregates.
00:15:10And it's a really interesting story.
00:15:11Talked to Tony Lacy, who was a friend of the show, was on when we had the Keeneland, the
00:15:16live Keeneland show.
00:15:17John, have you ever sold yearlings in book one?
00:15:20I assume we have, right?
00:15:22We have.
00:15:23Yeah, we have.
00:15:24It's the place to be seen.
00:15:25It's the place to be seen, not only to have your horses there, because it means that they
00:15:29represent the top couple hundred horses that are the entire crop, but it's a place to be
00:15:33seen raising your hand in bidding because everyone takes notice when you buy a horse
00:15:38out of book one.
00:15:39Yep, for sure.
00:15:40And that Keeneland September sale now is all over three months away.
00:15:44So get ready for that starting Monday, September 12th, and we'll be right back after this message
00:15:48from Keeneland.
00:15:54Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Keeneland September Yearlings Sale.
00:16:04A terrific maternal pedigree, grade one winners, and champions across the board.
00:16:09Echoes of Ornish.
00:16:10Life is good.
00:16:11Let's go superstars.
00:16:12Go to the back.
00:16:13Good luck.
00:16:14He was just put together like a machine, and he had a great mind.
00:16:23Everything about him was what you'd want.
00:16:24Tis the law.
00:16:25Pops the cork and the champagne.
00:16:26Tis the law is going to win the first leg of the Triple Crown.
00:16:32I've never seen him get tired.
00:16:33Respect the law.
00:16:34Tis the law.
00:16:35His structure is just perfect.
00:16:36His bone is perfect.
00:16:37He's left the others behind.
00:16:38He's going to win the Run Happy Traverse.
00:16:39He's everything you would look for in a horse.
00:16:50The TDN Writers' Room is brought to you by Coolmore, Sterling Silvers, a New York-bred
00:16:54daughter of Cupid, secured her second stakes victory of the year on Monday in the Bowery
00:16:58Stakes at Belmont.
00:16:59Sterling Silvers went out one of two stakes winners and 32 winners for Cupid just this
00:17:05year.
00:17:06On Sunday, American Pharoah had two greatest stakes winners around the world, grade two
00:17:09triple bin winner American Theorem, who I mentioned earlier at Santa Anita, and then
00:17:13above the curve, the group won Coolmore, sponsored, pre-St. Hilary at Longshob, and Coolmore's
00:17:20other triple crown hero, Justify, had his first winner before our show last week, and
00:17:25since then, he's added his first TDN rising star when his daughter Statuette won on debut
00:17:31at Nevada.
00:17:32So I expect Justify to be blowing up all over the world this year, as you would expect.
00:17:37There was such demand for his foals, and now that his two-year-olds are starting to run,
00:17:41I think because Coolmore has such an international footprint, obviously, that happened with American
00:17:46Pharoah.
00:17:47We saw a bunch of his winners in Europe.
00:17:48So I think that he's going to be a sensation, not just in America, but all across the world,
00:17:53and honestly, I can't wait to see him.
00:17:56As I teased before the break, we had a great friend of the show, Randy Moss, on this week
00:18:01to talk to him, and it was honestly more of a debate segment than our typical interview
00:18:05because Randy has been, as he would say, the poster child for elongating the triple crown
00:18:11and spacing the races out further.
00:18:13So Bill, John, and I, like a bunch of attack dogs, surrounded him and yelled and barked
00:18:17at him for like a half hour, but no, it was actually very illuminating and very respectful
00:18:22because Randy's obviously a really smart guy, and there is debate to be had about this issue.
00:18:28So check it out.
00:18:29It's our interview and our little discussion debate with Randy Moss.
00:18:34The Green Group Guest of the Week is sponsored by The Green Group, an accounting, tax, consulting
00:18:38and advisory firm specializing in the thoroughbred industry.
00:18:41With over 500 clients in the horse business, they have proven strategies to save you taxes.
00:18:45You can learn more about how they can help you at www.greenco.com.
00:18:50So we are thrilled to bring back in the excellent NBC sports analyst and friend of the show,
00:18:54Randy Moss.
00:18:55Thanks for coming on, bro.
00:18:56Hey, good to see you again.
00:18:58We're going to do a very nice, gregarious intro before we start yelling at you about
00:19:02the triple crown thing because you've become a bit of a lightning rod for this, I think.
00:19:06You're the guy, the most prominent guy, at least, who is arguing for spacing the triple
00:19:11crown out further.
00:19:12The three of us said we don't want that on last week's show, but before we yell at you,
00:19:17let's hear your case.
00:19:18Well, it's three against one, but I've got Lucy on my side back here as well.
00:19:22So I've become kind of the poster child for this thing, only I think just because I've
00:19:28been standing on this soapbox for so long.
00:19:32This goes back 15 years ago, basically, when I was with ESPN, and when people were saying
00:19:38there would never be another triple crown winner, and I was saying, not only are there
00:19:42going to be triple crown winners, they're going to come in bunches.
00:19:45And at some point, people are going to say that the triple crown has become too easy
00:19:49to win because too many good horses are skipping the preakness because of the two-week gap.
00:19:55So I've been beating this drum for a long, long time.
00:19:58But look, I mean, I think it's pretty basic.
00:20:03The triple crown is undeniably the number one property, so to speak, in thoroughbred
00:20:08racing, and I think it's incumbent upon the sport to take care of the triple crown.
00:20:15And when it sees some weaknesses beginning to develop in the triple crown, do something
00:20:20about it to fix it.
00:20:23Right now, it's clear that the preakness has been weakened, demonstrably weakened, not
00:20:30every year, but most years, by the two-week gap and by trainers that believe that it's
00:20:36counterproductive to the best interest of their horses to come back in two weeks, unless
00:20:42you're the derby winner, they usually come back, except this year.
00:20:45And so I think making the preakness a stronger race will help the triple crown.
00:20:51It won't make the triple crown easier to win, because the preakness will be more difficult.
00:20:56I think it'll balance out the extra time between the races, and I think it just makes it a
00:21:01better product all in all.
00:21:03And then there's the horse issue as well.
00:21:07I don't believe that it's a huge factor in terms of horse safety or anything like that,
00:21:14but if the trainers believe it's better for their horses to have four weeks or five weeks
00:21:20between races, they believe that for a reason.
00:21:23They believe that because they think it is not in the best interest of the horses physically
00:21:29and in their performance to come back on a two-week gap.
00:21:33So why not take that into consideration as well?
00:21:36It goes a lot deeper than that.
00:21:37The main argument that I hear against it is the history of it, because people say, well,
00:21:46it's always been that way, right?
00:21:48It has always been that way since 1960.
00:21:511960 was the year that it changed to the current two-week, three-week format.
00:21:57But in the 1940s, there were four triple crown winners, right?
00:22:02Whirl-A-Way, Assault, Count, Fleet, Citation.
00:22:05All four of those triple crown winners had four weeks between the preakness and the Belmont
00:22:10stakes.
00:22:12In the decade of the 1950s, there were three instances in which there were three weeks
00:22:18between the Derby and the Preakness, and six in which there were four weeks between
00:22:23the Preakness and the Belmont.
00:22:25It's not as if this current gap that we've had for the last 62 years was handed down
00:22:30in stone tablets or anything like that.
00:22:33The whole idea of the triple crown, and I've gone back and looked on newspapers.com for
00:22:38articles in the past about spacing and people.
00:22:41It was never an issue.
00:22:42No one ever talked about it.
00:22:44The triple crown, as a concept, was to pit the best horses of a generation against each
00:22:52other in three successive races.
00:22:55And a mile and a half of the Belmont, as the test of the champion, was always the perfect
00:23:00way to end it.
00:23:01And the Derby was, of course, traditionally always a mile and a quarter.
00:23:04But it's the fact that you're running against the best of your generation for three consecutive
00:23:08races and beating them that makes the triple crown what it is.
00:23:12Not the spacing, necessarily.
00:23:14And we're not getting that right now, in most years.
00:23:18We're not getting, we're not asking, these three-year-olds aren't being asked to run
00:23:21against the best of their generation in the Preakness, because 49 horses in the last ten
00:23:26years have been withheld from the Preakness to wait for the Belmont stakes.
00:23:30I think it's, I think it's pretty simple and it's pretty obvious that it needs to be fixed.
00:23:36All right, so let's unleash the attack dogs here.
00:23:39Let's go.
00:23:40Let's go.
00:23:41In some respects, I'm surprised because, you know, I'm on the polar opposite.
00:23:45I don't disagree with a whole lot of what you said, but, you know, I disagree with some
00:23:50of the ways you want to go, people want to go about this.
00:23:53And there's two things I want to bring up.
00:23:55First of all, you talked, you said the product, the product of the triathlon, that is, that
00:24:00is absolutely huge.
00:24:01You're absolutely right about that, is huge.
00:24:03Horse racing is a struggling sport.
00:24:05I think things are only going to get worse because of sports vetting and other factors
00:24:09out there.
00:24:10The Triple Crown is wildly popular and continues to get more popular every year.
00:24:15So it's not just if it's not broke, don't fix it type thing.
00:24:18I see the difference between the Triple Crown is that your aunt Millie bets on it.
00:24:23It's not the, it's not the suburban handicap.
00:24:26It's not even the breeders cup.
00:24:28It's a race where it appeals to the general public and is something that, you know, people
00:24:33have Kentucky Derby parties.
00:24:35People follow the Triple Crown.
00:24:36I think if you, right now it works because it's nice, neat and compact within five weeks.
00:24:41I think if you change the spacing around, the general public is going to lose interest
00:24:45in the Triple Crown, particularly if there's not a horse going for the Triple Crown development.
00:24:51I just don't think, you know, the average man or woman on the street is, has enough,
00:24:55you know, it will invest enough in this to, to stay in tune with the Triple Crown.
00:25:01That's number one.
00:25:02And, you know, if you want to come back to some of these, I appreciate number two is
00:25:06the, you know, the solution that most people put forth is four weeks, four weeks.
00:25:09I don't know if you're a four weeks, four weeks guy or not, but that's what you hear
00:25:12most.
00:25:13I'm going to tell you right now, that's not going to, that's not going to fix anything
00:25:15because the Chad Browns of the world still are not going to run.
00:25:18You cannot, these guys are not going to run a horse three times in eight weeks.
00:25:22Look at Zandon.
00:25:23He ran a third in the Kentucky Derby and, you know, when are we going to see him again
00:25:27in Saratoga?
00:25:29That's the way they handle these horses.
00:25:31But if guys do come back in the Preakness on four weeks rest and that they were on Derby
00:25:36Preakness, they are not coming back in the Belmont.
00:25:39And so now you're going to ruin the Belmont.
00:25:41So, you know, in order, I think, you know, Joe put it, and I think he's right in an earlier
00:25:46podcast, the only way to guarantee these horses will run everything is have a Derby in March,
00:25:51the Preakness in June and the Belmont in September.
00:25:55Short of that, you're not going to get these horses to run.
00:25:58So the problem is not with the way the Triple Crown is spaced.
00:26:01The problem is the ridiculous way that people campaign these horses in this day and age
00:26:04where, oh, God forbid, I can't run a horse more than four times a year in nine, ten weeks
00:26:07in between races.
00:26:08So, you know, that's just some of the points that I'd like to make, you know, if you want
00:26:12to take them and address them.
00:26:14Yeah, I'll take it.
00:26:15I'll take a couple of them there.
00:26:16First of all, right now, with the five week gap between the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont,
00:26:21if you do not have a Triple Crown winner coming to the Belmont stakes, the people lose interest.
00:26:26All you have to do is look at the TV ratings.
00:26:28So the five weeks is immaterial when you don't have a horse going for the Triple Crown.
00:26:34If you did have a horse going for the Triple Crown, and now you're talking about an eight
00:26:37week or a nine week gap, I think it would just give even more time for the publicity
00:26:41mill to run.
00:26:42I don't think it would diminish interest in the possibility of a Triple Crown winner won
00:26:48iota.
00:26:51I think when you have TV networks constantly promoting it and advertising it, and I think
00:26:58the same goes for the gap between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
00:27:00I don't think an extra couple of weeks or three weeks would make any difference at all.
00:27:05As far as your second point, I'm not married to a four week, four week thing.
00:27:12I know I've heard some people say first Saturday in May, first Saturday in June, first Saturday
00:27:18in July.
00:27:20I know that would solve a lot of the issue with people skipping the Preakness to wait
00:27:24for the Belmont, because no one is going to go eight weeks from the Derby to the Belmont
00:27:28without a race in between.
00:27:31I don't know that there is a way.
00:27:32I couldn't disagree with you more on that.
00:27:34I think they'd salivate at that eight weeks off.
00:27:38Eight weeks into a mile and a half race from the Derby?
00:27:41I don't know.
00:27:42I think that's not even enough time for some of these trainers, to be honest with you,
00:27:45but whatever.
00:27:46Keep going.
00:27:47I would be fine with five weeks, five weeks, or four weeks, five weeks.
00:27:51But I'm not married to any particular thing, other than I think we've got to come up with
00:27:56something to try to ensure, and maybe bring back a Triple Crown bonus, if that's even
00:28:01possible.
00:28:02Because right now, one of the big problems and one of the reasons that it was done away
00:28:07with in 1993 was the breakdown of Prairie Bayou and the Belmont Stakes.
00:28:12I think people didn't necessarily believe that that horse was unfairly entered in the
00:28:19Belmont Stakes.
00:28:20But it raised the whole specter of at least the possibility of someone running an unsound
00:28:26horse in the Belmont in order to try to get the bonus.
00:28:30Today, we've got so much more of an emphasis on pre-race examinations, and these horses
00:28:36are now under such a microscope before they run in these major stakes races, that I don't
00:28:42think we have to worry about that to the same extent that we did 30 years ago.
00:28:47I don't think there would necessarily be, it wouldn't be a bad thing to try to bring
00:28:51back a Triple Crown participation bonus in some way to try to encourage horsemen to run
00:28:56in all three races, or make it easier for them, more attractive for them to run in all
00:29:01three races.
00:29:02Randy, are you giving us the exclusive that you're going to put up the Moss bonus?
00:29:07Is that what you're saying on our show?
00:29:09The Triple Crown Moss bonus?
00:29:14I mean, maybe now the insurance premiums would be too high for that even to be a possibility.
00:29:21I've thought about it, and I'm just kind of rolling it out there as at least one possible
00:29:26component to try to get more participation.
00:29:29It worked before.
00:29:32I don't know.
00:29:33But yes, I do see, Bill, that in some cases, horses would be less likely to run in the
00:29:40Belmont having run in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
00:29:45I don't know if nine weeks from the Derby to the Belmont would be an extra week, five
00:29:52weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont would make a difference in that or not.
00:29:55Maybe not.
00:29:56Possibly not.
00:30:00Maybe that might be an unintended negative to it.
00:30:02But right now, what we have is a leaky boat.
00:30:09I don't think that's acceptable.
00:30:13The way I look at it, and this is not meant as a criticism to you three at all, but a
00:30:20lot of the people that are lining up against this because of tradition and because this
00:30:24is the way that it's always been done are probably the same people that 50 or 60 years
00:30:30ago would have been against night baseball or the people that would have been against
00:30:33the three-point shot in basketball or the designated hitter in baseball as being purists
00:30:40and as messing with something that's working and your flouting tradition or things like
00:30:46that.
00:30:47To me, if you can make it better, then you try to make it better, especially if it's
00:30:51as important to the sport, I think, as the Triple Crown is.
00:30:55Yeah.
00:30:56And, Randy, you bring up some really good points.
00:30:59Initially, when I read your comments, I was falling in that camp of, well, if it ain't
00:31:06broke, don't fix it.
00:31:07But thinking about it more, it's broke.
00:31:11It's not necessarily the Triple Crown that's broke, in my estimation.
00:31:15It's that horses don't have the ability to run as often as they did.
00:31:18You brought up some very good historical points about why the changes have been made and what
00:31:25the results have been.
00:31:27I remember reading about horses that ran in the Derby in the 30s, 40s, and 50s when Bill
00:31:32was a young pup.
00:31:35They were running in races between the Preakness and the Belmont.
00:31:38That's how often they would run.
00:31:40To me, as an industry, we have to look at, is it the Triple Crown problem as far as not
00:31:46enough spacing?
00:31:48Is it that these horses are getting beat up trying to get points for the Kentucky Derby
00:31:52through this point system now as a problem?
00:31:56Or genetically, is it an issue of, hey, these horses just are more fragile than their forefathers
00:32:02were, and therefore, they can't handle this kind of racing as often as they do?
00:32:10I think the plan that you've proposed as far as the Triple Crown is the easiest one to
00:32:14fix because we can't fix the genetics, at least not overnight.
00:32:18I don't think the Kentucky Derby is going to change their point system.
00:32:22Is this kind of the path of least resistance?
00:32:26I think so.
00:32:29I don't think there's any doubt that horses are less durable today than their ancestors
00:32:36were.
00:32:37I remember writing a column when I was in the newspaper business in the early 1990s
00:32:41or the late 1980s, and Woody Stevens was bemoaning the fact that horses were not as durable as
00:32:48they were earlier in his career.
00:32:51He blamed it on the exercise riders getting too heavy.
00:32:56But yeah, I mean, he was talking about that almost 40 years ago, right, 35 years ago,
00:33:00he was talking about it.
00:33:01And trainers will admit, not necessarily publicly, because a lot of them train for breeders,
00:33:07and they don't necessarily want to go on the record as saying it, but off the record, almost
00:33:11to a man, they'll tell you that they believe horses are less durable, the guys that have
00:33:15been around a while, less durable than they were years and years ago.
00:33:20Maybe someone could come up with a better fix for the Triple Crown.
00:33:23I'm all ears.
00:33:24You know, I love history.
00:33:26I hate to see history changed, but you pointed out the way horses used to be trained.
00:33:321950, I think the Triple Crown, excuse me, the three-year-old champion was Hill Prince.
00:33:39That year, there was two weeks between the Derby and the Preakness, and there was four
00:33:43weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont.
00:33:45If I'm not mistaken, Hill Prince ran Derby, Withers, Preakness, Suburban, and Belmont.
00:33:53I mean, that's, horses just can't, you know, they're not, I don't think they have, they're
00:33:58genetically durable enough to do anything like that anymore.
00:34:02And I just believe, however we do it, and to me, I think this is the easiest fix, that
00:34:09something's got to be done.
00:34:12All right, this is the last one.
00:34:13I haven't had my shot at you yet, and you're going to get all this abuse.
00:34:18So this is a two-part question, because then we'll move on to talking about some actual
00:34:22racing.
00:34:23The first part of it is, you're a figure guy.
00:34:26And I think that a lot, I don't disagree that horses in general are less durable than they
00:34:30used to be.
00:34:31I think that's borne out.
00:34:32But I think a lot of it, a lot of this waiting and waiting and waiting to run your horses
00:34:36is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where these trainers are so reliant, especially
00:34:41on the sheet figures and this idea of the bounce theory, this idea that if this horse
00:34:45runs this career top race, next time out, if you don't give him enough rest, he's going
00:34:50to regress. Now, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't happen.
00:34:53But I think that they've become so rigid in their mind about this.
00:34:57And I just wonder what your thoughts are about that kind of over-reliance on figures.
00:35:01And then I have a second question.
00:35:03I'll just let you answer that.
00:35:04I think that's a component of it as well.
00:35:06I mean, Bobby Frankel, I remember sitting in the tack room with Bobby Frankel at Churchill
00:35:10Lounge, and he was telling me that he got his theory on the spacing of races from Charlie
00:35:17Whittingham. He learned it from Whittingham that a lot of times more time will enable
00:35:22horses to reach a peak.
00:35:24And if you keep them at that gap between races, they'll stay at that peak longer, whereas
00:35:29shorter rest would have more horses going sort of up and down in a form cycle.
00:35:34So I do think that's a component to it.
00:35:37But I can also tell you from having conversations with these guys that they do believe that
00:35:43horses are also less durable today than they were years ago.
00:35:48Yeah, I think that both things can be true, but I think it just kind of becomes like you're
00:35:52saying, like a taught doctrine more so than just an evidence based, this horse needs this
00:35:58amount of time off, this horse needs this amount of time off.
00:36:01But my other question is, you know, I think one of the reasons that the Triple Crown works
00:36:05as such as it does is that there's so little competition.
00:36:09Like when you had to go back to spend a buck in the mid 80s, the last horse who was healthy
00:36:14won the Derby, skipped the Preakness and the Belmont.
00:36:16He did that because there was another option.
00:36:17There was another race to run in.
00:36:19Now, there's really nothing on the calendar for those five weeks or even want to broaden
00:36:23it out to seven, eight weeks.
00:36:25Also, you want to run in the Matt Winn.
00:36:26To me, if you space it out even further to where the Belmont four weeks apart is the
00:36:31Belmont will be July 2nd.
00:36:33This year, the Haskell is July 23rd.
00:36:35So I think it's kind of foolhardy to think that trainers aren't going to start looking
00:36:41towards the Haskell and the Belmont or rather in the Travers and try to find the easiest
00:36:45spot now that it's kind of on the summer calendar instead of running in the Belmont.
00:36:49Do you know what do you think about that?
00:36:50Do you think you're creating maybe more competition for the Triple Crown?
00:36:54I, you know, Joe, to me, the Triple Crown is so entrenched in horse racing right now
00:37:04and in the breeding industry with not necessarily the Belmont as far as stallion value.
00:37:11But, you know, I mean, I think it's so historic and it's such a part of what these
00:37:20trainers and owners want to experience that I don't think it's going to necessarily
00:37:25diminish the desire to run in these races.
00:37:29I mean, that's just my opinion.
00:37:30I have thought about the Haskell.
00:37:32I love the Haskell.
00:37:33And obviously there would have to be some changes in the summer program at some of
00:37:37these tracks.
00:37:38And the Haskell and the Jim Dandy would both be put in a unique position if the
00:37:44Belmont were run, let's say, the first or second week of July.
00:37:48The Travers would be just fine, but some of the lead in races to the Travers that we're
00:37:52seeing right now might have to be adjusted or would be compromised.
00:37:56Definitely. I agree with that.
00:37:58Yeah, I'm not ready to move on.
00:38:03I'll try to keep it quick because I know we do need to move on.
00:38:07That horses have changed is not hogwash.
00:38:12I've interviewed genetic experts and equine scientists who say the type of change people
00:38:17talk about in the durability of horses would take a thousand years to accomplish.
00:38:21You know, we're going back 50 years in a completely different animal.
00:38:24Ironic that Woody Stevens said that about horses aren't as durable when he ran a horse
00:38:28back in five days rest to win the 1982 Belmont Six.
00:38:33Imagine if somebody did that today.
00:38:34They take his license away from him.
00:38:36Woody Stevens is revered as one of the best Hall of Famers ever.
00:38:39Joe, I was going to make that point about this would ruin the Haskell, and I'm not sure it
00:38:43wouldn't ruin the Travers as well.
00:38:47Then one more I want to say, Randy, I'm sure this is probably something you agree with and
00:38:50we can agree on something. I think one of the big problems here is that the purses for the
00:38:54Preakness and Belmont are way too low.
00:38:56In this day and age, they'd be one point five million dollars as peanuts.
00:39:00You have dozens and dozens of million dollar races out there.
00:39:03All three races should be worth five million dollars each.
00:39:05That would solve a lot of problems with the race in their current stretch or not.
00:39:10Now, having said all that, Randy, the question I want to ask you want to move on is the
00:39:14there was a report in the Baltimore Sun leading up to the Preakness in which you were
00:39:17quoted in there. And the Stronach group people kind of said, yeah, we're really interested
00:39:22in doing this. They didn't say much more than that.
00:39:25But do you think and so they're the ones that have to make the move.
00:39:29The Derby's not going anywhere.
00:39:30The Belmont will have to react to what Pimlico Maryland Jockey Club does.
00:39:35You know, you're pretty you know, you've got your ear to ground in a lot of sources.
00:39:39Do you think after the Belmont Stakes is run, we're going to learn that they have, in
00:39:42fact, said, yeah, we're moving the race, this race to whatever date you think it's
00:39:47going to happen? Let me address that.
00:39:49And I want to go back to the first thing you said.
00:39:52I can tell you for a fact that Churchill Downs Incorporated is strongly behind the
00:39:58concept of spacing out the Triple Crown races to to make the Triple Crown a better
00:40:05product, all three legs, a better product, in their opinion.
00:40:09I know there are people within the Stronach organization.
00:40:14I'm not saying this is a this is a company decision right now, but there are people
00:40:19within the organization that believe that if they can't come to some sort of agreement
00:40:25with Naira to get this done, that the pregnant should do it unilaterally.
00:40:30If Naira doesn't want to cooperate.
00:40:33But we also heard Belinda Stronach go on our air on NBC and say that it's very
00:40:38important to her and to speaking for the organization that they consult everyone
00:40:45involved, not only the owners and trainers, but also their partners in the Triple Crown.
00:40:51So hopefully everybody can get on the same page with this and can come up with
00:40:55something that would that would be in the best interest of everybody.
00:40:59As far as the genetics thing, I am not a geneticist.
00:41:02I don't play one on TV.
00:41:04I never aspire to be a geneticist.
00:41:06All I can tell you is what I've been told by trainers.
00:41:11And clearly, whether it's.
00:41:16The way they believe horses are performing better, to Joe's point, or whether it's
00:41:22in the best interest physically of the horses, they believe clearly the way horses
00:41:27are being trained right now is counterproductive to the best horses of the
00:41:33generation running in all three legs.
00:41:36Right. And and Randy, before I ask my question, Bill, I can tell you also that
00:41:40in speaking to geneticists that I've spoken to, they agree with your guy that
00:41:45it would take thousands of years for the gene pool to change to the point where
00:41:49horses would physically as a breed would change.
00:41:52I can tell you just anecdotally and again talking to other geneticists that the
00:41:56phenotypes, the way they look physically, these horses are very different than they
00:42:01were 30 or 40 years ago.
00:42:03And yes, the genetics are probably the same.
00:42:05A horse is a horse is a horse, the same as people are people are people.
00:42:08But human beings, on average, have trended to get taller.
00:42:11And and that's just the way that it's been.
00:42:14Doesn't mean that helped me at five, six, but it's helping the people of the human
00:42:18kind. So I'm going to I'm going to agree to disagree with you on that one.
00:42:23But Randy, let me ask you about the Belmont, because that is coming up and that is on
00:42:27the calendar for this year.
00:42:28And it looks like for the Belmont, there's going to be an interesting pool of horses
00:42:32coming in, you know, from the Derby winner to Nest and a
00:42:37couple of the horses like Modonical that skip the Preakness.
00:42:40What are your feelings about the Belmont?
00:42:42Well, you've obviously got the whole Todd Pletcher angle, the success that he's had
00:42:46in running Derby week and skipping the Preakness and waiting for the Belmont.
00:42:51And now with both Modonical and Nest, he's trying to pull that off yet again.
00:42:56And you get Rich Strike, who had that workout the other day that I thought looked OK.
00:42:59I mean, I've got some friends of mine whose opinion I respect very much who were
00:43:04not impressed at all with the between races workout at Churchill Lounge.
00:43:08But I looked at the video. I mean, what the hell do I know?
00:43:11I mean, he looked OK to me.
00:43:13So he's you know, he'll be there.
00:43:15But to me, looking at the race on paper, depending
00:43:20on exactly which of the fringe contenders go in there and which don't, we could be in
00:43:25a situation here where the Peter Pan winner, we the people, could once again just
00:43:31completely be in control of the early pace.
00:43:34And to me, unless any of these other speed horses, long shot speed horses like Howling
00:43:40Time, for example, Dale Romans, decide to jump in there, he's going to be he's going
00:43:46to be very tough for these one, you know, these one run closers like
00:43:51Moe Donegal and Rich Strike to catch if they give him that kind of an advantage.
00:43:57I'm all over with the people in the Belmont, I don't care how short of a price he is.
00:44:00I'll single him if he's too short of a price.
00:44:02I totally agree. I think he's long gone in that race.
00:44:05You know, let's talk a little bit about the three year olds overarching, in an overarching
00:44:09way, because, you know, I was looking at the past like decade or so of American champion
00:44:13three year olds, but and, you know, a lot of them ran in the Derby in the Preakness,
00:44:16but you got some other ones that came on late in the year, like West Coast and
00:44:19Arrogate, and you want to go back to Will Take Charge.
00:44:22I think this year in particular, it's more likely that somebody who hasn't run in
00:44:27either the Derby or the Preakness is going to be champion three year old, whether you
00:44:30talk about Jack Christopher or we the people.
00:44:32How do you feel about that?
00:44:34Do you think you still think it's a strong group of three year olds that we saw in the
00:44:37Derby or the Preakness, or do you feel like I do that, you know, the second half of the
00:44:40year, three year olds are really going to rule the day?
00:44:42It's going to be very interesting, Joe.
00:44:44I mean, to me right now, and I know it kind of flies in the face of the Triple Crown
00:44:50results to a certain extent, but I think Epicenter right now of the three year olds
00:44:54that we've seen is still the best.
00:44:58I thought, given the pace, but the pace really made this Triple Crown so far, the
00:45:03Derby and the Preakness, very, very interesting as it pertains specifically to
00:45:07Epicenter. Going into the Kentucky Derby, his pace
00:45:11numbers from Louisiana were so slow that I thought that the biggest challenge he
00:45:17faced was, would he be able to handle a scenario in which he was farther back than
00:45:23he was accustomed to being?
00:45:25Not like the Louisiana Derby where he's sitting third, but I'm talking about where
00:45:28he wound up like eight, six lengths back.
00:45:31But you do the pace numbers and even being six lengths back in the Kentucky Derby at
00:45:35the first call, he ran way faster early than he had ever been asked to run before.
00:45:41And I think it did take a little wind out of his sails in the final quarter of a mile.
00:45:46And from that perspective, I think he was probably the best horse in the race.
00:45:51He fought off Zandon.
00:45:53I thought Epicenter was the best.
00:45:55Now you move forward two weeks later to the Preakness and I don't know what the hell
00:45:59was going on, whether it was Rosario being too timid at the start of the race, not
00:46:08being aggressive enough, whether it was the fact that the horse maybe broke a beat
00:46:11slowly, which I think he did a little, whether he got squeezed back enough as a
00:46:16result to make that much of a difference, whether maybe the two weeks he just didn't
00:46:20have the same fastball that he had, but he ran, he was farther back after a quarter
00:46:27mile in the Preakness than he was after a quarter mile in the Kentucky Derby.
00:46:33And the difference in the pace for those two races was enormous.
00:46:37I mean, he had no, he had literally no chance pace-wise from where he was early in the
00:46:42Preakness, and yet he still almost caught early voting or he came within a length and
00:46:46a quarter or so of catching him.
00:46:47So I thought he was clearly the best horse in the Preakness.
00:46:49Now we'll see going forward if he improves as a lot of three-year-olds do later on in
00:46:56their three-year-old season, or if he's going to sort of keep that same plane.
00:47:00Unless he improves, then I think you're right.
00:47:03I think you could get some of these horses like Jack Christopher and who knows, maybe
00:47:06we the people that could jump up and surpass him.
00:47:12So I've been listening to you guys, and I'm won over.
00:47:15These horses are so weak, so frail.
00:47:19I'm going to think you guys haven't gone far enough.
00:47:21I'm going to change this, because these horses, I mean, man, they're poor things.
00:47:25I mean, you run them four times a year and they just fall.
00:47:28Let's make the Derby six furlongs, the Preakness seven furlongs and the Belmont a mile.
00:47:32And I got the new slogan for the Derby, the most exciting 68 seconds in sport.
00:47:38Does that work for everybody?
00:47:40OK, enough being a wiseass.
00:47:41One more question for me.
00:47:43Outside of the Triple Crown, we're watching every week and there's something going on
00:47:47here. And it's been a problem that's been brewing for a couple of years.
00:47:50But I think it's hit a tipping point to where it's a huge problem.
00:47:55Seems like every damn stakes race in the country now has five horses in it, four horses
00:47:59in it. You know, and it's Santa Anita, especially, but I wouldn't just pick on them.
00:48:04Naira's had problems.
00:48:07Do you agree that something needs to be done about this?
00:48:09And if so, what is it?
00:48:10I do. I absolutely do.
00:48:12And I have no earthly idea what needs to be done other than the obvious, which is never
00:48:19going to happen. And that's racetracks all get together and come up with a stakes
00:48:23calendar that makes a logical progression at certain levels in certain areas of the
00:48:31country. And you and I both know that that's not going to happen.
00:48:35Or a league office that can set a schedule.
00:48:37That's never going to happen. So I have no, you know, I totally agree with you.
00:48:44I think it's a big problem right now.
00:48:46Competitively, from a betting standpoint, a bottom line standpoint for racetracks.
00:48:54And I have no solution for it.
00:48:57Do you? No, no.
00:48:59Like you said, the only solution is to get everybody in the room and eliminate a lot of
00:49:03stakes races. And you're right.
00:49:04There's, you know, it's like, well, we need a commissioner.
00:49:06Of course, you need a commissioner. It's never going to happen.
00:49:08So but it's I mean, it's getting bad.
00:49:11It's really getting bad. I mean, right now, the stakes race always used to be the eighth
00:49:14or ninth race on the card. Now it's everybody's fourth race because they don't want it in
00:49:18the whatever, you know, with a one to five favorite in there.
00:49:21And, you know, that goes back to what you were saying before about putting the best
00:49:25product forward. You were talking about that for the Triple Crown, but, you know, that
00:49:28same sort of thinking, how does racing put the best product forward for, you know, every
00:49:33single day of every single week, particularly with stakes racing?
00:49:36And, you know, yeah, you're right.
00:49:39There's no solution. It's just but it's I mean, I'd love to see some statistics at the
00:49:44end of the year. It's it's it's a huge problem.
00:49:46Well, the other solution would be less racing in general because there are fewer horses
00:49:51right now than there were, obviously.
00:49:53And, you know, you can definitely make the case, which people have for a long time that
00:49:58right now there's too much of a good thing.
00:50:00Racetracks are running too many dates, running too many stakes races, and maybe it is
00:50:05less is more in a situation like this.
00:50:07But again, you know, try try convincing first racing not to run year round at Gulfstream
00:50:14Park or, you know, it's it's easier said than done.
00:50:19Exactly. Or try to convince the breeders that we should get rid of stake races when that's
00:50:23the lifeblood of the commercial breeding program, that's not going to it's not going to
00:50:27happen either. And really, I have to apologize for Bill, because he's even more of a
00:50:30curmudgeon than he usually is, because somebody wrote an op-ed piece, you know, that
00:50:34said that basically he was being a jerk.
00:50:36So he broke up on the wrong side of the bed.
00:50:39I apologize. I'm going to ask you a non-racing question since you're a man of all
00:50:45sports. What did you think of the NFL draft and who ended up with the best, the best
00:50:50group of rookies?
00:50:52That's interesting, Jonathan.
00:50:55You know, I'm a big fan of as an organization of the Baltimore Ravens, and I've I
00:51:03always, you know, always kind of look extra hard at what they do, even without Ozzy
00:51:07Newsom. I think they've done a fantastic job.
00:51:09The Jets, ironically, to me, look like they had, there you go, Joe, had had one of, if not
00:51:16the best draft of all.
00:51:18Right. I mean, Joe Douglas did a fantastic job.
00:51:20I thought the Jets really knocked it out of the park.
00:51:23Now, whether that's going to translate to more than their customary two or three wins a
00:51:27season, we'll see.
00:51:28But I love the way they, you know, what they did.
00:51:32Yeah, well, I mean, that's this is our this is our time right now as Jet fans.
00:51:36The offseason is this offseason champions hang that banner again.
00:51:41All right, Randy, I guess we'll let you go after we yelled at you for a half hour.
00:51:44Thank you so much for the time.
00:51:46Hey, Bill can be a curmudgeon.
00:51:48What's up? Bill can be a curmudgeon all he wants.
00:51:49Bill and I go back a long, long, long way in the sport.
00:51:53So we've had these conversations and then we'll continue to have them.
00:51:58All right. Thank you, sir.
00:52:00That's why you're the best. We'll see you at the Belmont, guys.
00:52:02Take care. Thanks, Randy.
00:52:04The Green Group guest of the week is sponsored by the Green Group, an accounting, tax
00:52:07consulting and advisory firm specializing in the thoroughbred industry.
00:52:11As this week's Green Group guest of the week, Randy Moss will receive a free one hour
00:52:14tax consultation.
00:52:16Learn more at GreenCo.com.
00:52:18We'll be right back after this message from the Green Group.
00:52:21Why do the most successful owners, breeders and horsemen select the Green Group as their
00:52:25tax advisor? We simply save them money and know how to make them more successful.
00:52:28Over the past 40 years, founder Leonard Green has owned and bred some of the best race
00:52:32horses in the history of the sport.
00:52:34His in-depth, hands on industry knowledge, combined with cutting edge tax saving
00:52:38strategies, has produced positive results for his clientele and has made the Green Group
00:52:42the top rated accounting and tax firm in the business.
00:52:44For a confidential and complimentary consultation, contact us at 732-634-5100
00:52:50or visit our website at www.greenco.com.
00:52:53The Green Group, proven strategies to save you taxes.
00:52:56The PA Horse Breeders Association introduces the Pennsylvania Stallion Series.
00:53:01Four brand new races to be run at parks for PA sired, PA bred two year olds.
00:53:06There are two $100,000 contests on August 22nd, PA day at the races.
00:53:12September 24th, PA Derby Day has two more races, each with a $200,000 purse.
00:53:17The PA Stallion Series, yet another reason why Pennsylvania is the premier place to
00:53:22breed and race.
00:53:23For more, please visit pabred.com.
00:53:27The TDN Writers Room is brought to you by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.
00:53:30Looking forward to the first running of the PHBA's two year old PA sired, PA bred
00:53:34Stallion Series.
00:53:35Two of the seven $100,000 PA bred stakes will be on their annual million dollar PA
00:53:40day at the races card, which is August 22nd at parks.
00:53:44Early nominations for those races close on July 11th, so definitely keep this series
00:53:48in mind as you're planning your summer racing schedule, especially if you have PA
00:53:51breds.
00:53:52And 17 PA breds, this is a nugget from John, are going to be in the OBS June sale,
00:53:57which comes up next week.
00:53:59So definitely, obviously a great program to get involved in, in the PA bred, PA sired
00:54:04program.
00:54:04So the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders definitely expanding the opportunities for owners and
00:54:10trainers of PA breds to definitely get involved if you see one that you like at OBS
00:54:14June.
00:54:16A little bit of a slow news week this week, and that's why we gave John the opportunity
00:54:19in segment one to talk about how great DJ Staple is doing, which is true.
00:54:23You know, we didn't make that up.
00:54:26But also I thought this was an interesting story for a slow news week.
00:54:29Bill had a great op-ed in this week's TDN, one of this weekend's TDNs, and it's
00:54:35honestly something that I've been saying for a long time.
00:54:37I felt like I was kind of moving the pen for Bill as he was writing this, you know, the
00:54:42spirit of Joe Bianca, because this is something I've talked about for a while about
00:54:46the Met Mile kind of needing to be on Memorial Day and how it's such a big race in
00:54:51New York and it just gets lost on the Belmont undercard.
00:54:55And, you know, Bill acknowledged it in the story about why these tracks want these
00:54:59blockbuster cards.
00:55:00He said last year's handle for the Belmont stakes card was $112 million, which is a
00:55:05record for a not triple crown year.
00:55:07But I'm quoting now and he said, but there's been a price to pay.
00:55:10The weekend racing leading up to and following the Belmont has absolutely no sizzle.
00:55:14That might be fine for some of the weeks, but it shouldn't be OK for Memorial Day.
00:55:18You can make a case that the Met is the third most important, most prestigious race
00:55:21run each year in New York behind only the Travers and the Belmont.
00:55:25But alongside eight claiming races, if you have to, and it can carry a day.
00:55:28But on Belmont Day, it tends to get lost.
00:55:30Could not agree with that more.
00:55:32I would argue, honestly, when the Belmont there isn't a triple crown up for grabs, it's
00:55:36right up there with the with the Belmont and the Travers.
00:55:39I honestly would not put it behind those two races, especially at the Belmont, if
00:55:42there's no triple crown.
00:55:43It is and especially in the world of stallions and, you know, horses becoming so
00:55:49valuable for what they can do after they finish their racing career.
00:55:53The Met Mile is so important.
00:55:55It just it and it takes all of those route horses and those sprint horses and kind of
00:56:00condenses them down into one field.
00:56:01You usually get a big field.
00:56:03This year's Met looks like it's going to be appointment viewing even more so than the
00:56:07Belmont or any of those races on the card.
00:56:09And like Bill said in his story, I don't think you would honestly miss it if you took
00:56:13it off the Belmont card because you're still going to have six or seven grade ones.
00:56:16The Met Mile made Memorial Day special at the track and no disrespect to the New York
00:56:21Reds, it's a great it's a great program and actually a really good card, usually a
00:56:25good betting card to have the New York Red Showcase Day.
00:56:28But just in terms of cash and in terms of attention paid to Belmont on Memorial Day,
00:56:33nothing compares to the Met Mile.
00:56:35Go ahead, Bill.
00:56:36Yeah, I mean, you summarize a lot of what I said in there and a couple of points.
00:56:40The you don't even have to take don't take the New York Red Day away from Memorial
00:56:45Day. Just add the Met Mile to it.
00:56:47And, you know, it kind of just jumped up.
00:56:50I mean, this has been going on since 2014 when they first moved it to a Saturday.
00:56:55And I think, Joe, you and I and perhaps John as well were in agreement right from the
00:57:00start. I didn't like the idea.
00:57:02But what was kind of sort of jarring this year was basically the whole Memorial Day
00:57:06weekend at Belmont came and went with nothing, absolutely nothing.
00:57:10I know the New York people can get mad at me for saying that.
00:57:12But, you know, a bunch of New York red races does not compare to a card highlighted by
00:57:17a million dollar grade one race.
00:57:19I say it's the third most important race in New York.
00:57:21You say it might even be better.
00:57:23So, you know, you had one graded stakes race over the entire weekend, which is soaring
00:57:28softly on Saturday.
00:57:30Now, I don't disagree with what Naira and every other track pretty much has done to
00:57:35create these blockbuster days.
00:57:37They do work.
00:57:38There's no doubt about it.
00:57:39But as I said in the story and as you said as well, take the mile out of Belmont Stakes
00:57:45Day and Belmont Stakes Day is not going to lose a penny in handle, not a penny, because
00:57:49it's still going to be a great day.
00:57:50You put it back to Memorial Day and you create an event out of Memorial Day where now
00:57:55it's just like a block on a card.
00:57:58So, you know, would would Naira consider doing this?
00:58:01I have no idea. But, you know, it's kind of there's two problems here.
00:58:06First of all, Memorial Day weekend comes and goes without anything to get excited
00:58:10about. And yeah, you know, even though you say it and you know what the horse is lining
00:58:15up for this year, it will be a better race than the Belmont.
00:58:19It will for guys like us, we will look forward to that mile more, frankly, than the
00:58:24Belmont Stakes. But it's still for the general public and everybody else.
00:58:28It's Belmont Day.
00:58:29It gets lost and it deserves to have a day of its own.
00:58:33So much so, guys, that, you know, the past two shows, we haven't really even been
00:58:38talking very much about some of these great stake races.
00:58:41I mean, Joe, this morning, you know, you kind of glossed over the fact that there were a
00:58:44couple of great at stake races, you know, and I wouldn't even have known it unless I
00:58:48was doing the show.
00:58:49I wouldn't have even paid attention to it at all.
00:58:52The story Softly, the only great at stake race on Memorial Day weekend, you know, at
00:58:56Belmont, it's crazy.
00:58:57And we talk all the time about, you know, the grading system and how certain races don't
00:59:03deserve to be grade ones or grade twos or even grade three stake races.
00:59:08The Met Mile, you know, when you look historically at who's in that race, not only does
00:59:13it deserve to be a grade one, but it really is from a breeder standpoint, it is the
00:59:18gateway to becoming a stallion.
00:59:20When you look at the winners or even horses that placed in the race, you know, over the
00:59:24past couple of years, Vekoma, Metoli, McKenzie, Sharp Azteca, Frosted, Upstart, Honor
00:59:32Coat, Tonalist, the list kind of goes on and on and on.
00:59:35And those are horses that are standing a stud in Kentucky and a lot of them are up and
00:59:40coming stallions as well.
00:59:42So, you know, the industry as a whole wants to see the Met Mile showcased.
00:59:47And if you made that on Memorial Day weekend and you had the field that's going to go in
00:59:53there right now where Aloha West and Jackie's Warrior, Speaker's Corner, Flightline, I
00:59:58mean, you're telling me that that wouldn't get the kind of viewership and attention from
01:00:04guys like us to talk about?
01:00:06I mean, that would probably be segment one and two for the past two shows, quite frankly,
01:00:11would be, you know, the pre-race and then the post-race analysis of it.
01:00:15It is tantamount to, you know, the Derby, the Preakness and some of these other races
01:00:19that we take, you know, most of the show talking about.
01:00:22So I really feel like that, you know, like you said, Bill, the industry is trending
01:00:27towards get all these great estate races and make it a superstar day.
01:00:31But this could be a standalone race on its own.
01:00:33And if you want to couple it with the New York Red Race, you know, day, that's fine.
01:00:37You can still have that same kind of theme.
01:00:39I think it would only anchor that kind of a day and make it that much better and that much
01:00:43more noticeable for people to watch the New York Red Races then.
01:00:47And then it's really a win-win across multiple sectors of the industry.
01:00:51Yeah, no, that's a great point, is that it could draw more eyes to the New York Reds,
01:00:55the New York Red Stakes, if you ran those as supporting stakes for the Met Mile.
01:01:00And listen, the Met Mile gets one of the best fields in racing every single year.
01:01:04Have you ever remembered a Met Mile field that was like, meh, not that interesting?
01:01:09You at least usually have a couple of really interesting horses in there.
01:01:12And in a landscape where we have so many great ones that are just like, they'll put you to
01:01:17sleep, the Met Mile is always exciting.
01:01:20If we had a grade one plus in the rating system, I think that that's what the Met Mile
01:01:25should be. That's how important it is.
01:01:27And that's how good the horses are that show up every year of that race.
01:01:30And there's a little naval gazing segment for me because I'm a New Yorker.
01:01:35And but my pops and I used to go out to the Memorial Day, the Memorial Day card every
01:01:40year at Belmont to watch the Met Mile.
01:01:43We haven't been in since they moved it to Belmont Day.
01:01:46Let's be real. All those great ones on Belmont Day, they're all terrific races, but those
01:01:51are all undercard races.
01:01:52Those aren't races that you look forward to for months or even weeks.
01:01:56The Met Mile we've been talking about forever since we heard that flight line is going
01:02:00there. You know, that's the that's the kind of marquee race that gets racing fans excited.
01:02:05And it just I've said this since the beginning.
01:02:08It can't just be another undercard appetizer to the Belmont.
01:02:12It's too important. It's too important to New York racing.
01:02:15It's too important to American racing.
01:02:16It's too important to the breeding and stallion industry.
01:02:21It's just a race that deserves its own day.
01:02:23And Bill, I couldn't have said it any better than you did in your piece.
01:02:27The TDN Writers Room is brought to you by XBTV.
01:02:30This week's XBTV Workout of the Week features Beyond Brilliant, who went four furlongs in
01:02:35Santa Anita in 49 and three, trained by John Sheriffs.
01:02:38The four-year-old Colt won the grade two Charlie Whittingham and his last start up and
01:02:42newcomer in the turf division.
01:02:44And we're just talking about the Met Mile.
01:02:46You can go check out Flightline on XBTV.
01:02:49He's obviously always a big draw, even when he's just working out.
01:02:52Flevy and Pratt travel across the country to ride him.
01:02:55So he's honestly one of the most exciting horses in training in the last, what, five
01:03:00years. You can check out all the contenders for the Belmont, for the Met Mile, for that
01:03:05huge undercard.
01:03:06XBTV will have a bunch of those workouts on their website.
01:03:10You can just go on XBTV.com and type in the search bar.
01:03:13You can almost always find any big grade one type of horse breezing at their home base.
01:03:18So check that out. And we'll be right back after this message from XBTV.
01:03:40All the thrills.
01:03:58Fraction of the bills.
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01:04:09Make new friends and compete at the highest level of thoroughbred racing.
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01:04:20Visit WestPointTB.com.
01:04:23The TDN Riders Room was brought to you by West Point Thoroughbreds.
01:04:26Joining a West Point Thoroughbreds partnership can vault you into the world of instant
01:04:29camaraderie among people surrounding high class horses and stakes action for a fraction
01:04:34of the cost of trying to do it on your own.
01:04:36You can learn more at WestPointTB.com.
01:04:39Congratulations to West Point.
01:04:40They had two winners over the past weekend.
01:04:41Divine Armor won at Santa Anita on Friday.
01:04:44And then on Sunday, Voodoo Zip won at Belmont for Christoph Clement.
01:04:47Flightline, as I mentioned, the XBTV bit, put in a work on Monday at Santa Anita to
01:04:51prepare for the Met Mile with Flavie and Prada boards.
01:04:54Like I said, you can go check that out on XBTV.com.
01:04:57And I know all the West Point partners, even if you're not specifically involved in
01:05:01Flightline, I know that you've been counting down the days to see Flightline race
01:05:05again. We all can't wait for it.
01:05:07And, you know, it's gotten to the point where the hype is is so gigantic that you
01:05:11don't you don't know how he could possibly live up to it.
01:05:14But from what he's done so far, I would not put it past him.
01:05:16So we can't wait. That's going to be next Saturday.
01:05:18We're 10 days away from Belmont Stakes Day.
01:05:21And, you know, like we were just saying in the last segment, put Flightline on
01:05:24Memorial Day. Give him his own day.
01:05:27That's all I'll say.
01:05:30Well, is it a time now for trainers behaving badly?
01:05:32This segment that we think we got to get a sponsor for that, by the way, and some
01:05:35theme music, though, but I'm going to be at Chico's Bail Bonds.
01:05:39Yeah, right. Exactly.
01:05:40Right. From the Bad News Bears.
01:05:44So I thought it's interesting because the you know, we get all these
01:05:50drug positives or medication violations and they're ninety nine point nine percent of
01:05:54the time they're the same thing. A therapeutic medication, an overage like Brad
01:05:58Coxcott with with Butte the other day.
01:06:00And, you know, not that anybody should be getting these, but in the grand scheme of
01:06:04things, they don't mean a hill of beans.
01:06:05So it's so rare to see a trainer really pop for doing something
01:06:10that is, you know, above and well above and beyond the, you know, Banamine
01:06:14Butte overages. And a trainer by the name of Robert Girl, G.E.R.L.
01:06:18was suspended and is announced on Tuesday, 20 years
01:06:23and find one hundred thousand dollars up in Canada for using
01:06:27a drug called Osterine, which is essentially, from what I can tell, it's not
01:06:31steroids, but acts like steroids.
01:06:34Now, first of all, it's good for the Ontario.
01:06:37What is it? The alcohol and whatever.
01:06:40It's some weird name.
01:06:42They did it good for them for going after this guy.
01:06:45Essentially, I don't know how old he is, but his career is over.
01:06:48I mean, he's not going to come back in 20 years from now.
01:06:50So it's good to see. You wonder why this doesn't happen more often.
01:06:55A couple of points in that one. I'm going to kind of say the horses were named
01:06:58Arafat and Communist.
01:07:01Whoever named the horses should have also gotten 20 years for that
01:07:05as well. But do you guys ever notice that every time
01:07:09they get one of these a trainer on these, you know, very serious charges,
01:07:14it's also a guy who doesn't ever win any races.
01:07:16It's never anybody to call that.
01:07:18We know that guy's cheating and they finally caught him.
01:07:21This poor guy was over 25 in 2021 and over
01:07:2425 in 2020.
01:07:27I guess, you know, allegedly, I guess he wasn't even good
01:07:30at cheating. So, you know, but it was
01:07:34it's an interesting story to me, because even though it's a low profile guy,
01:07:38you just never see this.
01:07:39We caught a guy red handed doing something really serious.
01:07:43And, you know, good for them not giving him a one year suspension.
01:07:45Basically said, goodbye, fella.
01:07:46You know, good luck with your life.
01:07:48You're out of horse racing for good.
01:07:50Well, I love how you say that his career is over.
01:07:53I don't know if his career ever started based on those stats.
01:07:55Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:57I don't know that there was.
01:08:00Yeah, it's you know, it was a guy like this at a ghost
01:08:03room a little while ago.
01:08:04Alfredo Lacoa, I think his name was, and he got busted for some serious stuff
01:08:08and he was winning at like seven percent.
01:08:10I mean, it just goes to show you, honestly, the guys that,
01:08:14you know, frankly, are dumb enough to get caught
01:08:16are not the ones who are who are the problem
01:08:19and cheating the game, you know, in a meaningful way.
01:08:23You know, and I anybody that's that's cheating, I think deserves to get banned.
01:08:27But now it's basically just this guy and Rick Dutrow.
01:08:29Those are the only people that we've ever meaningfully suspended for a long time.
01:08:34You know, and that kind of reminded me of a of a story
01:08:37that Peter Miller is starting to run horses again.
01:08:40He's he's starting to run horses this week.
01:08:43You know, he had this this self imposed, quote unquote,
01:08:46six month hiatus from training last year.
01:08:49We just he sent all of his his horses to Ruben Alvarado,
01:08:53who was one of his assistants.
01:08:54And, you know, it's kind of in business as usual.
01:08:56It seems like Ruben Alvarado
01:08:57has been running a bunch of races in California, including some stakes races.
01:09:01And, you know, there were the circumstances around his departure
01:09:06were very, very vague and suspicious, honestly, because,
01:09:10you know, Aiden Butler has been doing this stuff at Santa Anita
01:09:13where he just kicked Richard Baltus's ass out of here.
01:09:15And, you know, Peter Miller swore up and down that the reason he was going away
01:09:19was just to take a break.
01:09:21And there was you know, there was no investigation or anything like that.
01:09:24When you come back at like six months on the dot,
01:09:28to me, that suggests otherwise, to me, that suggests that there was a soft
01:09:32band of some kind in place there.
01:09:35And, you know, there was there was there was some consternation
01:09:38and some discussion about his horses dying at a more frequent rate
01:09:42in the previous year from before he left.
01:09:45And, you know, whether or not that that was part of the case.
01:09:47But I wonder, you know, Aiden Butler is the kind of guy
01:09:51seems like he's not afraid of a headline.
01:09:52You know, he's not afraid to grab a big name and by the scruff
01:09:56and throw him out of the track or at least suspend them a little bit.
01:09:59Like that's kind of what he's doing with Richard Baltus right now.
01:10:02You can agree or disagree with that, you know, with that approach.
01:10:05I think overall, it's better to have some, you know, some actual sheriffs
01:10:08on the beat with some with some teeth and the things they do.
01:10:11But I just this whole situation with Peter Miller really confused me
01:10:14because why not make a big stick?
01:10:16Why not, you know, put another scalp on the wall?
01:10:19If Peter Miller is a guy that you think is cheating
01:10:22and you think you need to, you know, to get rid of ASAP.
01:10:25Like what? Why was this so secret, Bill?
01:10:27I wonder. Well, that's a very good question, Joe.
01:10:30And when this thing about Miller came out, I texted Aiden Butler.
01:10:34And what is it, 10, 11 days ago?
01:10:37I still haven't gotten any response from him whatsoever.
01:10:40I don't quite understand that.
01:10:42But you said that the circumstances of Miller leaving were vague.
01:10:46The circumstances of his return are vague as well.
01:10:50Now, you know, the whole thing that he said about,
01:10:52oh, I'm just going to go take a break to spend time with my family.
01:10:55You know, it didn't pass the smell test when it happened.
01:10:58And now it really doesn't pass the smell test with the timing of this.
01:11:02It appears, from what I can tell, is that he is banned at Santa Anita.
01:11:07Right. House rules.
01:11:09But he's not banned at Del Mar and Los Alamitos,
01:11:12which is the same thing Jerry Hollendorfer is going through.
01:11:14So his stable is returning.
01:11:17He renounces return as the Santa Anita meet is getting to the finish line
01:11:21and then he can race Los Al.
01:11:23You know, that's only what, seven, eight days of race.
01:11:24It's not a big deal.
01:11:25But then he can race at Del Mar.
01:11:27Now, what is his status once Santa Anita reopens?
01:11:31I mean, it I assume he has been banned by Santa Anita,
01:11:37but that's just an assumption because they have not said word one
01:11:40about what's going on here.
01:11:42So, you know, this story has more legs.
01:11:44What's going to happen beyond the Del Mar meet?
01:11:48Well, will it just be that the horses run under the assistant trainer's name
01:11:52at Santa Anita and run under Peter Miller's name at
01:11:56at Del Mar and Los Alamitos?
01:11:59And I see you're shaking your head as you all should.
01:12:01Perhaps that is what's going to happen here.
01:12:04But yeah, I mean, sort of they they've done a lot of really good things.
01:12:08And yeah, they should be patting themselves publicly on the back.
01:12:12They haven't said anything about Baltus either.
01:12:14You know, I've also tried to get some information on that
01:12:18and have gotten no answers.
01:12:20Well, it's such a fascinating thing, too, because.
01:12:23Santa Anita has a problem with field size,
01:12:26so this has got to be a little bit of a dilemma here,
01:12:29and we've talked about this in the past, about how, you know, a lot of
01:12:32a lot of racing offices, I think a lot of people run racetracks have been,
01:12:36you know, have let things slide a little bit over the years for guys who fill stalls.
01:12:41You know, the Horay Navarro's and Jason Services of the world.
01:12:44I'm not saying these guys are necessarily them,
01:12:46but I don't know that they aren't either.
01:12:48I think that, you know, it's it's honestly brave to go after these guys
01:12:52who fill stalls at a track where you have five or six horse fields
01:12:55in every single stakes race.
01:12:57And I wonder if there's kind of a long game involved here,
01:13:01an idea that, you know, if we do get rid of guys that,
01:13:04you know, there are whispers about and that people think are cheating,
01:13:07maybe some like some honest trainers will come and feel more comfortable
01:13:11running at Santa Anita without those guys in the entry box.
01:13:14I don't know. I'm just speculating.
01:13:16But but it's a really interesting, you know, kind of dual approach
01:13:20where you're trying to increase field size, but you're also getting rid of guys
01:13:24who are some of the most prominent trainers on your backsides.
01:13:27You know, that's a little bit of a conundrum for me, it seems like.
01:13:32The TDN Writers Room is brought to you by Legacy Bloodstock.
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01:13:39with 80 winners of one hundred one races.
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01:13:44at the Basic Tipton July sale, which starts July 12th.
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01:13:55We're really grateful for the people that entrust us.
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01:14:00We're always with your horse every step of the way.
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01:14:23This week's Remy cartoon, we got a horse in the ring
01:14:26that's causing a little bit of trouble, and the auctioneer says,
01:14:29we now present to you this well bred, good looking fourth generation
01:14:33pain in the ass, and I've seen that before.
01:14:35I've seen horses really start being rambunctious and give the handlers
01:14:39a lot of trouble in the auction ring.
01:14:41But those handlers do a good ass job, John, don't they?
01:14:44Oh, they really do.
01:14:45And, you know, fourth generation pain in the ass can describe
01:14:48not only that horse, but a lot of people in the horse business as well.
01:14:52All right.
01:14:52So that's going to do it for this week's edition of the TDN Writers Room
01:14:55presented by Keeneland.
01:14:56Make plans to attend the Keeneland September Yearling Sale
01:14:59beginning Monday, September 12th.
01:15:01You can learn more at theworldyearlingsale.com.
01:15:04I want to thank Bill Finley, John Green, our Green Group guest of the week,
01:15:08Randy Moss, our producer, Patty Wolf, our associate producer, Katie Petruniak,
01:15:12and our editors, Anthony LaRocca, Aaliyah LaRocca, Nathan Wilkinson.
01:15:16Thank you so much for watching.