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00:00:00For the love of the horse, for generations to come.
00:00:28And welcome everybody to another edition of the Thoroughbred Daily News Writer's Room
00:00:32Podcast.
00:00:33My name is Bill Finley.
00:00:34I'm a correspondent for the Thoroughbred Daily News, also co-host of the Down the Stretch
00:00:37show with the legendary Dave Johnson on Saturday mornings on Sirius XM.
00:00:41I'm Randy Moss with NBC Sports and the Buyer's Speed Figure team.
00:00:46Lucy is down here on the floor below me.
00:00:48She's got a new position this week.
00:00:51TD Thornton speaking to you from a little north of Boston.
00:00:53I am a stable mate of Bill's on the writing team at TDN.
00:00:58So guys, we didn't have the big, huge weekend last week that we had with the Belmont.
00:01:02Relatively quiet time in racing, but there was some interesting horses to talk about.
00:01:08And I want to start off with the latest TDN rising star.
00:01:11And no surprise, it is Muth, who on Sunday at Santa Anita, first time starter by good
00:01:17magic, that cost $2 million at OBS, won quite easily in its debut for Amir Zidane.
00:01:26And you know, this is a guy, it's, you know, you spend $2 million on a horse and you think
00:01:32it might be easy, but it's not easy.
00:01:34So many of these horses don't pan out.
00:01:37And yet Zidane, he keeps spending this big money and he keeps producing stars.
00:01:42Arabian Lion, $600,000, Arabian Knight, who still has a lot more to prove because he's
00:01:47only run in the two races, 2.3 million.
00:01:50It seems like this team for Baffert is really, you know, hitting the mark more than missing.
00:01:56I also thought it was interesting that a day earlier, Baffert ran another very highly,
00:02:02you know, the lot of touted, there was lots of touts on for Miramotti.
00:02:07And he ran this horse as a first time starter in the Fasig-Tipton Futurity, named of course
00:02:12for Frank Miramotti, the announcer at Santa Anita, will soon be coming to Saratoga.
00:02:16This is a $1.05 million Keeneland September purchase.
00:02:19This one wasn't any good.
00:02:21He was second, beating seven and a quarter lengths by a big long shot.
00:02:25So I thought it was interesting that Baffert chose the better horse to run in a maiden
00:02:28race than the horse that he ran in the stakes race.
00:02:33But nonetheless, here we go again, no surprise, $2 million horse, Bob Baffert, Amir Zidane,
00:02:38we'll be keeping our eyes on Muth as we go through the year.
00:02:41Yeah, no surprise that a Bob Baffert first time starter is one to five on the board at
00:02:47Santa Anita.
00:02:48And he ran like it.
00:02:50As you pointed out, you would think, logic would say, that if you spend $2 million on
00:02:55a horse at a two-year-old in training sale, you would almost be guaranteed that the horse
00:03:00would be an absolutely kick-ass two-year-old.
00:03:02But it doesn't necessarily always pan out that way.
00:03:06But Muth got an 87 buyer speed figure, one geared down.
00:03:10I know that phrase is used probably a little too often, it's overused.
00:03:15But this one really was geared down and won as easily as you could win.
00:03:20So it's going to be pretty exciting to see how he runs.
00:03:23For me, guys, the three best two-year-olds, now it's early, obviously, we're just in June.
00:03:30The three best two-year-olds that I've seen so far, Muth, American Rascal, who will run
00:03:36at Royal Ascot this week for Wesley Ward, and then a horse of Brad Cox's called You
00:03:41Almost Had Me, who is two for two, wide margins, won the Kentucky Juvenile at Churchill Downs,
00:03:47and beat the horse who beat Miramotti.
00:03:50So those three look the best to me, but Muth is going to take a lot of beating, TD.
00:03:54You know, the thing with me for Muth is not how he finished up, but when was the last
00:03:59time you saw a horse in a five-furlong race, a two-year-old, open up by six lengths the
00:04:04first quarter mile into the race?
00:04:06I mean, that is just blazing early speed.
00:04:09And I thought it was kind of neat, you could hear, you know, it was a Sunday afternoon
00:04:12at Santa Anita, not a huge crowd going on there, but you could hear in the race replay
00:04:19the crowd saying, Muth, Muth, Muth, in the background.
00:04:23It really kind of sounded pretty neat, and Bill, to your point about Miramotti not being
00:04:27any good, I mean, that's a relative term.
00:04:30You know, any other horse comes out run second in his debut like that, granted he got beat
00:04:34at three to five, you'd have to say that was an okay effort, but the bar is high with those
00:04:39high price tags and with the Baffert trainees.
00:04:41Yeah, exactly.
00:04:43If he was a $30,000 maiden trained by the 19th leading trainer in the standings, you'd
00:04:48say, oh, what a promising debut, but that's the way it is with Baffert, and don't give
00:04:52up on Miramotti.
00:04:53You know, he certainly deserves more of a chance.
00:04:55Okay, so now I want to turn back to the three-year-old division and, you know, what we saw coming
00:05:00out of the Belmont, we had the three different Triple Crown winners, so we're all trying
00:05:04to now figure out who's going to step up and be the horse of the second half, and on
00:05:10paper, it didn't look like a huge deal, the Pegasus stakes at Monmouth, which is a prep
00:05:15for the Haskell, but it drew a pretty interesting field, and there was a couple stories that
00:05:20came out of that.
00:05:21First of all, Kings Barnes went off at one to two as the favorite in there, and you can
00:05:25understand why.
00:05:26The Louisiana Derby winner trained by Pletcher, he finished up poorly in the Kentucky Derby,
00:05:33but he was caught up in that ridiculously fast pace and was just fried on the front
00:05:38end.
00:05:39So, you know, is Kings Barnes going to graduate and win the Pegasus, and then I assume would
00:05:43go next in the Haskell, and is he going to be a big deal in there?
00:05:47He finished second at one to two and had absolutely no excuse.
00:05:50If I were the Connections, I would not be that pleased with the outcome.
00:05:55The winner was a horse trained by Brad Cox by the name of Salute the Stars, who had just
00:06:00broken one allowance race at his prior start, started off on the turf, is now two for two
00:06:06on the dirt.
00:06:07And, you know, again, I don't know who he beat.
00:06:09I don't know where this horse is going, but he was really good.
00:06:14Take a look at this race if you hadn't yet.
00:06:15He got a really bad start.
00:06:17He was ranked down the backstretch at about the 316th pole, looked like he didn't have
00:06:23any chance whatsoever.
00:06:24He dug in, got by Kings Barnes.
00:06:27He's trained by Brad Cox.
00:06:29You see a lot of Brad Cox horses take some time to develop.
00:06:32I'm wondering if we might be talking a lot more about this horse come Haskell Travers'
00:06:36time.
00:06:37You know, I think one of the things that surprised me about that race was how certain Kings Barnes
00:06:44looked at the eighth pole.
00:06:45You know, in the initial stages, I thought perhaps they were going to teach him to try
00:06:50to get him to rate a little bit.
00:06:52He was off the pace, but he wasn't that far off of it.
00:06:55He was pressing a horse who was out there on the front end.
00:06:59But when Kings Barnes was set down, he did open up and salute the stars.
00:07:03It was kind of an out-of-nowhere move inside the eighth pole.
00:07:05If you had in-race betting, if you had a wager and you had the ability to do that, you probably
00:07:10would be getting some nice odds on salute the stars for the way he finished up there.
00:07:14Yeah, look, there were six horses in the field in the Pegasus.
00:07:19Salute the stars got by far, by far the worst trip of any of those six horses.
00:07:25Not just the start.
00:07:26He was ranked four wide first turn, and as you pointed out, TD, I had him about four
00:07:31and a half to five points behind coming to the eighth pole.
00:07:34I mean, what kind of shot would a horse typically have in a situation like that?
00:07:39Now, I do think part of it was salute the stars and part of it was Kings Barnes shortening
00:07:44stride there at the last part of the race.
00:07:47And I kind of wonder exactly how good these three-year-olds are going to be going forward.
00:07:53But hey, it's Brad Cox's world right now.
00:07:56We're all living it.
00:07:57And when it comes to the three-year-olds, he seems to have a new good three-year-old
00:07:59just pop out of the woodwork every couple of weeks or so now.
00:08:03Yeah.
00:08:04So keep an eye on salute the stars and we'll see how the field develops, shapes up for
00:08:08the Haskell.
00:08:09One other race I wanted to mention, and it wasn't necessarily a big deal.
00:08:12It's not even a graded stakes race, but the Monomoy Girl Stakes at Ellis Park with the
00:08:17Churchill meet came up really interesting.
00:08:20You had wet paint who was the beaten favorite in the Kentucky Oaks for Brad Cox and he had
00:08:25Hoosier Philly and we all know her story.
00:08:28She was so impressive as a two-year-old, there was all this hype, there was talk of running
00:08:32her in the Kentucky Derby.
00:08:34And she came out in her first two starts this year and she really didn't look good, didn't
00:08:38look like the horse at all that was so impressive last year.
00:08:42But then she showed some signs of life in the Black Eyed Susans, ran second.
00:08:47So now she goes in the Ellis Park race, the Monomoy Girl, and Hoosier Philly wins, gets
00:08:53her first win since last year, last November in the Goldenrod Stakes.
00:08:58Now there's two ways to look at it.
00:09:01She absolutely romped.
00:09:02I mean, she looked terrific in the stretch.
00:09:04She was under wraps by the jockey Morales, but boy, did she get an easy trip on the lead.
00:09:1025.23, 48.86.
00:09:12So I don't know how much of that was because of the pace or how much of it the way she
00:09:17looked crossing the wire was that maybe she is back.
00:09:21I have no idea what might have happened to her.
00:09:23I don't normally think this is a very valid excuse, but perhaps she just hated the track
00:09:28at the fairgrounds because those two races she ran so poorly did happen there.
00:09:33Tom Amos is a great guy, was part of the Fox broadcast, and I know there was a lot of enthusiasm
00:09:39for this horse earlier on the year.
00:09:41So it's pretty neat to see if she comes back and is a major player in the division after all.
00:09:44Yeah.
00:09:45As you said, there's visually and then there's analytically.
00:09:49Visually, this was the Hoosier Philly that we saw as a two-year-old, and this was why
00:09:54people were so excited about her when she turned three.
00:09:57The way when she wins is just in devastating fashion, and she just gallops across the wire
00:10:02and looks like she could run a whole heck of a lot faster if she needed to.
00:10:06It doesn't always happen that way, of course, as any handicapper knows.
00:10:10So visually, that was Hoosier Philly, and she was back, but analytically, as you pointed
00:10:15out, the opening quarter mile in 25.23 seconds, a half in 48.04, it not only helped Hoosier
00:10:24Philly to be on the early lead in those fractions, it hurt wet paint because of her running style
00:10:30typically lasts to first, so it was kind of a double-edged sword there.
00:10:35It's nice to see Hoosier Philly back, but as far as how far back she's going to get,
00:10:42I think the jury is still out just because of the base-on balls that she basically had
00:10:47in this race from a pace perspective.
00:10:50Not only the crawling first quarter mile fraction in that race, but don't forget with this stakes
00:10:56race being moved, the Churchill and tire meet being moved over to Ellis Park, you run those
00:11:00mile races out of that quirky shoot they have, similar to the Wilson shoot at Saratoga
00:11:06that starts abutting up near the home stretch at the first turn, so I think that also helped
00:11:12Hoosier Philly, and I agree with Randy, the visuals there, turning for home, you see Hoosier
00:11:17Philly in hand and in command, wet paint being scrubbed on.
00:11:21Wet paint was really up against it, trying to rally from last into that type of a situation.
00:11:27So we are recording this on a Tuesday afternoon, it's 12.06 in the East Coast, so we have only
00:11:34a few races in from Royal Ascot, and then the way our schedule works when this is put
00:11:41out to the public, we're going to have to skip over Wednesday, so we're going to have
00:11:45to kind of do the Royal Ascot and a little bit of this and a little bit of that and here
00:11:49and there.
00:11:50We'll come back next week and I think give you a full wrap-up, but Randy, TD and I are
00:11:54not big European racing experts, so we are going to call upon your expertise.
00:12:00As of now, on Tuesday, after the first few races, what have been the big stories at Royal
00:12:04Ascot?
00:12:05Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, this is, I know we can't really get into it in depth
00:12:09until next week, but this is what the whole racing world talks about this week, right?
00:12:14I mean, 25% of all of the Group 1 races in the UK are run during this five-day period
00:12:24at Royal Ascot from Tuesday to Saturday.
00:12:27Typically, we'll see several horses from Royal Ascot show up in the Breeders' Cup races
00:12:34in the fall.
00:12:35We've got four Breeders' Cup Challenge Winning Your End races run at Royal Ascot.
00:12:40Some top American horses, especially the two-year-olds from Wesley Ward, American Rascal that I mentioned
00:12:45is going to run later this week, Thursday, actually, in the Norfolk states, so a lot
00:12:51to look forward to.
00:12:52And as far as what we've seen so far today, Tuesday as we tape this, the meet kicks off
00:12:58with the Queen Anne, and Modern Games, who we're all familiar with, was a heavy favorite
00:13:03in there and even money favorite in the American betting market, finished fourth with no excuses.
00:13:09It really makes you think he's better over here when he gets a chance to run around turns
00:13:15than he is even though he's a Group 1 winner over there when they run down the straightaway.
00:13:20It was a horse no one could have picked on paper, named Triple Time, that wound up being
00:13:25the upset winner there.
00:13:27The King's Stand had some controversy.
00:13:30Should there be a DQ?
00:13:32Should there not be a DQ?
00:13:33That was the five-foot-long sprint race on the turf.
00:13:36Brad Sell and Highfield Princess came down to the wire together.
00:13:39We'll talk about that next week.
00:13:40Fascinating difference between the way stewards in the UK look at a race and stewards in the
00:13:46US.
00:13:47And then the last one I saw, the St. James Palace States, the English 2000 Guineas winner
00:13:54versus the Irish 2000 Guineas winner.
00:13:57And as is often the case at Royal Ascot and everywhere, Aidan O'Brien comes out on top
00:14:02there with the Irish 2000 Guineas winner as Paddington beats Chaldean and Frankie Dettori
00:14:09pretty convincingly.
00:14:10So Royal Ascot already off to a tremendous start.
00:14:14You can watch it on Peacock.
00:14:15You can watch it on NBC Saturday.
00:14:17You can watch it on FanDuel TV, the former TVG.
00:14:22And it's a great watch because in the morning, you can get up and you can have your Starbucks
00:14:26and you can have a little breakfast.
00:14:28You can watch the best horses in the world run, and then you got the rest of the day
00:14:31to do whatever you want to do.
00:14:34So Randy, even I will be interested in the Norfolk States on Thursday because I care
00:14:39about—I'm not trying to be snide or anything, but I follow American racing and I root for
00:14:45American horses.
00:14:46And we are going to see American Rascal in there, and that was a horse by Curlin trained
00:14:50by Wesley Ward who broke his maiden at Keeneland by 10 1⁄4 lengths.
00:14:54And he doesn't look like one of those Wesley Ward 4 1⁄2 furlong horses that might go
00:14:59on to win some turf sprints down the line.
00:15:02He looks like, based on his pedigree, that he could be a potential Kentucky Derby horse.
00:15:08Rone Metz, who was owned by Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros, but was sold in the
00:15:15Golf's London sale prior to the night before Royal Ascot for 800,000 pounds.
00:15:21He's the horse that won one of those win-in-you're-in races at Gulfstream for the Royal Ascot races.
00:15:27But I see that the favorite is a horse by the name of Elite Status, who's a European-based
00:15:33horse, two for two, a listed winner.
00:15:36Give us your thoughts on the Norfolk Stakes, and then tell us about any other highlights
00:15:39and races you're looking forward to between Thursday and Saturday of the Royal Ascot meet.
00:15:45Well, I mean, to me, the interesting thing about the Norfolk Stakes, because we're Americans,
00:15:52this American Rascal, out of Lady Aurelia, who, of course, was Stone Street.
00:15:58This is bred and owned by Stone Street as well.
00:16:00Lady Aurelia was a two-time Royal Ascot winner, and there are a lot of parallels there.
00:16:06Lady Aurelia won her debut on April 21st of 2016 at Keeneland, won it very impressively.
00:16:16We don't do buyer speed figures for the four-and-a-half, four-long, two-year-old races, but if you
00:16:20want to ballpark it, you'd be talking like about a 93 or a 94 buyer for a first-time
00:16:26starter two-year-old filly in April.
00:16:29And then American Rascal on April 20th, one day later, seven years later, 2023, wins at
00:16:36Keeneland by 10 in a four-and-a-half, four-long race.
00:16:39Now, TD, what I'm concerned about the most, though, it's not the Lady Aurelia side of
00:16:44it.
00:16:45It's the Kirtland side of it on turf.
00:16:48Kirtland won seven of his last nine races all on dirt.
00:16:51The two that he lost were his grass race at Belmont Park.
00:16:56He didn't run badly.
00:16:58And then the Breeders' Cup Classic, which was run on synthetic at Santa Anita.
00:17:02So I just wonder whether American Rascal will eventually be better on dirt or on turf, and
00:17:11he'll be running against the very best turf two-year-olds in the world at Royal Ascot.
00:17:14Yeah, and the Norfolk Stakes is a win-in-year-end Breeders' Cup race.
00:17:18I believe it's for the turf sprint, though.
00:17:19So it's, you know, that Kirtland, I don't think you see too many Kirtlands show up in
00:17:23the Breeders' Cup turf sprint.
00:17:25And we want to remind you that the TDN Writers' Room is brought to you by Keeneland.
00:17:29Keeneland is home of the World's Yearling Sale.
00:17:31The energy, magic, and momentum at the September Yearling Sale returns September 11th through
00:17:35the 23rd.
00:17:36Learn more at theworldyearlingsale.com.
00:17:39We'll be right back after this message from Keeneland.
00:17:45If this place could talk, it would roar, it would say, this is racing, this beating heart
00:17:59in the heart of horse country, steady and strong beneath the roar, reminding us why,
00:18:07for the love of the horse, for generations to come.
00:18:15He was just put together like a machine and he had a great mind.
00:18:19Everything about him was what you'd want.
00:18:21Tis the law, pops the cork and the champagne.
00:18:24Tis the law is going to win the first leg of the Triple Crown.
00:18:28I've never seen him get tired.
00:18:29Respect the law.
00:18:30Tis the law.
00:18:31His structure is just perfect.
00:18:34His bone is perfect.
00:18:35He's left the others behind.
00:18:37He's going to win the Run Happy Traverse.
00:18:39He's everything you would look for in a horse.
00:18:45The TDN Writer's Room is brought to you by Coolmore.
00:18:48Justify was represented by his 10th two-year-old stakes winner, Ryn Ramatouli,
00:18:53and I hope I'm pronouncing that right, won the Group 2 Prix de Bois in France on Sunday.
00:18:58It was her second win in three starts for trainer Christopher Head,
00:19:00and her owner and former NBA star, Tony Parker.
00:19:04Her ultimate target this summer is the Group 1 Prix de Mornay at Deauville.
00:19:08Also in France, Churchill's outstanding daughter, Blue Rose Sen,
00:19:11completed a classic double after winning the Group 1 Prix de Diane,
00:19:14the French Oaks, at Longchamp.
00:19:15She had previously won the French 1,000 beginnings.
00:19:21Well, we move along now, and let's do some off-the-track news.
00:19:25And, you know, I'd rather not be talking about these things all the time.
00:19:31But, you know, there's stories that come up,
00:19:34and I think that we at least have to make some passing message
00:19:38and ask some questions about what's going on here.
00:19:40What I'm talking about is Todd Pletcher.
00:19:42And it was announced during the week that he had still another positive.
00:19:47This one was a Butte positive for a horse that ran at Saratoga on July 30th of last year.
00:19:54At one point, he had six outstanding positives against him.
00:19:59However, one of them, out of Florida, has been dismissed.
00:20:02The split sample that was taken on the horse did not confirm the positive.
00:20:07But he's got two in New York, two in Florida, and one in Pennsylvania.
00:20:12And, you know, a lot to talk about here.
00:20:15First of all, one of the positives for Forte in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes for Miloxicum,
00:20:21the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Authority said under their rules,
00:20:24this would not have been declared a positive.
00:20:28Todd Pletcher's not a cheater.
00:20:30I wouldn't even go anywhere near that.
00:20:33I think he's a guy who tries his very best and has a lot of integrity.
00:20:37But just like I might have said about Bob Baffert at the time,
00:20:40I do think these guys need to be more careful.
00:20:43And I think there's some instance of sloppiness here on behalf of anybody getting that many positives.
00:20:49And I think they do need to do a better job.
00:20:52But I also want to get after I want to hear your guys' opinions of that.
00:20:55I also want to get into, you know, the fact that these positives take, you know,
00:21:00in some cases, nearly a year to be announced.
00:21:02Well, you know, one of the striking things about the positive from Forte,
00:21:08going all the way back to September at Saratoga,
00:21:11was that it didn't come to light until about nine months later.
00:21:14And it kind of has devolved into a he said, she said type of an argument
00:21:20with the New York State Gaming Commission on the one hand,
00:21:22saying that Mr. Pletcher's attorneys dragged out the process.
00:21:26And then Mr. Pletcher's attorney came back on the other hand and said,
00:21:30we were trying to get information about the split sample testing from the Gaming Commission
00:21:34and they were withholding it from us, allegedly.
00:21:36So a lot of times the truth is somewhere in the middle when you have some of these things.
00:21:41And you have to, I guess, as a fan or a journalist who's observing from afar,
00:21:46you have to have some sort of realization that this is the way that the world works
00:21:50when you have a public agency, on the one hand, trying to cover its butt.
00:21:54And you have a high powered attorney who charges a good hourly rate,
00:22:00trying to back up her clients and trying to make sure that that person's interests are covered.
00:22:04And, you know, each one of them tries to take the existing rules in the system
00:22:08and use them to their best advantage. And I think that's what we see there.
00:22:11Yeah, hopefully HIZA will work as intended and will remove some of the delays
00:22:19that we've seen administratively to get these things brought to light and adjudicated
00:22:25and a little more transparency involved.
00:22:28As far as all the multiple positives, the overages, I guess is the right word for Pletcher.
00:22:35Look, the way I view this, and I know some people are going to say,
00:22:39oh, he's an apologist for Pletcher or he's an apologist for Baffert or whatever.
00:22:43That's fine. People can say that all they want.
00:22:46But these thoroughbred racehorses are athletes.
00:22:52And as such, they'll not only get sick occasionally and require medication,
00:22:59but they'll need some medication to get over minor aches and pains and things like that.
00:23:04And as long as that's not in the horse's system on race day, it's no problem.
00:23:11But when you train as many horses as a Todd Pletcher does,
00:23:16it's inevitable that with all the things that we've seen through the years,
00:23:22the metabolism different in one horse than in another horse,
00:23:26and sometimes medication lingers in horse A's system longer than in horse B.
00:23:31And you've got assistant trainers at other racetracks where you're not there every day,
00:23:36even though it's the absolute insurer rule and it should be.
00:23:39But it's inevitable that you're going to have some of these very minor ticky-tack overages
00:23:45that are going to pop up. And at least one of these overages,
00:23:49Lisa Lazarus has been quoted as saying that in Heiser's new regulations,
00:23:54it wouldn't even be a positive to begin with.
00:23:57We've seen Graham Motion, for crying out loud, have a positive test due to an overage.
00:24:02Shug McGahee. It's going to happen to anybody.
00:24:05And the more horses you have, the better chance that you're going to run afoul
00:24:11of some of these types of situations. My biggest hope from Heiser is twofold.
00:24:16Yeah, it's transparency and quicker adjudication, whatever.
00:24:22But really, number one, it's to really investigate and catch the true cheaters out there,
00:24:29a la Jason Service and Jorge Navarro.
00:24:32And number two, hopefully come up with a better way so that the average sports fan
00:24:40won't look at these situations from Todd Pletcher or Beta Methadone from Bob Baffert
00:24:46and say, these guys were doping their horses, they were drugging their horses.
00:24:50There's got to be a way for Thoroughbred Racing to get the message out there
00:24:56that that's not the situation, that's not the case.
00:24:59But as of right now, that's what people think about Bob Baffert.
00:25:04And that's what they think about Todd Pletcher and anybody else that has a,
00:25:08you know, 10 picogram overage of a medication that results in a positive test.
00:25:14Yeah, Randy, that's a problem. And I don't necessarily know how you change that.
00:25:17I mean, to educate the public would be difficult, especially when, you know,
00:25:21some of the mainstream media, The New York Times, every time some of these things happen,
00:25:26have, you know, headlines, horses doped, you know, racing is dead
00:25:30and the whole world is coming to an end.
00:25:32But I want to get back into the timing thing.
00:25:35The positive that Pletcher just got for the Butte, the race, as I said,
00:25:41took place on July 30th. It was announced on July, June 11th.
00:25:44That's 316 days. And Tita, you had said in the case of the hopeful Forte,
00:25:50each side was blaming one another for why it took so long.
00:25:53We haven't heard from anybody why this one took even longer.
00:25:57To me, I know the lawyers always want to delay, delay, delay, delay.
00:26:04You know, I don't necessarily know why that is the strategy,
00:26:08especially when you have a Butte positive.
00:26:10I don't know how you're ever going to get out of that.
00:26:12You know, maybe with some others when there's environmental,
00:26:14possible environmental contamination.
00:26:16But I think the buck stops with the New York Gaming Commission.
00:26:18They just shouldn't let that happen. They've got to step up.
00:26:22But the good news is they don't matter anymore in these kind of matters
00:26:28because Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit from Heise has taken over.
00:26:34And they're lumping suspensions into different categories.
00:26:37But look at the difference between what we had with the Butte positive, 316 days.
00:26:42They are now announcing what they call provisional suspensions.
00:26:46And here's an example.
00:26:47Mario Domingo is a trainer who was caught using cobalt in a race on May 24th.
00:26:53On June 9th, 15 days later, this was made public on the
00:26:59Horse Racing Integrity and Welfare Unit website.
00:27:01So I think at least from that aspect of how the game works,
00:27:05we're going to see definitely an improvement going forward.
00:27:09Yeah, my understanding with how Heise is going to adjudicate these medication,
00:27:15first of all, they're not even going to call them positive tests.
00:27:17They're now called adverse analytical findings.
00:27:20And if the substance in question is an outright banned substance,
00:27:25as soon as the trainer is notified, it becomes public that that trainer is under a provisional suspension.
00:27:30If it's for a controlled medication and you get an adverse analytical finding for that,
00:27:35the violation is only made public after the trainer either has the split sample confirmed
00:27:41or says, I don't want the split sample testing.
00:27:44I'm going to waive my right to that.
00:27:45So that is one change.
00:27:46And we will see how that evolves.
00:27:48You have to wonder, you know, the great unknown in this is, of course, our legal system in this country.
00:27:54It won't be long before one trainer or another challenges that type of setup.
00:28:00And, you know, that's going to spiral off into the courts.
00:28:02So even though in theory, it sounds like it should put things in the neat little compartments
00:28:07and make it easier for the public to be notified and for trainers to be notified
00:28:11and to be able to defend themselves, you know, I'm just wondering when the first lawsuits start to hit
00:28:16and how that throws a wrench into the system if it does.
00:28:20The TD and Writer's Room is brought to you by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.
00:28:25The Pennsylvania Sired Pennsylvania Bread Series for two-year-olds is back and it's better than ever.
00:28:31Now, six total races.
00:28:32The series kicks off on Monday, August 21st with a pair of 100 grand stakes.
00:28:37Continues Saturday, September 23rd with two $150,000 stakes.
00:28:42And concludes just after Christmas, December 27th with two $200,000 stakes.
00:28:49Notice the escalating purse values and with a combined $50,000 bonus structure to the trainer
00:28:55and the top three equine point earners.
00:28:58There's plenty of cash to go around.
00:29:00You can learn more at pabread.com.
00:29:04The PA Horse Breeders Association presents the Pennsylvania Stallion Series.
00:29:09Six races for PA Sired PA Bread two-year-olds at parks.
00:29:13Two $100,000 contests at five-and-a-half furlongs.
00:29:17On August 21st, PA Day at the Races.
00:29:20September 23rd, PA Derby Day.
00:29:23As two races at six-and-a-half furlongs, both with a $150,000 purse.
00:29:28And in December, two races going long, each worth $200,000.
00:29:32For more, go to pabread.com.
00:29:35The Fastest Horse of the Week is brought to you by the Fast Stallions at Windstar Farms.
00:29:39Such as Promises Fulfilled, who combines the brilliance of a Stormcat with two-term success.
00:29:46A five-time great ethics winner from six furlongs to a mile and a 16th.
00:29:51Remember that mile and a 16th win was in the Fountain of Youth when he defeated two-year-old champion Good Magic.
00:29:57He also went on to win the grade one Allen Jerkins.
00:29:59Talk about speed.
00:30:00He led at the first call in 15 of his 17 starts.
00:30:03Set fractions between 43.3 and 44.4 for the half mile.
00:30:09Six times in graded stakes races.
00:30:12If speed is key, and we all know in American racing it is, then take a look at Promises Fulfilled's First Yearlings, which sell this summer.
00:30:21Now, Fastest Horse of the Week.
00:30:23A bit unusual in that it doesn't come out of a stakes race.
00:30:26It was last Thursday at Belmont Park in a six furlong turf sprint.
00:30:30The horse's name, Outlaw Kid.
00:30:33Co-owned by Randy Hill and Steven Vinosa of SGV Thoroughbreds.
00:30:39He won that allowance sprint by three and a quarter lengths with a buyer's speed figure of 100.
00:30:45Next start for Outlaw Kid.
00:30:48Trainer George Weaver expected to bring him back quickly.
00:30:51He told me this morning that he's looking at the Highlander stakes at Woodbine on July 1st because Outlaw Kid is bred in Ontario.
00:31:01One of the little interesting things about the horse's ownership.
00:31:04He originally was purchased for $220,000 by My Racehorse as a two-year-old in Ocala in 2021.
00:31:12He had a throat problem at the time of sale.
00:31:15The deal was with My Racehorse, if the throat problem could be cleared up in 30 days, they would keep him.
00:31:22If it couldn't, they had the option to give him back.
00:31:25There were some complications.
00:31:27So My Racehorse bailed out of the deal.
00:31:30The consigner, Steven Vinosa, who trains horses, consigns horses in Ocala, Florida, kept him along with Randy Hill.
00:31:36And now they are glad they did.
00:31:39Fastest Horse of the Week, Outlaw Kid.
00:31:45The TD and Writer's Room brought to you by The Green Group, a tax accounting and advisory firm specializing in the thoroughbred industry and designed to save you money in taxes.
00:31:56Welcome in now this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.
00:31:59And it's Tom Lute.
00:32:00You know him from his many roles in horse racing, including his time at the Breeders' Cup in Santa Anita.
00:32:05And he's taken on a new venture.
00:32:06He's the president of horse operations for the National Thoroughbred League, which I think most everyone knows now was launched or an announcement came out last month about a very ambitious project to put horse racing under a league structure.
00:32:21And they have put out some ambitious plans and hope to do something very special for the sport of horse racing.
00:32:28Tom, since we last talked to you, I was just wondering if there's some new developments, some new details.
00:32:34And the first thing I want to know, you had said at the time that you have to go out and buy 36 horses for the league, of which six teams, six horses each.
00:32:45Have you started that process yet?
00:32:48Well, I have a team.
00:32:49And as you can imagine, I have a lot of bloodstock agents have become my best friend again.
00:32:54So I'm getting a lot of calls and we are, quote, I guess the word would be scouting.
00:33:00But, you know, the challenge for me at this point is our first race is down at Kentucky Downs, which is our Nashville team.
00:33:07The race is actually on September 3rd.
00:33:10The rules of our league will be the horses once for their purchase only race in our league.
00:33:15So the long answer is I haven't bought any yet because we don't want to buy them and sit there and have to just train it for two months without the opportunity to race.
00:33:22So, Tom, take us back to the start of this whole process, the how and even the why of how this idea got started to begin with.
00:33:32It was before my time, but the two co-founders, Randall Lane, who's the chief editor at Forbes magazine, and Bob Doherty, who's a private fund manager who lives out here in California.
00:33:43The two of them met and it was mutually done because Bob's involved a lot with Forbes family.
00:33:50Those two, and I think really the basis is Bob's looked at a lot of things for his clients from business perspectives and obviously his approach a lot about teams.
00:34:00And so those two were the brainstorming of why is there no race league in the horse business?
00:34:07So they started digging into it and Martin Panza and Chad Brown got with those two.
00:34:11So the four of them kind of created the concept.
00:34:14I'm friends with all those guys, but Martin talked me into doing this.
00:34:19So I came on board with the concept and then we've developed it into what we think is going to be a really, really neat opportunity for horse racing.
00:34:29But the concept was formed back then.
00:34:31And the idea is just to really recreate an atmosphere at the track.
00:34:36And they're really kind of plagiarizing, if that's the right word, away from the Formula One drive to survive concept.
00:34:43You know, when you look at it and looking at the screen, we're all quite old.
00:34:48So we've been to the races many times and we've seen, you know, run in Santa Anita.
00:34:52I've watched it happen daily.
00:34:53The crowds slowly disappear.
00:34:55And so the concept is create event weekends.
00:34:58It's not all about racing.
00:35:00Actually, in the very beginning this year, it'll be a lot about the activities, not racing.
00:35:04But trying to create the atmosphere to draw people back to racing and wrapping that around with a lot of activities.
00:35:11Tom, back to the horse acquisition theme.
00:35:15You're going to be acquiring 36 race-ready horses.
00:35:20Is there a bench depth?
00:35:22Will there be some reserves?
00:35:24What's going to happen if, by attrition, some horses cycle out of the stable or in the event of a race weekend, there's a scratch?
00:35:31Yeah, I'm going to be back up.
00:35:33I should have corrected Bill.
00:35:35When I first talked to him, that's the concept.
00:35:37The concept is that we will have six active horses on the roster.
00:35:41We're going to have a draft.
00:35:43They're trying to create an atmosphere that's a lot more than just three races.
00:35:48So the idea is we're going to have all the owners in mid-August at a draft.
00:35:52It'll be obviously virtual.
00:35:54The horses won't be there.
00:35:55But we will have each team.
00:35:57And I'm not going to talk about the seventh team.
00:35:59We might have a seventh team here in the next week.
00:36:01You'll hear about it if it happens.
00:36:03But each team will have six active horses.
00:36:05I will constantly be looking, and we'll probably have really at least four per team on a reserve basis because of exactly that.
00:36:13I mean, at the end of the day, we're being put into the condition book, and we will be drawn just in the middle of a race card.
00:36:19So when we run our races, if we have a scratch post-entry, that's just part of racing.
00:36:25But we are toying.
00:36:27I'm working with some other racing secretaries.
00:36:29We are toying with the idea of having a couple wild cards that get to enter each month to help field size this first year.
00:36:36I mean, we originally were running at parks and at MAMAs.
00:36:40So we've had to scale back our events, just startup issues, trying to get organized.
00:36:46So we wanted to have eight per race minimum just to help the racetracks.
00:36:50Nobody wants five, six horse fields.
00:36:52So those are challenges.
00:36:54And I'll tell you, I'm getting all kinds of challenges as a startup first year.
00:36:57And the great horse business that loves the word change.
00:37:00Right.
00:37:02Well, I actually have two questions for you because I want to get to what you just said.
00:37:06Tom, first of all, you had said that you'd like them to be allowance horses, maybe grade three type stakes horses.
00:37:15What is your budget, overall budget, for what you can spend to get these horses?
00:37:19Well, this is one of the things, as I mentioned, about challenges of a startup.
00:37:24You know, everyone's concerned about the horses and obviously we are.
00:37:28As you know, the sport's all about the horse.
00:37:30So looking at this and spending a lot of time talking to trainers and even some owners and now racing partnerships,
00:37:37we're even looking at the option of leasing.
00:37:39The long term goal is to obviously have horses that are in our control year after year.
00:37:45But you have to make amends or changes to suit the circumstances.
00:37:50And the idea is that, you know, we're using I'm using thorough graph.
00:37:54I'm a big thorough graph guy.
00:37:55So we use that as a tool because the most important part for me this first year is to have competitive races.
00:38:02And this is where it's been a real challenge.
00:38:04Talking to three horse guys, you'll see my frustration that I've had with these guys.
00:38:09The first three months is they're all about building a sport, an event and an activity.
00:38:14They don't know that six furlongs should be 109 versus 112 versus 113.
00:38:19And it's interesting going to races more and more.
00:38:22I spent a lot of time watching.
00:38:23I was at the Belmont watching the races.
00:38:25And it was so great to see all those young guys and girls down there on the grandstands cheering their eyeballs out for races.
00:38:32And they don't know a darn thing about times.
00:38:35And so when the race is over, you just it was just to me, it's almost like I'm getting really old, I guess.
00:38:41But it was just great to see people screaming and hollering.
00:38:44And as I'm getting mad as the eight to five crosses the finish line, and I'm three deep in that leg.
00:38:49But that's what this is about.
00:38:50This isn't about us.
00:38:51Unfortunately, it's not about three of you either.
00:38:53This is about getting the people that don't go racing.
00:38:56So the long answer is what's really most important is sound, healthy, good finish lines.
00:39:02And that's really what it comes down to.
00:39:04Because at the end of the day, you know, we could have gone into Manhattan that night and interviewed a lot of people.
00:39:10Nobody was going to say Archangelo.
00:39:12Right, right.
00:39:13So Tom, I want to address the other thing you kind of hinted at.
00:39:16Since this was launched in the toxic world of social media, people haven't been very kind to you guys.
00:39:22And I know that you are aware of that because I saw you mentioned in another interview that you did.
00:39:28Are you surprised at the negativity?
00:39:30And what would you tell those people to try to make them think differently about this project?
00:39:36That's a really good answer to get me in trouble, isn't it?
00:39:39Am I surprised?
00:39:41I'm going to give you a longer answer than you asked.
00:39:43I'm surprised at the resistance and the challenges I've had with the tracks, to be honest with you.
00:39:48Am I surprised at the feedback on Twitter?
00:39:51I'm not.
00:39:52Only because I'm not a big social media guy.
00:39:55I read it sometimes.
00:39:56And so if you get away from the horse business, I'll make a lot of enemies by saying this.
00:40:00But most of the people that are on Twitter that want to say negative things are people that want to be heard.
00:40:05Negative things are people that won't look you in the eye and come up and talk to you about it.
00:40:09It's a startup.
00:40:10I've learned a lot.
00:40:11I've had a lot of interesting jobs.
00:40:13I've never been involved in something like this.
00:40:15So for all the people that want to knock it, they're the same people that are asking for change to save this game.
00:40:21Well, are we going to be perfect?
00:40:23We've already proven we're not perfect.
00:40:25We were supposed to start July 4th.
00:40:27But the reality of the matter is when people spend time with me or anybody in this concept understand this.
00:40:34The idea is to put people on a calendar like for Nashville weekend.
00:40:38Come down.
00:40:39And it's very much specific about the city.
00:40:42If you notice, we're not in some small town, even though there may be a track.
00:40:46We're in towns where we're hoping people will ultimately travel to, have a great time, and come to the races.
00:40:53And the entertainment's not going to be my kind of entertainment.
00:40:56I'll be the first one to tell you.
00:40:57I go to the racetrack.
00:40:58I got my form.
00:40:59Might have a drink.
00:41:00And I'm focused on betting multi-leg bets.
00:41:02But that's not what this is about.
00:41:04This league is all about getting, I always use the expression, the neighbor that you've never got to go racing.
00:41:10This is getting them to come out and have a great time.
00:41:12And that introduction is a long, painful process.
00:41:16I mean, I literally joke about this.
00:41:18The tracks probably should be paying us for the experiment that we're going through.
00:41:23Because the league is funded 100% on our own.
00:41:26We put up the purse money, and we let the horsemen take the handle.
00:41:31So the idea behind this is, how do we get people to come back out to the track like the good old days?
00:41:37Now, you're not going to do it every weekend.
00:41:39And we know that.
00:41:40But at the end of the day, it's ironic.
00:41:42I was at the Belmont this past week.
00:41:44I came home.
00:41:45I went to a Dodgers game because I'm not a baseball guy, but a lot of my friends are.
00:41:49And then I was at the U.S. Open on Sunday.
00:41:51So those are three events that some people say are boring.
00:41:55It's your personal choice.
00:41:56And we're not trying to conquer the world.
00:41:58But we really need that activity back at the track.
00:42:01We're never going to lose our degenerate gamblers and the person that's always going to watch racing.
00:42:06We're trying to find that new audience.
00:42:08And people have to understand, that's not easy.
00:42:10And it's not going to be the way some of us want it to be done.
00:42:13But to the distractors, I say, well, bring on a good idea.
00:42:17I mean, that's okay.
00:42:18So I've got a couple of questions, too, Tom.
00:42:20But first, you mentioned that you're surprised at the resistance you're getting from the racetracks.
00:42:26What's the nature of that resistance?
00:42:28That's a good question, Andy.
00:42:30You know what's so funny about it is my background.
00:42:32I've dealt with these tracks for so long.
00:42:34I don't know.
00:42:35They don't really want to give you a straight answer.
00:42:37I think it's the word change.
00:42:38I really think people don't want it to be associated with failure.
00:42:43Again, this whole answer is an assumption because I point blank asked, why not?
00:42:49And I've really not got a direct answer.
00:42:51I'm fine with, you know, Tom, we don't like you because you're fat or whatever the word is.
00:42:55But we've really not got a straight answer.
00:42:58And when you look at our concept, our concept is we come in the day of the race.
00:43:02We buy an extraordinary amount of tickets.
00:43:05We pay for the hospitality.
00:43:07We pay for the purses.
00:43:09And we bring people to the track.
00:43:11So I say that as the ex-president of Santa Anita.
00:43:14It's a brilliant idea, in my opinion.
00:43:16So the only thing I can tell you is I believe it's fear of change and fear that it's not going to work, which I just don't even understand the risks there personally.
00:43:24Well, if it's not going to work, I mean, the thought about it not working.
00:43:28You mentioned how old we are.
00:43:30We've all been around long enough to know that the success or failure of something like this is going to come down to the bottom line.
00:43:36It's going to come down to money, if not a profit, then at least getting it to break even.
00:43:41So if you're buying the horses, if you're paying for the events, if you're paying for the purse money, where is the revenue stream going to come to pay for all this?
00:43:50And how much of a challenge do you see that being?
00:43:52Do you see that as being the number one challenge?
00:43:55It's the number one challenge for me.
00:43:57It's funny.
00:43:58The founders don't see it that way.
00:44:00And again, they're not horse people.
00:44:02They've put together a very conservative, what I would call aggressive budget that they don't believe will make money for the first two and a half years.
00:44:10So it's well thought out, which was important to me.
00:44:13So one of the things we haven't touched on yet, and it's probably going to be, I think, the most unique beneficial thing of this league for the industry in general.
00:44:22And that's just like Drive to Survive.
00:44:26I don't know if you call them a series or documentaries, but we've hired a Hollywood crew.
00:44:31And then we've contracted Billy Rapoport, which a lot of you guys know to help that crew do the horse side of it.
00:44:37And we're going to be filming.
00:44:39We started filming with our little cocktail party down in Manhattan last week.
00:44:43We're going to be filming, and I don't know how many thousands of hours they will, to create six episodes.
00:44:48And it'll go on Netflix, Hulu, whoever they negotiate.
00:44:53That's not my area of expertise.
00:44:55But that in itself to me is one of the most unique, great opportunities for this game.
00:45:01Because each episode, and we're paying for it up front and hopefully making money on the back.
00:45:06And the reason we're doing that is to control it.
00:45:08We want to be able to control the final version so that it produces horse racing in a positive light versus a negative light.
00:45:15And what we'll do is we'll sprinkle in on one episode why the jockeys use whips so we can educate people.
00:45:22We'll have another episode that'll sprinkle in handicapping so people can look at the racing form and understand the hieroglyphics that it is to them.
00:45:30And that's where my background will come in, working with these producers.
00:45:35I use the joke all the time with people.
00:45:38I'm at that era that I was a computer idiot.
00:45:41So they made that book, Computers for Dummies, that we could take home at night and read so no one saw us reading it.
00:45:46Well, people will be able to watch these episodes over and over and over again, like I have for Drive to Survive, to learn about Formula One racing.
00:45:53And I really believe that documentary is going to be the greatest tool coming out of this the first few years.
00:45:59Because people can watch it at two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and it's a huge expense for us.
00:46:05But we're underwriting it because we think it's the right thing for this league.
00:46:08And back to your answer, through sponsorships, through ticket sales, part of the deal first year is we're giving money to the track.
00:46:16We hope that we'll build and it'll be based off historical data.
00:46:20So if whatever Sunday we're running at your track, if you were doing a million dollars and we're ultimately getting to three million,
00:46:26there's rev shares on excess profits.
00:46:29But, you know, through sponsorships and the ticket sales, and they think this documentary will make a lot of money,
00:46:34they think they can outrun that in the appreciation of the team values.
00:46:38Tom, your first event is coming up. It's going to come up fairly quickly.
00:46:43It's going to be on the Labor Day weekend at Kentucky Downs.
00:46:46That will be the Nashville event.
00:46:47And, you know, let's assume that you have piqued the interest of some people who might want to be interested in coming out to that for the weekend.
00:46:55What do they pay and what and what do they get that's different from just coming in for general admission?
00:47:00Good question. And unfortunately, someone of a long answer.
00:47:03You guys know me. I'm a horse guy.
00:47:05So I will tell you it's the reason it's a long answer.
00:47:07It's a little bit going back to Randy's question of the details.
00:47:11So we have an event team. We have a marketing team.
00:47:14We have a social media team. I joked with them.
00:47:17I said we might want to talk to Breeders' Cut.
00:47:19We might be able to take over running Breeders' Cut.
00:47:21We've got so many members of our team, but that's part of their history and their background of trying to build success.
00:47:28The great news is I can't screw those things up because I'm not involved in those.
00:47:32I'm involved in the horses and the managing of the racing.
00:47:35But, you know, at the end of the day, they're booking an act and we're running late.
00:47:40There's no doubt about that.
00:47:41I sit on these Zoom calls and I guess I can be an expert since I listen to these guys talk a lot.
00:47:46But we're booking events.
00:47:48We may have a big, big name in Nashville.
00:47:51It may be just a good name.
00:47:52I don't know the difference.
00:47:53So there will be that event Saturday night.
00:47:56The races are Sunday.
00:47:57I'll give you the walkthrough of Labor Day.
00:48:00So Friday night is an owner's dinner.
00:48:03It's our first event.
00:48:04Saturday there's going to be some activities in Nashville.
00:48:07You get to pick the city.
00:48:08And then that night there's a concert.
00:48:11And then Sunday is racing.
00:48:13Sunday is racing.
00:48:14It's challenging for those who have been to Kentucky Downs.
00:48:17We've rented the chalets from Kentucky Downs.
00:48:20And we'll have picket fence put up for our general admission group.
00:48:23And they'll have activities.
00:48:25And they'll be creating activities.
00:48:27This is the thing that I struggle with because I'm a horse guy.
00:48:30But they're going to create activities to keep people entertained between racing.
00:48:33Because at the end of the day, that's the challenge that the non-horse group that I work with sees as the issues with horse racing is that gap between racing.
00:48:43And, you know, that's just something that they're working on.
00:48:46But, you know, again, it's also price sensitive.
00:48:49So if you're in the VIP section, it's drinks and food included.
00:48:53The general admission is obviously general admission.
00:48:56But it's relatively inexpensive.
00:48:58It's hopefully just building that atmosphere so that people come in groups.
00:49:01As you know, it's always more fun to be at any event with your friends than without.
00:49:06I don't know.
00:49:07That's Nashville.
00:49:08And each event will build upon.
00:49:10I mean, one quick answer we'll probably get to.
00:49:13But Tampa, I thought this was really interesting.
00:49:15And I give them a lot of credit.
00:49:17I voted against it.
00:49:18But I got to vote it.
00:49:20They moved our event to New Year's Eve.
00:49:22They think that'll be a fun blowout weekend for our championship.
00:49:26And it's New Year's Eve.
00:49:27We were supposed to run earlier in the month.
00:49:29So they wanted to move to that weekend.
00:49:31We agreed to it.
00:49:32And we hope it all works out because it'll be a championship weekend on New Year's Eve.
00:49:37Tom, one more question for me before we let you go.
00:49:40I want to get back to what you're talking about, the various experiences and ticket prices.
00:49:44Right now, the only one on your website that you are selling tickets to and that price is posted is for Kentucky Downs.
00:49:51You have two packages.
00:49:52One is a VIP package for $395.
00:49:55The other is a general admission for $95.
00:49:58You told us a lot about what the VIPs would get.
00:50:01But if I'm a guy who just has been going to Kentucky Downs for the last seven, eight years, I'm not really interested in this.
00:50:08I just want to go to the races.
00:50:10And I don't believe there's any admission charge to Kentucky Downs.
00:50:15And this would be for all your tracks.
00:50:17Will any fan have to pay that $95 to go to the races?
00:50:21Yeah, no.
00:50:22We are reserving areas.
00:50:24So like the average, you know, I mean, the guys don't like me to say this.
00:50:28But the truth is if you walk in to any of our events as a regular better and you don't know how to read conditions, it's just a race.
00:50:36So we're not impacting the actual day and the regular race customer.
00:50:41We're trying to create our own section, I guess if you'd say.
00:50:45And real quick on Meadowlands, I think that's going to be a really, really neat one.
00:50:49We've tied in with the New York Food and Wine Festival.
00:50:52So we have 20 celebrity chefs come to the track that night.
00:50:55And that gets into the concept that we have to understand.
00:50:58You know, there's one thing we all do is we eat.
00:51:01So hopefully we're bringing people in for a food event.
00:51:04I don't know, by the way, enjoy racing because we're going to be trying to be very educational.
00:51:08We're going to be very concentrated in our spaces to make sure we're there educating people.
00:51:13And that's where the themes will roll out.
00:51:15And again, we're behind.
00:51:16It's a startup.
00:51:17We're running around with our heads cut off.
00:51:19But I think as you see this thing grow and develop, I think you're going to really see a neat pattern of events based off the town.
00:51:25Obviously, Nashville is going to be country.
00:51:27Meadowlands is going to be food.
00:51:29And we'll keep building on that.
00:51:31Very good.
00:51:32Well, Tom, thanks so much for joining us today on the TDN Writer's Room.
00:51:36And best of luck with the National Thoroughbred League.
00:51:38We really look forward to what's going to develop in the next couple of months, especially that list of horses.
00:51:42Can't wait for that to come out and see who are going to be making up the team.
00:51:46So, Tom, thanks for your time.
00:51:47And again, best of luck with this very interesting new venture in Thoroughbred Racing.
00:51:51Thanks, guys.
00:51:53As the Green Group Guest of the Week, Tom Lute will receive a free one-hour text consultation with the Green Group for more information
00:52:00about how the Green Group can help you.
00:52:02Once again, the URL www.greenco.com.
00:52:08We'll be right back after this message from the Green Group.
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00:52:37His DJ stable competes at the highest level and has received the game's most prestigious honors.
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00:53:12Introducing Giftbox, winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap.
00:53:17He's a three-time Graded Stakes winning millionaire with four triple-digit buyers and a four-ragazin to his name.
00:53:24He proved himself early as a Graded Stakes Place 2-year-old and now his career as a stallion is just getting started.
00:53:32From the first crop of the leading sire twirling candy out of a multiple Graded Stakes producing mare.
00:53:38Giftbox, only at Lane's End.
00:53:43The Lane's End Stallion of the Week is Giftbox.
00:53:45Giftbox is a Grade 1 and three-time Graded Stakes winner who raced from 2-6.
00:53:50In 2019, Giftbox was among the leading older horses in America after a string of Graded Stakes performances that included a Grade 1 victory in the Santa Anita Handicap.
00:53:59He joined his sire twirling candy in his grand sire candy ride at Lane's End.
00:54:04Look for Giftbox's first yearlings at the sales this summer.
00:54:09Okay, so some more off-the-track news.
00:54:12It involves Saffy Joseph and we all know his problems around Derby time.
00:54:16And he was at one point banned by the Churchill Downs.
00:54:22And then Naira never really was very specific about what they were doing with him.
00:54:27But it appeared that they had, you know, told him that he wasn't welcome for a while.
00:54:33And that's the reason why I would imagine why Derby was transferred from Saffy Joseph to Rick Dutrow.
00:54:39Naira has lifted its quote-unquote ban against Saffy Joseph.
00:54:44They've given him 23 stalls at Saratoga.
00:54:47And he has a horse nominated to this weekend's Wild Applause.
00:54:52I have no problem with this whatsoever.
00:54:55First of all, you know, it is terrible what happened to these horses.
00:55:00But unless you can prove that he did something to contribute to their deaths,
00:55:04I don't think you can penalize him.
00:55:07You know, in the short run, maybe as Churchill Downs wanted to take a quick look at this
00:55:11and didn't want to have anything, you know, crazy and tragic happen with the Kentucky Derby.
00:55:17Now, what's also interesting is only one of the two necropsies of the horses that died,
00:55:23to the best of my knowledge, has been released.
00:55:26That necropsy showed absolutely nothing wrong.
00:55:29The second one, I assume, and the necropsies almost never come up with anything.
00:55:33So I don't think we'll ever know what happened to these horses.
00:55:36But, you know, due process, you can't hang this guy out on just what-ifs and circumstantial evidence.
00:55:44And we'll see what happens with Saffy Joseph.
00:55:4723 stalls will be active at Saratoga.
00:55:49Yeah.
00:55:50I mean, as the law has proven and judges have held it up legally,
00:55:56Churchill Downs can do whatever he wants to do.
00:55:58Churchill Downs doesn't have to act in, they can act in its own best interest,
00:56:01doesn't have to necessarily act in what other people might consider to be a fair and even-handed manner.
00:56:06They can do what they think is best for Churchill Downs Incorporated.
00:56:09So we'll see how they choose to deal with this going forward.
00:56:13But I agree with you, Bill.
00:56:15I mean, if the necropsies don't necessarily show anything conclusive, but they show, as the one did,
00:56:24that there were no illegal medications involved,
00:56:28then I don't know how you can really penalize Saffy Joseph going forward without any real due cause.
00:56:38Penalization, no.
00:56:40But I think in 2023, in the racing world that we live in now,
00:56:44you have to expect that if you have two horses have sudden deaths within 72 hours of each other
00:56:50on one of the biggest stages in the sport, Kentucky Derby Week,
00:56:54you should expect a different level of scrutiny.
00:56:57So speaking of Saffy Joseph, he had intended to run Lord Miles in the Kentucky Derby,
00:57:02and he's one of the horses that got caught up in the mess with Saffy Joseph
00:57:06and how Churchill Downs dealt with it.
00:57:08He now hasn't run since the Wood Memorial, but he's back on Saturday in the Ohio Derby.
00:57:12I tell you, you know, you think of the Ohio Derby as a second or third tier race among the three-year-olds.
00:57:19It's pretty darn good.
00:57:21Two-fills will be the favorite after running second in the Kentucky Derby,
00:57:25and this will be his first start since then for trainer Larry Erbilian.
00:57:28How about Bishop's Bay, trained by Brad Cox?
00:57:31Last time out, he ran second in the Peter Pan, and who beat him that day?
00:57:35Archangelo, who came back to win, of course, the Belmont Stakes.
00:57:39We mentioned Lord Miles, who was a huge upset winner of the Wood Memorial.
00:57:43He striked for Kenny McPeak, won the Texas Derby last time out,
00:57:47which we saw because of those silly rules in Texas that cut off all simulcasting.
00:57:51So, a pretty good race.
00:57:53Randy, TD, I'll take a deeper dive into it a little bit later in the week,
00:57:58but I'd imagine two-fills would win this one and move on from there to maybe the Traverse or something like that.
00:58:04Well, I'll go head-to-head with you on your two-fills there.
00:58:08I think a lot of people had Bishop's Bay on their stable watch list after what he did in the Peter Pan Stakes.
00:58:15And, you know, I had him on my watch list even before Archangelo came back to win the Belmont Stakes.
00:58:21I thought that Bishop's Bay ran the better race within the race that day.
00:58:25He got hooked into a speed duel, took heat on the front end,
00:58:29and then when Archangelo came after him, don't forget there was a spot,
00:58:33perhaps a sixteenth of a mile from the finish, where Bishop's Bay was back in front by half a length.
00:58:38I put him on my list.
00:58:40Now, of course, Archangelo, the world has seen what he has done,
00:58:43and I actually think that he'll be favored over two-fills in the Ohio Derby.
00:58:48All right, T.D., I'll make you two bets, a dollar each.
00:58:51One, that two-fills will be favored over your horse,
00:58:55and then two, that my horse finishes ahead of you.
00:58:58You game for that two bucks.
00:59:00That's stretching the limit of my usual bankroll, but I think I'm going to go out on a limb and take you up on that.
00:59:05Okay. Or we share a beer at Fenway Park next time we go to Red Sox.
00:59:09Or you buy the beers.
00:59:11So that's a real cost increase.
00:59:13Yeah, that's $20, or $30.
00:59:18Sounds like the dollar bets that Jerry Bailey and I make against each other during the telecast.
00:59:23That's what horse racing is all about, a difference of opinion.
00:59:25Look, after the Kentucky Derby, I sat on the air before the Preakness, and I stick with it now.
00:59:30Two-fills was the best horse in the Kentucky Derby.
00:59:33Given the pace and the way he was the only horse to race that close to the pace to stick around,
00:59:39and not only did he stick around, he looked like he might be a winner at the 316s pole.
00:59:43I loved the way he ran in the Kentucky Derby, and I think he'll be the favorite as well.
00:59:51I did really like Bishop Spey's race in the Peter Pan.
00:59:55The fractions were pretty soft in that race, so he was hooked into a speed duel,
00:59:59but he got the benefit of a pretty easy pace in that situation, which helped him.
01:00:06It didn't necessarily help Arcangelo.
01:00:08But I think the horse has got a world of talent, and he's going in the right direction.
01:00:12Again, it's Brad Cox with another one of these three-year-olds that are really on the ascend right now.
01:00:19I think it's going to be a two-horse race, and I think it's going to be an outstanding race,
01:00:24and I can't wait to see what happens.
01:00:25But I like two-fills.
01:00:26I will say one thing in favor of two-fills, however.
01:00:29There's a difference between tiring and quitting.
01:00:32Now, he was tiring at the end of the Kentucky Derby, but he was not quitting.
01:00:36He wasn't going to throw in the towel in that race.
01:00:40And the horse we're not talking about, even though we let off with him,
01:00:43Lord Miles for Saffy Joseph.
01:00:45He was the 59-to-1 upsetter of the Wood Memorial.
01:00:49That race hasn't come back to be very productive.
01:00:52Six horses have run back out of it, and only one has hit the winner's circle.
01:00:55Which has been the case with the Wood Memorial for the last several years.
01:00:59Another story, and it's just the latest sad chapter in the very sad story of Arlington Park.
01:01:05And they're moving on now, and they're getting serious.
01:01:09The machines and the cranes and the wrecking balls came out last week,
01:01:13and they started tearing down the grandstand.
01:01:16You know, not that we didn't know this wasn't going to happen.
01:01:20I mean, there was not going to be an 11th hour reprieve for Arlington Park.
01:01:24But you think of this just gorgeous racetrack, and now it's being reduced to rubble
01:01:30so that they can build a stadium for the Chicago Bears.
01:01:33You know, I think that's the only way to put it.
01:01:35It's very sad.
01:01:37Very, very sad.
01:01:39I thought it was the best racing facility in the United States.
01:01:42And, you know, I know people will say what they want.
01:01:46There are a lot of strong opinions out there about Churchill Lounge Incorporated
01:01:51and its role in this whole saga.
01:01:54And what makes it even more sad, Bill, is that the Bears may not even wind up
01:01:59building the stadium there.
01:02:01It's not a done deal, and as a matter of fact, according to the media in Chicago,
01:02:06momentum is building for the Bears to stay in a once again remodeled soldier field
01:02:12rather than take this property that they bought where Arlington Park is.
01:02:20So it'll be really tragic if they tear down Arlington Park
01:02:24and nothing becomes of it in the way of a new SoFi-type stadium in Arlington Heights.
01:02:31It's a bargaining chip, unfortunately.
01:02:33It's a beautiful racing showcase that's been reduced to – it's going to be reduced to rubble,
01:02:38but it's already been reduced to a bargaining chip.
01:02:41The Bears buy that piece of property so they can have some negotiating leverage
01:02:45with the stadium elsewhere, perhaps in downtown Chicago, to remain there.
01:02:50And hey, if they end up getting a lucrative downtown stadium deal,
01:02:54they've got this parcel of real estate that they can still sell.
01:02:57It's an investment that's going to appreciate over time.
01:03:00I think another sad aspect of this is Arlington – we can wax as sentimentally
01:03:08as we want to about Arlington and its demise.
01:03:11However, Hawthorne and Fairmount, Racinos have been legal in Illinois since 2019.
01:03:18Now, that didn't mean that they were going to be up and running within a couple of months there,
01:03:21but now we're already four years long in the tooth since that legislation enabled Racinos to be active.
01:03:27And neither track has it, and neither track has that revenue stream coming in from the Racinos.
01:03:32Yeah, Illinois Racing desperately needs to move on and get going on that.
01:03:38I frankly don't understand what the big delays are, but hopefully someday soon.
01:03:43But it's sad that horse racing is so dependent on Casinos.
01:03:50Shouldn't a racetrack in Chicago, the second biggest city in the country,
01:03:54do great business and be profitable on its own?
01:03:58But we've gotten to the point where racing in so many places just can't make it
01:04:04without slot machines and Casino revenues.
01:04:06And that in and of itself is another story, but also I think a very troubling and sad story.
01:04:12The XBTV Work of the Week belongs to Ida, the Bob Baffert trainee,
01:04:18who on Sunday worked five furlongs in 59.40 seconds.
01:04:23Ida has had a very interesting career arc.
01:04:27She was a great one winner as a two-year-old at Los Alamitos in the Starless Six.
01:04:31Then she came back early three-year-old year in March and won the Santa Isabel at Santa Anita.
01:04:36Then a 14-month layoff until she returned to competition in late April at Santa Anita
01:04:42with an allowance victory.
01:04:44Now she's had three sharp works back in June preparing for her next start,
01:04:49which Baffert says will likely be back at Los Alamitos in the Great Lady M Stakes
01:04:55scheduled for July the 4th.
01:04:58Ida, the XBTV Work of the Week.
01:05:01We'll be right back after this message from XBTV.
01:05:06XBTV.
01:05:37All the thrills.
01:05:42Fraction of the bills.
01:05:47Experience the power of the partnership.
01:05:52Change your life, make new friends, and compete at the highest level of thoroughbred racing.
01:06:00West Point Thoroughbreds, the gold standard in racing partnerships.
01:06:04Visit WestPointTV.com.
01:06:07The TD and Writers Room is also brought to you by West Point Thoroughbreds.
01:06:11Joining a West Point partnership can vault you into the world of instant camaraderie.
01:06:16Here's some interesting West Point starters to look forward to.
01:06:19There's Mount Up, a $400,000 Saratoga yearling buy.
01:06:23He'll make his second lifetime start for Todd Pletcher.
01:06:25That'll be on Thursday at Belmont Park.
01:06:27He was second on debut last October.
01:06:30He's been working well.
01:06:31July the 8th.
01:06:32Also a big day for West Point.
01:06:34Three horses running in stakes races at tracks around the country.
01:06:37Vava goes in the victory ride at Belmont.
01:06:39That's a grade three.
01:06:41Cagliostro.
01:06:43I got to get that name right.
01:06:44Cagliostro is pointing for the Indiana Derby.
01:06:47And Giant Game will run in the Cornhusker.
01:06:49That's another grade three.
01:06:50That one will be at Prairie Meadows.
01:06:58Well, that's a wrap on this week's show.
01:06:59I want to thank my cohorts, Randy Moss, T.D. Thornton,
01:07:02filling in this week for Zoe Cabin.
01:07:04He'll be back next week as well.
01:07:06Tom Lute, our Green Group Guest of the Week.
01:07:08Our co-producers, Katie Petruniak and Anthony LaRocca.
01:07:11And our editors, Aaliyah LaRocca and Nathan Wilkinson.
01:07:14And somewhere, where's Lucy?
01:07:16She's still on the floor.
01:07:18Oh my, well, we know she's back there somewhere.
01:07:20And her mascot, Lucy.
01:07:22Talk to you guys next week.
01:07:23Thanks for tuning us in for the TDN Writers and Files.
01:07:29Writers and Files.