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00:00:00For the love of the horse, for generations to come.
00:00:28Welcome to another edition of the TDN Writer's Room.
00:00:30My name is Bill Finley.
00:00:31I'm a correspondent for the TDN and also the co-host of the Down the Stretch radio show
00:00:36on Sirius XM with Dave Johnson.
00:00:38Hey, I like that show.
00:00:39How y'all doing?
00:00:40I'm Randy Moss with NBC Sports.
00:00:42Zoe Cabman, back from England.
00:00:45I'm with First Racing and I think we're going to rename this show the Wake Up with Randy
00:00:50and Bill as it's 6.30am Pacific time.
00:00:54Everybody's got places to go, people to see and babies to kiss.
00:00:57So we need to get this done.
00:00:59I'll see if I can't get them to put a little something a little extra in your check.
00:01:02How about that Zoe?
00:01:05You look pretty bright eyed given the time of day there.
00:01:07I'm about five.
00:01:08It's all right.
00:01:09All right.
00:01:10Yeah.
00:01:11Yeah.
00:01:12Well guys, a very slow weekend and we're in that period between the Belmont Stakes
00:01:14and Saratoga.
00:01:16Not a whole heck of a lot goes on in the sport.
00:01:18So I pull my hair out in some of these weeks trying to come up with interesting topics.
00:01:21But I think among the three of us, we can grab a couple of topics and make some salient
00:01:26points and get people interested in the races.
00:01:29The biggest race over the weekend, clearly the Stephen Foster, the grade one at Churchill
00:01:33Downs and it was run at Ellis Park last year, if you remember, when they had all the problems
00:01:38at Churchill.
00:01:39And I've always kind of, the winner of Kings Barnes, I've always kind of liked that horse.
00:01:43Ever since he won the Louisiana Derby, I thought like, you know, this is a horse that's really
00:01:46on the rise.
00:01:47You know, could be a Kentucky Derby winner.
00:01:49We'll be hearing more about him.
00:01:52And he won a few little races afterwards, but for the most part, he didn't live up to
00:01:56expectations.
00:01:57I mean, he won the Ben Ali at grade three.
00:02:00So Pletcher threw him into the Stephen Foster and he looked like the horse I thought he
00:02:04always could be.
00:02:05Now, is he going to be the Flip's Award winner, older male?
00:02:08I don't know about that, but I think that maybe he's finally broken through and ready
00:02:13to show the talent that he, you know, teased us with when he was three.
00:02:17Zoe, what do you think?
00:02:18I think he's a good horse.
00:02:19I'm actually shocked that he went off at nine to one, to be perfectly honest.
00:02:24He's only finished worse than second once.
00:02:26That was in the Kentucky Derby.
00:02:28He's won six of nine.
00:02:29The rest of those have all been second.
00:02:31Like he's a really, really good horse.
00:02:34We've seen time and time again, the sons of Uncle Mo needing just a little bit more time
00:02:38to really get into their own.
00:02:40I thought he got a very enterprising ride from Louis Saez, modest fractions.
00:02:45He was wide around the first turn and Louis moved him in time to get the jump.
00:02:51No excuse from what I saw from the favorite, First Mission, who was up there on the pace
00:02:56in what tepid fractions, 24, 48 and two.
00:02:59If you can't win going those fractions at Churchill on that day, then you've got absolutely
00:03:04no excuse.
00:03:05So definitely an enterprising ride by Louis and he's a good horse.
00:03:10And now maybe he'll get the credit he deserves for a horse who's only finished worse than
00:03:14second once.
00:03:16And that was in the Derby.
00:03:17And anybody can be excused for that.
00:03:19Yeah, I totally agree with everything you said.
00:03:21The reason why it was nine to one, I mean, going into the Stephen Foster, the horses
00:03:25with the two highest buyer speed figures in the older horse division were Skippy Longstocking
00:03:31107 in the Oaklawn Handicap and then First Mission 106 on a sloppy track in the Alisheba.
00:03:37So they were the two favorites in the race, First Mission and then Skippy.
00:03:41But they had no excuse.
00:03:42Like you said, they were one, two in soft fractions all the way around.
00:03:46Pyrenees had beaten King's Barnes on the up and up in the Pimlico Special, very slow pace
00:03:53that day.
00:03:54King's Barnes got about a two length jump on Pyrenees at the top of the stretch.
00:03:59Pyrenees still ran him down.
00:04:01But this time King's Barnes was solidly the best.
00:04:04I think the big thing about King's Barnes and what he showed in the Stephen Foster,
00:04:08if you remember when he was a three year old, he was a front runner.
00:04:13He could get keen when they tried to rate him and take him off the pace.
00:04:16And now with maturity, he settles better off the pace.
00:04:20And that's going to make him a factor, I think, in these older horse races going forward.
00:04:23And who's in the older horse division?
00:04:25Right.
00:04:26I mean, you've got Senor Buscador out there training at San Luis Ray Downs.
00:04:32They gave him a month off after his Middle Eastern exploits.
00:04:37They were tentatively pointing him for the San Diego at Del Mar, late July at a mile
00:04:43and a sixteenth.
00:04:44He's only had three breezes, a couple of three furlongs and a four furlong.
00:04:48He may not be ready for that.
00:04:49The Pat O'Brien at seven eights might be a backup target, but at least he's out there.
00:04:54National treasure, right?
00:04:56He could go in either the Whitney or the Pacific Classic in his next start.
00:05:02But in the classic division, probably national treasure one, assuming that a mile and a quarter
00:05:07is OK with him.
00:05:08And then Senor Buscador right after that.
00:05:10And other than that, it's wide open.
00:05:13And I see no reason why Kings Barnes couldn't at least be in the mix.
00:05:15Randy, I want to get back to what you just said about national treasure.
00:05:20And, you know, I do the NTRA poll.
00:05:22I vote for him number one each week, which I think is deserved.
00:05:26But do you think Baffert would, is it automatic that he go in the classic?
00:05:31Wouldn't the mile distance fit him better?
00:05:33Well, I mean, his best races so far have been at at the shorter distances, right?
00:05:43But in the in the Pegasus World Cup at a mile and an eighth, he ran well with a very, very
00:05:51harsh pace.
00:05:52And he just has in the Met mile.
00:05:54I mean, he dominated.
00:05:56He's he won the Preakness at a mile and three sixteenths with just an impossibly easy front
00:06:02running trip.
00:06:03I think he's probably better at a two turn mile or one turn mile than he would be at a mile and
00:06:09a quarter.
00:06:09But he's so sharp right now that I think Baffert in the ownership group, Zoe, I don't know how
00:06:14you feel about this, but I think they feel compelled to give him a shot at those longer
00:06:18distances and see if he can't make it to the classic.
00:06:21Well, I mean, we'll find out because he's more than likely going to go to the Pacific
00:06:25Classic, right?
00:06:25It's a mile and a quarter.
00:06:27And let's face it, he's better than the rest.
00:06:29And he may not be brilliant at a mile and a quarter, but he's going to be better than the
00:06:34rest of them.
00:06:35So I think that's what we're looking at right now.
00:06:37Just a quick note on King's Barnes.
00:06:39Do you not think we should put an asterisk by all these horses that cost a lot of money
00:06:43and actually make up that purchase price?
00:06:46He cost 800,000 as a two year old at the last Goldstream sale.
00:06:51He's made 1.5 million.
00:06:52When does that ever happen?
00:06:54When does it ever happen?
00:06:55It rarely happens that a horse exceeds that purchase price.
00:06:59So he's been well handled, well managed, and we're going to hear a lot from him later on.
00:07:04Randy, what were some of the other stories out of Churchill Downs this weekend?
00:07:07Yeah, Zoe can weigh in on some of these, too.
00:07:10There were a lot of really good races Saturday at Churchill Downs.
00:07:13The Fleur de Lis, Scilla lived up to expectations as the best horse in the race.
00:07:18What I thought was interesting there, there was a significant amount of trouble coming
00:07:21down the stretch.
00:07:22Chigira and Julian Lepereux got the worst of it, claimed foul against two different
00:07:27horses, Scilla and a Colt.
00:07:30This is Churchill Downs, the stewards.
00:07:31They did nothing.
00:07:33They punted completely.
00:07:35Someone should have been disqualified, probably a Colt from fourth, which is minor.
00:07:40Not as much of a slam dunk as the Kentucky Derby, but still.
00:07:44I mean, it was pretty significant trouble.
00:07:45Ottoman Fleet, Flavy and Pratt seized a front running trip in there, got aggressive early
00:07:52when there was no speed in the race.
00:07:53We talked to him about that last week.
00:07:55The seventh graded stakes win in the United States this year for Charlie Appleby, the
00:07:5914th for Godolphin.
00:08:01I thought this was interesting.
00:08:02We've talked a lot about Jason Wirth and his ownership in Dornoch, former baseball player.
00:08:08Well, there's another baseball player out there with a significant horse.
00:08:12Edwin Diaz is the closer for the New York Mets.
00:08:16He's got a nickname that his Mets teammates gave him of Sugar that he got because they
00:08:23saw him watching a movie titled Sugar, and he looked a lot like the title character.
00:08:28So they started calling him Sugar.
00:08:29He embraces it.
00:08:30He's got a necklace that says Sugar on it.
00:08:33He's a huge racehorse fan from Puerto Rico.
00:08:36He's good friends with Irad and Jose Ortiz, and he's now in racehorse ownership with a
00:08:43horse named Close the Game Sugar, who won the Kelly's Landing at Churchill Downs on
00:08:50the Stephen Foster undercard.
00:08:52He had beaten Skelly, one of the best sprinters in the country before that.
00:08:56So Edwin Diaz, the closer for the Mets, is right in the mix there with former MLB pitcher
00:09:01or star Jason Wirth with a horse that could make some noise in the sprint division.
00:09:07Yeah, interesting topics there, and we'll keep an eye on that.
00:09:10So I wanted to go over to Los Alamitos in the first race on Saturday.
00:09:14As I get a kick out of these kind of stories where we're so used to the Bafferts winning
00:09:19and the Pletchers winning and the Chad Browns winning, Steve Asmussen, et cetera.
00:09:24Matter of fact, it's a maiden race at Los Al, and Baffert had the, like he always does,
00:09:31the killer first time starter in there, named Privman, obviously named after our friend
00:09:36Jay Privman, the retired racing rider for the Daily Racing Forum.
00:09:42But there was another horse in there by the name of Mischief Ride, excuse me, Mischief
00:09:48River, and I looked down, I was handicapping the race, and I was like, wait, the horse
00:09:52cost $500,000 at OBS April, trained by Jimmy Glenn Jr.
00:09:57I kind of know most of the trainers in the country.
00:10:00It's like, who is this guy?
00:10:02I never heard of him.
00:10:03So lo and behold, it turns out that he is a quarter horse trainer, but him and one of
00:10:08the owners wanted to take a little bit of a jump into the thoroughbreds, buy a couple
00:10:13horses, just sort of have fun with them.
00:10:15He's not going to be the next Baffert or Lucas to change careers midstream, but, and
00:10:20they even rode, they rode a quarter horse jockey on the horse, Cesar Ortega, who rides
00:10:26the nighttime cards at Lausanne, and lo and behold, he won, beating Privman.
00:10:32I think Michael Rona had, during his calls, had something like, and Privman's deadline
00:10:36is coming due, which was something to that effect, which was pretty clever.
00:10:40But anyways, you know, is he the, he's going to run next to the best pal?
00:10:45Is he going to win the Del Mar Futurity and go on?
00:10:47Who knows?
00:10:48But it just, it was a fun story.
00:10:50I get so sick of writing about the same guys all the time.
00:10:53Really nice man.
00:10:54Apparently he's very highly regarded in the quarter horse business.
00:10:57And let's see what this quarter horse guy can do with this horse.
00:11:01It's a great story.
00:11:02It really is.
00:11:03And I mean, this isn't just two guys dipping their toes in the water.
00:11:06It was Bow River Ranch as well, the other part of the ownership.
00:11:09That's 500,000.
00:11:10They bought another horse at that sale as well.
00:11:12So that's hardly dipping.
00:11:14That's like plunging in the deep end.
00:11:16That's a lot of money in anybody's book.
00:11:18I don't know if these guys are completely loaded.
00:11:21Jimmy's a very good quarter horse trainer.
00:11:23He's trained multiple group one winners, but he's not the best of the best.
00:11:28I looked him up.
00:11:29He's won 736 quarter horse races.
00:11:32So he's not won 4,000 races or anything.
00:11:35His total thoroughbred winning races is 54.
00:11:40And then I actually did a Randy and looked up some of the 54.
00:11:45The horse that won made 24,000.
00:11:47So if you look up his per start ratio, even of all of his quarter horses,
00:11:52he's ever run and his thoroughbreds.
00:11:55That's the highest ever.
00:11:5624,000 in one start.
00:11:58So I mean, this is not a dip your toes in the water kind of thing.
00:12:02I think these guys mean business and they're going to be here to stay.
00:12:05Because if you got 500,000 to plunk down on one horse as your dip the toes investment,
00:12:11and what else have you got?
00:12:13Oh, by the way, he's apparently pretty good in Jiu Jitsu too.
00:12:15If you look him up, you find lots of pictures of him doing Jiu Jitsu.
00:12:20So just want to throw that out there.
00:12:22Do not get into a fight with Jimmy Glantz.
00:12:25That's a rabbit hole.
00:12:26I'm proud of you.
00:12:28That's pretty cool.
00:12:29It gives us another rooting interest, right?
00:12:31I mean, the horse gets a 71 buyer speed figure.
00:12:33He's obviously going to have to improve a whole heck of a lot.
00:12:36But hey, he's in the mix with some new faces.
00:12:40What better race to ride a quarter horse jockey in though than a two-year-old sprint?
00:12:44He's probably pretty good at the hook races, the 870 races.
00:12:47So just go, go, go with two-year-olds and he got it done.
00:12:52Actually, I think that's his specialty, the thoroughbred races at night,
00:12:57what they call the ones around the hook, the 870 races.
00:13:01But Priven, to be fair, got carried out in that turn.
00:13:04He was probably 15 wide turning for home because the horse to the inside of him just
00:13:11carried him out and Mischief River, who'd already been on the lead,
00:13:15then he already sat second, then he was fourth and going nowhere around the turn,
00:13:19just came up the inside.
00:13:20And it was a terrible race, to be perfectly honest, but galloped home in front.
00:13:25So we got a 71 with a dream trip, you're saying?
00:13:27Okay.
00:13:28All right.
00:13:28Yeah, Randy.
00:13:30Well, we'll keep an eye on him.
00:13:32Even if he did just run a 71 buyer, I'm not going to give up on this horse.
00:13:36I'd love to see him become one of the big two-year-olds of the year.
00:13:39But that's what we got for now.
00:13:41We're going to go after this break and we're going to talk about
00:13:44the Green Group Guest of the Week.
00:13:48I do want to remind you that the TDN Writer's Room is brought to you by Keeneland.
00:13:52Where will I be on September the 9th?
00:13:54Well, I'll be shopping Book One at Keeneland September.
00:13:58Why?
00:13:59Just ask Mike Ryan.
00:14:01If you're trying to buy top quality horses that have real stallion and
00:14:04broodmare potential when their racing careers are done,
00:14:07Book One is where you're going to start.
00:14:10I should have really done that in an Irish accent, but my Irish is not that good.
00:14:15Do I want to remind you that the September sale runs from September the 9th to the 21st,
00:14:19and we'll be right back after this message from Keeneland.
00:14:28Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
00:14:29On behalf of the management and staff of Keeneland,
00:14:31I would like to welcome you to the September yearling sale.
00:14:33Good to have you back with us.
00:14:35The energy at Keeneland Book One is unlike any other sale that you'll go to.
00:14:39It is the marketplace.
00:14:41The center of the horse universe.
00:14:43It's electric.
00:14:43You can't replicate the urgency that's at Keeneland September.
00:14:46Quality in quantity.
00:14:48Keeneland September Book One.
00:14:50Every breeder's dream.
00:14:55And now this week's Fastest Horse of the Week is brought to you again by Constitution,
00:15:00one of the fast sires at One Star Farm.
00:15:03Constitution's son, the three-year-old Neat, won his second grade at Stakes Race.
00:15:08It was on Saturday at Belmont at Aqueduct.
00:15:11The $250,000 grade three Manila.
00:15:14Neat is a pretty neat horse.
00:15:15He's a really hard trying sort, and he added the Manila to his win earlier,
00:15:19and the Transylvania Stakes at Keeneland also a grade three.
00:15:24With that, Constitution now ranks second among North American sires
00:15:29of graded stakes winning three-year-olds.
00:15:32The future is now.
00:15:33Constitution stands for $110,000 at One Star Farm.
00:15:38Now, Fastest Horse of the Week ran also at Belmont at Aqueduct.
00:15:42Instead of Saturday, he ran on Friday.
00:15:45Instead of a grade three stakes, he ran in an allowance race.
00:15:49His name is Subrogate.
00:15:51He is a four-year-old colt by Arrowgate owned by Richard Santulli,
00:15:57the Colt's Neck Stables LLC, trained by Jorge Duarte.
00:16:01Won an allowance race at six and a half furlongs by six lengths with a buyer speed figure of 106.
00:16:08Subrogate was a highly touted three-year-old.
00:16:12They put him in the Pegasus Stakes against Salute the Stars in King's Barns,
00:16:17and only his third lifetime start last year.
00:16:18He finished a solid fourth.
00:16:21After that, he got hurt.
00:16:22So since he's come back as a four-year-old, he's now a perfect three for three,
00:16:26and Subrogate with that 106 buyer, our Fastest Horse of the Week.
00:16:33Now, one of the highlights of our podcast every week,
00:16:35the Green Group Guest of the Week gives an opportunity for you to hear from somebody else,
00:16:40besides Bill and Zoe and me.
00:16:43The Green Group Guest of the Week, of course, brought to you by The Green Group,
00:16:46a tax consulting and advisory firm specializing in the thoroughbred industry.
00:16:51Welcome in now, The Green Group Guest of the Week.
00:16:53It is the general manager of Spendthrift Farms, Mr. Ned Toffey, a proud New Englander,
00:16:58and has had a very good weekend for his stable.
00:17:03Ned, coming into the Stephen Foster,
00:17:06looked to me like King's Barns was a little bit of an underachiever.
00:17:09He had won the Louisiana Derby so nicely.
00:17:12After that, he was okay here, okay there, grade three races.
00:17:16Was this the real King's Barns?
00:17:18Is this the horse that you were hoping for all along, the one that showed up in the grade one?
00:17:23Well, I sure hope so.
00:17:24I mean, this is what we were really excited about going into the Derby.
00:17:29I actually went back and watched every race in his career.
00:17:34His early races down at Gulfstream were so impressive.
00:17:39It was sort of a funny pace.
00:17:41The Louisiana Derby, he caught a slow pace.
00:17:43He went to the lead and nobody challenged him, and he sort of walked off with that race
00:17:50and got caught up in a crazy speed duel in the Derby.
00:17:56There was going to be no shot in there.
00:17:59Guy started to get into some ticky tacky sound and stuff.
00:18:02So we gave him a lot of time off, and I think it did him good.
00:18:07And we've started to see what we saw before.
00:18:11But I think the thing that got everybody down on him,
00:18:14and honestly had people down on him, was the Pimlico Special.
00:18:18He sort of had no excuse there.
00:18:22He sat right there on a very, very slow pace.
00:18:26And I think, as Todd, I saw, put it the other day,
00:18:31I think Louie learned something about that race.
00:18:33And I think that was sort of the equine equivalent of letting your opponent hang around
00:18:39rather than just putting them away.
00:18:41And Pyrenees is a very, very nice horse.
00:18:43But if you go back and you watch that race,
00:18:46Louie didn't really push the button until they straightened away.
00:18:49And if you go back and look at the Stephen Foster,
00:18:53he pushed the button at the three-eighths pole.
00:18:55The horse really responded and sustained that run all the way around.
00:18:59So I think it was a matter of getting the jump on Pyrenees
00:19:02instead of letting him get in the jump on us.
00:19:04But this horse with a lot of stamina, really good tactical speed.
00:19:10But he can sustain a run.
00:19:12And so I think things set up better for him.
00:19:16And Louie rode a great race.
00:19:18So hopefully that's what we see going forward.
00:19:21So, Ned, you initially bought King's Barnes in a two-year-old and training sale
00:19:26off of a very fast quarter mile breeze for $800,000.
00:19:29Now he's made a million five.
00:19:32As we all know, spin thrift is primarily in the business of standing stallions.
00:19:35I think you got 27 is what I counted on your website right now.
00:19:40We have 27.
00:19:41I will tell you, if you go back to the original spin thrift, we found as many as 46.
00:19:46So we're underachieving maybe right now.
00:19:51So what does the win mean?
00:19:53Grade one, Stephen Foster, son of Uncle Moe, right out of a Tappan mare,
00:19:58for the future of King's Barnes in a stallion barn?
00:20:02Well, it means we can order him a nameplate for his stall in the stallion barn.
00:20:09He's earned a spot.
00:20:10The great thing was we got a lot of calls from a lot of breeders saying,
00:20:14save me a couple of spots to King's Barnes.
00:20:17I think they've seen him enough around that they know what kind of physical he is.
00:20:23I think it's really helpful in marketing a stallion to have one on the derby trail.
00:20:29You almost can't pay for all that publicity that you get.
00:20:34For him to now keep his name around this year and start to re-establish what he is,
00:20:42he should be a very marketable horse for us.
00:20:46Do you think that's really helped him?
00:20:47The longevity?
00:20:49People being like, oh, gosh, I remember that one because he ran in the derby.
00:20:53And now, oh, well, he's obviously sound because he's still here.
00:20:57Yeah, I think so.
00:20:59I think soundness is probably a little underrated among breeders and among all of us in terms of
00:21:04its importance.
00:21:05But when you do, it's one more added thing for us to sell.
00:21:12What people are looking for, first and foremost,
00:21:15is talent and probably precocity is a close second.
00:21:21This guy showed enough of those things, but to extend it and win at a high level
00:21:29the way he did Saturday and hopefully the way he'll continue to do, it certainly means a lot.
00:21:35Ned, let's change course for a minute and talk about another horse in your barn.
00:21:38Tuscan Sky is pointing for the Haskell.
00:21:41Another horse had an interesting career.
00:21:43He looked like he was going to have a really nice career,
00:21:46ran a very poor race in the Wood Memorial and then came back to win the prep,
00:21:50the Pegasus stakes for the Haskell.
00:21:53Is he up to the task or does he have to improve a few lengths to be able to?
00:21:56Well, I certainly think he's got to improve a few lengths.
00:22:00But if you looked at the numbers going into the Stephen Foster,
00:22:03I thought King's Barns had to improve a few lengths and he did.
00:22:08I think he does, but we still don't really quite know what we have.
00:22:15As you said, the Wood Memorial really left us scratching our heads.
00:22:19We thought he was this year's King's Barns.
00:22:21He was two for two going into the Wood Memorial.
00:22:25We were hoping for a big performance there to springboard us into the Derby.
00:22:30It just wasn't there for whatever reason, but he's bounced back.
00:22:40He's always been a good workhorse.
00:22:42He tends to finish off his works really well,
00:22:45gallop out really well, and we're starting to see that from him again.
00:22:49We'll be as eager to see what he can do as everybody else is.
00:22:55I wish we knew, but I think we're going to find out along with everyone else.
00:22:59But he ran a great race on that track, so very tempting to go back.
00:23:06The way things are starting to unfold, you'd have to almost look at the Jim Dandy.
00:23:11But again, for our team,
00:23:16for our model, the grade one being right there is very tempting
00:23:23because that very nearly earns you a spot in the stud barn.
00:23:30Having said that, I think the Jim Dandy is one of those races that it's a grade two,
00:23:37obviously not a grade one, but maybe it's more like a grade 1.5
00:23:41because I think it carries a little more weight among breeders than your typical grade two.
00:23:49It's something that we'll keep an eye on, but with Doorknock going there,
00:23:57I don't know that the pacing area is that much different.
00:24:00It's just going to be more crowded on the front end.
00:24:03But we'll see.
00:24:05We've got options, but nice horse.
00:24:07We're hoping that he can move forward for us.
00:24:09So Ned, there's so many things we could talk to you about, about Spinthrift, right?
00:24:13The amazing Into Mischief, the up and coming Vekoma, some other racehorses and all that,
00:24:18but we're all history buffs.
00:24:20So I kind of want to start there, right?
00:24:24Spinthrift began in the 1930s with Leslie Combs.
00:24:30You and I both, I think, made our first trips to a Kentucky breeding farm at Spinthrift Farm.
00:24:35I went in the early 1980s.
00:24:37They've stood Nashua, Majestic Prince, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, and then it fell into disrepair,
00:24:43went into bankruptcy, foreclosure sales.
00:24:51Enter B. Wayne Hughes in 2004, who hired you right on the spot.
00:24:57What has B. Wayne Hughes meant to the history of Spinthrift Farm?
00:25:02Well, fortunately, he's meant another really, really meaningful chapter in a great, great
00:25:08history.
00:25:08And I agree with you, I'm a history buff too.
00:25:11So I love, I think it's one of the great lures for me to this game is it is such a neat history.
00:25:19And so it's been really a cool thing for me to be a part of trying to rebuild,
00:25:24you know, what was here.
00:25:26But it was really, it was Wayne's vision.
00:25:30And having said that, Wayne would tell you, I mean, we sort of backed into this.
00:25:34Wayne wanted a place for his grandkids to maybe get out of Malibu and kind of be country
00:25:40kids a little bit like he was growing up in Oklahoma.
00:25:45And then there was a point at which he said, well, we've got this really great stallion
00:25:48complex.
00:25:49I guess we ought to use it.
00:25:51We started with one $5,000 stallion named Teton Forest and kind of, you know, took off
00:25:58from there.
00:25:59But, you know, Wayne, I think over the early years that he was here really developed a
00:26:04deeper and deeper appreciation for the history and for the legacy of Spanthrift and really
00:26:12began to think about that a lot.
00:26:14But, you know, he loved the business exercise of identifying the stallions, of going out
00:26:20and acquiring them, marketing them, putting together a team to sell these horses.
00:26:28And so it was a great experience for him and something that came along at a good time in
00:26:33his life.
00:26:34But without his vision, without his love for the game.
00:26:39And I think one of the things that separated Wayne from a lot of people was I think he
00:26:44always felt like he had a responsibility, a willingness to help, you know, float all
00:26:52boats.
00:26:52You know, they say rising tide floats all boats.
00:26:54Well, that's that was very important to Wayne.
00:26:57He wanted to see the industry do well.
00:27:00He did.
00:27:00He did a lot of things that were about helping the industry, not just Wayne.
00:27:07I remember years back, this goes back a little bit, even just before Spanthrift.
00:27:12But he had a horse named Atz, what I'm talking about, that ran in the derby.
00:27:17And he let Steven Spielberg buy into that horse.
00:27:23And he said to me, look, I know if he wins, the headline is going to be Spielberg wins
00:27:29the derby.
00:27:29And he only had a small percentage of the horse.
00:27:32But to Wayne, that was a great thing for racing.
00:27:36And and so he was more than happy to do it.
00:27:38That the funny story I will, I'll side drag a little bit because it's a great Wayne story.
00:27:43But he said that Steven Spielberg showed up with a contract for the purchase of his
00:27:52percentage of that horse.
00:27:53That was about the size of probably an L.A.
00:27:56area phone book.
00:27:59And Wayne tore the back page off of it, turned it over, found the blank part and said, you
00:28:05agree to buy the X percentage.
00:28:07You are responsible for these bills.
00:28:09I'm responsible for this.
00:28:10He signed it and drew a line for him to sign.
00:28:13And he did.
00:28:13So Wayne boiled it, boiled, you know, hundreds of pages down to one page.
00:28:19And that was that was Wayne in a nutshell.
00:28:21But again, that was important to Wayne.
00:28:23That was going to help the industry.
00:28:25And it was the same thing with with the my resource stuff that he did and with the way
00:28:31we've structured our incentive programs here at Spencer.
00:28:34So I think it's his vision and recognizing that it's not just about the high end of the
00:28:41market and the blue, the blue bloods and so on, that that, as he liked to say, breeders
00:28:46are the backbone of the industry and we and not just the high end.
00:28:50And so we've, you know, our 27 stallion roster right now really spans the entire spectrum
00:28:58of all of the levels of the market.
00:29:01And that was always really important to Wayne and continues to be important to us.
00:29:06So, you know, it really where I think we're all really, really fortunate that he came
00:29:11along and bought Spendthrift when he did.
00:29:15And it's been fun to watch breeders recognize it.
00:29:20And and just average Lexingtonians that that are familiar with Spendthrift.
00:29:25It's a name they all knew whether they were in the horse business or not.
00:29:28We've had so many people come up to Wayne or myself and and and say, you know, thank
00:29:35you for what what you've what you've done here.
00:29:38And of course, Tammy and Eric are just continue continuing that that legacy on beautifully.
00:29:43So it's been a great thing to be a part of.
00:29:47And I think one of the biggest things, especially for me, watching Spendthrift basically grow
00:29:52up through my career and watching those famed colors of Spendthrift was not only into mischief
00:29:59because he really only came to flower when he went to stud, to be perfectly honest.
00:30:04But it was watching Beholder and anyone that talks about Spendthrift knows about Beholder.
00:30:10What does she meant to the legacy of Spendthrift?
00:30:13And I'm sure B. Wayne looks down on her every day because she was absolutely his favorite
00:30:19number one, having watched him interact with her when he came to Southern California.
00:30:23Yeah, yeah, she was pretty special.
00:30:26And that was really going to have had some other very, very nice horses.
00:30:30But she was she was a big horse for anybody.
00:30:35And she really was truly exceptional.
00:30:39And the fact that she was a grade one winner from age two all the way through age six,
00:30:45winning a grade one every year, and she just sustained this great level of excellence,
00:30:50which is a credit to her and a credit to Wayne and a credit to Richard Mandela.
00:30:56But, you know, she's really meant a lot.
00:30:58I think it helped.
00:30:59It helped kind of reestablish our name because we were already here at Spendthrift by then.
00:31:04And, you know, met a lot for the tourism side of things.
00:31:08She's very popular on the tours.
00:31:10And but, yeah, it's meant the world to us.
00:31:14And to have her come here and now prove herself as a broodmare with two graded stakes winners
00:31:19and one being a grade one winner.
00:31:22She's she's, you know, she's really all you could ever ask for as as a as an owner,
00:31:29somebody racing, somebody breeding.
00:31:30She's she's she's really done it all.
00:31:33It's really amazing.
00:31:34Finally, finally.
00:31:36How special was it when that first one broke through after a couple of,
00:31:41you know, nice jump horses, should we say nice show horses that you have?
00:31:46The QB one is a very happy show horse now.
00:31:50So so I'm glad he's he's found himself, so to speak.
00:31:55But yeah, no, it was it was it was it was very gratifying.
00:32:01With Tina Ella first winning a grade three and then Tamara, you know, in quick succession
00:32:06came along and established herself.
00:32:08And and, you know, it's it's it's very nice, too, because, you know, sometimes you get a
00:32:14little you can get a little bit of a complex of what are we doing?
00:32:17What are we doing wrong here?
00:32:18These surely these ought to be able to run.
00:32:21And and so it's it's it's nice that they've that they've been able to do that now.
00:32:26And, you know, those will Tina has already joined the broodmare band here,
00:32:32and Tamara's got a little unfinished business.
00:32:34So we'll see what she can do.
00:32:37Where's she going?
00:32:39We'll see.
00:32:39She's you know, Richard had started back.
00:32:42He was he was originally pointing to the to the test.
00:32:45A few little just ticky tacky issues, nothing major.
00:32:49But he's just had to back off on her training.
00:32:51So I think we probably won't see her till till after Delmar.
00:32:55But we do very much expect to see her at some point late this year.
00:32:59And, you know, that'll that'll leave us a decision for what she does next year.
00:33:03But, you know, and I suspect she'll she'll tell us.
00:33:07But, you know, we're still very excited about about her future.
00:33:12Ned, the dream of any stud farm is to find the next great sire.
00:33:16You did it with Into Mischief.
00:33:17I'm not going to say that Vekoma is going to be the next Into Mischief because that's
00:33:21rarefied air.
00:33:22But you've got the hottest two year old stallion in the business out there.
00:33:25He's number one in winners and number two in money earned.
00:33:29And he stands for only fifteen thousand dollars.
00:33:33Did you see this coming?
00:33:34Or is this obviously must have exceeded your expectations?
00:33:37Yeah, I'd love to tell you we knew it all along and that that he was going to be a great horse.
00:33:41But that would be that would be be a tremendous stretch.
00:33:45Look, I think like a lot of our horses,
00:33:48we bring horses here that we think have got a chance to be successful.
00:33:52To be successful, you've got to get mares to these horses.
00:33:57You've got to give them an opportunity.
00:33:59And and so that's really drives our thinking on price point.
00:34:04A lot of these horses, he's he started at 20 and and he's, you know, most horses have
00:34:09got to back down a little bit until they're proven one way or another.
00:34:14But, you know, very quickly, we did hear very good things.
00:34:18We heard great things about his foals.
00:34:20We try to get out and see as many of his foals around town here as we can.
00:34:26When they went to the yearling sale, we really started hearing a lot of superlatives from people.
00:34:31One of the comments that always jumped out at me said it was a two year old Pinnaker,
00:34:36but he said to me that these the Vekomas just move differently.
00:34:40And and that one always sort of stuck out with me, but we heard a lot of awfully good things.
00:34:45And so and again, it's a great sire line.
00:34:49It's, you know, Candy Ride is really, you know, starting to look like a real sire of sires.
00:34:55And and so not altogether surprising.
00:34:59But, you know, when one this is such a tough game and there is frankly so much failure
00:35:06inherent.
00:35:06So you're probably always a little surprised when any of them work out.
00:35:11And look, he's got he's got a ways to go.
00:35:12He's gotten off to a great, great start.
00:35:15We had a horse named Warriors Reward a number of years ago.
00:35:18He started off eight for his first eight and and then just didn't continue on from there.
00:35:23So look, he's got to continue on.
00:35:25It's a long time till till next breeding season.
00:35:29So, you know, what price point he'll be at next year?
00:35:33You know, he's got a lot more to do to determine what exactly what that'll be.
00:35:38But we sure are.
00:35:40We sure are excited and grateful.
00:35:42And it's a credit to our breeders.
00:35:44But this is a horse who really hasn't missed a beat.
00:35:46A lot of horses have some smaller books after year one, but he's been popular
00:35:52really from year one right on through.
00:35:54And I think a lot of that is because the price point.
00:35:57One more question for me, Ned.
00:35:59I find this just absolutely astounding.
00:36:03Almost.
00:36:03I was familiar with the Philly Leslie's Lady as a racehorse.
00:36:07Jim Hines, Bob Holthus.
00:36:09She was OK.
00:36:10She wasn't a great racehorse by any stretch of the imagination.
00:36:12They breed her to Harlins Holiday.
00:36:14OK, he's OK stallion.
00:36:16He's not a super fashionable stallion.
00:36:18And you get a yearling that you guys buy for just one hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
00:36:23And it turns out to be into mischief.
00:36:25OK, now her next couple of foals don't even make it to the races.
00:36:29One more can't run much.
00:36:31Now you go back to a yearling sale and you spend another hundred and eighty thousand
00:36:36dollars to get Beholder, who makes six million.
00:36:40Then Mendelsohn comes later.
00:36:42But I know you were involved, I hear, with the purchases of both into mischief and Beholder.
00:36:49Can you tell us a little story about some of those?
00:36:51I was here.
00:36:52I was here then.
00:36:53And I would love to take credit for them both.
00:36:55But I would say the common denominator is a guy named Seth Simpkin, who has worked for
00:37:00Wayne.
00:37:00I think he's the only guy in the programs longer than me.
00:37:04He's been with Wayne for years and years now.
00:37:07I've been with him for 20 years and Seth has been longer.
00:37:10So Seth and Richard were at the March OBS sale and picked out into mischief, actually
00:37:18as at a two year old training sale and and paid one hundred and eighty thousand dollars
00:37:23for him.
00:37:24I was in the organization and I still remember I didn't go to that sale because we'd had
00:37:29an outbreak of a problem with our foals.
00:37:33There was a bad foal diarrhea outbreak and we were sort of in crisis mode here.
00:37:39And so I actually stayed here.
00:37:41So so at that time, into mischief shipped up and he he first laid up for 30 days in
00:37:49our stallion barn, which I guess was maybe sort of foreshadowing that back then our stallion
00:37:54barn wasn't occupied with other stallions and we used it to for layups.
00:38:00But and then Beholder, I was yes, I was part of the buying team when we bought Beholder
00:38:06as a yearling.
00:38:08And, you know, knowing that into mischief was yes, he was a grade one winner at two,
00:38:13but knowing that he was his race record didn't really indicate how good he really was.
00:38:21That made Beholder also Beholder's an exceptional physical, but also knowing that her half sibling
00:38:28was even better than what his lone grade wanted to showed.
00:38:33That was that was an easy one.
00:38:35I think we broke a few pin hookers parts because she being by any use, you know, I
00:38:42think they thought this was going to be right up their alley.
00:38:44And I remember when we walked up to bid on her one two year old pin hooker looking at
00:38:50us sort of disgustedly saying, what are you doing here?
00:38:53So and he and he walked off at that point.
00:38:58But so we were able to get her bought.
00:38:59Yeah, for the exact same price.
00:39:02Wayne, I think it might be the highest I ever saw Wayne bid at auction when we tried to
00:39:09buy the next one.
00:39:12I'm drawing a blank on Mendelsohn.
00:39:15Thank you on Mendelsohn.
00:39:17And I think I think we bid two point nine and Kumar bid three million.
00:39:22And Wayne was kicking himself, said I should have kept going.
00:39:25And I said, I think if you bid three point nine, they to bid four million.
00:39:30Or four point nine, they to bid five.
00:39:32So they were determined to have him as well.
00:39:35And he was he was a beautiful he was a beautiful yearling as well.
00:39:38So we've been very fortunate.
00:39:39We've been able to buy the right ones out of that mare and and and avoid some of the
00:39:44others that haven't haven't panned out.
00:39:46But, yeah, it's a remarkable mare.
00:39:49And it just it shows what, you know, Wayne had a great expression about the horse business.
00:39:53Nobody knows.
00:39:54And that mare is a great example.
00:39:56Who would have known looking at her early in her year that she was going to have the
00:40:00influence on the breed that that that she's had?
00:40:02So that's one of the things I think that makes this game this game so great.
00:40:09Well, Ned, thanks so much for joining us on this week's edition of the TDN Writers Room
00:40:13podcast, and we'll be looking forward to see how Tuscan Sky can do in the Haskell and also
00:40:19looking forward to what Kings Barnes can do for the rest of the year.
00:40:22Got a lot of exciting things coming up at Spendthrift.
00:40:24Once again, thanks so much for joining us.
00:40:26And we'll catch up with you again soon.
00:40:27Thank you for having me.
00:40:29Cheers, Ned.
00:40:31As our Green Group guest of the week, Spendthrift Farm's Ned Toffey will receive a free one
00:40:35hour tax consultation from Lynn Green et al.
00:40:39at the Green Group.
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00:41:44Contact us at 732-634-5100 or visit our website at www.greenco.com.
00:42:14The TD and Riders Room also brought to you by the PHBA, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders
00:42:32Association.
00:42:34On August 26th at Parks, it's a day of racing called Pennsylvania Day at the Races.
00:42:40Four stakes races that day, each worth $100,000.
00:42:44The whole day is for Pennsylvania breds.
00:42:46One of those four races is for PA sired, PA breds.
00:42:49The reason I'm telling you this, the nominations close Monday, July the 8th.
00:42:56So please forward or call in your nominations to the Parks Racing Office.
00:43:00And if you have any questions about that day in particular or about PA bred racing in general,
00:43:06you can call the PHBA office.
00:43:08That number, as you can see, 610-444-1050.
00:43:15You know, a lot of racing writers, a lot of racing fans, a lot of people in the profession
00:43:19really like to knock Churchill downs.
00:43:21They're kind of everybody's whipping boy.
00:43:23And the reasons why are, you know, they're bottom line oriented.
00:43:30That's what they care about more so than anything else, their stock price.
00:43:33They closed Calder.
00:43:34That was a big to do.
00:43:36They closed Hollywood Park.
00:43:38They closed Arlington.
00:43:39And so you look at this company and say, well, they're not good for horse racing.
00:43:43But I'll tell you one thing.
00:43:44Let's put that aside.
00:43:47They deserve so much credit for what they've done with the Kentucky Derby.
00:43:52You think this race can't get any bigger.
00:43:56And every year there's a new construction project.
00:43:58And every year there's a new wrinkle and this and that.
00:44:01So for the spring meet at Churchill, which just concluded,
00:44:06they handled $708.3 million over a 43-day meet.
00:44:11They broke the prior record by $93.5 million,
00:44:16giving away $1.4 million a day in purses.
00:44:19And on average, good field sizes, 8.2 horses per race.
00:44:24And you know what they're good at?
00:44:26Making money.
00:44:27And that's really what a business wants to do.
00:44:31But the work that they've done.
00:44:33And Randy, I think you were talking about how impressed you were this year at the Derby
00:44:37about some of the panic and the things they're doing.
00:44:40And they don't rest on their laurels, that's for sure.
00:44:43Yeah, sure, I wish they kept Arlington Park open.
00:44:45But when it comes to America's greatest horse race,
00:44:49they are a wonderful steward for it because they just do everything right.
00:44:53Arlington Park is a whole different ball of wax.
00:44:55It's a whole different topic.
00:44:57CDI deserves a lot of credit for what they've done with the Kentucky Derby
00:45:03and the entire spring meet in general.
00:45:05And what a difference a year makes, right?
00:45:07Go back a year ago and you had the horse death situation at Churchill.
00:45:11They had to end the meet early and transfer it to Ellis Park.
00:45:15There was all this negativity about CDI and Churchill Downs Racing.
00:45:20And now they not only bounce back in 2024,
00:45:23but they bounce back in record-setting fashion.
00:45:27Strong fields of horses.
00:45:29Just really, really strong meeting at Churchill Downs.
00:45:33And they deserve a lot of credit.
00:45:35And the fact that you mentioned last year with Churchill and the horse deaths,
00:45:38it just goes to show you what a short memory horse racing has.
00:45:43Because I guarantee you could ask 10 different people and they're like,
00:45:46oh, was that last year?
00:45:48That seems like five years ago.
00:45:49Because it does.
00:45:50Horse racing has an incredibly short memory,
00:45:53which can be a good thing and also a bad thing.
00:45:56But in this case, it's a very, very good thing.
00:45:59And I actually have not been to Churchill yet.
00:46:01I've just seen it on the TV and it does look
00:46:05fan-friendly and it looks fabulous.
00:46:07Now, you're going to have to pay if you're going to go on any of the premier days,
00:46:11which is, you have to pay anyway you go.
00:46:13But as far as the handle, it's just staggering.
00:46:17So I looked at the figures, 708.3 million.
00:46:21Now, Derby Day itself handled 320 million.
00:46:26So if you take that out of the 708, it was a 43-day meet.
00:46:31If you make it 42 and take the Derby Day out of the equation,
00:46:35that's a staggering $9.2 million a day for 42 days with field sizes of 8.2.
00:46:43So if anybody thinks that purses don't matter,
00:46:48they gave away $58 million in purses over the 43-day meet.
00:46:53And that's what you get.
00:46:54You get terrific handle and full fields.
00:46:57And we're going to talk about small fields a little bit later on
00:47:00with what's going on in Maryland.
00:47:01But I mean, money talks.
00:47:04And yes, kudos to Churchill.
00:47:05They've done a great job.
00:47:06That's a staggering amount of money wagered on each and every day.
00:47:11And Zoe, as you mentioned, it's a staggering amount of purses averaging 1.4 million a day.
00:47:16And these historical horse racing machines,
00:47:19boy, have they helped Kentucky Racing just take off.
00:47:22And again, I don't get it.
00:47:23I don't even understand the things.
00:47:25I wouldn't put five cents into one of these machines.
00:47:28Doesn't matter.
00:47:28These people are playing these things hand over fist.
00:47:31And it's not just Churchill.
00:47:34I mean, this is what makes Kentucky Downs roll.
00:47:37It's helped Keeneland's purses, helps Ellis Park's purses.
00:47:40But you look up and an allowance race is $140,000.
00:47:46You know, it's not hard to get good fields when you have $140,000 allowance race.
00:47:51But again, I just wanted to kind of give them their credit where credit was due
00:47:55because what they've done with the Derby in the spring meet is really, really good.
00:48:00Well, one of the major stories off track last week was the move by the Supreme Court to
00:48:04essentially kick the can down the road on one of the Heise cases.
00:48:08And here's all the machinations and here's all the processes, etc.
00:48:13The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals took on the Heise case so far as unconstitutionality.
00:48:20And the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of Heise is constitutional.
00:48:26The plaintiffs in that case then tried to appeal to the Supreme Court and they were
00:48:31denied what's called a writ of certiorari, which means basically that the Supreme Court says,
00:48:37we're OK with this.
00:48:37We're not interested in reviewing your case.
00:48:40Let's move on.
00:48:41Now, it's not quite that simple because there's still another case out in the Fifth Circuit
00:48:46Court of Appeals that's been sitting around for about six months.
00:48:49Everybody doesn't quite understand why it's taking so long, but it's a very conservative
00:48:54court.
00:48:55And the question now is, will the Supreme Court's decision to basically say we're not
00:49:01interested in looking at this, will that affect the Fifth Circuit?
00:49:05And they say, well, if the Supreme Court is an anti-Heise, really, what's the point of
00:49:10us ruling against it?
00:49:11I don't really know how that's all going to work, but we're moving closer to the day,
00:49:16of course, when we finally get all this legal stuff turned around.
00:49:20But I guess, you know, the anti-Heise forces are still going to wait for the decision to
00:49:25happen on the Sixth Circuit.
00:49:27But basically, after the Supreme Court decision came out, I mean, they're really, they're
00:49:3350 to 1 to win this now.
00:49:35Isn't it time for them to just throw in the towel and work with the industry to make the
00:49:40whole situation better for everybody?
00:49:43Well, TDN's favorite constitutional law expert, Lucinda Finley, had a great Q&A in the TDN
00:49:53this week.
00:49:54And as she points out, because the Supreme Court, just because the Supreme Court took
00:50:01a pass this past week on discussing the constitutionality of Heise, doesn't mean that they might not
00:50:12accept a look at it in the future.
00:50:14And as Lucinda Finley mentioned, one of the Supreme Court's, for lack of a better phrase,
00:50:23pet projects, is to rule on things that two different districts disagree on when it comes
00:50:33to constitutionality.
00:50:35So one district court has ruled that Heise is constitutional.
00:50:39If this next ruling that we're awaiting from the conservative court rules that Heise is
00:50:44unconstitutional, then you have those conflicting rulings.
00:50:48And Lucinda Finley points out that's when the Supreme Court seems to be a little bit
00:50:56more likely to jump into the fray and decide the constitutionality between those two differing
00:51:04rulings.
00:51:05So we might see the Supreme Court take up Heise a little bit later, so we may not be
00:51:10hearing the end of that.
00:51:12Yeah, Randy, I totally agree with what you said, but I just wonder, and again, not being
00:51:15a lawyer, a lot of this being a journalist that doesn't specialize in this sort of stuff,
00:51:21it's a lot of guesswork.
00:51:22But I read into this that the Supreme Court sort of tipped their hand.
00:51:26If the Fifth Circuit rules that it's unconstitutional by denying the appeal or to hear an appeal
00:51:34from the other court, at least show me that the Supreme Court justices didn't think this
00:51:39was important enough to take up the case.
00:51:41And I don't know if they have already made up their minds, but this certainly makes it
00:51:47look like that perhaps they are going to rule that if it all comes down to it, they're going
00:51:53to rule that it is constitutional.
00:51:55So I think, look, again, this is so complicated.
00:51:58It's taken so long to get through this, and we're not through it yet.
00:52:01But I think for HISA, the pro-HISA forces, this was a good development.
00:52:07Yeah, I don't know how much of a deep dive the Supreme Court did on HISA.
00:52:12It's possible, I think.
00:52:15You know, we discussed last week about, was it the Fifth District Court that we're waiting
00:52:23on the hearing, right?
00:52:24Yes, Fifth District Court.
00:52:25Yeah, we discussed that they possibly could be dragging their feet waiting to see what
00:52:32the Supreme Court did.
00:52:34I think it's also feasible that the Supreme Court looked at this, knowing that the Fifth
00:52:38Circuit ruling is still out there.
00:52:41The Supreme Court said, why do we need to get in this now, right?
00:52:45We got a lot on our docket.
00:52:47Let's just see what the Fifth rules.
00:52:50And if there's a discrepancy, then we'll get into it, and we'll dive into HISA, and we'll
00:52:54see about the constitutionality.
00:52:56I don't know.
00:52:57As they say, stay tuned.
00:52:59The Supreme Court guys are looking down on this and going, oh, those horse racing people
00:53:03again.
00:53:04Why can't these idiots figure it out between themselves?
00:53:07We tried to please them, now they don't want it.
00:53:09Now they're fighting.
00:53:10Why don't we just put Eric and what's-her-name in a room and just have them hash it out?
00:53:16Yeah, and there was another very, very interesting point that Lucinda Finley made.
00:53:21And I know there may be some people out there that read about the most recent Supreme Court
00:53:26ruling, which was very controversial, basically overturning what's known as the Chevron doctrine.
00:53:33All right, it's from a much earlier case involving Chevron.
00:53:38And what basically the Supreme Court was saying in their ruling is that the deep state, you
00:53:46could call it the administrative state, right, has become too powerful.
00:53:53And that there has been too much administrative overreach from some of these places.
00:53:59And the FTC was specifically mentioned among many of the agencies that the Supreme Court
00:54:06believed were too powerful since they're unelected.
00:54:11And when I saw that, FTC, HISA, I thought, oh, this might be a problem.
00:54:17But Lucinda Finley says that it really is not a problem at all, in her opinion.
00:54:22So if anybody out there is curious about the Chevron doctrine and the Supreme Court
00:54:27overturning it, how that might impact HISA, maybe not quite as much as some of us might fear.
00:54:34And you should read it.
00:54:35It's a good article.
00:54:37She explains it very well in layman's terms,
00:54:41which even made me understand it, which is hard to do at this point.
00:54:44Is Lucinda your sister?
00:54:46Lucinda is my older sister, and she's much, much smarter than I am.
00:54:51She's very smart.
00:54:55Yeah, she is really on the ball.
00:54:57She graduated high school in three years and then went to Columbia for undergrad and Columbia
00:55:02Law School.
00:55:02So, you know, that speaks well enough for her as it is.
00:55:07But yeah, and I agree.
00:55:09She does a great job of putting this into common language that everybody can understand.
00:55:14So thank you, sis.
00:55:17Should we talk briefly about what the HBPA did as well, just in the last few days?
00:55:22The HBPA has filed a petition with the FTC, of course, basically the parent company of HISA,
00:55:29asking for no effect testing thresholds, right?
00:55:35Now, you know, I'm not a big supporter of the HBPA as it pertains to medication.
00:55:43We've all talked about that, how, you know, lax and lenient the HBPA tends to be about
00:55:48medication.
00:55:50But in this particular situation, I think they have a great point.
00:55:53Makes sense.
00:55:54Yeah, they're talking about, you know, all these minute traces of either permissive medications
00:56:01or naturally occurring drugs that can have no impact whatsoever on the outcome of a horse race.
00:56:08And yet the sport of horse racing is smeared in the media.
00:56:12Trainers livelihoods are upended.
00:56:16And so the HBPA is just asking, can we get some common sense in here and have a threshold
00:56:23for these drugs where these, you know, picograms of overages and stuff just don't matter?
00:56:32And maybe they would result in disqualifications, but they wouldn't result in penalties for the
00:56:38horseman involved.
00:56:39I think it's an admirable idea that the HBPA has put up and maybe the HBPA and HISA and
00:56:48HIWU and the FTC can come to some sort of arrangement here.
00:56:54Randy, I think that's an excellent idea, but, you know, sometimes one of the frustrations
00:56:58of this game, you said it's just common sense.
00:57:00There's a lot of things in horse racing where if you put common sense into the equation,
00:57:04they would be different.
00:57:05Horse racing is not good at using common sense.
00:57:09So, but certainly the HBPA makes a good point on that.
00:57:14And, you know, we're all hearing about the guy with one picogram of something or other,
00:57:21and then he's got a six-month suspension, which does sound a little bit ridiculous.
00:57:27The TDN Writer's Room brought to you by the KTOB, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and
00:57:32Breeders.
00:57:32Stephen Foster winner, King's Barns, of course, bred in Kentucky.
00:57:37Grade one winners are bred in Kentucky.
00:57:38The Breeder Parks Investment Group, LLC, earned a $7,500 Kentucky Breeders Incentive
00:57:46Fund Award for breeding a grade one winner.
00:57:49You can learn more about all this by going to kentuckybreds.com.
00:57:55With some of the fullest fields in the country and quality racing year-round,
00:58:00there's never been a better time to reap the rewards of breeding and racing in Kentucky.
00:58:06Purse money in Kentucky is at an all-time high, as is average purse per race, outpacing
00:58:12California, Florida, and New York.
00:58:15Kentucky breds.
00:58:17Breed them.
00:58:18Raise them.
00:58:19Race them.
00:58:21We all win.
00:58:25Well, this past weekend at Monmouth Park, the Boiling Spring Steaks to be run on Sunday
00:58:29did not fill.
00:58:30They didn't have enough horses.
00:58:32Monday at Parks, they had one five-horse race and two four-horse races.
00:58:38Laurel last week, the feature race was an allowance race with three horses.
00:58:42And this is something I've been talking about beating my head against the wall for years.
00:58:47But everybody is complaining so much about the shortage of horses available, the small
00:58:53fields.
00:58:53And obviously, it's very bad for the game.
00:58:57People don't want to bet on four-horse races with a one-to-five favorite and a second
00:59:01choice at six to five.
00:59:03But there's something that racing used to do was quite frequent that they've totally
00:59:07gotten away from.
00:59:09And I think if they get back to it, it could solve a lot of the problems.
00:59:12And what I'm talking about is circuits.
00:59:15And when I first started going to the racetrack when I was a wee kid, there was a circuit
00:59:19of Delaware Park, Pimlico, Laurel, and Bowie.
00:59:23And then so when Delaware Park ran, even though it was in a different state, the Maryland
00:59:27tracks would shut down.
00:59:29More recently, when Colonial Downs first opened, the Maryland tracks would do the same thing.
00:59:33They would shut down.
00:59:35So they would combine forces and the horses from the one track population would be taken
00:59:40in and be the horses that would run at the new track.
00:59:43You've got a couple obvious ways to go here.
00:59:46And you know why it's never going to happen?
00:59:48It's just like Randy said before about common sense.
00:59:51It makes too much common sense.
00:59:55There should be a circuit of Delaware Park should get involved in a circuit with Maryland.
01:00:01And I also think parks should get into a circuit with Monmouth where parks in Maryland don't
01:00:06run during the summer months.
01:00:08The field sizes at the tracks that do run would balloon up.
01:00:12The quality of racing would be much better.
01:00:15And you'd have really other than the kind of the inconvenience of shipping from one
01:00:20track to the other.
01:00:21But on top of that, I advocated that the tracks get together and provide free vans for the
01:00:26horsemen to go back and forth between the two tracks.
01:00:29Also to take care of the breeders.
01:00:31Suppose you were going to have a three month Delaware Park meeting that combines with Maryland
01:00:36horsemen.
01:00:36There's no reason why you can't run Maryland bred races at Delaware Park.
01:00:42These tracks are putting out these fields with five, six horses.
01:00:47It's hurting everybody.
01:00:49And not only that, I also think the purses would go up because if you have all these
01:00:55purses come from slot machines.
01:00:56So all of a sudden you have a big pie.
01:00:58It's worth ten million dollars.
01:01:00If you cut it up into ten pieces, it's worth a million dollars.
01:01:03If you cut it up into five pieces, it's worth two million dollars.
01:01:07That casino money is not going anywhere.
01:01:09And if it's spread among fewer races, the purses would go up.
01:01:13I don't see any drawback to this whatsoever other than a little bit of the inconvenience
01:01:17factor.
01:01:18But having said that, why am I even bringing this up?
01:01:21Because it makes common sense and it's not going to happen.
01:01:23However, people in Maryland are actually talking about this.
01:01:26This is where it might happen with the new group taking over the Maryland Jockey Club
01:01:30from Stronach.
01:01:31We'll see about that.
01:01:32But racing was a lot more fun when we used to do it this way.
01:01:37I mean, I don't really know what to say.
01:01:40I think it's basically all the tracks want a big slice of the pie, but nobody wants to
01:01:46give up their little piece of pie to help somebody else.
01:01:49They're owned by different entities.
01:01:51And that is where you hit the nail on the head.
01:01:53Now, Maryland, now owned by the state, may have a fighting chance with Cory Johnson.
01:01:59But no one wants to give up their slice of the pie.
01:02:02And if you've got horses from Maryland shipping to Delaware, right?
01:02:06Delaware is going to take the biggest slice of the pie.
01:02:09But yet the people in Maryland still have to pay for the running of their race track
01:02:14because they're not going to move to Delaware.
01:02:17So then you have the costs of the racetrack and the maintenance and the stabling and everything
01:02:23that that racetrack or state has to cover when Delaware Park is garnering most of the laurels.
01:02:30So it's just a question of who wants to give up their slice of the pie.
01:02:33And we've seen it time and time again.
01:02:35We don't play nice together.
01:02:37We really don't.
01:02:38Nobody wants to give up their slice of the pie.
01:02:41So I don't know how it can be alleviated, how it can work.
01:02:46I've got no idea.
01:02:47You may have got good points, really good points, but trying to get different entities
01:02:52and different states to work together, I can't see how it can happen unless someone comes in
01:02:58and says, hey, Delaware, hey, Maryland, here's $10 million for you and $10 million for you.
01:03:04Now try and get this shit figured out.
01:03:07I don't, that's the only way I can see it working.
01:03:10Zoe, all good points.
01:03:11But I do think this is going to happen eventually in Maryland.
01:03:14It's Corey Johnson, who Randy knows real well, is a very good.
01:03:18In Maryland, yes.
01:03:19Yes, racetrack executive.
01:03:21He knows how to get things done.
01:03:23And he is on the record saying we cannot sustain this kind of year-round racing schedule.
01:03:27So that's the one to keep your eye on.
01:03:29It could either merge with Colonial or Delaware.
01:03:32But I do think maybe in 2026 that could happen.
01:03:36Well, the historical problem obviously has been just as Zoe said.
01:03:40I mean, there's no one looking out for the long-term best interests of the sport of horse
01:03:46racing in general.
01:03:47They're all looking at the bottom line for their little individual fiefdoms.
01:03:52And so many tracks, like the tracks in West Virginia that want to run year-round, the
01:03:58tracks in Pennsylvania parks that want to run year-round, so many of these places say,
01:04:04okay, if we run year-round, our average handle per day will drop.
01:04:11But at the end of the year, we've run so many racing days that our total profit will be
01:04:16higher.
01:04:17So we'll just look at what we're doing here, and we'll make more profit at the end of the
01:04:20year.
01:04:21And that's all we care about, right?
01:04:24You know, between New York and New Jersey and Maryland and West Virginia and Pennsylvania
01:04:31and Virginia now, there's too much racing.
01:04:36That's just the bottom line.
01:04:37If there was a commissioner in horse racing, we talked about this ad nauseum, and there's
01:04:41never going to be one.
01:04:42But if there was a Roger Goodell or a Silver or somebody like that sitting in an office
01:04:48who could help make decisions with major racetrack owners around the country and could say,
01:04:53all right, we're going to change the racing dates here.
01:04:56We're going to cut all these racing dates down.
01:04:58These racetracks won't be running on top of each other.
01:05:01Maybe at the most two at one.
01:05:03That would be perfect.
01:05:04But I agree with you, Bill.
01:05:06I think it's probably going to happen, as we discussed last week, on a limited basis
01:05:14involving Maryland.
01:05:16But as far as a widespread basis in the Northeast, I'm still pretty skeptical.
01:05:22How about we figure out post times first?
01:05:25Yeah, good luck.
01:05:26I mean, we can't figure that out.
01:05:28Race is running on top of each other.
01:05:30I mean, yeah, I don't know.
01:05:33But just to throw some more numbers behind my debate, there are right now in Colonial
01:05:41opens on July 11th.
01:05:42And that's a good meet, by the way.
01:05:45There are going to be eight racetracks run within 400 miles that will all be racing at
01:05:52one time.
01:05:53So, you know, that's just not sustainable.
01:05:55So we'll see what happens.
01:05:57So more racing news involving racetracks.
01:06:00This came out yesterday.
01:06:01Naira announced that for the once Belmont is rebuilt during the winter months, all racing
01:06:08will be conducted on the synthetics track that they're installing, the Topedic track.
01:06:12And I think that's a really good idea.
01:06:14I mean, it's first of all, it's the safest surface possible.
01:06:18We know that.
01:06:19I think it will probably convince some trainers not to send their grasshorses to Gulfstream
01:06:25because they can run on the synthetic in New York in the winter.
01:06:28And it's, you know, you won't have to worry about the inclement weather nearly as much
01:06:34so far as, you know, big rainstorms or snow storms or whatnot.
01:06:37You know, I'm sure the horsemen probably aren't real happy about this because, you
01:06:40know, they don't like any curveballs thrown at them.
01:06:43But, you know, no, we don't want Topedic in the summer in Belmont, the summer in Saratoga.
01:06:50But in middle of February, when, you know, the best race on the card is an allowance
01:06:55race and there's five New York Red races.
01:06:57I think this is absolutely the way to go.
01:06:59And I think that they're going to actually improve the quality of racing because they'll
01:07:04have bigger fields than they would ordinarily on just dirt racing.
01:07:09They need both.
01:07:12Oh, sorry.
01:07:13They need both.
01:07:14I mean, the horsemen aren't happy at all.
01:07:16I've spoken to a couple.
01:07:17You've got people that leave their horses there in the winter.
01:07:20That's their bread and butter.
01:07:21Just dirt racing in the winter when the big wigs have gone out of town.
01:07:25Some of those horses can't stand up on the Synthetic.
01:07:29And yes, it's a good idea from a safety standpoint and the weather that they get, but it's not
01:07:34going to fly.
01:07:35And then what's going to happen with the graded stakes with points towards the Kentucky Derby?
01:07:39They said three months, right?
01:07:41Which three months are we talking about?
01:07:43Because in February, in January, you got the Jerome.
01:07:47That's points to the Derby.
01:07:48You're going to run that on to Peter and then you have the Besander and then you have the
01:07:53Withers in February.
01:07:55That's 20 points.
01:07:56The Gotham is March the 3rd.
01:07:58That's 50 points.
01:07:59How's that going to work?
01:08:01There's no way they're going to have just to Peter racing.
01:08:04They're going to have to have at least some dirt and give the trainers a choice.
01:08:10They say that's not their intention.
01:08:13We'll see.
01:08:14Honestly, the best thing for the horses would be to have no winter racing at all in New
01:08:18York and let the horses rest.
01:08:19But for reasons that Zoe pointed out, that's not going to happen.
01:08:23It's not politically feasible.
01:08:24The trainers, the owners, they want a place to run in the winter months.
01:08:28They need it financially.
01:08:30And so that's out of the question.
01:08:32The reason why this is happening to begin with the switch to Topita is because Naira
01:08:37wants to standardize its dirt racing surfaces between Saratoga and Belmont and Aqueduct.
01:08:42They want them to be exactly the same.
01:08:44And they want them to be all in the Saratoga dirt model because Saratoga has the safest
01:08:52racing surface statistically of the three.
01:08:55Well, Saratoga's dirt summer has a clay base, not Aqueduct in the winter, not Belmont coming
01:09:04up in the winter because a clay base is more prone to freezing in the winter months.
01:09:10And so that's kind of a no-go if you're going to run over the winter.
01:09:13So that's why instead of dealing with that, they want a surface that is impervious to
01:09:23freezing, that it's safer statistically.
01:09:26So that's why they're doing the Topita so they can save their dirt surface for the warmer
01:09:32months and make it exactly like Saratoga surface.
01:09:36So there's definitely no way that then they can race on the dirt in the winter,
01:09:41if that's what they're going ahead with.
01:09:43Right.
01:09:44Right.
01:09:44There would be a lot of frozen track interruptions.
01:09:47Yes.
01:09:48Do want to remind you that the TDN Writers Room is also brought to you by XBTV.
01:09:53You can catch all of their works on xbtv.com, including many from Saratoga.
01:10:00I'll be there next weekend for the whole summer, which I'm delighted about.
01:10:03But right now we're going to take a look at Mindframe and Tuscan Sky this past Saturday
01:10:09at Saratoga.
01:10:10That's Mindframe on the outside, working an easy 50-4 in his first work back since his
01:10:16runner-up finish in the Belmont Stakes.
01:10:18His work partner, Tuscan Sky, is grey on the inside.
01:10:22And he is back for his first work since winning the Naira Bets Pegasus Stakes on June 15th
01:10:28at Monmouth.
01:10:29According to Todd Pletcher, the pair, along with everyone else,
01:10:32is currently pointing to the July 20th Haskell Stakes at Monmouth.
01:10:59All the thrills.
01:11:14Fraction of the bills.
01:11:18Experience the power of the partnership.
01:11:24Change your life, make new friends, and compete at the highest level of thoroughbred racing.
01:11:29West Point Thoroughbreds, the gold standard in racing partnerships.
01:11:35Visit westpointtb.com.
01:11:39TDN Writer's Room, also brought to you by our friends at West Point Thoroughbreds.
01:11:43What a month of June West Point had.
01:11:4525 starters overall that they owned, either solo or in partnership.
01:11:4812 winners.
01:11:50Great Churchill meetings spread across a lot of other tracks as well.
01:11:53And the stakes action for West Point continues this weekend, Friday night at Prairie Meadows.
01:11:59They've got a card with four $100,000 stakes races.
01:12:02West Point is active with Jackson Traveler in the Iowa Sprint,
01:12:05and Happy Am I in the Saylorville.
01:12:08At Woodbine, Gal and Arush goes in the grade three Hendry Stakes.
01:12:12And then Sunday, it's Del Cap Day at Delaware Park.
01:12:16And on the undercard of the Del Cap, as always,
01:12:18is the Robert B. Dick Memorial Stakes.
01:12:21Mile and three-eighths on the turf.
01:12:23And West Point will have both Parnak, who won the Flower Bowl at Saratoga last year,
01:12:27was third in the Robert Dick a year ago.
01:12:30And Atomic Blonde, who's coming off that mile and a half win
01:12:33in the Kirtana Stakes at Churchill Downs.
01:12:35So West Point set up for a big weekend this weekend as well.
01:12:39To learn more about how you can get involved, you can go to westpointtb.com.
01:12:48And that's a wrap on this week's show.
01:12:50We thank you all for tuning in.
01:12:51I want to thank my team, Randy Moss and Zoe Cadman,
01:12:55along with our special guest, Ned Toffey, the Green Group Guest of the Week,
01:12:58and the people who worked so hard behind the scenes to make this happen,
01:13:01Katie Petruniak, Anthony and Aliyah Larocca.
01:13:04See you next week. Thanks for tuning us in.