Triple Crown bid is a race against history

When I’ll Have Another attempts to win the Belmont Stakes on June 9 and capture the Triple Crown, he must do more than defeat a formidable group of opponents. He must overcome history.

The Triple Crown series almost unfailingly thwarts horses who are not among the sport’s all-time greats. In the past 64 years, only Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed have swept the 3-year-old classics. Since Affirmed’s success in 1978, a total of 11 horses have won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness before failing in the Belmont Stakes.

If a committee of experts tried to design a definitive test of American racehorses, it could not have devised one more effective than the Triple Crown series. In theory, a less-than-great horse ought to be able to beat a subpar group of rivals three times or hit a streak of hot form lasting for a few weeks. But of the 11 Triple Crown winners, only one – Omaha in 1935 – might be considered a fluke.

No one conceived or planned the Triple Crown. It evolved haphazardly. The distances and schedule of the races underwent various changes over the years before it took its present form in the 1970s: the 1 1/4-mile Derby is run at Louisville’s Churchill Down on the first Saturday in May. The 1 3/16-mile Preakess is contested two weeks later at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Three weeks later, Belmont Park on Long Island is the site of the 1 1/2-mile final leg of the series.

When Sir Barton won the three stakes for 3-year-olds in 1919, there was no Triple Crown. Charles Hatton, a Daily Racing Form columnist, began using the term in the 1930s, and when Whirlaway completed a sweep in 1941, he was the first horse universally hailed as a Triple Crown winner. The Thoroughbred Racing Associations created a Triple Crown trophy in 1950.

Four horses won the Triple Crown in the 1940s, but no horse did it in the quarter of a century between Citation in 1948 and Secretariat in 1973. The 1970s, the so-called decade of champions, produced three Triple Crown winners. But now 34 years have passed since Affirmed outdueled Alydar in an epic Belmont battle.

Before 1978, horses who captured two-thirds of the Triple Crown were just as likely to be foiled in the Derby or Preakness as the Belmont. Racing luck was a frequent culprit; Native Dancer’s rough trip cost him the 1953 Derby and Little Current was badly blocked in 1974.

But since Affirmed’s triumph, the Belmont Stakes has become the great obstacle in the Triple Crown. Two changes in the modern game have made the Belmont so elusive. American Thoroughbreds have become less durable, and running three times in a five-week period is more stressful for modern horses than for their ancestors. (The schedule used to be even more demanding. Sir Barton had only three days’ rest between the Derby and the Preakness.) Relatively few modern-day horses compete in all three legs of the series unless they are pursuing a Triple Crown sweep, in which case they are usually facing a field of fresher rivals.

The major difficulty in the Belmont, however, is its distance. Contemporary American horses almost never compete at 1 1/2 miles on the dirt. Few are bred to run so far. The history of the race suggests strongly that a horse’s running style plays a great part in determining his effectiveness. And the ideal style for the Belmont is antithetical to the style that often succeeds in the first two legs of the Triple Crown.

Horses frequently seize command of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness with one bold move – usually on the final turn. But when a horse tries to unleash a similar burst at Belmont Park, he still has a seemingly endless stretch in front of him, and rarely can sustain momentum to the finish line.

Many horses have won the Derby or the Preakness with eye-catching acceleration on the turn: Spectacular Bid (1979), Pleasant Colony (1981), Alysheba (1987), Sunday Silence (1989), Real Quiet (1998), Charismatic (1999). All of them lost their Triple Crown bid in the Belmont, and almost all of them were fading in the last quarter-mile.

Plodders sometimes win the Belmont and speed horses often do – but in either case they are likely to be even-paced runners, not ones whose forte is sharp acceleration. When Affirmed led all the way in 1978, he meted out his speed, running the first quarter-mile in 25 seconds flat and the final quarter in 25.20. Such controllable speed is the most formidable asset a horse can have in the Belmont. It is no coincidence that the past four Triple Crown winners won the race by leading all the way.

As I’ll Have Another bids to become the 12th Triple Crown winner, he has certain obvious strengths and weaknesses. He has not yet proved himself to be in the class of greats such as Secretariat and Affirmed. He will be competing for the third time in five weeks against challengers who have been given a breather before the Belmont. But he appears to have a respectable pedigree, and he possesses a blend of speed and stretch-running ability that could add up to an effective running style at 1 1/2 miles. Now he has a chance to add his name to a list that includes some of the greatest Thoroughbreds who ever lived.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Why I’m Not Rooting For ‘I’ll Have Another’ In the Preakness

QUARTER POLE

For want of a nail the shoe was lost
For want of a shoe the horse was lost
For want of a horse the rider was lost
For want of a rider the battle was lost
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
-English Proverb

As much as I would like to again see a Triple Crown winner in Thoroughbred racing, as much as I think the sport could so use a boost these dark days, I will not be rooting for I’ll Have Another this Saturday afternoon in the 137th Preakness Stakes at Maryland’s Pimlico Race Course. And I’d like to tell you why.

I have nothing against the horse, of course. He ran a great Kentucky Derby two weeks ago and was a worthy winner over the breathlessly game Bodemeister. And I have nothing, either, against I’ll Have Another’s jockey, Mario Gutierrez, whose rags-to-riches story is one of the best of the year. If they win again, and have a chance for a Triple Crown in three weeks at Belmont Park in New York, here’s hoping that Gutierrez is every bit as much a part of the story as his horse.

But I’m not rooting for I’ll Have Another because I am not a fan of trainers whose drug suspensions are endlessly stayed. I am not a fan of track officials and state regulators who slap wrists. I am not a fan of owners who tolerate it. And I am not a fan of an industry that allows all of this to occur and then turns to the betting public and its fans says “we are doing what we can about racing integrity.” No, sir. Not for me. I’ll be rooting for another horse and hoping, as always, that they all make it back home safe to the barn.

HALF-MILE POLE

Doug O’Neill trains the Derby winner. I had never heard of him before this year’s stakes season but I thought he was pitch-perfect on Derby Day itself. The first I heard of his California record was after the Derby. I just stumbled across the news by chance at Ray Paulick’s website, PaulickReport, which has been reporting on the story for years (here’s a good piece from 2010). Within days of the Derby, the story had migrated from inside the industry to the mainstream media. Joe Drape and Walt Bogdanich at the New York Times, with another trenchant piece, wrote this last Thursday as their lede:

Last summer, the trainer Doug O’Neill was formally sanctioned after one of his racehorses at Hollywood Park in California tested positive for illegal drugs. A year before, in 2010, O’Neill was punished for administering an illegal performance-enhancing concoction to a horse he ran in the prestigious Illinois Derby — the third time he had been accused of giving a horse what is known as a milkshake. Four months later, he was accused again of giving a milkshake to a horse in California.

Over 14 years and in four different states, O’Neill received more than a dozen violations for giving his horses improper drugs. O’Neill’s horses also have had a tendency to break down. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the horses he trains break down or show signs of injury at more than twice the rate of the national average.

The point I want to make here is a relatively small one in the context of what this means. Whether O’Neill is guilty or not of the pending violation, there is no excuse for these sorts of suspensions to linger unresolved for years. We are told that O’Neill faces a possible 180-day suspension–for a test that occurred in August 2010. His answer? “I swear on my kids’ eyes i never milkshaked a horse,” O’Neill said last week. Because regulators and judges in California couldn’t resolve the case sooner, a local problem became an international one in the middle of racing’s Triple Crown. For the want of a nail…

Can you imagine any professional sport or enterprise tolerating such a delay between the announcement of an offense and the disposition of one? There is an entire class of trainers, in both Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing, whose members go about their daily jobs under suspended sentences–in legal limbo but free to make a living, earn more purse money, and create the kind of gash marks on the sport that O’Neill’s case has created over the past two weeks.
THREE-QUARTER POLE

Trainer gets suspended for doping horse. Trainer appeals suspension. Trainer gets stay of suspension pending appeal. Trainer and lawyer undertake administrative hearing. Regulators take their time to rule. Ruling gets appealed to state court. Hearing is held. Judge takes her time to rule. This happens every day in North American horse racing and it’s what is happening in the O’Neill case. If he is guilty, he should long ago have been forced to serve his punishment. If he is not, because of California’s testing protocols, then that system itself should long ago have been fixed.

Perhaps the best way to describe this dynamic is to think of it as one giant industry-sanctioned bail/bond program. The suspects get to go on with their lives while evidence of their alleged crime is debated languidly. The logic is both clear and perverse. Even though the fines are miniscule compared to the purse money, trainers like O’Neill won’t accept punishment until their rights are fully adjudicated. It takes forever for those rights to be adjudicated under the current system. And because it takes so long, regulators and judges are loathe to preclude suspects from earning a living in the meantime.

Know what horse racing needs? It needs its own Drug Court–an independent body which can quickly adjudicate doping disputes. It needs an enforcement mechanism by which the current model–where overburdened, understaffed regulators hand off trainer doping cases to overburdened, understaffed state judges–gives way to something faster and stronger. A trainer wants to appeal a suspension? Fine. The industry should guarantee that trainer a right to a “speedy” disposition. In return, the industry should demand the trainer’s purse money be held in escrow pending the outcome.

MILE POLE

The O’Neill story indeed puts horse racing into a terrible bind. On the one hand, the industry surely wants to see “I’ll Have Another” win the Preakness to keep alive a Triple Crown hope for the year (the last horse to win was Affirmed in 1978). But on the other hand the industry surely understands that the hotter the spotlight shines on O’Neill the more it will expose the inherent contradictions and consistent failures of the sport’s drug enforcement policies and priorities.

The idea that a Triple Crown-winner trainer could shortly thereafter be suspended from racing for 180 days is even worse than is the idea that The Times is doing stories in mid-May about horse doping. It will be interesting to see, therefore, how NBC handles the O’Neill story when it covers the big race on Saturday. Surely the network cannot bury the controversy. Nor can it highlight it. But wouldn’t it be a great gift to the sport if the broadcast team were to shine a light on racing’s inability to timely convict or exonerate its suspected cheaters? Surely Costas and company would have no dearth of interviewees.

The scandal here, if there is one, isn’t just that a Derby-winning trainer has a mixed record and current legal headaches. The scandal here is that the industry has treated O’Neill no differently than thousands of other suspected trainers, jockeys and drivers over the past decades. I understand the presumption of innocence as much as the next fellow. But there is a difference between protecting that presumption and living up to the responsibility that racing participants have toward one another–and toward the public. The sooner the industry bridges this gulf, the stronger it will be.

THE FINAL FURLONG

Oh, yes. The race! I like to watch the Preakness (All Hail Kegasus!) more than the Derby itself because there are fewer horses and thus fewer chances for accidents or bad racing luck. The luckiest Derby winners often are exposed in the Preakness. This year, only 11 horses entered the second-leg of the Triple Crown. Bodemeister is back, as a somewhat surprising morning-line favorite, and so is my sentimental Derby pick, Creative Cause, whose 71-year-old trainer Michael Harrington just saddled his first-ever Derby entry.

And so is Went The Day Well. Here’s how Drape and Bogdanich, in their Times piece, compared O’Neill’s record with the record of Went The Day Well’s trainer, Graham Motion:

Nationally, thoroughbred horses break down or show signs of injury at a rate of 5.1 per thousand starts, according to the Times’s analysis of more than 150,000 races over the past three years. In more than 2,300 starts, horses trained by O’Neill show a breakdown or injury frequency more than double that rate, at 12.0 per thousand starts.

“It’s a horrible statistic to be associated with,” O’Neill said.

In comparison, horses in the care of Motion — one of the trainers without a single drug violation and who will race Went the Day Well in the Preakness Stakes next Saturday — have started nearly 1,900 races and broken down or showed signs of injury in just 0.5 per thousand start

All of a sudden, a Triple Crown winner this year doesn’t seem that great, does it? I didn’t think so.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Could breeding be making today’s horses weaker?

Are modern racehorses weaker than their counterparts of past generations?

This issue has been hotly debated in racing circles for quite some time, and for me it takes on added significance during the Triple Crown season.

Last year’s Derby winner Animal Kingdom sustained an injury in the Belmont Stakes that ended his season, which consisted of only five starts.

Smarty Jones, winner of the Derby and Preakness in 2004 and unbeaten to that point, never raced after his loss to Birdstone in the Belmont Stakes.

Ditto for Afleet Alex in 2005, who never raced after winning the Belmont to go with victories in the Preakness and Arkansas Derby.

Grindstone won the Kentucky Derby in 1996 in just his sixth lifetime start.

A few days later, he was retired due to knee problems.

Statistics compiled by The Jockey Club show that the average number of starts made in a career by each horse in the United States and Canada was 11.31 in 1960.

Fifty years later, in 2011, the number has fallen to 6.20.

Of the 20 horses that started in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, 17 of them made three or less starts this year as 3-year-olds.

It does seem that that many stars of decades past were tougher than those of today, although I hasten to add that past greats such as Artful, Regret, and Commando had brief careers.

If I were writing this column in 1919, I could have had worries about Sir Barton, who made his 3-year-old debut in the Kentucky Derby.

However, America’s first Triple Crown winner broke his maiden in the Derby.

Sir Barton then won the Preakness on three days rest, the Withers ten days after that, and the Belmont 18 days after the Withers.

Citation, the Triple Crown winner in 1948, made his 3-year-old debut with a victory over older horses on Feb. 2.

He made his seventh start of the year with a win in the Derby Trial on Tuesday, April 27, and won the Kentucky Derby four days later on May 1.

Speaking of the Derby Trial, no less than six horses in the 1950’s raced in it on Tuesday and won the Derby four

days later on Saturday.

They were Middleground (1950), Hill Gail (1952), Dark Star (1953), Determine (1954), Iron Liege (1957) and Tim Tam (1958).

Dark Star is famous for handing the great Native Dancer his only career defeat in the Kentucky Derby.

Bold Forbes won the Kentucky Derby in 1976 in his sixth start that year.

Spectacular Bid also won the Kentucky Derby in his sixth start as a 3-year-old.

“The Bid” won the Hutcheson, Fountain of Youth, Florida Derby, Flamingo and Blue Grass on the way to Louisville.

Today, you hear trainers talk about using only one or two of those races before the Derby.

I’ll Have Another made only two starts this year prior to his Derby victory last Saturday, and was making only his sixth lifetime start.

Bodemeister made four career starts before his second-place finish, all of them this year, and once again the history of unraced 2-year-olds not winning the Derby held up.

So, what is at work here?

I do think that speed in the breed, coupled with a generation of stallion syndications that causes early retirement of top horses, have not helped racing in this regard.

The creation of the Breeders’ Cup in 1984, as a very rich series to end the season in November, certainly changed both the spacing and number of races for many trainers.

To its credit, the Breeders’ Cup has a Marathon, worth $500,000 at 1 ¾ miles.

However, the Breeders’ Cup in my view has too many rich sprints.

There are the $500,000 Juvenile Sprint, the $1 million Filly and Mare Sprint, the $1.5 million Sprint, and the $1 million Turf Sprint.

If the 1 ¼- mile Classic went to 1 ½ miles, you would see more distance racing in this country.

If I could change one thing, though, it would be track condition.

Tracks have been too hard for decades.

What is wrong with the best horse winning at six furlongs in 1:10 instead of 1:07, or seven furlongs in 1:24 instead of 1:20?

Surfaces that produce those kinds of times must be taking a toll.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Fresh air, if not blue hair, planned for Hansen on Derby day

This will give the racing stewards indigestion, but the word from the Hansen camp Saturday was that Dr. Kendall Hansen, the colt’s namesake and majority owner, is not finished jerking on the tail of buttoned-up Kentucky Derby behavior.

No, he isn’t planning to dye the colt’s tail blue, which was the stunt that had the Keeneland stewards hyperventilating before the Blue Grass Stakes two weeks ago. The tail remains nearly white, the same shade as the rest of the thunderous 3-year-old.

Dr. Hansen has other plans to make the Derby crowd wash out: He’s talking with a skywriter about sketching the name of the winner above Churchill Downs at precisely the moment Gov. Steve Beshear is handing him the 2012 Derby trophy.

“I guess I could be in contact with the plane on the phone and call it off if somehow Hansen doesn’t win,” Hansen said. “Or I could have the name of another winner written up there.”

There’s more. Hansen, who runs a pain-management practice in Northern Kentucky, also has purchased about 3,000 miniature stuffed Hansen dolls. He plans to toss them trick-or-treat style at the track, including the glorious pre-Derby walk from the barns to the paddock.

“Racing needs more people like Dr. Hansen,” said Jim Shircliff, a Louisville-based money manager who owns a piece of the colt.

“This whole experience has been like a rocket ship to the moon,” said Dr. Harvey Diamond, another minority owner.

Amen. This is a horse race, not a tax audit. Lift your mint julep cup and enjoy. I don’t know what track management is thinking, but I know what you’re thinking:

How can I get my hands on a miniature Hansen? Collector’s item.

On Saturday morning at Churchill’s Trackside Training Center, Hansen the horse worked five-eighths of a mile for trainer Mike Maker in 1:011/5. It was his final serious Derby work. This is more than a horse with owners celebrating the moment. Hansen won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs last November and has backed up his credentials by winning the Gotham Stakes and finishing second in the Holy Bull and Blue Grass this year.

Dr. Hansen scratched Saturday, booking a weekend escape to the Dominican Republic. He is expected to report to Louisville on Tuesday for the Derby trainers’ dinner. I spoke with him by telephone. When I finished asking questions, he had one for me:

“Do you think I could get the governor to kiss the ground with me (in the winner’s circle),” he asked.

Be prepared, Louisville. The past-performance chart of Hansen (the owner) indicates he will continue to kick up headlines as relentlessly as his colt dropped, rolled and kicked up sand for nearly 10 playful minutes after his Saturday work.

There is an Internet video on which Hansen says: “It’s like you’re 10 years old and you’re waking up and it’s Christmas every morning. I have a big gift, a big, white, 1,100-pound gift that runs fast and is gorgeous and he’s going to win the Kentucky Derby.”

It’s not a hoax. Hansen told me this: “I’d like to do a Spend A Buick (1985 Derby winner) and wire the damn field.”

His A-list material also features the story about how he paid most of his way through Indiana University medical school with winnings from playing the horses. He surprised his co-owners last week by telling the New York Post that he spent the final $8,000 in his Twin Spires account on exotic bets on Breeders’ Cup day, keying Hansen in the Juvenile. He cleared $420,000.

True?

“Yes,” Hansen said. “I hope he’s 7-1 in the Derby. I’ll put $2,000 on the nose to win. It’s the right thing to do.”

Hansen bred the colt with a mare he purchased for $5,000. He retains 75 percent ownership. Shircliff, Diamond and others own the rest.

Shircliff and Diamond are partners in Skychai Racing. They had their first Derby horse, Twinspired, last year. He finished 17th, beating two horses. Their strain of Derby Fever became more potent.

Both grew up in Louisville, Diamond graduating from Seneca High School, Shircliff from Flaget. Diamond has owned horses for nearly three decades. His most unforgettable medical moment was treating people overwhelmed by the heat during the first football game at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in 1998.

Shircliff is the chief investment officer for River Road Asset Management, recently voted one of the best small businesses to work for in Kentucky. He confessed that he took a cash advance on his MasterCard to claim his first horse at Louisville Downs.

“This game is an excellent hedge against capital gains,” Shircliff said with a wink.

His hair is mostly white, like Hansen’s. Diamond’s is predominanty gray. Any possibility the hair-coloring shifts to the owners’ box for the Derby?

“I’m not going to show up with blue hair,” Diamond said. “I’m preferential to InfraRED and black. But I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us showed up with blue or something.”

You have been warned, Louisville.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

A Kentucky Derby Confession (Or: Going For The Gelding)

Since January, I’ve been writing here about the Kentucky Derby. Horses have joined and fallen off the Derby trail, risen and fallen in expectation, appeared with promise and disappeared with injury or lack of graded earnings.

It would logical to assume, based on the eight Derby-related posts that I’ve written in the last four months, that I can’t wait for the first Saturday in May.

So…I have a confession to make. I am not really a big Kentucky Derby fan.

I get it, I do: I get the hype and the scrutiny and the coverage that starts months in advance of the race. This is, after all, pretty much the only time of year that anyone outside of racing pays attention to the sport, and for at least a couple of weeks, people do actually seem to care who wins horse races—two of them, anyway: the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. And if the same horse happens to win both, people care about who wins the Belmont, and we get three weeks of bonus coverage as people salivate at the thought of the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

I also get the coverage of the Derby as an event: celebrities, big hats, mint juleps. I like that people have Derby parties (especially if wagering is involved). I like that for a few days, racing gets the kind of saturation TV coverage normally reserved for awards shows or oh, maybe the Super Bowl (OK, maybe that’s a little grandiose). Last year, there was even a red carpet at the Derby.

But it’s hard to get worked up about a race that is so anomalous in the context of the sport, and whose result often has so little significance in the post-Derby racing world.

On May 5, 20 3-year-olds are going to the Kentucky Derby starting gate. Twenty. No other Thoroughbred race in North America has 20 starters, and that fact in and of itself means that this race isn’t characteristic, and that horses may not run to form. They’re all running 1 ¼ miles for the first time in their young lives; we can guess, but we won’t know, which ones will “get the distance,” in the sporting vernacular.

OK, you might argue, that’s part of the fun, and I can give you that. And the big field and the chaos factor mean that the odds of competitive horses are going to be higher than they would be in any other race: there’s money to be made if you back the right horse(s). That’s a plus.

So maybe it’s not the actual race, or even the result, that makes me Derby-skeptical. I guess it’s what happens after the race….or rather, what doesn’t happen.

Since 2000, horses that have won the Kentucky Derby have won an average of 1.5 post-Derby races; they’ve averaged 6.4 post-Derby starts, and if you take out the geldings, Funny Cide (2003) and Mine That Bird (2009), the number drops to 3.6. More than half were retired the same year they won the Derby.

Long-term, the economics of racing and breeding make Derby winners a lose-lose for the fans. If we’re lucky enough to get a Derby winner who is actually an accomplished, promising horse, we hold our breaths and hope that we get MAYBE a handful of more chances to see him race before he’s retired.

If we get a fluky Derby winner who got lucky, he’ll play out a mediocre career before he, too, heads to the breeding shed.

So that’s what we have to look forward to? That’s what we all anticipate, months in advance? The most exciting two minutes in sports may well be, in hindsight, the most anticlimactic two minutes in sports.

One can always hope, I guess. My hope would take the form of a supremely talented gelding, one who’d dazzle us on Derby day and go on to a couple of years of domination in the handicap division before settling down to a pampered post-Derby life, albeit one bereft of the charms of the breeding shed.

Our hopes for that are slim this year. In 137 runnings of the Derby, geldings have won only nine times, and this year, only one horse in the top 25 of graded earnings is a gelding: Isn’t He Clever, at #22. I thought that perhaps he could be my Derby horse, but as of this morning, his trainer Steve Asmussen said that he’s no longer under consideration for the race.

The next gelding on the list is All Squared Away; he’s at #29 and not Triple Crown-nominated, so he’s got as much of a shot at running in the race as he does of siring a champion…or anything.

My hope for a gutsy gelding, then, will have to wait for another year, replaced with the hope that maybe this year it will be different, that maybe whoever wins the Kentucky Derby will keep racing for the rest of this year and into next. I won’t hold my breath, though, because when that fully equipped (“intact,” in the vernacular) horse makes it to the winner’s circle, the economics of racing make our chances of seeing him next year about as robust as Isn’t He Clever’s sperm count.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Want to see a bloody corpse? Kentucky racing without race-day lasix

I don’t know a more polite way to say this but: IS THE LEADERSHIP OF THE KENTUCKY HORSE RACING COMMISSION THAT WANTS TO BAN RACE-DAY BLEEDER MEDICATION (in such a sneaky fashion that even some of its commissioners didn’t know it would be up for a vote at Monday’s meeting until late last week) BONKERS?

This is a game-changer for Kentucky racing, and not for the good. Rather, it would contribute in alarming fashion to the devastation of a circuit already on the ropes. You want to see a bloody corpse, that would be Kentucky racing if getting rid of the proven-effective anti-bleeder medication furosemide is banned on race day.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating.

Horses bleed, not just thoroughbreds. Lasix has been proven to prevent or reduce the incidence of bleeding. It is highly regulated. The bettors know who is on Lasix and who is not, because it is prominently noted in the program. It is a system that works when you’re talking about integrity and protecting the public.

Let me stress something else: Mere months ago, Mary Scollay, the commission’s equine medical director, repeatedly assured horsemen that no one was trying to ban Lasix in Kentucky – emphatically and categorically, and she couldn’t understand why trainers such as Hall of Famer Bill Mott and prominent veterinarian Ken Reed kept wanting to turn the dialogue back to potential efforts to ban race-day Lasix, when what she was only discussing was the so-called adjunct bleeder medications also permissible in Kentucky and some other states. Then this comes out of the blue about a flat-out ban on race-day Lasix, with absolutely no warning. And they wonder why horsemen don’t believe what they are told by commission administrators.

I’m guessing those wanting to ban the one medication* allowed on race day (certainly far fewer than, I would guess, any of the commissioners use in any 24-hour span, remembering that caffeine and a whole lot of other things we take daily are illegal in horse racing) are ones who attend Keeneland, with its huge crowds, and Derby and Oaks, where one certainly could believe everything is hunky-dory. (*Also the adjunct anti-bleeder medications in some states. But today virtually no jurisdiction allows anything else within 24 hours of race, and even some very innocuous therapeutic medications can’t be given with 48 hours or more. For those following the rules, it is incredibly drug free. If there are those not following the rules, guess what? – They don’t care! A ban would only be in their favor.)

I suspect those on the commission seeking to ramrod this through are not paying the bills on a 6-year-old horse running for $5,000 claiming on a Thursday at Turfway Park. The Thursdays that Turfway still runs, anyway. (I would say Wednesday, but those have been eliminated at every track in the state but for Keeneland’s six weeks of racing a year and Churchill’s short fall meet. I can’t even say for a Thursday at Ellis Park, since those have been gone for a couple of years.)

Or if they are paying those bills on a nickel claimer, they think they can’t win because everyone else is cheating – certainly not because they have a too-slow horse! – and if only Lasix is banned they would have a better chance.

These commissioners wanting to ban Lasix certainly haven’t been in Kentucky’s racing offices struggling to pull cards together, even with a significant reduction in days.

Surely, for goodness stakes, the motivation isn’t to get an atta-boy! from The New York Times.

The ultimate outcome of Kentucky becoming the first jurisdiction to repeal Lasix would not be universal trumpeting about how great and courageous the commonwealth’s racing regulators are. Instead, it would result in the further exodus of horses to other jurisdictions and heads shaking everywhere by those grounded in reality.

As trainer Dale Romans told me the day before he won the Blue Grass Stakes with Dullahan – and few people in the commonwealth in any position have as much at stake in the industry as he does, with his huge stable (including many he owns), training center and now a farm to house broodmares – trainers and owners don’t need anything more to give them the legitimate excuse to go race at Indiana, where the purses are fatter thanks to slots and the competition not as tough. Or Pennsylvania. West Virginia. And probably soon, Ohio. Think about it: Kentucky a loser to Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio racing.

What has kept Kentucky racing as good as it still is, despite its serious erosion and mega-problems, is loyalty of its owners and trainers who want to race here, whether it’s because they live here or admire the appreciation the public has for the sport. Get rid of Lasix, many will feel no one cares about them and their horses, so why should they care about Kentucky racing?

The racetracks also need to speak out if they find the potential for Kentucky to be standing alone with a Lasix ban to be alarming and risking their already shrinking horse population.

If getting rid of Lasix is such a noble cause, why hasn’t New York – home to many of the horses raced by the elite of the Jockey Club – shown any inclination to repeal its use? You think those horses are going to ship into Kentucky for stakes when they can find similar races elsewhere (and quite possibly for more money) and not risk subjecting their horse to a bleeding episode?

Just take Aruna, winner of last fall’s Grade I Spinster at Keeneland. She was a bleeder in France and sent to America so she could race on Lasix and prove herself on the track, which she did. I’ve used her as an example before, because her camp is open about what brought her to America. But does American racing (and Central Kentucky) really want to get rid of the Arunas of the racing world? She is from one of the greatest racing and breeding operations in the world.

For those owners and breeders (including apparently some on the KHRC) who say Kentucky should be the first in line to ban lasix, I say you don’t need a regulatory change to not run your horses on anti-bleeder medication. Set the example and don’t run your horses on such medication and prove you can be successful without it and that it is just the needless and dangerous crutch you contend it is. Take out ads that your stallion/broodmare never raced on Lasix, if that is the case.

The fact is that horses only have so many starts in them. In many instances, each race has financial impact for those involved with the horse. Why do something that hurts its chances to compete at its best? Especially in the current climate?

It makes no sense, and it has dangerous consequences.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Unfair weights a matter of opinion

Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) – Reigning Horse of the Year Havre de Grace will not be running in Friday’s Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park, a race she won last year. Her connections have decided that the weight assignment is unfair, so the five-year-old mare will skip defending her 2011 victory.

“Larry (trainer Larry Jones) and I really wanted to defend our title in the Apple Blossom,” owner Rick Porter said Saturday. “We were expecting fair weights and when they were released today, Larry called me and we were flabbergasted at the weights.”

Racing Secretary Pat Pope gave Havre de Grace 123 pounds compared to 122 for Awesome Maria, 119 for It’s Tricky and 117 to Plum Pretty.

“Plum Pretty was the most unexpected but a lot of them were very unfair,” Porter continued. “Tiz Miz Sue was getting 8 pounds after just running over a hundred Beyer and winning the graded Azeri Stakes. Absinthe Minded was getting 9.”

Weight assignments are pretty subjective, but the defending Horse of the Year should receive the highest weight and the connections should be honored for that.

While there are other stakes available for Havre de Grace to run the chance to win a second consecutive Apple Blossom would put her in the company of Zenyatta who won the race in 2008 and 2010.

“No one can say that we have ducked any one in racing,” Porter said. “Hard Spun took on every tough race there was as did Round Pond and the immortal Eight Belles. We love the competition. Havre de Grace took on Blind Luck six times and ran against the boys in the prestigious Woodward and we didn’t bat an eye at running in the granddaddy of them all, the Classic. We have decided one thing though, we will take on any horse and take our defeats when we get them but we won’t let the racing secretaries decide who is going to win the races. That is why we took this stand on the Apple Blossom.”

Porter is correct that Havre de Grace has performed versus the best females and males, however, to prove that she is an all-time great Porter and Jones should allow their champion to be tested even if they believe the weight is not appropriate.

“The weights are unfair and I have asked all the journalists to demand that Pope explain how he came up with the numbers for the weights,” Porter concluded. “He owes it to the fans that were going to pack the house for the Apple Blossom. He just didn’t invent these weights, his duty as racing secretary is to analyse each horse and their races and come up with fair weights. Since he had to do it, he should make it public so we can see his thinking and reasoning. I hope he takes on his responsibility. We will run in The La Troienne at Churchill Downs on May 4th. This is exactly what I said we would do if Pope came out with unfair weights. I hope you all understand. We have decisions to make in running a racing operation and today was one of those tough ones.”

Porter and Jones deserve a lot of respect for the handling of Havre de Grace, but they appear to over state the severity of the weight assignment for the Apple Blossom.

All racing fans look forward to seeing Havre de Grace run in the La Troienne and many times more this year.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Slots-racing marriage on the rocks

At a time when the horse racing business has suffered serious a decline, one segment of the sport is enjoying a bonanza. These are great times for horsemen in states where purses are subsidized by revenue from slot machines.

Owners and trainers at Parx Racing — the former Philadelphia Park — must think that they have died and gone to heaven when they run a bottom-level $5,000 claimer in a race with a $25,000 purse — plus a bonus if the animal was bred in Pennsylvania. Horsemen at minor-league tracks such as Charles Town (W.Va.) Presque Isle Downs (Pa.), and Zia Park (N.M.) regularly compete for big-league purses because of slot money.

These windfalls exist because many states, when they legalized slots, opted to install them in racetracks and decided to aid the sport by earmarking a certain percentage of revenues for purses and breeder awards. But what the state gives, the state can take away, and many are taking a fresh look at their largesse to the horse business:

◗ In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Corbett has proposed cutting $72 million of subsidies to horse racing and breeding to pay for other agricultural projects.

◗ In Ontario, the provincial government has proposed ending all slots payments to the horse racing industry as of 2013.

◗ In Indiana, the state’s inspector general advocated slashing the subsidy for horse racing.

◗ In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie ended state support of racing and blasted leaders of the sport for “extorting the taxpayers for millions of dollars in subsidies to their industry.”

Horsemen have reacted with shock and outrage to such proposals, but they should have seen these haymakers coming. Many state governments are under severe financial pressure and are struggling to maintain basic services for their citizens. As politicians look for sources of revenue, they can’t ignore the millions of dollars now flowing into horse racing, and they can readily frame populist arguments that the money is being misallocated. Christie said: “I am no longer going to permit millionaire horsemen to take money . . . from the taxpayers of the state to fund their industry.”

In Ontario, Education Minister Laurel Broten sent out a press release declaring, “We simply can’t afford to support . . . horse racing subsidies . . . when the . . . money could get better health care for our seniors and full-day kindergarten for our 4- and 5-year-olds.”

In most places, the racing/slot machine relationships developed along similar lines. In some cases, a racetrack couldn’t survive on its own merits, but it was such an important part of its community that the public supported legalizing slots to keep it alive. (This was the case at Charles Town.) In others, proposals for legalized slots faced a lot of not-in-my-backyard opposition, and the perfect answer was to put the slots in an existing gambling facility – a racetrack. The track, of course, got a percentage of the profits for running the operation. The rationale for allotting money to purses and breeders’ awards (rather than, say, health care for seniors) was to revive the sport by improving the product and attracting more fans.

But every racing fan knows what happened instead. When slots were legalized, the machines proved to be so lucrative many track owners lost interest in the sport and viewed it as a nuisance. They made no effort to improve the game or attract new fans; slot players are more profitable customers. The day-to-day racing at tracks such as Parx and Delaware Park is just about as dreary as it was before slots inflated the purses. One track that has made the most of slots money is Woodbine, in Toronto, which offers some of the best daily cards on the continent and uses its resources to promote the sport and to create new horseplayers. But Woodbine is a rarity.

More often, slot money props up tracks that have virtually no fan base and couldn’t exist on their own merits. This is true of most harness and dog tracks, and some Thoroughbred operations – such as Presque Isle Downs. Two previous racetracks in Erie, Pa., went broke from lack of support. Presque Isle was built when slots were legalized in the state, and it had to be a racetrack to get the machines, but its racing business is as pitiful as that of its predecessors. The track’s average attendance last season was 705, and those customers bet an average of $35,000 per day on the live product. Yet Presque Isle pays huge purses – more than $200,000 a day.

While the money has benefited owners, trainers, and Pennsylvania breeders, it has done nothing to popularize or improve horse racing. On the contrary, it has hurt the sport in some ways. At a time when almost every track is suffering from a shortage of Thoroughbreds, the horses who go to Erie could be running at viable tracks, helping them to offer a better product, instead of racing in a place where almost nobody watches them.

Too many people in the Thoroughbred industry are content with the status quo. In the crowded Mid-Atlantic region, racetracks should agree to pare down their schedules, offering fewer races with larger fields that fans want to bet. But horsemen habitually resist such cutbacks, and most tracks continue to lose fans.

However, the status quo is unsustainable because more and more politicians will be asking: Why should we subsidize a sport that so few people care about? Why should we help an industry that won’t help itself? And Thoroughbred racing can offer no good responses to these questions.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Home Sweet Home Page

The best sports moment of the weekend was not Danica Patrick going wall to wall; it was not some football guy in muscle tights scoring against thin air at the combine; it was not Pete Weber pinning Jason Belmonte (at bowling); it was not the match play golf finals watched live on the course by about the same number of people attending the Podunk Open; it was not LeBron James refusing to take the last shot in the NBA All Star Game; it was not the fish scales at the bass tournament (the weigh-in).

All these events received considerable mainstream media attention.

The best sporting events were the two Kentucky Derby prep races: the Risen Star in New Orleans won by the Godfather, El Padrino, by one full nose after a tooth-and-nail stretch run versus a speed demon on a fast track; and the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream, devoured by probable Derby favorite Union Rags, who made a pool 1 futures bet at 7-1 look fat as he came down the stretch like a go cart at the soap box derby, easily winning under a fingertip ride.

There was not a word or an instant of film coverage of these two races on my local TV stations, not a mention in print in the hometown newspaper.

Why is major thoroughbred horse racing so often relegated to small-type “other” headings, like the makers of holes-in-one at the local municipal courses?

There’s no explaining most of it.

Big-time horse racing has great TV ratings, always underscored by the fact that the best fans are at the tracks on race day, not home with a Nielson book.

And horse racing fans have cash. True, it might not last long. But there is usually more where that came from. And the survivors of the handicapping games usually have more cash to spend than, say, college kids filling out 75 free college hoop brackets.

Local newspaper coverage is lacking in horse race coverage because local newspapers no longer have the paper to escort to the garbage much more than perch guts. Radical newspaper space restrictions push horse race coverage to the bone pile.

Local TV sports looks like the old FedEx commercials in which talking fast was the pitch. A typical local sports report lasts about four minutes, less if there’s a cloud and the weather coverage needs to borrow another minute.

Horse racing attendance is good at the spas, the vacation sites such as Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., where purses are being raised faster than beer cups. Slots in the sticks enable mom-and-pop stables to stay open and have plugs running for $30,000. Slots may not be a cure-all, but they’ll do until Social Security folds.

Yet national horse race coverage is comprised mostly of the Triple Crown races and the Breeder’s Cup in the fall. So be it: We have the Internet!

Sure, the Internet is populated by a fair share of schemers and scammers, shysters and suckers, liars, cheats and con artists.

But it’s perfect for horse players.

And here we are, just a click or a few away from an unlimited world of entertainment and excitement, and dreams that are more possible than most.

Horse race writing is the best in sports. Always has been, always will be.

Why?

We’re a heartbeat from the most intense emotions, miraculous victory or abject horror.

Emotional writing makes for good reading. Length is not an issue.

Live races and replays are all over the Internet. There is horrific handicapping advice galore. There’s nothing like an array of bad picking to clear the way to victory.

We’re a click away from the feature race at a major track, several clicks from a tout of a guaranteed loser, a few clicks from some actual literature, four clicks from alleged inside info galore, and reactions from some of the better anonymous nicknames around.

Possibly there’s not enough hate in horse racing to be out there on a more regular basis.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Is this the last chance for casino gambling in Kentucky?

FRANKFORT, KY. — Supporters of expanded gambling have said this year’s legislative session — fresh off Gov. Steve Beshear’s landslide re-election win over Senate President David Williams — may offer their best chance yet for success.

But is it also their last chance?

“I don’t think so. Not at all,” said Beshear, who has proposed a constitutional amendment that is expected to get its first airing on Wednesday before the Senate State & Local Government Committee.

Whether the measure passes this session or not — and he thinks it can — Beshear said, “I am excited that the issue is finally getting the attention that I think it deserves, and I think it will only go on from here.”

Others, on both sides of the debate, aren’t so sure.

While the issue likely wouldn’t go away, they say, a defeat could seriously derail political momentum, at least for the push to allow expanded gaming through a constitutional amendment — an approach that circumscribes the chance of a court challenge.

Martin Cothran, a senior policy analyst for the Family Foundation of Kentucky, which opposes expanded gambling, said a defeat on the Senate floor could kill the issue practically and politically speaking.

“I think … unless there’s a change in the party dynamics of the Senate, that this is the last hurrah,” Cothran said.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, who has pushed for expanded gambling in the past but prefers doing it through statute, agreed that defeat of Senate Bill 151 might end the push for an amendment.

But he said, “I don’t think you can say something that’s been around for 20 years is going to die overnight.

“… This issue’s not going to go away until we address it or solve it or put an end to it. The manner in which the issue is addressed may change, but I don’t think the issue would go away.”

When asked the same question, Williams, a Burkesville Republican who opposes expanded gambling, said he doesn’t respond to hypotheticals. During last year’s campaign, he said the votes could be in the Senate to pass an amendment, but he has been critical of the way the current bill is drafted.

A constitutional amendment requires a three-fifths vote in both chambers of the legislature — 23 senators and 60 representatives — and ratification by the voters in the November general election.

SB 151, which contains Beshear’s proposed constitutional amendment, was introduced last week and assigned to the State & Local Government Committee, whose chairman, Georgetown Republican Damon Thayer, is the measure’s sponsor.

The amendment would allow up to five casinos at racetracks and two at other locations, though the latter could not be within 60 miles of one of the state’s eight tracks.

But that wording could change significantly by the time the committee is expected to take it up on Wednesday, with Beshear and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a Republican, planning to testify for it and Cothran against it.

Thayer previously compared the bill’s drafting to “threading the needle” — finding a compromise that works for those who want casinos only at tracks and those who want no guarantees for tracks.

But responding to criticism of the bill’s language, both he and Stumbo said a simpler amendment would have a better shot at passing.

Specifically, some legislators in both parties and chambers have been critical of the amendment’s preferential treatment of the horse industry and in how the 60-mile radius in essence gives racetracks like Churchill Downs in Louisville and Turfway Park in Florence monopolies in their markets.

If those tracks didn’t get one of the five racetrack casinos, then there wouldn’t be any casino in the Kentucky portion of their markets.

“There are some legitimate constitutional concerns that are being brought up and I think we’re going to have to be mindful of those,” Thayer said on Thursday.

He said that he thinks a simpler amendment — leaving the racetrack issues to enabling legislation that would be considered later if the amendment passes — is “the way we’re headed.”

In an interview with The Courier-Journal, Beshear said he may make changes to the bill in response to complaints from legislators.
“We’re getting a lot of useful suggestions, and I’m going to be talking with a number of folks in the legislature,” he said.

As it stands now, the bill has at least five votes in committee — six are needed for passage — and Thayer has said it likely will get to the Senate floor, where Republicans command a 23-15 majority, including one independent who caucuses with them.

While the Family Foundation has declared the bill dead, and opponents plan to rally against it Tuesday at the Capitol, Thayer said he doesn’t believe anyone really knows where the votes will be when and if the roll is called on the floor.

“I think that’s difficult to say definitively, at this time, whether it’s going to pass or fail,” he said. “I think it’s very close. I do think it could go either way.”

Cothran said he believes the bill might die in Thayer’s committee. But if it does get to a floor vote, he believes a decisive defeat “is a very real possibility” — and effectively would spell the end to the push for expanded gaming, assuming the makeup of the Senate remains similar.

“I think that any kind of conservative leadership would have plenty of justification to say the next time they bring a bill like this, ‘been there, done that,’ ” he said.

Cothran acknowledged that “as long as there’s big money in it for casino advocates,” the incentive to continue the push remains. “But I think that they’re going to find fewer politicians willing to risk their credibility on it,” he said.

Thayer said he agrees with Cothran on every issue but this one.

“To me it’s about letting the people decide,” Thayer said, declining to say whether he thinks the issue is dead forever if his bill fails.

“I never want to say anything is alive or dead forever,” he said. “But this is the last time I will sponsor it.”

Patrick Neely, executive director of the pro-gambling Kentucky Equine Education Project, said they don’t see an end to the issue if the bill fails.

“As long as our signature industry remains at a competitive disadvantage and as long as hundreds of millions of Kentucky dollars continue flowing to out-of-state casinos, the issue will continue to be debated and discussed,” he said.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?