Posts Tagged ‘blood-horse’

Only a few days after his Senate committee approved a KY horse industry aid bill including Instant Racing, Damon Thayer has withdrawn his bill from consideration. He now prefers that Governor Steve Beshear sign an executive order to bring the popular alternative to slot machines to Kentucky’s racetracks after opposition from anti-gaming groups.

It appears that Senate President David Williams has put the pressure on Thayer to withdraw the bill even after expressing the sentiment that it had bipartisan support.

"There’s still a chance (at passage)," Thayer said. "I just didn’t feel comfortable moving forward in its current form."

It begs the question, what has happened between six days ago when it came out of your committee and today Damon?

Read it at the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Investigators with the California Horse Racing Board said they will take no action at this time against owner Ahmed Zayat, who in documents related to his Zayat Stables’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing said he loaned more than $600,000 to convicted bookmakers Michael and Jeffrey Jelinsky and other family members. The New York Times first reported the loans last week. The Jelinsky brothers were convicted of felony bookmaking charges last year after a federal investigation uncovered an extensive illegal betting operation they ran out of Las Vegas.

Two other states, Kentucky and New York, are said to be investigating Zayat’s relationships with the Jelinskys.

The CHRB explained, somewhat curiously, that the loans were made before the Jelinskys were convicted of a felony. But the regulation that applies to CHRB licensees says nothing about “convicted” only “known” bookmakers.

Here is the language of CHRB Rule No. 1902, Conduct Detrimental to Horse Racing.

“No licensee shall engage in any conduct prohibited by this Division nor shall any licensee engage in any conduct which by its nature is detrimental to the best interests of horse racing including, but not limited to: (a) knowing association with any known bookmaker, known tout, or known felon, (b) indictment or arrest for a crime involving moral turpitude or which is punishable by imprisonment in the state or federal prison, when such indictment or arrest is the subject of notorious or widespread publicity in the news media, and when there is probable cause to believe the licensee committed the offenses charged, (c) solicitation of or aiding and abetting any other person to participate in any act or conduct prohibited by this Division.

Did the CHRB investigator read the CHRB’s own rules?

Read it at Bloodhorse.com

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- Ray Paulick

In a column he apparently started writing a month ago, Dan Liebman of the Blood-Horse throws down the panic gauntlet. After several weeks of patience, Liebman is calling on all California trainers with aspiring 3-year-olds to ‘GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN’.

Perhaps trying to get a free plane ticket to New Mexico, he goes even further by proclaiming that the Sunland Derby will have a better field than the Santa Anita Derby. Nothing like a major magazine editor trying to kill off the entire racing industry in one of its biggest states.

Read it at the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

According to Tom LaMarra at the Blood-Horse, Satish Sanan discussed the possibility of a permanent host site for the Breeders’ Cup on the satellite radio show ‘At the Races with Steve Byk’.

Suggesting that Santa Anita Park will change surfaces, Sanan explained the Southern California track has everything needed to become the permanent site. However, when a caller asked if a decision had been made, he responded by saying ‘It’s not ratified yet."

Read it at the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

The much-maligned Thoroughbred owner Michael Gill continues to contend he was dealt a bad hand by those who were jealous of his success in the industry.

"I’m an owner that lives 600 miles away. Why am I ruled off? Shouldn’t everybody be asking these questions?", blaming a local bias for his ouster from the sport. "It’s the locals that run these places."

Read it at the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Jason Shandler of the Blood-Horse wrote today about Thorn Song’s apparent second chance at life. Quoting an unknown source that he had ‘an almost zero chance’ at survival, Shandler goes on to describe the recovery ‘thanks to breakthrough stem cell therapy’.

This comes on the heels of the revelation that Ahmed Zayat had cashed in on a $2.75 million insurance policy for the Grade 1-winning son of Unbridled’s Song despite his still being alive. According to veterinarian Dr. Doug Herthel, "Mr. Zayat was devastated. He called almost daily for two months for updates and when we told him (about putting Thorn Song down) he was actually crying on the phone. I’ve had thousands of clients and you could tell he genuinely cared about this horse."

Is this a truly remarkable turnaround from death’s doorstep or is the Blood-Horse trying to back up Dan Liebman’s awkward contention that racing needs more people like Zayat?

Read it at the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

PRESS RELEASE

foaltrack.com, a website which enables fans and industry participants to follow the development of young Thoroughbreds and sales horses, has incorporated Equibase Virtual Stable® notifications to further assist users in tracking named juvenile horses, it was announced today by Drew Rayman, founder of foaltrack.

“As yearlings turn two, get named, start breezing, racing and winning, foaltrack members will know immediately with free workout, entry and result notifications provided by Equibase Virtual Stable,” said Rayman.

A unique homepage is created for every horse entered on foaltrack. Many of the entries include photos of the horses, enabling an overview of a stallion’s progeny and the progress of each horse through the conclusion of its racing career. Through foaltrack’s relationship with The Blood-Horse, each horse’s page includes TrueNicks nicking information and links to the Stallion Register.

“It’s like Facebook for horses,” added Rayman. “foaltrack has consolidated multiple sources of free data (race results, entries, workouts, nicking, pedigree) onto a single platform, where buyers, breeders, owners and thousands of racing fans experience the thrill of the sales and track their favorite horses. This is a huge achievement for our industry.”

Launched in August 2009, foaltrack.com has become a leading website for tracking young Thoroughbreds and sales horses. Fasig-Tipton and Keeneland participated in the foaltrack.com launch, adding over 10,000 foals of 2008 to the foaltrack database during the 2009 yearling sales season. foaltrack’s partnerships with forums, blogs, social sites and industry organizations has already attracted over 5,000 participants, giving foaltrack a reach well beyond 50,000 Thoroughbred buyers, breeders, owners, stallion farms and fans. 

Equibase Company is a partnership between The Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America. Its website, equibase.com, features a comprehensive menu of free entries, results and race charts as well as premium handicapping products from past performances to selections for handicappers of every skill level. The site is also home to Virtual Stable®, which provides e-mail notification of entry, result and workout information for horses that fans want to follow. Virtual Stable also offers seasonal “race series” notifications, a once-daily report of activity for contenders for the Triple Crown races and the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

By Ray Paulick
“I’ve been doing this since 1979, and I just can’t get a fair shake.” So says Michael Gill, North America’s leading owner by money and races won on four different occasions who finds himself in a familiar position–at the center of controversy, after Penn National jockeys voted Saturday night not to ride in races if Gill’s horses are entered.

The jockeys took the initiative following the fifth race at Penn National, when a Gill-trained horse, Laughing Moon, blew a suspensory and fell after the finish, causing another horse to go down. Gill had a runner entered in the sixth race, but that horse was scratched. Gill-owned horses entered later this week also have been scratched, and Penn National officials said Monday they temporarily have banned his horses from the entry box, according to bloodhorse.com. Jockeys complained that an unusually high number of horses owned by Gill have either broken down or suffered injuries in Penn National races in the last few months, putting riders at risk. One of Gill’s horses broke down on Thursday night, and Laughing Moon became the 15th runner since October to break down, pull up during the race, be eased, or return lame following the finish.

Penn National officials said seven of Gill’s horses broke down in 2009, a figure that Gill disputes. But even if that number is correct, he said, he believes his percentage of breakdowns is in line or lower than that of other stables that compete at the Pennsylvania track.

I was unable to reach Gill over the weekend prior to publication of Monday’s Paulick Report article on the Penn National incident, but I contacted him Monday at his Mortgage Specialists office in New Hampshire. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy with the actions of the jockeys or with the unwelcome publicity, and in a 30-minute, emotional interview touched on a wide range of subjects. Among the revelations from the 54-year-old Gill were:

- He has fired Darrel Delahoussaye, the trainer of Laughing Moon. “They (Penn National) put a gun to my head, and someone had to take the bullet,” he said. “I feel bad about this. But if I lose the (49) stalls at Penn National, I’m out of business.”

- Some time last year, Gill hired former Oaklawn Park and Louisiana Downs leading trainer Cole Norman. Norman was released from prison in January 2009 after serving time for negligent homicide, for his role in a fatal car crash in which he was under the influence of prescription pain killers. Norman works at Gill’s Elk Creek Ranch in Oxford, Pa., which is used as a training center for horses that race at Penn National, Philadelphia Park, Laurel, Mountaineer Park and Charles Town. “He’s a good trainer,” said Gill.

- Though he said he has lost tens of millions of dollars over the years, Gill claims he didn’t “put one penny of my money into the business last year. I can go to the IRS and say this is a business, it isn’t a hobby.” Gill said he is in a five-year audit with the Internal Revenue Service over whether or not his racing stable is a legitimate business.

- Apart from the horses that broke down at Penn National in 2009, Gill claims he had only one other horse break down in a race. “I ran 2,247 horses last year,” he said. “If a guy had 100 starts and one horse breaks down, is that unacceptable? We’re running in the middle of winter on muddy tracks.

- Gill denies “running sore horses,” and said he didn’t have a single bad test in 2009. “And was anything found in any of my horses after they broke down? Nothing.” I asked Gill about widespread rumors that shock-wave therapy is used at Elk Creek Ranch on horses close to a race. “I never use shock-wave therapy. Never have had a machine. Never, ever used it once, and believe me, plenty of guys have tried to sell me the machines. I don’t believe in them.” He also said he would “open the farm to anyone to inspect it. They can go over every horse I have.”

- He attributes much of the stable’s success to the fact he gives all of his horses medication for Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis, or EPM, a neurological disease. “A good 80% of horses have EPM,” he said. He also has throat surgeries, or myectomies, performed on many of the horses he claims because “with EPM, one side of the flap (in the epiglottis) is gone, and the other half doubles in size. Then it closes up. The surgery helps them breathe.”

- His stable, at one time consisting of 450 horses in 2009, was reduced to 220 and he is in the process of reducing it to 120. “I’m still downsizing,” he said. Furthermore, Gill claims that “all of the horses go to retirement programs.” He wasn’t specific as to where they go. “I give good homes to them,” he said. “I’ve given away 20 horses in the last 30 days for $1.”

- Gill didn’t say he planned to take legal action against Penn National, the jockey colony or the Jockeys’ Guild, but said “Do you know when people organize against one person, that’s a significant lawsuit. Does anybody understand that? I’m tired of suing racetracks—and winning, by the way, every effing time.” He said the jockeys took the action–reported to be a unanimous vote—because “it’s a very closed community at Penn National; a lot of good old boys. I went in there and won all these races, and I’m winning with only two jockeys.”

- Though he lives and works far away in New Hampshire, Gill said he keeps tabs on the stable both at the training farm and the track. “There’s not a race that goes off that I don’t see,” he said. “I have cameras in the barn that go right to my office. I turn around and see every race. I do what I can to be able to run both businesses.”

Why, I asked Gill, is he still in the business, if he thinks he is so mistreated and so misunderstood? “I love the competition. I love the animal. I am a competitor. I am that $5,000 broke down racehorse. I’m a raw competitor with bad knees and sore neck. What better place to compete than in horse racing, and I don’t even gamble on these horses.”

Gill continues to be denied stalls at many tracks, and doesn’t understand why he isn’t appreciated for his involvement in the game and for “showing the industry that you can make money doing this. Of course, if people find out they don’t have to buy a $1-million yearling to make money, do you think they’ll spend money at those sales?”

I suggested to him that people spending that kind of money are looking to win big races during the Triple Crown or at the Breeders’ Cup, not $5,000 claiming races in the dead of winter. “That’s the lottery mentality,” he said.

He turned the tables and asked me a question: “Why don’t you like me?” I said I thought he was arrogant and used his horses as a means to an end.  “You’re mistaking arrogance with competitiveness,” he said. It was clearly an argument I wasn’t going to win.

“Look,” he said. “I came from a seminary, had no money, didn’t go to college. I worked harder than everybody else to get what I have. I started my mortgage company in a one-bedroom apartment, and my living room was my office. I loved horse racing and turned around and invested my money. I go to work every day and haven’t had a vacation for as long as I remember.

“I just don’t understand: What have I done that’s so wrong?”

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
The news just doesn’t get any better at the publication where I spent 15 years of my professional life, but the fact that Blood-Horse magazine has laid off at least five more employees today is just as much a sign of the collateral damage from the Kentucky Thoroughbred industry’s economic troubles as it is a statement on the present and future of newspapers and magazines.

Tick off five more losses from the estimated 100,000 jobs the horse industry contributes directly or indirectly to Kentucky’s economy. I have lost count of how many of my friends and former colleagues at Blood-Horse have lost their jobs in the last 18 months. As my Paulick Report partner, Brad Cummings, and I have traveled from business to business in Kentucky, we’re hearing the same refrain, whether it’s at farms, racetracks, suppliers, tack shops, insurance or advertising agencies: this industry is hurting, and it’s painful to see the continuing losses and the damage it inflicts on the individuals and their families.

Each job loss within Kentucky’s signature industry should send a dire message to Frankfort, but I’m afraid our state legislators are tone deaf. With the news that VLT or slots legislation is almost certainly a non-starter again in 2010, it means that Kentucky’s horse industry faces another year of operating on a playing field that is far from level with a majority of states. Racehorses, mares and stallions are leaving the state, and so are the jobs they contribute.

You’ve read it here and many other places that print publications are in trouble, and there’s no doubt the razor thin issues the Blood-Horse has been printing lately reflect a significant shift in advertising dollars from print to online publications. Advertisers are adjusting out of necessity since their revenues are down, and they have to maximize every dollar they spend. Make no mistake: I’m grateful to be on the right side of the technology curve, but it doesn’t make it easier to see what’s happening to so many former colleagues.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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Kentucky State Senate President David Williams’ referendum calling for a constitutional amendment on expansion of gambling failed in a party line vote yesterday. While it received a majority (21 - 16 with one Democrat absent), it takes 23 votes for any legislation to pass the Senate.

Senator Kathy Stein called out Williams by pointing out his hypocricy on the issue. This is a referendum and noted that the Senate President had previously stated Kentucky isn’t a ‘referendum state’.

Click here for the entire Blood-Horse article

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings