Posts Tagged ‘kentucky oaks’

By Ray Paulick

Bob Evans, president and chief executive officer of Churchill Downs Inc., said during a Friday morning press conference at the company’s flagship track in Louisville, Ky., that the CDI board of directors discussed the possibility of reducing the field size of the Kentucky Derby during a regularly scheduled meeting in New Orleans last week.

The Derby’s maximum field size of 20 is under scrutiny in the wake of the death of the filly Eight Belles in last year’s Derby, even though her fatal injuries occurred after the finish and apparently were unrelated to the number of runners or trouble she may have encountered in the race. The Derby traditionally has the largest field of any race in the United States. No Derby starter has fallen during the running of the race since 1970, when Holy Land clipped heels and fell going into the far turn.

By contrast, Breeders’ Cup fields are limited to 14 starters.

Maximum field size of 14 horses and the prohibition of fillies running against males were considerations in an original discussion document circulated by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to industry leaders who formed what ultimately came to be known as the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance.

Field size or sex limitations were not part of the final recommendations of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance Pledge, which can be viewed by clicking here.

Evans said CDI has devoted a great deal of time and resources to examine a wide range of safety issues since the death of Eight Belles and has adopted all of the safety recommendations made by committees formed earlier this year by the Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association.

The CDI board discussed the reduction of the field size, Evans said, though he gave no indication whether a change will be made. “For now, it’s the way it’s always been,” he said. Nominations to the Triple Crown races, including the Derby, state that the size of the Derby can be “up to 20 horses.”

A reduction in field size might not be greeted favorably by horse owners and trainers who throughout the winter and spring closely follow whether their 3-year-olds are in the leading 20 contenders, based on money earned in graded or group stakes races. Churchill recently announced a marketing agreement with Kempton racecourse in England that will guarantee one spot in the Derby field to the winner of the Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes, a 1 1/8-mile race on Polytrack, on March 18.

Handle on the Derby would also decline in the event of a reduction in the field size. Evans said Churchill has researched Derby handle in relationship to field size but would not say how much handle might fall. A reduction from 20 to 14 starters would also cost Churchill Downs $300,000 in lost entry and starting fees ($25,000 to enter and $25,000 to start).

Evans discussed the Derby field size and other safety measures following a media briefing announcing that Oaks and Derby ticket prices, with a few exceptions, would be frozen in 2009. “Our slowing economy is having a pronounced effect, and many of our customers have been affected in various ways as well,” Evans said. “Although the Kentucky Derby occupies an elite spot in the world of sports and tickets are typically in high demand, we want to keep our price points at the same level to help our customers in this challenging economic climate.” Click here to read more about the ticket price freeze.

The only exceptions will be scheduled price increases in the 30-year personal seat license program, which are coming off a three-year price freeze; some luxury suites and Marquee Village accommodations; and reserved seats in the infield.

Churchill Downs is also offering the opportunity for on-track customers to buy Derby reserved seats in a sweepstakes running each day from tomorrow (Saturday, Nov. 22) through Nov. 29. Individuals whose names are drawn will be eligible to buy two Derby tickets ranging in price from $88 to $207. (Derby tickets range in price from $88 for infield reserved seats to $693 on millionaire’s row.) One thousand of the tracks 55,000 seats are being offered in the sweepstakes. For more details, click here.

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By Ray Paulick

Under normal circumstances, handle on the 2008 Breeders’ Cup World Championships would blow past all previous betting records. But the economic crisis gripping the United States and many other countries is anything but normal.

This year’s World Championships take place over two days at Santa Anita Park Oct. 24-25 and includes 14 Breeders’ Cup races, up from the 11 held at Monmouth Park in 2007 when the event was first expanded to two days.  Last year’s two-day handle was a Breeders’ Cup record $147 million ($31.5 million on the Friday card and $115.7 million on Saturday), but the total was below expectations by at least 10% because of the extremely wet weather conditions. The previous all-sources wagering record was set in 2006 when $140.3 million was wagered on eight Breeders’ Cup races on a single day at Churchill Downs.

Ken Kirchner, the president of FalKirk International and the longtime wagering consultant to the Breeders’ Cup, wouldn’t make any predictions about this year’s handle. “It’s hard to say where the economy is going to be in 10 days,” Kirchner told the Paulick Report. “Everybody has been down between 10% and 20% in wagering all summer and fall. Things can change quickly, but certainly the trend isn’t good.”

Kirchner hopes some fans have been stockpiling a bankroll for the big event. “It’s not a positive situation,” he said, “but we’re going to have very strong and full fields and some people may just be waiting for this as opposed to betting the run-of-the-mill races.”

Holding the Breeders’ Cup’s traditional dirt races on a synthetic surface doesn’t bother Kirchner. “The new (Pro-Ride) track seems to be playing fair,” he said. “If the horses show up, the bettors will follow.

Kirchner did say scheduling the Breeders’ Cup on the last weekend of the month is a disadvantage because of consumer spending habits. “Having it at the beginning of the month (when Social Security and other fixed income checks arrive) makes it 3% to 5% stronger,” he said.

The Breeders’ Cup had the first $100-million wagering day in North American racing history Nov. 6, 1999, at Gulfstream Park. That was the year the Filly & Mare Turf was added, making it an eight-race championship.

By comparison, Kentucky Derby day betting topped $100 million for the first time in 2000, and it’s grown significantly since. Churchill Downs now holds the North American record of $175 million established on the 2006 Kentucky Derby program. Add wagering from Friday’s Kentucky Oaks program ($33 million in 2006), and the total tops $208 million.

It’s clear the Breeders’ Cup braintrust is trying to emulate the success of the Friday Oaks/Saturday Derby format at Churchill Downs by bundling all of the filly and mare races on this year’s Friday program (and by requiring fans to purchase seats for both days as Churchill Downs has done with the Oaks and Derby). The Breeders’ Cup doesn’t have the cachet of the Kentucky Derby (or the Oaks for that matter), though that doesn’t mean the new format will not work.

With the additional Breeders’ Cup races, better weather and a more traditional big race venue (Santa Anita vs. Monmouth Park), handle will increase this year. My prediction is for $175 million in wagers over the two championship days. Without all the economic uncertainty, $200 million would seem realistic.

SPEAKING OF BETTING, REMEMBER THAT JUNE 28 RACE AT PHILADELPHIA PARK when wagers were allowed at some Florida simulcast sites after the race had been run? The Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau issued a report and sent it to the tracks involved – Philadelphia Park and Tampa Bay Downs – but according to Peter Berube, Tampa Bay’s vice president and general manager, he still doesn’t understand exactly how the Philly Park past-post bets occurred.

“I have the report,” Berube told the Paulick Report last week. “It’s highly technical but draws no conclusions and places no blame on anybody. Apparently it was a sequence of events that took place between the tote companies.”

Scientific Games (formerly Autotote), which handles wagers for Philadelphia Park, was experiencing technical problems with its system that day at races from Philly and Delaware Park. Tampa Bay Downs and 11 other North Florida wagering sites (dog tracks and jai-alai frontons) use AmTote. A communications breakdown between the systems failed to send a stop-bet signal to AmTote.

Joe Wilson, chief operating officer of Philadelphia Park, did not return phone calls seeking a comment.

According to Berube, the past-post wagering was limited to his track, with most of the past-post bets placed by one customer, who is known as a big bettor at Tampa Bay. “What’s in the report would lead me to believe that there was no abnormal spike in bets overall,” Berube said. “We were the 14^th ranked site in terms of total bets (on the fourth race, the race in question), but first in cashes. We were the only site that had a negative settlement (with more winnings that money wagered).”

Berube said he interviewed the horseplayer who allegedly made the past-post wagers but allowed him to collect on his winning bets. “We brought people in and spoke with them but after Philadelphia Park priced the race I couldn’t tell them to give us the money back.

“I’ve been here 15 years and have never experienced anything like this before,” said Berube, whose father, Paul Berube, is the former head of the TRPB.

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Two years ago, Deep Impact, a two-time Horse of the Year in Japan, traveled to Paris to take on the world’s best grass runners in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Thousands of Japanese fans followed the horse to France and bet with such confidence that Deep Impact was the odds-on favorite to win what is arguably Europe’s most prestigious race.

The son of Sunday Silence could do no better than third, however, a stinging loss that paled in comparison to the news that followed  days later, when results of a post-race test showed the presence of the prohibited therapeutic medication Ipratropium, which Deep Impact was allowed to take during training in Japan to treat lung congestion. He had subsequently been treated with the drug in France prior to the Arc.

In a country where honor is in abundance, trainer Yasuo Ikee took the fall. He said he thought he was following the withdrawal time guidelines, but accepted full blame and responsibility for the error. There was no appeal. Ikee apologized to French authorities and to Japanese racing fans. He said he would do everything in his power to never make a similar mistake in the future.

A little over a month later, when Deep Impact scored an overpowering victory back home in the Japan Cup, Ikee was nearly moved to tears during a post-race press conference when asked about his experience in France. He continued to apologize for the medication positive, saying that it was by far the lowest point of his professional career. The Japan Cup win lightened the burden he felt over the Arc defeat and the humiliation of the post-race disqualification, but it was clear he continued to carry a large amount of shame and embarrassment over the incident.

I thought of Yasuo Ikee this past week when American racing’s bad boy, Rick Dutrow, reacted like a petulant child when asked about a positive test by one of his horses racing at Churchill Downs the day before he saddled Big Brown to win the Kentucky Derby. “It’s not my fault, though it’s my responsibility,” he was quoted as saying in a press conference that turned bizarre. Dutrow plans to appeal his 15-day suspension, not because he feels the ruling will be overturned but because the system allows him to delay any suspension through the appeals process, and he wants to put off any punishment as long as possible so he can be with his horses.

How admirable.

Worse, however, Dutrow said, in effect, “Clenbuterol? It’s no big deal.” He not only refused to accept blame for the positive test, he then started suggesting other past and current trainers were bigger cheaters than he was.  

The New York Post’s headline said it best: Big Brown Trainer Mouths Off Again.

If timing is everything, the news of Dutrow’s bad test couldn’t have come at a worse time for IEAH Stable, the majority owner of Big Brown. Only a few days earlier, the outfit pledged to race its horses drug free beginning Oct. 1. Until then, I guess, it’s “Katy, bar the door!”

Dutrow’s clenbuterol positive wasn’t the only time medication was in the news this week. Steve Asmussen, this year’s leading trainer by money and wins and the conditioner of reigning Horse of the Year Curlin, was notified of a positive test for Lidocaine in one of his horses racing in Texas last month. His hearing is scheduled for July 18.

Asmussen has numerous medication violations during his career and served a six-month suspension in late 2006-early 2007 for a mepivacaine positive. Unlike Dutrow,  he was smart enough to allow his attorney do the talking for him, and stuck to training horses. Asmussen’s lead attorney is Maggi Moss, last year’s leading Thoroughbred owner in the U.S. by wins.

Consider this: the trainers of the 2007 Horse of the Year, the 2008 Kentucky Derby winner and the 2008 Kentucky Oaks winner (Larry Jones) are all facing positive drug tests for horses in their care. Anyone who thinks racing doesn’t have a problem is in serious denial.

Finally, in what could turn out to be the most significant medication story of the week, Monmouth Park’s leading trainer, Bruce Levine, had a surprise visitor on Tuesday when a veterinarian working for the New Jersey Racing Commission took “out-of-competition” blood samples  from each of the 41 horses in his barn. The commission will run tests for the blood-doping agent erythropoietin, better known as EPO.

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By Ray Paulick

Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report