Posts Tagged ‘mark simon’

By Ray Paulick

There is good news and bad news in this week’s Good News Friday feature, sponsored by Liberation Farm.First, the bad news: Ercel Ellis signed off for the very last time on his “Post Time” radio show last Saturday, Aug. 15. The final broadcast of the nightly Lexington, Ky.-based race results show ended an amazing run of more than 50 years on the air. His folksy and humorous rapid-fire delivery provided a great service enjoyed by generations of horsemen and racing fans, and his love and loyalty to horses bred in the Bluegrass State run as deep as his roots to the Thoroughbred industry.

Now for the good news: Ercel will continue his weekly show, “Horse Tales,” heard each Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon on Lexington’s AM sports radio, ESPN 1300. And the archives of those shows, which feature candid and insightful interviews with some of the Thoroughbred industry’s legendary players, will have a permanent home at the Keeneland Library.

When I first came to Kentucky in 1988, I was introduced to “Post Time” by Mark Simon, my boss at the Thoroughbred Times, and was amazed at how much information Ercel could cram into a 15-minute show. There were results from numerous tracks and stakes from around the country, pedigree information on Kentucky-bred winners and plugs for sponsors smoothly woven in to the “script.” Frankly, I don’t know how he did it.

Back then, getting race results was no simple matter. This was pre-Internet, pre-cell phone, pre-TVG and HRTV. Ercel had a teletype machine rattling off the results via the Associated Press throughout the day, and he had Daily Racing Forms to get pedigree and race information. Without question, he was the fastest and best source to find out who the winners were each day. He was always good for a laugh, too, when he would stumble over some of the horses’ names, putting on, he said, “his best Southern accent and slurring through it.”

Ercel eventually struck a deal with Happy Broadbent at Bloodstock Research Information Services (BRIS) to have the results programmed for him on a computer, making his job a whole lot easier. But the computer couldn’t help him with the pronunciations.

Now 78 years old, Ercel was working for Blood-Horse magazine in the late 1950s when bloodstock agent Art Baumohl asked him to fill in for him on his nightly radio show. “Then Art kind of backed off, and eventually quit altogether,” Ellis said. “That was in 1958 or ’59. I’ve been doing it ever since—until last Saturday.”

Ercel admits to having taken the occasional night off for a dinner out and getting someone to substitute for him. For the most part, though, it’s been seven nights a week, 52 weeks a year, for 50 years. He and wife Jackie haven’t had a vacation since 1982.

“But we love what we do,” he said. “We both are licensed trainers. We’ve got this small farm (in Bourbon County). Never named it. It’s only 22 acres, but we raise our own and race our own.”

Ercel’s father, also named Ercel Ellis, was manager of Dixiana Farm from 1929-64. His late sister, Peg Simpson, worked as a researcher at the Blood-Horse for more than 50 years. It’s obviously a family of stayers.

He worked for the Daily Racing Form from 1968-83, managing the newspaper’s Kentucky bureau and writing the popular “Kentucky Notebook” column. “I hired Logan Bailey, the best thing I ever did,” Ercel said. “He replaced me when I left.”

For the last six years, Ercel has clocked horses in the mornings at the Thoroughbred Center training facility on Paris Pike outside of Lexington. “I can’t believe they pay me to go out there and look at horses every day,” he said.

Times have changed, with TVG, HRTV, online video streaming, web sites and mobile phone platforms providing live racing or instant results. Business has fallen, though “Post Time” was still making money because of loyal advertisers, Ercel said. He and Jackie are taking care of a daughter injured in a riding accident, and they had to make special arrangements any time they wanted to go out for dinner. “I hated to end it, but it was very confining, even though I did the show from home,” he said.

So, last Saturday, without any fanfare, Ercel signed off with his trademark: “Those are the results, and that’s it for ‘Post Time.’” Only this time that really was it. He didn’t mention that it would be his final “Post Time,” remembering how the late Hall of Fame broadcaster Cawood Ledford ended his career calling University of Kentucky basketball without saying it was his final game.

“I’m not comparing myself to Cawood, but I just thought it was the right way to go,” he said, adding, “well, maybe I’ll give myself a gold watch.”

“Horse Tales,” the weekly show Ercel has been doing for eight years now, will continue on AM 1300 in its regular time slot at 10 a.m. Saturdays.

Keeneland president Nick Nicholson, who said he remembers hearing Ercel Ellis on the radio while growing up in Lexington, said the show “might have been the first recollection when I began to understand that Kentucky horses not only won at the local track but all over the country. I remember him reporting on Gulfstream Park, Saratoga, Santa Anita, all the big tracks. To think he’s been doing this for 50 years is amazing, and his voice today sounds just like it did when I was a kid.”

When Nicholson became Keeneland’s sixth president in January of 2000, one of his priorities was to preserve as much Thoroughbred history as possible. “I talked to Ercel some time ago about saving all the interviews and those essays he does each Saturday,” Nicholson said. “I’m happy to say the Keeneland Library will have an Ercel Ellis archive.

“A lot of the people he’s interviewed start out a little shy, because they’re not used to being on the radio, but Ercel brings them out of that, and the next thing you know they’re having a casual conversation. They’re fascinating interviews and I hope future generations will enjoy them.”

“Nick told me people will want to listen to those old tapes 50 years from now,” Ercel said. “I told him I’d like to be around then to listen to ‘em, too.”

(To learn more about Ercel Ellis, visit his web site, www.ercelellis.com.)

 

Liberation Farm celebrates the many horsemen and horsewomen who strive each day to make things better for horses and those who work with them.  To learn more about Liberation Farm, click here.

 

 

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
I make no apologies for my dissent with Eclipse Award voting results in the outstanding breeder category on at least three different occasions in the years since the vote was taken away from a six-member committee and given to the larger group of voters that determine the other Eclipse Award winners–members of the National Turf Writers Association, Daily Racing Form staff and racing secretaries at National Thoroughbred Racing Association tracks and select Breeders’ Cup employees.

When that decision was made earlier this decade, the NTRA might as well have said it would give the annual award to the breeder whose horses earned the most money. It’s gone to Frank Stronach’s Adena Springs Farm each of the last five years, whether the operation had a truly good year or not, simply because he dominated the money standings by breeding the most horses and winning the most money. I’m not knocking Stronach, who has built a breeding empire and deserved the Eclipse Award in years that he produced champions and a number of high-quality, graded stakes-winning racehorses. His success in those years didn’t happen by accident or through sheer numbers. Adena Springs has been a top-class operation, and it’s something for which Stronach should be proud.

However, I disagree that the breeder who wins the most money should automatically win the Eclipse Award in that category, something that is now occurring routinely. Voters have done a great disservice in recent years to individuals who have had incredible success with a far smaller number of mares.

Full disclosure: I served on that six-member Eclipse Award outstanding breeder committee as editor of Blood-Horse magazine, as did Mark Simon, editor of Thoroughbred Times, along with two editors with expertise in bloodstock matters at Daily Racing Form and two representatives of the NTRA or its Eclipse Awards-sponsoring predecessor, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America. The committee would be presented with a wide array of breeding statistics, have the opportunity to study them, then meet via teleconference to discuss the merits of the leading candidates before taking a vote. In my opinion, the committee got it right far more often than the general Eclipse Award electorate has when determining outstanding breeder.

The committee tended to discount breeders who had simply led the money list. That cost the late Harry T. Mangurian an Eclipse Award several years when he or his Florida-based Mockingbird Farm led the list by earnings from 1999-2002. When some Floridians cried “foul,” the Eclipse Award steering committee gave Mangurian an Eclipse Award of Merit at the 2002 Eclipse Awards dinner. Shortly thereafter, the vote went from committee to the larger body, which I think was a mistake.

Why was it a mistake? Twice in the last seven years, breeders who produced two of the 10 Eclipse Award champions—with a small number of broodmares—didn’t even get enough votes to be among the three finalists as outstanding breeder, much less win the Eclipse Award. That happened in 2002, when Virginia Kraft Payson bred champions Farda Amiga and Vindication and wasn’t a finalist, and again in 2004 when Aaron and Marie Jones bred champions Speightstown and Ashado and were ignored by the voters.

Think about that for a minute. You are a breeder with a relatively small group of mares and produced two out of the 10 Eclipse Award champion horses. Yet you weren’t even recognized as one of the three outstanding breeders in North America. That is an insult to all breeders who work hard to produce a good horse. Eclipse Award voters really should be ashamed for their ignorance or lack of interest on breeding matters.

Last year, Adena won its fifth consecutive Eclipse Award as leading breeder by a wide margin—receiving 139 votes, more than twice as many as runner-up Stonerside Stable. Adena won the most money, by far, $19.2 million, but produced no champions. With far fewer runners, Stonerside-bred horses earned $8.5 million but included 2-year-old male champion Midshipman and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Raven’s Pass.

That brings us to this week’s spotlight on leading breeders on our weekly feature, American Graded Stakes Standings, brought to you by Keeneland. Stonerside–the Paris, Ky., operation founded by Robert and Janice McNair and sold last year to Sheikh Mohammed when Robert McNair said he needed to spend more time on his Houston Texans of the National Football League team–is the leading breeder of American graded stakes winners, with five, led by Grade 1 winner Santa Teresita. The others are Grade 2 winners Tizaqueena, Skylighter and Cowboy Cal, along with Grade 3 winner Stormalory.

Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley, Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, and Edward P. Evans are next in the list of breeders of American graded stakes winners, with three apiece.

Stronach’s Adena Springs, which is the leading breeder by money won so far this year, with $7,054,476 earned from 2,322 starts, has bred just one graded stakes winner, the Grade 3 winner My Princess Jess. Stonerside has had 481 starts and earnings of $3,252,001, ranking fifth by money won. Evans has had 360 starts and ranks sixth with earnings of $2,936,973; Juddmonte is 18th with $1,948,227 from 175 starts; and Darley is 19th with $1,943,075 from 328 starts.

In terms of money won per start, which I think is a good overall indication of quality, of those listed above, Juddmonte is the leader, with $11,323 earned for each start; followed by Evans, $8,158/start; Stonerside, $6,760/start; Darley, $5,924/start; and Adena, $3,038/start. Those statistics include international racing. The lists presented below strictly represent American graded stakes, those approximately 500 races designated by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s American Graded Stakes Committee as the best races in the United States.

We hope that by focusing each week on the leading breeders, owners, trainers, sires, sale companies and consignors of the winners of American graded stakes, which define the best races in the United States, Eclipse Award voters might start to look beyond the simple exercise of seeing which breeder earned the most money in a given year.