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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Thursday Morning Notes

Following up on the last post: Liz O'Connell left a link in the comments section for a piece she did for the Huffington Post (also on her Thoroughbred Confidential blog) regarding the Racehorse Health and Safety task force, and the delay in the issuance of its conclusions. 

  The most likely scenario is that the task force's recommendations are at odds with the New York Racing Association or its state government overseers. Or, perhaps the release of the report will be used as a publicity springboard for announcing the re-organization of NYRA and the new board and executives -- thereby reducing the safety of our racehorses to a political ploy. Of course, this will be denied by all parties. In the meantime, whatever the cause for the delay, whatever the excuse, there are horses dying while racing and training on New York's Thoroughbred tracks. 
  It's a thorough and relentless work of reporting; exasperated with the non-response to her repeated inquiries, she filed her own Freedom of Information request to the Racing and Wagering Board.  Well worth reading; you may be surprised at the hourly rates requested by the task force members.  Or....maybe not.

 -  First weekday of the fall meeting at Belmont drew 2,819 and produced a couple of incongruous winners that led to a Pick Six carryover; in fact, nobody even picked five.  At Saratoga, when I looked back at a long-priced horse, I could usually find something in its past performances to explain why it won, as deep as those races were.  But no real accounting for Smiling Bob ($41.60), or James Jingle ($29.60); and the latter, who staggered home in harness horse time of 27.08 seconds for trainer Pat Kelly, led a superfecta that paid $20,402 with 1-2 Sandy'z Slew checking in dead last.

Two winners for trainer Michael Mareina; here's a little article on horseracingnation.com about this guy, the original trainer of Game on Dude, from July, in which he explained that he planned to spend most of the Saratoga meet getting ready for Belmont in the fall. 
  “We’re concentrating now on quality instead of quantity....I selected horses that I thought would do nicely at Belmont Park, such as Divine Music. You have to have luck, of course, and you have to have horses that like the track. I’m super pleased with how well my horses have adapted and I’m looking forward to the fall.” 
Distorted Dream ($5.60) is by Distorted Humor out of the G1 winner Wonder Lady Anne L.   Onthekisser ($17) came from dead last in a field of 12 to win the 4th.  Both had sat out the Saratoga meet.   So yeah, I guess he's ready for the fall, a perfect two-for-two thus far, and surely a guy to keep an eye on - 13 winners from 34 starters on the year. 

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

56 since March 14!!!

Mitch said...

Plus one on reading of Liz's piece. Its real reporting, what NYT has the capability of doing but has unfortunately not done lately on NYRA issues.

jh said...

You would think that the first piece of business that the task force could have acted upon would be a request that there be necropsy reports on all horse who perish on the racetrack. Seems obvious to me anyway. How else can you arrive at a real understanding as to why the horse has broken down?
I'm sure the argument would include some nonsense about the cost of such an endeavor, but 250 and 500 an hour plus expenses ain't exactly chump change.

Anonymous said...

How can you pay the fellow that represents the New York Horsemen, certainly an interested party in the outcome, $500 per hour for this study and expect to get an unbiased and objective perspective without any conflict of interest? Who at the NYRA figured that this selection would pass muster with all the eyes on them, regardless of his fine reputation? Maybe Cuomo just threw the report out or has found it inconclusive.

Anonymous said...

The reason nothing is going to come of this report, is that a handful of prominent NYRA vets know why all these horses break down, and guess what?? They ain't talkin.