RACETRACK INCENTIVES EUROPEAN TRAINER ISSUE 48_Jerkins feature.qxd 15/12/2014 20:44 Page 2
RACETRACK INCENTIVES
W
HILE some horsemen's groups, including the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, have drawn their swords in the fight against a race-day drug ban, Arapahoe Park in Aurora, Co., is sweetening the pot to entice trainers to race medication-free horses. On 27 June, Arapahoe launched its RaceDay Medication-Free Incentive, which pays the trainer of any horse that wins without medication a $1,000 bonus. The bonus, which is separate from the purse money, is paid out at the end of the meet from a special fund put up by Arapahoe and its parent company, Mile High Racing and Entertainment. Sensitive post-race testing verifies that each winning horse raced medication-free, even if it trained on medication coming up to the race. Between 27 June and the end of the meet on 17 August, Arapahoe had 1,738 starters. Of that total, 32 horses raced without raceday medication, but only 21 horses participated in the programme, which paid out on four medication-free wins. Temple Rushton was the lone thoroughbred trainer at the multiple-breed meet to collect the incentive. He sent out four-year-old filly Sudies Storm to win a maiden special weight on 11 July and an allowance race on 19 July. Arabian trainer Kenny Massey also collected the incentive for wins with first-time starters Bella Lorena and Paddys Day. Arapahoe's track management and Bruce Seymore, executive director of Mile High Racing and Entertainment, came up with the idea when they recognized that racing's future would not include race-day medication, and they wanted Arapahoe to be on the forefront of that movement. "The programme is completely voluntary,"
said Jonathan Horowitz, Arapahoe's track announcer and spokesman. "We’re not mandating it like they did with the Breeders’ Cup. The trainer makes the decision whether to run the horse without medication." He emphasized that nothing else changed at the entry box. Some races came up with medication-free horses running against those on race-day medication, and some races consisted only of horses racing on medication. "I think the big picture that we envision is that racing is heading towards being race-day medication-free," he said. "How it gets there, we’re not 100% sure, but we want to play our part in getting to that point."
“A $1,000 bonus at blue-collar Arapahoe represents about 13 percent of the typical purse – a tidy sum for the trainer to pocket” Rushton said he entered winner Sudies Storm and Don't Flirt in the incentive programme because their owner and breeder, 86-year-old Susan Wadleigh, is adamantly against medication. Two other horses in his stable also participated in the programme. "All those drugs are terrible – what they have done to the horses," Wadleigh said. "They used to be able to run horses back in a week before they came upon that miserable Lasix. [Sudies Storm] won her maiden race going 5½ [furlongs], and then she ran back in about a week and won again going a mile, and she wasn't even tired. She could have gone on."
Incentives A $1,000 bonus at blue-collar Arapahoe represents about 13% of the typical purse – a tidy sum for the trainer to pocket. That same amount would do little to entice trainers elsewhere to race medication-free. One reason is that trainers at Arapahoe have an advantage over many other tracks. Horses racing on Lasix there may be taken off the drug with no restrictions as to when they may resume Lasix. Many tracks outside Colorado prohibit a horse from racing on Lasix again for as long as 60–90 days after a Lasix-free start. "I don’t think if I had a horse on Lasix that I would take him off Lasix for $1,000 and have to go through that," said New Yorkbased trainer Shug McGaughey. Bill Mott, who conditioned 1995–'96 Horse of the Year Cigar, said he has no strong opinion about incentive programmes, but he doesn't think they would influence his decision. "Number one, I’m a trainer, so I want the horse to perform as well as he can," he said. "And if I felt that his performance was better with Lasix, then I would want to give him Lasix." Above all, Mott wants a level playing field. "I think if it’s available, everybody should be able to use it if they choose. And if it’s not available, then nobody uses it," he said. Elliott Walden is a former trainer and the president/CEO and racing manager of WinStar Farm outside Lexington, one of North America's leading thoroughbred racing, breeding and stallion operations. Walden said an incentive programme is an interesting idea, but it raises other questions. "So then what happens to the bettor if a horse runs off Lasix and then he bleeds?" he said. Former WinStar co-owner Bill Casner, a vocal opponent of medication, is among those
ISSUE 48 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 51