North American Trainer, issue 31 - Spring 2014

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North American Trainer ISSUE 31 (SPRING 2014)

North American

ISSUE 31 – SPRING 2014 $5.95

www.trainermagazine.com

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE FOR THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE THOROUGHBRED

TURNING HEADS

Leah Gyarmati: a trainer to look out for

PLUS Understanding how teeth affect performance Publishing Ltd

PREDICTING THE FUTURE

Can diagnostic imaging predict soundness in yearlings?

Who pays for state awards?

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE

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GILES ANDERSON Symposium to educate the industry

HE one-day Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association (CBA) symposium held in Lexington, Kentucky, in February was a both a stimulating and informative event, highlighting the importance of sharing research and learning new practices to better manage Thoroughbreds from foal to racehorse.

What struck me was the importance of using events such as this to educate those who work within the industry. The breeders and consignors effectively lay the foundations for the early stages of a Thoroughbred’s development which the trainer goes on to nurture and hone on the racetrack. But is there enough communication between these groups?

The CBA is looking to develop the event further in 2015, and perhaps with the participation of different sectors of the industry this symposium could become an important date in the calendar as a forum for professional discussions about raising and training Thoroughbreds.

As soon as it is made available, a link to the recording of the 2014 symposium can be viewed on our website at www.trainermagazine.com/CBA. In this issue of the magazine, our cover profile is on Leah Gyarmati, one of New York’s rising stars in the training ranks. Leah has been training for over a decade but has really risen to prominence over the

past year, and she is now enjoying success at the highest level. Her story is fascinating. From her pre-training days right through to her love of squirrels, Leah comes across as a person of moral integrity who puts animals first and gives her all to what she does.

The same can be said of the trainer featured in our California profile, Clifford Sise, who is making a return to training in his home state after spending three years running Rancho Paseana training center followed by a short stint as a private trainer in Saudi Arabia.

This issue also features three fascinating studies. The first is on the relationship between the horse’s mouth and the skeletal structure; the second takes an in-depth look at diagnostic imaging in yearlings, which sets out to evaluate future soundness as the horses transition to racing; and the third study gives us an insight into the latest research from the University of Edinburgh on “tie-back” surgeries and the importance of over-ground endoscopies in post-operative assessment.

Brothers Eoin and Edward Harty – fifth-generation horsemen – are tagged in our latest Relative Values profile. Bill Heller speaks to trainers who are happy to be based at Classic Mile in Ocala, Florida, and we have another installment on owners of Grade 1 winners from the last quarter. Lastly, K.T. Donovan revisits the state-bred programs.

Wherever your racing takes you this spring, good luck! n

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Issue 31

CONTENTS 16

Flourishing in a tough environment

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State Awards

New Yorker Leah Gyarmati has reason to believe in a promising future, by Frances J. Karon.

The relationship racing has with state-bred programs,

by K.T. Donovan.

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Eating and the skeletal structure

An in-depth explanation by Gary Waters and Mary Bromiley on how the mouth plays an integral role in the structural integrity of the horse.

Relative values: Edward and Eoin Harty Bill Heller profiles racing’s fifth-generation Harty boys.

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Classic Mile

Trainers based at Ocala’s Classic Mile facility wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, by Bill Heller.

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Diagnostic imaging

Thomas O’Keeffe on the link between sesamoiditis in yearlings and suspensory branch injuries in racehorses.

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Contributors

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California Thoroughbred Trainers

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Product Profile

Profiles on owners of recent Grade 1 winners, by Bill Heller.

TRM Trainer of the Quarter

Winning owners

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Tie-back surgery

The latest developments in the treatment of laryngeal paralysis,

by Timothy Barnett and Celia Marr.

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Suppliers Guide

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Stakes Schedules

James Crispe looks at what makes Royal Ascot one of the most sought-after race meetings for the world’s best horses.

The Sid Fernando column

Royal Ascot

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CONTRIBUTORS

Publisher & Editorial Director Giles Anderson Editor Frances Karon Circulation/Editorial Executive Suzy Crossman, Louise Crampton Picture Editor/Editorial Executive Harriet Scott Design/Production Neil Randon Advertising Sales Giles Anderson Photo Credits

Benoit Photos, Horsephotos, Barbara Livingston, Sandra Madison, Jim McCue/Mid Atlantic TB Photography, Caroline Norris, Thomas O’Keeffe, Andrew Parsons, Racingfotos, Rossdale Equine Hospital, Royal Ascot, George Selwyn, Shutterstock, Gary Waters, Cherie Wickland

Cover Photograph

Barbara Livingston

North American

An Anderson & Co Publishing Ltd publication Contact details Tel: 1 888 218 4430 Fax:1 888 218 4206 info@trainermagazine.com www.trainermagazine.com United Kingdom Winkworth House, 4/5 Market Place, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1HT North America PO Box 13248, Lexington, KY 40583-3248 North American Trainer is the official magazine of the California Thoroughbred Trainers. It is distributed to all ‘Trainer’ members of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and all members of the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association

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Alan F. Balch was hired as Executive Director of California Thoroughbred Trainers in April 2010. His professional career in racing began at Santa Anita in 1971, where he advanced to the position of Sr. Vice PresidentMarketing and Assistant General Manager, and was in charge of the Olympic Games Equestrian Events for Los Angeles in 1984. He retired in the early 90s to become volunteer president of the national equestrian federation of the USA, as well as of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden. He remains volunteer president of USA Equestrian Trust, Inc. Tim Barnett BSc BVM&S MSc MRCVS qualified from Edinburgh University in 2005. In 2007 he joined Rossdales Equine Hospital and Diagnostic Centre for two years. After a further period of general practice, Tim moved to Edinburgh University in January 2010, where he completed a residency in Equine Surgery. Tim has completed a number of research projects in equine upper airway disease, dentistry and orthopaedics.

James Crispe has worked for the International Racing Bureau in Newmarket since graduating from Cambridge University in 1990. He is Associate Director of the Editorial Department and a regular guest on the Attheraces television channel. Closer to home, he has a long-standing journalistic involvement in amateur steeplechasing and is Point-to-Point Correspondent for both the Eastern Daily Press and the East Anglian Daily Times.

K. T. Donovan travels the world to cover racing through writing, television and video. As a freelancer, she has written for most of the major racing publications around the world, and contributed in various capacities to live shows and documentaries on American television networks, as well as for Sky, and RTE (Irish television). She is based in Lexington, Kentucky.

Sid Fernando (@sidfernando) is president of eMatings LLC and Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc. He is the former bloodstock editor of Daily Racing Form and also blogs about racing and breeding.

Bill Heller, Eclipse Award winner Bill Heller, an author of 25 books including biographies of Hall of Fame jockeys Ron Turcotte, Randy Romero, and Jose Santos, is a member of the Harness Racing Hall of Fame Communications Corner. He and his wife Anna live just 30 miles south of Saratoga Race Course in Albany.

Frances J. Karon is from Puerto Rico and graduate of Maine’s Colby College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She operates Rough Shod LLC based in Lexington, Kentucky and specializes in sales, pedigree research and recommendations.

Professor Celia Marr is an equine clinician at Rossdales, Newmarket. She is a RCVS and European Specialist in Equine Medicine and Honorary Professor at the Glasgow University Veterinary School.

She has previously worked at veterinary schools in Glasgow, Pennsylvania, Cambridge and London and in racehorse practice in Lambourn. She is Chairman of the Horserace Betting Levy Board’s Thoroughbred Research & Consultation Group and Editor-in-Chief of Equine Veterinary Journal.

Thomas O’Keeffe is a graduate of University College Dublin, currently working in Ocala, Florida.

He worked for Rossdales and Partners in Newmarket, UK as a member of their ambulatory racing veterinary team and in their world-renowned hospital facility. He was also an associate with Scone Equine Hospital, Australia, as resident veterinary surgeon for Darley’s Kildangan Stud in Ireland and worked in Lexington, Kentucky with Dr Ruel Cowles, DVM.

California in 1982.

Steve Schuelein is a freelance writer based in Playa del Rey, California. A native of upstate New York, Steve was introduced to racing as a sports writer for the Syracuse Herald-Journal and Buffalo News before moving to

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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS

Hope smiles

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HEN Tennyson wrote, “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier,’” he may as well have been penning an anthem for every breeder, owner, trainer, and horseplayer.

In California, with the closure of iconic Hollywood Park after three-quarters of a century, and the transferral of its racing dates to Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Los Alamitos, the sport is relying on that smile more than ever.

The next several months are a critical period of transition, since California’s racing leadership spent nearly a year of angst before agreeing to an expensive stabling and training proposition – using Santa Anita, San Luis Rey Downs, Los Alamitos, and Barretts Racing at Pomona – to provide facilities for the 3,400 or more horses required to populate competitive fields for the new year-around calendar.

Critical to the plan is the appearance in 2014 of two-year-olds in comparable numbers to previous years, so that the crown jewel of California racing – Del Mar’s summer season – can continue to sparkle, and lead to healthy programs at Santa Anita come fall and another Breeders’ Cup meeting.

Objective data are ominous, since Thoroughbred foal crops around America continue to decline to modern lows. Even so, a fragile growth trend in California’s numbers had appeared the last two years, and analysis indicated that the Golden State had increasingly been a destination for greater numbers of Thoroughbreds from outside the state, replacing the losses in regional foal crops. Whether this will continue in 2014 is anyone’s guess.

Still, in a data-driven world, there are other sobering facts which must be considered, and ignored at our collective peril.

Over the last 20 years – both in California and elsewhere in North America – we have

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By Alan F. Balch CTT Executive Director

“From the standpoint of healthy business conditions, however, the advent of the public mega-stable may be of even more concern.” witnessed significant consolidations in the racing picture. In terms of track management, where previously we had robust competition among operators regionally, as well as nationally, we have transitioned to an era of mega-ownership. Two operators dominate the nation. One operator dominates California.

Similarly, we have gradually entered an era of mega-trainers, where a relative few professional horsemen now dominate each circuit, and the national scene.

It is difficult to see how these situations serve the future vitality of the sport as well as greater diversity would. In the past, diversity among track managements led to rivalries, which no matter how collegial, were actually very competitive. Tracks competed for horses, and they did so by competing for superiority in terms of conditions offered for horsemen, and of attendance and wagering, in order to have the purses necessary to attract the best horses, trainers, owners, and riders. There are doubtless many economic factors in the consolidation we’ve seen, but one certainly is the re-making of the sport into ever more of a commodity, given the advent of the Internet, simulcasting, and Advance Deposit Wagering.

As one example, the rivalry that existed between the Hollywood Park and Santa Anita brands, for decades, sharing the same Southern California market and the same legal

framework, was of great benefit to fans and horsemen alike.

Competition led to innovations in marketing, management, customer and horsemen services, and a booming gaming environment, one that is now nearly forgotten. Each track and its racing program had its own identity and advantages.

It is no accident that Del Mar’s ascendancy in popularity occurred over roughly the same period that competition between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park declined. The same situation was evident nationwide, where historically the major tracks were all owned and operated by separate interests.

From the standpoint of healthy business conditions, however, the advent of the public mega-stable may be of even more concern.

After all, track management, even consolidated track management, needs as a fundamental proposition to produce racing programs which are attractive to the gaming public. The trend to concentrate more and more horses in the hands of fewer and fewer trainers, at the same time as coupling for betting purposes of horses owned and trained by the same interests has been relaxed or eliminated, undoubtedly deters confident betting. Moreover, average field size has almost certainly been reduced by these factors, as has starts per runner. And another contributing factor can’t be overlooked: rules previously restricting jockeys’ agents to one journeyman and one apprentice have also gone by the wayside, which is one more simultaneous business “consolidation,” at least in California.

There have always been leading private and public trainers, of course . . . but modern communication and travel, as well as the elimination by associations and horsemen’s organizations of stall limits at operating tracks in California, have combined to enable those leading trainers to amass numbers of horses under their supervision that would have been unthinkable when racing led the nation in sporting attendance and interest. Historically, 80% of purses have been won by about 20% of interests, and that remains true today. The difference is that those 20% of interests are concentrated among far, far fewer trainers than ever before.

In the long run (if we actually have a long run still ahead of us), the self-interest of those mega-trainers, and the track operators, would be to stimulate the viability of aspiring, smaller trainers. Each mega-trainer was once aspiring himself; each of them is undoubtedly a creature of the previous system where stall limits dictated that owners needed to look beyond a very few big names when placing

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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS

WORDS: Steve Schuelein PhOtOS: BenOit PhOtOS, hORSePhOtOS.cOM

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RAINER Cliff Sise Jr. savored the slow stroll from the paddock to a mezzanine box at Santa Anita Park in January, a walk interrupted several times by quizzical racetrackers asking him where he had been and when he was coming back. He appreciated the attention.

Sise, 62, has returned to a familiar post on the Southern California circuit, reassembling a stable after a hiatus of nearly three years devoted to supervising the Rancho Paseana training center and a brief stint in Saudi Arabia.

“I miss it and I’m excited about coming back,” said Sise, who is regrouping at San Luis Rey Downs. “I miss the competition.

“It never goes out of your blood,” said Sise of his lifelong passion. “I love training. I love horses. I love trying to do the right things by them. When you get owners that let you do the right thing, that usually works out for the horse.”

Sise admitted that reformation of a stable would be challenging. “It’s a tough game today,” he said. “All my buddies who had 30 or 40 horses a few years ago are down to 10 or 12.”

But Sise expressed confidence that he could put together a competitive barn during the next few months.

He mentioned owners/breeders Marty and Pam Wygod, Teddy Aroney (Halo Farms), George Krikorian, and Dr. Patrick Sheehy as key figures in replenishing his stock.

Sise is also enthused about his first stay at San Luis Rey Downs, where he hopes to have the 50 stalls allocated to him filled by this summer. “The track surface felt very good; the grab of the track was ideal,” he said after early activity on it.

“Santa Anita put some money into San Luis Rey Downs, and it shows,” said Sise of the facility in Bonsall, about 18 miles inland from Oceanside. The Stronach Group spent more than $3 million in improvements to the onemile track, aquatic pool, and landscaping.

With the closing of Hollywood Park and the Santa Anita stable area full, San Luis Rey Downs has taken on a more significant role on the circuit. The bucolic facility is located about

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Sise ready for a return to former stamping ground 30 miles northeast of Del Mar and 90 miles south of Santa Anita.

“John Sadler, John Shirreffs, Carla Gaines, and Peter Miller are all sending horses down in addition to a lot of the smaller outfits already here,” said Sise, expecting the training center to approach its 500 capacity.

Sise felt the time he spent as ranch manager at Rancho Paseana from 2011-2013 was productive. “Marty wanted me to do it,” said Sise of Wygod’s influence in his decision to accept the job.

“He wanted somebody he could trust to break his babies.”

One became a champion last year. “I broke Shared Belief,” said Sise of the Wygod-bred gelding, who won an Eclipse Award after an unbeaten 2-year-old campaign climaxed by a facile victory in the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Hollywood Park.

“He was a little immature when I broke him, but very athletic and had a nice way of moving,” said Sise. “Did I think he was going to be superhorse? I didn’t know.” Sise listed

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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS

Idiot Proof scored Cliff Sise his first Grade 1 victory, in the Ancient Title Stakes at Santa Anita several other stakes horses that spent time there.

Sise did not regret the experience. “It was a great opportunity, good pay, a great place to be, like living in paradise,” said Sise of the North San Diego County site four miles east of Del Mar. “The richest people in the world live there. Bill Gates was just up the hill.”

Rancho Paseana served several purposes.

“We had lay-ups, broodmares, raised babies; no breeding,” explained Sise. “I trained the horses down there. I had to make sure all the fields were good.”

During Sise’s tenure, the 220-acre site reached a capacity of 280 head. “We turned it into an official training center,” he said proudly. “The rails had to be a certain height.

We had to pad the starting gate.

“As soon as it became official, she decided to close it down,” said Sise disappointedly of owner Jenny Craig’s decision last year to empty the facility and put it up for sale.

Sise found a job as paddock superintendent during the Del Mar meet last summer before accepting an offer to train privately for Prince Faisal in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in early September.

Sise described the experience as bittersweet.

“It was a great racetrack and nice horses,” said Sise. “Mixing in the red sand they have there made for a sound racetrack. In two months there, I never saw a horse come back lame.”

But by the end of October, Sise yearned to return home. “There was just no patience,” he explained. “They think horses are

mechanical. They have no compassion for the horse; they want to run now. I just couldn’t do that.”

That brought Sise back full circle to Santa Anita, where he could see the house in which he grew up in Arcadia from the mezzanine box.

“I can see the patio and fireplace,” said Sise nostalgically of the house on Vista Avenue on the Arcadia highlands.

“It never goes out of your blood. I love training. I love horses. I love trying to do the right things by them” Small wonder that he became interested in racing at a young age, growing up in the shadows of Santa Anita on the same street with trainers Jimmy Jordan and Ray Bell and the three children of the late conditioner Bill Molter.

“Back then, everybody had a horse in their backyard, and there was a riding academy here,” said Sise of his youth. “I just loved horses.

“My mom (Anne) was best friends with Jimmy Jordan’s wife, Sally,” continued Sise. “I used to sneak out and walk hots for him when I was 11.”

Sise’s mostly pleasant recollections also

included one grim one. His life was nearly snuffed out at 12 on Vista Avenue.

“I was in my driveway riding on a flexey, kind of a sled with wheels,” recalled Sise. “It was dark, around 7 p.m., during the winter. I looked down the street and didn’t see anybody coming. The next thing I saw was a Buick Riviera, a tank of a car, with no lights on.

“I tried to jump on the hood, but was dragged underneath the car for two houses,” said Sise of the horrifying ordeal. “I broke my pelvis, hips, sacrum. I was in a coma for three weeks. I was hospitalized for six weeks. I was supposed to die.”

Sise’s brush with death did little to diminish his thirst for racing and desire to become a jockey. After recovering, he visited Del Mar during summer vacation. “During the 1950s and ’60s, there used to be a trailer park in Solana Beach off Highway 101 where all the racetrackers stayed,” said Sise.

It was there that he met trainer Keith Stucki, who taught him how to gallop at 12. “He just put a saddle on an exercise pony behind the barns where everybody parked their cars in the stable area,” said Sise of his first time on horseback. “Keith Stucki was a big influence in teaching me how to ride.”

Another thrill that summer followed through his befriending valet Mel Peterson.

“He took me into the old wooden jockeys’ room at Del Mar and we had breakfast with John Longden,” said Sise of a starry-eyed kid meeting a Hall of Fame rider. “I thought I was in seventh heaven.”

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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS Sise tried his hand at riding from 1967-70, mostly in Arizona and California fairs, with limited fanfare. “Dr. George Shima had my contract as a bug boy,” said Sise. “I won a stake at Bay Meadows for him on Smugglin’ George.

“They said that Doc used to smuggle liquor out of Tijuana,” said Sise, explaining the name.

“He was a pretty good horse. He tied the course record down the hill here. A few years later after I got my license, I won my first stakes as a trainer for Doc in the Piedmont at Golden Gate Fields.”

Sise readily recognized that size would limit his days as a jockey. “I was five-nine and doing 124 with the bug,” he said. “Bobby Jennings was my hero then. He was riding at six-one.

“They told me I was the youngest when I got my trainer’s license at 20,” said Sise, who worked as an assistant for Lou Glauburg for a couple of years, primarily galloping, while training a few on his own.

“Lou asked me to take a string up north,” said Sise. “While I was there, Noble Threewitt was looking to ship a few horses up, and Lou asked if I would take them as well.

“Noble sent something like seven horses up, and we won with like six of them,” said Sise, enthused not only with their success, but the generosity Threewitt showed in the percentage of the commission he split with him.

Sise later hooked on as an assistant for four years with Threewitt, a revered trainer who worked until he was 96 and lived to 99. Sise said he learned a great deal from both and was fortunate to work with several major stakes horses during the early and mid 1970s.

“Lou was a very good conditioner, and Noble was very good around the barns: he did everything for the horses from worming to teeth,” said Sise.

Sise worked with Glauburg when he won the 1972 Santa Anita Derby with Solar Salute and with Threewitt when he should have won the 1975 Santa Anita Handicap with Out of the East.

“The winner (Stardust Mel) came out in the stretch, almost knocked him down and should have clearly been disqualified,” said Sise of the flagrant foul against Out of the East, who finished second by a nose.

“But the winner was owned by Marje Everett,” said Sise of the powerful owner of Hollywood Park, suggesting track stewards may have been intimidated in disallowing the claim of foul by jockey Raul Ramirez.

Sise had family ties with Out of the East.

“Noble bought him from Junior Nicholson, my father-in-law,” said Sise. Trainer Nicholson’s daughter, Lorrie, has been married to Sise for 42 years.

Sise went on his own before leaving the sport for eight years during the 1980s. “A buddy of mine went into the catering business, and I followed him,” said Sise. “I got a hot truck and drove it around Maywood and Vernon. I had the biggest business of all the hot trucks.”

But Sise’s zeal for the racetrack never left him. Owner Randy Welty of Hidden Meadow Farm was a major factor in his return to training. “He had a box next to mine and left me a message to call him,” said Sise. A filly Welty turned over to him won five in a row and Sise was back on the map.

Welty was also responsible for Sise’s first graded stakes winner, Paying Dues. “Randy bought him for $30,000 as a yearling at the Keeneland sale,” said Sise of the gelding who went on to win the Los Angeles Handicap and Vernon Underwood Stakes, both Grade 3, at Hollywood Park and the Oakland Handicap at Golden Gate Fields, as well as finish second in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, all in 1996.

“If Paying Dues didn’t win, he would get pissed,” said Sise of the fiercely competitive horse who won six of 19 starts and earned $543,188.

“If he lost, he would come back kicking, mean and unhappy.”

Although Paying Dues was relegated to the field and dismissed at 31-to-1 odds in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, Sise was not surprised that he ran well. “He was never really sound and tough to train, but when he went to Woodbine he did a complete 360,” said Sise of the horse relishing the cool autumn weather in Toronto.

“I didn’t have to ice him; he got really good up there,” said Sise. “He looked like a winner in the stretch, but here comes Jenine Sahadi (trainer of fast-closing Lit De Justice, who won by 1¼ lengths).”

Sise would condition an even better sprinter 11 years later and, again, finish second in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Idiot Proof became Sise’s most accomplished horse as his first Grade 1 winner and first millionaire, retired to stud in California with earnings of $1,294,484.

Idiot Proof, a Wygod homebred, began his career early. “Marty sent him to me for the early two-year-old races because he was small,” said Sise. “He could barely see over the top of the webbing, but the second time I worked him here, I thought, ‘Wow, he’s fast!’”

Idiot Proof sped to a 7¾-length victory in his June, 2006, debut at Hollywood Park before going to the sidelines with a tibia injury.

The California-bred son of Benchmark returned the following year and stamped himself as one of the leading sprinters in the nation.

He was shipped to Monmouth Park on July 4 to win the Jersey Shore Breeders’ Cup Stakes by 7¼ lengths in track-record time of 1:07.47 for six furlongs, authenticating his credentials for the Breeders’ Cup at the same site and capping a dream two days for Sise, whose son Robert – then training at Philadelphia Park – presented him with a granddaughter 24 hours earlier.

Proving the Jersey Shore was no fluke, the three-year-old colt won the Grade 1 Ancient Title Stakes in 1:07.57 at Santa Anita in October, leaving Sise shaken. “Winning my first Grade 1 meant a lot to me, but winning it in a race named for a great horse trained by Keith Stucki – who taught me how to gallop – meant even more,” said Sise.

Idiot Proof added a pair of notable seconds, finishing behind champion Midnight Lute on a sloppy Monmouth surface in the 2007 Breeders’ Cup and behind 2008 champion Benny the Bull in the Golden Shaheen Stakes the following March in Dubai, both $2 million races.

Sise and his wife live east of Santa Anita in Glendora, the parents of two and grandparents of four. Son Robert now works as a farrier on the circuit.

Cliff is just happy to be back. “It doesn’t make any difference if it’s an $8,000 claimer, I love them all,” he concluded. “If they’ve got heart, you love them more.” n

of runners and starters! Without them, races don’t fill or only fill with minimum fields.

When field sizes drop, today’s purse levels are seriously jeopardized.

Hope was certainly smiling on California Cup day at Santa Anita in January 2014. A

ten-race card of mostly full fields (a rarity so far this year) generated whopping handle, in large measure because of their diversity. The mega-stables weren’t shut out, but some small barns had a banner day. Those who whisper of happier times ahead, take heed. n

“Winning my first Grade 1 meant a lot to me, but winning it in a race named for a great horse trained

by Keith Stucki – who taught me how to gallop – meant even more”

Hope smiles tContinued from page 6 horses, to find new and true training talent.

After all, races are filled by the small trainers, even when won by the mega-stables. The “little guys,” the 80% who ferociously compete for only 20% of purses, represent about 50%

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Facing career threatening soft tissue injuries in two young horses, trainer Tim Ritchey looked to Ionicare for help

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N ULTRASOUND in September 2012 of a prize two-year old thoroughbred filly showed a 12% Palmar Border Lesion right front superficial digital flexor tendon.

On the same day a promising two-year old thoroughbred colt injured his right front superficial digital flexor tendon. An ultrasound diagnosis confirmed an acute 7% Core Lesion.

The typical chance of recovery from this type of injury with traditional modes of therapy is at best about 50%. His vet, Dr. Kathleen Anderson, DVM (Vice President of the AAEP) of Equine Veterinary Care at Fair Hill Training Center, suggested he try a recently released technology to treat the problem.

On Dr. Anderson’s, recommendation, Tim started daily therapy with the IoniCare® System 3, along with hand walking for both horses. Follow up ultrasounds in October showed “significant improvement” in both cases.

Tim and Dr. Anderson were excited to see that ultrasounds in December showed “excellent healing” in both cases.

Based on the ultrasound and clinical exam, both horses were able to resume training in early January 2013. Because newly healed tissue has not had time to mature, and isn’t as stable as mature tissue, the horses were brought along carefully.

The filly has raced six times (three wins and two thirds). She continues on daily IoniCare therapy and is racing sound.

The colt has raced seven times (two wins and two seconds). The tendon has remained sound and daily maintenance IoniCare therapy continues.

Colt in September

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“

In my 40 years around the track, this is by far the most successful form of therapy with the quickest recovery time of any system I have encountered or experienced

”

Ritchey says “In my 40 years around the track, this is by far the most successful form of therapy with the quickest recovery time of any system I have encountered or experienced.” He is currently using the System on nearly all his horses either for injury treatment or maintenance.

Dr. Anderson commented: “Soft tissue injuries in racehorses often frustrate owners, trainers and veterinarians with a slow rate of healing and frequent re-occurrence. I have observed encouraging outcomes on both upper level event horses and thoroughbred racehorses with focused rehabilitation and maintenance programs utilizing the IoniCare unit. Clinical and ultrasound findings both support these observations. Definitely worth a try!”

According to System developer Equine OrthoCare, LLC, the patent pending IoniCare System 3 is based on the principle that external electrical field therapy positively influences the repair mechanisms of bone,

Colt in December

ADVERTORIAL

PRODUCT PROFILE NA VERSION v4_Jerkins feature.qxd 10/02/2014 12:53 Page 2

How the Ionicare System 3 works

cartilage and other connective tissue. It has been specifically designed and adapted to apply a proven technology for horses.

The System delivers a patented, low amplitude, subliminal electrical signal to the treatment site. This unique signal creates a specific electrical field within the treatment site designed to mimic or enhance the internal electrical fields that are naturally produced in the body.

Daniel V. Flynn, V.M.D., past president of AAEP, medical director Equine OrthoCare, and the man with the most clinical experience with the System, reports: “Common tendon and ligament injuries of the lower limb respond very well to the IoniCare System. A significant reduction in healing time is seen and the size of the injured tendon or ligament remains closer to normal. This is confirmed by diagnostic ultrasound.”

Other prominent vets who have had success

“

Common tendon and ligament injuries of the lower limb respond very well to the IoniCare System. A significant reduction in healing time is seen and the size of the injured tendon or ligament remains closer to normal

”

Filly in September

ADVERTORIAL

treating soft tissue injuries with the IoniCare System include Gayle W. Trotter, DVM, MS, Diplomate ACVS (Co-editor of the standard text Joint Disease in the Horse), and Scott Morrison, DVM, (Podiatry Specialist, The Podiatry Center, Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital, Lexington, KY).

Equine OrthoCare says the effectiveness of the IoniCare System in treating causes of equine lameness has been demonstrated by years of field testing by equine veterinarians, trainers and horse owners in the United States. This versatile non-drug, non-invasive technology has been used in equine veterinary practice to successfully treat joint and connective tissue injuries including bone, cartilage, tendon and ligament. When properly used, the System is safe and has no known adverse side effects.

Its design allows for treatment of two sites simultaneously, and can be used on multiple horses each day.

For more information call 855-446-6422, or visit www.ionicare.com.

Filly in December

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www.trmirelandinc.com

Mike Trombetta (below the number 13, behind) with Extrasexyhippzster and owners after winning the Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel Park

TRM Trainer of the Quarter

MIKE TROMBETTA

The TRM Trainer of the Quarter award has been won by Mike Trombetta. Trombetta and his team will receive a selection of products from the internationally-acclaimed range of TRM supplements, as well as a bottle of fine Irish whiskey.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: JIm mcCuE/mID ATLAnTIC TB PHOTOgRAPHy

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I

T’S hard to imagine any trainer beginning the new year with more success than Mike Trombetta. The 47-year-old native of Baltimore, Maryland, won back-toback $100,000 stakes at Laurel Park on January 25: the Miracle Wood for three-year-olds with Extrasexyhippzster, who had previously won the Don Rickles Stakes in New York; and the Native Dancer for older horses with Bold Curlin. Extrasexyhippzster, a homebred owned

by Toni Kirwan and Ed Hipps, won the Miracle Wood by 3¾ lengths. Harry and Tom Meyerhoff’s Bold Curlin won his stakes by two lengths.

The two horses helped Trombetta began the Laurel meet with six victories, one second, and three thirds from just 18 starts. He ranked 13th nationally in earnings through late January.

His success isn’t surprising. Trombetta has finished in the top 30 nationally in earnings for four consecutive years. He ranked 22nd in 2011 and 25th in 2012, when his horses earned a career high $4,493,406. Last year, he

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was 30th with just under $4 million off 101 victories, 114 seconds, and 102 thirds from 683 starts. “It was a good year,” Trombetta said.

“We broke 100 wins, and we had earnings in the high $3 millions. Our last four or five years have hovered around that.”

Two of his most successful horses in the last two years are 2011 Charles Town Oaks winner Strike the Moon and 2012 Grade 1 Nearctic Stakes winner Next Question, who have combined lifetime earnings of just under $1.1 million.

What is surprising is that Trombetta has only been training full-time for nine years. The son of a longtime owner, he worked for his brother’s contracting company for 15 years while training a small string of horses. When the number of horses increased, he went full time in 2005, 19 years after he saddled his first winner, Amant de Cour at Atlantic City. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

He did it well enough in his first year to be named the 2005 Maryland Trainer of the Year.

The following year, he drew national attention with Sweetnorthernsaint, who won the Illinois Derby. He went off the favorite in the 2006 Kentucky Derby, but had a rough start and,

Bold Curlin wins the Native Dancer

after being rushed into contention, finished seventh under Hall of Fame jockey Kent Desormeaux. “Our day was basically done ten steps out of the gate,” Trombetta said. “He got squeezed back.”

Sweetnorthernsaint rebounded to finish second to Bernardini in the Preakness. “He took us to another level,” Trombetta said. “It allowed

people to see what we do.”

New York handicappers are well aware that Trombetta has done very well when he ships horses in from his farm in Baldwin, Maryland.

Trombetta’s current 75-horse stable will swell to nearly 100 by the summer. He’s hopeful that Extrasexyhippzster will continue his success.

“This is a colt we’ve felt had plenty of ability from the start,” Trombetta said. “He’s really lightly raced and everything he’s been asked to do, he’s done so far.”

When asked about the colt’s name, Trombetta laughed. “The owner always names her horses with wild names,” he said. “She uses the maximum number of characters.”

Trombetta said he’s still working on a shorter barn nickname for Extrasexyhippzster. “We don’t know what to call him yet,” he said.

Of Bold Curlin, Trombetta said, “He’s a yearling we bought with the Meyerhoffs. The last few months, he’s hit a new gear. His numbers jumped up.”

Asked what he enjoys most about training, Trombetta said, “I like developing young talent.

It’s exciting to me, to watch them develop.

That’s very gratifying. We’re all in this because we hope to have good horses.” n

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PROFILE

LEAH GYARMATI Flourishing in a tough environment

Gyarmati on her pony, stakes-placed Diligent Gambler, who passed away in January last year

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LEAH GYARMATI

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PROFILE

A

WORDS: FRANCES J KARON PHOTOS: BARBARA LIVINGSTON, FRANCES J KARON

LLEN Jerkens, in poster size, laminated and autographed, is angled into a corner behind and to the side of Leah Gyarmati’s desk in her Belmont Park office in Elmont, New York. In their crate, Hillary and El, mother-and-daughter Jack Russell Terriers, bark. Gyarmati tosses them sausage treats.

A fit woman of 49 with blonde hair and a New York accent, Gyarmati is one of few female trainers on this circuit, and she’s flourishing in a career she never anticipated having. “I’m very happy doing what I’m doing,” she says. “It just was never really a planned course. Or at least MY planned course – it might have been someone’s planned course.”

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Gyarmati’s work riders are easy to spot: They wear hot pink. Her horses train in gray saddlecloths embroidered with a stick figure design of a woman in a skirt wearing a bow on her head.

That logo wouldn’t be mistaken for a selfportrait of Leah Gyarmati.

“I wanted them just plain,” she says, but when she ordered her equipment, “the woman kept pushing. ‘Don’t you want your initials or a square or this or that?’ No. Finally I just drew a stick figure with flip hair, and this is how it came on my saddle towels. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’” Gyarmati rolls her eyes and adds that when one of the guy jockeys comes for the first time to work a horse, “He sees me coming at him with a pink vest and he’s like, ‘Ohhh no.’”

But no, Leah Gyarmati (pronounced Jar-MAti), ex-jockey and as of last year the conditioner of a Grade 1 stakes winner, is not what you

would classify as a girly-girl. It would be difficult to thrive in this environment if she were. “If you can’t stand up for yourself, you’re not going to make it on the racetrack,” she says.

“Really, you’re not going to make it anywhere.

You have to have a little fight in you.”

Gyarmati rode show horses from a young age into her teenage years with no aspiration to cross over to racing, but after she graduated from high school, her father sent her to work for Hall of Famer Allen Jerkens, who trained a horse owned in part by her godfather. The idea was that this was to be a gig for the summer and she would attend New York University in the fall. “I think my dad thought I wouldn’t be asking to go to horse shows all summer and that he was going to save money,” she says. “It backfired when I wanted to stay on the track. I don’t think that was his plan!”

She was, initially, reluctant. “I kind of looked

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LEAH GYARMATI down my nose at the racetrack,” she says. “I didn’t really want to do it. And then what I immediately loved about it was that it didn’t matter where you came from, it didn’t matter how much money you had – nothing mattered.

If you got on a horse and showed that you could do a better job than the person that got off of him, you were in good shape. It wasn’t like that with the show horses. The racetrack’s a place where you have to prove yourself.”

Summer faded to autumn, when Gyarmati found herself skipping classes amd eventually leaving NYU altogether. The lure of backside life, although often a demanding one, had won her over.

“When I came to the track, it didn’t bother me that Allen would yell. But the first time he yelled at me I started crying, and he never

“If you can’t stand up for yourself, you’re not going to make it on the racetrack. Really, you’re not going to make it anywhere. You have to have a little fight in you” yelled at me again. I’ll never forget that. I was on a horse named Thirty Flags, a Bohemia horse,” she says, referring to Mrs. Richard C. duPont’s Bohemia Stable. “She was one of the first horses I got to gallop regularly. I think the reason was she had a skin disease that was so bad she lost all her hair.

“None of the riders wanted to get on her. So I got on her every day and I loved her. She was getting to where she was breezing and I was just learning to breeze, and she was coming up to a race and he wanted to put somebody else on her. He put it on the board, that she was going to breeze and somebody else was going to get on her. And I jumped on her when I saw her come out of the stall, because I didn’t want anyone else to get on her.

“So I’m walking around the shedrow and he sees me and he’s like, ‘I thought I told So-and-so to get on that filly!’ and I’m like ‘No, I can do it, I can do it! I’ve been breezing horses.

I can breeze this filly!’ ‘THIS ISN’T A RIDING ACADEMY! WE’RE NOT HERE JUST SO YOU CAN LEARN TO RIDE RACEHORSES!’ And he’s screaming and standing still on the pony, and I go all the way around the shedrow and I come back around with tears coming down my face and he just throws his arms up in the air and says, ‘Come on, little girl, let’s go.’ He always called me ‘little girl.’ That was so funny.”

fe

Her first set has yet to go to the track. Gyarmati

Gyarmati in discussion with top jockey Irad Ortiz

swings a shavings fork around, sifting through bedding, maneuvering around a tall dark bay gelding. “Sorry, it’s a little messy here,” she says, apologizing again as she flings a small pile of manure out of the stall.

“This particular stuff – the pellets – I love it.

You save a lot of money and if the grooms do it right, it’s beautiful. But you have to stay on top of it, so sometimes I have to do this myself. They get mad at me every time I walk by and say, ‘There’s a pile in there.’ They’re like, ‘Do you want me to put diapers on these horses?’ I cringe when I see a horse in a nasty stall. I wouldn’t want to live like that.”

On the other side of the barn are groom Pat’s horses. “Her stalls, you can see, are perfect,” says Gyarmati. “They’re white like sand.”

Pat, who began working for Gyarmati three years ago as a hotwalker, says, “Well, you know how women are! When I started rubbing I said, ‘I’m going to ask you how you like your stalls.’

She told me how she does it and I try to keep it that way. I’ve got to take care of her,” and here Pat acknowledges the plain bay head of Sweet Reason, the barn’s resident Grade 1 winner.

“She’s the big mama. She’s the big girl!”

fe After high school, Gyarmati – from Forest Hills in Queens – enrolled in veterinary school in her father’s native Hungary, where her uncle Dezso, a national hero, was a three-time Olympic gold medalist in water polo and the father of Olympic silver and bronze medalist swimmer Andrea Gyarmati.

The first six months of Gyarmati’s studies in Budapest were focused on language. It was during the second half of the school year that she felt lost, learning Hungarian words for technical terms it was assumed she already understood. She says, “It wasn’t the Hungarian I was having a hard time with; it was the science and the math. We are so far behind in science and math than the Eastern Bloc countries were.

It was like nothing to them. They could do it in their sleep, the actual subject matter. It was really embarrassing. I was like, ‘Alright! Let’s pick something else to do for a living, because this isn’t going to happen.’”

In Hungary, she had become involved with a seminary, and when vet school wasn’t panning

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PROFILE Gyarmati with Alex Solis on Spinaway Stakes winner Sweet Reason

out, she was persuaded to go home to the U.S. and study theology. Gyarmati had developed an interest in religion during her early days on the racetrack. Walter Guerra, who won Breeders’ Cup races on champions Outstandingly and Cozzene in the ’80s, had often spoken to her about God. “And I’d say, ‘Well I’m glad it works for you, Walter. That’s very nice, but it’s not my thing.’ And then one day, it was!”

Although she says, “I never really knew what I wanted to do. I kind of just floated,” she settled long enough at Samford University in Alabama to earn an undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion and a Master’s in theological studies.

Gyarmati initially pursued a PhD at New Jersey’s Drew University, but gravitated back toward the racetrack and Allen Jerkens. “I was just going to try to help pay bills by working in the morning and going to school in the afternoon and evening,” she says. “But I was married with a daughter who was about five years old, and the marriage wasn’t working so I found myself single with a child. Going to school to get your doctorate is expensive, and an opportunity came up to ride [as a jockey] with Allen.”

And Leah Gyarmati floated into another phase of her life: race riding.

fe Winter at New York racetracks is not for the faint of heart. Trainers, assistants, jockeys, and

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“We don’t need to eat animals to survive. I don’t think that just because we’re smarter than them that we should be able to make a business out of them and eat them.” clockers take shelter from the cold in the two-storey stand overlooking Belmont’s training track. Top jock Rajiv Maragh is overheard talking about a favorite meal when Gyarmati surprises him: “I don’t eat meat.” Maragh can hardly believe it. “What about seafood?” he asks.

“Ideally, no, but it’s what I cheat with. I love it,” she replies, “but I try not to eat any animals.”

This is rooted, she says, in her own days as a jockey. “When I was riding, that’s how I got down to 108 pounds. I just stopped eating all meat. No fish, either.”

Daughter Rachel, a senior at Fordham University, is a vegan, but Gyarmati is not a vegetarian in its purest sense. “I’m not superstrict about the vegetarian thing,” she says. “I just try to do that. We don’t need to eat animals to survive. We do it because we want to, and we overconsume. I don’t think that just because we’re smarter than them that we should be able

to make a business out of them and eat them.”

In a similar vein, when horses in her care reach the end of their racing careers, she uses several outlets, including a show horse friend and New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program. “I feel very strongly about this,” Gyarmati says. “All owners that I have now are like this: They put all the time into getting a horse sound. We’ll either pay to keep it somewhere or I keep it here if I have room, until it’s ready to go ahead and do something else. I have no tolerance for people that just say to get rid of the horse, to drop it in and hope we can lose it.”

Mid-morning, as she circles the barn scooping sweet feed into feed tubs, the horses whinny as if in agreement with her words: “Horses are pets. The majority of horses on Earth are here as pets. These happen to also make a living for us.” She’s about to say more, when Heberto “Herbie” Castillo Jr. cuts in to say, simply, “Spinaway’s in the barn.”

Gyarmati’s long-time partner Castillo won stakes on some pretty good horses before he retired from race riding in 2006: Country Hideaway; Delta Princess, the dam of champion Royal Delta; Finder’s Fee; Furlough; Mecke; My Big Boy; Pistols and Roses, who won back-toback Donn Handicaps; Randaroo; Vision and Verse – they ran second by a head in the Belmont at odds of 55-1; and Yankee Victor among them.

And Spinaway…is a squirrel.

Gyarmati perks up at Castillo’s news and

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LEAH GYARMATI stops setting out the feed, grabbing a plastic bag filled with nuts. She raised Spinaway, who was found at Saratoga in 2013 and named after her first Grade 1 win, from birth. “I was sure that she wouldn’t make it through the night,” she says.

“She still had the umbilical cord on.” She swipes through baby photos on her phone of Spinaway and other squirrels she’s rehabilitated and released. “I have more pictures of squirrels than of my daughter.”

Castillo says: “Everybody takes a back seat to the squirrels.”

“I love them. I know, I’m like a little obsessed.

I’m the crazy squirrel lady on the block.”

It began when she discovered one in her driveway that couldn’t move its back legs. “I took it to a vet and he helped me, but he didn’t want any part of keeping it. I couldn’t find a rehab person close by so I thought, ‘Well, I can do this.’”

She’s continued to rehab squirrels, including Einstein, who lives with her and Castillo. The others she releases at her barn, where a favorite

“I love them. I know, I’m like a little obsessed. I’m the crazy squirrel lady on the block” part of her routine is giving them nuts. “I spend a lot of money on my squirrels,” she says. “Only the best for them.”

Gyarmati’s close friend Stefan Tufano says, “Anybody who takes squirrels into their home, that tells you all you need to know about her, right?!”

Once an owner who had horses with Gyarmati, Tufano, whose grandfather Lou raced the high-class Market Wise in the ’40s, became involved in racing in the late 1990s after he noticed that a horse his father had bred was the granddam of Silver Charm.

Tufano – from New York but living in Maine – came to visit Gyarmati for the holidays and stayed because he enjoys watching her horses do so well. “I’m so happy for her to be in this position, because she really deserves it,” he says.

“She really cares about the horses and you can see that in the way she takes care of them. I’m so excited for her. I enjoy watching her have all this success. It’s exciting for me to see because I was with her at the beginning. I always knew she had the potential for it.”

fe Jockey Gyarmati won her first race in 1997 at Belmont, piloting Hobeau Farm’s Jerkenstrained Forest Lover a month after her riding debut, also on Forest Lover, in April. They won by 9½ lengths and paid $24.20. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is easy!’” She laughs at her naïveté. “NOT!

Aaahhhhh!”

She rode in 222 races from 1997 to 1999, posting 15 wins, 17 seconds, and 34 thirds.

Already in her mid-30s, Gyarmati knew she couldn’t make a career of riding, and with thoughts on a law degree, she had lunch with two ladies – one of whom, Jean Zorn, taught law, as Gyarmati thought she might like to do – to discuss her options. Instead, the conversation turned to Saratoga. The women decided to claim a horse and said, “Why don’t you train it?”

Thus, Castle Village Partnership, managed by Steve Zorn, got Leah Gyarmati into the racehorse training business. They acquired a five-year-old $20,000 claimer, and on September 2, 1999, she saddled her first runner: Flippy Diane, who was second for $40,000 at Saratoga that day. Six weeks later, Flippy Diane won the $100,000 Maryland Million Distaff Handicap at Laurel Park. In six starts for Castle Village, jockey Diane Nelson, and Gyarmati, the mare was never worse than third, amassing over $115,000 in earnings.

“That’s how it started,” Gyarmati says. “It wasn’t supposed to be a permanent job, but law school kind of went out the window and I never even took the LSATs.” With success immediately out of the gate, she could be forgiven if she had thought, “Oh, this is easy!” in her latest endeavor. But it would be more than a decade before Gyarmati won another stakes race, with 46-1 Roman Chestnut in the 2010 Busher Stakes at Aqueduct. Big Brownie contributed three stakes wins from 2010-2012, and Smooth Bert one in 2012.

Nearly 15 years after saddling her first runner, Gyarmati maintains a moderate-sized stable of 20-odd horses based in New York year-round.

And race riding? She doesn’t miss it. “It was fun to do,” she says, “but I’m over it.”

Not that training has always been fun: “It’s nice now because I have some nice horses, and it’s been okay for a few years, but there were a bunch of times I wanted to quit, or where if I would have had the right job offer I’d have walked away.”

Many of her fellow trainers are down south, away from the brutal temperatures. “It’s great to spend the winter in Florida,” Gyarmati says, “but I think it’s a luxury. It’s a vacation. At least, it would be for me. The money’s not as good, the competition’s tougher, and you have to have the right horses for it. I have New York-breds.

Racing here is good. You have to play with the weather, time things and stay on top of them, so you get your breezes in before the weather comes.”

Allen and son Jimmy Jerkens – who trained a pair of Breeders’ Cup winners in Artie Schiller and Corinthian – are in Florida, but Jimmy’s confidence in Gyarmati sees him leave some of his stock, primarily New York-breds, with her for the season.

Gyarmati employs many of the training

philosophies she learned from the senior Jerkens. “Allen treats horses individually,” she says. “I think it’s really important. You can get more out of a lot of the horses that way, to make them want to do it. It’s not just about making them do it, but making them want to do it. And also realizing when a horse just isn’t cut out do to it, stopping before it’s too late so they can do something else – that’s really important.”

In a trademark Jerkens move, Gyarmati had Sweet Reason breeze eight furlongs at Santa Anita in her final pre-Breeders’ Cup tune-up and got “all kinds of flak.” “I’ve always done it but nobody paid attention, and then for the Breeders’ Cup, all of a sudden, every little thing you do is a big deal,” she says. “So when I worked a mile, I got all kinds of criticism for that. But all those people that work five-eighths, they gallop all the way back around, so really they do almost a mile. If you’re going to work a mile, work the last part faster than the first part.”

fe With a major snowstorm in the forecast, Gyarmati sends many of her horses out to breeze this morning. She will ride a pony – she was often seen on Castle Village Farm’s stakes-placed Diligent Gambler until he passed away of a suspected heart attack in January of 2013 – or one of her active racehorses during the

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PROFILE temperate months, but not in the wintertime.

Instead, jocks Irad Ortiz Jr., Maragh, and hot apprentice Taylor Rice breeze mounts on which they’ll be named in the coming weeks.

A fast move on the strapping three-year-old Deceived, a half-brother to local hero Naughty New Yorker, earns Maragh the nickname “Mario Andretti” from Gyarmati.

Gyarmati, too, gets called the occasional name – “babe,” “honey,” or similar – from generally well-intended acquaintances. “I usually notice things like that, because it ticks me off. If you’re over a certain age you’re allowed to do it. Yeah, that bugs me, but it doesn’t bother me nearly as much as someone thinking that I can’t do as good a job as a man.

“That doesn’t happen so much anymore,” she says. “I feel like I’ve got a very good camaraderie with all the other trainers and the jockeys, and the owners I have, I don’t think they feel like they’re settling for less. I’m sure there are some that don’t think that women are capable, but I think we’ve kind of moved from that era.”

On the backside in the 2000s, women are more prevalent – and willing to stick it out. “It’s tough if you’re a little on the wimpier side, if you couldn’t take shit.” Gyarmati says that racing “was a man’s thing through history. It’s been maybe the last half century that women started showing interest in the racetrack. Women are more comfortable jumping into a rough crowd now than they were 50, 60 years ago, so things have changed with the women, not as much with the environment. The environment hasn’t softened any. Women have maybe gotten a little tougher. If someone says something nasty, I’m not going to run home and cry. I’ll say something right back at them.”

fe Treadway Racing Stable’s Sweet Reason has backed up Gyarmati’s assertion that female trainers can produce the goods.

Sweet Reason is, as groom Pat lovingly calls her, “the big girl” in Barn 53. Under Alex Solis in four starts at two, the daughter of Street Sense broke her maiden at Saratoga by 6¼ lengths; gave Gyarmati a first graded stakes win, in Saratoga’s Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes by 5¾; was second in the Grade 1 Frizette; and was fourth, beaten two lengths, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies-G1. Heading into her sophomore campaign in 2014, the $185,000 purchase has earned $457,600.

Another Treadway horse – the Malibu Moon colt Noble Moon – won the Grade 2 Jerome Stakes under Ortiz at Aqueduct in January, in only his third career start. A minor setback interrupted his training for the Withers, in which the owner-trainer powerhouse substituted impressive maiden winner Street Gent, who failed to make an impact in that early Kentucky Derby prep.

Gyarmati has just these two graded wins to her name, but her horses have been in the top

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“The environment hasn’t softened any. Women have maybe gotten a little tougher. If someone says something nasty, I’ll say something right back at them”

instantly hitting it off with him. She credits him for her success at the sales, saying, “He took me under his wing and took me around the sales showing me what to look for, what to stay away from – that kind of thing. He set me up the first year with some really nice babies. He’s like my go-to guy all the time.”

“She may be a little modest,” says Tufano, “but to buy these horses – she and Jeff, they’ve hit some homeruns. They did a nice job.”

three nine times in 22 graded stakes starts, and increasingly so. Through Jeff Treadway and Bona Venture Stables, for whom she trains Smooth Bert – who competed in last season’s New Yorkbred Triple Crown – she’s “slowly and slowly gotten nicer-bred horses.”

Sweet Reason, Noble Moon ($200,000), and Street Gent ($80,000) were plucked out of the 2012 Keeneland September yearling sale by Treadway and Gyarmati. Deceived was a $180,000 OBS March sale graduate. But for a long time, Gyarmati focused on claiming horses.

“I had a few owners wanting me to go to the sales but I didn’t feel comfortable,” she says.

“You have to know what you’re doing and who you’re dealing with, because it’s a bit tricky. I kept trying to deflect. ‘Oh, let’s just claim horses,’ or ‘Let’s buy privately.’ And then I had one owner that had some money and I couldn’t say no. I had to bite the bullet and just do it.”

Looking at dipping her toe in with a buyback, she called consignor and agent J.J. Crupi,

In Barn 53, as at any barn at Belmont, a couple of cats wander around, leaving chickens undisturbed outside in the courtyard. Red, empty bags of Omolean feed are methodically stuffed under the soffits to keep pigeons from roosting inside, but the birds gather in here anyway, their cooing a regular part of the acoustics. Nesting boxes for squirrels are placed high on the walls. The roof, which is new, leaks – but only when it’s not raining. Dogs Hillary and El bark at strangers and keep the night watchman company.

And since last summer, security cameras are located throughout Gyarmati’s barn.

These come with the territory of having a horse the caliber of Sweet Reason, the added edge of training one that’s so talented you’d worry constantly if you couldn’t monitor the goings-on at the barn from home, your phone, or iPad 24/7. “Paranoid,” Gyarmati calls it.

And now not only does she have Sweet Reason, but also Noble Moon and a handful of other promising three-year-old colts, including stakes-placed Deceived, who won under Maragh by 8¼ at Aqueduct in January.

Stefan Tufano hopes that at least some of these promising horses pan out for his pal. “It’s a long way away, but it would be so exciting to see Leah have a Derby and an Oaks hopeful,” he says.

“It’d be quite a big deal, you know.”

fe

fe For her own part, Gyarmati reflects, “It’s a tough place to make a living. But really there are a lot of great people on the racetrack. There really are. There are so many people who have your back. As tough of a place as it is – everybody talks a tough game – but there are a lot of people to help you when you’re struggling.

A lot of trainers, when you’re not doing well, they’re there to help you out and throw something your way. I consider myself very, very fortunate. And blessed.”

Leah Gyarmati is a glimmer of hope in New York’s racing scene.

“The other day my friend Stefan was just about to say, ‘Oh wow, a white pigeon, that’s rare!’ And then all of a sudden three more flew down.

“Maybe,” she concludes, “it’s a sign.” n

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VETERINARY

How eating aids the skeletal structure

T

HE horse is documented as a prey species and as such retains, despite domestication, areas of hyper-sensitivity in loins, abdominal tunic, and poll; pain experienced in any of these areas, no matter the cause, gives rise to an immediate fright, fight, and/or flight response.

Equine dentistry has been practiced since 600 BC and is recorded in varied medical treatises by many of the early masters of equitation, including Xenophon (350 BC), Pliny the Elder (77 AD), and Vegetius (420 AD), who in his Digesta Artis Mulomedicinae appeared to link incorrect chewing methods with poor health.

Thus, the art of dentistry is not new although requirement is often ignored as, due to lack of information, the secondary effects of mouth pain are generally underestimated. In order to appreciate this, the basic anatomy of

It has been said that ‘equine conformation evaluates the degree of correctness of a horse’s bone structure, musculature, and its body proportions in relation to each other.’ This is undeniable, but there is remarkably little information in published literature regarding the importance of the position of the head, despite the fact that this has a direct effect on balance, posture, and subsequent performance.

WORDS: GaRy WateRS, equine Dental technician, MaRy BROMiley, equine PhySiOtheRaPiSt PhOtOS: GaRy WateRS illuStRatiOn: caROle VinceR

the complexity of the mouth requires consideration.

The mouth consists of an upper jaw, or maxilla, an integral unit of the skull; and a lower jaw, or mandible. Muscles and ligaments attach the jaws to the temporal bone or

Caps shed at the same time of year in a large stable

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forehead, an integral part of the skull. The connection of the lower jaw necessitates two joints, one on either side, known as the temporomandibular joints (TMJ). These joints function not only to enable movement of the lower jaw but, through sensors, are involved with balance, and they are also in communication with the bones and joints comprising the poll, which is another important area involved in balance perception/regulation.

The mobile tongue is shaped to comfortably cover the upper surface of the lower jaw, its sides in contact with the cheek teeth, the premolars, and molars, which pulverize or grind food. Some of the highly specialist nerves controlling the components of the mouth, unlike most motor nerves, stem directly from the brain and lie, as they track toward the mouth, within the soft tissues of the cheeks.

The horse has between 36 and 44 teeth, arranged in equal numbers between the upper and lower jaws. All the incisors and premolars two, three, and four are deciduous (baby teeth), replaced by adult teeth by the age of five. Eruption can be painful and often the shells of the primary teeth are not expelled, remaining jammed and thus a source of pain.

A horse is hypsodont, meaning that while

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having a known growth period, its teeth continue in a state of prolonged eruption throughout life – nature’s way of ensuring wear does not remove the ability to chew, an essential requirement. It follows that the older the horse, the longer the teeth.

Unfortunately without natural wear an incorrect balance results, hence one of the requirements for regular dental inspection.

Another problem apparently arising from the use of concentrated feeds in the stabled horse and evident only to the dentist is the increasing prevalence of peripheral caries, caused by bacterial fermentation and acid production within adherent dental plaque. Gingival (gum) recession has also been observed, occurring if there are spaces between teeth that cause an impaction of food resulting in bacterial

fermentation with consequent local gum damage.

The reason for lack of natural tooth wear apparent in the feral animal stems largely from inappropriate food, which includes woody stems and twigs in conjunction with softer herbage. This mix necessitates considerable activity within the mouth to ensure digestible matter reaches the stomach. For internal progress and digestion, food matter requires saliva, which ensures easy passage from mouth to esophagus and onward down into the stomach; three pairs of oral salivary ducts – the parotid (largest), mandibular and sublingual – provide the necessary saliva but only if stimulation for production is provided by adequate chewing.

The horse uses its lips to examine food

material, then utilizes the lower jaw incisors to grasp and cut the selected plant matter. Once in the mouth, aided by the action of the tongue, the bolus of matter is propelled to the cheek teeth, which are arranged in rows or arcades angled in a manner to enable complete pulverization of the food bolus when the lower jaw is activated by the muscles of mastication.

These are sited on the lateral aspect of the face – the cheek – lying below the ear and connected with muscles controlling the ear.

Activity within the muscles of mastication is not confined to influencing movement of the TMJs alone but also affects the often ignored interaction between the TMJ and the second joint of the vertebral column, the atlanto-axial joint. These joints, while enabling movement between their adjacent skeletal components,

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VETERINARY are involved in postural balance, richly endowed with neural sensors and as a result of the combination of messages from them, body balance – head position in particular – is continually assessed.

Little is known about equine pain thresholds but horses certainly change their way of going to avoid pain. This is often imperceptible but unfortunately, due to rapid inscription of incorrect movement patterns in the movement control centers of the brain, even when the pain source is removed, the original, economic, balanced movement interactions will not automatically re-establish.

Uneconomic movement will affect performance and the subsequent biomechanical stresses may, long term, result in injury. Mouth pain, even subclinical, will result in evasive action by the horse, who will attempt to avoid aggravating discomfort by changing its head position. Adverse change of head position affects the nuchal ligament, a double-sided

“Mouth pain, even subclinical, will result in evasive action by the horse, who will attempt to avoid aggravating discomfort by changing its head position” elastic structure running under the mane from poll to withers and continuing as the supraspinous ligament along the top of the back to the dock.

When there is balanced flexion at the poll, tension occurs throughout the nuchal and supraspinous ligament, transmitted along the entire back and effectively lifting and stabilizing the central rod of the body frame, the vertebral column. The horse relies on a stable frame; when unstable, the horse reorganizes movement sequences to remain upright, shortening the time each individual limb is weight-bearing by reducing stride length, and thus discomfort in the mouth can have farreaching effects on performance.

Flight for survival is programmed into the horse, so not only is frame stability required but so is a balanced posture; deviation from the acceptable normal head position upsets balance and results in alterations to body posture.

Pain also reduces normal movement with subsequent loss of muscle bulk. As the bulk, created by muscle masses, protects blood Top left and center: Illustrating the point of contact between the bit and first cheek teeth caused by bit pressure Left: a ‘cap’ deciduous

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VETERINARY

Lower deciduous central incisors (701 & 801) and permanent incisors (101 & 201)

vessels and nerves, its reduction can affect local circulatory vessels and neural pathways.

Within and adjacent to the muscles of the cheeks are a number of vital vessels and nerves, some of which, as previously mentioned, stem directly from the brain; of these, the hyperglossal (twelfth cranial nerve) and the vagus (tenth cranial nerve) provide sensory and motor innervation to the tongue, larynx, and pharynx. Thus, if pain in the mouth results in an inability to chew correctly it can lead to muscle loss in the cheeks.

The nerves controlling the tongue, larynx, and pharynx are in the cheeks, with efficient function vital during eating, swallowing, and breathing, so it is essential that they remain undisturbed. It is also worth noting that there is an intimate inter-connection between the nerves supplying the teeth and correct position of TMJs and poll, which are vital centers for postural control and balance.

Muscles require fuel and the digestibility of varied foods, including fiber and moisture content, has a significant effect on health, particularly as the degree of processing required varies with each, influencing chewing time. Concentrates require remarkably little chewing and consequently remarkably little saliva is produced; if a horse is given a known weight of concentrate and a similar weight of hay it will produce roughly double the amount of saliva when chewing the hay as it will when chewing the concentrate.

The increased movement required when pulverizing roughage as opposed to pellets ensures full contact between the upper and lower teeth arcades. This correct chewing retains the naturally designed angles and opposition between the cheek teeth. Under natural conditions a horse would graze (chew) for 13 to 16 hours a day as opposed to the

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stabled animal, whose average chewing time is limited to approximately four hours a day. This difference in chewing time and the silicate content of different feed also affects the wear of the grinding surface of the teeth, with incorrect chewing resulting in deformity of tooth shape, often manifesting in the development of sharp lateral areas or points.

If ignored, the sharp edges may cut the inner side of the cheeks or lateral aspect of the tongue

“With the mouth of the horse forming an important line of communication between horse and rider, a painful link usually results in a horse fighting for its head or fixing the lower jaw” with consequent extreme discomfort. Horses on a high diet of concentrated feed require more frequent dental examination and treatment to avoid development of the dental irregularities associated with a smaller mandibular excursion during mastication.

Mouth trouble manifests in varied forms but signs are often so subtle they are not noticed.

Of the more obvious, quidding (dropping food) and/or halitosis are usually recognized, whereas mild single nasal discharge, general unwillingness to perform, refusing to correct an unacceptable head position, poll discomfort, back pain, rearing, hanging, fixing the jaw against bit pressure, running very keenly,

muscle atrophy of the cheeks, and loss of condition should be but are rarely associated with mouth discomfort.

Pain, as suggested, causes incorrect chewing, leading to reduction in saliva production.

Saliva not only assists the passage of chewed food but is designed to interact with digestive enzymes in the stomach to ensure when food material is moved to the intestines the resident bacteria can interact and create absorbable, nutritional molecules. Therefore it follows if food, on reaching the stomach to undergo the first of the digestive processes, is inadequately prepared, the efficient processes essential for nutrient absorption and general health cannot occur.

Lack of muscle fuel leads to inefficient muscle ability so no matter the quality of feed provided or the exercise regime adopted, muscles cannot be prepared and conditioned for competition without efficient digestion to deliver the required nutrients. While there are exceptions to every rule regarding performance, each horse subconsciously appreciates its physical limits and will resort to adopting a way of going appropriate for personal survival.

With the mouth of the horse forming an important line of communication between horse and rider, a painful link usually results in a horse fighting for its head, adopting an inefficient head position, or fixing the lower jaw.

When riding a horse that seems to be losing balance over a fence or on a corner, those brave enough to slip their reins usually survive, as they have given the horse freedom to reposition its lower jaw, enabling it to utilize inbuilt mechanisms to rebalance the body mass.

Another saying is that ‘diagnosis is secondary only to the number of opinions given!!’ Of the multiple reasons suggested for ‘bad behavior’ and the extensive number of varied therapies proffered, unfortunately dental examination is rarely considered. It is important to appreciate that even where dental treatment has proved necessary, if the horse has moved incorrectly for a period of time, the incorrect way of going will have become the accepted normal, and for this reason a team approach is beneficial: the dentist takes away the mouth discomfort, and the physiotherapist reinstates an effective, economic, muscle interaction.

While regular dental examination by a veterinarian or dental technician can contribute to improving a horse’s way of going, it also enhances the animal’s general health – and it is not just horses in training who benefit, but young stock and broodmares as well! n

Bibliography Anatomical source: Anatomy of the Horse, Klaus-Dieter Budras, W.O. Sack, Sabine Rock.

5th revised edition.

TMJ information: Dr. Karen Gellman. DVM graduate Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine. Information source, Articles various on, Equine Posture. Centred Riding Inc.

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CLASSIC MILE

CLASSIC MILE

Thriving training facitily Nearly three decades after his plan to open a racetrack in Ocala, Florida, failed to materialize, Domenic Martelli’s Plan B is still flourishing.

Martelli, a New Jersey real estate maven, thought legislation to approve a racetrack in Ocala was imminent in the mid ’80s. He didn’t wait for that approval, instead purchasing a 704-acre parcel on U.S. Highway 40 near the now-late Fred Hooper’s farm, and building a one-mile racetrack with a seven-furlong turf course, a three-furlong training track and 26 barns with 776 stalls, each barn featuring several paddocks for turnouts.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: SANDRA MADISON

H

E named his facility Classic Mile and planned to have a mixed-meet of Thoroughbred and Quarter Horses. He was sure racing would be approved. “It looked like a piece of cake,” Martelli told Dave Goldman in his October 12, 2006 story in the Daily Racing Form. “Boy, was I wrong.”

No matter. In Ocala, which bills itself as the “Horse capital of the world,” Classic Mile has thrived. “It’s a wonderful atmosphere to develop a young horse,” said trainer Michael Cooke, who has literally trained horses all over the world, from his native Ireland to Kentucky to Canada to Dubai to England to Florida. He’s been training at Classic Mile for seven years.

Trainer James Kirk, who’s been training horses at Classic Mile for more than 15 years, echoed Cooke’s assessment: “Young horses seem to do better here.”

Its location certainly doesn’t hurt. “Ocala is just a real nice area to be in,” said trainer Joe Davis, who is based in Indiana and has been spending his winters at Classic Mile the last five years.

The bottom line for these three trainers and dozens of others at Classic Mile is the performance of their horses on the racetrack.

Nobody appreciates that more than Davis, who decided to spend the winter of 2008-2009 at

Classic Mile. “I had a bunch of Indiana-breds, and I didn’t get enough stalls at Turfway Park,” he said.

The following summer, he was the leading trainer at Indiana Downs, and he’s been a fan of the training center ever since. “It’s night and day difference from a racetrack,” he said. “It’s not rush, rush, rush. The horses really love it.

They get refreshed. Horses have paddocks to relax in.”

Davis, now 53, has been training horses for 25 years. “I grew up on a cattle farm in Indiana,” he said. “My uncle had some horses.”

Racing on the Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky circuit, Davis has had great success with horses owned by his father-in-law Fred McCrary.

Their first great horse together was a gift – literally – a gelding named Derrick. “He was Indiana-sired, but they never did the paperwork on him,” Davis said. “He wasn’t eligible to anything. He was given to my fatherin-law as a yearling for free.”

Derrick turned out to be one of the very few Thoroughbreds who have won races on turf, synthetic, dry dirt, and wet tracks. By the time he was done racing at Ellis Park, Turfway Park, Churchill Downs, Indiana Downs, Hoosier Park, Oaklawn Park, Monmouth Park, Beulah Park, Evangeline Downs, and Keeneland, he had 16 wins, 16 seconds and 11 thirds from 68 starts

from 2003 to 2010 with earnings of $171,638.

They lost him twice on claims and claimed him back twice. “He was just a fun little horse to have,” Davis said. “We retired him and gave him to a girl in Indiana. She’s still riding him.”

Davis had a short but successful run with Nightly Ritual, whose four wins in 12 starts from 2008-2010 included the $100,000 Indiana Stallion Stakes. The mare also finished second by a neck in two other $100,000 Indiana state-bred stakes and made $164,805.

Geordie, another of their horses, won the $100,000 Indiana Stallion Stakes by 4¼ lengths in 2008.

Another horse Davis trained, Down by the Sea, finished second by three-quarters of a length in the $100,000 Bassinet Stakes at River Downs in 2003 before winning three straight, including the $74,0000 Miss Indiana Stakes and the $38,000 Indiana Stallion Stakes by six lengths as the 1-5 favorite.

This year, through mid-December, Davis has 16 wins, 17 seconds and 17 thirds from 114 starts with earnings of $292,414. He’s happy to be spending another winter at Classic Mile.

“We don’t train quite as hard here because we don’t have to hurry,” he said. “There’s no rush to race.”

One thing you need to know about James Kirk is that his middle initial is C., not T. for Tiberius, as in the captain of the USS Enterprise

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RACING

in Star Trek. “People don’t think I’m him, but everybody calls me ‘Captain Kirk,’” he said before laughing. “I wish I was him. Then I’d have his money.”

This Kirk hasn’t been in outer space, but he’s done all right for himself on Earth with horses.

“I’m 71, and still going strong,” he said.

A native of Silver Springs, Maryland, Kirk is the son of a jockey, Carson Kirk. “He rode in New Jersey, Maryland, and West Virginia,” Kirk said. “He was a good jockey. He’s in the Maryland and West Virginia Hall of Fame. He rode for 16 years. Two of his brothers rode. I was born into it.”

James Kirk rode from 1958 to 1964. “I was just an average rider,” he said. “I was fighting weight the last two years. I got too heavy.”

Even though his dad had become a trainer, Kirk wasn’t keen on becoming one. “I wasn’t

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“It’s one of the best racetracks you can train on in Florida. It’s a good atmosphere. It’s a lot quieter. Horses don’t have a lot of excitement while they’re trying to learn” James Kirk crazy about it,” he said. But when his dad passed away at the age of 47, he took over the few horses in his dad’s stable. He was just 25. “I won nine out of 28 starts in Maryland and West

Virginia, but I didn’t have any money,” he said.

He took an apprenticeship with a blacksmith and became a farrier, shoeing horses in Maryland and West Virginia for 25 years before returning to training. He raced at Penn National and in California, Kentucky, Illinois, and Maryland. “I’ve been to about every racetrack there is,” he said.

He briefly returned to shoeing, then tried training again with horses he owned or was partners on. His stable, which at one time numbered 80, is 30 now. “When I was getting older, I wanted to go somewhere warmer,” he said.

That, of course, brought him to Classic Mile, where he enjoys breaking yearlings as well as training. “I like teaching young horses, breaking them and educating them to do the right thing,” he said.

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CLASSIC MILE

He’s very happy that he’s doing that at Classic Mile. “It’s one of the best racetracks you can train on in Florida,” Kirk said. “It’s a good atmosphere. It’s a lot quieter. More laid back.

Horses don’t have a lot of excitement while they’re trying to learn. You can teach a horse to do the right thing.”

For a man only 50 years old, Cooke seems to have already lived through several careers, putting together a resume that jumps off the page. Born into a racing family in Ireland, where his dad was a steeplechase trainer, he attended the Irish National Stud, where he had the good fortune of meeting Managing Director Michael Osborne, who excelled at igniting young trainers’ careers.

Thanks to Osborne, Cooke moved to the United States, where he worked for Fred Seitz at Brookdale Farm in Kentucky doing sales

Horses working in the idyllic setting of the Classic Mile track

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RACING prep. “I loved doing it, but I was overrun on a visa,” Cooke said.

That sent him back to Ireland, where he worked for a year before Osborne got him to a job at the famed Windfields Farm in Canada. “I stayed there for six years,” Cooke said. “I loved it up there. Canada is beautiful. I took care of the stallions up there and I did all the breaking of the yearlings.”

Cooke moved on to Adena Springs (then called Beechwood Farms) to work for Frank Stronach and his family. “That was when they had Awesome Again and Touch Gold,” Cooke said. “The Stronachs are great to work for. I worked for them for four years and I had a lot of fun. We won the (1994) Queen’s Plate with Basqueian. I worked mostly with Danny Vella at the racetrack. I did the training at the farm. We had a nice training center at the farm.”

Cooke’s next stop was Dubai, where he

“Classic Mile has a regulation mile track like Hialeah. It’s got a beautiful seven-eighths turf course that’s well maintained and absolutely gorgeous” Michael Cooke worked for Godolphin. That connection took him to Newmarket to work on the Godolphin horses in England. Then, Cooke returned to Canada, working for Josie Carroll and Roger Attfield. “I did a lot of traveling and had a lot of fun,” he said.

He came to Florida 13 years ago, spending the last seven at Classic Mile. “When I first came to Florida, I wanted to find a place that had a track just like a racetrack,” he said.

“Classic Mile has a regulation mile track like Hialeah. Same dimensions. It’s got a beautiful seven-eighths turf course that’s well maintained and absolutely gorgeous. I have two barns. My barns are a mile away from the racetrack. It’s a nice walk. Lots of trees.”

Cooke has 60 horses now. “We have a lot of babies,” he said. “Everything is quality here. We get these horses fit and ready to race. If they can race here, they can race in Miami. They can race in New York. They can race in California.

They can race in Canada.”

He doesn’t travel with them. He’s a single dad and his 12-year-old daughter Shaylie comes out to his barn every morning. “That’s why I’m not traveling anymore,” he said.

He’s happy that his current stop is at a training track he adores. “Everything we can do on the racetrack, we can do here,” he said. “This is a great facility. It’s just beautiful.” n

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DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

Predicting future soundness The quest to own or train the perfect racehorse can have many starting points. For many people the search for the Holy Grail begins at the yearling sales, where horsemen from around the globe inspect and agonize over young horseflesh, dreaming and hoping of attaining that future champion. A prominent part of this process is the pre-sales veterinary examination, which usually includes the reading of a set of repository radiographs of the prospective purchase.

F

WORDS: THOMAS O’KEEFFE PHOTOS: FRANCES J KARON, THOMAS O’KEEFFE

EW issues spark more debate and controversy than the interpretation of a juvenile Thoroughbred’s radiographs and their relevance to the horse’s future racing career. This article aims to review the most common radiographic finding, sesamoiditis, in the Thoroughbred yearling and discusses new research published in 2013 exploring the link between sesamoiditis and suspensory branch injuries and the effect these conditions can have on soundness and racing performance. This research can provide horsemen with accurate information with respect to the risk associated with these conditions and can aid them in the selection process and training of the young Thoroughbred racehorse.

Anatomy of Suspensory Apparatus The recently deceased top sire and multiple Grade 1 winner Harlan’s Holiday and the Australian phenomenon that is Black Caviar are two high profile examples of Thoroughbreds who suffered suspensory branch injuries during their racing careers.

The suspensory ligament’s function is crucial to a horse’s movement since it prevents excessive extension of the fetlock joint during the weight-bearing phase of the stride, and it is the combination of skeletal and soft tissue structures that make up the suspensory

apparatus that allow the racehorse to fulfill its athletic potential. The suspensory apparatus consists of the suspensory ligament and its extensor branches, the proximal sesamoid bones, and the distal sesamoidean ligaments.

The suspensory ligament bifurcates into lateral and medial branches one-half to twothirds down the cannon, and the branches insert mainly onto the proximal sesamoid bones. Sesamoiditis is thought to be an indicator of inflammation of the proximal sesamoid bone at the insertion site of the suspensory ligament branches.

The focus of much scrutiny and examination is the suspensory branch itself, as injuries that cause a loss of integrity to where it attaches to the sesamoid bone can result in an inability of the ligament to function properly. Clinical signs of suspensory branch injuries vary depending on the severity and chronicity of the lesion and usually include heat and swelling. There may be fetlock joint distension in some cases due to the close proximity of the suspensory ligament to the joint capsule. Pain on palpation of the branch is present during the acute stage but lameness is not a consistent feature of this condition and should not be used as a barometer of severity or clinical progress.

Ultimately, diagnosis is relatively straightforward based on clinical signs and ultrasonography. Ultrasound features of this

injury include fiber pattern disruption, altered echogenicity, ligament enlargement, and in moderate to severe cases a core lesion within the branch may be identified.

Research performed in horses in training Despite the high prevalence of the condition and the economic loss that can be suffered as a result of a suspensory branch injury, the subject has been poorly investigated until recently. Ultrasound examinations are being performed with a greater frequency now as part of a pre-purchase examination and ultrasound abnormalities of the suspensory branch are found with enough frequency to warrant further investigation into their significance.

The presumption is and has been that these abnormalities indicate the presence of current or previous injury and infer potential future weakness, thereby influencing the saleability of these horses. However this viewpoint is based on anecdotal observations, and it has not been until this year that a more detailed look at the condition has been performed.

Pete Ramzan and colleagues at Rossdales and Partners in Newmarket, U.K., published a study in May of 2013 in the Equine Veterinary Journal, where they completed ultrasounds on sixty racehorses in training known to be free of history and clinical signs of suspensory

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VETERINARY been in full training up until the time of the ultrasound examination. This study highlights the need for further research into the suspensory branch in racehorses to determine whether these abnormalities are predictive for future clinical injury.

Sesamoiditis and Suspensory Branch Desmitis

A normal sesamoid above (left), and an enlarged example of sesamoiditis (above). Suspensory branch ultrasounds (left).

Acquiring an ultrasound image (below)

branch injury or proximal sesamoid injury, in a bid to quantify the prevalence of the condition subclinically in a cohort of horses in training.

The study revealed that nearly 7% of the horses were found to have what would be considered moderate ultrasound

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abnormalities, with no history of clinical suspensory branch injury. These are findings significant enough to preclude the horses from being permanently imported into Hong Kong for racing or to negatively impact acceptability to purchaser regardless of destination, yet these horses had no clinical signs and have

Following the same theme in the U.S., Sarah Plevin and Jonathan McLellan of Florida Equine Veterinary Associates in Ocala have done extensive research on sesamoiditis and suspensory branch injuries and had two studies published in the Equine Veterinary Journal in August 2013. The first looked at the relationship between the radiographic signs of sesamoiditis in yearlings and whether they predispose these young horses to suspensory branch injury in their future racing careers.

Sesamoiditis has always been believed to be associated with injury to the suspensory branch attachment, however no study has investigated the relationship between yearling sesamoiditis and the subsequent development of suspensory ligament branch injury in early racehorse training.

Plevin and McLellan reviewed pre-sales radiographs of 291 clinically normal yearling Thoroughbreds and graded them for the presence of and/or the level of sesamoiditis present. Medical records for each of these horses during their first year of training were reviewed to identify cases of suspensory branch injury. The objective was to evaluate the usefulness of radiologic grading of yearling sesamoiditis as a marker for subsequent suspensory branch injury, which would allow veterinarians to more accurately provide prepurchase advice to their clients. All the horses in their study were trained at a single training center in Florida and all suspected cases of suspensory branch injury as exhibited by clinical signs were confirmed with diagnostic ultrasound.

The study showed that yearlings with significant sesamoiditis at the time of the yearling sales are more likely to develop suspensory branch injury in the corresponding suspensory branch than those with mild or no sesamoiditis. In order to categorize it further, researchers proved that yearlings with severe sesamoiditis are five times more likely to develop clinical signs of suspensory branch injury within the first year of race training.

This information provides veterinarians with a grading scale for reading radiographs of yearling’s sesamoid bones with which they can appropriately advise their clients when it comes to the pre-purchase examination. This should not be seen as a negative by consignors and breeders, as information and studies such as this allow veterinarians to advise clients with confidence of the statistically low risk of future injury of the majority of sales horses with low grade sesamoiditis.

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VETERINARY Suspensory Branch Problems and Racing Performance The second study performed by McLellan and Plevin explored the effect suspensory branch injury can have on racing performance, including number of starts, interval to first race, career earnings, and “speed figures” and compared to a control group. Records were reviewed of 896 horses in training, with horses who suffered an injury of the suspensory branch between September of their yearling year and May of their two-year-old year were identified. These horses’ race records were compared against their cohorts in the training group who served as the control group.

All case horses were managed with stall rest and a controlled increasing exercise program with sequential ultrasound examinations and physical examinations every 30 days during their rehabilitation period. Racing data from this study was obtained from the Equibase website, and the average Equibase “speed figure” was used as a measure of performance.

In the study, 9.5% of the horses were found to have suspensory branch injury, a figure that correlates well with previous research.

The left front inside suspensory branch was found to be most commonly affected, which may be as a result of either the counterclockwise training routine placing an increased stress on this branch or other factors such as individual horse conformation, track surface, etc. Horses who suffered suspensory branch injury before May of their two-year-old year were significantly less likely to reach the racetrack than their contemporaries.

Only two-thirds of the case horses made the racetrack by the end of their three-year-old season, compared to nearly 90% of the control group. Less than a third of the case horses started a race as a two-year-old, compared to over 60% of the control group. Also, McLellan and Plevin proved statistically that horses suffering from suspensory branch injuries have a significant increase in the number of days taken to achieve their first start.

It was, however, demonstrated during the review of the data that the comparison of the speed figures of horses with previous suspensory injury and those that were free of the problem did not yield a difference, suggesting that horses with this type of injury who actually race successfully have a similar performance level to their matched controls.

The other interesting conclusions from the study were that severe injuries to the suspensory branch had a 50% chance likelihood of reccurrence and that sesamoid bone abnormalities noted during the examination of the medical records coincided with a more severe suspensory branch injury and reduced racing performance.

Discussion The equine Thoroughbred suspensory apparatus is arguably the most biomechanically stressed part of the

40 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

thoroughbred’s anatomy and managing and treating suspensory branch injuries remains one of the most challenging problems that trainers and veterinarians encounter today.

This places an even greater emphasis on accurate diagnostic imaging not only in its traditional guise as a diagnostic tool in the face of an injury but also as an aid in predicting which horses may suffer from the condition in the future The three studies mentioned above demonstrate that injury to the suspensory branch is a serious career-limiting injury and reiterate how the anatomical relationship between sesamoid bone and suspensory ligament means that often, bone and soft tissue injuries occur simultaneously. The studies show that a very large percentage of young Thoroughbreds have, on radiographic examination, what would be considered strictly by textbook definition an “abnormal” sesamoid. However, the conclusion from should not be that any young horse with an abnormal sesamoid must be avoided; rather, that we now have an accurate grading system for sesamoiditis in yearlings that can aid veterinarians in predicting the likelihood of that horse developing a suspensory branch injury.

The grading system should allow for less yearlings to be criticized for having sesamoiditis at sales, increasing their prospects of finding a buyer and allowing those that are found to have significant sesamoiditis, and consequently high-risk candidates for a suspensory problem, to be managed and trained in the appropriate fashion for optimum chance of making the racetrack. This is especially relevant when the studies proved thatindividual cases with suspensory branch injury who make it to the racetrack achieve comparable speed figures with respect to their contemporaries, showing them to have no difference in racing ability. The high prevalence of both sesamoiditis and suspensory branch injury in young Thoroughbreds highlights the need for caution and more research into the area for a greater understanding of the significance of these findings and to prevent their overinterpretation.

Unfortunately, despite the many options available to the trainer and veterinarian for the treatment of suspensory branch injury, this is definitely one scenario where prevention is better than cure and why regular diagnostic imaging, coupled with a symbiotic relationship between trainer and veterinarian in the management of subclinical cases, should lead to the best outcome for all concerned. As a result of the dedication of veterinarians on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, our understanding of this troublesome condition has grown exponentially over the past twelve months and in the interests of horsemen and their racehorses, long may this continue to be the case. n

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RACING

WINNING OWNERS

Profiles on Grade 1-winning owners between October and December, 2013 North American Trainer’s nine-page special feature on our top Grade 1 winners for the past quarter. Visit trainermagazine.com/winners to view the profiles of all Grade 1-winning owners from April through December.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS.COM

GRADE ONE WINNERS – OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2013 Racecourse

Race

Date

Horse

Sire

Owner

Trainer

Keeneland Keeneland Keeneland Keeneland Keeneland Santa Anita Park Belmont Park Belmont Park Belmont Park Keeneland Woodbine Woodbine Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park

Alcibiades S Futurity S Spinster S First Lady S Shadwell Turf Mile Santa Anita Sprint Championship S Frizette S Jamaica S Champagne S Queen Elizabeth II Challenger Cup S Nearctic S Pattison Canadian International BC Juvenile Fillies Turf BC Juvenile Turf BC Dirt Mile BC Mile BC Juvenile BC Filly & Mare Turf BC Turf BC Sprint BC Classic BC Filly & Mare Sprint

10/4/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/5/2013 10/12/2013 10/13/2013 10/27/2013 11/1/2013 11/1/2013 11/1/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013 11/2/2013

My Conquestadory We Miss Artie (ON) Emollient (KY) Better Lucky (KY) Silver Max (KY) Points Offthebench (CA) Artemis Agrotera (NY) Up With the Birds (ON) Havana (KY) Kitten’s Dumplings (KY) Phil’s Dream (ON) Joshua Tree (IRE) Chriselliam (IRE) Outstrip (GB) Goldencents (KY) Wise Dan (KY) New Year’s Day (KY) Dank (GB) Magician (IRE) Secret Circle (KY) Mucho Macho Man (FL) Groupie Doll (KY)

Artie Schiller Artie Schiller Empire Maker Ghostzapper Badge of Silver Benchmark Roman Ruler Stormy Atlantic Dunkirk Kitten’s Joy Philanthropist Montjeu Iffraaj Exceed and Excel Into Mischief Wiseman’s Ferry Street Cry Dansili Galileo Eddington Macho Uno Bowman’s Band

Mark Casse Todd A. Pletcher William I Mott Thomas Albertrani Dale Romans Tim Yakteen Michael E Hushion Malcolm Pierce Todd A. Pletcher Michael J Maker Paul Buttigieg Edward Dunlop Charlie Hills Charles Appleby Doug O’Neill Charles LoPresti Bob Baffert Sir Michael Stoute Aidan P O’Brien Bob Baffert Kathy Ritvo William Buff Bradley

Santa Anita Park

BC Turf Sprint

11/2/2013

Mizdirection (KY)

Mizzen Mast

Santa Anita Park Aqueduct Churchill Downs Hollywood Park Hollywood Park Hollywood Park Hollywood Park

BC Juvenile Fillies Cigar Mile H Clark H Hollywood Derby Matriarch S Hollywood Starlet S CashCall Futurity

11/2/2013 11/30/2013 11/29/2013 12/1/2013 12/1/2013 12/7/2013 12/14/2013

Ria Antonia (KY) Flat Out (FL) Will Take Charge (KY) Seek Again Egg Drop (FL) Streaming (KY) Shared Belief (KY)

Rockport Harbor Flatter Unbridled’s Song Speightstown Alphabet Soup Smart Strike Candy Ride

Santa Anita Park Santa Anita Park

La Brea S Malibu S

12/26/2013 Heir Kitty (FL) 12/26/2013 Shakin It Up (KY)

Conquest Stables Kenneth L. and Sarah K. Ramsey Juddmonte Farms, Inc. (Khalid Abdullah) Godolphin Mark Bacon, Dana Wells Donny Crevier, Charles Martin Mary & Chester Broman Sr. Sam-Son Farm Michael Tabor, Mrs John Magnier, Derrick Smith Kenneth L. and Sarah K. Ramsey Paul Buttigieg Khalid Khalifa Al Nabooda and Kamal Albahou Willie Carson, Emily Asprey, Chris Wright Godolphin W.C. Racing, Dave Kenney, RAP Racing Morton Fink Gary & Mary West James Wigan Michael Tabor, Mrs John Magnier, Derrick Smith Karl Watson, Michael E. Pegram, Paul Weitman Reeves Thoroughbred Racing (then) Fred Bradley, William Bradley, Carl Hurst, Brent Burns Jungle Racing LLC, Bill Strauss, Kevin Nish, Danny Gohs, MSK Racing Ventures LLC, Borris Beljak Loooch Racing Stable, Inc., Christopher Dunn Preston Stables LLC Willis D Horton Juddmonte Farms Little Red Feather Racing Hill ‘N’ Dale Equine Holdings, Edward McGhee Jungle Racing LLC, Jerry Hollendorfer, George Todaro, Jason Litt, Alex Solis II, Kmn Racing David Bernsen, Paul Makin Mike Pegram, Dennis Cardoza

Wildcat Heir Midnight Lute

Web only/ print p w w w p w p p w w p p p w p w p w w w w p

Mike Puype

p

Jeremiah Englehart William I Mott D. Wayne Lukas John Gosden Mike Mitchell Bob Baffert Jerry Hollendorfer

p p w w p p p

Peter Miller Bob Baffert

p p

Races highlighted in yellow represent winning owners profiled in the previous issue of North American Trainer, and can be accessed online at trainermagazine.com/winners 42 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

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WINNING OWNERS – OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2013

MY CONQUESTADORY

Won the Alcibiades at Keeneland, October 4th, 2013 Owned by Conquest Stables Trained by Mark Casse Sire Artie Schiller Dam Golden Artemis by Malibu Moon

CONQUEST Stables consists of 63-year-old Ernie Semersky, a Porsche and Audi dealer in Chicago, and his long-time partner Dory Newell, a former model who named their star filly. Though they are both new in the industry, they have 28 horses, including 15 yearlings.

A friend recommended trainer Mark Casse, and after interviewing several trainers, they hired him. “There was something about him that was correct,” Semersky told Beverly Smith in her September 15, 2013, story in Paulick Report.

My Conquestadory, who was purchased for $240,000 at the 2013 OBS March sale, made an incredible debut last September at Woodbine, defeating colts by 3¼ lengths in the Grade 2 Summer Stakes before adding the Alcibiades. But she is just one of Conquest Stables’ success stories. Conquest Titan, a $475,000 purchase at the same two-year-old sale, won the Swynford Stakes by 5¼ lengths at Woodbine in a stunning debut. Their filly Conquest Whiplash, a $370,000 purchase, also defeated colts, in the Victoria Stakes at Woodbine.

When My Conquestadory went to post in the Summer Stakes, Semersky sported designer sunglasses with one lens glowing orange and the other green to literally reflect their silks. Newell explained to Smith, “Ernie always sees things through rose-colored glasses.

ARTEMIS AGROTERA

Won the Frizette at Belmont Park, October 5th, 2013 Owned by Mary and Chester Broman Sr Trained by Mike Hushion Sire Roman Ruler Dam Indy Glory by A.P. Indy

AS happy as he was when his two-year-old New York-bred filly Artemis Agrotera upped her record to two-for-two by winning the Frizette at Belmont Park by a length and a quarter, trainer Mike Hushion was even happier for Chester and Mary Broman, who own and bred the filly. “Any time you win for the Bromans makes it even better,” Hushion said. “Chester and Mary are wonderful people.”

And successful. The Bromans were named Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association New York Breeder of the Year in 2004 and 2005. They were the New York Thoroughbred Breeders’ Breeders of the Year in 2004 and 2012. In 2009, they were the leading owners at the Belmont Park Fall Meet with nine victories, each by a homebred who was foaled and raised at Chestertown Farm, a 300-acre spread in the foothills of the majestic Adirondacks they purchased in 1995. Previously, the property had been known as Assunta Louis Farms, whose owner, the late oral and maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Dominick DeLuke, shepherded the early growth of the New York-bred program in its infancy as president of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Inc. Chester was born in Pinelawn, New York, and became the owner, president, and CEO of Clifford Broman & Sons, Inc., a general contracting corporation in West Babylon, New York, established in 1938. The company, which specializes in trucking, now has a staff of 50.

The Bromans have two sons, Chester Jr. and Christopher, and a daughter, Rachel.

Chester was appointed to the New York Racing Association Board of Trustees in 1995 and has served multiple terms on the New York Thoroughbred Breeders Board of Directors.

Artemis Agrotera, named for an ancient Greek temple site in Athens, was not their first Grade 1 winner. In 2004, their New York-bred Friends Lake won the Florida Derby.

Artemis Agrotera’s ability was the worst-kept secret of the Saratoga meet. In her debut in a New York-bred maiden race on August 16, she was bet down to 2-5 and won by 11¾ lengths.

Artemis Agrotera’s Frizette victory was a first Grade 1 winner for Mary and Chester Broman

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RACING

JOSHUA TREE

UP WITH THE BIRDS Won the Jamaica at Belmont Park, October 5th, 2013 Owned and bred by Sam-Son Farm Trained by Malcolm Pierce

Won the Pattison Canadian International at Woodbine, October 27th, 2013 Owned by Khalid Khalifa al Nabooda and Kamal Albahou

Sire Stormy Atlantic Dam Song of the Lark

by Seeking the Gold

Trained by Edward Dunlopt

SAM-SON Farm in Ontario is Canadian horseracing royalty. Its origin traces back to Samuel, Son, & Co. Ltd., a steel and aluminum distribution family business founded in 1855 and operated since then by the Samuel and Balaz families. The late Ernie Samuel, whose great-grandfather founded the company, opened Sam-Son Farm in the 1960s as a site for hunter/jumper competitions. A Sam-Son horse, Canadian Club, won the 1967 Pan American Games individual jumping gold medal, and, under rider Jim Day, was a member of the Canadian Equestrian Team that won gold at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Sam-Son horses also competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics.

Sam-Son Farm entered Thoroughbred racing in 1972. Jim Day was the farm’s trainer until Mark Frostad took over in 1995. Sam-Son has produced a litany of champions, including seven Canadian Horses of the Year who accounted for eight titles. Chief Bearhart, who won the 1997 Eclipse Award as outstanding male turf horse, was a two-time Canadian Horse of the Year.

JOSHUA Tree’s historic third victory in the $1 million Pattison Canadian International at Woodbine on October 27 was his second for Khalid Khalifa al Nabooda, who, with partner Robert Andreas al Bahou, purchased Joshua Tree from Coolmore after he won his first one in 2010.

In 2011, Joshua Tree finished second in the Pattison before capturing it again in 2012 and

Sire Montjeu Dam Madeira Mist by Grand Lodge

CHRISELLIAM

Won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, November 1st, 2013 Owned by Willie Carson, Emily Asprey. and Chris Wright Trained by Charlie Hills Sire Iffraaj Dam Danielli by Danehill

Up With the Birds with Comellio Velasquez up wins the Jamaica Handicap

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A SHARED lunch at the Tattersalls yearling sales in Newmarket, England, united legendary jockey/BBC commentator Willie Carson and Chris Wright, the co-founder and chairman of Chrysalis Records, as

in 2013. Kamal Albahou is now the co-owner with Al Nabooda.

Joshua Tree’s victory was his sixth in 27 lifetime starts with six seconds, four thirds, and earnings of more than $3.5 million.

The 47-year-old al Nabooda, who lives in Dubai, is the managing director of the Khalifa Juma al Nabooda Companies in Dubai, which is composed of more than 20 businesses owned by the al Nabooda family.

The parent company started as Dubai Printing Press in 1963 and has grown into a multi-faceted operation dealing with real estate, hospitality and food services management, construction, civil and marine engineering, hotels, education, printing, equipment trading, and facilities management and consultancy. Dubai Printing Press was honored with the Silver Award for Best Catalogue in 2012.

Al Nabooda first got involved in horseracing in 1990. In 1995, he turned his focus from Thoroughbreds to Arabians, and he currently owns more than 300 of them, who are trained by Eric Lamatinel and Gill Duffield, and two stud farms, Al Aweer and Al Bahayes. His number of Arabian horseracing winners increased from three in 2008 to 11 in 2011 and 12 in 2012.

Albahou, who is 52, has been involved in racing and breeding Arabians for more than 30 years under the name of “Mr. Khalid.” He has Arabians stables in Jordan, Holland, France, and Belgium, and lives in Amman, Jordan.

Thoroughbred partners. “It was a couple of years ago,” Wright said after Chriselliam won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. “I was having a pretty nice lunch, and I think I drank a little too much wine, and I ended up buying a filly. And I persuaded Willie, who had been drinking a little bit with me, that he should take half.” He did. That filly won a race and was sold, but Chriselliam is a keeper.

Carson, born on November 16, 1942 in Stirling, Scotland, became just the fourth jockey to win 3,000 races in Great Britain, retiring with 3,828 victories as the fourth leading jockey in British history behind Sir Gordon Richards, Lester Piggott, and Pat Eddery. Carson was awarded the British Order of the Empire for his service to racing in 1983, and he was a member of the inaugural class of 50 inducted into the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. Besides working for the BBC, he has served as chairman of the Swindon Town Football Club and was the European racing manager for The Thoroughbred Corp.

Carson had a tough loss in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, when the horse on the lead he was riding, Dayjur, jumped two shadows a few strides before the wire, allowing Safely Kept to beat him. “To own a Breeders’ Cup winner is much better than riding one, I

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GOLDENCENTS Won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, November 1st, 2013 Owned by W.C. Racing, Dave Kenney, and RAP Racing Trained by Doug O’Neill Sire Into Mischief Dam Golden Works by Banker’s Gold

in 2004. She raced once, finished out of the money, and was injured. Sorgenstein’s first top horse was Blazing Sunset, who finished second by a half-length in the 2006 Iowa Derby before suffering a fatal breakdown on the track at Del Mar in his next start. “I stayed away from horses for a year because that was really horrible,” Sorgenstein said. “Then I got back in it. With the help of Dennis O’Neill [trainer Doug’s brother], we started buying two-year-olds.”

They purchased Goldencents, who had sold for $5,500 as a yearling, for $62,000 as a twoyear-old. After winning last year’s Santa Anita Derby, he became their first starter in the Kentucky Derby. Sorgenstein, Kaplan, and their friend Mark, who also owns horses in the O’Neill stable, had a special pair of pants made for jockey Kevin Krigger which included three first names with a smiley face on each one for the three people who introduced them to racing: Sorgenstein’s dad Sol, Kaplan’s grandfather Max, and Mark’s dad Art. “They all passed away the year prior,” Sorgenstein said.

Unfortunately, Goldencents finished 17th in the Kentucky Derby. But he bounced back to win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile by year’s end. “It’s been an amazing journey,” Sorgenstein said.

“He’s a dream horse. This is the one we dream about.”

Their former partner Kenney is the President and CEO of Westrux International, which sells and services diesel trucks at five locations in Southern California. The company was founded in 1988. Westrun International was named Navistar’s International 2012 Dealer of the Year.

Kenney has been a co-owner of Grade 1 stakes winners Richard’s Kid and Willyconker.

LESS than a week after Goldencents won the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, W.C. Racing’s partners Glenn Sorgenstein and Josh Kaplan, who owned 75 percent of the horse, announced that they had privately purchased the remaining ownership shares of Dave Kenney and RAP Racing’s Rick Pitino, the head coach of the University of Louisville’s defending national championship basketball team. “My plan is to continue to race him as a four-year-old,” Sorgenstein said. “Why not live the dream?

Nothing beats this.”

Goldencents, whose dam is Golden Works, was named to promote Sorgenstein and Kaplan’s precious metal and rare coin auction website www.goldencents.com, which is now run by Sorgenstein’s son Landon. W.C. Racing stands for Wilshire Coin, another one of their businesses.

Located in Santa Monica, California, Wilshire Coin offers cash for gold and silver, and deals in coin collections, foreign exchange, and estate jewelry.

Sorgenstein, a 57-year-old native of Bayside, New York, now living in California, fell in love

with racing at the age of five. “My dad’s friend was [trainer] Lefty Nicholson,” he said. “They were best friends. He put me on a horse, Tudor Sovereign, when I was five, and I went around the backstretch at Belmont. I knew I’d be involved in horseracing one way or the other.”

When his family moved to California soon afterwards, Sorgenstein simply transferred his interest in racing to Santa Anita, where he learned how to drive a car by practicing in the track’s parking lot.

Sorgenstein held a real estate license when he chose another career at the age of 23. His first wife’s brother was a coin dealer. “As a kid, I collected everything: bottle caps, posters, stickers, coins,” he said. “I loved collecting.” So he went to work in the rare coin business for his brother-in-law. “After being in it for two weeks, I knew I could do it for the rest of my life,” he said.

“I worked for him until 1985, and I went out on my own. I took Josh on in 1997. He’s 39. His grandfather would take him to the track in California. His grandfather loved horseracing.”

Sorgenstein bought his first horse, Green Eyes,

can assure you,” he said after Chriselliam’s victory. “When you’re riding them, you’re in charge and there’s no pressure on you. But as an owner standing up in those box seats, it’s nuts.

I understand now what owners go through.”

Wright can compare owning Thoroughbreds to owning records. He and Terry Ellis founded Chrysalis Records, a British record label, in 1969. They changed the company’s original name from the Ellis-Wright Agency to Chrysalis, a reference to the pupil stage of a butterfly as well as a combination of Wright’s first name and Ellis’s last. Chrysalis evolved into EMI, then was sold for a reported $765 million. Of hanging out with rock stars, Wright said in a 2010 interview, “I hung out with them all. I did everything. Drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll.”

With Chriselliam, Carson and Wright took on 17-year-old Emily Asprey as a partner, allowing her to become the youngest owner of a Breeders’ Cup winner. She is an eighth generation descendant of William Asprey, founder of Asprey International Limited, a United Kingdom-based designer, manufacturer, and retailer of jewelry, silverware, home goods, leather goods, timepieces, books, accessories, and polo equipment. The company was founded in 1781 as Asprey & Co.

Chriselliam, with Richard Hughes, wins the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita

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RACING

GROUPIE DOLL

Won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, November 2nd, 2013 Owned by Fred Bradley, William Bradley, Carl Hurst and Brent Burns Trained by William “Buff” Bradley Sire Bowman’s Band Dam Deputy Doll by Silver Deputy

IN THE span of five days, Groupie Doll won her second consecutive $1 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, then was sold for $3.1 million to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. She was the Bradley family’s second incredibly successful homebred, following $2.1 million earner Brass Hat. Both horses were born and raised at the Bradleys’ Indian Ridge Farm in Frankfort, Kentucky. Both horses were trained by William “Buff” Bradley.

Fred Bradley, the family’s 82-year-old

patriarch, has been successful in many endeavors. Born in Frankfort, he graduated from the University of Kentucky with a journalism degree in 1953, then received a law degree from the University of Kentucky six years later. That allowed him to serve as counsel for the Kentucky Racing Commission for ten years and as a judge in Franklin County. He also became a Kentucky State Senator. He was a fighter pilot during a long military career, and he founded his own trucking company, Fred’s Fast Freight, which he still owns and uses to transport horses.

Fred used to gallop horses that he trained at defunct Miles Park in Louisville and Mountaineer Park, then called Waterford Park, in West Virginia. That seems a long way from winning multiple graded stakes with homebreds from his own farm.

His son, Buff, helped him reach that lofty destination. Buff, whose nickname is short for “Buffalo Bill,” is nearing 3,800 career victories and $11 million in career earnings as a trainer. Now 50, Buff graduated from Kentucky State University with a business management degree, but he always knew his business would be horses. He worked as an assistant trainer for Clarence Picou before starting his own stable in 1993. His success with Brass Hat, who began his career as a $15,000 claimer, was followed

by Groupie Doll’s exceptional career.

Longtime family friends Carl Hurst, a retired judge, and Brent Burns, a singer/songwriter from Alabama, have been along for the ride with Groupie Doll. Hurst has known Fred since they were five years old.

MIZDIRECTION Won the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, November 2nd, 2013 Owned by Jungle Racing LLC, Bill Strauss, Kevin Nish, Danny Gohs, MSK Racing Ventures LLC and Borris Beljak Trained by Mike Puype Sire Mizzen Mast Dam Deceptive by Clever Trick

MUCH like Groupie Doll, Mizdirection, also a back-to-back Breeders’ Cup winner – of the Turf Sprint – was sold just days after her victory, for $2.7 million to Al Shaqab Racing at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November Select Mixed Sale.

Knowing that her sale was imminent, Mizdirection’s rather famous co-owner Jim Rome, who hosted the ESPN TV show “Rome Is Burning” and now hosts a syndicated radio show that was originally called “The Jungle,” addressed the issue at the Breeders’ Cup press

RIA ANTONIA

Won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, November 2nd, 2013 Owned by Loooch Racing Stable, Inc., and Christopher Dunn Trained by Jeremiah Englehart Sire Rockport Harbor Dam Beer Baroness

by Mr. Greeley

Groupie Doll with Rajiv Maragh up wins the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint

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RON PAOLUCCI, a 44-year-old native of Akron, Ohio – “Home of Lebron James,” he says proudly – fell in love with racing at an early age.

“I started going with my dad and my grandfather,” he said. “Thistledown in the afternoon; Waterford Park at night. For as long as I can remember. An hour’s drive. For a horseplayer, that’s not long.”

Make no mistake about it. Yes, he’s an owner of 55-to-60 Thoroughbreds under the name of Loooch Racing Stable, but he is one serious horseplayer. “I play them with two fists,” he said.

By doing so, he watches and bets on lots of

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conference after her second consecutive victory. Rome, who races under the name of Jungle Racing LLC, said, “The Miz ride has been one of the great experiences of my life, but I wanted to see her go out a champion. I wanted her off the track. I wanted her to have a good life as a mama, and I think the time is right to sell. It’s gut-wrenching. It’s tearing me up, but from a business standpoint, and this is a business, it’s something we need to do.”

Rome, a 49-year-old native of Tarzana, California, retains 13 Thoroughbreds,

including his broodmare Surfer Girl, whom he visits regularly at Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Kentucky, where his retired gelding Gallatin’s Run also lives. Rome lost Gallatin’s Run when he was claimed at Del Mar, then reclaimed him at Churchill Downs. “We claimed him to get him off the track and give him the retirement he earned,” Rome said.

“He always ran his guts out for us. He’s an awesome, awesome horse.”

Jen Roytz, marketing and communications director at Three Chimneys, said of Rome, “He’s got the most wonderful, authentic love for his horses. He comes all the way from California just to visit his broodmare, treats in hand, and the absolute first thing he does when his plane lands is rush to the farm and throw his arms around her neck. You’d think it was his first grandchild.”

He bought into his first horse through Little Red Feather Racing in 2007. That runner, Wing Forward, won his first start for the new owner. “He went from last to first at 15-1,” Rome said. “And I’ve been hooked ever since. Had that horse finished middle of the pack, I probably would have lost interest right away.”.

Mizdirection, with Mike Smith up, wins the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint

Ria Antonia (outside) with Javier Castellano up, wins the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies

horses at a lot of racetracks. And when he saw Ria Antonia make her debut at Woodbine, he was impressed with the then-two-year-old filly.

“I thought it was interesting to start her in a stakes race first time out,” he said. “Seven furlongs. Then maiden special weights against the boys. Then she worked 46 and one on the Woodbine dirt training track.”

His partner, Chris Wright, was in. A 38-yearold native of East Greenbush, New York, Wright began following racing at Saratoga, just a half hour away. Wright worked on Wall Street before going into robotic sales for Mako Surgical. The Davie, Florida, company makes robots that assist doctors doing orthopedic knee and hip replacements. He met Paolucci through a mutual friend. “Ron offered me half of Ria Antonia,” he said. “He thought she would

improve on dirt. It took about two weeks to close the deal.”

Once the deal was done, Paolucci hatched a plan with his partner and trainer Jeremiah Englehart. “My plan all along was to get her out of Woodbine; get her down to New York; put her in blinkers; run in the Frizette, and then run in the Breeders’ Cup,” Paolucci said. “She’s a huge filly. She’s almost 17 hands. She’s got a big, long stride. I thought she would move up on two turns.”

The Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park was one-turn, and Ria Antonia finished fifth by six lengths. This did nothing to deter Paolucci from entering her in the Breeders’ Cup. “He was adamant about going to the Breeders’ Cup,” Wright said.

Smart man. Ria Antonia closed ground

resolutely in the stretch trying to catch frontrunning She’s a Tiger. They flashed past the finish line together. “I actually thought we got the bob,” Paolucci said. “Everyone around me said we lost. I was so ecstatic with the way she ran, it didn’t matter if she got up. I was right about her.”

But he was wrong about the finish. The photo revealed She’s a Tiger had won. But Rio Antonia’s rider, Javier Castellano, claimed foul against the winner, who was ridden by Gary Stevens. After what seemed like hours, the stewards disqualified She’s a Tiger, placing Ria Antonia first. Paolucci got a text message from a friend of She’s a Tiger’s owners. “She said the owners were distraught, but they believed it was the right decision,” he said. “Gary Stevens told me the same thing the next day. Very classy.”

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RACING

FLAT OUT

Won the Cigar Mile, November 30th, 2013 Owned by Preston Stables LLC Trained by Bill Mott Sire Flatter Dam Cresta Lil by Cresta Rider

“IN THE oil business, you get a dry hole and lose 80 percent of the time,” Art Preston said in a 2011 article in the Blood-Horse. “It’s like racing. If you persevere, you’re going to hit the big one.”

At the age of seven last year, Preston’s Flat Out persevered. After finishing second in the Woodward, third in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and eighth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Flat Out won the $500,000 Grade I Cigar Mile for trainer Bill Mott, who trained twotime Horse of the Year Cigar. Preston purchased Flat Out for $85,000 at the 2007 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July Yearling Sale under a stable name, Oxbow Racing. Preston also raced as LOR (Lone Oak Racing) Stables and as Prestonwood Farm with his brother Jack and their late brother, J.R. He and Jack are frequently mistaken for each other.

A native of Oklahoma who now lives in The Woodlands in Texas, Preston graduated with a

Bachelor’s Degree in geology from the University of Illinois. After working as a geologist in the Illinois Basin, Preston and his brothers partnered on several ventures in gas and oil, real estate, cattle ranches, nutritional supplements marketing, fiber optics, restaurants, geothermal power generation companies, and, of course, Thoroughbreds.

Preston founded Presco Inc. in The Woodlands in 1991. Presco, a natural gas exploration and development company, has offices in Texas, Michigan, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kentucky and oil and gas production facilities in Colorado, Montana, and Oklahoma. According to Presco’s website, Preston’s companies have developed and sold numerous oil and gas assets with cumulative sales prices, not including normal production revenues, in excess of $400 million.

His success in business allowed him to get involved in racing. He purchased a percentage of a claimer in the late 1970s, and then, with his two brothers, began Preston Farm near Quanah, Texas and later opened Prestonwood Farm in central Kentucky. Prestonwood Farm was re-named WinStar Farm when it was sold in 2000 to Kenny Troutt and Bill Casner.

Prestonwood’s top horses included 1987 Eclipse champion sprinter Groovy; 1999 champion older male Victory Gallop, who denied Real Quiet the Triple Crown by edging him in the 1998 Belmont Stakes; and Da Hoss, who won the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1996 and 1998.

Preston, who had another multiple stakes winner last year in Flashy American, keeps his horses at his 800-acre Oxbow Farms in Paris, Kentucky, 30 miles north of Lexington. His current stable of 50 includes weanlings, yearlings, and racehorses. Tim Schuh trains most of Preston’s horses. Preston tends to name his horses using the first letter of the sire’s name. Flat Out, a son of Flatter, earned just under $3.5 million and will stand his first season at stud at Spendthrift Farm in 2014.

EGG DROP Won the Matriarch, December 1st, 2013 Owned by Little Red Feather Racing Trained by Mike Mitchell Sire Alphabet Soup Dam Rehocracy by Adhocracy

BILLY Koch, the 44-year-old founder and managing partner of Little Red Feather Racing, seemed destined for a life with Thoroughbreds.

His grandfather, Howard W. Koch, a noted movie director and producer who was a board member at Hollywood Park, was partners with actor Telly Savalas (who starred in the popular TV show “Kojak”) on Telly’s Pop, the first horse to win the California Triple Crown for twoyear-olds when Billy was a young child in 1975. Howard told his grandson bedtime stories about the fictitious Indian chief Little Red Feather, and Koch honored him by naming his stable Little Red Feather when it began operating with a single horse in 2002.

In just two years, Little Red Feather had a star, Singletary, who won the $1.5 million Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. That colt was named for the Chicago Bears star linebacker Mike Singletary. Koch became a Bears fan while attending Northwestern University in the Windy City. Los Angeles-born Koch studied radio, television and film at Northwestern and worked for Final Draft Productions, a company in Agoura Hills, California, before he decided to concentrate on

STREAMING Won the Hollywood Starlet, December 7th, 2013 Owned by Hill ‘N’ Dale Equine Holdings and Edward McGhee Trained by Bob Baffert Sire Smart Strike Dam Teeming by Storm Cat

Flat Out with Junior Castellano uip wins the Cigar Mile handicap at Aqueduct

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STREAMING’S connections liked her chances in the Hollywood Starlet enough to supplement her for $10,000 and spend another $10,000 to start. She didn’t disappoint them.

Hill ‘N’ Dale was founded originally in Canada in 1960 by the late John Sikura Jr., the father of current owner and president of Hill ‘N’ Dale in Lexington, Kentucky, John G. Sikura. Edward McGhee is John G. Sikura’s father-in-law. Hill ‘N’ Dale Canada still operates in Aurora, Ontario, where it is owned

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his passion. “I always had a little piece of partnerships in horses,” he said. “I decided to do it full time.”

Little Red Feather Racing bought Singletary cheaply and when he won the Breeders’ Cup Mile, Koch said, “Hopefully, it showed to everyone that anyone can win the Breeders’ Cup Mile or the Kentucky Derby.”

Koch, who was a Board member of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, has personally brought many new owners into racing. In 2013, Little Red Feather Racing celebrated its 80th partnership.

“My personal goal is to bring new people into the game and assist with horseracing coming back to prominence the way it was,” Koch said.

“I know that’s unrealistic, but I want to make racing more popular, to bring in new owners.

We have over 300 active investors now. Every day we get calls from people who want to get involved in the game. I think racing partnerships are here to stay.”

Gary Fenton, a managing partner of Little Red Feather who grew up in Beverly Hills, California,

is the son of former Beverly Hills City Councilman/Mayor Frank Fenton. Gary, whose brother Steven is a member of the Beverly Hills Board of Education, was an entertainment attorney who spent five years at the William

Morris Agency before working with multiple entertainment companies. He was Little Red Feather’s counsel before joining the organization as CEO in 2005 and Managing Partner in 2006.

and managed by the elder Sikura’s other son, Glenn.

John Sikura Jr. emigrated from Czechoslovakia as a teen and was a self-made millionaire.

He bought and sold Thoroughbreds for 35 years, establishing farms in Ontario, Canada, and in Lexington in 1981 when he purchased 164 acres.

John G. Sikura took over Hill ‘N’ Dale’s Kentucky Farm when his father was killed in a car fire in 1994. Glenn became partners in the

Kentucky property when it acquired North Ridge Farm in 1967 and expanded it to 950 acres. That has now expanded to 1,300 acres.

John G. was born in Ontario and played hockey collegiately and professionally in Europe before returning to North America to join the family business.

Hill ‘N’ Dale Equine Holdings is the racing division of Hill ‘N’ Dale, which is a full service breeding and sales operation. There are stars galore attached to the farm, none brighter than Seattle Slew, who in 1977 became the only undefeated U.S. Triple Crown winner. He spent his final days at the farm in 2002 and is buried there.

Among the stallions who have stood and/or are standing at the farm include two-time Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Midnight Lute and undefeated 2002 two-year-old champion Vindication, who died in 2008. Candy Ride began his stallion career at Hill ‘N’ Dale before moving to Lane’s End Farm for the 2010 breeding season. The broodmares at the farm include two-time champion Silverbulletday.

Streaming, with Martin Garcia up, wins the G1 Hollywood Starlet for trainer Bob Baffert

Egg Drop, with Martin Garcia up, wins the G1 Matriarch Stakes for trainer Mike Mitchell

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RACING

HEIR KITTY

Won the La Brea, December 26th, 2013 Owned by David Bernsen and Paul Makin Trained by Peter Miller Sire Wildcat Heir Dam Be Silver by Silver Buck

DAVID Bernsen, who owns a global computer wagering business in Point Loma, California, let his partner, Paul Makin – who sold almost all of his horses in November in Ireland – share the excitement of the La Brea Stakes, standing at the finish line during the race and doing the playby-play on his cell phone. “He was in Hong Kong,” Bernsen said. “I was more excited than Trevor Denman.”

Miller was excited to win this one for Bernsen and Makin. “They’re fantastic owners,” Miller said. “They’ve been very patient with this filly.”

Bernsen lives in San Diego and is the CEO of Let It Ride.com Companies, the parent company of SalesRing.com, a worldwide Thoroughbred buying and selling exchange; MMSalesRing.com which targets the Southern Hemisphere in

partnership with Magic Millions; and WatchandWager.com, a global horserace wagering initiative based in the United States in partnership with AmericaTAB. “My business now is global wagering catering to big players betting on computers,” he said.

In the early ’90s, Bernsen purchased a property near San Diego from the estate of legendary actor James Cagney, who lived there when the Cagney family attended the races at Del Mar. Bernsen did a complete renovation of the property to preserve its look and feel from the 1950s and created Carondelet Farm, the home of Raging Apalachee, the dam of 1999 champion sprinter Artax. Carondelet co-bred the track record-breaking son of Marquetry, who was involved in one of the strangest races ever when a fan walked onto the track at Pimlico and tried punching the horse in the stretch in the Maryland Breeders’ Cup. Artax wrenched his ankle and all bets on him, as the 4-5 favorite, were refunded. Carondelet Farm bred or owned Honor in War, Alexander of Hales, Set Alight, and She’s Funomenal and was instrumental in bringing such Grade 1

North American stakes winners to Australia as Artie Schiller, Honor in War, and Nothing to Lose.

In 1998, Bernsen relocated his breeding operation to Kentucky. A year later, he began an ambitious endeavor to connect Australian and American racing, breeding, and wagering industries.

Makin, a prominent international breeder, made headlines last September when he announced he was going to disburse his bloodstock holdings at the Goffs November Sale in Ireland. Included among the stock Makin sold were 2013 Darley Irish Oaks winner Chicquita and Funsie, the dam of 2007 Epsom Derby winner Authorized. Funsie’s 2012 yearling, a colt by Galileo named Hydrogen, topped the Tattersalls October Sale when he went for 2.5 million guineas. “I decided to sell ‘on the sizzle,’ when nearly all the stock is at its peak, leaving lots of upsides for the next person,” Makin said in Paulick Report last September.

Makin sold all 24 of his horses offered, led by Chicquita, who sold for an Irish record $8,088,600.

Paulyn’s Fleeting Spirit ($1,482,910), Song ($1,348,100), Sparkle Plenty ($876,265), and Funsie ($741,455) ranked second, third, fifth and seventh, respectively.

Earlier in his career, Makin was part of The Australian Syndicate that campaigned Starcraft, whom they bought for NZ$80,000 as a yearling and went on to win Grade 1 stakes in four countries, including the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in 2005. Shortly afterwards, The Australian Syndicate spent $800,000 to enter Starcraft in the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Belmont Park despite the fact that he had never raced on dirt. He started slowly and finished seventh in the field of 13.

In 2007, Makin established Paulyn Limited for his family’s European racing and breeding venture.

and include a tear-off sheet for betting races. If you were able to pick a winner that day, you’d get a free carton of cottage cheese. If you picked two winners, you’d get butter or other dairy supplies for up to a year.”

He is one of a million of us who fell in love with Secretariat. “In the foyer of my home is a painting of Secretariat’s Belmont stretch run,” he said. “I remember watching the race with my

mom in 1973. I always wanted to own horses.”

Now he owns many Thoroughbreds, including broodmares and babies. He has horses with several trainers: Bob Baffert, Ron Ellis, and Rene Amescua in California, and Tim Keefe and Tim Tullock in Maryland.

Cardoza’s fondness for horses carried over into his career in the California Assembly and then in Washington whenever he dealt with racing issues.

In early August, 2011, Cardoza was named to the board of directors of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, replacing Donald Valpredo, who resigned.

“For my entire career, my colleagues and friends know me as a consensus builder,” he said. “If ever there was an industry that needed consensus, it is this one. It’s too grand a sport to not live up to its majestic history. My goal is to help it recapture the greatness of Thoroughbred racing.”

Heir Kitty, with Gary Stevens up, wins the G1 La Brea Stakes

SHAKIN IT UP Won the Malibu, December 26th, 2013 Owned by *Mike Pegram and Dennis Cardoza Trained by Bob Baffert Sire Midnight Lute Dam Silver Bullet Moon

by Vindication

THOROUGHBRED owner and breeder Dennis Cardoza, who represented the 18th District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 through 2012 when he retired, has a life-long love of horses.

“My first exposure with horseracing was when my mom used to watch the races from the Fresno Fair,” he said in a 2011 press release. “The local dairy used to deliver milk

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VETERINARY

TIE-BACK SURGERY

New research on the upper airway procedure

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HE aim of this procedure is to reverse the effects of larynx weakness that occurs due to a degenerative condition of the nerve that controls the muscles on the left side. A synthetic implant is placed along that side of the larynx to hold it open where the muscle is too weak.

It has long been suspected that the procedure has other effects on the airway, other than simply tying the collapsed part of the larynx back and out of the way. Recent research from the University of Edinburgh published in Equine Veterinary Journal has helped to shed some light on this, and it emphasizes the importance of accurate diagnosis of upper airway disorders both prior to and after the surgery if the horse is still failing to meet expectations.

Tie-back surgery has been very successful in many racehorses with the potential for significant improvements in postoperative performance, and it has also significantly reduced abnormal noise production.

However, in some cases, clinical signs persist postoperatively and the procedure may be assumed to have failed. Horses may then simply be retired from race training without further investigation, causing considerable cost to all parties involved.

Laryngeal paralysis and the tie-back procedure The larynx has a number of functions, one of which is to help prevent food material from entering the airway of the horse when it is swallowing feed. Two symmetrical cartilages of the larynx, known as the arytenoids, act as

VETERINARY

Every trainer is familiar with a horse that makes a noise, and if performance is poor, a trip to a surgical facility is the usual next step. The tie-back procedure (or laryngoplasty) has been the mainstay in the treatment of laryngeal paralysis for over 40 years.

WORDS: TimOThy P BaRneTT, ROSSDale anD PaRTneRS, neWmaRkeT, SuffOlk, Celia m maRR, equine VeTeRinaRy JOuRnal, neWmaRkeT, SuffOlk. PhOTOS: GeORGe SelWyn, ROSSDale anD PaRTneRS

“doors” that close when the horse swallows.

The same “doors” open fully when the horse is exercising. This allows as much air as possible into the lungs and the horse to perform to its full potential.

In some horses, and commonly the Thoroughbred, the muscles controlling the left arytenoid can become paralyzed due to a degeneration of the nerve that controls its movements. At present we do not fully understand the exact mechanism of this disease process. But, as the nerve fails and the muscle weakens in turn, the left arytenoid will then fall into the airway and it cannot be pulled out of the way when the horses starts to exercise.

The volume of air reaching the lungs is reduced, resulting in suboptimal performance; and the production of abnormal

The closed larynx – preventing food particles from entering the wind pipe

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noise exists due to the partly collapsed larynx vibrating when the horse breathes in.

Tie-back surgery aims to replicate the action of the fully contracted muscle, and thus ties the left arytenoid back and out of the airway, so that airflow at maximal effort is uncompromised. Unfortunately this also means that the airway is permanently open on the left, even when the horse is swallowing.

This can allow food into the windpipe and lungs, which may cause coughing for a period of time afterwards. This is why surgeons advise feeding horses postoperatively from the floor, as they are less likely to inhale food particles.

Surgical success, potential complications, and side effects Depending on the measurement criteria and on the discipline of the horse, the success of the tie-back procedure ranges from 38-92%.

Some horses do not improve at all. They may continue to make a noise or, more importantly in the case of the racehorse, they may not perform as well as expected after surgery.

Fully opened larynx – allowing maximal airflow into the windpipe and the lungs

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TIE-BACK SURGERY

Left laryngeal paralysis – the left arytenoid and vocal fold are seen to collapse into the airway

Well-known side effects include coughing, as discussed earlier, and a reduced ability to swallow food, both of which often improve with time.

The Edinburgh study Postoperatively, most surgeons advise that horses be re-examined with an endoscope prior to leaving the hospital and again around six weeks later, before a decision is made to re-enter light training. This allows

The left arytenoid tied back out of the airway following surgery

the veterinarian not only to assess how successful the procedure has been in tying back the paralyzed part of the larynx, but also to see if any other problems have come to light.

Normally the vet will only view the airway with the horse at rest; however, the persistent problems associated with surgical failure often occur at strenuous exercise. Endoscopic examination while the horse is exercising has been possible for many years using a video-

endoscope and a high-speed treadmill.

Recently, over-ground endoscopic equipment has become available, which has made the examination much more convenient to everyone involved. The examination is performed while the horse is ridden, avoiding the need to train it to work on a treadmill.

And, of course, the equipment is fairly portable so it can be used at the training center without the need to transport the horse to a specialist facility.

The over-ground exercising endoscopy equipment in use on a Thoroughbred racehorse

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Aryepiglottic fold collapse seen following tie-back

reporting the surgery to have been beneficial.

This was surprising given that most owners and trainers reported satisfaction with the surgery postoperatively. It is not clear if these abnormalities occurred as a result of the procedure or were present but undiagnosed before the surgery. Many horses had the tieback surgery solely based on resting examination and conditions only occurring during exercise may have been overlooked.

What was very evident was that most of the abnormalities were not associated with clearcut surgical failure, i.e. the ‘tied-back’ arytenoid was stable. Had additional abnormalities been identified before the tieback surgery, some could have been treated at the same time as the tie-back surgery, thus ensuring maximal benefit from the time withheld from training and racing.

In some horses, this problem could have been avoided had exercising endoscopy been performed before surgery. While trainers may be tempted to skip straight to the knife when they are dealing with a horse making a noise, throat problems are complex and far from identical in each individual.

This study shows that a complete and detailed assessment including over-ground exercising endoscopy may maximize chances that the correct procedure is performed to benefit each horse..

Respiratory noise

Dorsal displacement of the soft palate (DDSP) seen after tie-back

The Edinburgh study aimed to follow up on 41 horses that had tie-back surgery for laryngeal paralysis, using endoscopy both at rest and while exercising at their maximal ability. Horses involved in a wide range of equestrian disciplines were included in this study, including a number of horses in race training. Owners’ and trainers’ satisfaction with performance, respiratory noise, and respiratory-related complications were also assessed by means of a questionnaire.

Multiple abnormalities In this group of horses, 78% had a form of upper airway collapse at exercise, with 41% having complex forms, despite 93% of owners

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“Depending on the measurement criteria and on the discipline of the horse, the success of the tie-back procedure ranges from 38-92%.

Some horses do not improve at all.”

As long as the horse is performing well, most trainers would agree that increased noise when working is of little concern, and this view is supported by research showing that many racehorses will still perform well despite aberrant noise production. Problems may arise, however, if the horse is being transferred or sold, as the noise may be noticed at pre-purchase examination.

One particularly significant finding from the Edinburgh study was that when the laryngeal ventricles were not removed at the time of surgery, the horses were nearly five times more likely to make respiratory noise when exercising.

An increased amount of respiratory noise was also reported in horses with the arytenoid cartilage not tied back as much as possible.

Both of these findings are useful lessons for throat surgeons but it is also possible for the arytenoid to fall into the airway due to increased stresses placed on the horse in the immediate postoperative period. Careful attention to postoperative management and an adequate rest period is, therefore, imperative to ensure a successful outcome to the tie-back.

One disadvantage of the tie-back procedure is that creates a turbulent airflow in other areas of the airway, including the structures on the right side of the larynx and the aryepiglottic fold, a sheet of tissue that attaches the arytenoids to the epiglottis.

Collapse of the aryepiglottic fold or the right

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TIE-BACK SURGERY vocal fold are common findings following tieback surgery.

The left vocal fold is usually removed at the same time as the tie-back surgery. Removal of both vocal folds together is a risky procedure; scar tissue can form between them and create a ‘web’ that may significantly obstruct the airway, so the right vocal fold is not usually removed unless there is good evidence it is causing a problem, and if so, it is usually done at a later date.

Palatal dysfunction Palatal dysfunction encompasses instability of the soft palate and the more severe and detrimental condition of dorsal displacement of the soft palate (DDSP). In the Edinburgh study, 56% of horses had some form of palatal dysfunction and 31% had DDSP. This was an important finding, as DDSP and laryngeal collapse have rarely been diagnosed together in previous studies.

But concurrent studies from university hospitals of Pennsylvania in the US and Bristol in the UK have also confirmed palatal dysfunction in horses that have undergone tieback surgery.

Interestingly, the DDSP observed in the post-tie-back horses was unusual: DDSP

“The Edinburgh study highlights that a complete diagnosis of laryngeal collapse prior to tie-back surgery is the best way of ensuring optimal results postoperatively” usually occurs during fast work. Following tieback surgery, DDSP occurred just as readily at slower gaits, and even when walking.

It is unclear at present why some horses that undergo tie-back surgery are experiencing these forms of palatal dysfunction. But it is important to stress that this group of horses are from a large variety of disciplines and are not just fit racehorses.

The owners and trainers of this group of horses were largely satisfied with the level of performance and noise reduction achieved from a tie-back surgery, and the postoperative

abnormalities do not appear to be causing clinical problems.

In conclusion The Edinburgh study highlights that a complete diagnosis of laryngeal collapse prior to tie-back surgery, including exercising endoscopic examination, is the best way of ensuring optimal results postoperatively. Over-ground endoscopy equipment is now widely available, so a detailed preoperative assessment is more prudent and cost effective.

Not only can complex abnormalities be identified but horses with mild laryngeal collapse at rest that is completely abolished when working can also be pinpointed, and so surgery is not necessarily beneficial for these individuals.

The Edinburgh study also highlights that exercise endoscopy may help explain why some horses return to training with little improvement in performance. These abnormalities can be corrected, depending on the condition, with further surgical or medical interventions. Exercising endoscopy should certainly be considered before the tie-back surgery is repeated or the decision to retire the horse is made. n

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What makes Royal Ascot special?

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If you want to try to get to the bottom of the ever-increasing global appeal of Royal Ascot, you could do worse than listen to Ken Ramsey, the reigning Eclipse Award-winning owner and breeder in the U.S., whose love of the fixture knows no bounds.

WORDS: JAMES CRISPE

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PHOTOS: ROYAL ASCOT, ANDREW PARSONS, HORSEPHOTOS.COM, RACINGFOTOS.COM

HE history and tradition of the place are what make it so special; it has been going since the early 18th century,” said Ramsey, who has been involved in ownership since 1969 and numbers the 2005 Dubai World Cup among the long list of big races he has plundered, months before the Royal Ascot meeting last year.

“I have twice had horses place at the meeting and if I won there it would have to be right up there with winning in Dubai. You could say that I have a burning desire to check Royal Ascot off my bucket list.”

A self-made man who sold up his real estate and mobile phone businesses in 1994 for an estimated $39 million, Ramsey is also an ardent royalist. “After Cannonball was second in the Golden Jubilee Stakes in 2009 I was invited to have tea with The Queen, and it was the highlight of all my Royal Ascot trips,” he revealed.

“She made me feel very special and we had the most engaging, delightful conversation on many subjects, though she really clearly knows her horses. I will always cherish the moment – I never thought the day would come when a country boy from a small town in Kentucky would take tea with the Queen of England!”

Ramsey’s fervor for Great Britain’s monarch and her racecourse is underlined by the fact that

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he signed off our conversation with four resounding words: “Long Live The Queen.”

It is an oft-repeated phrase that Americans appear to love our royal family more than we do ourselves, suggesting Ramsey’s pro-Ascot stance may not be reciprocated in other parts of the globe.

Not so. Trainer Lee Freedman gained a reputation as a ‘true blue Aussie’ during a long and successful career training in Australia, which culminated in his guiding Makybe Diva to her historic third straight Melbourne Cup victory in 2005.

However, after Miss Andretti scorched home in the King’s Stand Stakes in 2007 his words were unequivocal. “I’ve lived all my life to do this,” Freedman said. “To win at Royal Ascot has been a lifetime goal and to come here and take on the best and beat them – simply there are no superlatives that can describe it.”

The main secret to the meeting’s success is really no secret at all, as it is contained in the first word of its title - ‘Royal.’ Royal patronage marks Ascot out from other big international events and makes it sound superior.

But the link with the royal family would add much less kudos were it not for the widely-held

regard in which that family, in particular its current head, Queen Elizabeth II, is kept.

Endorsements for the House of Windsor come from unlikely sources. For example, Jens Hirschberger, who was responsible for the first ever German-trained winner at the meeting when Energizer lifted the 2012 renewal of the Tercentenary Stakes, told of how our royals are followed on a day-to-day basis by most popular German newspapers.

“Here, just as in England, some people think that in this day and age you no longer need kings and queens,” Hirschberger admitted before going on to make his own opinion crystal clear. “I think that it’s great that these traditions are kept alive.”

Danny O’Brien, who in 2013 made the 21,000-mile round trip from Australia to Ascot for the third time – with sprinter Shamexpress, who subsequently ran unplaced in the King’s Stand – went close with Star Witness (in 2011) and not so close (in 2006) with Glamour Puss, had this to say on the subject: “As was shown when [Australia] voted not to become a republic and keep The Queen as our head of state some 15 years ago, there is the most immense respect for Queen Elizabeth and the way she conducts herself among Australians.”

Returning to less political matters, O’Brien added: “The fact that The Queen comes to the paddock, appreciates the horses and enjoys the racing really adds to other people’s enjoyment.

She appears to be getting as big a kick out of it as everyone else.”

Ken Ramsey was a trifle more over the top.

“Without doubt the people of the U.S.A. think that Her Majesty The Queen is the most loved and respected person in the world who should

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“The Queen made me feel very special and we had the most engaging, delightful conversation on many subjects, though she really clearly knows her horses. I will always cherish the moment” Ken Ramsey

be cherished and looked up to,” he insisted.

“Presidents and Prime Ministers come and go but The Queen transcends all of them and offers a unique link back to the times when kings and queens actually ruled the world. When members of her family present the trophies it gives the common man a chance to rub shoulders with royalty.”

Lest we forget, the history and tradition that everyone talks about dates back to August 11, 1711, when, on the suggestion of Queen Anne, Ascot staged its first ever race.

Her Majesty’s Plate was worth 100

guineas and attracted a field of seven, but there was no hint of the speed-orientated sport of the current era. The race was run in three separate heats, each four miles long, and the emphasis was firmly upon stamina.

The precise origins of the Royal Meeting are

unclear but the fixture became a four-day event in 1768 and continued to operate within that format until a fifth day was added in 2002.

One aspect of the meeting that continues to put stamina above all other equine attributes is its most important race, the Gold Cup, which was won most recently by The Queen’s filly

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RACING Estimate. Founded in 1807 and thus Ascot’s oldest surviving race, it is still run over fully two and a half miles, an extreme distance that has most participants in the bloodstock industry rolling their eyes.

The fact that its showpiece event is run over

such an archaic distance just adds to Royal Ascot’s charm and refusal to conform to modern trends.

Most apparent of these old-fashioned traditions is the dress code. With the solitary exception of Derby Day at Epsom, Royal Ascot

Australian superstar mare Black Caviar drew the crowds for the King’s Stand Stakes in 2012

is the only British meeting where formal morning dress (known as top hat and tails) is a must for the gentlemen and headwear, while a dress or skirt of ‘modest length’ is de rigueur for the ladies.

Dress regulations are rigorously policed in the Royal Enclosure and, although they are not mandatory elsewhere, a large number of racegoers choose to comply with them on a voluntary basis. Both O’Brien and Hirschberger singled out the dress code as one of their favorite things about the meeting, helping to create an unrivalled atmosphere.

Another unique feature of the event is the royal procession. Instigated as long ago as 1825

by King George IV, the monarch leads a fivecoach horse-drawn procession of family and guests, who have lunched together at nearby Windsor Castle, up the center of the racecourse in front of the crowds a few minutes before the first race of the day.

With the horses and accompanying footmen and servants bedecked in ceremonial regalia, it is a throwback to a world where transport, for all sections of society, meant horses and not horsepower.

Ramsey saed: “I think it is a wonderful way for the royal family to make a public appearance, a highlight of the pomp and pageantry,” while Hirschberger summed it up succinctly by saying: “The procession is a great moment, even if you are not an Englishman.”

Numerous other incidental aspects, unconnected to racing, help give Royal Ascot its

Wesley Ward (second left) with No Nay Never (Joel Rosario up), after winning the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot last year

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ROYAL ASCOT reputation. The lack of advertising in a world where sport has become big business helps give proceedings a touch of class. Only the logo-free Wimbledon Tennis Championships offers a similar visual impact.

On the other side of the commercial coin, the well-publicized betting market surrounding the color of The Queen’s hat each day seems to prompt interest and amusement from a large section of the crowd.

The post-racing community singing around the bandstand, instigated some 40 years ago, also adds to the old-fashioned feel of the event.

Many racegoers decline to take part (either worried about exposing their own lack of musicality or perhaps too sober to lose their inhibitions) but, as they continue to party and picnic in the car parks while waiting for the traffic to abate, the raucous singsong is an endearing audio background.

And so to picnicking. The picnic plays a central role in most people’s Ascot experience, and the Owners and Trainers Car Park is not exempt from being a hive of al fresco dining and imbibing.

Most picnics are far from merely functional and some have been known to include butler, silver service, and candelabra. One recent survey discovered that Royal Ascot is the South of England’s most popular picnic spot and the most popular sporting occasion at which to picnic in the entire country.

One important adjunct to the meeting that does seem to pass the average member of the

racing industry by is the fashion angle. Maybe it is because they are often more interested in the turnout of their horses rather than themselves.

Also, although Ascot just about retains its preeminence as the racecourse to be seen in all your finery, other venues have caught up with ‘Ladies Day‘ (a term first given to Gold Cup day at Ascot) promotions, and ‘Best-Dressed Racegoer’ competitions now ubiquitous. Having a catwalk and a fashion show taking place

“Having the opportunity to train at Newmarket and win at Royal Ascot has been the highlight of my career. An experience of a lifetime” Danny Morton between races no longer seems unusual.

However, it is worth noting that none of this happens at Ascot – they pride themselves on being the original. They don’t market “Ladies Day” – it is very much “Gold Day.” There are no best-dressed competitions and the fashions on display are organic – they happen because of history, not marketing.

Returning to the racing, advances in

intercontinental equine travel together with the work of Nick Smith, Ascot’s Head of Communications and International Racing, have meant that Royal Ascot has evolved into one of the world’s greatest international race meetings.

It seems incredible that 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the first horse trained outside Europe winning at Royal Ascot. That horse was the Australian-trained Choisir, who landed both the King’s Stand and the Golden Jubilee Stakes.

Nowadays, runners from Australia, the Far East, and America are the rule rather than the exception, and nine different individual horses from foreign continents have won at June’s Berkshire bonanza. Most recently, U.S. trainer Wesley Ward sent No Nay Never to win the Norfolk Stakes-Gp2 under Joel Rosario last year for a Coolmore/Ice Wine Stable partnership.

Smith and his team of agents, including many from the International Racing Bureau, actively recruit the best horses from around the globe and help their owners and trainers with all aspects of their visit to England, including the stabling and training of the horses from the moment they set foot on British soil.

Smith said: “It has been an incredible journey really, to see Ascot develop from Britain’s flagship course to Europe’s, and now to have established itself as one of the genuinely most revered places to run a horse, wherever in the world you are based.

“Since the start of the Global Sprint Challenge

Fashion plays an important social role during the five days of Royal Ascot

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RACING in 2005, we have seen 50 horses from outside Europe run at Royal Ascot, with two winners from Hong Kong and four from Australia, the last being the great Black Caviar, of course.

“Last year having Animal Kingdom was a big breakthrough for us – a Kentucky Derby winner at the Royal Meeting was huge – and it is such a shame that it didn’t work out on the day. I hope that doesn’t discourage other Americans from trying, and hopefully now the word is out about what a great experience it all is.

“For certain we will have Wesley Ward acting as an ambassador for us after his third win at Royal Ascot last year – No Nay Never in the Norfolk. It would be absolutely tremendous to see him back for a crack at the St James’s Palace Stakes this year.

“I will be seeing a lot of the major figures in American racing over the coming months, and visiting Australia, Dubai, and the Far East as normal to make sure we keep moving in the right direction.”

Indeed, Wesley Ward will again be crossing the pond this year with No Nay Never, along with newcomers. “From October 1st I start to plan” he said. “My two-year-olds will break their maiden over here; their second race will be Royal Ascot.” Although Ward admitted that after his first Royal Ascot win – he won the Group 2 Queen Mary with Jealous Again and the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes with Strike the Tiger, both in 2009 – he

developed an insatiable desire to go back and win again. He added, “The pageantry is wonderful. You see the best horses in the world and it’s an unbelievable five days of racing.”

From Australia, John Messara adds: “Royal Ascot is a meeting that I admire greatly for its overall elegance, for its testing track and fierce equine competition and for the hospitality that is extended to international owners and

“Last year having Animal Kingdom was a big breakthrough for us – a Kentucky Derby winner at the Royal Meeting was huge” Nick Smith trainers. I think it can be fairly said that winning a race at the Royal Meeting is on every racehorse owner’s bucket list.”

The reaction of trainers to their Royal Ascot adventures has been universally positive. For instance, after his 2009 King’s Stand triumph with Scenic Blast, Danny Morton said: “Having the opportunity to train at Newmarket and win at Royal Ascot has been the highlight of my

career. An experience of a lifetime.”

And Hong Kong resident Danny Shum, trainer of 2012 King’s Stand hero, Little Bridge, revealed: “I began planning to come six months in advance. It was very important to me as a trainer to win an international race in Britain.”

O’Brien played down the problems some might associate with bringing a horse halfway across the world to take on the locals on their home ground. “I haven’t found it a difficult proposition as far as travel is concerned,” he said.

“In fact, my horses thrived and did very well in themselves. The meeting falls at the right time of year for us here in Australia as we don’t have any more big Group 1 races at home until September or October.”

In a mark of the esteem in which the meeting is held, when questioned about how the event could be improved, racing professionals from around the globe struggle to come up with areas in which it needs changing.

O’Brien’s reaction of: “It’s been done for 300 years, I don’t think you need any advice,” is typical of many responses.

And the last word deserves to go to the evangelical Ramsey, who concluded: “Royal Ascot is perfect. This American cousin can’t see any way to improve it.” n Full details of all races at Ascot can be found in our Stakes Schedule, pages 80-87

Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom with John Velazquez in the saddle works at Ascot prior to his run in the Queen Anne Stakes

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RACING

STATE AWARDS Who pays for them?

The uneasy relationship racing has with its individual states, where at best the government see the industry as a source of revenue by plundering any profits a racetrack is able to produce and at worst a public disgrace that wastes enormous tracts of urban land better utilized in other ways, is often at its most balanced and universally beneficial in the area of state-bred awards programs.

WORDS: K.T. DONOVAN PHOTOS: CHERIE WICKLAND, HORSEPHOTOS.COM

C

HAMPIONING green space and quality of life by assisting breeders makes the state look good, but governments are also beginning to understand the economic impact of a healthy agribusiness sector. Racing people are not merely rich dilettantes, but also CEOs of major companies, educated veterinarians and lawyers, merchants and entrepreneurs. They understand providing jobs and are explaining that to legislators in a better way these days. States are beginning to understand that where there are healthy breeding industries, the racing improves, which means a steady flow of revenue at a time when most states have exhausted their taxpayers’ patience and their coffers are depleted.

The crux of any awards program is how to pay for it, so the chicken and the egg conundrum raises its head quite often. Relying on slots has helped some, as North American Trainer has reported in the past. Others find the

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funds in the wagers, which means full fields will entice more money to be bet, which will create greater awards to incentivize breeders and owners, which means fuller fields. For example, Indiana awards claiming winners over $10,000 – a way to increase quantity using the slots money available.

Most states offer minimum numbers of statebred races a day, and additional bonuses for state-breds that win in open company.

Encouraging the breeding of mediocrity opened the door for people in the business who shouldn’t have been breeding, but the recession has shaken out a lot of them. Most of the more established state-bred programs have shifted toward awards for better horses, not simply more horses, and this has kept small breeders who focus on quality afloat, rewarding their endeavors. A good example of this is the program in Washington, which has a reputation for producing overachieving athletes at affordable prices. Washington-bred horses often compete well around the country, allowing owners to make money from them

while the breeders are rewarded for the quality they raised.

Washington has one of the oldest programs around, dating back to at least the 1960s.

Working with the state to improve its racing has been a long-standing tradition, including gaining cooperation from local Indian tribes.

Emerald Downs, formerly Longacres, sits on Indian land.

After more than 40 years of breeding Thoroughbreds in the Pacific Northwest, Debbie Pabst at Blue Ribbon Farm in Buckley, Washington, calls it a “good, mature program,” but one with which breeders have grown complacent while other states improved theirs.

For example, Washington doesn’t offer a sires program.

The leading breeder in her state for the third year in a row, Pabst stands two stallions: Nationhood, about to stand his fifth season at Blue Ribbon, and Atta Boy Roy, beginning his second season. She has managed quite well without a sire program, however.

“When there is a contraction like we just

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RACING had, it hits what I call the ‘provinces’ – us out here in the smaller regions – first and when it comes back, the recovery comes to us last,” she said. “There are not too many of us standing stallions – we actually only have about five major farms here, and that’s counting Oregon.

But we’ve been boarding mares for decades, and shipping them to stallions two thousand miles away in Kentucky or farther to New York, anyway. The best breeders all go out of state, and that’s why we have good Washingtonbreds. As long as the foal is dropped here, we can get an award for it, and that’s a definite cash flow we count on.”

Pabst made $25,000 in breeders’ awards last season, led by Fair Grounds stakes winner Finding More. “We earn about 12-15% more each year, and in a purse-poor region, that really matters,” Pabst says. “As much as breeders like their awards and it keeps us going, it’s the owner’s awards that really add value to a horse. That’s the most important part of any state-bred program. Washington got that right, with the owners having the biggest part of the pool, and horses sharing pro-rata first, second, and third.”

By the time Pabst has bred horses to sires across the country, she has $25,000 in them, and with only about 15 mares on her 70-acre farm, she needs to be selective to make money, and know that she will get residual value through the breeders’ awards. Washington and

Ontario-bred horses, such as We Miss Artie (center), can win state awards outside of their own country

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“As much as breeders like their awards and it keeps us going, it’s the owner’s awards that really add value to a horse.”

Debbie Pabst regions like it are made by their strong statebred awards programs. Exotic wagers pay for the breeders’ awards, and straight wagers pay for the owners’ awards.

This year, Pabst will send mares to Freud in New York, and said despite shipping three thousand miles, he’s the best-valued son of Storm Cat in the country at $10,000, with 7% stakes winners, and no sales tax to breed to a New York sire. She will also send one to Run Away and Hide in Kentucky, and another to Lucky Pulpit in California, which itself is 1,000 miles away. Not only is she getting good quality runners, she is supporting the stallions of states that also have good programs for encouraging stallion owners.

She keeps about one horse a year that didn’t sell well enough, and syndicates them to share with multiple local owners. “If you have the

good owners’ awards that Washington has, and a solid horse with good bloodlines, why wouldn’t you want to run at Emerald Downs and make money?” she laughs.

If the point of state-bred awards is to build the Thoroughbred program in that state and support the state’s racing, California is an example of one that is getting better all the time, but it would improve at a faster clip if the breeders there followed Washington’s and New York’s lead and sent their mares to top sires elsewhere and dropped the foals in their home state. Both California and New York want to build their own stallion ranks, but New York has geography and slots on its side in its quest to improve its stallion quality as well as quantity.

In 2011, video lottery terminals finally started ringing at Aqueduct, and in 2012, breeders saw a 50% increase in their awards.

The emphasis on New York-sired as well as New York-bred can be seen in these pro-rata payouts: First, second, and third for non-New York-sired New York-breds get 15%, 7.5%, and 7.5% of the purses; while New York-sired New York-breds receive 30%, 15%, and 15%.

Beginning in 2014, ADW wagers will have an additional charge, and that fee is expected to add a conservative estimate of $600,000 to the Breeding and Development Fund.

Fueled by slots money at Woodbine, Canada has the most interesting incentives by offering

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STATE AWARDS awards for international competition by Ontario-breds. While many states promote improving quality by rewarding owners of their statebreds who win out of state in open company, Canada takes this further and farther, with awards if Canada-breds win a Hong Kong International Race, a race on Dubai World Cup day, or a graded stakes in France, England, or Ireland.

As in most areas of racing’s quest for new ways to maximize revenue, Gulfstream Park is thinking outside of the box. Often, the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA), which is 60% breeders and 40% owners, racetracks, and the state government, are all at odds.

When tapped to head the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association two years ago, Lonny Powell saw the opportunity to expand the role and utilize his vast array of previous experience – from CEO of Racing Commissioners’ International to VP of Magna Entertainment and VP of YouBet – to draw together the multiple warring factions in Florida for the benefit of the sport.

He recognizes that the best way to move the industry forward in a state is bigger purses, bonuses, and awards, but to accomplish that, a strong relationship with the state government is absolutely necessary.

The legislature will not listen to whining horsemen and an industry that can’t get itself on the same page.

Powell said that most states he’s been, including moribund Arizona, breeders have a particularly good relationship with the legislature when they capitalize on their grassroots connections and farming ethos to Lonny Powell promote the Thoroughbred industry as agribusiness across the state, and not simply their own niche interests. Powell feels that Florida, with its background of multi-generational racing and breeding leaders, has the best connection to the legislature he’s seen by relying on the successful consistency of the same lobbyist, Matt Ryan, for 28 years. Ryan was originally brought on board as a voice for breeders by George Steinbrenner, and he has educated politicians and promoted racing in the Sunshine State ever since.

“He brings great credibility when representing breeders, and explaining why we need those awards,” Powell said. “It’s important to be real, to work face to face with the state legislators, get to know them and have them know what we do. It means we can tell our story, and we have a political voice. There’s none of this ‘woe is us, we want a handout’ that doesn’t work and doesn’t properly represent our industry.”

Powell adamantly declares that Florida, the second-largest breeding state, has a strong industry with a proud history that continues to grow, including being the only state with foals up nearly 5% for the second year in a row to approximately 2,300, mares and stallions coming back, the Ocala Breeders’ Sales auctions up, and international attention returning. Florida-bred Mucho Macho Man was a Horse of the Year finalist.

Powell points to the increased investment in farm equipment, the fact that historic Bridlewood Farm sold for $14 million to someone who kept it in the Thoroughbred business, and a net gain of 15 stallions

“Florida has it all, from stallions to consignors, training centers and top racetracks”

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RACING

A Washington-bred foal by Nationhood out of Litenite

Florida-bred Mucho Macho Man, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic

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in the last year as advantageous results of the state supporting the breeding industry through awards for quality. Banks haven’t come back to 2006 levels of lending, but the racing industry is generating its own investment.

“We don’t pay the highest awards, but across the board, in every category, we’re in the top five,” Powell notes. “Florida has it all, from stallions to consignors, training centers and top racetracks. We breed, we raise them, we sell them, we train them, we race them, and we have a strong aftercare program – all right here without having to leave the state. And we couldn’t get it done without a political voice.”

The racing product often is tied to the breeding. Powell said that Gulfstream Park will extend its racino into another building and the revenue is to be channeled into additional breeder awards and stallion awards. “The Florida-bred stakes program will be expanded unlike any the state has ever seen!” he enthusiastically boasted, “and there will be a material impact on purses.”

The expansion, still in the works so details aren’t available yet, is a product of the legislators seeing all factions getting along with a clear purpose for the future of the state’s breeding and racing industries. “We have to keep innovating, the status quo won’t get it done,” he said.

In a time when the words “government handout” and “entitlement” trigger public outrage, smart horsemen have emphasized what racing and breeding do for their state’s economy, not how they will fail without it.

Powell’s triumvirate of the HBPA, the racetracks, and the state legislature working together has created a model of breeders’ awards investing in the future of the Thoroughbred industry in one of the states hardest-hit by the recession. State government recognizing that job growth and economic growth are fruits of the increased quality of its Thoroughbreds has proven to benefit everyone.

Pennsylvania distributes more money per foal than any state, with 2013 seeing $10 million up for grabs by Pennsylvania-breds in its restricted races.

Pennsylvania’s Thoroughbred breeding and racing industry contributes approximately $600 million annually to the state’s economy, so it is clear that the state has a vested interest in supporting these activities.

Louisiana continues to be very supportive of its Thoroughbred industry. The Commissioner of Agriculture, Mike Strain, is an equine veterinarian who has been in his post since 2007, again showing that knowledgeable horsemen in the state government make a difference.

As racing looks for new ways to compete in a crowded marketplace, common purpose has achieved a remarkable recovery from the recession, and the industry as a whole has moved forward by turning state governments into allies. n

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PROFILE The Hartys: Edward, Carolyn, Eoin and Eddie Sr

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EDWARD AND EOIN HARTY

RELATIVE VALUES:

Edward and Eoin Harty

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PROFILE

When he was 17 years old and in the breeding program at Irish National Stud in County Kildare, Eoin (pronounced “Owen”) Harty, a fifth-generation horseman, couldn’t wait for the arrival of racing magazines from America.

“We used to get them every week at Irish National,” Harty said. “I saw pictures of Claiborne and Gainesway in the Blood-Horse and Thoroughbred Record. I said, ‘I’m never going to be able to compete with them.’”

D

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: CAROLINE NORRIS, HORSEPHOTOS.COM

R. Michael Osborne, the director of the program, convinced him to try. “He said, ‘It’s a land of opportunity, even if you have to work at McDonald’s,’” Harty said. “’Go over there and test the waters. The opportunities are vast in the States. These do not exist in Ireland. Seize the moment.’”

Smart man, that Dr. Osborne. Harty, now 51, has not only competed with the best in the United States, but he has succeeded there and in Dubai, where he won the world’s richest race, the $6 million Dubai World Cup, by 14 lengths with Well Armed, who also won the Grade I Goodwood and the Grade 2 San Antonio and San Diego Handicaps. Harty has also won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby and Travers with Colonel John and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies with Tempera. As 2013 wound down, he’d won 343 races from 2,140 starts with earnings of nearly $21 million in just 13 years.

“That’s the job he was expected to do,” his father, Eddie, said in a phone interview from

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Newbridge, Ireland. “I’m delighted that fortune has smiled on him, but he does his job very well. I am pleased and proud, but not surprised.”

As a rider, Eddie, now in his late ’70s, competed in the 1960 Olympics in Rome for Ireland, and he won England’s prestigious Grand National Steeplechase in 1969 on Highland Wedding. “He paralyzed his arm in a racing accident,” Eoin said. “He’s got partial use of it now. To him, the glass is always half-full.

He went on to something else. That’s when he started training.”

The Harty family, which had been living in England for ten years, moved back to Ireland.

“I was born in Dublin, but I spent my first ten years in England,” Eoin said. “At ten years of age, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my time in England.”

But in Ireland, there was a family legacy, one he and his older brother Edward, also now a trainer, are continuing. “Every waking moment of your life over there, it’s all people talk about: horses,” Eoin said. “Friends, family. It’s hard to describe because there’s nothing like it in America. Where my parents live, it’s a horse

area. Everybody is doing horses, talking about horses. If you didn’t like horses, it wouldn’t be good.”

The Harty family has loved horses for five generations.

When asked about the impact of having such deep roots, Eddie said, “I think the way I can explain it is I had four uncles who were professional jockeys. My dad was a champion amateur rider. My grandfather was the first trainer licensed outside of the Curragh. When I won the National, he was battling cancer and couldn’t attend. I called him from the hotel to tell him I won, and he said, ‘It was a great day.

It would have been better if Boss was there.’”

Michael “Boss” Harty – Eddie’s grandfather – followed his brothers, Edmund and John, into Irish racing in 1980, training and riding. Boss expanded his stable throughout Ireland and into England and Wales and died before Eddie was born.

Five of Boss’s sons continued the Harty legacy: Henry was a successful jump rider and trainer; Michael rode in Ireland and India; George rode and trained, and John was killed while riding in a race at The Curragh in 1929.

The fifth son, Eddie’s dad, Cyril, was a member of the Irish Army showjumping team and trained Knight’s Crest, who won the 1944 Irish Grand National.

Eddie and his brothers, Buster and John, all rode and trained. John was an accomplished rider, catching many of Ireland’s most important stakes. Buster’s daughter, Sabrina, won her first race as a trainer in 2006 at Roscommon. Her cousin Delma was the first woman trainer to win at the Cheltenham Festival and also the first woman steward in Ireland.

“We have tremendous respect for the horse game, the integrity and everything about it,” Eddie said. It’s a big advantage and it’s a great responsibility.”

Eddie has successfully borne that responsibility. “He’s the best,” his wife Patricia, a native of New York, said in a phone interview. “It’s something he’s always done. He knows the job from start to end. It’s gone back for generations. It’s something that’s in the blood. It’s still there.”

Two of Eddie and Patricia’s three children

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EDWARD AND EOIN HARTY

continue their family’s racing legacy: Edward, who also goes by the name “Eddie,” and Eoin.

Edward went to college and became a successful currency trader before returning to a business and a life with horses as a trainer in 2004. “He was the smart one,” Eoin said. “He was always passionate about training. He was probably more passionate about horses than I was.”

Edward understands the history behind his own love of horses. “The family’s been training continuously,” he said. “There hasn’t been a break. That’s all we really wanted to do: ride and train. It’s something you’re bred to do.”

Like his father before him. “He’s been successful most of the time,” Edward said.

“He’s got a great eye for a horse.” Edward also appreciates his mother’s role in continuing this training tradition: “Behind every good man, there’s a great woman. She’s held the whole thing together.”

Edward took out his trainer’s license in March, 2004, and registered his first victory just three months later when Misty Mountain won a maiden fillies race at Leopardstown. “It’s something you were doing as a kid,” he said. “I wasn’t starting from scratch.”

He had three more winners in 2004: Bixaare, Stormy Larissa, and Edaliya, and has gone on to win multiple stakes with

Edward Harty with Captain Cee Bees (right and above), the Grade 1-winning chaser who helped launch his National Hunt training career.

Eoin Harty (opposite) in his office

Itsonlywoody in 2005 and 2006 and Baron De’l from 2007 to 2009. He also won a stakes with Corcovada in 2009. But he credits Captain Cee Bee with jump-starting his training career. “He was the real turning point,” Edward said. Captain Cee Bee was an instant success in his first year of hurdling in 2007 and is still racing now. “It’s gone very well with him,” Edward said. “You’ve got to be patient.”

That impresses his mother: “He’s still successful, and he knows what he wants to do.”

Edward has an ally. His wife Marie is one of the leading equine veterinary surgeons in Ireland. “She was the top equine surgeon in the country,” Edward said. “She’s been a great help.

She knows horses. She was brought up with horses.”

Their two children have extended the Harty

legacy into a sixth generation. Carolyn is a leading show rider while attending college, and Patrick is an assistant to National Hunt trainer Nicky Henderson. “Carolyn rides Captain Cee Bee every day,” Edward said. “I think she’ll end up in the industry, maybe in three-day eventing. Patrick is now Nicky’s Number One assistant. You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out where he’s going to wind up.”

Edward and Eoin’s sister, Freda, became a Cordon Bleu chef and now owns a string of restaurants with her husband Paul. “She had a pony when she was younger, but she didn’t do any competitive racing,” her mother said.

“She’s a very good cook and is a wonderful, wonderful daughter to us.”

Asked if she feels blessed to have three accomplished children, Patricia said,

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PROFILE “Absolutely.” Then she added, “Eddie gets all the credit, but if it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t be here.” And she laughed.

Eoin is happy to have his spent his whole life with horses. “If it’s not fun, why are we doing it?” he asked. “If you’re dealing with a limited number of horses, you have to know every inch of the horse; know what they like or what they don’t like. Besides keeping them fit, you have to keep them happy. If you believe the talent is there and it’s not coming out, you have to figure out why. That’s the fun part of it.

It’s the little things that wins races. I like being around horses. They’ve all got their things: rub them here or there, leave them alone, take them out to graze in the afternoon. It’s fun figuring them out.”

Asked if he is still learning how to figure them out, Eoin said, “Every day. I like to just walk up and down the barn.”

That approach doesn’t surprise his dad. “He was always a leader,” Eddie said. “He had a good sense of what had to be done.” Asked if that sense came from his dad, Eddie laughed.

“He got it from me or his mother,” he said.

Eoin had little interest in riding, so, like his father before him, turned to training, trying to absorb all that he could from his dad. “He showed me how horses have nuances, differences, subtleties, the gap between a horse’s eyes, the way they carried their head, the way they walked, the angles of their legs, if a horse had irregularities; the things most people didn’t notice,” Eoin said. “I learned from osmosis.”

And by example. He said his dad “had a very strong work ethic.”

Eoin was barely in his teens when he

“The family’s been training continuously. There hasn’t been a break. That’s all we really wanted to do: ride and train. It’s something you’re bred to do” Edward Harty realized that he would be spending his life with horses: “Growing up in Ireland, they were very cut and dry about which kids were going to college and which go to work. It became quite apparent which way my life was going.”

He was very happy with that direction.

Asked if he wanted to go to college, Eoin said, “Hell, no. I hated school. I hate school to this day.”

Eoin worked summers for the prominent McGrath family. “He did very good there,” his dad said.

Eoin continued his education at the Irish National Stud. “It’s a one-year program,” Eoin said. “It was a fantastic year of my life. I met some special people. We stay in touch.”

Following Michael Osborne’s good advice, Eoin journeyed to America. He did sales prep with Crescent Farm and then at Taylor Made Farm, a job he landed by answering an ad in the Blood-Horse. He longed for a different experience. “I knew I didn’t want to stay working on a farm,” he said. “I wanted to experience the racetrack.”

Well Armed with Aaron Gryder up wins the Dubai World Cup in 2009

76 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

A friend of Eoin’s dad knew trainer John Russell, who was also a talented writer. Eoin worked for Russell for seven and a half years.

“I was very fortunate to work for John,” Eoin said. “He was a very intelligent man. He was a great tennis player. Great writer. Wry sense of humor. We were very good friends. We’d have dinner or cocktails. He’s one of those rare people who can expound on anything.

[Owner] Bill Casner is the same way.”

Eoin can thank Russell, who passed away in 2004, for meeting his wife, Kathy. “John needed an exercise rider in the mid-’80s, and my wife showed up one day from Florida,” Eoin said. They married. “I tried to drag it out as long as possible,” he said. “It’s too late now.

If I had my way, we’d still be dating.”

Eoin said he learned valuable lessons from Russell. “I learned a lot of things I would never know,” Eoin said. “He talked about running a business. John loved to teach. I learned the management of your business. Don’t get into debt. Watch the bottom line. Don’t order too much hay. A lot of people don’t think like that.

It was a great education.”

Then it was time to move on. Eoin became Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s assistant in 1993. “John was winding down his career, and I ran into Bob,” Eoin said. “Bob needed an assistant and I needed a job. He might have been out of Quarter Horses for a year.”

Eoin called to tell his dad the news. “He called and he said he was going to work for Bob Baffert,” Eoin’s dad said. “I said, ‘I don’t know who he is.’ Eoin said, ‘You will.’”

Eoin was right, and he was with Baffert for his Triple Crown blitz of the late 1990s. After losing the 1996 Kentucky Derby with Cavionnier by a nose to Grindstone, Baffert’s Silver Charm and Real Quiet won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness the following two years before each narrowly lost the Belmont Stakes in their bids to become the first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. “I had a great experience with Bob,” Eoin said. “It was a lot of fun. With Bob, I got a lot of exposure.”

He had no idea how important that was until he received a call from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, patriarch of Godolphin Racing, during the 1999 Breeders’ Cup at Gulfstream Park. “I couldn’t believe it,” Eoin said. “I thought it was a joke.”

Eoin went to Dubai to meet Maktoum. “He’s a great guy with a great sense of humor,” Eoin said. “Like John Russell, he’s very intelligent. I enjoyed the excitement from going to Dubai to meet him. I’d seen it as a tourist. Now it was from an insider’s view.”

Sheikh Mohammed wanted Eoin to take over a new American stable of Godolphin twoyear-olds. “I figured if you turn that down, you’re never going to train,” Eoin said.

Eoin didn’t turn down that offer, taking out his license to begin doing what he was meant to do his entire life: train Thoroughbreds.

He had immediate success with Godolphin’s juveniles. Street Cry finished third in the 2000

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EDWARD AND EOIN HARTY Breeders’ Cup Juvenile behind Macho Uno and Point Given. A year later, Tempera won the 2001 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

After having spent three winters in Dubai, Eoin remained in California in the winter of 2003-2004 to train several horses for Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley Stable, including, for the first time, older horses.

Eoin added Bill Casner, then of WinStar Farm, as a client in 2007. “That happened all because of Silver Charm,” Eoin said. “I met the Casners over there when I was in Dubai.”

Silver Charm won the 1998 Dubai World Cup for Baffert and maintains a special place in Eoin’s heart. “He was tough, physically and mentally,” Eoin said. “Those horses are few and far between. A combination of talent and mental fortitude. It’s like catching lightning in a bottle. In the World Cup, I was more spent than the horse was. The stretch was three furlongs. He took on three different challenges by three different horses. He put them all away.

That just doesn’t happen.”

Opportunities to train for world class owners are just as rare. The Irish teenager who thought he could never compete with the big names in American racing has trained for Godolphin, Darley, and WinStar. “I’ve been lucky,” Eoin said. “Life has been good to me.”

Life was so good to Eoin on one weekend in 2008 that he almost posted a unique, historic double. At Saratoga, where Eoin continues to spend his summers, WinStar Farm’s Colonel

John, a son of Tiznow, got a fortuitous bobbing nose victory over Mambo in Seattle in the $1 million Travers Stakes. After jumping into Casner’s private jet with Casner’s wife, his own wife Kathy, and jockey Garrett Gomez, Eoin saddled WinStar’s Well Armed, another son of Tiznow, in the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar. He led late before finishing second by a neck to Go Between.

Eoin remains stoic about those two races. “You win some; you lose some,” he said. “You can’t be greedy.”

Well Armed more than made it up to him.

He finished third by eight lengths in the 2008 Dubai World Cup to two-time Horse of the Year Curlin. A year later under Aaron Gryder, Well Armed’s only jockey in his final 13 starts, Well Armed won the $6 million 2009 Dubai World Cup by a record 14 lengths. “You should never think that you’ve got it won, but I did expect the horse to win that night,” Eoin said. “It was a race that was devoid of any speed. I thought if I could make the lead, I could stretch the competition out.”

And when he did? “It was a great achievement,” Eoin said. “The Maktoums were instrumental in my starting out. It was a great night.”

No matter how well he does, Eoin is forever connected to his deep roots. He and his family return to Ireland every year to spend a week with his parents and reunite with his brother and sister and their families. “The older my

parents get, the more time I want to spend with them,” Eoin said.

Usually, Eoin departs California at the end of November. Last winter, he delayed his departure until early December so he could saddle Darley Stable’s two-year-old filly Arethusa in the $500,000 Grade I Hollywood Starlet at Hollywood Park. Arethusa had broken her maiden by winning the $100,000 Sharp Cat Stakes by 8¼ lengths in her previous start. She finished fifth in the Hollywood Starlet to Streaming.

Then Eoin was headed home. Once again, he would get to spend time with his dad. A lot of time. “I hang out with my dad, and we look at what horses I might buy, why we like horses, pluses and minuses,” Eoin said. “He always dealt with a limited budget, but his record is exemplary.”

His son is headed in that direction. “He’s part of a great tradition,” Eoin’s dad said.

Edward said of his brother, “He’s worked very hard for it. He’s only getting the fruits of his labor.”

Edward is too. While Eoin’s son, another Eddie, is in college in California and hasn’t expressed an interest in horseracing, his uncle Edward noted, “It doesn’t look like he’ll end up with horses, but in our family, God knows what’s down the line.”

Edward is forever grateful that he returned to horses. “I always wanted to train,” he said. “I wouldn’t change a day. I’ve had a great life.” n

“If you believe the talent is there and it’s not coming out, you have to figure out why. That’s the fun part of it. It’s the little things that wins races” Eoin Harty

ISSUE 31 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 77

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Website: www.niallbrennan.com Telephone: Office 352 732-7459 or Training Center 352 629 3994 Email: nbstables@aol.com Facilities: 3/4 mile dirt track 3/4 mile rolling turf course Aquaciser 4 stall starting gate European Walkers

Services offered: Breaking, Sales Prep R & R, Layups, etc..

Address: Training Center: 7505 W. Hwy 326 Ocala, FL 34482 ISSUE 31 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 79

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STAKES SCHEDULES

STAKES SCHEDULES Sponsored by Omega Alpha RegenerEQ™ has been scientifically formulated to quickly promote appetite and weight gain while it maintains a healthy gastro-intestinal environment.

RegenerEQ™ is recommended for horses that are stressed from racing, travel, new surroundings or new feed.

For more information tel: 1-800-651-3172 www.omegaalphaequine.com RACES

Races are divided by distance and the relevant surface is indicated as follows: AWT - All Weather Track D - Dirt T - Turf The indexes cover all graded races in North America over $50,000 in value, where information was available at the time of publication.

Races highlighted in purple indicate the race is a Breeders’ Cup win and you’re in race.

Stakes Schedules are now updated monthly – visit trainermagazine.com/stakes

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Under Copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means. This includes but is not limited to: photocopying for commercial redistribution and or facsimile recording without the prior permission of the copyright holder, application for which should be addressed to the publisher.

DISCLAIMER

Whilst every effort has been made to publish correct information, the publishers will not be held liable for any omission, mistake or change to the races listed in all published indexes.

RegenerEQ™ – promoting appetite, weight gain and a healthy gastro-intestinal environment Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Breeders Cup

USA USA USA USA USA USA

Sunland Park Sunland Park Sunland Park SunRay Park SunRay Park Mountaineer

The Getaway St Mt. Cristo Rey H’cap Copper Top Futurity C.O. Ken Kendrick Memorial St Totah St West Virginia Legislature Chairman’s Cup

USA USA USA UAE UAE UAE USA USA USA GB GB GB GB USA USA USA USA USA

Sam Houston Race Park Gulfstream Park Tampa Bay Downs Jebel Ali Meydan Meydan Calder Canterbury Golden Gate Fields Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Calder Lone Star Park Lone Star Park Delaware Park Delaware Park

Bucharest S The Ladies Turf Sprint Turf Dash Jebel Ali Sprint Meydan Sprint Al Quoz Sprint Texas Glitter Honor the Hero St Albany St Windsor Castle St King’s Stand St Queen Mary St Norfolk St Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint H’cap TTA Sales Futurity - C&G Div TTA Sales Futurity - Filly Div First State Dash Small Wonder

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Oaklawn Park Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Sunland Park Keeneland Keeneland Calder Calder

Class

Race Date

Value

S S S S

15-Apr-14 8-Mar-14 12-Apr-14 10-Jun-14 17-Jun-14 2-Aug-14

USD50,000 USD85,000 USD55,000 USD50,000 USD50,000 USD100,000

Age

Surface Metres

3 QH & TB 3+ (NM Bred) 2 C&G 2F 2 CG (NM Bred) 3+

D D D D D D

900 900 900 900 900 900

T T T D T T T T T T T T T T D D D D

1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000

AntiFlam™ – supports sound feet and joints!

L L Gr 1

L Gp 1 Gp 2 Gp 2 R R R R

8-Feb-14 USD50,000 4+ 23-Feb-14 USD75,000 4+ F&M 1-Mar-14 USD100,000 3+ 7-Mar-14 AED 500,000 3+ 8-Mar-14 USD175,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 29-Mar-14 USD1,000,000 NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+ 10-May-14 USD65,000 3+ 26-May-14 USD75,000 3+ 14-Jun-14 USD50,000 3+ 17-Jun-14 £60,000 2 17-Jun-14 £375,000 3+ 18-Jun-14 £100,000 2F 19-Jun-14 £80,000 2 5-Jul-14 USD100,000 3+ 12-Jul-14 USD100,000 2 CG 12-Jul-14 USD100,000 2F 13-Sep-14 USD75,000 2 13-Sep-14 USD75,000 2 F&M

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S Gr 3

22-Feb-14 4-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 12-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 5-Jul-14 5-Jul-14

USD100,000 4+ F&M USD75,000 4 + FM USD75,000 4+ USD85,000 4+ FM ( NM Bred) USD100,000 4+ USD100,000 4+ FM USD80,000 2 USD80,000 2F

4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5

Closing 04-Apr-14 28-Feb-14 15-Oct-13 03-Jun-14 10-Jun-14 21-Jul-14

5f (1000m)

Hemex™ – maintains a normal red blood cell count and supports better oxygen utilization Spring Fever Mardi Gras S Colonel Power St La Coneja St Shakertown St Giant’s Causeway St Frank Gomez Memorial St J J’s Dream St

4.5f (870m) Furlongs

D T T D T T D D

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

30-Jan-14 08-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 03-Mar-14 03-Mar-14 17-Jan-14 26-Apr-14 05-Jun-14 11-Jun-14 22-Apr-14 12-Jun-14 13-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 01-May-14 01-May-14

5.5f (1100m) 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100

5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5

14-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 01-Mar-14 14-Mar-14

21-Jun-14 21-Jun-14

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STAKES SCHEDULES Healthy Horse™ – Hemex, Immune Plus, Lung Flush & Liver Flush in one convenient format!

Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Iowa Stallion Futurity Arlington Sprint Prairie Gold Juvenile Prairie Gold Lassie Sierra Starlet H’cap Rio Grande Senorita Futurity Sierra Blanca H’cap Road Runner H’cap Rio Grande Senor Futurity

Prairie Meadows Arlington Park Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Ruidoso Downs Ruidoso Downs Ruidoso Downs Ruidoso Downs Ruidoso Downs

Breeders Cup

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

R

5-Jul-14 5-Jul-14 19-Jul-14 19-Jul-14 26-Jul-14 26-Jul-14 27-Jul-14 27-Jul-14 27-Jul-14

USD60,000 USD100,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD50,000 USD175,000 USD50,000 USD50,000 USD175,000

2 3+ 2 2F 3F 2F 3+ 3 CG 2

S S S S S

Surface Metres D T D D D D D D D

1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100 1100

Testos Boost™ – a natural way to increase a horse’s production of testosterone USA USA UAE USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN UAE USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA UAE USA USA JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA USA AUS USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA GB GB GB JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA

Aqueduct Oaklawn Park Meydan Turf Paradise Golden Gate Fields Aqueduct Calder Sam Houston Race Park Aqueduct Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Nakayama Meydan Aqueduct Fair Grounds Oaklawn Park Santa Anita Aqueduct Tampa Bay Downs Golden Gate Fields Oaklawn Park Meydan Aqueduct Oaklawn Park Chukyo Oaklawn Park Prairie Meadows Sunland Park Tampa Bay Downs Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Randwick Oaklawn Park Aqueduct Hawthorne Racecourse Hawthorne Racecourse Hawthorne Racecourse Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Canterbury Prairie Meadows Canterbury Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Ruidoso Downs Ruidoso Downs Calder Calder Calder Calder Arlington Park Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Hakodate Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Canterbury Canterbury Calder Calder Calder Calder Hanshin Lone Star Park Delaware Park

Dearly Precious St King Cotton S Al Shindagha Sprint Phoenix Gold Cup Lost in the Fog St Hollie Hughes (NYB) Pica Slew Sam Houston Sprint Cup Tom Fool Downthedustyroad Breeders Nodouble Breeders Yukan Fuji Sho Ocean St Mahab Al Shimaal Fred Cappy Capossela St Duncan F. Kenner St Hot Springs S Las Flores St Cicada St Wayward Lass St Camilla Urso St Gazebo Dubai Golden Shaheen Broadway (NY Bred) Rainbow Miss S The 2nd Leg of Global Sprint Challenge Takamatsunomiya Kinen Rainbow S Golden Circle Czaria H Hilton Garden Inn Sprint Carousel H Count Fleet Sprint H Bachelor Darley TJ Stakes Instant Racing Distaff H’cap Robert S. Molaro H’cap Land of Lincoln St Pretty Jenny St Goldfinch Mamie Eisenhower John Wayne Bob Bryant 10,000 Lakes St Gray’s Lake Ladys Slipper St Prairie Express Prairie Rose The First Lady H’Cap The Free Spirit H’Cap Leave Me Alone St Ponche H’cap U Can Do It H’cap Unbridled St Isaac Murphy St Coventry St Albany St Diamond Jubilee St Hakodate Sprint St Iowa Sprint H’cap Saylorville Victor Myers St Frances Genter Carry Back St Azalea St Smile Sprint H’cap Sprint Princess Rooney H’cap CBC Sho Valor Farms St Sweet N Sassy St

82 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

Gr 3

Gr 3 S S Gr 3 Gr 3 L Gr 3 Gr 3

Gr 1 S S Gr 1 S

Gr 3 Gp1 Gr 2 S S S S S S S

S

S Gp 2 Gp 3 Gp 1 Gr 3

Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 3 S

8-Feb-14 USD100,000 3F 8-Feb-14 USD100,000 4+ 13-Feb-14 USD200,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 15-Feb-14 USD75,000 4+ 17-Feb-14 USD50,000 4+ 17-Feb-14 USD100,000 3+ 22-Feb-14 USD65,000 3F 22-Feb-14 USD50,000 4+ 1-Mar-14 USD200,000 3+ 1-Mar-14 USD75,000 3+ F&M (Ark Bred) 1-Mar-14 USD75,000 3+ C&G (Ark Bred) 8-Mar-14 USD389,575 4+ 8-Mar-14 USD200,000 NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+ 8-Mar-14 USD100,000 3 8-Mar-14 USD150,000 3+ 8-Mar-14 USD100,000 4+ 9-Mar-14 USD100,000 4+ FM 15-Mar-14 USD100,000 3F 15-Mar-14 USD50,000 4+ FM 15-Mar-14 USD50,000 4+ FM 22-Mar-14 USD100,000 3 29-Mar-14 USD2,000,000 NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+ 29-Mar-14 USD100,000 3+ FM 29-Mar-14 USD75,000 3 F (Ark Bred) 30-Mar-14 USD924,637 4+ 30-Mar-14 USD75,000 3 C&G (Ark Bred) 2-Apr-14 USD75,000 3 5-Apr-14 USD50,000 3+ F&M 5-Apr-14 USD75,000 4+ 6-Apr-14 USD100,000 4+ F&M 10-Apr-14 USD300,000 4+ 11-Apr-14 USD100,000 3 12-Apr-14 AUS$2,500,000 3 12-Apr-14 USD100,000 3F 19-Apr-14 USD200,000 3+ FM 19-Apr-14 USD100,000 4+ 26-Apr-14 USD100,000 3 26-Apr-14 USD100,000 3F 26-Apr-14 USD75,000 3F 9-May-14 USD70,000 4+ F&M (IA Bred) 10-May-14 USD70,000 4+ C&G (IA Bred) 16-May-14 USD60,000 3 F (IA Bred) 16-May-14 USD60,000 3+ 17-May-14 USD60,000 3 C&G (IA Bred) 17-May-14 USD60,000 3+F&M 24-May-14 USD75,000 3+ 24-May-14 USD50,000 3+ F&M 25-May-14 USD50,000 3+FM 31-May-14 USD50,000 3+ 31-May-14 USD65,000 3F 31-May-14 USD65,000 3+ 31-May-14 USD65,000 3+ FM 31-May-14 USD65,000 3 14-Jun-14 USD100,000 3+ FM 17-Jun-14 £12,000 2 20-Jun-14 £70,000 2F 21-Jun-14 £525,000 3+ 22-Jun-14 USD371,762 3+ 27-Jun-14 USD125,000 3+ 27-Jun-14 USD100,000 3+ F&M 4-Jul-14 USD60,000 3 + CG 4-Jul-14 USD60,000 3 F (Min Bred) 5-Jul-14 USD150,000 3 5-Jul-14 USD150,000 3F 5-Jul-14 USD300,000 3+ 5-Jul-14 USD300,000 3+ FM 6-Jul-14 USD371,511 3+ 12-Jul-14 USD50,000 3+ FM (TX Bred) 12-Jul-14 USD100,000 3+ FM

D D AWT D AWT D D D D D D T AWT D D D AWT D D AWT D AWT D D T D D D D D D D T D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D AWT T T T T D D D D D D D D T D D

5.5f (1100m) Furlongs 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5

Closing 21-Jun-14 11-Jul-14 11-Jul-14

6f (1200m) 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200

6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

25-Jan-14 31-Jan-14 10-Feb-14 05-Feb-14 08-Feb-14 01-Feb-14 08-Feb-14 13-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 21-Jan-14 03-Mar-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 28-Feb-14 27-Feb-14 01-Mar-14 01-Mar-14 06-Mar-14 14-Mar-14 17-Jan-14 15-Mar-14 21-Mar-14 18-Feb-14 21-Mar-14 19-Apr-14 28-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 03-Apr-14 17-Feb-14 04-Apr-14 05-Apr-14

18-Apr-14 01-May-14 02-May-14

16-May-14 16-May-14

17-May-14 17-May-14 17-May-14 17-May-14 31-May-14 11-Jun-14 14-Jun-14 22-Apr-14 13-May-14 14-Jun-14 14-Jun-14

21-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 27-May-14 03-Jul-14

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STAKES SCHEDULES EnduraForce™ for pre-race stamina & Equisel-BCAA for post-race recovery. Use together!

Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Addison Cammack Lincoln H’cap The Senator Robert C Byrd Memorial St Mountaineer Juvenile Fillies St Mountaineer Juvenile St West Virginia Secretary of State St Aspen Cup MN Distaff Sprint Championship MN Sprint Championship Northern Lights Debutante St Northern Lights Futurity St Tax Free Distaff The New Castle Shakopee Juvenile Stakes Sophomore Sprint Championship St

Arlington Park Ruidoso Downs Mountaineer Mountaineer Mountaineer Mountaineer Ruidoso Downs Canterbury Canterbury Canterbury Canterbury Delaware Park Delaware Park Canterbury Mountaineer

Breeders Cup

Class

Race Date

Value

S S

26-Jul-14 27-Jul-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 9-Aug-14 31-Aug-14 31-Aug-14 31-Aug-14 31-Aug-14 13-Sep-14 13-Sep-14 13-Sep-14 11-Nov-14

USD100,000 USD50,000 USD100,000 USD100,000 USD100,000 USD100,000 USD50,000 USD60,000 USD60,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD85,000

S S S S S R R

Age

6f (1200m)

Surface Metres

3+ 3+ FM 3+ 2F 2 3+ FM 3F 3 FM 3 2F 2 3+ F&M 3+ 2 3

AWT D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200

Biotic 8™ – the easy and efficient way to maintain a healthy digestive tract USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Sunland Park Gulfstream Park Turfway Park Santa Anita Santa Anita Sunland Park Gulfstream Park Santa Anita Santa Anita Lone Star Park Santa Anita Santa Anita Lone Star Park Santa Anita SunRay Park SunRay Park SunRay Park Canterbury Canterbury

El Diario H Hurricane Bertie Cincinnati Trophy St Sensational Star St Irish O’Brien St Bill Thomas Memorial S Sir Shackleton Echo Eddie St Evening Jewel St Premiere St Potrero Grande St Las Cienegas St Wayne Hanks Memorial S San Simeon St Russell and Helen Foutz Distaff H’cap Aztec Oaks Dine St Dark Star Cup MTA Stallion Auction S

Gr 3 S S

S S R Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 S S S

8-Feb-14 9-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 15-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 10-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 13-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 24-May-14 27-May-14 15-Jun-14 20-Jul-14

USD50,000 USD150,000 USD60,000 USD100,000 USD100,000 USD75,000 USD100,000 USD200,000 USD200,000 USD50,000 USD200,000 USD100,000 USD50,000 USD100,000 USD50,000 USD50,000 USD50,000 USD75,000 USD55,000

Gulfstream Park Tampa Bay Downs Tokyo Laurel Park Sam Houston Race Park Sam Houston Race Park Abu Dhabi Santa Anita Laurel Park Tampa Bay Downs Meydan Gulfstream Park Hanshin Santa Anita Hanshin Chukyo Laurel Park Gulfstream Park Aqueduct Aqueduct Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Bay Downs Hanshin Keeneland Keeneland Hanshin Tokyo Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Arlington Park Arlington Park Arlington Park

Gulfstream Park Sprint The Manatee St Queen Cup Barbara Fritche H’cap Jim’s Orbit S Two Altazano S HH The President Cup San Vicente St General George H’cap Super St Meydan Classic Swale S Hankyu Hai San Carlos St Hochi Hai Fillies’ Revue Chunichi Sports Sho Falcon St Conniver Stakes Inside Information Bay Shore St Carter H’cap Ocala Breeders’ Sales Sophomore St Stonehedge Farm South Sophomore Fillies St Hanshin Himba St Madison St Commonwealth St Oka Sho (Japanese 1000 Guineas) Keio Hai Spring Cup Jersey St Chesham St Chicago H’cap Arlington-Washington Lassie Arlington-Washington Futurity

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Delta Downs Delta Downs Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Canterbury Canterbury Lone Star Park Ruidoso Downs

Azalea Pelican Black Gold St Allen Lacombe Memorial H’cap Brooks Fields St HBPA Distaff Lane’s End Stallion Scholarship St Land of Enchantment H’cap

Gr 3 Gr 3

L Gr 2 Gr 2 L Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1

Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gp 3 L Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3

8-Feb-14 8-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 27-Feb-14 1-Mar-14 2-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 16-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 13-Apr-14 17-May-14 18-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 28-Jun-14 6-Sep-14 6-Sep-14

3+ F&M D 4+ F&M D 3F AWT 4+ (CA Bred) T 4+ FM (CA Bred) T 3+ D 4+ D 3 (CA Bred) D F 3 (CA Bred) D 3+ ( TX Bred) D 4+ D 4+ FM T 3+ FM D 4+ T 3+ FM D 3 F (NM Bred) D 3 CG (NM Bred) D 3+ D 3 D

USD100,000 4+ USD50,000 4+ F&M USD330,842 3F USD300,000 3+ FM USD75,000 3 USD75,000 3F AED 185,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ USD200,000 3 USD250,000 3+ USD75,000 4+ USD125,000 NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+ USD150,000 3 USD389,575 4+ USD250,000 4+ USD486,814 3F USD360,417 4+ USD100,000 3+ FM USD200,000 4+ F&M USD300,000 3 USD500,000 3+ USD75,000 3 USD75,000 3F USD515,770 4+ FM USD300,000 4+ FM USD175,000 3+ USD890,000 3F USD558,191 4+ £75,000 3 £60,000 2 USD150,000 3+ FM USD100,000 2F USD150,000 2

1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300 1300

D D T D D D T D D D T D T D T T D D D D D D T AWT AWT T T T T AWT AWT AWT

1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400 1400

D D T T T T T D

1500 1500 1500 1500 1500 1500 1500 1500

Stasis™ – maintaining normal capillary integrity in the lungs S S

R S

28-Feb-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 7-Jun-14 7-Jun-14 14-Jun-14 27-Jul-14

USD100,000 USD100,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD75,000 USD50,000 USD50,000

6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6

Closing 12-Jul-14 21-Jul-14 21-Jul-14 21-Jul-14 21-Jul-14

28-Oct-14

6.5f (1300m)

HA-180™ to ensure higher bioavailability; use daily to aid joint health or post surgery recovery USA USA JPN USA USA USA UAE USA USA USA UAE USA JPN USA JPN JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA JPN JPN GB GB USA USA USA

Furlongs

6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5 6.5

31-Jan-14 06-Feb-14 13-Feb-14 06-Mar-14 14-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 27-Mar-14 27-Mar-14 03-Apr-14 03-Mar-13 03-Apr-14 03-Apr-14 03-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 17-May-14 20-May-14

7f (1400m) 7 7 25-Jan-14 7 07-Jan-14 4 05-Feb-14 7 31/12 of Yearling Year 7 31/12 of Yearling Year 7 10-Feb-14 7 06-Feb-14 7 05-Feb-14 7 08-Feb-14 7 24-Feb-14 7 15-Feb-14 7 21-Jan-14 7 22-Feb-14 7 04-Feb-14 7 04-Feb-14 7 13-Mar-14 7 08-Mar-14 7 22-Mar-14 7 22-Mar-14 7 22-Mar-14 7 22-Mar-14 7 04-Mar-14 7 7 7 04-Mar-14 7 01-Apr-14 7 12-Jun-14 7 16-Jun-14 7 14-Jun-14 7 23-Aug-14 7 23-Aug-14

7.5f (1500m) 3F 3 3 3F 3+ 3+FM 3+ FM 3+

7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5 7.5

14-Feb-14 14-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14

05-Jun-14

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STAKES SCHEDULES Chill Ultra™ – reduces anxiety, focuses the mind and relaxes muscles to perform better Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

JPN UAE UAE USA USA USA USA JPN USA UAE JPN USA USA USA JPN UAE USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA UAE USA USA USA USA JPN USA AUS JPN USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA JPN JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA USA GB GB GB GB JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

Kisaragi Sho (NHK Sho) Firebreak St UAE 2000 Guineas Sarah Lane’s Oates S The Peppers Pride S Buena Vista St Canadian Turf February St Island Fashion S Zabeel Mile Arlington Cup Texas Heritage Stakes Smooth Air Lookout Tulip Sho Burj Nahaar Frank E. Kilroe Mile Caesar’s Wish St B-Connected Gulfstream Park H Gold Coast Borgata Honey Fox St New Mexico State University S Bourbonette Oaks Harry W Henson H Godolphin Mile Dixie Poker Ace S Crescent City Oaks Appleton Ruffian H’cap Lord Derby Challenge Trophy Maker’s 46 Mile Doncaster Hcp New Zealand Trophy Northern Spur Appalachian St Miami Mile H’cap Jack Cole H’cap San Francisco Mile Yomiuri Milers Cup Texas Stallion St - Stymie Division Texas Stallion St - Got Koko Division NHK Mile Cup Victoria Mile Hanshin Cup All American Prairie Mile Campanile St Panthers Purple Violet St Yasuda Kinen Silky Sullivan St Nancy’s Glitter H’cap Northbound Pride Oaks St James’s Palace St Queen Anne St Sandringham H’cap Coronation St Unicorn St Independence Day St Firecracker St Assault St Lady Canterbury St Mystic Lake Mile DTHA Governors Day St Mystic Lake Derby Mountaineer Mile S

Kyoto Meydan Meydan Fair Grounds Sunland Park Santa Anita Gulfstream Park Tokyo Sunland Park Meydan Hanshin Sam Houston Race Park Calder Delta Downs Hanshin Meydan Santa Anita Laurel Park Delta Downs Gulfstream Park Delta Downs Delta Downs Gulfstream Park Sunland Park Turfway Park Sunland Park Meydan Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Gulfstream Park Aqueduct Nakayama Keeneland Randwick Nakayama Oaklawn Park Keeneland Calder SunRay Park Golden Gate Fields Kyoto Lone Star Park Lone Star Park Tokyo Tokyo Arlington Park Golden Gate Fields Prairie Meadows Golden Gate Fields Prairie Meadows Arlington Park Tokyo Golden Gate Fields Calder Canterbury Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Tokyo Mountaineer Mountaineer Lone Star Park Canterbury Canterbury Delaware Park Canterbury Mountaineer

Breeders Cup

Class Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 S S Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 3

R Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 1 R Gr 2 R R Gr 2 S Gr 3 Gr 2 S S Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gp 1 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 S Gr 3 Gr 2 R R Gr 1 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 S S Gr 1 S

Gp 1 Gp 1 L Gp 1 Gr 3

R

R

Race Date

Value

9-Feb-14 USD359,998 13-Feb-14 USD200,000 13-Feb-14 USD250,000 15-Feb-14 USD60,000 15-Feb-14 USD85,000 17-Feb-14 USD200,000 22-Feb-14 USD150,000 23-Feb-14 USD915,082 23-Feb-14 USD50,000 27-Feb-14 USD250,000 1-Mar-14 USD360,302 1-Mar-14 USD50,000 2-Mar-14 USD75,000 7-Mar-14 USD70,000 8-Mar-14 USD331,182 8-Mar-14 USD200,000 8-Mar-14 USD350,000 8-Mar-14 USD100,000 8-Mar-14 USD70,000 8-Mar-14 USD250,000 14-Mar-14 $75000 15-Mar-14 USD75,000 15-Mar-14 USD200,000 16-Mar-14 USD85,000 22-Mar-14 USD125,000 23-Mar-14 USD75,000 29-Mar-14 USD1,000,000 29-Mar-14 USD60,000 29-Mar-14 USD75,000 29-Mar-14 USD100,000 5-Apr-14 USD250,000 6-Apr-14 USD369,847 11-Apr-14 USD300,000 12-Apr-14 AUS$3,000,000 12-Apr-14 USD506,048 12-Apr-14 USD100,000 17-Apr-14 USD100,000 19-Apr-14 USD100,000 26-Apr-14 USD50,000 26-Apr-14 USD100,000 27-Apr-14 USD554,653 10-May-14 USD75,000 10-May-14 USD75,000 11-May-14 USD900,461 18-May-14 USD880,895 24-May-14 USD150,000 26-May-14 USD100,000 31-May-14 USD75,000 31-May-14 USD100,000 31-May-14 USD75,000 7-Jun-14 USD100,000 8-Jun-14 USD978,704 8-Jun-14 USD100,000 14-Jun-14 USD75,000 15-Jun-14 USD75,000 17-Jun-14 £375,000 17-Jun-14 £375,000 18-Jun-14 £70,000 20-Jun-14 £375,000 22-Jun-14 USD332,645 2-Jul-14 USD75,000 2-Jul-14 USD75,000 12-Jul-14 USD50,000 12-Jul-14 USD100,000 12-Jul-14 USD100,000 13-Sep-14 USD75,000 13-Sep-14 USD200,000 1-Nov-14 USD130,000

Age

3 T SH-bred 3+ & NH-bred 4+ AWT NH 3yo SH 3yo AWT 3 F LA Bred T 4+ D 4+ FM T 4+ T 4+ D 3F D NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+ T 3 T 3 D 3 D 3+ F&M D 3F T NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ AWT 4+ T 3F D 3+ D 4+ D 4+ F&M D 4+ D 4+ F&M T 4+ D 3F AWT 3+ F&M D NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ AWT 4+ LA Bred T 3 F&M La Bred D 4+ T 3+ FM D 4+ T 4+ T 3+ T 3 No G T 3 D 3F T 3+ T 3+ D 3+ T 4+ T 3 CG D 3F D 3 No G T 4+ F&M T 3+ AWT 3+ AWT 3 D 3 F (CA Bred) T 3F D 3F AWT 3+ T 3 (CA Bred) T 3+ F&M D 3F T 3C T 4+ T 3F T 3F T 3 D 3+ T 3+ FM T 3+ (TX Bred) D 3+ FM T 3+ T 3+ D 3 T 3+ D

Liver Flush & Kidney Flush™ – to detoxify vital organs and improve performance USA USA USA USA USA USA

Mountaineer Mountaineer Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Canterbury Canterbury

West Virginia House of Delegates Speaker’s Cup West Virginia Senate President’s Breeders’ Cup St Donna Reed Iowa Breeders’ Oaks Minnesota Derby Minnesota Oaks

USA USA

Fair Grounds Santa Anita

Tiffany Lass S Robert B. Lewis St

S S S S

2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 9-Aug-14 9-Aug-14

8f (1600m)

Surface Metres

USD100,000 3+ USD100,000 3+ FM USD85,000 4+ F&M (IA Bred) USD80,000 3 F (IA bred) USD75,000 3 CG USD75,000 3F

1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600 1600

84 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

Gr 2

USD100,000 USD200,000

4 + F&M 3

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Closing 17-Dec-14 10-Feb-14 10-Feb-14 01-Feb-14 07-Feb-14 06-Feb-14 08-Feb-14 07-Jan-14 14-Feb-14 24-Feb-14 21-Jan-14 20-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 21-Feb-14 21-Jan-14 03-Mar-14 22-Feb-14 27-Feb-14 21-Feb-14 28-Feb-14 28-Feb-14 01-Mar-14 07-Mar-14 13-Mar-14 14-Mar-14 17-Jan-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 18-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 04-Mar-14 04-Apr-14 05-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 17-Apr-14 18-Mar-14

01-May-14 01-Apr-14 10-May-14 15-May-14 23-May-14 22-May-14 23-May-14 24-May-14 29-Apr-14 29-May-14 31-May-14 22-Apr-14 22-Apr-14 12-Jun-14 22-Apr-14 13-May-14 17-Jun-14 17-Jun-14 03-Jul-14

20-Oct-14

8.32f (1664m) T T D D D D

1664 1664 1664 1664 1664 1664

D D

1700 1700

Respi-Free™ – opens airways, loosens mucus, reduces coughs from irritation 8-Feb-14 8-Feb-14

Furlongs

8.32 8.32 8.32 8.32 8.32 8.32

21-Jul-14 21-Jul-14 25-Jul-14

8.5f (1700m) 8.5 8.5

25-Jan-14 30-Jan-14

STAKES SCHEDULES NA VERSION_Jerkins feature.qxd 10/02/2014 12:56 Page 6

STAKES SCHEDULES RegenerEQ™ – promoting appetite, weight gain and a healthy gastro-intestinal environment Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

California Oaks Donn H Curribot H Santa Maria St Gentilly S Essex H Jersey Village S Sabin Bayakoa S Southwest S Kings Point Rachel Alexandra St Mineshaft H’cap Risen Star S Davona Dale St Bayou H’cap Mine That Bird Derby Turf Paradise Derby John Battaglia Memorial St Gotham St Top Flight H’cap Santa Ysabel St Star Guitar St Jersey Lilly St San Felipe St New Orleans Ladies St Honeybee S Tampa Bay Derby Florida Oaks Golden Poppy St Razorback H Azeri S Rebel S Red Camelia St Challenger St New Mexico Breeders’ Oaks New Mexico Breeders’ Derby Sunland Park Oaks Arkansas Breeders (Open) Crescent City Derby Fair Grounds Oaks Transylvania St Central Bank Ashland St Santa Anita Oaks The Distaff Turf The Journeyman Stud Sophomore Turf Fantasy S The Journeyman Stud Sophomore Turf The Distaff Turf The Besilu Stables Turf Classic Apple Blossom H Jenny Wiley St Calder Oaks Hilliard Lyons Doubledogdare St Coolmore Lexington St Bosselman/Gus Fonner St Milwaukee Avenue H’cap Peach Of It H’cap Gene Fleming Breeders Derby Arlington Classic Memorial Day H’cap Jim Rasmussen Mem Wild Rose Hawkeyes Handicap Cyclones Handicap Black Tie Affair H’cap Lincoln Heritage H’cap Iowa Distaff Iowa Derby Iowa Oaks Blair’s Cove St Princess Elaine St Delaware Oaks Prairie Meadows H’cap Iowa Breeders’ Derby Ralph Hayes West Virginia Governor’s St Hatoof Ruidoso Downs Thoroughbred Derby MN Classic Championship

Golden Gate Fields Gulfstream Park Sunland Park Santa Anita Fair Grounds Oaklawn Park Sam Houston Race Park Gulfstream Park Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Aqueduct Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Gulfstream Park Fair Grounds Sunland Park Turf Paradise Turfway Park Aqueduct Aqueduct Santa Anita Fair Grounds Sam Houston Race Park Santa Anita Fair Grounds Oaklawn Park Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Bay Downs Golden Gate Fields Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Fair Grounds Tampa Bay Downs Sunland Park Sunland Park Sunland Park Oaklawn Park Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Keeneland Keeneland Santa Anita Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Bay Downs Oaklawn Park Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Bay Downs Tampa Bay Downs Oaklawn Park Keeneland Calder Keeneland Keeneland Fonner Park Hawthorne Racecourse Hawthorne Racecourse Turf Paradise Arlington Park Calder Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Arlington Park Arlington Park Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Canterbury Canterbury Delaware Park Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Prairie Meadows Mountaineer Arlington Park Ruidoso Downs Canterbury

Breeders Cup

Class Gr 1 Gr 2 S

Gr 3 Gr 3 S Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 2

L Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 S Gr 2 L Gr 3 Gr 2

Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 S S S S S Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 1

Gr 3

Gr 1 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 S S S

S S S S Gr 3 Gr 3 S S Gr 2 S S

S S

Race Date 8-Feb-14 9-Feb-14 9-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 10-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 28-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 4-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 11-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 18-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 26-Apr-14 26-Apr-14 26-Apr-14 26-Apr-14 24-May-14 24-May-14 26-May-14 26-May-14 6-Jun-14 7-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 27-Jun-14 28-Jun-14 28-Jun-14 3-Jul-14 3-Jul-14 5-Jul-14 26-Jul-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 2-Aug-14 16-Aug-14 31-Aug-14 31-Aug-14

Value

Age

Surface Metres

USD50,000 3F USD500,000 4+ USD50,000 3+ USD200,000 4+ FM USD60,000 3 LA Bred USD100,000 4+ USD50,000 4+ USD100,000 4+ F&M USD100,000 4+ F&M USD300,000 3 USD100,000 3+ (NY Bred) USD200,000 3F USD150,000 4+ USD400,000 3 USD200,000 3F USD75,000 4+ FM USD120,000 3 USD75,000 3 USD100,000 3 USD500,000 3 USD200,000 3 + F&M USD100,000 3F USD60,000 4+ LA Bred USD50,000 4+ F&M USD300,000 3 USD150,000 4+ FM USD150,000 3F USD350,000 3 USD200,000 3F USD50,000 3+ FM USD200,000 4+ USD200,000 4+ F&M USD600,000 3 USD60,000 4+ FM La Bred USD60,000 4+ USD85,000 3F USD85,000 3 (NM Bred) USD200,000 3F USD75,000 3+ (Ark Bred) USD75,000 3 La Bred USD500,000 3F USD100,000 3 USD500,000 3F USD400,000 3F USD75,000 3+ FM USD75,000 3 USD400,000 3F USD75,000 3 USD75,000 3+ F&M USD75,000 4+ USD500,000 4+ F&M USD300,000 4+ FM USD100,000 3F USD100,000 4+ FM USD200,000 3 USD75,000 3+ USD100,000 3+ USD100,000 3+ FM USD50,000 3 (AZ Bred) USD150,000 3 USD75,000 3+ USD75,000 3+ USD50,000 3+ F&M USD75,000 3+ F&M (IA Bred) USD75,000 3+ (IA Bred) USD100,000 3+ USD100,000 3+ FM USD100,000 3+ F&M USD250,000 3 USD200,000 3F USD60,000 3+ CG USD60,000 3+ FM USD300,000 3F USD75,000 3+ USD80,000 3 USD85,000 4+ C&G (IA Bred) USD200,000 3+ USD75,000 3F USD50,000 3 USD60,000 3+

AWT D D D T D T D D D D D D D D T D D AWT D D D D T D D D D T T D D D T D D D D D D D T AWT D T T D T T T D T T AWT T D D D D T D D D D D T T D D D T T D D D D D T D D

1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700 1700

8.5f (1700m) Furlongs

Closing

8.5 30-Jan-14 8.5 25-Jan-14 8.5 31-Jan-14 8.5 06-Feb-14 8.5 01-Feb-14 8.5 07-Feb-14 8.5 06-Feb-14 8.5 8.5 07-Feb-14 8.5 07-Feb-14 8.5 08-Feb-14 8.5 08-Feb-14 8.5 08-Feb-14 8.5 08-Feb-14 8.5 01-Feb-14 8.5 08-Feb-14 8.5 14-Feb-14 8.5 8.5 20-Feb-14 8.5 15-Feb-14 8.5 15-Feb-14 8.5 20-Feb-14 8.5 15-Feb-14 8.5 20-Feb-14 8.5 27-Feb-14 8.5 22-Feb-14 8.5 28-Feb-14 8.5 22-Feb-14 8.5 22-Feb-14 8.5 01-May-14 8.5 07-Mar-14 8.5 07-Mar-14 8.5 07-Mar-14 8.5 08-Mar-14 8.5 08-Mar-14 8.5 14-Mar-14 8.5 14-Mar-14 8.5 08-Mar-14 8.5 20-Mar-14 8.5 15-Mar-14 8.5 15-Mar-14 8.5 8.5 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 28-Mar-14 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 22-Mar-14 8.5 29-Mar-14 8.5 8.5 29-Mar-14 8.5 8.5 8.5 16-Apr-14 8.5 8.5 8.5 EARLY CLOSING 8.5 25-Apr-14 8.5 10-May-14 8.5 17-May-14 8.5 17-May-14 8.5 29-May-14 8.5 30-May-14 8.5 07-Jun-14 8.5 07-Jun-14 8.5 14-Jun-14 8.5 14-Jun-14 8.5 14-Jun-14 8.5 8.5 8.5 8.5 18-Jul-14 8.5 8.5 25-Jul-14 8.5 21-Jul-14 8.5 02-Aug-14 8.5 8.5

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STAKES SCHEDULES AntiFlam™ – supports sound feet and joints!

Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA USA

Canterbury Delaware Park

MN Distaff Classic Championship George Rosenberger St

USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA UAE USA USA USA USA JPN USA UAE USA USA JPN USA JPN USA JPN USA USA USA JPN USA JPN UAE USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA JPN USA USA USA JPN JPN USA JPN USA USA JPN USA USA USA USA USA

Santa Anita Gulfstream Park Gulfstream Park Golden Gate Fields Aqueduct Laurel Park Tokyo Laurel Park Meydan Fair Grounds Gulfstream Park Gulfstream Park Sam Houston Race Park Nakayama Gulfstream Park Meydan Laurel Park Tampa Bay Downs Kokura Santa Anita Nakayama Santa Anita Nakayama Laurel Park Aqueduct Turfway Park Nakayama Sunland Park Hanshin Meydan Gulfstream Park Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Fair Grounds Gulfstream Park Gulfstream Park Nakayama Calder Aqueduct Aqueduct Santa Anita Tampa Bay Downs Santa Anita Keeneland Oaklawn Park Oaklawn Park Sunland Park Hanshin Hawthorne Racecourse Hawthorne Racecourse Keeneland Nakayama Fukushima Arlington Park Tokyo SunRay Park Prairie Meadows Fukushima Arlington Park Mountaineer Arlington Park Arlington Park Delaware Park

Breeders Cup

8.5f (1700m)

Class

Race Date

Value

S R

31-Aug-14 13-Sep-14

USD60,000 USD75,000

Age 3+ FM 3+ FM

Surface Metres D T

1700 1700

Hemex™ – maintains a normal red blood cell count and supports better oxygen utilization San Antonio St Suwannee River Gulfstream Park Turf H El Camino Real Derby Stymie H’cap John B. Campbell H’cap Kyodo News Service Hai Maryland Racing Media St Balanchine Fair Grounds H’cap Fountain Of Youth St The Palm Beach S Maxxam Gold Cup Nakayama Kinen The Herecomesthebride S Jebel Hatta Private Terms St Hillsborough St Chunichi Shimbun Hai Santa Margarita St Laurel Racecourse Sho Nakayama Himba St Santa Anita St Flower Cup Harrison E. Johnson Memorial St Excelsior Spiral Stakes Spring St Sunland Derby Mainichi Hai Dubai Duty Free The Rampart S Louisiana Derby Mervin H Muniz Jr Memorial New Orleans H The Gulfstream Oaks Florida Derby March St Calder Derby Gazelle St Wood Memorial St Santa Anita Derby The Besilu Stables Turf Classic Providencia St Toyota Blue Grass St Oaklawn H Arkansas Derby Sunland Park H Antares St Illinois Derby Sixty Sails H’cap Ben Ali St Satsuki Sho (Japanes 2000 Guineas) Fukushima Himba St Arlington Matron Epsom Cup San Juan County Commissioners H’cap Prairie Meadows Cornhusker H’cap Radio Nikkei Sho Arlington Oaks West Virginia Derby Washington Park H’cap Pucker Up St Kent BC St

Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3

Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3

8-Feb-14 8-Feb-14 8-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 16-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 20-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 1-Mar-14 1-Mar-14 2-Mar-14 2-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 8-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 16-Mar-14 16-Mar-14 21-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 23-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 30-Mar-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 5-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 12-Apr-14 13-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 20-Apr-14 26-Apr-14 24-May-14 15-Jun-14 22-Jun-14 28-Jun-14 6-Jul-14 19-Jul-14 2-Aug-14 30-Aug-14 13-Sep-14 20-Sep-14

USD300,000 4+ D USD150,000 4+ F&M T USD300,000 4+ T USD200,000 3 AWT USD100,000 3+ D USD100,000 3+ D USD360,212 3 T USD100,000 3+ FM D USD200,000 NH F&M 4yo+ SH F&M 3yo+ T USD150,000 4+ T USD400,000 3 D USD150,000 3 T USD100,000 4+ D USD584,323 4+ T USD100,000 3F T USD300,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ T USD100,000 3 D USD150,000 4+ FM T USD400,000 4+ T USD350,000 4+ FM D USD340,760 4+ FM T USD200,000 4+ F&M T USD331,040 3F T USD100,000 3+ D USD150,000 3+ D USD550,000 3 AWT USD506,352 3 T USD800,000 3 D USD360,314 3 T USD5,000,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ T USD150,000 4+ F&M D USD1,000,000 3 D USD400,000 4+ T USD400,000 4+ D USD300,000 3F D USD1,000,000 3 D USD340,579 4+ D USD250,000 3 D USD300,000 3F D USD1,000,000 3 D USD1,000,000 3 D USD75,000 4+ T USD150,000 3F T USD750,000 3 AWT USD500,000 4+ D USD1,000,000 3 D USD75,000 3+ D USD340,609 4+ D USD500,000 3 D USD150,000 3+ F&M D USD150,000 4+ AWT USD970,000 3 T USD360,012 4+ FM T USD150,000 3+ FM AWT USD391,437 3+ T USD75,000 3+ D USD300,000 3+ D USD361,861 3 T USD150,000 3F AWT USD750,000 3 D USD150,000 3+ AWT USD175,000 3F T USD150,000 3 T

Meydan Meydan Meydan Gulfstream Park Pimlico Kyoto Arlington Park Arlington Park Arlington Park

UAE Oaks Al Bastakiya UAE Derby The Skip Away S Preakness St Heian St Modesty H’cap American Derby Beverly D. St

86 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

F&M Turf

Gr 3 L Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 1

27-Feb-14 USD250,000 8-Mar-14 USD250,000 29-Mar-14 USD2,000,000 29-Mar-14 USD100,000 17-May-14 USD1,500,000 24-May-14 USD342,481 12-Jul-14 USD200,000 12-Jul-14 USD200,000 16-Aug-14 USD750,000

NH 3F SH 3F NH 3yo SH 3yo NH 3 SH 3 4+ 3 4+ 3+ FM 3 3+ FM

AWT AWT AWT D D D T T T

Closing

8.5 8.5

9f (1800m) 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800 1800

Healthy Horse™ – Hemex, Immune Plus, Lung Flush & Liver Flush in one convenient format!

UAE UAE UAE USA USA JPN USA USA USA

Furlongs

1900 1900 1900 1900 1900 1900 1900 1900 1900

9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

30-Jan-14 25-Jan-14 06-Feb-14 01-Feb-14 05-Feb-14 07-Jan-14 17-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 08-Feb-14 08-Feb-14 15-Feb-14 20-Feb-14 21-Jan-14 15-Feb-14 03-Mar-14 27-Feb-14 22-Feb-14 04-Feb-14 06-Mar-14 04-Feb-14 06-Mar-14 04-Feb-14 13-Mar-14 08-Mar-14 01-Mar-14 04-Feb-14 01-Feb-14 18-Feb-14 17-Jan-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 18-Feb-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 27-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 04-Apr-14 04-Mar-14

04-Mar-14 18-Mar-14 10-May-14 29-Apr-14 15-Jun-14 14-Jun-14 27-May-14 05-Jul-14 21-Jul-14 16-Aug-14 30-Aug-14

9.5f (1900m) 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5 9.5

24-Feb-14 03-Mar-14 17-Jan-14 15-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 15-Apr-14 28-Jun-14 25-Apr-13 25-Apr-14

STAKES SCHEDULES NA VERSION_Jerkins feature.qxd 10/02/2014 12:56 Page 8

STAKES SCHEDULES Testos Boost™ – a natural way to increase a horse’s production of testosterone Country Track

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA UAE UAE USA JPN UAE JPN AUS JPN JPN JPN JPN GB GB GB USA USA USA USA USA

San Marcos St Dubai Millennium Stakes Al Maktoum Challenge Rd 3 Santa Anita H’cap Hochi Hai Yayoi Sho Dubai World Cup Sankei Osaka Hai Queen Elizabeth Stakes Flora St Niigata Daishoten Naruo Kinen Mermaid St Prince of Wales’s St (150th Anniversary) Tercentenary Wolferton H’cap Arlington H’cap Delaware H’cap Arlington Million XXXI American St Leger St Secretariat Stakes

Santa Anita Meydan Meydan Santa Anita Nakayama Meydan Hanshin Randwick Tokyo Niigata Hanshin Hanshin Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Arlington Park Delaware Park Arlington Park Arlington Park Arlington Park

Breeders Cup

Turf

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Gr 2 L Gr 1 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 2 Gp1 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gp 1 Gp 3 L Gr 3 Gr 1 Gr 1 L Gr 1

8-Feb-14 USD200,000 4+ 20-Feb-14 USD200,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 8-Mar-14 USD400,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 8-Mar-14 USD750,000 4+ 9-Mar-14 USD506,459 3 29-Mar-14 USD10,000,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 6-Apr-14 USD603,456 4+ 19-Apr-14 AUS$4,000,000 3+ 27-Apr-14 USD486,499 3F 11-May-14 USD391,650 4+ 7-Jun-14 USD391,475 3+ 15-Jun-14 USD342,471 3+ FM 18-Jun-14 £375,000 4+ 19-Jun-14 £75,000 3 20-Jun-14 £70,000 4+ 12-Jul-14 USD200,000 3+ 12-Jul-14 USD750,000 3+ FM 16-Aug-14 USD1,000,000 3+ 16-Aug-14 USD400,000 3+ 16-Aug-14 USD500,000 3yo

10f (2000m)

Surface Metres T T AWT D T AWT T T T T T T T T T T D T T T

2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000 2000

EnduraForce™ for pre-race stamina & Equisel-BCAA for post-race recovery. Use together!

USA USA JPN UAE JPN JPN USA

Gulfstream Park Gulfstream Park Kyoto Abu Dhabi Kyoto Hanshin Delaware Park

The Very One Mac Diarmida Kyoto Kinen Abu Dhabi Championship Kyoto Shimbun Hai Takarazuka Kinen Robert G Dick BC St

Turf

Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 3

15-Feb-14 USD100,000 4+ F&M 15-Feb-14 USD200,000 4+ 16-Feb-14 USD584,067 4+ 16-Mar-14 AED 370,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ 10-May-14 USD508,960 3 29-Jun-14 USD1,291,213 3+ 5-Jul-14 USD200,000 3+ FM

T T T T T T T

Meydan Santa Anita Meydan Santa Anita Gulfstream Park Gulfstream Park Randwick Randwick Keeneland Keeneland Tokyo Belmont Park Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Royal Ascot Arlington Park Ascot

Dubai City of Gold San Luis Rey St Dubai Sheema Classic Toyko City Cup Orchid St Pan American AJC Australian Derby Austalian Oaks Bewitch Elkhorn St Aoba Sho Belmont St Ribblesdale St King Edward VII Hardwicke St Stars and Stripes St King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (Betfair)

Turf

Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gr 3 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gp 1 Gp1 Gr 3 Gr 2 Gr 2 Gr 1 Gp 2 Gp 2 Gp 2 Gr 3 Gp 1

8-Mar-14 22-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 29-Mar-14 12-Apr-14 19-Apr-14 24-Apr-14 25-Apr-14 3-May-14 7-Jun-14 19-Jun-14 20-Jun-14 21-Jun-14 12-Jul-14 26-Jul-14

USD250,000 NH 4yo+ SH 4yo+ USD200,000 4+ USD5,000,000 NH 4yo+ SH 4yo+ USD100,000 4+ USD150,000 4+ F&M USD200,000 4+ AUS$2,000,000 3 AUS$1,000,000 3F USD150,000 4 + F&M USD200,000 4+ USD505,990 3 USD1,500,000 3 £160,000 3F £185,000 3 £200,000 4+ USD150,000 3+ £1,000,000 3+

10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

Closing 30-Jan-14 17-Feb-14 03-Mar-14 22-Feb-14 21-Jan-14 17-Jan-14 18-Feb-14 17-Feb-14 18-Mar-14 01-May-14 29-Apr-14 29-Apr-14 22-Apr-14 13-Jun-14 14-Jun-14 28-Jun-14 25-Apr-14 25-Apr-14 25-Apr-14

11f (2200m) 2200 2200 2200 2200 2200 2200 2200

Biotic 8™ – the easy and efficient way to maintain a healthy digestive tract UAE USA UAE USA USA USA AUS AUS USA USA JPN USA GB GB GB USA GB

Furlongs

11 11 11 11 11 11 11

01-Feb-14 01-Feb-14 07-Feb-14 10-Mar-14 01-Apr-14 13-May-14

12f (2400m) T T T AWT T T T T T T T D T T T T T

2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400 2400

12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12

03-Mar-14 13-Mar-13 17-Jan-14 20-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 15-Mar-14 17-Feb-14 17-Feb-14

18-Mar-14 25-Jan-13 29-Apr-14 29-Apr-14 29-Apr-14 28-Jun-14 10-Jun-14

HA-180™ to ensure higher bioavailability; use daily to aid joint health or post surgery recovery 12.5f (2500m) JPN JPN

Nakayama Tokyo

Nikkei Sho Meguro Kinen

UAE

Meydan

Nad Al Sheba Trophy

JPN

Hanshin

Hanshin Daishoten

UAE JPN GB

Meydan Kyoto Royal Ascot

DRC Gold Cup Tenno Sho (Spring) Queen’s Vase St

Gr 2 Gr 2

29-Mar-14 1-Jun-14

USD603,759 USD538,263

4+ 4+

T T

2500 2500

USD200,000 SH-bred 3+ & NH-bred 4+ T

2800

Stasis™ – maintaining normal capillary integrity in the lungs Gr 3

1-Mar-14

23-Mar-14

USD603,729

4+

3000

29-Mar-14 USD1,000,000 NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+ T 4-May-14 USD1,284,727 4+ T 20-Jun-14 £85,000 3 T

3200 3200 3200

Tokyo

Diamond St

Gr 3

22-Feb-14

USD389,305

4+

Royal Ascot

Gold Cup

Gp 1

19-Jun-14

£375,000

4+

15

04-Feb-14

16 16 16

17-Jan-14 18-Mar-14 14-Jun-14

17f (3400m) T

3400

RegenerEQ™ – promoting appetite, weight gain and a healthy gastro-intestinal environment GB

24-Feb-14

16f (3200m)

Respi-Free™ – opens airways, loosens mucus, reduces coughs from irritation JPN

14

15f (3000m)

T

Liver Flush & Kidney Flush™ – to detoxify vital organs and improve performance Gr 2 Gr 1 Gp 3

18-Feb-14 15-Apr-14

14f (2800m)

Chill Ultra™ – reduces anxiety, focuses the mind and relaxes muscles to perform better Gr 2

12.5 12.5

T

4000

17

07-Jan-14

20f (4000m) 20

22-Apr-14

ISSUE 31 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 87

FERNANDO NA ISSUE 31_Jerkins feature.qxd 10/02/2014 12:20 Page 1

SID FERNANDO

H

IS like is endangered nowadays. I was jolted by thoughts of this while watching the HRTV broadcast of the Eclipse Award ceremony from Gulfstream Park on January 18. Wise Dan was the equine star of the evening, a “people’s horse” in the same way as Curlin. He, too, is a two-time Horse of the Year and top older horse, plus top turf horse. But Wise Dan is a gelding, and he’s by the unheralded Wiseman’s Ferry.

And he’s a turf miler – the weakest division of North American racing.

Never since the advent of the Eclipse Awards in 1971 has a turf miler been acclaimed the best horse in the country until Wise Dan in 2012. Turf Horses of the Year are rare to begin with, but even the three before Wise Dan – John Henry (1981 and 1984), All Along (1983), and Kotashaan (1993) – were winners at a mile and a half.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a denouncement of Wise Dan, who’s a high-class champion. Bred by his octogenerian owner Morton Fink, who also owned a piece of Wiseman’s Ferry, Wise Dan has been trained impeccably by Charlie LoPresti to target the Breeders’ Cup mile each year. He’s been an excellent advertisement for the game as a veteran, a fan favorite who performs at a high level and wins consistently, and the antithesis of the flash-in-the-pan youngster sent to stud without earning his stripes.

But his success also means that dirt horses haven’t been making the grade. Certainly not the intact males, anyway.

Consider: With Wise Dan’s two-year Horse of the Year reign, together with those of fillies or mares Rachel Alexandra (2009), Zenyatta (2010), and Havre de Grace (2011), five years have elapsed without an “entire” Horse of the Year since since Curlin in 2008 – which happens to be the year that the bloodstock markets, which inflated stallion values, collapsed. Perhaps this is its symbolic manifestation of revenge?

It’s the same story since 2008 in the best older horse category, a division traditionally

88 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31

Why are intact, older male dirt champions such a rare breed?

The question: When was the last time an intact male horse was voted Horse of the Year?

The answer: 2008. The horse: Curlin, a son of leading sire Smart Strike. Curlin also won the award in 2007. On the racecourse he was a strapping matinee idol that represented the North American breeding establishment’s one-time beau ideal: The well-bred classic-winning stallion prospect who stayed a mile and a quarter on dirt against top company and raced past the age of three. reserved for dirt runners. Besides Wise Dan, the turf and all weather stayer Acclamation won the award in 2011 and the turf horse Gio Ponti won in 2009. Altogether, these three – incredibly! – didn’t win a single dirt race in four championship seasons from 2009 to 2013.

Blame, a well-bred and late-maturing staying son of Arch who defeated Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, was the exception in 2010 as champion older horse.

Why haven’t dirt horses been making the grade?

Here’s my simple deduction: North America has been breeding and selling “short” horses for a while now, and by this I mean the prototypical early maturing types that are best suited for racing at two and three at up to distances of a mile and a sixteenth or a mile and an eighth – the ubiquitous stakes distances at most tracks. By the time horses reach age four,

“This overall weakness on dirt, fueled by the need for quick returns, has afforded turf and all weather horses – generally later-maturing types with stamina – the opportunity to succeed”

it seems like only the second stringers are around unless a rare Blame or Zenyatta surfaces to pick up the slack.

This overall weakness on dirt, fueled by the need for quick returns, has afforded turf and all weather horses – generally later-maturing types with stamina – the opportunity to succeed.

Turf-bred Derby winner Animal Kingdom, by a Brazilian sire and out of a German dam, is an example.

So too is Kitten’s Joy. A son of El Prado owned by the 2013 Eclipse Award-winning breeders and owners of the year Kenneth L. and Sarah K. Ramsey, Kitten’s Joy was a mileand-a-half winner and the champion male turf horse of 2004. He was not a commercial prospect by any means when he went to stud, yet he accomplished the improbable feat of leading the general sire list in 2013 as a predominantly turf and all weather stallion, which is every bit as subversive as a turf miler being crowned Horse of the Year and best older horse.

Two days after the Eclipse broadcast, The Jockey Club announced that FOX Sports 1 would be broadcasting “The Jockey Club Tour on FOX,” a series of nine races meant to highlight some of the most “prestigious races for older horses.” Apparently scheduling conflicts kept some Grade 1 dirt races out of the mix, but would you believe that only one of the nine events announced was for older males on dirt?

That just about reflects our new reality. n

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