North American Trainer - February to April 2017 - issue 43

ISSUE 43 FEBRUARY ’17 - APRIL ’17 $5.95

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THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE

GROWING REPUTATION Leigh and Arnaud Delacour’s rise up the training ranks

Just how rife is CONTAMINATION on the BACKSTRETCH?

Flying under the radar

Five leading trainers who aren’t all household names

MAN O’ WAR

Special issue: celebrating his 100th anniversary

GILES ANDERSON

O

Delving into Man o’ War’s history

ver the next couple of months, and indeed over the coming year, you’re bound to read plenty about Man o’ War, because if you didn’t know it already, 2017 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of this racing legend. We’re getting the ball rolling with what is the biggest article we’ve ever published.

As you’ll read, Frances J. Karon has delved deep into the archives and found some fascinating facts and firsthand memories of the great horse from those who worked with him.

Major August Belmont’s family had already made an indelible impression on the racing industry by the time he bred Man o’ War, but this horse took the family’s iconic legacy to a new level. How ironic was it that the horse’s breeder himself became a ‘man of war,’ and how different history might have been had the major not gone to play his part in World War I and the liberation of France?

Jumping ahead to Man o’ War’s stud career, I find it astounding how he was managed as a stallion, with limited books of mares even compared to his contemporaries at the time. We can still access his male bloodline through the likes of the back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow and the multiple stakeswinning sprinter Successful Appeal.

Man o’ War’s best foal, Triple Crown winner War Admiral, and his last stakes winner, War Kilt, were conceived when their sire was 16 and 25, respectively. I wonder what his stallion masters

would have made of Alison Brassil’s thesis on how a stallion’s age affects the quality of his progeny. This incredibly well-researched document has seen Alison analyze statistics from across the Atlantic to determine at up to what age stallions are statistically most effective. reading this article after the Man o’ War one did make me ponder how much the breeding industry has developed, with dual hemisphere books and advances in breeding techniques, ensuring that many stallions are now bred to five or more times the average book size of stallions from Man o’ War’s days.

Also within these pages, we spotlight one of the smartest upand-coming training couples in the business – Arnaud and Leigh Delacour. each year their profile keeps rising, and so does the quality of stock in their care. We couldn’t fit in all of the photos we wanted to accompany this article but thanks to the internet we’ve added a new online feature, which is in essence a photo essay on the Delacours. Go to www.trainermagazine.com to view this expanded piece.

Finally, I urge you to read Denise Steffanus’s in-depth report investigating the drug contamination found on backstretches across North America. It’s a frightening thought to think that over time, plenty of medication ‘positives’ could have been rescinded and reputations left untarnished had proper biosecurity measures always been applied.

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

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ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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Issue 43

CONTENTS 10

The first 100 years

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Condylar fractures

A celebration of the legendary Man o’ War,

by Frances J. Karon.

Early detection of potential problems is key, by Pete Ramzan.

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Call for common sense in testing

Happy Broadbent

Denise Steffanus reports on the gray areas that can accompany drug positives.

Giles Anderson sits down for a Q&A with Happy Broadbent of BRIS.

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Trending upwards

Leigh and Arnaud Delacour, one of training’s power couples,

by Bill Heller.

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Paternal age

Alison Brassil details the results of a study she undertook on how a sire’s age affects his produce.

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The Sunshine Boys

Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander have a friendship that goes way back, by Ed Golden.

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Contributors

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Alan Balch

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TRM Trainer of the Quarter

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Trackside

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Suppliers Directory

Bill Heller looks at the careers of some unfamiliar trainers belonging to the exclusive 3,600-win club.

The Sid Fernando Column

Flying under the radar

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Continuing education

It’s back-to-school time for New York-based trainers,

by Bill Heller.

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2017

ALBERTUS MAXIMUS

by Albert the Great • $2,500 live foal

Breeders’ Cup Winner, Donn H. -G1 Winner, and Millionaire

78% Won/Placed

1st Two Crops, including Three SWs

DAAHER

by Awesome Again • $5,000 live foal

Brilliant G1 Miler • 75% Winners

17% Blacktype Horses

Graded Stakes Horses at Saratoga, Keeneland, Belmont, Aqueduct, Laurel

TAMARKUZ

by Speightstown • $12,500 live foal

Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile

G1 Stakes Winner Four-time GSW, Highest Beyer for a Two-Turn Mile of 2016

Shadwell Farm LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY Kent Barnes, Stallion Manager • Telephone (859) 224-4585

www.shadwellfarm.com

CONTRIBUTORS Editorial Director/Publisher Giles Anderson Editor Frances J. Karon Designer Neil Randon Editorial/Photo Management Eleanor Yateman 1 888 659 2935 Advertising Sales Giles Anderson, Scott Rion, Oscar Yeadon 1 888 218 4430 Photo Credits Giles Anderson, Steven A. Barker, MS, PhD, Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame, Inger Drysdale, Eclipse Sportswire, Four Footed Fotos, Horsephotos, Keenland Library, Frances J. Karon, Jane Goldstein, Professor Celia Marr, Jim McCue/Maryland Jockey Club, Anita Motion, Shutterstock, SV Photography, Joel B. Turner Cover Photograph Anita Motion

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 14 Berwick Courtyard, Berwick St Leonard, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5UA 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, as well as all members of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association and the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.

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Alison Brassil graduated with a B.Sc. in Equine Science in 2016 and has spent the last three years gaining experience in the breeding industry in the USA, Ireland and England.

Since graduating, she has completed the Horse Racing Ireland internship, won the BETA Equine Thesis of the Year award and has contributed to The Irish Field. Alison currently works in stallion nominations for a leading stud in the UK. 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 President-Marketing 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 president of USA Equestrian Trust, Inc. 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.

Ed Golden is the author of Santa Anita’s widely acclaimed “Stable Notes,” hailed by peers as “the best in racing.” A native of Philadelphia, he earned Eclipse Award honorable mention while with the Philadelphia Daily News and has written for The Blood-Horse and USA Today.

Bill Heller, Eclipse Award winner and 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 spends summers in Saratoga and winters in South Florida. His 26-year-old son Benjamin lives in Albany, N.Y., is an accomplished runner and recently won a 5-K race and a mini-marathon.

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

Pete Ramzan BVSc(Sydney), MRCVS joined the racing team at Rossdales LLP in Newmarket in 1998, becoming a partner in 2005. Pete is the frontline vet for several leading Newmarket racing yards but has also maintained an active academic interest, publishing and lecturing widely, particularly on the early detection and improved management of racehorse orthopaedic injuries. His book The Racehorse: A Veterinary Manual is the first comprehensive textbook wholly dedicated to veterinary management of the racehorse.

Denise Steffanus is a freelance writer and editor based in Cynthiana, Kentucky.

A longtime contributing editor for Thoroughbred Times, she earned the prestigious Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award and the USA Equestrian (now the U.S. Equestrian Federation) Award for Media Excellence.

Steffanus, a Pittsburgh native, is a licensed Thoroughbred racehorse trainer and a member of American Mensa.

A DV E R T I S E M E N T

PUSHING THE LIMITS: HOW SOME TRAINERS ARE GAINING “THE EDGE”!

BY: MARK HANSEN

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he pressure to win is so enormous that many horsemen resort to whatever it takes to get a piece of the purse or a decent sale… even if it means putting their horses’ lives in mortal danger by doping them with illegal synthetic erythropoietin (EPO) drugs to boost endurance.

Veterinarian Gary Smith said, “It’s a problem all over the industry. There is no way horses should be put on (synthetic) EPO.” So how do racers win? How do you gain a competitive edge without harming your horses or risking your livelihood? The answer may be found in a safe all-natural horse supplement that supports natural EPO function.

Why is EPO boosting so critical? Just like in people, a horse’s muscles require oxygen for fuel. Red blood cells are the body’s oxygen-carrying cells. A higher red blood cell count = more oxygen = more muscle energy. Elevated muscle energy helps the horse perform harder, faster and longer during endurance events. All horses naturally produce EPO in their kidneys to stimulate production of new red blood cells from bone marrow. In short, EPO is a natural “blood builder.”

With EPO doping, trainers try to boost the EPO effect to get a winning performance every time. They use a synthetic EPO (recombinant human EPO), even though the side effects can harm the horse. That’s one reason why it’s illegal.

Fortunately there’s another option. EPOEquine® is a safe, highly effective natural dietary supplement scientifically engineered for performance horses.

A Kentucky trainer who refused to give out his name, said, “I don’t want my competition to know about this.” He found EPO-Equine to be so effective that he’s

dead set against disclosing who he is, who his horses are, or even where he trains and races. He first started ordering a single jar of EPO-Equine® once a month. Now he’s ordering several CASES each month. And he won’t tell BRL exactly why. He said respectfully, “Sorry – no way.”

Bioengineers at U.S. based Biomedical Research Laboratories (BRL), first discovered a completely natural EPO-booster for human athletes (and it’s working miracles for top athletes and amateurs around the world).

Seeing these results, horse trainers contacted BRL and asked about using this natural formula for their animals.

That’s when the BRL team dug deeper and discovered a proprietary, horse-friendly strain of a common herb that promotes optimal blood-building results. EPOEquine® is based on the blood-boosting abilities of a certain strain of Echinacea that’s astounding researchers and trainers alike. (It’s not a strain you can find at the local health store.)

Veterinarians at the Equine Research Centre in Ontario, Canada ran a doubleblind trial investigating the blood building properties of the active ingredient in EPOEquine in healthy horses. For 42 days, one group of horses was supplemented with the active ingredient in EPO-Equine and another group of horses was given a placebo.

The supplement delivered significant blood building results, increasing red blood cell count and hemoglobin levels.

Researchers also observed improved blood quality and increased oxygen transport in the supplemented horses. Improved blood levels leads to elevated exercise physiology and performance.

The patent-pending formula in EPOEquine ® contains a dozen different herbs, antioxidants and anti-inf lammatory components combined to promote natural red blood cell production… for remarkable speed, strength and stamina right out of the gate.

Trainers find it easy to add just 1 scoop (3.2 grams) of EPO-Equine® to the horse’s daily feeding routine in the barn or on the road. Within a few weeks of daily use, you can expect to see increased red blood cell levels with no undesirable side effects.

An increase in red blood cell levels can improve muscle performance, supercharge endurance, and enhance recovery after hard exercise. Nothing else is scientifically proven to deliver these benefits in a completely safe and natural formula.

Compared to the cost of veterinarians, drugs, icing, tapping the knees, and putting the horse on Bute; or even the consequences of being banned for synthetic doping, EPO-Equine® is very affordable at the low price of just $59.95 per jar. Or save $180 if you are ready to commit to a larger trial of 12-jar case for just $539.55 with FREE shipping. EPO-Equine ® can be ordered at www.EPOEquine.com or 800-780-4331.

CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS

ALAN F. BALCH War of the Worlds

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.G. Wells described his invaders from Mars as having “minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish.”

What I’m worried about in racing’s present-day afflictions is not as cataclysmic.

I hope.

Over the last half-century, I think we’ve seen a collision between the worlds of sport and capitalism. In the case of the Olympic Games, as one prominent example, true amateurism was gradually replaced by “shamateurism,” and then (not suddenly) by Dream Teams and blatant professionalism, all in the name of “the best meeting the best.”

In American sport, maybe the reason baseball has traditionally been considered our national pastime is that it’s always been unashamedly professional. Football and basketball, on the other hand, were relative latecomers as professions, since the college or amateur versions existed first and then for decades outdrew the pros in excitement and allegiance. No more. And, to be honest, the National Collegiate Athletic Association is now well down the path of recognizing our “student-athletes” for what they really are: professional salesmen. And women.

Only a very few real students and scholars exist among them these days! One Super Bowl quarterback was publicly said by his peers to be so challenged that he couldn’t spell CAT even if he was spotted the C and A. But I digress.

Racing has been largely professional since the beginning, of course, since money has always made the mare go. Yet today, to be sure, there are still some vestiges of stodgy amateurism in groups of stewards

here and there around the world. Generally speaking, however, ours is loudly and proudly a professional enterprise: hardly any value is proclaimed without reference to money, whether horse, rider, owner, trainer, breeder, stallion, mare, track operator, or customer success. In this sport, our scores are kept almost solely in terms of cash, not points on a scoreboard.

To me, these facts spotlight perhaps the greatest possible threat to our sport’s ultimate viability: the ongoing collision of the worlds of sport and capitalism. And this is because our essential athletes are horses, themselves the ultimate amateur creatures, innocent of human vices, but whose performance results in success or failure. Or is it really their performance that counts the most anymore, or something else?

I have long questioned, never moreso than now, whether the direction our sport has taken toward ever-increasing professionalism is compatible with a viable future. Fifty years ago, breeders and owners recognized and acknowledged successful racing as the paramount goal. Breeding was not perceived as an end it itself. Market prices for racing stock (and breeding stock, ultimately) largely depended on track performance, substance, soundness, and longevity. Owners wanted horses who could race successfully, who could continue on as they grew older, developing legions of fans and followings which, in turn, grew the popularity of the game and enhanced track profitability in the bargain. Investment was of necessity long-term, and understood to be long-term. Track operators made their own massive capital investments with the same understanding.

I’m glad I was marketing racing when virtually every day at Santa Anita there

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were deep, interesting, and competitive contests at every level on the card among known horses with solid form . . . including and especially at the top. With changing conditions each outing, an Ack Ack, an Ancient Title, an Affirmed, a Spectacular Bid, or a John Henry, might meet his match several times during one season.

And continue on elsewhere, throughout the country, once Santa Anita’s season ended. That is true sport, and our business reflected the public’s enthusiasm for it!

It appears to be a gradual but readily apparent and ruthless short-term capitalism that eroded our fortunes. A dedication to “earnings per share this quarter” took over, which is to say the appeal of shortterm return on investment. It turned the attention of buyers and breeders away from the desire to own or breed a real race horse, instead toward flashes in the pan (relatively speaking) who might command enormous value in the breeding shed without even reaching their maturity at four or five on the track.

This didn’t happen overnight. But when greater and greater potential returns could be harvested from breeding for its own sake, and from astronomical prices for yearlings and broodmares, incentives to own and in turn to breed tough race horses has seemed to disappear. Whether this is a predominantly American phenomenon or not, I don’t know. But its effects are readily apparent in this most capitalistic of all nations.

In our real-life drama, we can’t hope for an ending out of science fiction. Despite the increasingly rare glimmers of life and sport from the connections of Zenyatta, Beholder, and California Chrome, compared to the relentless power of market forces, those invading Martians were pipsqueaks. n

With changing conditions each outing, an Ack Ack, an Ancient Title, an

Affirmed, a Spectacular Bid, or a John Henry, might meet his match several times during one season 6

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

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Trainer of the Quarter

MARY EPPLER

The TRM Trainer of the Quarter award has been won by Mary Eppler. Eppler and her 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 PHOTO: JIm mcCuE/maRyLanD JOCkEy CLuB

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www.trmirelandinc.com

M

ARY Eppler’s life seemed pretty well set in the late ‘70s. The 62-year-old Baltimore native, who graduated from Loyola College with an accounting degree, was in her sixth year working as an actuary for Blue Cross Blue Shield. Then she realized she was denying her lifelong passion: horses.

So she chucked it all to become a hotwalker at Sagamore Farm. Forty-seven years later, she made a bit of Maryland horseracing history, becoming the first woman trainer to win a title at Laurel Park, when the meet ended on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t a photo finish. Eppler posted 24 victories from just 86 starters to finish eight wins ahead of Gary Capuano in second. “It was great to be the first woman doing it, but I don’t think it’s any different than a man doing it,” she said on January 31st. “Only that there are less women trainers.”

She’s thrilled to be one of them. “I loved the horses, ever since I was born,” she said.

“My grandfather, William Goldsborough, owned horses. Unfortunately, he died when I was six. I guess I inherited my love for horses from him.”

Her parents wanted her to pursue a more

practical career. “They didn’t want me to get involved in horseracing,” she said.

“They thought it was a very hard life. Sure it is, but I enjoy it.”

When she left health insurance to start hotwalking at Sagamore, she couldn’t have been happier. “I loved it, because I always wanted to be around horses,” she said. She advanced from hotwalking to galloping, exercising, and ultimately training and breeding. She saddled her first horse in 1980.

On July 20th, 2013, Eppler claimed Page McKenney at Penn National for $16,000.

All he’s done since is win more than $1.3 million off a career record of 17 victories, 13 seconds, and four thirds from 46 starts.

Along the way, he has finished in the money in 25 consecutive races, testimony to not only Eppler’s training, but her ability to manage and place horses, too.

On January 24th this year, Page McKenney won his second consecutive running of the $75,000 Native Dancer Stakes off a nine-month layoff. There’s no reason to believe that Adam Staple and Jalin Stable’s gelding seven-year-old isn’t poised for another highly successful season.

Page McKenney’s success helped Eppler reach a career milestone she wasn’t even aware of in 2015 when she captured her

700th career race. “I just never really kept track of it,” Eppler said. “I didn’t even know until my boyfriend (and assistant trainer), Mike LaRochelle, told me it was my 700th.

He keeps track of that kind of stuff. That was sort of cool, but it’s not like I won my 1,000th. If someone asked, I would have guessed it was my 500th.”

Asked if she celebrated, she said, “No. You don’t really have time to celebrate.”

However, she did begin paying attention to the Laurel Park trainer standings as the final days of December dwindled and she had a shot at her first training title, unaware that no woman had yet won one at that track.

She couldn’t have calculated the odds of her becoming a leading trainer when she was an actuary. “I didn’t think I could do something like this,” she said. “The trainers that actually win training titles have a lot of horses.”

Her current stable numbers 23 horses, maybe 10 less than she’ll have later in the year.

She has no aspirations of taking off to bigger racing venues. “I’m happy in Maryland,” she said. Asked the best part, she replied, “Being with the horses and seeing that they’re happy and doing well.” n

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PROFILE

MAN O’ WAR The first 100 years

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MAN O’ WAR

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PROFILE Will Harbut showing Man o’ War to Samuel D. Riddle (far right) and friends at Faraway Farm in 1942

“To someone like myself, who had not been around long enough to see Man o’ War race, he was a legendary horse, a monument, a part of the history I had read on American racing. I was excited, too, but not prepared at all for the moment to come.”

WORDS: FRANCES J. KARON PHOTOS: FRANCES J. KARON, KEENElAND – COOK, KEENElAND – THAyER, KEENElAND libRARy

A

BOVE are the words of Walter Farley from the foreword to his fictional 1962 biography, Man o’ War. Farley was one of an estimated one-totwo million visitors to see Man o’ War at Faraway Farm.

For all but a dwindling few, Man o’ War, or “Red” to his friends, exists only in photographs, newspaper clippings, books, or the Herbert Haseltine statue that stands over his remains at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. The larger-than-life stature he acquired during his long life as the Bluegrass region’s top tourist attraction blurs the line separating Man o’ War, “monument,” from Man o’ War, “horse.”

Even his New York Times obituary personified him: “He had the high qualities we value in a man – strength, endurance, courage, intelligence, responsiveness and affection.”

Man o’ War, etched with awe in our affection, his head held high in his regal pose, gazing at something only he could see, was a celebrity. But occasionally, we 12

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are reminded that he was a horse. “He likes nothing so much as retrieving a hat thrown across the paddock,” said Kentucky: A Guide to the Bluegrass State in 1939.

The Kentucky Kernel reported on the occasion of Red’s 21st birthday party, aired via the National Broadcasting Company.

“High point of the program,” the paper said, “came when the announcer, unable to get any statement from the Warrior for the radio audience, managed to entice the horse near the microphone, fed him a lump of sugar, and thus permitted the radio curious to listen to the masticatory sounds as the great one munched his lunch. Even though Man ‘o War (sic) is undoubtedly the greatest race horse living, it seems slightly ridiculous to think of a million people straining their ears to catch the sounds of a horse eating a piece of sugar. Verily,” the writer concluded, “it was the crunch heard round the world.”

As we approach the 100th anniversary of Man o’ War’s birth on March 29, 2017, thoughts turned to Farley, the man whose book first made Man o’ War come alive to

many of us, describing the moment that Man o’ War came alive to him, as if it could have been any one of us instead of the author standing there. “I stood in his presence in quiet reverence, unmindful of anything but Man o’ War,” he wrote.

“It has also been said of Man o’ War,” he continued, “that ‘he touched the imagination of men and they saw different things in him.

But one they all remember was that he brought exaltation into their hearts.’ Whatever else may be written or said of Man o’ War, I know this to be true from my one visit to an aged but majestic stallion.”



The daily papers were ink-stained with reports on war. The main headline on the front of the March 29, 1917, Lexington Leader, which cost three cents to buy, said: “WILL AVOID DECLARATION OF WAR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.” Readers were reminded that on the same date in history, “Russia sold Alaska for $7,200,000 to United States in 1867.”

A fair-weathered Thursday with a temperature of about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the 29th of March was eight days before the United States formally entered World War I. Born at the Nursery Stud late in the evening, Man o’ War’s birth announcement was a small item appearing in the April 1 issue of the Daily Racing Form (DRF). “Many Foals Arrive at Breeding Farms,” began the header. “Six Reported at Kingston Farm,

MAN O’ WAR

Man o’ War at three, with Clarence Kummer up

Three at August Belmont’s Nursery Stud.”

The Nursery newcomers appeared in the fourth paragraph, which said, “The latest foals at August Belmont’s Nursery Stud are: Chestnut colt by Fair Play—Mahubah; chestnut colt by Trap Rock—Luxury, and bay filly by Vulcain—Delusion (dam of Danger Rock and Delancey).”



Major August Belmont II was a secondgeneration horseman who received a World War II commission at the age of 65. It was his financier father who had established Nursery Stud and for whom the Belmont Stakes is named, but it was the major who was instrumental in the establishment of Belmont Park in 1905.

Upon Belmont Sr.’s death in 1890, Belmont took over the lease on the 400acre parcel of land in Lexington, Kentucky, that was owned by Mrs. Mary L. Norton and known as Nursery Stud. The farm was located on the right-hand side (traveling away from Lexington) of Georgetown Pike, midway between Sandersville and Spurr Roads, right about where Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and Citation Boulevard are now.

Belmont bred six winners of the race named after his father and campaigned four: Hastings (1896, racing in the name of Blemton Stable – “Blemton” is an anagram of Belmont), Masterman (1902; by Hastings),

“

He had the high qualities we value in a man – strength, endurance, courage, intelligence, responsiveness and affection

”

New York Times Friar Rock (1916; a half-brother to Fair Play), and Hourless (1917). All but Hastings were homebreds; Hastings had been bought as an undefeated two-year-old in 1895 for $37,000.

(August Belmont I bred and raced 1869 Belmont winner Fenian, while August Belmont IV – grandson of August Belmont II – co-owned Caveat, winner of the 1983 Belmont Stakes.)

Hastings was a very successful sire but for our purposes, his most important produce was Fair Play, a stakes winner who ran a head behind the undefeated Colin in the 1908 Belmont. Fair Play became the nation’s leading sire three times.

At the other end was Mahubah, a daughter of Rock Sand, the 1903 British

Triple Crown winner imported by Belmont to stand at Nursery. She’d been trained by Louis Feustel and won just once in five tries, over a distance of six furlongs. Mahubah was the dam of five foals, all by Fair Play. Masda, foaled in 1915, was a winner and became the third dam of 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault. The third, Playfellow (1918), was a winner; My Play (1919) won the Jockey Club Gold Cup and later sired Belmont Stakes winner Head Play; and unplaced Mirabelle (1920) is the seventh dam of Grade 1 winner Delaware Township and, more recently, the eighth dam of Grade 1-winning English hurdler Simonsig.

Man o’ War was Mahubah’s second foal, from Fair Play’s seventh crop. Scribbled in black script, someone noted in the foaling ledger that the newborn had a “star narrow broken stripe from right of star down center of nose. Height 42. Girth 33.” The word “broken” was added as an afterthought. His birth had been preceded at Nursery that year by two sets of dead twins and one colt that died among the first eight foalings, and the night after Red, another was born dead.

Eleanor Robson Belmont named her husband’s horses, including Man o’ War, and she wrote in her 1957 memoirs “The Fabric of Memory” that “Mahubah” was “an Arabic greeting…a friendly salutation that meant more than ‘Good Day’—It also implied ‘May good things be with you.’”

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PROFILE

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MAN O’ WAR

Top left, Man o’War and Will Harbut at the second Faraway Farm. Above, the restored stallion barn at Mt. Brilliant. Left, Dr. William McGee last summer beside a replica of the stallion’s door at the first Faraway, now Mt. Brilliant

In Man o’ War, she felt, “undoubtedly the world will agree that, as a good omen, [Mahubah’s name] filled its purpose.”

Belmont generally raced his homebred stock, but he deviated from the norm with the 1918 yearlings. From that year’s August 24 edition of the Thoroughbred Record: “On this occasion, owing to the fact that military activities here had first claim upon his activities and aspirations, he decided to make a genuine dispersal of his yearlings, and many shrewd breeders and owners of race horses saw an opportunity of obtaining animals rich in the celebrated Nursery strains at public auction when they would be disposed of without reserve or previous selection.”

Edward Kane held the title of Nursery Stud manager when Man o’ War was born, but in reality, he had been bedridden for months before his death in May of 1917.

Elizabeth Kane had been handling his duties and was elevated to manager after her husband’s death. She recalled in the Lexington Herald in 1920, “[Major Belmont] recognized in [Man o’ War] a champion and intended to keep and train him. After the Major had seen him as a yearling he ordered me to keep him. When he sailed for

France in 1918 with the troops, the Major believed he would be unable to train any horses for a long while and wired me to sell the yearlings we had here. Man o’ War went with the rest.”

Mrs. Belmont confirmed that her husband had intended to keep two colts: “a golden chestnut by Fair Play” – Man o’ War – and another, incorrectly recalled by Mrs. Belmont as a son of Hourless but who was possibly Hackamore, a Flint Rock colt related to Hourless. (Hourless didn’t have yearlings until 1919.)

It was not a complete dispersal of the crop, for Belmont did keep some fillies, including Quelle Chance, later the dam of Horse of the Year Chance Play and Belmont Stakes winner Chance Shot.

“

I exercised his grandfather, Hastings. I broke and trained his daddy, Fair Play, and his mother, Mahubah. With that breeding he had to be good.

But I never dreamed he’d be the greatest of all Louis Feustel

”

There were 25 yearlings – mostly with war- or military-inspired names such as War Map; Battalion; Mess Kit; and “My Man o’ War,” as the “Local Notes” section of the July 20, 2918, Thoroughbred Record identified Mahubah’s colt – and one racehorse catalogued for auction under the hammer of George A. Bain of the Powers-Hunter Company, conducted in the paddock at Saratoga Race Course.

Only 23 of the yearlings made it through the sale, averaging $2,375 for 21 sold.

The high price of $14,000 was paid by J.E. Widener for Fair Gain, a half-brother to Fair Play, followed by $13,600 for Rouleau, bought by F.M. Taylor; the low was $200 for Sentry. Two didn’t get a bid.

Man o’ War, without the “My” attached to his name, brought $5,000, the third highest price. He was signed down to the account of Pennsylvania sportsman Samuel Doyle Riddle’s Glen Riddle Stable.

Upstarts in the racing industry, Sam and Elizabeth Riddle ended up with the horse of anybody’s lifetime, which the Thoroughbred Record post-sale review described as “a goodsized and well-balanced colt.”

The underbidder was R.L. Gerry, who had heard about Man o’ War and Hackamore from the Belmonts. He bought Hackamore, who turned into a forgettable winner.

Gerry’s daughter-in-law Martha Gerry’s Lazy F Ranch would go on to breed and race three-time Horse of the Year Forego in the 1970s. (Forego’s fourth dam, champion Nellie Flag, was sired by Man o’ War’s son American Flag.)

Reflecting on the sale of Man o’ War, Mrs. Belmont wrote, “If my husband was disappointed that this great horse did not race under his colors he never indicated it to me or anyone. The science of breeding first-class thoroughbreds with stamina concerned him profoundly. He was always proud that as a result of his careful selection, his stable had produced the sire Fair Play, the dam Mahubah, and their great colt, Man o’ War.”



Man o’ War was entrusted to Louis Feustel, who by 1918 had been involved with Belmont’s stable for 24 years, ever since he was a boy of 10. Feustel was the ideal person for the challenge of training Red. It was partly down to his prompting that Riddle bought Man o’ War to begin with.

The trainer told Arthur Daley of the New York Times in 1960, “I knew Man o’ War’s family. I exercised his grandfather, Hastings.

I broke and trained his daddy, Fair Play, and his mother, Mahubah. With that breeding he had to be good. But I never dreamed he’d be the greatest of all.” (Fair Play’s trainer of record is Jack Joyner; Feustel was stable foreman at the time.)

Man o’ War, recalled Feustel, “was a rough horse, a tough horse to handle. The first time I put a boy on his back, he was a wild bucking bronco. He threw the boy ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

15

PROFILE

A lock of Man o’ War’s mane at the International Museum of the Horse at Kentucky Horse Park

and ran away in the paddock. Even when he was broken, he was so high-strung that I couldn’t slap a saddle on him and tighten it.

I had to inch it tight, one notch at a time.”

In contrast, Man o’ War was said to be as “docile as a big dog” in the stable, where his day-to-day care fell to Frank Loftus. It was

Man o’ War next to a van at Hinata Farm

16

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

written that Loftus “would not change his job for any position in the land.”

Other people associated with Man o’ War while he was in training were exercise rider Clyde Gordon and stable foreman George Conway. Conway slept in the stall next to the colt’s and would go on to train Man

o’ War’s 1937 Triple Crown-winning son War Admiral for Riddle. Red’s jockeys were Johnny Loftus (all 10 races at two); Clarence Kummer (nine); and one race each for Andy Schuttinger and Earl Sande when Kummer was on the sidelines.

Riddle’s Major Treat, a tall brown gelding with a small white star, was another companion. The Major was a retired hunter/ jumper with a calming effect on Man o’ War. From “How Man o’ War is Trained,” which appeared in a 1920 Thoroughbred Record, here is a peek into Red’s day while he was in training: l 3:30 a.m.: breakfast of 2½ quarts of clipped oats with a little cut hay; he ate all his meals with a bit in his mouth to slow him down. l 7:30 a.m.: bandages removed; “his lithe body is massaged with a hair brush and the kinks are taken out of his silken mane and tail by the use of a ‘dandy’ brush of corn broom.” l 8:30 a.m.: out for training in second set. l Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: jogged a half-mile and cantered a mile-and-a-half. l Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays: work mornings; “he is allowed to spurn the earth with those nimble feet which carry him over the ground ever so swiftly.” l 11:30 a.m.: lunch of 4½ quarts of oats with cut hay, if he was not racing that day. l 4:00-4:30 p.m. on work days: handwalked.

PROFILE

“

Man o’ War’s disposition is perfect and in the stable he is as docile as a big dog. He is ‘Red’ to Loftus no matter what he may be to anybody else and answers that name with promptitude

mAN O’ WAR’s RACEs Date

Race

Racetrack

1st (weight in pounds)

2nd (weight in pounds)

Track condition Time

Margin

June 6, 1919

Maiden Special Weight

Belmont

5 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 115

2. Retrieve, 112

fast

0:59

Won by 6 lengths

June 9, 1919

Keene Memorial S.

Belmont

5.5 furlongs J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 115

2. On Watch, 115

sloppy

1:05 3/5

June 21, 1919

Youthful S.

Jamaica

5.5 furlongs J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 120

2. On Watch, 108

good

1:06 3/5

Won by 2½ lengths

June 23, 1919

Hudson S.

Aqueduct

5 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 130

2. Violet Tip, 109

fast

1:01 3/5

Won by 1½ lengths

July 5, 1919

Tremont S.

Aqueduct

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

Thoroughbred Record

1. Man o’ War, 130

2. Ralco, 115

fast

1:13

Won by 1 length

August 2, 1919

United States Hotel S.

Saratoga

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

5:15 p.m.: dinner of 5 quarts of oats and cut hay; three days a week, this meal was substituted with “a mash of crushed oats and bran which is prepared in the morning with scalding water and left to steam for several hour.”

“Three times a week for a period of ten days, with a ten day interval in between, a tonic composed of equal parts of cream of tartar, oil meal and sulphur is given.”

The article also gave insight into Man o’ War’s relationship with Frank Loftus, and on Man o’ War himself: “Loftus and the colt are great chums.

The man realizes that a priceless animal has been entrusted to his care and the horse appears grateful for everything that is done for him by his human companion.

Man o’ War’s disposition is perfect and in the stable he is as docile as a big dog. He is ‘Red’ to Loftus no matter what he may be to anybody else and answers that name with promptitude. He has been taught to fetch and carry his keeper’s hat and likes to perform for visitors. He shows his affection for Loftus in many ways and is also fond of Barry, an Airedale dog, which spends much of his time in the horse’s box. All horses are fond of sugar and Man o’ War will beg for a lump, but his favorite delicacy is an orange.”

Man o’ War’s race record is well known.

He was champion of his division in 1919 and again in 1920, when he was Horse of the Year. He carried 130 pounds six times at two and as high as 138 at three. He won from five-to-13 furlongs and set or equaled records in most of his sophomore starts.

Much has been written of his bypassing the Kentucky Derby; his 20-length Belmont Stakes win; his 100-length win in the Lawrence Realization; his dogfight in the Dwyer, when John P. Grier had an 18-pound weight advantage; and the multitude of excuses offered for his second-place finish behind Upset in the Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga on August 13, 1919.

For an idea of the scope of the loss, even then when Man o’ War’s legend was still in its infancy, here is what the DRF reported after the race: “The defeat of Man o’ War in the Sanford Memorial hit jockey [Johnny] Loftus hard. It stung him to the core and

1. Man o’ War, 130

2. Upset, 115

fast

1:12 2/5

Won by 2 lengths

August 13, 1919

Sanford Memorial S.

Saratoga

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Upset, 115

2. Man o’ War, 130

fast

1:11 1/5

Lost by ½ length

August 23, 1919

Grand Union Hotel S.

Saratoga

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 130

2. Upset, 125

fast

1:12

Won by 1 length

August 30, 1919

Hopeful S.

Saratoga

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 130

2. Cleopatra, 112

sloppy

1:13

Won by 4 lengths

September 13, 1919 Futurity S.

Belmont

6 furlongs

J. Loftus

1. Man o’ War, 127

2. John P. Grier, 117

fast

1:11 3/5

Won by 2½ lengths

May 18, 1920

Preakness S.

Pimlico

9 furlongs

C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 126

2. Upset, 122

fast

1:51 3/5

Won by 1½ lengths

May 29, 1920

Withers S.

Belmont

8 furlongs

C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 118

2. Wildair, 118

fast

1:35 4/5

Won by 2 lengths

June 12, 1920

Belmont S.

Belmont

11 furlongs C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 126

2. Donnacona, 126

fast

2:14 1/5

Won by 20 lengths

June 22, 1920

Stuyvesant H.

Jamaica

8 furlongs

C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 135

2. Yellow Hand, 103

good

1:41 3/5

Won by 8 lengths

July 10, 1920

Dwyer S.

Aqueduct

9 furlongs

C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 126

2. John P. Grier, 108

fast

1:49 1/5

Won by 1½ lengths

August 7, 1920

Miller S.

Saratoga

9.5 furlongs E. Sande

1. Man o’ War, 131

2. Donnacona, 119

fast

1:56 3/5

August 21, 1920

Travers S.

Saratoga

10 furlongs A. Schuttinger

1. Man o’ War, 129

2. Upset, 123

fast

2:01 4/5

September 4, 1920

Lawrence Realization S. Belmont

13 furlongs C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 126

2. Hoodwink, 116

”

l

18

Distance

Jockey

Won by 3 lengths

Won by 6 lengths Won by 2½ lengths

fast

2:40 4/5

September 11, 1920 Jockey Club S.

Belmont

12 furlongs C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 118

fast

2:28 4/5

2. Damask, 118

Won by 100 lengths Won by 15 lengths

September 18, 1920 Potomac H.

Havre de Grace 8.5 furlongs C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 138

2. Wildair, 108

fast

October 12, 1920

Kenilworth Park Gold Cup Kenilworth Park 10 furlongs C. Kummer

1. Man o’ War, 120

2. Sir Barton, 126

made him the most downhearted person at the course. For half an hour after the race he sat by himself in the jockey room moaning over the colt’s defeat, and it was with difficulty that any one, even Mr. Riddle, could get him to comment on the race.”

The Kenilworth Gold Cup at Kenilworth Park Racing Association in Ontario, Canada, on October 12, 1920, was Man o’ War’s final start. Although it ended up being a twohorse race between him and four-year-old Sir Barton (later recognized as the first U.S. Triple Crown winner), it was not advertised as such. Match races were not permitted in Canada, so three entries were made, with

fast

1:44 4/5 2:03

Won by 1½ lengths Won by 7 lengths

the third horse, Wickford, scratched. It was billed instead as a “Special Race.”

The event attracted 30,000 spectators who paid a $5 entrance fee to see Man o’ War dust Sir Barton. Rider Clarence Kummer said, “It was about as easy a victory as Man o’ War has ever achieved.” One of Kummer’s stirrup straps broke immediately after the wire, and it appeared to have been cut deliberately.

Man o’ War returned to the Riddle stable’s home base at Glen Riddle Farm in Berlin, Maryland. Two months later, in December, the New York Times let slip that Man o’ War had not come away from Kenilworth unscathed: “After his victory

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PROFILE over Sir Barton at Windsor the great colt’s off foreleg puffed up, and for a time it was believed he had seriously injured himself.

Under Feustel’s care and Dr. McCully’s prescription the swelling was quickly reduced and now there is not a blemish on him.”

There was, and had been from the summer of his three-year-old season, much speculation regarding Man o’ War’s future: that he would go to post against Exterminator after the race at Kenilworth; that he would race at four, including a possible trip to England for the Ascot Gold Cup; and that he would make a comeback after a year at stud.

Even as late as June of 1921, more than six months after he’d been retired, the Thoroughbred Record printed, “…rumor persists that there is a good chance of the public having another view of this great horse in action before the close of the present racing season. Louis Feustel, who had prepared Man o’ War for all of his races, wants him back in his old quarters, and there are others with influence in the councils of the Glen Riddle Stable just as eager as the trainer to see the big champion sport the black and orange (sic) colors of the confederacy once more in a race.”

A week later, the same publication had this quote from Sam Riddle: “There is no foundation for the report that I intend to permit Man o’ War to race again.”

By then, the chestnut was completing his first breeding season at Hinata Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, under the management of Elizabeth Daingerfield, who was lauded as one of the premier breeding authorities of her day.



Man o’ War’s retirement to Kentucky had been a matter of great excitement for the state, and for Lexington in particular.

The Lexington Board of Commerce set up a committee to organize a reception for “the first instance on record of a city entertaining in honor of a

20

“

After his victory over Sir Barton at Windsor the great colt’s off foreleg puffed up, and for a time it was believed he had seriously injured himself

”

New York Times horse,” reported the Lexington Herald.

One of the plans submitted called for the champion to parade “through Main street on a flower bedecked automobile to the Belmont farm on the Georgetown Road for a homecoming visit with his sire and dam, Fair Play and Mahubah.”

They went with a more practical approach, a public exhibition at the local track.

Man o’ War arrived in Lexington on January 27, 1921, at 11:50 a.m. via the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N). The steam train rolled into the station and the express car transporting Man o’ War; Major Treat, “which trusty old quadruped [Man o’ War] has followed for two adventurous years”; and a mare was uncoupled and diverted to the downtown Kentucky Association racetrack, where they were bedded down for the night in Colonel E.R. Bradley’s barn. Man o’ War was placed in “Stall No. 4,” per the Thoroughbred Record.

“Only a small crowd

saw the unloading of the trio,” observed the Lexington Herald.

At 2:20 the following afternoon, Friday, January 28, Clyde Gordon sported Riddle’s black-and-yellow silks on Man o’ War, who was “prancing and straining at the rein,” and followed Major Treat onto the track in front of 2,000-3,000 people, depending on reports. George Bain, the auctioneer who had handled the sale of Man o’ War as a yearling, introduced Red to an audience of “probably the largest crowd of horse lovers ever gathered together for the mere purpose of looking upon a horse.”

The track was “sloppy and wet from the melting of the recent snow.” Gordon steered Man o’ War past the grandstand, then galloped him “almost to the head of the stretch and back again to the grandstand.” The racecourse is long gone, but the grandstand area was close to where Sixth Street meets Shropshire Avenue. Both streets were eventually extended over what was once the Kentucky Association.

Man o’ War was cooled off before loading on Daingerfield’s farm van for the about six-mile trip to Hinata, located on the corner of Russell Cave Road and Iron Works Pike. “[Hinata] will be his palace,” reported the Lexington Herald, “until a permanent home can be purchased and remodeled for him.”

Daingerfield had acquired a nine-year lease on Hinata, which abutted her Haylands Stud. The farm had a four-stall barn with three stallion stalls: one for Man o’ War, another for his onetime rival Golden Broom, and a smaller stall for Major Treat, of whose life thereafter history seems to have lost track.

On his arrival, Man o’ War was 16.2 hands tall and weighed in at 1,200 pounds.

Frank Loftus came, too, and stayed in a house on the farm for a couple of months.

He eventually stepped aside to allow Daingerfield’s stud groom John “Buck” Buckner, who she said was “probably the best-known and certainly the most satisfactory stud groom in Kentucky,” to take charge of Red. Man o’ War stayed there for nearly two full breeding seasons, until the Faraway Farm that Riddle and Golden Broom’s owners Walter and Sarah Jeffords (Mrs. Jeffords, Mrs. Riddle’s niece, was like a daughter to the Riddles) had purchased together was ready.

Red and Golden Broom moved to Faraway, just a few miles from Hinata on Huffman Mill Pike, on May 23, 1922. Daingerfield and

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PROFILE



Buckner retained their positions as Red’s manager and stud groom.

At Faraway, Man o’ War resided in the first stall on the left in a simple but comfortable four-stall, white-and-green stallion barn for nearly 15 years, the most time he spent in any one place. A number of his sons, including Riddle’s American Flag and Crusader, and Jeffords’ 1926 Travers winner Mars, stood at Faraway at one point or another and lived there with him. (Mars is one of seven of Red’s sons and daughters interred behind the barn, as is Golden Broom.)

Man o’ War was moved to a similar but slightly larger barn with an attached breeding shed on an adjoining property in late 1936 or early 1937. This final home was also called Faraway Farm, and it 22

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

belonged to the Riddles, while the Jeffords maintained the first property. Again, the first stall on the left was Red’s. His 20th birthday party was celebrated there. Today these properties are Mt. Brilliant Farm and Man o’ War Farm, respectively.

Riddle’s primary residence was in Pennsylvania so for his visits to Kentucky, he had what Herbert Haseltine called a “Sears-Roebuck bungalow” built behind the office, next to the stud barn at the second Faraway. The office (which still stands) and part of the house are often visible in later photographs of Man o’ War. In 1996, that Sears and Roebuck mailorder house at Faraway became the second Riddle home to be destroyed by fire, after the mansion on Glen Riddle Farm in Maryland in 1969.

Daingerfield retired from Faraway in the autumn of 1930, and new manager Harrie B. Scott replaced John Buckner with his own stud hand, whose name was to become synonymous with Big Red: Will Harbut.

If Man o’ War’s exploits were not already enough to secure his place as the stuff of legend in the annals of history, William Luther “Willie” Harbut was there to make sure of it.

Harbut became the primary caretaker of Man o’ War, whose daily schedule called for four a.m. breakfast before turn-out; a five-mile canter under tack at seven, after which he was inside for the day from 7:30 onwards; and meals at 11 a.m. and four p.m., around the time Harbut ended his 12hour work day. (Varying reports suggested Red’s morning and evening meals were served at 4:30.) A night watchman came on duty at five. There was always someone to keep an eye over Red. But Will Harbut was more than Man o’ War’s caretaker. He was his most devoted admirer…and his unofficial public relations director.

Faraway was routinely open to the public from 7:30-4:00, during which time Harbut entertained regular folks and dignitaries alike with an inspired narrative of Man o’ War’s greatness. Harbut was an electrifying orator (and by many counts, more well spoken than he was widely portrayed). He had charisma, and together with what Neville Dunn described in the Thoroughbred Record as Man o’ War’s ability to wield “a sort of magic influence over every one who went to see him,” man and horse left quite an impression.

“He took his job seriously,” said the Lexington Herald of Harbut after his death in 1947, “and he thought of Man o’ War always in superlatives…Soon after taking charge of the stallion, Harbut studied up on the record of Man o’ War and his sons.

Horsemen have long been familiar with the famous stallion’s career, but it was Harbut who vivified the details for casual visitors – estimated at from 30,000 to 50,000 a year before Big Red was secluded this year—to whom Man o’ War symbolized the racing industry.

“With unending patience and unerring accuracy, Harbut would detail – while Man o’ War inspected or ignored visitors as was his whim – the horse’s races, his sons’ races, and their breeding records.”

Frank Talmadge wrote in the Blood-Horse that, similarly to Frank Loftus before him, Harbut used to say, “I’ve got the biggest job in the world. I’d rather have this job than be president.”

Red and Harbut were separated in March, 1946, when the stud groom was incapacitated by a stroke, losing his eyesight and becoming paralyzed on his right side.

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PROFILE on Huffman Mill, less than a mile away from where his beloved red stallion lived.



Man o’ War sired foals from 1922 to 1943, but in modern-day terms, the crops were small: no more than 10-23 foals per year.

There were 381 registered foals, including a pair of surviving twins, in total, with 199 fillies and 182 colts or geldings.

As Dr. Luke Fallon of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute said, there were a number of hindrances to bigger books, including that mares needed to come into season naturally.

“He wouldn’t have started breeding, really, till mid-April. They didn’t put mares under lights in those days,” said Fallon.

Man o’ War covered about 25 mares per season. Most were owned by Riddle or Jeffords, meaning that Red, who was kept primarily as a private stallion, did not have access to top mares or female families.

Dr. William McGee, the veterinarian overseeing the Riddle account when Man o’ War was in his final years, said, “One reason that Man o’ War probably wasn’t as great a sire as he could have been was the fact that Mr. Riddle wouldn’t let anybody breed to him, unless they were a good friend of

his. He would take somebody that he liked and they could send almost anything over there” – pedigree and credentials be damned – “and breed it to him. But [Man o’ War] got enough good mares.”

Man o’ War is officially recognized by The Jockey Club as the sire of 62 stakes winners. That equates to a phenomenal 16% of his foals, with 41 stakes-winning colts or geldings and 21 fillies. The best of them were Horse of the Year War Admiral, Clyde Van Dusen (1929 Kentucky Derby), American Flag (1925 Belmont), Horse of the Year Crusader (1926 Belmont), and steeplechaser Battleship (1938 Grand National in England). Like their sire, Battleship, Crusader, and War Admiral are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Among many other Hall of Famers linked to Red are five-time Horse of the Year Kelso (whose second dam was by Man o’ War), Seabiscuit (by Man o’ War’s son Hard Tack), and Stymie, whose granddams were both daughters of Man o’ War. In 1944, Charles Hatton opined in DRF, “There is some doubt that [Man o’ War] will establish an enduring male line. Certainly such of his daughters as Speed Boat, Regal Lily, Army Flirt, Fairy Day, Spotted Beauty and Furlough have more of his physical characteristics than any of his sons.”

Hatton continued, “Man o’ War is a horse of distinctive and heroic proportions. His outsize stifle, short cannons and oblique shoulder are a grouping of faculties that is a predisposition to ‘speed and more speed.’

His daughters inherit these architectural attributes in greater degree than his sons…

It is a posthumous distinction for August Belmont that he bequeathed breeders a horse who ‘improved the breed’ and one upon whom they could not improve.”

Man o’ War was the leading sire in just 1926, although he was second in 1937 and fifth in 1941. Of his sons, War Admiral earned leading sire accolades in 1945, while American Flag and War Relic were both among the top five sires once each.

Red never headed the broodmare sires list, but he was second every year from 1942-1950. Bloodstock writer Frank Mitchell pointed out that Man o’ War’s contemporary Sir Gallahad III bred large books of mares for the time period, siring 557 foals. Thus, the sire of Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox held a big advantage in the numbers game. For eight of the years Man o’ War was second leading broodmare sire, Sir Gallahad was first.

The mares sired by Red and his sons, particularly War Admiral, were highly

Tiznow in his paddock at WinStar Farm. The 2000 Horse of the Year is carrying on the Man o’ War sire line 24

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

MAN O’ WAR

Man o’ War’s sons War Relic and War Admiral are buried at the head of his grave at the Kentucky Horse Park

influential, ensuring that Man o’ War’s name is found deep in pedigrees today, even as far away as Japan, where his Japanesebred son Tsukitomo sired the fourth dam of Mejiro McQueen, classic winner and broodmare sire of that country’s 2011 Triple Crown winner Orfevre. Tsukitomo sired numerous classic winners in his native country and was among the top broodmare sires in the 1960s, but he failed to leave behind a surviving male line.

If not for War Relic, Hatton would have been right about Man o’ War not establishing an enduring male line.

Riddle’s homebred War Relic was good enough to beat 1941 Triple Crown winner Whirlaway by 4½ lengths in that year’s Narragansett Special, in receipt of 11 pounds. At stud, War Relic sired Intent, who got champion sprinter Intentionally, who got In Reality. In Reality was inbred 3x3 to War Relic, and he is responsible for the two branches that are still salient in North America: Relaunch and Valid Appeal.

Valid Appeal is the sire of Successful Appeal, an active stallion at Walmac Farm; and Relaunch is the grandsire of 2001 Horse of the Year Tiznow, who is establishing his own legacy with a growing number of sons at stud, including Gemologist and Tourist, both of whom stand at WinStar Farm, like their sire. Another son, Tizway, is at Spendthrift Farm, part of which occupies the land that was once Hinata.



Man o’ War was measured by S. Harmsted Chubb, associate curator of comparative anatomy at the American Museum of

Natural History, at Glen Riddle Farm in Maryland on December 12, 1920, more than three months before Man o’ War’s actual fourth birthday. In “Man o’ War and Gallant Fox” published in the May-June, 1931, issue of Natural History, Chubb presented his findings of 11 years previously: Man o’ War stood at 16 hands 1-5/8 inches high at the withers, with a height of 16.2 at the crest of the ilium. His girth measured 71¾ inches.

Frank Loftus told Charles Hatton in 1958 that Man o’ War wore a size five shoe.

Those were measurements of a stilldeveloping horse. The heaviest Red was ever said to weigh was 1,375 pounds, well into his stallion days. In the 1940s, sculptor Herbert Haseltine “took literally hundreds of very careful measurements” of Man o’ War. These figures don’t appear to be published, but Haseltine’s impression of Man o’ War comes to us from The Memoirs of

“

One reason that Man o’ War probably wasn’t as great a sire as he could have been was the fact that Mr. Riddle wouldn’t let anybody breed to him, unless they were a good friend of his

”

Dr. William McGee

Herbert Haseltine: Man o’ War and Me, edited

by Rachel V. Berry and published by the International Museum of the Horse and the Kentucky Horse Park in 1981.

The sculptor had a sharp, artistic eye for detail. No one would have studied Man o’ War’s physical attributes and angles more intently than Haseltine, who made two statues of Red – three if you count the bronze of George Washington on the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., riding a horse modeled after Man o’ War – and labored over the stallion’s heroic-sized statue for seven years. He wrote: “I had heard so much talk about him – what a magnificent-looking horse he was – at the back of my mind I wondered if I should be disappointed, as is often the case when some person you are about to meet has been praised to sky-high limits. My misgivings were instantly dissipated when, with head held erect, Man o’ War was led out.

“There was something that emanated from this noble animal that took my breath away. A golden chestnut with a metallic sheen, he measured 16.2½ hands and gave the impression of being taller. His withers were well outlined and surmounted a perfect sloping shoulder. His massive quarters were a phenomenal length from hipbone to hock, which is said to be the reason for his great stride.

“And what legs! Rarely have I seen four limbs with such tremendous bone, and not a blemish of any kind to be found. They are a lesson in what a Thoroughbred’s legs should be: tendons standing out like cords, pasterns sloping at right angles, and the ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

25

PROFILE most perfect oval hooves I have ever had the privilege to see. The silhouette of those limbs seen from any angle constituted a perfect harmony in line.

“I cannot say that Man o’ War possessed the most beautiful head, eyes, or ears, but that proud and alert carriage and the keeness (sic) of that “eagle eye” swept away any possible criticism, and made him what he was – the grandest horse of the time.”



But even the grandest ones are mortal.

On November 1st, 1947, about 10 miles away from where he was born, Man o’ War lay dying.

Thirty-year-old Red had been in failing health when he was retired from public viewing on May 23rd. His oak casket was ready and gathering dust, discreetly pushed

“

Rarely have I seen four limbs with such tremendous bone, and not a blemish of any kind to be found.

They are a lesson in what a Thoroughbred’s legs should be

”

Herbert Haseltine up against a wall in the breeding shed, for about a year, per the recollection of Dr. William McGee, who said last June, “I guess he didn’t know what it was.”

McGee was the stallion’s regular veterinarian near the end of Red’s life. He came to Kentucky in 1940 to intern for Dr. Charles Hagyard of Hagyard & Hagyard (later Hagyard-Davidson-McGee, now Hagyard Equine Medical Institute), and recently celebrated his own centenary, turning 100 on February 1st, 2017.

“I was impressed,” McGee recalled of Man o’ War. “But if you knew who he was, he was way ahead [of all other horses] to start with.”

Medically, Man o’ War “really never required a lot of attention” other than routine care. “I might have given him a dose of colic medicine, but he didn’t have any rolling-around type of colics.” As the horse grew older he notably developed some lumps on his body, which were not of particular concern to McGee. Man o’ War had been gradually slowing down in his last five years of life, leading to his retirement from breeding in 1943. His heart would “stop for about three or four beats every once in a while, then it’d start back up again,” said McGee. “I think it was just worn out.”

McGee was in the stallion complex at 26

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Faraway, where War Admiral and War Relic were living, when one of the stable hands came looking for him on November 1st.

“You’d better come up. The old horse is down and it doesn’t look very good,” McGee recalled the man saying. The vet left the barn and headed towards a long, white broodmare barn behind it to check on Man o’ War, who had likely been relocated to the quieter location when he stopped receiving visitors in May. “The horse was laying down, breathing fairly naturally and not suffering any,” said McGee. “And I got down at his head and took his pulse. I’d had instructions from Mr. Riddle that any time it looked like he ought to be put away, to go ahead and do it. He’d said, ‘You don’t have to call me; if the time is right just go ahead.’”

McGee saw that Man o’ War, stretched out on his right side, looked comfortable enough, and he opted to let things progress naturally. “It’s not going to be very long,” he said to Faraway’s then-manager Patrick O’Neill.

“In about five minutes I took his pulse again and he was gone,” McGee said. “He died on a Saturday. It must have been right after noon or something like that.

“I was in a way glad to see it happen that way. He just decided to leave, and he left.”

Big Red was dead. The Sunday Herald-Leader reported the time of death as 12:15 p.m.

Twenty-four thousand people were at McLean Stadium in downtown Lexington for a 2:00 p.m. kickoff to watch the 13thranked University of Kentucky football team, coached by “Bear” Bryant and on a five-win streak, lock horns with 18th-ranked Alabama on Stoll Field. They learned of Man o’ War’s passing when announcer Claude Sullivan broke the news over the public address system.

It might have been around that moment when William McCarney, a World War II Army veteran in the employ of mortician Davies McCullough “Tully” Lowe, was summoned from the D.M. Lowe Funeral Home on West Second Street. That Man o’ War would be embalmed had been prearranged with Lowe. “Oh, he was aware of it quite a while before it happened,” said McGee. Novelist and short story writer Chris Offutt, a great-nephew of McCarney, said, “Lowe may have overseen the procedure due to the popularity of the horse, but McCarney did the actual labor.”

Man o’ War was preserved in the barn, with 23 bottles of embalming fluid during a two hour-long process. It was not the first time a horse had been embalmed, said a spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association, but Man o’ War was “the first instance brought to our attention of a horse being embalmed in preparation for burial.”

He lay in state for two days in the middle of the stud barn before being interred in what had been War Admiral’s paddock on Tuesday, November 4, the day of Kentucky’s

gubernatorial election. Some 2,000 mourners attended the service, which was broadcast live on the radio and is available to hear on YouTube.

Haseltine’s statue was completed and placed over Man o’ War’s grave in 1948.



Sam Riddle died in 1951 and deeded the two-and-a-half-acre Man o’ War Memorial Park, as the Faraway burial site came to be called, to the city of Lexington’s Fayette County, with a stipulation that it always be free to visit. One by one, the remains of Man o’ War’s progeny War Admiral, War Hazard, War Kilt, and War Relic joined him, as did those of War Admiral’s dam Brushup and three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Isaac Burns Murphy, who died in 1896 but who was reinterred there in 1967.

The Herbert Haseltine statue was refurbished last autumn

MAN O’ WAR It was meant to be their final resting place.

In December of 1973, state park commissioner Ewart Johnson brought a proposal to the county’s fiscal court to move all of them to the Kentucky Horse Park, slated to open in 1977.

“Man o’ War is to the horse industry what Babe Ruth is to baseball. (His name) is known to everyone, even those not familiar with the sport. That is why he belongs in the place where he can do the most for Kentucky, Fayette County, and the horse industry.” Johnson added that vandals “periodically” desecrated the Faraway cemetery.

The disinterment was on September 21, 1976. Among those present was Red’s embalmer McCarney, representing Whitehall Funeral Chapel.

The top of Man o’ War’s casket had caved in under the weight of the dirt.

He was placed in a new casket and stored at Whitehall (now The Carrick House) on North Limestone Street awaiting reburial, which occurred at the Kentucky Horse Park on June 23, 1977. The original coffin and the dirt from inside of it was placed in the vault with Man o’ War, beneath the bronze statue by Herbert Haseltine.

One casket handle and a lock Tully Davis posthumously took of Red’s mane are on display at the Horse Park’s International Museum of the Horse.



A 1961 issue of Time said, “The greatest champion of American thoroughbreds died in 1947 and was buried beneath the

bluegrass of Kentucky’s Faraway Farm. But the truth is that Man o’ War never really died…So storied was his running prowess that today, 41 years after his last race, Big Red’s record remains the standard of purity and perfection against which the performance of every other race horse, sooner or later, must be measured.”

One hundred years after Man o’ War was born, 70 years after he died, and 55 years after those words were written, that standard still holds. It’s part of the allure of racing that the argument over who is the greatest Thoroughbred of all will never definitively be settled, but Man o’ War will invariably be included in the discussion.

It was just as Will Harbut always said.

“Folks, this is the mostest hoss in the world.” n

ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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VETERINARY

A call for common sense in testing 30

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

CONTAMINATION

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Racehorses live, train, and compete in a drug-contaminated environment of approved therapeutic medications, human prescription medications, recreational drugs, and natural substances. Every person, animal, or thing that comes into contact with a horse may be a potential source for a positive drug test, given the ever-increasing sensitivity of testing equipment and methods.

WORDS: DeniSe SteffanuS PHOtOS: HORSePHOtOS, SteVen a. BaRKeR, MS, PhD, SHutteRStOCK, JOeL B. tuRneR

D

R. Steven Barker, a professor of veterinary physiology, pharmacology, and toxicology, was director of the Louisiana State University Equine Medication Surveillance Laboratory for 29 years until his retirement in 2016. He said some instruments now can go beyond nanograms (one-billionth of a gram) and picograms (one-trillionth of a gram) to detect femtograms (one-quintillionth of a gram)— an amount so infinitesimal that most people cannot even grasp it. To put it in perspective, a nanogram is comparable to one second in 32 years; a picogram would be one second in 32,000 years; and a femtogram would be one second in 32 million years.

Barker explained that the insensitivity of equipment 20 years ago meant that if a laboratory detected a substance, it most likely was of a significant quantity to indicate an intentional violation. But the regulations applied then have not kept in step with new technology.

“They’re detecting levels that are pharmacologically irrelevant or insignificant, and they routinely come from the fact that these animals are living in a drug-contaminated environment,” he said.

Drugs are everywhere. An Associated Press investigation found widespread contamination of drinking water in North America with pharmaceuticals.

Philadelphia’s water supply alone tested positive for 56 different drugs. A Mayo

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“

They’re detecting levels that are pharmacologically irrelevant or insignificant, and they routinely come from the fact that these animals are living in a drug-contaminated environment

”

Dr. Steven Barker

Clinic study found 70% of Americans take prescription drugs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls opiate addiction an epidemic. Law enforcement uncovers thousands of rolling methamphetamine labs each year.

Yet trainers are penalized when their horses test positive for miniscule amounts of banned drugs, despite taking precautions to protect their horses from exposure. Even when the trainer is reinstated upon appeal, the horse’s disqualification typically is upheld.

The problem is not just in North America, where racing has been criticized for its liberal use of medication. It’s an issue that plagues racing worldwide. Several trainers in Australia, including Australia’s leading trainer Chris Waller, have been cited for lowlevel methamphetamine positives. In 2015, Irish trainer William Treacy was fined when his horse Fethard Player tested positive for the human arthritis drug tramadol that Treacy was taking. The British Horseracing Authority ruled it cross-contamination.

Human drugs are not the only issue.

Isoxsuprine, a therapeutic medication used to increase blood flow to a racehorse’s feet, is fed in powder form two-to-four times a day during a course of treatment. The powder is likely to get all over the stall, and the drug is excreted in substantial amounts in the horse’s urine and manure.

Isoxsuprine remains chemically stable in the environment for up to a year, so a horse occupying that stall a year later could register a positive for the drug, as was the case of Australian stakes winner Mistegic.

(See sidebar.)

Three trainers in Kentucky received positive tests for low levels of dextrorphan, a metabolite of dextromethorphan, a common ingredient in NyQuil, Sucrets cough drops, and other over-the-counter cough suppressants. Some drug abusers take it to get high. The positives occurred at Churchill Downs, Turfway Park, and

CONTAMINATION

“

Part of the enjoyment of being an owner is to visit one’s horse on the backstretch to feed it carrots and peppermints. Now, Mott has to warn his owners that this might cause a positive test because of environmental contaminants

”

Keeneland Race Course over a five-month period.

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott was among those whose horses tested positive for dextrorphan. His positive occurred during the spring 2016 meet at Keeneland.

Asked if he had any idea how the horse may have been exposed, Mott said, “I have NO idea. We went through tack boxes, wall boxes. We interviewed the help individually, and nobody had been sick and nobody was on any medication.”

Keeneland’s backside is wide open, which Mott said makes it difficult to protect horses from contact with the public, who walk through the barn area by the hundreds on their way to and from the races.

“I have day men and night watchmen all the time, but sometimes they could be around the corner of the barn,” Mott said.

“And we have people walking through our shedrows, meaning absolutely no harm I’m sure, but they pet the horses. And if we see them, we have to say, ‘Please step outside the shedrow and look at them from outside the shedrow walls.’ That happens all the time.”

Part of the enjoyment of being an owner is to visit one’s horse on the backstretch to feed it carrots and peppermints. Now, Mott has to warn his owners that this might cause a positive test because of environmental contaminants.

Joel B. Turner, a lawyer with Frost Brown Todd LLC in Louisville since 1984, is one of the few attorneys with extensive experience defending cases involving alleged medication violations.

He said, “Testimony of its representatives in a pending case revealed the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) has not adequately protected horsemen from contamination in its own detention and receiving barns, yet they expect trainers at Keeneland, where there’s no fence around the backside and no night security in the receiving barn or detention barn areas, to ensure their horses are free from contamination. And during multiple sales per year, those same stalls are used by sales horses, which often are treated

The Science of conTaminaTion Scientific papers and investigations of incidents reveal how environmental contamination can occur. Here are some of those findings: n Dr. Marie-Agnès Popot, a pharmacist and head of research for France’s Laboratoire des Courses Hippiques (Horse Racing Laboratory), found that untreated horses that were housed in stalls previously occupied by horses treated with certain drugs would register a positive test for those drugs. The drugs in Popot’s published studies were flunixin (Banamine) and meclofenamic acid (Arquel); her unpublished data concerned dipyrone, chlorpheniramine, and procaine.

When the stall was completely cleaned before putting the untreated horse in it, the level of the drug in the untreated horse’s urine was low. But that level rose high enough to cause a positive drug test when the stall was partially cleaned or not cleaned at all. Popot and her colleagues theorized that contamination occurred when horses ingested straw tainted with urine. n A 2015 Irish study by Dr. Terrence Fodey and his colleagues at the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Belfast found that cattle that grazed a pasture spread with manure from horses treated with phenylbutazone (Bute) tested positive for that drug.

Fodey reported: “The manure and bedding from these animals was spread onto pasture in early spring and untreated cattle allowed to graze the pasture some 10 weeks later.

Subsequent analysis of blood from these grazing animals showed that all contained significant concentrations of Bute.”

These results prompted the Institute to issue a warning to cattlemen to take extreme care to avoid contamination with phenylbutazone, which is banned in meatproducing animals. n Australian stakes winner Mistegic was disqualified from his win in the 2001 Schillaci Stakes for an isoxsuprine positive.

Investigation of Mistegic’s stall revealed particles of the drug clinging to cobwebs and surfaces above the manger. The medication was traced back to another trainer’s horse that had occupied the stall a year earlier and had been treated with isoxsuprine. Based on the findings, Racing Victoria reinstated Mistegic’s Schillaci win. n Trainer Renee Wilson was cited for methamphetamine positives in three horses she shipped from Michigan to Ajax Downs in Toronto. The horses were shipped separately from the rest of her stable in a newly purchased, used horse trailer. Two of those horses won and one finished second.

The levels of methamphetamine in their post-race tests were 0.034 nanograms, 0.2 nanograms, and 0.056 nanograms, respectively.

Despite Wilson cleaning the trailer before loading her horses onto it, an investigation found traces of methamphetamine in the horse trailer’s manger.

After reviewing the evidence, the Ontario Racing Commission (ORC) rescinded Wilson’s $5,000 fine and one-year suspension. In its ruling, ORC Chairman Elmer Buchanan wrote: “The Appellants correctly argue that since the introduction in 2010 of higher-sensitivity testing, there has been a surge in positive tests, with no corollary evidence that these miniscule traces of prohibited substances have passed through the horse, have any ill effect on the horse or, in fact, enhanced performance for the horse.”

Dr. Kimberly Brewer, a former drugtesting veterinarian for the U.S. Equestrian Federation, and nine colleagues in the U.S. and Canada collaborated to write a case report of the incident in the Canadian Veterinary Journal. In it, they identified methamphetamine as an inadvertent contaminant and proposed a regulatory cut-off of 15 nanograms per milliliter in postrace urine. n A group of U.S. researchers* are currently drafting a paper that reviews scientific literature and case studies regarding the human arthritis drug tramadol as an environmental contaminant, including a study that found 100% of samples from 90 wastewater plants in 18 European countries contained the drug.

In one case they reviewed, a positive postrace sample in Oregon was traced to either the test barn or the laboratory, when the “A” split sample showed tramadol but the “B” did not. The researchers concluded the most likely source was inadvertent contamination by a test barn or laboratory employee taking the drug.

In other cases cited in the paper, low-level tramadol positives in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, California, England, and New Zealand appeared to come from individuals in the horse’s environment prescribed tramadol who handled bridles, fed horses apples, kept tongue ties in the same pocket as their prescription, or urinated in the horse’s stall.

The researchers wrote: “Given the medical reasons for prescribing tramadol to humans and the marginal therapeutic efficacy of tramadol in horses, the calling of ‘positives’ for pharmacologically ineffective trace concentration identifications of [tramadol metabolite O-desmethyltramadol] in postrace urine samples is difficult to justify, and may selectively penalize older horsepersons who are more likely to be prescribed tramadol for chronic pain.”

In their conclusion, the researchers called for a threshold limit for tramadol to be set at 50 nanograms per milliliter of urine.

(*The authors requested that their identity not be disclosed until the paper is approved for publication.)

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VETERINARY

multiple times per sale with a wide variety of medications that are restricted or prohibited in racing.”

It is well known that horses, especially intact males, will sniff and lick spots where another horse has urinated. If a prior occupant of that stall was medicated, scientific studies prove this could result in a drug positive from contamination alone for subsequent horses placed in that stall.

On a single day of racing, stalls in the receiving barn and the test barn are used repeatedly with little or no cleaning between horses.

Turner said testimony in a pending case revealed that the KHRC does not routinely test the straw used for bedding in the test

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barn for possible sources of contamination, stalls are not cleaned between horses being collected, and the commission has never tested the soils in the test barn stalls for traces of medications that may have been left by other horses.

He added, “Although the KHRC prohibits test barn employees from taking certain substances into the detention barn – including prescription medications, caffeine, and other potential sources of contamination – its representatives admitted on cross examination that the KHRC does not spot check for compliance nor does it drug test its own detention barn employees.

They have policies that are supposed to protect horsemen, but they’re not enforced.

b … Contamination is a real threat, yet they do not hold themselves to the same high standards they impose upon horsemen.”

Investigations into positives for human drugs tramadol in Oregon, oxycodone in Canada, and cocaine in Chile traced back to probable test barn contamination.

Although racing commissions may ban employees from having drugs on their person while in the test barn, privacy laws prohibit them from asking personnel what prescriptions they take.

Scientific studies and investigations across the world have linked contamination to contact with soiled bedding, cobwebs, a horse trailer, manure spread on pastures, and humans urinating in stalls.

“Receiving barns are particularly dangerous,” Barker said. “Even though you may do a lot to muck out the stall and put down fresh bedding, depending the level of contamination, you could still have a horse come up positive.”

Critics ask why positives don’t occur more often if stalls are replete with contaminants. Barker explained that a set of circumstances must occur to produce a positive: The horse has to be exposed to a sufficiently high level of contamination; it has to eat contaminated hay, lick a contaminated surface, or have someone put a contaminated hand in its mouth within a few hours of a race; AND the horse has to go to the test barn.

“Of course, the other reason is that we don’t test all horses in a race. If we did, we’d probably see a lot more positives,” he said.

Damage to racing’s reputation Mott agrees that the sensitivity of testing has produced a ridiculous situation, and one that is harming the racing industry.

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VETERINARY “I’m not saying that we don’t want to test and be diligent and do the right thing.

I don’t want to run against somebody who has an edge,” he said. “But, by the same token, I don’t want to see any of my fellow competitors serving days or getting fined and having their names dragged through the dirt for no reason.”

To most members of the public, a drug positive is a drug positive. They don’t differentiate or comprehend the difference between an intentional violation with a performance-enhancing drug, an overage of a therapeutic medication, or a low-level contamination.

“Believe me, if somebody’s cheating, they should be reprimanded for it,” Mott said.

“But by catching the people who aren’t doing anything – and they’re just picking up these minute amounts of various drugs – they’re not doing anybody any good.

They’re not doing the competitors any good; they’re not doing the gamblers any good; and they’re not doing the business overall any good. They’re harming the business.”

Turner’s fundamental argument, aside from the particulars of each case, is that racing commissions that prosecute individuals for miniscule amounts of a prohibited substance are not fulfilling the spirit of the law – to protect the image of the industry and to uphold the honesty of racing and the integrity of the outcome of the race.

“Racing commissions need to do what’s in the best interest of racing,” he said. “That’s their mandate. It is not in the best interest of racing to prosecute at such low levels when there is no scientific basis to conclude that trace levels, including of known therapeutic medications, could have any effect on the performance of the horse. In fact, prosecuting cases without showing a threat to the integrity of racing is detrimental to the image of racing and inconsistent with the duty of racing commissions to maintain a positive image of racing.

“Unfortunately, during the last eightto-ten years regulators have been running right over the top of many good trainers and reputable people who maintain their operations with the greatest degree of care to avoid any kind of medication issue. Yet, even with detection of such low concentrations with no potential to impact the outcome of a race, some regulators feel compelled to take away purses and penalize trainers.”

Where does the fault lie?

Racing commissions set thresholds after consulting a number of sources; stewards decide to prosecute or disregard positive tests based on the recommendations of their equine medical directors, who in most cases are not pharmacologists; and testing laboratories keep getting more-sensitive equipment.

Kentucky’s Dr. Mary Scollay is one of three equine medical directors on the 36

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“

It is not in the best interest of racing to prosecute at such low levels when there is no scientific basis to conclude that trace levels could have any effect on the performance of the horse

Joel B. Turner

”

Scientific Advisory Committee of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC).

She is not a pharmacologist. Scollay said for drugs that have no published thresholds, positive tests depend on the laboratory’s limit of detection. In other words, if the laboratory’s equipment can find a drug in a sample, it is deemed a positive, no matter how miniscule the amount.

Some laboratories have followed the recommendations of the International Federation of Racing Authorities to set limits for certain environmental contaminants in feedstuffs caused by natural-growing plants or contaminants occurring during processing and packaging. But banned human drugs essentially have a zero tolerance.

“The rules prohibit the presence of foreign substances, so in the absence of a threshold, laboratories are driven to pursue findings above the limit of detection,” said Dr. Richard Sams, scientific director of LGC Science, the official racing testing laboratory for Kentucky, Virginia, and Maine. Sams, a pharmacologist, has been the director of various racing testing laboratories since 1978. He also sits on the RMTC’s Scientific Advisory Committee.

Sams said a laboratory’s directive is black and white: it simply reports its findings to the best of its ability. This means that if a laboratory purchases a new piece of equipment that is 100 times more sensitive

than the last, the limit of detection drops.

“The limit of detection would very likely fall, become lower. That’s correct,” he said.

“And for a substance that is prohibited, that is an appropriate course of action. For therapeutic substances, we have thresholds that limit the detection.”

Scollay defended the current practices.

She responded in an e-mail: “I take great issue with individuals who assert that the presence of a substance in the environment—be it an illicit substance of human abuse or a legitimately prescribed equine therapeutic medication—should be exculpatory when the substance is detected in a post-race sample. IF the introduction of the substance into the environment can/ could be prevented, then it is not, in my opinion, environmental contamination. If not, you effectively incentivize stakeholders to be irresponsible with medications, don’t you?

“A bit of a stretch, but why wouldn’t you then make a point to hire individuals who abuse a broad spectrum of substances, in order to have ‘built-in’ cover in the event the laboratory detects one of those substances in a sample? And if human substance abuse is sufficient to relieve a trainer of his/her responsibility, does that not mean that the trainer who employs a meth addict could administer methamphetamine to his/her horses with impunity?”

no-effect thresholds Barker is among a group of scientists, veterinarians, horsemen, and others who advocate adoption of no-effect thresholds, which set the cut-off point for substances that have no pharmacological relevance or significance in the horse.

“It’s kind of an overreach and an overresponse by most commissions and regulatory authorities to say, ‘Well, if we find it and confirm it, you’re guilty.’ Well, no,” he said.

“Isn’t your responsibility to maintain the integrity of the industry through ensuring that no one has an unfair advantage, or no one violates the rules by administering a drug that could influence the outcome of the race?” Barker asked. “And aren’t you then obligated to show that what you found could have influenced the race? Most of them don’t do that. They just say, ‘Oh, well, whatever the level doesn’t matter.’ Ten milligrams per milliliter or ten picograms per milliliter – those differences are a million times different in concentration.”

Turner wants racing to appoint a panel of board-certified veterinary pharmacologists to determine, based upon scientific studies, at what level various drugs affect performance and should be prosecuted and at what level those substances should be considered an environmental contaminant.

“They should have [the panel] evaluate each and every case that they intend to prosecute to see if it has any merit and to see if there is any link between the concentration and the pharmacological

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VETERINARY when ruling on a positive test. Specific among those circumstances are: “the potential of the drug(s) to influence a horse’s racing performance” and “the probability of environmental contamination or inadvertent exposure due to human drug use or other factors.”

The Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission (OHRC) on February 18, 2016, set a threshold level of 100 nanograms per milliliter for methamphetamine as an environmental contaminant.

“These changes were made after multiple discussions between the Commission’s Medication Committee, industry scientists and veterinarians, regarding various studies pertaining to these substances,” wrote executive director Kelly Cathey. “The OHRC also considered input from testing laboratory personnel regarding the results of studies, along with advancements in testing technology that have transpired since medication rules were written.”

horsemen pay the price

Racing meDicaTion anD TeSTing conSoRTium ScienTific aDviSoRy commiTTee membeRS Racetrack Practitioners Dr. Scott Hay Dr. Jeff Blea Dr. Foster Northrop

Location Florida California Kentucky

equine medical Directors Dr. Rick Arthur Dr. Lynn Hovda* Dr. Mary Scollay

Jurisdiction California Minnesota Kentucky

Laboratory Chemists Affiliation Anthony Fontana Jr. Truesdail Laboratories Petra Hartmann* Industrial Laboratories Dr. Norman Hester Truesdail Laboratories Dr. Al Kind Texas A & M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory Dr. Mary Robinson* Pennsylvania Equine Toxicology and Research Laboratory Dr. Richard Sams* LGC Science *Pharmacologists and/or Toxicologists activity of that substance,” Turner said.

“Because if there is no pharmacological activity, there’s no threat to the integrity of racing, and they shouldn’t be prosecuting those cases.”

Sams argued that racing already has a panel of experts that offers advice on medication rules, the Scientific Advisory Committee. The committee is comprised of 12 individuals. Among them are three racetrack veterinarians, three racing commission equine medical directors, and six chemists representing laboratories. But just four of these individuals have degrees in pharmacology and/or toxicology. (See box.)

Rick Baedeker, executive director of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB), said 38

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the University of California’s Ken Maddy Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory has been doing medication studies for decades to assist the CHRB in setting thresholds that are based on science.

“It’s one of the few labs that has a herd of horses that are in race shape, so the research there is done on horses that would metabolize drugs just like a racehorse does,” he said. “I think it’s important for people to understand, these levels aren’t reached in some kind of casual manner. They are reached after rather exhaustive studies.”

California is one of several jurisdictions that recognize the contamination problem.

Its Rule 1843.3 requires regulators to consider certain mitigating circumstances

Most horsemen cited for a positive post-race test are in a no-win situation. They either have to accept the ruling against them or hire an attorney to defend them. Either way, the result is costly. Penalties for trainers usually are a fine and suspension; owners must return the purse; and horses are disqualified.

Hiring an attorney isn’t cheap. Legal fees typically start at $5,000 and can reach $100,000, depending on how far the horseman wants to pursue the case. Smalltime trainers are the ones hit hardest by these rulings. That’s what happened to Ken McClure, who in 2008 was prosecuted in one of the early cases of tramadol contamination.

On July 29, 2008, McClure shipped in to race at River Downs near Cincinnati, Ohio, and his horse Rego Rose was put in an empty stall in trainer Fred Nemann’s barn. Nemann had been prescribed tramadol for four years prior to the incident. Because he required a walker to get around and the restroom was a distance from his barn, Nemann urinated in his empty stalls.

Rego Rose won, but the post-race test was positive for 49 nanograms of O-desmethyltramadol, a metabolite of tramadol. The horse was disqualified, McClure was blasted with a $500 fine and 180 days suspension, and the owner forfeited the purse. McClure hired an attorney and, on appeal, the suspension was reduced to 120 days.

Rego Rose’s owner had a small operation, with McClure running its farm, breaking its yearlings, and training its racehorses.

Because McClure was not permitted to be involved in any aspect of racing during his suspension, his owner sold the farm and got out of the business. “[The ruling] ruined a pretty decent business with a chance at growth, and I enjoyed what I was doing,” McClure said.

“But it put me in a position where it wasn’t financially feasible, with the fine and the

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39

VETERINARY time off and lost wages.”

McClure declared bankruptcy, abandoned racing, and got a job at Walmart to support his family.

In the recent dextrorphan cases, the KHRC eventually rescinded all charges, but not without repercussions for the trainers and owners involved. Nina Hahn, whose horse Covert Gem tested positive for less than 20 nanograms of dextrorphan, hired a lawyer to appeal the ruling because she felt it was the right thing to do.

“It was not about the [purse] money, it was about my reputation. But, secondly, it was about making some changes,” she said.

Hahn said if an owner appeals, uncertainty surrounds the horse until the final ruling.

She believes it is unfair to other trainers if the horse competes at its “pre-win” conditions because, although stripped of the win, the horse defeated its competitors on ability, not because of a trace of a drug that does not affect performance.

Hahn faced another predicament.

“I couldn’t sell the mare because if I cataloged her as a winner and an earner of whatever she won and then the win got taken away, I misrepresented my horse to the public,” she said. “There a lot of things that tie into this that are not fair, and that’s what causes people to walk away from racing.”

Turner said the irony of the situation is that while regulators are prosecuting horsemen for these low-level positives, the widely held belief among sophisticated horsemen and bettors is that the real cheats are winning stakes races with undetectable designer drugs.

California regulators recognized the dilemma. They have enlisted Dr. Ben Moeller, a molecular biochemist and toxicologist at the Maddy Laboratory, to develop an application that monitors changes in a horse’s biomarkers to detect effects that indicate doping, even if the substances and methods used by a cheater are not otherwise detectable.

encouraging progress Turner said the KHRC’s decision to rescind the rulings in the recent low-level dextrorphan positives is encouraging. “[It] shows me that the stewards and the current KHRC staff are willing to consider evolving research and evaluate the merits of the sensible arguments that low-level concentrations are more consistent with contamination than with any intentional effort to circumvent the rules,” he said.

“There now also seems to be an openmindedness at the KHRC about the need for linking concentrations of substances detected by the laboratories and the potential of such low-level concentrations to have an effect on performance and the integrity of racing.

“This takes into consideration the scientific factors, including the potential for contamination, and the potential harm to the reputation of racing and 40

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

its participants. This approach is more consistent with the overall mandate to protect the integrity of racing with reasonable and necessary regulation of medication while also protecting the image of racing as a fair, honest, and properly regulated endeavor.”

Precautions Until regulators adopt common-sense thresholds to address this growing problem of heightened sensitivity in testing, Barker said horsemen need to protect themselves to the best of their ability against these lowlevel positives.

He advised trainers to drug-test their employees; have discussions with those taking prescription medications to emphasize that these substances can be spread to the horse through sweat, saliva, and urine; require employees to wash their hands before handling bits, tongue ties, feed tubs, water buckets, and anything that could contaminate the horse; stress that no one is permitted to urinate in a stall;

and instruct employees not to carry pills in their pocket.

Barker said horsemen should take special care in cleaning and bedding stalls, especially in receiving barns, to avoid contamination.

“You have to go down to the ground and replace it with a very thick layer of hay or shavings or whatever you’re going to use, to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

“And you have to make sure that the horses around [your horses] aren’t so close that they can access them and transfer urine or feces or sweat.”

He added this advice for regulators: “There should be a recognition by the commission, too, that these low levels can come from unintended exposures that have absolutely nothing to do with their authority to regulate racing.

They are inconsequential, pharmacologically inactive, and they’re meaningless, and it does more damage to the industry to keep calling them than it does to not.” n

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PROFILE

TRENDING UPWARDS

Arnaud and Leigh Delacour

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THE DELACOURS

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PROFILE

Brought together by racing, Arnaud and Leigh Delacour are an upcoming training force, sharing a passion for Thoroughbreds and an attention to detail that has underpinned their rise through the ranks.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: ECLIPSE SPORTSWIRE, ANITA MOTION, HORSEPHOTOS

T

horoUGhly prepared for training Thoroughbreds, leigh and Arnaud Delacour are trending upwards so quickly it’s hard to keep up.

Just 10 years removed from opening a stable with two horses, the Delacour stable finished 42nd in trainers’ earnings in 2016 with $3.5 million, a hefty increase from $2.2 million in 2015 when the barn was 68th.

“All credit to the owners and horses,” Arnaud said on New year’s Day. Deferring credit? Trainers Graham Motion and Christophe Clement, so integral in Arnaud and leigh’s lives and careers, will love that. The Delacours are not only 44

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succeeding, but they are doing it the right way, the way they learned from two of the best trainers in the world.

“I’m extremely proud of both of them,” Motion said. “I’m not the least bit surprised.”

Neither is Clement, who said, “I’m happy to see them do well. I think they’re very good together.”

They started an ocean apart.

Arnaud, a 41-year-old native of Normandy, France, credits his stepfather David Powell, a French bloodstock agent, breeder, and magazine writer, with his early lessons in horsemanship. “My parents divorced when I was 11 and my mom remarried David Powell,” Arnaud said. “he

is an icon in France. I was lucky enough to be introduced to the sport by David. David is a very dedicated gentleman to the horses.

I moved to his farm after they got married. I got introduced to the breeding aspect of it, then the racing aspect. I went to Chantilly and very early I realized I liked the training aspect of it more. I was 15. That’s an age when you realize what you want.”

But he had another interest. “I wanted to see the world,” he said. So he combined the two, traveling to England to work for trainers John Gosden and David “The Duke” Nicholson, a former jockey who became a top steeplechase conditioner.

After two years in England, Arnaud spent the first of two tenures with Clement in the United States. “I always thought America was the place I wanted to be,” Arnaud said. “I really like the style of training. In France, you need a lot more credentials to build a stable. It’s easier to attract horses in America.”

Staying on a trainer’s visa, Arnaud

THE DELACOURS

spent a year and a half with Clement, riding and learning about training. “I was not an assistant, but a pupil,” Arnaud said. “I thought I didn’t know enough to start training. That’s exactly what I told Christophe. he told me I will become an assistant trainer. I went back to France and then to Argentina.”

In France, Arnaud got a job with trainer Alain de royer-Dupre, whose clients included the Aga Khan. “I was an assistant for him for two years,” Arnaud said. “That was great. The whole thing with him is planning for the races. he thinks five months ahead. he plans everything. he was never in a hurry. I think that was something I really admired. I learned from him.”

Then Arnaud bolted for Argentina. “I just wanted to see a little bit of a different setting,” he said. “With South America, I always wanted to know what was going on there. Their horses were doing well in the U.S. I really liked it. They have a different culture. I thought it was very interesting.

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PROFILE

A.P. Indian won six races from seven starts last year, including two Grade One victories 46

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That was a very good experience. I was really amazed and happy to see it, but there isn’t much money there. So it didn’t make sense to stay there. But it was great for my education. I stayed there for five months.”

Back in France, Arnaud came to a realization. “There is a difference everywhere I’d been,” he said. “But the basis is the same. you’re pretty much teaching a young horse to run, to keep him fit and to keep him sound. you take that everywhere you go. It’s a common theme everywhere.”

Arnaud’s life changed when Clement called, offering him an opportunity to return to the U.S. “one of his assistants wanted to start on his own,” Arnaud said.

“I told him yes right away, and I was on my way. I really enjoyed working for him. I wanted to come back.” obviously, Clement wanted him back. “I knew the family very well,” Clement said.

“Arnaud spent quite a few years with us. We got along very well. he really impressed us with his discipline. he’s very disciplined.

Great horsemanship. hard worker. Very bright. Smart guy.”

THE DELACOURS

Trainers Christophe Clement and Graham Motion have been instrumental to the Delacours’ success

Arnaud’s second tenure with Clement lasted six years. Arnaud relished the experience. Asked what he learned from Clement, Arnaud replied, “The amount of work. he is at the barn all the time checking horses. he has a very interesting style. he wants everything to be perfect. I learned a lot from that. That’s still the way I think. From the groom to everybody. he wants to be at his best.”

Through Clement, Arnaud met roy and Gretchen Jackson of lael Stables.

Through Motion, leigh met Arnaud. leigh, 36, had no family ties to racing.

“Not at all,” she said. her dad was an attorney. leigh would introduce him to horses.

“As a kid, my parents told me nice little girls do ballet, piano, and riding lessons,” leigh said. “I did one ballet lesson. Two piano lessons.”

When she went to begin riding at the age of five, she was smitten. Immediately.

“I walked into a barn as a kid and I was enthralled with the horse,” she said.

“There’s something about a horse. I’ve

just always loved horses. I like the sport of horseracing, but to me it’s all about the animal.” leigh’s father, who would drive her to the stables, wound up riding and still continues to fox hunt in Middleburg, Virginia. leigh began riding ponies, then moved on to horses while working with Christy Clagett at the larking hill Training Center.

“I was working for her on her farm,” leigh said. “When I was 16, she said she’s given me all she knew. She sent me to Graham.

Graham was based at laurel Park. She set me up for an interview.”

There was no interview. She went there on a Saturday morning and Motion put her on two horses to gallop. “I came back, and he said, ‘you can start Monday,’” leigh said. “I was 16. I didn’t even have a driver’s license. It was like a dream come true.”

It’s a dream she’s still living. “Every morning I wake up, I realize I’m so lucky to do this every day,” she said. “There are so many people who go to jobs so they can do what they like.”

Graham and Anita Motion’s effect on leigh and Arnaud’s lives is profound. Graham would practically force leigh to attend college. Anita not only suggested she should date Arnaud, she served as his wingman.

They were married on their property. Then Graham, just like Clement, began sending them horses to jumpstart their careers when

“

He really impressed us with his discipline. He’s very disciplined. Great horsemanship. Hard worker.

Very bright. Smart guy.

Christophe Clement

”

they began their own stable. leigh worked for Graham for 10 years before taking out a trainer’s license.

Basically, Graham told leigh that she could either attend the college she was considering, the University of Virginia, while she continued working for him, or find a job somewhere else. “he said you have to or you can find another job,” leigh said.

“They do that for a lot of their employees.”

Graham explained why he did it for leigh: “I felt strongly as if she was one of my kids. I made it clear to her that I felt very strongly that she should do that because it’s such a tough game for a man, let alone a woman to get started in this game.” leigh graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology and economics. The diploma hangs in her laundry room. leigh became an important part of Graham’s team, moving up from exercise rider to assistant trainer. “She always has been a very good rider,” Graham said. “She’s been around horses, well-rounded for horses. She was a big asset for me from early on galloping, then taking an assistant’s duties. She was a very important person in our operation. We thought it would be a waste for her to gallop for a living. She could do something better. We encouraged her to go for that.” hooking up with a guy? leigh admits she had her “sights set” on a couple of other assistant trainers when Anita strongly suggested she ditch them and date Arnaud, who was an assistant with Clement: “She said, ‘No, no, they’re not the ones you want to date. you want to date the quiet guy who doesn’t go to parties.’ Anita kept telling me, ‘you’re dating the wrong guys.’”

Anita became enamored with Arnaud after he stayed overnight in their house despite the fact that she and Graham barely knew him. Arnaud was racing a couple Clement horses at Delaware Park days apart and didn’t have a place to stay. he was planning to drive back and forth ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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PROFILE to New york. “In horseracing, there’s this hospitable thing for assistant trainers,’” leigh said. “‘We don’t even know you, but come with us to stay.’”

Anita said, “he was a friend of a friend.

We had a meal with him and said, ‘Stay the night if you want to.’” he did. Two days later she received flowers and a thank you note from Arnaud. “It was very thoughtful,” Anita said. “I was impressed with him. he was also very handsome.” leigh and Arnaud met in passing in New york. “I shook his hand and said, ‘hello,’” leigh said.

Smooth, wasn’t she?

They reconnected in Florida when Arnaud was at Payson Park and leigh was at Palm Meadows. They started dating.

Arnaud was committed to two months in Dubai prepping Clement’s Dynever for a

second-place finish in the 2005 Dubai World Cup. When Arnaud returned, he and leigh continued growing their relationship.

She felt like she had found her life-mate.

“People don’t understand the lifestyle or the passion,” she said. “Why would you wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning? Why work with an animal that can hurt you?

Why would you work in the rain? Because you have the passion for it.”

Arnaud felt the same way.

By 2004, both Arnaud and leigh were ready to go on their own. Together.

“Everything seemed to come together,” Arnaud said. “We work together very well.

No confrontations at all. That’s a good thing to know before you jump into an adventure. leigh had a lot support from Graham and I had a lot of support from Christophe. It was the time to do it.”

They began with two horses at Fair hill in Elkton, Maryland, in 2007. Next, Cot Campbell sent five of his Dogwood Stable’s horses. Then Clement and Motion began shipping them horses. “I felt very comfortable doing that,” Clement said. “he would do the same for me.”

The Delacours’ first winner was rahoo, a Dogwood Stable runner who captured a maiden claimer at Colonial Downs, July 2nd, 2007. on September 29th of that year, their Jacob’s run was bumped and finished second in the $250,000 Gallant Bob Stakes at Philadelphia Park, now known as Parx.

As exciting as that may have been, Arnaud had an even more exciting concern right after the race: getting to his wedding on the Motions’ farm in Maryland on time. he was only 10 minutes late. They wed in the Motions’ garden. “It worked out very well,” Anita said. “It was a beautiful day. We had a band and a tent. It was just fun. It was a real fun wedding.”

The Delacours’ stable took on another dimension when roy and Gretchen Jackson sent a string of their lael Stable stock.

“

We work together very well. No confrontations at all. That’s a good thing to know before you jump into an adventure Arnaud Delacour

Divining Rod winning the Grade 3 Coolmore Lexington Stakes 48

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”

“They’re good people and they work hard,” Gretchen said. roy added, “We had known them from having horses with Christophe Clement.

We knew they were starting out in Fair hill. We decided to send them some horses.

We’ve been nothing but pleased. It worked out for both of us.”

Arnaud said, “The Jacksons live close to Fair hill. They come every week to see their horses. It’s a very good relationship. We feel privileged to train for people like that.”

Initially, leigh was listed as their horses’ trainer. “It was cheaper to run under my name,” leigh said. “We switched in 2013.

It’s been the exact same dynamic since we hung the plaque out in 2007.”

That dynamic is rather amazing. “It works for us,” leigh said. “We’re a team in almost everything we do. We look at our relationship as a team in the barn and at home. We’re both kind of laid back. I make my opinion known at the barn and defer to Arnaud, and Arnaud makes his opinion known in the house and with expenses and defers to me. We both listen to each other.

We’re very comfortable.”

Arnaud, asked why their relationship works, said, “I think it’s because leigh and

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PROFILE I are laid back to begin with. We don’t get excited too much. I ask everyone’s person’s opinion. leigh is like that as well. We’re on the same page.”

Their first $100,000 earner was the mare Supreme, who had four victories and five seconds, including one in a Grade 3 stakes, from just 10 starts before retiring in 2011.

“What a neat mare,” leigh said. “A blast from the past. She took us out of the East Coast.”

The Jacksons gave the Delacours their first great horse, the filly Ageless, who won her first two starts by 7¼ lengths and six lengths, respectively. Ageless won a Grade 3 stakes in both 2014 and 2015. In between, she was beaten only three-quarters of a length when she finished fourth against males in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint to Bobby’s Kitten. She retired in 2016 with 11 victories, four seconds, and five thirds from 23 starts with earnings topping $700,000.

“She was amazing,” leigh said. “She was so consistent. The Jacksons told us to be patient with her. She didn’t run often. She didn’t have a lot of starts. We retired her when she was seven. She was sound. She’s in foal to Speightstown. Ageless was unique to us because she took us to the next level.”

Three stars took them even higher in 2015 and 2016. A. P. Indian, a gelding who was trained by rusty Arnold in his first five starts, wound up with the Delacours in early 2015. he won a $100,000 stakes that year then hiked his game to the highest level of racing last year. After finishing second and getting placed first via disqualification in the Decathlon Stakes on May 14th at Monmouth Park in his six-year-old debut, A. P. Indian reeled off five more scores: the $100,000 Donald levine Stakes at Parx, the Grade 3 Belmont Sprint Championship, two Grade 1s – the Alfred G. Vanderbilt and the Forego – at Saratoga, and the Grade 2 Phoenix at Keeneland. Sent off at 5-2 in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita, he finished fourth, but was moved up to third on the disqualification of Masochistic from second place. his six victories in seven starts earned more than $1.1 million.

A. P. Indian will race as a seven-year-old. “he’s eating grass in ocala,” leigh said on January 1. “he started jogging yesterday. he is a runner.” Arnaud said, “you could tell he was a different type of horse than the ones we usually get. he was fast. he was aggressive. he was on a roll.” lael Stable’s Divining rod, who won the Grade 3 lexington Stakes in 2015 by three lengths, made only four starts in 2016, winning his first two races before finishing second in the Grade 2 Fayette at Keeneland, and then, in a gutsy performance, second by a nose to Connect in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile at Aqueduct in his final two starts. “I’m very proud of Divining rod in the Cigar,” leigh said. “he was trying. he was fighting.

And I commend him for that.”

WinStar Farm’s three-year-old filly Dark Nile reeled off four consecutive victories 50

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“

They have impressive attention to detail. They actually love horses. They complement each other perfectly

”

Graham Motion

in 2016, including the Grade 3 Delaware oaks, before finishing seventh in the Grade 1 Alabama to Songbird.

Who knows where lael’s promising three-year-old colt No Dozing will take the Delacours? After finishing fourth in the Grade 1 Breeders Futurity at Keeneland, he was second in the mile-and-an-eighth Grade 2 remsen at Aqueduct in his final start as a two-year-old last November 26th.

“Everything the horse has done has been good,” Arnaud said. “It’s nice to know he can go a mile and an eighth. I think at this stage, he could be a [Kentucky] Derby horse.

We’re very excited.”

These six stars for the Delacours have two things in common: not a lot of starts and an exceptional in-themoney percentage.

Collectively, Supreme, Ageless, A.P. Indian, Divining rod, Dark Nile, and No Dozing have 33 wins, 15 seconds, and 11 thirds from 69 starts, a remarkable 85.5 percentage.

It’s not a coincidence.

The Delacours have excelled at placing their horses. “I hate to run horses where they don’t belong,” Arnaud said. “It’s a bad experience for

them. I try to put them in races where they can be competitive. We like to be patient.”

The birth of their two boys, four-yearold luca and two-year-old Julien, tweaked leigh and Arnaud’s daily schedule slightly.

“Instead of coming at 4:30 in the morning, she comes at 7, rides, and goes back to the barn to 11, then she alternates her time between the boys and the books, which is a really big thing,” Arnaud said. leigh has stayed fit enough to ride six of their 60 horses every morning whether they are at Tampa Bay in the winter or at Fair hill or Delaware Park the rest of the year.

Clement and Graham are proud of the Delacours’ burgeoning success. “I’m very happy to see them do well,” Clement said.

“I’ve been close with him, even today. We talk quite often. Not only is he a good trainer, but he’s a nice guy.” like Graham, Anita is not surprised at the Delacours’ success. “Not in the slightest,” she said. “They have impressive attention to detail. They actually love horses. They complement each other perfectly.”

Arnaud was asked what makes him happiest in his job. “The morning, watching horses breezing and doing what they like,” he said. “That’s a great satisfaction to have them healthy and doing all right. I really enjoy the races, knowing a horse has a good shot. When it happens, it’s magic, a level of adrenaline. It’s a great feeling.”

Sharing it with the woman he loves makes it even better. n

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806.333.8589 www.SpeedSilks.com ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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INDUSTRY

PATERNAL AGE The effects of a sire’s age on progeny performance

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PATERNAL AGE

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INDUSTRY

P

ATernAL age has been found to have a variety of adverse effects on offspring characteristics, including the prevalence of mental disorders and decreased intelligence, in multiple other species such as humans and mice. The probable cause is the large increase in the rate of genetic mutations that occur in the sperm cells of older males. What is the situation in the Thoroughbred horse?

This study sought to determine if the proportion of successful progeny produced changed as the stallions increased in age.

The study analyzed the racing performances of 26,650 progeny produced by 20 stallions

Naturally, the sire and dam contribute equally to the genetic constitution of a racehorse. Previous research has found advanced mare age to have negative influences on racehorse performance after nine years of age and the fifth foal parity. However, to date there has been no single study in which the role stallion age plays in progeny performance has been examined.

WORDS: AliSOn BRASSil – UniveRSity Of limeRick PHOtOS: HORSePHOtOS, GileS AnDeRSOn

over a 25-year period from 1985-2010.

In order to be eligible for the study, the stallions had to be retired from stud duties so that all progeny performance could be analyzed. The stallions had to have had an active breeding career of over 15 years

StallionS and the concurrent Stud fee groupS, number of foalS produced and length of breeding career Stallion 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Total

Number of Foals 2627 2069 1413 1106 1065 852 720 1232 979 2030 1468 1179 1052 2257 1451 1226 1285 917 758 964 26650

Stud Fee Group >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 30,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 85,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000 >ˆ 125,000

Breeding Career 4-22 yrs old 4-22 yrs old 5-19 yrs old 5-25 yrs old 5-23 yrs old 4-20 yrs old 5-18 yrs old 4-27 yrs old 5-21 yrs old 4-24 yrs old 4-18 yrs old 5-23 yrs old 6-27 yrs old 4-26 yrs old 5-25 yrs old 4-21 yrs old 4-25 yrs old 4-19 yrs old 4-17 yrs old 5-23 yrs old

Stallion age and the relative changeS in Stud feeS

in order to be considered of advanced age.

The last crop of foals had to be produced at least five years prior to the study to allow all progeny to have raced from the ages of 2-5 years.

As a sizeable number of foals were needed for each stallion in order to make the study a viable one, it was necessary to use popular stallions. Success in flat racing is greatly measured in black-type and by the number of Group and Listed race winners a stallion produces. It was therefore important to use premier stallions that had been proven to produce successful progeny and also to help prevent poor quality mares having an influence on the results, as a higher stud fee is associated with a higher quality mare.

In order to differentiate between stallions of different quality, the stallions were divided into three stud fee categories based on what the peak stud fee was: 30,000-85,000, 85,000-125,000, and 125,000-plus.

The progeny performance data was also examined in four separate groups depending on the age of the stallion at the time of conception: 4-9 years, 10-15 years, 16-21 years, and 22-27 years.

Foal crop size Overall, mean foal crop size produced by stallions at the age of 4-9 (62 foals) was the smallest, as it increased at age 10-15 (83) and was maintained thereafter. Only stallions in the 85,000-125,000 stud fee category produced a smaller foal crop (33) after the age of 22 than they did at ages 4-9.

The foal crop size of both the lower (30,000-85,000) and higher (125,000+) stud fee groups never fell below the number of foals produced at ages 4-9.

Starters The proportion of starters produced was high in all stud fee categories and was significantly maintained throughout all stallion age groups (80%).

Progeny gender Stallion age did not have an effect on the proportions of male and female progeny that was produced at any age.

Stud fees The stud fees of the 30,000-85,000 stallion category increased after age 4-9 and were maintained at a significantly similar level from the age of 10 through to 27 years of age. For the middle stud fee group of 85,000-125,000, the stud fee increased after age 4-9, peaked at age 16-21, and 54

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PATERNAL AGE

“

The overall proportion of Group race winners produced decreased progressively as the stallions increased in age

the effect of Stallion age on the proportion of liSted race-winning progeny produced by all StallionS Overall Listed race-winning progeny

”

subsequently fell at age 22-plus; however, it never fell below what the initial stud fee was at age 4-9.

The high-priced stallions in the 125,000-plus category increased steadily in mean stud fee from the age of 4-9 to 10-15. After age 16, the stud fee reached a plateau and was maintained through 27 years of age.

Progeny success in Listed races The stallions were overall 2.5 times more likely to produce a horse with black-type by being placed in a Listed race at age 4-9 (10.8%). This reduced to 7.8% after age 16 and 4.5% after age 22.

Overall, the stallions produced more Listed race winners at age 4-9 (7.5%) than at any other age. The proportion of listed winners decreased to 5.6% after age 10, 4.8% after age 16, and 1.8% after age 22.

The stallions were 4 times more likely to produce a Listed race winner at age 4-9 than at age 22+ (1.8%)

Stallion age at conception

the effect of Stallion age on the proportion of group race-winning progeny produced by all StallionS Overall Group race-winning progeny

Progeny success in Group races Younger stallions produced the highest proportion of Group race-placed progeny, with 9.9% at age 4-9. This decreased by half (5.8%) after age 16 and again by half (2.4%) at age 22-plus.

The overall proportion of Group race winners produced decreased progressively as the stallions increased in age. The stallions produced the highest mean percentage of Group race winners at the

Stallion age at conception

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INDUSTRY

data collection Stallion selection The stallions were selected without bias by screening through ‘new to stud’ lists from 1985-1997 until 20 stallions who met the criteria were found. The selection process resulted in 11 USAbased stallions and nine stallions based in europe (GB and Ire).

Stud fees The stud fees for each stallion used in the study were recorded for every year the stallion was active. This data was collected from the Racing Post database and by contacting the studs at which the stallions stood for the duration of their careers. All stud fees were converted to euro based on what the currency conversion rate was for each year using an online historic currency conversion calculator, confirmed by figures from the Central Bank of Ireland.

Progeny performance data All progeny racing performance data was recorded from the equineline database using ‘Sire Crop Analysis reports,’ which includes every foal born and all progeny raced in every country.

Due to the fact that equineline is an American database, all earnings were automatically converted to US dollars, regardless of the country in which the earnings were won.

Statistical analysis All data was coded and transferred to the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 software for statistical analysis. Various tests were carried out using this software to determine if the changes in the progeny racing performance were scientifically significant.

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ages of 4-9 (6.4%). This decreased to 4.9% after age 10 and 3.6% after age 16. The stallions were overall five times more likely to produce a Group race winner at ages 4-9 than at 22+ (1.4%).

When the progeny from each stud fee category was analyzed individually, it was found that all three stallion bands produced significantly less Group racewinning progeny after age 16 and again at age 22-plus. even the high-priced, 125,000plus stallions were five times more likely to produce a Group winner at age 4-9 (8.3%) than at 22-plus (1.9%). This decrease in the 125,000-plus category occurred after age 16 (4.9%) and again after age 22-plus despite the fact that a high stud fee, foal crop size, and proportion of starters was maintained.

As a high stud fee is associated with a higher quality of broodmare, it is possible to suggest that a good quality mare was also being bred.

Group 2- and 3-winning progeny The levels of Group racing were examined in closer detail and it was found that the lowest stud fee category of 30,000-85,000 was 6.5 times more likely to produce a Group 3 winner at age 4-9 (3.9%) than at 22-plus (0.6%). The 85,000-125,000 stallions followed the same pattern and

“

Even in the highest stud fee category of €125,000plus, the stallions produced a significantly smaller proportion of Group 1 winners after age 16 (1.9%)

”

were four times more likely to produce a Group 3 winner at age 4-9 (3.7%) than at 22-plus (0.9%). even in the most expensive stud fee category, the proportion of Group 3 winners produced decreased significantly after age 10 (4%) and were 5.5 times more likely to produce a Group 3 winner at age 4-9 (5.5%) than at 22-plus (1%).

While the proportion of Group 2 winners produced by the two lower stud fee categories was consistently low throughout, stallions priced 125,000-plus produced the most Group 2 winners at the ages of 4-9 (3.7%) and 10-15 (3.1%). The highpriced stallions were two times less likely to produce a Group 2 winner after age 16 (1.8%) and five times less likely to produce a Group 2 winner at age 22-plus (0.8%) despite the high stud fee being maintained.

Group 1-winning progeny Group 1 races are the pinnacle of racing and the ultimate goal for breeders. When the Group 1-winning progeny were examined among the different stud fee categories, it was found that the lower stud fee category of 30,000-85,000 did not show a significant decrease due to the low proportions of Group 1 winners produced throughout their entire careers.

In the 85,000-125,000 category, the stallions were three times more likely to produce a Group 1 winner at age 4-9 (2%) than after age 16 (0.7%), and they were 20 times more likely to produce a Group 1 winner at age 4-9 than at 22-plus (0.1%). even in the highest stud fee category of 125,000-plus, the stallions produced a significantly smaller proportion of Group 1 winners after age 16 (1.9%) and they were 25 times more likely to produce a Group 1 winner at age 4-9 (3.2%) that at 22-plus (0.1%). This decrease occurred despite the stud fee, foal crop size, and proportion of starters being maintained after the age of 16 and 22-plus. As a higher stud fee is associated with a higher quality mare, the

was completely blown away by Not This “ ITime.

He displayed a ton of talent, comes from

“

a great family, and is arguably one of the bestlooking new stallions. He’s my kind of horse!

–Jody Huckabay, Elm Tree Farm

4 3/4 Ragozin Fastest by a 2yo in 2016 0 Thoro-Graph Fastest by a 2yo in 2016 102 Beyer Fastest by a 2yo colt in 2016

INDUSTRY

the effect of paternal age on group 1-winning progeny produced by StallionS in each Stud fee category Group 1-winning progeny

“ Stallion age at conception

the effect of Stallion age on overall mean annual progeny earningS Overall mean annual progeny earnings

Champions, or horses that have won multiple Group 1 races, were usually sired by stallions in the top price range

”

annual progeny earnings still decreased from $113,623 at age 4-9 to $75,672 at age 16, and fell to just $34,860 when produced at age 22-plus.

Conclusions

Stallion age at conception

progeny performance decreased after age 16 and worsened after age 22 despite a higher quality of broodmare.

Champions, or horses that have won multiple Group 1 races, were usually sired by stallions in the top price range.

When the proportion of multiple Group 1-winning progeny was examined, it was found that the highest mean proportion of multiple Group 1 winners were produced by the stallions at age 4-9 (1.3%). This fell to 0% produced by stallions at age 22-plus.

Earnings Overall, the mean annual earnings won by progeny were the highest when produced at 58

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the age of 4-9 ($87,251) and 10-15 ($74,567).

When produced after the age of 16, the mean annual progeny earnings decreased to $58,549. The progeny produced by stallions at age 22-plus ($32,166) earned three times less than progeny produced at age 4-15.

When the stud fee categories were analyzed separately, it was found that in each category the progeny produced by stallions at age 22-plus earned three times less than progeny produced at age 4-9. even in the highest stud fee group of 125,000plus – where the foal crop size, proportion of starters, high stud fee, and presumably mare quality was maintained – the mean

This study is the first reported finding of an effect of stallion age on progeny racing performance in Thoroughbreds.

The relevance of stallion age as a factor affecting progeny performance is supported by the decreases in Listed raceplaced progeny, Listed race winners, Group race-placed progeny, Group race winners, and progeny earnings.

The most notable decreases in progeny performance occurred at the age of 1621 and again at age 22-plus. Both of these age groups produced significantly less successful progeny in all variables of racing performance when compared with progeny produced at age 4-9.

The study found that even in the highest stud fee category of 125,000-plus, where mare quality, stud fee, foal crop size, and proportion of starters were maintained, progeny performance decreased significantly after age 16 and worsened after age 22-plus. These stallions were 25 times more likely to produce a Group 1 winner at age 4-9 (3.2%) than at 22 (0.1%).

While the mechanism behind the effects of advanced paternal age on progeny performance is not clear, this may be an interesting area for future research.

The findings of this study may suggest that breeders may benefit from breeding to younger stallions due to a simultaneous decrease across all levels of progeny racing performance and rise in stud fees. n

PROFILE

Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander in 1983

THE SUNSHINE BOYS Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander

With more than a century’s combined experience with Thoroughbreds and a friendship spanning five decades, Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander are one of the most enduring double acts in West Coast racing.

WORDS: ED GOLDEN PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS, INGER DRYSDALE, JANE GOLDSTEIN 60

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O

N a rainy December morning just after daybreak, Ron McAnally, all 84 years of him, sat alone, protected only by the grandstand overhang at Santa Anita, where inside, early bird bettors get first crack at the day’s action.

This has been a ritual in McAnally’s twilight years, parking himself at a table facing west towards Barn 99, where bedded down are the 12 horses he trains, none of them worthy of being mentioned in the same breath with his champions of yesteryear – Bayakoa, Northern Spur, Paseana, Tight Spot, and legend of legends, two-time Horse of the Year John Henry.

RON MCANALLY & MURRAY FRIEDLANDER

Murray Friedlander and Ron McAnally in 2016

Yet there sits McAnally, joined when conditions permit by his friend and associate of half a century, Murray Friedlander, who, at 92, makes McAnally seem like he still qualifies for a kid’s menu.

An Irishman and a Jew, joined at the hip.

Call them the Sunshine Boys.

Difference is, unlike Neil Simon’s Al Lewis and Willie Clark – a once successful vaudevillian comedy duo known as The Sunshine Boys who, as animosity grew and income turned penurious late in their 43year run, ceased to speak with each other – McAnally and Friedlander never have a row.

Even now, with the vestiges of youth but a memory and Father Time counting to 10, they soldier on gracefully.

Friedlander calls McAnally “a dear and loyal friend, an excellent professional. He’s in the Hall of Fame, which is well deserved.”

“We’ve been friends for 45 years,” allowed McAnally, a member of the hallowed Hall since 1990. “Murray is very intelligent, been all over the world, to all countries, and when we look for horses, he knows which ones fit in the United States, horses with good conformation, good feet, good bones.”

One such animal was Northern Spur,

“

Murray is very intelligent, been all over the world, to all countries, and when we look for horses, he knows which ones fit in the United States

Ron McAnally

”

champion turf horse of 1995. Little wonder Friedlander has played Gabby Hayes to McAnally’s Roy Rogers lo these many years.

“We managed to buy Northern Spur, winner of the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Belmont Park in 1995, for owner Charles Cella. Cella and Ted Bassett were good friends back then and still are today,” McAnally said. “Bassett was scheduled to present a trophy to the winning connections in another race that day but instead he presented it to Cella because of their friendship.

“They both stood in the winner’s circle in tears. Murray was there, too.”

But their greatest coup came in the spring of 1992 with Dr Devious, a three-year-old colt trained by McAnally. Sid Craig received the horse as a 60th birthday present from his wife, diet system founder Jenny, who bought Dr Devious for $2.5 million.

Hopes were high for the Irish-bred to win the Kentucky Derby, but he could only finish seventh.

“Sid called me at a hotel in Louisville after the Kentucky Derby and said, ‘What do you think about him?’” McAnally said. “I told him Dr Devious was a grass horse and we should take him back to England, which we did.”

Returned to the stable of his British trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam, he won the Epsom Derby by two lengths. Dr Devious finished first or second in all of his eight starts in Britain through that race. Next out, he was second in the Irish Derby and was found afterwards to be sick.

Friedlander was introduced to McAnally by jockey agent Ralph Theroux at a Coney Island restaurant called Lundy’s.

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PROFILE

Murray was “raised a little more than a horseshoe’s toss from Pimlico Race Track,” according to excerpts from a Daily Racing Form story years ago. “He started walking hots there before going to school, learned a lot about Thoroughbreds from a Russian cavalryman in Shanghai, and worked in France and England under top horsemen including champion trainer Francois Mathet.

“Friedlander is fully versed in methods on both sides of the Atlantic. His earliest recollections of racing are of Reigh Count, Gallant Fox and Twenty Grand, whom he saw when his father took him to racing at Pimlico. Even though it was family influence that first got him to the track, Friedlander recalls his parents ‘weren’t too enchanted’ when he started walking hots. They were, no doubt, happy when he went to the University of North Carolina. He had completed two years there when he enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. “He served three-and-a-half years and was assigned to Intelligence,” where “’They 62

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taught me a little Chinese – enough to find my way around the streets – and assigned me and four other men to do a military, economic and political history of the American participation in the war in China. “’I spent the time in Chunking and Shanghai, where there was a race track.

“

It was unfortunate that all five of us had to be in the orphanage. But during that time I taught myself to take things in stride . . . I’ve found it’s best to keep your emotions in balance

Ron McAnally

”

Every morning I galloped horses. Before that I had only ridden saddle horses, but I got a lot of help from a former White Russian cavalry officer at the track. He taught me a great deal.’

“Discharged and back in the U.S. in 1946, Friedlander walked hots, groomed horses and learned more about riding as he worked at Monmouth, Saratoga, Belmont and in New England. In January of the next year he returned to the University of North Carolina where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1948.

“Friedlander then decided to go to Paris and continue school at the Sorbonne, but the lure of racing proved too strong after a year’s study.”

“While still at Sorbonne, he got a job as a stable lad with Mathet, working with horses in the morning and attending classes in the afternoon. Friedlander returned to the U.S. in 1955 and went to work for the late Max Hirsch, galloping horses at Columbia, S.C. He also worked for Frank Adams and Gene Jacobs.

RON MCANALLY & MURRAY FRIEDLANDER John Henry, Bayakoa (top right) and Northern Spur (bottom right)

“Friedlander was training a small stable in San Francisco in late 1965, lost his last horse and came to Los Angeles, where William Haggin Perry asked him if he would work as an assistant to trainer Jim Maloney, who had stalwarts Gamely, Jacinto, Boldnesian, Romanticism, Princessnesian and Morgaise in his care.”

It was soon after that, circa 1970, that Friedlander would join McAnally on their round the world tours in search of blue blood stock.

The foundation on which McAnally’s straight-laced philosophy stands evolved during Kentucky’s post-Depression poverty.

For eight years, from age five to 13, McAnally lived in a draconian orphanage called the Covington Protestant Children’s Home.

In that strict, stark environment, Ron, his oldest sister Billie Jean, younger brother Bob, sister Ruby, and youngest brother Joe spent their early years.

“My mother died when she was 23,” McAnally said. “Probably what killed her was having all of us within a short period of time.

My father, Floyd, put us in the orphanage because he just couldn’t provide for us.”

Seven decades later, McAnally harbors no ill feelings towards the experience. In fact, he attributes his success to it.

“It was unfortunate that all five of us had to be in the orphanage,” he said. “But during

“

When Silky Sullivan was a two-year-old, I kept telling Reggie that he was outrunning everything. He said, ‘Try and give the others a head start; that way it will equal them up.’

Ron McAnally

”

that time I taught myself to take things in stride . . . I’ve found it’s best to keep your emotions in balance.”

McAnally survived on one staple in the dreary days at the orphanage – hope.

“I would dream of training horses and what I would do if it all came true,” he said.

“The orphanage was sort of like being in the military. It was very regimented, and I can look back and see why. There were about 200 children, and had there been no regimentation, it would have been chaotic.

“We were strongly reprimanded when we misbehaved. I’m glad now, because it taught us to be respectful and to pay attention.”

McAnally learned his three R’s at the race track thanks to his uncle, Reggie Cornell, who trained the fabled Silky Sullivan.

“It all started in Latonia, Kentucky, where I was born,” McAnally said. “It’s right next to Covington. It was around 1946 and Reggie was married to my aunt, Louella, who was my mother’s sister. He came to Kentucky and asked me if I’d like to work at the racetrack. I was only about 13 or 14, and ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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PROFILE jumped at the chance. Eventually, I wound up in California in 1948.”

McAnally immediately recognized the extraordinary talent of Silky Sullivan, whose mythic stretch kick would make his name an adjective to describe any horse’s victory from far off the pace.

“When Silky Sullivan was a two-year-old, I kept telling Reggie that he was outrunning everything. He said, ‘Try and give the others a head start; that way it will equal them up.’ To this day, I really feel that’s how Silky Sullivan learned his style of running. He kept dropping back more and more, but he would turn it on in the stretch and catch ‘em.

“Many people don’t realize this, but he actually was a sprinter. He was very, very lucky to win the Santa Anita Derby (in 1958).

He went on to the Kentucky Derby, and it was obvious he could not get a mile and a quarter. But he was a good story and people got a big kick out of him. He was the ideal horse for such a story. He was just a big clown and nothing bothered him.”

McAnally has relied on former trainer and astute horseman in his own right Dan Landers as his trusted assistant for more than two decades. At 67, Landers does all the heavy lifting, so to speak.

“I go back with Ron and Murray when Murray was still training and galloping his own horses. That’s got to be the early ‘60s,” said Landers, born in San Mateo, California.

“They’ve been very successful together.

Ron still wears a sports coat and tie when he goes to the winner’s circle, and whenever a horse Murray selects wins, he’s the most dapper person in the paddock, bar none.

“Ronnie’s old school in that respect, too, but Murray is the bon vivant, silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and everything to go with it.”

Landers has been with McAnally going on 23 years. It’s been a successful match.

“I do the physical work, but he’s the boss,” Landers said. “I know what he wants and he gets what he wants.”

Even though McAnally will be 85 on July 11, 2017, he has no thoughts of retiring from a career that began 54 years ago, in 1963, when he won three races from 50 starters who earned $9,045.

“When you retire, what are you going to do? The only thing I do when I finish my morning at Santa Anita is go to the gym and exercise. To me, that’s important to stay alive.”

After training hours at Santa Anita, McAnally hits the gym that’s 10 minutes away seven days a week. “I spend two hours there, and do a half-hour on the bike, a half-hour on the treadmill, and a half-hour lifting weights.”

Good health is vital, but it also helps to have an impartial and unprejudiced outlook on life.

“Looking back on my career, most of my success has been with Jewish people, good friends like Murray, and others like Sam Rubin (owner of John Henry) and Max Gluck (of Elmendorf Farm),” McAnally said.

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“

I go back with Ron and Murray when Murray was still training and galloping his own horses. That’s got to be the early ‘60s

Dan Landers

”

“I trained for Elmendorf for 20, 25 years and every year they would send me 20 babies, colts, fillies, that were either allowance horses or stakes horses. Max was a great guy. You need good horses to win the big races, and it’s good horses that put you in the Hall of Fame. Everybody thought it was John Henry that put me in the Hall of Fame; it was not. It was a guy named Max Gluck.

“Elmendorf had a farm manager named Jim Brady, who was the best. He’s still alive and I take him to dinner every time I go to Kentucky. Max was at the Hall of Fame ceremony at Saratoga when I gave my acceptance speech, and I told everybody right there that Max got me in.

“Then along came John Henry and that was the icing on the cake.

“Murray and I became friends not because he was Jewish. He’s very intelligent. His daughter, Susanna, is a psychologist. Murray knew what I wanted in a horse. Every chance I get I go to the deli and buy him smoked salmon and bagels, herring, Jewish rye bread. I know what he likes. Murray is a food connoisseur. It’s his specialty. He should have been a chef.

“For Christmas, he gave me a bottle of Perrier Jouet champagne with flowers on it. We have a great big showcase on our bar in our home in Tarzana and made it into a lamp. I got the idea at a restaurant called

Tout Charmant when I was in France. It had a big bottle made into a lamp on display.”

McAnally would go on to train a filly named Tout Charmant, winner of the Grade 1 Matriarch in 2000.

“Well-married, a man is winged; illmatched, he is shackled.”—Henry Ward Beecher.

That applies fully in McAnally’s marriage of 30 years to his third wife, Deborah.

“All the credit that I’ve received I give to her,” he said. “She’s one of a kind, very smart, very intelligent, very pretty. She’s been a schoolteacher and an actress and I had nothing when I met her.

“I had two other wives and all they did was spend.

“It takes a good woman to make a man and she let me do what I wanted to do, and that’s a major reason for a man’s success. If a woman is behind a man, he’ll be successful.

Debbie gave me the chance to do something that I love. She’s nothing but the best.”

The McAnallys have four residences: a condo in Pasadena, a few furlongs from Santa Anita; a three-and-a-half acre spread in Rancho Santa Fe near Del Mar; a home in Loma Santa Fe near Burbank; and a home in Tarzana, a San Fernando Valley town named after Edgar Rice Burrough’s jungle hero, Tarzan.

As to racing’s future, McAnally sees a need to create traffic, and one would think that would be an easy get considering the nightmarish traffic snarls in Southern California. Seems freeways are only clear when police are in pursuit on a car chase.

“Changes have to be made, although I’m not bright enough to know what those changes might be,” McAnally said. “There used to be 20,000 people at the track on weekdays. Now they’re lucky to have 20,000 on a weekend.

“A young crowd is important. I think Joe Harper (CEO and president of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club) has the right idea with Friday night concerts. At least they bring in the younger generation. Even though they don’t bet, with an exposure to racing, eventually they will.

“Racing has to be publicized and promoted. Alan Balch (former senior vice president of marketing and assistant general manager) was one of the best when he was at Santa Anita and 60,000 people were coming to the track on a weekend. He was very, very good, and (track president) Bob Strub recognized that.

“Alan loved the track and he’s still working at the track (as executive director of the California Thoroughbred Trainers, CTT), but there’s been a big change and unfortunately it’s not as good as it used to be, even though off-track betting really helps. They’ve got to bring in the younger generation.”

At their advanced age, that wouldn’t include McAnally and Friedlander (sounds like a law firm). They’re already on board and not about to call it a day.

These Sunshine Boys are going to ride off into the sunset. n

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SANTA ANITA HANDICAP • MARCH 11 SANTA ANITA DERBY • APRIL 8 ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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PROFILES

Flying under the radar

Five all-time leading trainers not to hit the headlines Five of the winningest trainers in racing history have been flying under the radar so long that it’s second nature to them. No national TV spotlight. No Triple Crown standouts. No Breeders’ Cup celebrations. But training titles? By the dozens, many of them consecutively.

These five gentlemen have done their job so well for so many years that they are among the only 18 trainers in racing history to win more than 3,600 races.

One, who came to be known as “King,” had his career jump-started by a bowling baron.

One was known as the Prince of Patch for his acumen with bad-legged claimers.

One literally had a racetrack come to him.

One’s dad was a cardiologist.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: CanaDIan HORSE RaCIng HaLL Of famE, fOUR fOOTED fOTOS, HORSEPHOTOS, SV PHOTOgRaPHY

King RichaRd

Richard Hazelton, the all-time leading trainer at Arlington Park 66

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When he was just beginning his career as a racing analyst for HRTV and TVG, trainer Richard Hazelton’s son Scott was on the backstretch at Santa Anita one morning.

“Here I was a young guy that nobody knew and Bob Baffert would almost shout out, ‘Do you people know who this kid’s dad is?

King Richard! Are you kidding me? His dad should be in the Hall of Fame before any of us,’” Scott said. “It gave me a kind of instant credibility that you couldn’t possibly get anywhere else. Being my dad’s son opened a lot of doors for me.’”

He did so quietly, even though he remains Arlington Park’s all-time leading trainer with 1,181 victories, nearly 300 more than any other trainer in the landmark Chicago racetrack’s history. “I’m a non-talker,” he admitted in a December phone interview.

When informed that he had three minutes to speak at his induction to the Illinois Sports Hall of Fame, he told them, “You can have two-and-a-half minutes back.”

Afterwards, Hazelton said, “I was pretty nervous when I got up there. I almost

couldn’t remember my name.”

His accomplishments speak loudly.

Eighty-six year-old Richard Hazelton’s 4,745 victories leave him eighth on the all-time trainer victory list. Behind him in ninth and 10th are Bill Mott and Todd Pletcher, respectively.

Hazelton captured eight titles at Arlington, 17 consecutive ones at Sportsman’s Park in Chicago, and eight straight and 13 in 15 years at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona.

But the son of a trainer started out as a jockey, riding in Phoenix, where he was born and raised, and then at Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. “I was 14, not old enough to ride in a race there,” he said.

So he put his age down as 16 and got away with it. “I won six races in one day with three seconds and a third in 1945,” he said.

“I was the leading rider at Caliente in ’45.”

His jockey career was brief. “I got too big,” he said. “I was riding at Caliente two days a week. I’d make the weight in the hotbox and fill up later.”

Ultimately, he turned to training. “I just

LEADING TRAINERS Frank Merrill - known at the Prince of Patch for his skill at transforming bad-legged claimers into winners

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Richard Hazelton (with Stetson) after his last graded winner Devil’s Halo at Hawthorne in 2008

didn’t have anything else to do and I had to make a living,” Hazelton said. He began his training career at the Nebraska bush tracks, then settled into a comfortable pattern, spending the spring through fall in Chicago and winter in Phoenix.

Robert Bensinger, the chairman and president of Brunswick Corp., the bowling equipment manufacturing company begun in 1845, helped Hazelton achieve early success. “Mr. Bensinger called me,” Hazelton said. “He was at Turf Paradise. I had just got started. He wanted me to claim a couple of horses for him. I told him, if I claim them, I’ll take them to Chicago. He said fine.”

Bensinger and Hazelton did alright in Chicago.

On Bensinger’s behalf, Hazelton bought a yearling for $18,000 in 1970. “That was a lot of money back then,” Hazelton said.

Bensinger named his yearling Full Pocket, a bowling reference.

Full Pocket made 47 starts, posting 27 victories, eight seconds, and six thirds with earnings of $424,031. “He was the best horse I ever trained,” Hazelton said.

Hazelton’s most durable horse was Maxwell G. He made an astounding 234 starts with 47 wins, 52 seconds, and 37 thirds with earnings of $181,420.

“He was a favorite of mine,” Hazelton said. “I claimed him at Pomona for $5,000.

He was one of the horses that come from dead last. He was a big favorite in Chicago and in Phoenix.”

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Asked how Maxwell G. stayed sound enough to make 243 starts, Hazelton said, “I think it was because he didn’t run the whole way. He had no speed. He didn’t have to run hard every race. He only ran threeeighths or a half-mile. He usually came from dead last.”

Full Pocket and Maxwell G. are cherished memories. Now retired, Hazelton lives with his son Scott’s family in Sierra Madre, California. Though he no longer goes to the races, he loves watching his son on TV covering racing. “I’m so proud of him,” Hazelton said.

Scott took a while to warm up to racing: “Growing up, my dad and mom told me to stay away from the track. ‘Don’t be a trainer.

It’s too hard.’ For me, it was boring to go to the track as a kid. It wasn’t until I was 13 or 14. I started going to the track with my dad

“

I started going to the track with my dad and saw how respected he is. I realized that everybody at the track was my family

”

Richard Hazleton

and saw how respected he is. I realized that everybody at the track was my family.”

The PRince of PaTch Such is the legacy of the late Canadian trainer Frank H. Merrill Jr. that more than 25 years after “The Prince of Patch” died at the age of 71 in 1990, he remains 11th in all-time victories with 3,974. In Canada, where he is in the Hall of Fame, he was also known as “The Greatest,” a sobriquet in the U.S. forever linked to Muhammad Ali. But Merrill’s accomplishments weren’t limited to Canada, where he won a record 19 training titles. He won titles at Gulfstream Park, Hialeah, and Arlington Park. He led all North American trainers in victories in 1955, 1958, and 1960.

He trained many outstanding horses, but the one that brought him the most attention was Puss n Boots, who decided to jump into the infield lake during a race at Fort Erie in 1961. Jockey Ronnie Behrens jumped into the lake to save the horse, momentarily forgetting that he couldn’t swim. Then Merrill jumped in to save his jockey, forgetting that he also couldn’t swim. The entire starting gate crew saved both jockey and trainer. It took the crew and a man in a rowboat an hour to drag out Puss n Boots, who had been leisurely swimming in the center of the lake on that hot afternoon. The incident is anything but forgotten. Fort Erie annually holds the $30,000 Puss n Boots Circle the Course Stakes on the last day of August. The

LEADING TRAINERS

“

Merrill trained many outstanding horses, but the one that brought him the most attention was Puss n Boots, who decided to jump into the infield lake during a race at Fort Erie

”

winning owner, trainer, and jockey – but not their horse – jump into that lake. You can even go on YouTube and see memorable Puss n Boots leaps into the lake, including jockeys still in their silks.

Born in Branford, Ontario, in 1919, Merrill was the son of an Italian immigrant fruit dealer. At the age of 14, Merrill left school to join his uncle Fred, a trainer in London, Ontario. After grooming and galloping horses, Merrill became a trainer.

He said his favorite horse was Alstimu.

“We used to call him Ali Baba, after the 40 thieves,” Merrill said. “When he ran, it was like stealing money. He won six races in 1949 and five out of seven the next year. What a horse! He was bowed in both legs and two popped knees. But he had a heart as large as a watermelon. What a competitor – a quiet horse with character.

He was a money machine.”

Eventually, Merrill became known as “The Prince of Patch” for his ability to turn bad-legged claimers into winners. In 1965, Merrill wrote a book, “Hints for Horsemen,

Frank Merrill won a record 19 training titles in Canada, as well as titles at Gulfstream Park, Hialeah and Arlington Park

The Observations of a Practical, Successful Horseman.” The book revealed many of his treatments, and he supplemented his income selling “Merrill’s Turf Supplies.”

More than a quarter century after his passing, his legacy as one of racing’s most successful trainers endures.

The TRacK came To him Many trainers are asked, “What brought you to the racetrack?” Not Chris Englehart.

The 61-year-old native of Canandaigua, New York, was seven years old when the brand new Finger Lakes Racetrack opened seven

miles from his house in 1962. His father Foster was a factory worker who took him to the track for the first time when Englehart was 10. He didn’t want to be anywhere else from then on. “I knew right away,” he said.

“We’d go catch the last race after he got off the factory on weekdays and on Saturdays. I started walking hots when I was 11. I would sneak in and walk horses for trainer Dean Montgomery. He had a big stable and a couple of my friends worked for him. They were shorthanded one day. My friends asked me to do it. I walked one horse for $1.

I thought this was easy money. This is nice.

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I went back. He wound up taking me over to security the next year when I was 13 and actually lied about my age and they gave me a badge.”

He hasn’t left, while also racing horses in New York at Saratoga, Belmont Park, and Aqueduct. “I never had aspirations to do anything else,” he said. “I never cared about going to college and learning anything else. I was getting the education I needed. I learned later that it would have been better to take business classes. But when you’re young, you don’t think like that.”

Englehart, who is 12th all-time in victories (3,950), began working for Mike Ferraro Sr., an incredibly successful Finger Lakes trainer who currently is 26th all-time in victories (3,170) thanks to a gaudy winning percentage of 25. Long after Englehart worked for him, Ferraro uncorked one of the biggest upsets in racing history when his New York-bred Finger Lakes shipper, the giant gray Fio Rito, who absolutely adored Saratoga, captured the 1981 Whitney Stakes, defeating, among others, Winter’s Tale, The Liberal Member, Noble Nashua, and Ring of Light.

Englehart took out his trainer’s license on his 18th birthday in 1973 and found a willing partner for the rest of his life in his wife Sheila. “She was galloping horses for me when she was still in high school,” Englehart said.

Sheila said, “I’d ridden horses all my life.

I showed Quarter Horses in a local 4-H club.

He was hotwalking. We grew up together. I grew up on a dairy farm. He grew up in the city. We called him the city boy who loved horses.”

Englehart said, “She’s always worked in the barn for me. Her job changed when

“

PROFILES

Most of my wins are at Finger Lakes and it doesn’t get the same emphasis. It’s almost impossible to win that many races in New York

Chris Englehart

”

we had a bigger stable. She really runs the stable at Finger Lakes and does a great job.

She’s the unsung hero of our barn. I won the New York-bred Trainer of the Year a few years ago. I was sitting at the table with my good friend David Donk. He was in the same barn with me at Finger Lakes. I said this when I accepted the award: ‘My friend David Donk asked me a few minutes ago if I was going to send my wife up there to accept the award.’”

Englehart was one of six children. Sheila was one of six children. They have six children. “We’ve been very blessed,” she said. “It’s been a great family story for quite a while.”

It’s not likely to stop anytime soon thanks to the ongoing trainer success of two of their sons, Jeremiah, who had a breakout Saratoga meet in 2016, and his younger brother Jeff. Jeremiah worked for his father and trainers Kenny McPeek and Mike Hushion before opening his own stable in 2003.

Englehart was gunning for his 14th consecutive training title at Finger Lakes this year. He lost, 129-to-116, to Jeremiah.

Jeff finished seventh with 51 victories.

“I’d rather have won, but I guess if you’re going to get beat, it should be by your son,” Englehart said. “He had a little bit of a guilty feeling. He’d rather have beaten someone else than his dad, but he wasn’t going to stop. I was proud of him. He’s a very, very good horseman.”

Asked who she was rooting for to win the title this year at Finger Lakes, Sheila was quite diplomatic. “I wanted us to win it, for sure, but I’m so proud of Jeremiah and Jeff,” she said. “I am so proud of them. They work so hard. It’s hard to be a trainer.”

Englehart’s career took off in 2002. “I was at Belmont in March, 2002, and people were coming up to me and said they were going to send me some horses,” he said. “I went home and told Sheila, ‘We’re going to have a lot of horses.’ Maybe it was because of my son, Jeremiah, who is very talented.

We’re at both tracks year-round now. We both have over 110 horses. He’s just gotten up that high.”

Englehart deflects praise on his success to his two long-time assistants, Pedro Ramos and Manny Gonzalez.

Sheila was asked about her husband’s success and said, “He likes the claiming game. He’s good at it. Chris has a knack for that. He reads the condition book well.

So he’s pretty good that way. And we have fantastic owners.”

Asked about getting less attention because his early success was at Finger Lakes, Englehart said, “It’s fine with me, for sure. Most of my wins are at Finger Lakes and it doesn’t get the same emphasis. It’s almost impossible to win that many races in New York. It’s still a good run.”

Winner of 11 consecutive training titles at the track, Jeff Runco with Researcher after winning at Charles Town

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LEADING TRAINERS His run included a period at Aqueduct in the winter of 2010-2011 when he won with seven straight starters, one off the record for consecutive victories. “I won 11 in a row at Finger Lakes,” Englehart said. “I’ve always been kind of streaky. I always told my owners that when I’m hot and when I’m cold there’s no explanation. It happens. I try not to read into it too much.”

The caRdiologisT’s son Jeff Runco’s dad was a cardiologist at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Fifty-seven-year-old Runco, who was born in Columbus, Ohio, found a different life in Omaha at the now long gone Ak-Sar-Ben, which is Nebraska spelled backward. He began in racing as a jockey.

“My dad had some friends with horses,” Runco said. “We went to some horse farms. I was a junior in high school. I was still trying to figure things out. I learned to get on horses at Ak-Sar-Ben when I was 16. I liked galloping horses. I hooked up with one of the trainers, Bill Burns, who took me south for the winter. He gave me my first mount at Fonner Park in Grand Island, Nebraska. That was my first mount. I was nervous. I didn’t do any good, but at least I got around. The horse’s name was Charming Baby.”

A fortuitous trip to Louisiana boosted Runco’s riding career. “I hooked up with Bud Delp,” he said. “I was in Louisiana, getting on a few horses. He asked me if I wanted to ride his second string in Maryland. The first day there I won three races for him. Then things took off.”

But he couldn’t keep his weight off. He met his wife, Susan, and they decided to train. Eventually, they bought a farm, Coleswood, and found a home in Charlestown, West Virginia.

“We’ve been here the whole time,” Runco said. “It’s easy access to all the tracks we race at, all along the Mid-Atlantic: Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Delaware, and West Virginia. It’s a good location to race from.”

When there’s racing. “When Charles Town closed for four years in the late ‘90s when they didn’t get slot machines, I trained at Penn National,” Runco said. “We were in the top five every year.”

When Charles Town reopened with slots, Runco began a reign of dominance. His training title in 2016 was his 11th consecutive one. It’s also where his best horse, Researcher, won consecutive runnings of the Charles Town Classic, in 2009 when the purse was $615,000 and in 2010, when it was $1 million. Previously, Researcher captured the Grade 3 Queens County Handicap at Aqueduct in 2008. “It was awesome when he won in New York,” Runco said. “Then he beat some nice horses in the Charles Town Classic.”

All told, under Runco’s watch, Researcher was 13-for-24 on dirt with six seconds. He also finished third in two turf tries. Researcher retired in 2012 with career earnings of just under $1.4 million. “He’s in Virginia,” Runco said. “The horse has settled into a new career now. He’s a foxhunter.

I’ve been down there to see him. He’s on a beautiful farm in Middleburg. He’s got a great life.”

So does Runco. And he can’t thank his wife enough. “Susan runs the farm and all the breeding operations,” he said. “She takes care of all the mares. She’s been a huge part of the operation. She does it all.”

Runco feels that a trainer has to do it all to oversee the 45-48 horses in his stable. “The racetrack is a tough game,” he said. “It’s seven days a week. You have to be focused on it.

It’s an everyday job. You’ve got to take care of your horses.

They’re all individuals. You really have to be there all the time. I’ve got the best help, two assistants, Steve Blackford and Mike Kaekzel. Been with me a long time.”

Success can have that kind of effect. Runco is 14th in alltime victories (3,840). Asked where he’d like to be in five years, he replied, “Larger stable and more quality.” He’s perfectly content at Charles Town: “We’ve got a pretty good niche here.”

Saturday, March 11, 2017 Tampa Bay Downs Festival Day: The biggest racing day in track history, with more than $900,000 in stakes purses alone, is highlighted by the 37th renewal of the Grade II, $350,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby for 3-year-old Triple Crown candidates. It is a “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points race. Other showcase events include the Grade II, $200,000 Hillsborough Stakes and the Grade III, $200,000 Florida Oaks, both on the turf; the $100,000 Challenger Stakes; and the brand-new Columbia Stakes on the grass. To help celebrate Festival Day, a commemorative gift item will be given out with paid admission, while supplies last.

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Gerald Bennett won his first training title last year at Tampa Bay at the age of 70 and is the 18th all-time leading trainer with 3,622 victories

The RighT Job is beTTeR Than ThRee Jobs Trainer Gerald Bennett, who seems to be peaking as he begins his ‘70s, was working three jobs in Toronto, pumping gas and working in a machine shop and at an A&P, when a friend who was working on a horse farm changed his destiny. “He would tell me about the horses,” Bennett, now 72, said. “I went up there and started hotwalking. I just turned 18.”

Bennett turned to training and bought a training center for Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds in Campbellsville, Ontario, called Best Way Training Center. “We had a swimming pool, a treadmill, and tracks,” Bennett said. “We had about 45 stalls. We’d get horses from people like Gordon Huntly (a legendary Canadian Thoroughbred trainer) and harness horses for Ron and Keith Waples (top harness driver/trainers).”

At the same time, Bennett was training horses at Woodbine and Greenwood. His first winner was the first horse he saddled, Victorian Sun, at Greenwood in 1974. “I paid $2,500 for him and he beat the favorite that day, a horse ow6ned by Conn Smythe (founder of the National Hockey League’s Toronto Maple Leafs and founding member of the Jockey Club of Canada),” Bennett said.

“I remember Smythe turning to his trainer and saying, ‘If he can’t beat this bunch, sell him.’”

Bennett’s career took him to Michigan, 72

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where he trained at Detroit Race Course (DRC) and Hazel Park. Eventually he would train or ship horses to racetracks all over the United States. He used Michigan as his base. “When I first went there, they had Bill Mott, all kinds of top trainers at Hazel Park and DRC,” Bennett said. “We had a home there right across from the track at DRC. Made a comfortable living, breeding our own mares, Michigan-bred horses. We had one of the highest earning Michigan-breds, Secret Romeo (who made $865,790 off 23 victories in 55 starts). Detroit was a very good track. Very kind to horses. You could keep them together. We won a lot of races at DRC.” Indeed. Bennett won 18 training

“

Keep the horses happy.

Keep a good atmosphere.

That’s a great feeling walking into the barn and they’re happy to see you.

When they hear my voice, they all come out

Gerald Bennett

”

titles at Detroit Race Course and two at Thistledown in Ohio.

His best horse was Beau Genius, a million-dollar earner thanks to 19 victories, seven seconds, and four thirds in 42 starts.

Previously trained by Gerald Belanger in Canada and by Charles Payne in Ohio and Florida, Beau Genius joined Bennett’s stable and went on an incredible tear, winning six straight races and nine of 11 with a second and a third while taking on and beating the best horses in racing including Black Tie Affair, who went on to win the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Classic.

In Bennett’s care, Beau Genius won at Gulfstream Park, Churchill Downs, Arlington Park, Detroit, and Monmouth Park at distances ranging from six furlongs to a mile and a quarter. He captured the Haskell and the Michigan Mile.

Beau Genius was the last winning ride for Bill Shoemaker, taking a $50,000 stakes at Gulfstream Park on January 20th, 1990.

“He rode in one more race and didn’t win,” Bennett said.

Bennett is still kicking himself a bit for placing Beau Genius in the mile-and-a-quarter $3 million Breeders’ Cup Classic for the final start of his career at Belmont Park in 1990, instead of the $1 million Sprint. Beau Genius finished 10th in the Classic to Unbridled. “He should have been in the Sprint,” Bennett said.

Beau Genius went on to sire highweighted Irish juvenile filly Belle Genius, a Group 1 winner over seven furlongs.

Bennett hated to see Beau Genius retire to become a stallion. “When those type horses leave the barn, you cry,” he said.

At Detroit, racing secretary Allen Plever, who is now in the same job at Hawthorne, once described Bennett as “a constant worker, a tireless worker who never stops.”

In the mid ‘80s, Bennett began wintering in Florida, racing at Gulfstream Park, Hialeah, and Tampa Bay Downs. He tied with Jamie Ness for the Tampa training title in 2010-2011 and won his first Tampa title last year. This year, he’s been beyond belief, matching his own four-for-four Tampa Bay record for wins in a single day on the way to winning 13 races from 36 starts, eight more victories than any other trainer this winter.

His 44-year-old son Dale entered January third in the training standings with four scores from just 10 starters.

“When you’re going for training titles, you need owners with horses,” Bennett said. “You’ve got to have that desire to win races where people think you can’t. Keep the horses happy. Keep a good atmosphere.

That’s a great feeling walking into the barn and they’re happy to see you. When they hear my voice, they all come out. I tell exercise riders to sing to them or talk to them so they’re happy.”

He’s happy with the path he’s carved out, a career he’s shared with his wife, Mary, as he became 18th all-time in victories (3,622).

Asked if he regretted not racing at bigger tracks, he said, “Not really. I probably could have. But God’s been good to us.” n

VETERINARY

CONDYLAR FRACTURES How early detection can reduce raceday breakdowns 74

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CONDYLAR FRACTURES

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VETERINARY

While the Thoroughbred racehorse is the perfect example of athletic form and function, due to the biomechanical forces involved at full gallop musculoskeletal failure has the potential to be life-threatening. Aside from the welfare considerations and the loss suffered by connections, catastrophic injuries at the racetrack are highly public events and can be the yardstick by which many judge our sport and industry.

WORDS: PETE RAMZAN BVSc(SyDNEy), MRcVS PHOTOS: HORSEPHOTOS, PROFESSOR cELIA MARR

Positioning for (above) ‘flexed dorsopalmar’ (forelimb), and (below) ‘flexed plantarodorsal’ (hindlimb) radiographic projection

I

N laboratories around the world much research effort is being directed at finding the causes of bone failure in racehorses, and the imperative to reduce injury rates has driven the USA’s recent exploration of artificial surfaces. Despite this, scientific solutions--whether in the form of lowinjury training programmes, low-risk track surfaces, or easily applicable screening tests--remain over the horizon. However, the key to reducing injury rates could actually be in our grasp already, and could simply involve the application of some ‘front-line’ veterinary common sense.

The most common cause of raceday fatalities worldwide is fetlock breakdown, with condylar fracture (involving the lower end of the cannon bone at the level of the fetlock) being the most important injury at this site. Although ‘broken’ legs arising from condylar fractures are acute events occurring at high speed, we know that actually in most cases they are the end result of a process that develops over the preceding weeks and sometimes months.

Condylar fractures typically start as small fissures at the lower end of the cannon bone, and if trained on undetected these short cracks will ultimately propagate to true fracture when the leg is subjected to the huge loads associated with galloping.

While this has been common knowledge in the veterinary world for some time, very little hard data that might assist vets with early diagnosis and better management have actually been collated on the clinical features associated with these condylar fissures.

In order to address this need, we gathered together all case details of condylar ‘fissure’ fractures occurring in racehorses under the care of Newmarket, England-based Rossdales racing vets over the course of eight years. Forty-five cases were identified, and results of the study have been published this year in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

Greater awareness by racing vets of these early condylar fractures will lead to many of these horses getting screened out in future, before injuries have the opportunity to progress to complete fracture. Several key findings of importance to both racing vets and trainers were documented in the study.

Lameness is low grade and limbs are clean The first of these was that at the time of diagnosis condylar ‘fissure’ fractures are usually associated with only milder grades of lameness. The typical presentation is of a horse in full work displaying a low-grade lameness on one limb, slowly getting worse over the course of a few days or weeks.

Sometimes the lameness might initially only be evident under tack, with the horse 76

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CONDYLAR FRACTURES trotting up satisfactorily in hand. This kind of lameness is quite distinct from that seen with the other important fetlock condition encountered regularly in racehorses, palmar/plantar osteochondral disease (also variously termed ‘POD,’ ‘bone bruising,’ or ‘condylar concussion’). POD tends to be associated with horses that are ‘scratchy’ on more than one leg, and as a general rule these horses can safely carry on training indefinitely.

Another important finding of the Rossdales study was that fetlock joints affected by these early condylar ‘fissure’ fractures are normal on palpation. Contrary to popular belief, the most ‘dangerous’ fetlock joints in the racehorse (those in which a developing condylar fracture is quietly edging closer to serious injury) are not those that carry heat or are swollen or sore-to-flex; the ‘fissure’ fetlocks are almost invariably cold and tight, with nothing to give away clinically (other than lameness) that an injury is present.

‘Angry’ fetlock joints are more typically associated with pathologies such as chip fractures or soft tissue injuries, which can present their own problems but generally speaking do not progress to serious/lifethreatening injury. This lack of clear clinical pointers in condylar ‘fissure’ horses usually means that nerve blocking may be required to localize the lameness to the fetlock region. .

Obtaining the right radiographic projection is critical When presented with a lame horse that has clean-handling limbs, the veterinarian must utilize some form of diagnostic imaging to determine whether a condylar fissure is present. The first port of call is usually an x-ray machine, and the Rossdales study showed that just over three-quarters of condylar fissures can be detected using conventional radiography. However the crucial point here is that there is only one specific radiological projection that serves to visualize the part of the cannon bone in which these injuries occur: the ‘flexed’ dorsopalmar (DP), or ‘flexed’ plantarodorsal for hind fetlocks, view.

None of the other ‘standard’ projections of the fetlock joint are of any use in the diagnosis of condylar fissures. In addition, it is of considerable importance that good quality positioning and exposure factors are used, because the bone changes associated with condylar fissures seen on an x-ray can be very subtle; it is often the case that several radiographs at slightly varying angles need to be taken to confirm the presence of an injury.

While this ‘flexed DP’ projection is easy to do and has been in use for decades now, it has only been relatively recently (since the Hong Kong Jockey Club included it in their obligatory pre-import radiography schedule in 2013) that many veterinary practices have started to use it routinely.

It can easily be argued that the ‘flexed DP’

a)

b)

Example of importance of obtaining several ‘flexed DP’ projections; fissure in this case not visible on (a), but appears in (b), taken at slightly different angle. This horse was subsequently confirmed with MRI as having marked pathology at the site and was high risk for serious injury

projection is the single most important radiographic view that can be taken in a racehorse, and it is long overdue that racing vets become competent in both its acquisition and interpretation.

MRI is the gold standard While radiography picks up most condylar fissures, some of these injuries are very subtle or even ‘silent’ on x-ray (at least initially), and in a proportion of cases MRI is the logical next step to prove or disprove the presence of a developing fracture.

Standing low-field MRI is geographically and economically within reach of many trainers now (in Newmarket the cost of MRI is around £600), and with expert interpretation of images it is widely recognized as the gold standard for fetlock fracture risk assessment in racehorses.

Does scintigraphy have a role?

While bone scan is invaluable for wholebody screening for other stress injuries

“

While radiography picks up most condylar fissures, some of these injuries are very subtle or even ‘silent’ on x-ray (at least initially) and in a proportion of cases MRI is the logical next step

”

(such as those occurring in the tibia or pelvis), it lacks the technical resolution to differentiate condylar fissure fractures from other, less serious conditions such as palmar osteochondral disease (‘bone bruising’). For example, a horse with a condylar fissure can have a relatively normal fetlock on bone scan, while a horse with ‘bone bruising’ can have an intense ‘hot-spot.’ For this reason, a lameness already isolated to the fetlock region is best investigated with radiography and/or MRI, rather than bone scan.

Outcome in the Rossdales study The Rossdales study provided useful information on outcome and rehabilitation of condylar fissure fractures. A very high proportion (93%) of injured horses that were not retired for other reasons successfully returned to the racetrack. Rehabilitation usually involves simply removing the horse from ridden exercise (typically for 4-8 weeks, depending on individual progress); because the injury has been caught at an early stage there is no need for supportive bandages or lengthy box rest. However the study also documented that a proportion of cases (17%) suffered re-injury of the same site at some point (sometimes many months) after returning to full work. Early indications are that this re-injury risk is mitigated by the surgical placement of a single screw in the lower cannon. The mechanism for the success of this intervention remains a source of debate among vets because it is generally not technically possible or desirable to have the screw very close to the fracture site (due to its proximity to the joint surface), however it does appear ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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VETERINARY a)

b)

Examples of condylar fissures; radiographic evidence can range from subtle (a) through to clear ‘fracture’-type linear defects (d, e) d)

they remain undetected: two horses with fissures that had been undetected on initial radiographs continued in training, aided by joint medication; both subsequently sustained catastrophic condylar fractures and were euthanased. Current thinking is that these condylar fissures will inevitably progress to full fracture if the horse continues in full work, although predicting how many gallops or races away this might be in any individual is not possible.

What practical steps can trainers and vets take to prevent condylar fractures?

The most important lesson for trainers in this study is that they should recognize that there is a window of opportunity when early cracks can be detected before the cannon actually breaks. Detection relies on being alert to the warning signs of impending condylar injury, and these signs are often quite subtle. Clearly, the use of non-targeted joint injections or training on systemic anti-inflammatories (such as bute) will mask low-grade lameness, and thereby hamper opportunities to pick these horses out of the string.

Intra-articular medication is an essential component of good racehorse sports medicine but if used without due caution it simply allows horses with condylar injuries to be trained closer to catastrophe.

Regardless of any great leaps forward in the science of fracture prevention that might emerge in coming years, it is a fair bet that racetrack breakdown rates will not diminish substantially until attitudes to anti-inflammatory use change.

e)

Does early intervention mean bigger vet bills?

to work; none of the seven horses that underwent surgery subsequently sustained a re-injury.

The Rossdales data also highlighted the danger that these condylar fissures pose if 78

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Absolutely not. None of the imaging needed to detect early cracks is expensive or particularly technical, and a veterinary culture of observing and getting to know individual horses well is often much more economical than one of indiscriminate use of medication (or indeed imaging).

Early condylar injuries generally only propagate to full fracture at fast speed, so

c)

there is often some leeway for the trainer to continue to monitor a new lameness over a period of time to determine whether the lameness is persisting or getting worse. This is much preferable to administering antiinflammatories and carrying on blindly.

Does every lame horse need to be radiographed?

Not at all, but when under pressure from an approaching race target or if time constraints preclude a ‘wait and see’ approach, the priority should always be to rule the fetlock out through imaging or blocking to give a measure of comfort that the horse is not nursing a potentially serious injury. Too many high profile breakdowns in the past have occurred in horses with a lameness (frequently attributed to a ‘bruised foot’) leading into the race; there is really no excuse for this in these days of mobile digital radiography, where obtaining good quality x-rays of a fetlock without sedation is commonplace..

So here we have it: the most important racehorse fracture worldwide can in many cases be detected before serious injury occurs, simply by using tools already at our disposal and with greater vigilance and smarter interventions by the trainervet team. Of course, there will always be some condylar fractures that do not give any warning and likewise we have not yet found the key to preventing serious fetlock fractures associated with pastern or sesamoid injuries.

But we now know enough about condylar injuries to say that there should be greater critique of statements in the press in the wake of serious condylar breakdowns that refer to horses ‘taking a bad step’ or suffering a ‘terrible accident’: terrible, yes, but in many cases accident, no. While it is possible that we may never be in a position to actually prevent these early cracks from developing in the first instance, it is certainly within our power to stop many condylar fissures from progressing to serious condylar breakdowns on the racetrack. n

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PROFILE

BUSINESS SNAPSHOT

Bloodstock Research Information Services Happy Broadbent

results in some of the great graded stakes producers. The computer identified stallions like Exclusive Native and Caro early in their stud careers, resulting in Spendthrift acquiring them. Even Queen Elizabeth II was so intrigued by BRIS, she made a visit to our offices to discuss her mare matings during her first trip to Kentucky in the early ’80s.

Several other businesses evolved from BRIS, including publications like the weekly newspaper Thoroughbred Times, the monthly Thoroughbred Record, and daily Thoroughbred Daily News.

What brought about the handicapping service?

WORDS AND PHOTOS: GILES ANDERSON

BRIS was the pioneer that computerized the breeding industry.

How did that all come about?

My dad Richard F. Broadbent III was living in Louisville and was a bloodstock agent buying and selling broodmares off the racetrack in the ’60s. Back then to research a pedigree it could take a couple of days and you had to have a complete research library.

Dad recognized the need to develop a way to provide owners and breeders with the American Produce Records, which was a complete library of broodmare records. At the time, he was good friends with Kentucky Fried Chicken founder John Y. Brown, who would let Dad use their computer system 80

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during the graveyard shift late at night to produce the American Produce Records. In 1971, he loaded up his RV and went from sale to sale, and every owner and breeder wanting to research a pedigree quickly bought the books which were updated annually. Once he sold over a million dollars worth of the books he bought his first computer mainframe system. By 1975, horsemen were able to start logging in and buying pedigree products via a dumb terminal at 300-baud rate.

With the use of the computer, Dad consulted for many farms like Spendthrift, Nelson Bunker Hunt’s Bluegrass Farm, Newstead Farm, and many more major operations. Mares on these farms were being mated based on the computer nicking information and it had some staggering

In 1984, we knew that The Jockey Club was going to start competing against us since we were the only game in town back then.

How else could we diversify the information that we collected? It was a no brainer to start developing added value products to horseplayers with the data. By 1986, the Thoroughbred industry started heading south with the tax law changes. We had new competition in the pedigree marketplace and we were developing new, innovative handicapping products, which really strapped us financially.

Within two years, we introduced the first computerized service for horseplayers and it finally took off. We used the same concept from the breeding industry by providing customers with information that gave them an edge, and horseplayers loved it. By 1996, the internet evolved and it gave us a larger, broader audience not only domestically but from international users.

And the Advanced Deposit Wagering service?

In the late 1990s we recognized that advanced deposit wagering (ADWs) were starting and they all wanted our customers

HAPPY BROADBENT

since we were the dominant leader in the handicapping world. Our goal was to keep our customers and offer one-stop shopping to them, so we started developing our own ADW platform in 1998. Thanks to Amtote president Ted Mudge, who put together a partnership with his tote company; longtime Amtote racetrack customer Beulah Park, who had an established telephone wagering operation in Ohio; and BRIS to create a ADW service called AmericaTab. Naturally when we launched AmericaTab in 2001, most all of our BRIS customers and telephone wagering accounts quickly started using the new computerized platform.

AmericaTab became one of the largest U.S.based ADWs in the next five years. Then we started getting calls from companies from all over the world interested in acquiring our business after they recognized the success we had with it.

My dad was getting older and was becoming more focused on a Christian-based ministry he founded, and he thought maybe it was time to probably sell the business if the right prospect came along. In late 2006, Churchill Downs announced that they were going to launch an ADW by Kentucky Derby 2007, called Twinspires.com. After a few months, Churchill Downs CEO Bob Evans and his team of Bill Carstanjen and Ted Gay inquired about the possibility of acquiring all of the BRIS companies, including AmericaTab. Churchill Downs was the perfect buyer because they wanted to take the business to the next level and they recognized its huge potential, so the deal closed on June

12, 2007. It was a brilliant acquisition by Churchill Downs. Now almost 10 years later, Twinspires.com is the leading ADW in the industry. Churchill Downs has been an incredible company to work for and they continue to invest heavily in this business.

Many of the talented people who helped us launch the ADW are still here today contributing to the Twinspires success, which I am very proud of personally.

What was it like working for your father for over 20 years?

My father was a visionary. He was always thinking about the next innovation. He was a workaholic -- 18-hour days -- and tough to work for since he was so demanding.

We worked pretty well because we both

“

There is nothing more gratifying than to hear Bob Baffert telling me he slept so much better the night before American Pharoah won the Triple Crown after seeing he had a dominant BRIS Prime Power number Happy Broadbent

�

complimented each other. While he was thinking about the next best thing, I was in the trenches getting the work done on a daily basis, especially developing the handicapping and ADW businesses. Our number one asset in developing our business over the years was our team; we always have had and still do have some incredible talent.

There are so many people in the industry at one time or another who came through BRIS to get an education. To work for him for 21 years and now for 10 years for a great company like Churchill Downs, it has been an incredible ride, especially when you have seen all the technology changes and the introduction of the internet in 1996.

What has been your secret ingredient to success?

The key to our success over the years is the added value information we provide to our customers. If you look at when we started the pedigree service or even the ADW, the BRIS data we provide is the backbone to our success. I believe Twinspires is the leader because not only do they have the best platform, they are giving the bettor winning information from Brisnet. No other ADW has been able to give the horseplayer the type of information that helps them win like Twinspires does.

What about customer service, and what gives you customer satisfaction?

When you walk around our office in Lexington, you can see that there is a huge emphasis on customer service.

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PROFILE

BUSINESS SNAPSHOT When our customers call us, we want to have knowledgeable customer service representatives that we hire right here in the horse capital of the world. Celebrity chef Bobby Flay was blown away one day when he called in and the customer service rep told him that he had one of his retired horses on their farm. We are fortunate to be able to hire staff locally who have horse racing knowledge, which is a huge benefit to our customers when they call in. Taking care of our VIP customers is another area that we all work hard everyday to provide the best service.

There is nothing more gratifying than to hear successes like a horseplayer who just hit a Pick 6 using Brisnet data through Twinspires. Or Bob Baffert telling me he slept so much better the night before American Pharoah won the Triple Crown after seeing he had a dominant BRIS Prime Power number.

Where do you see growth in technology?

Customers using mobile devices continue to see huge potential growth. It is a natural for owners, breeders, and trainers since they haven’t always grasped technology quickly.

Most of these folks have an iPhone, iPad, or a tablet so it’s been great to see that they have embraced the information using these devices and to see a trainer using his iPad to get his BrisWatch PPs for an upcoming race or checking online for an overnight when before they never had time to use a computer. At the horse sales, I am amazed how dependent everyone is on their mobile devices for up-to-date information, which is awesome. Mobile wagering continues to grow and Twinspires has

continued to make major enhancements to their platforms.

What about the changing role of data in the horse industry?

So many improvements have been made over the last decade. Timeliness of information has been crucial. We know that our customers want information as soon as it happens. With mobile devices like your phone or tablets we can deliver that information easily via the internet or email.

Every year, live racing video has improved dramatically even to where you can watch racing in HD, which is phenomenal. Look at our Twinspires wagering platform -- you would not believe the improvements that have been made in the last 10 years, through lots of work by some very talented people within the Churchill Downs organization.

Look at what social media has done to horseracing: it has not only brought great exposure to our sport but within seconds you can get a tweet, an Instagram, or Facebook post of some great racing information. Our customers love our social media presence, especially on the big races days, and it is a very big part of the Twinspires and Brisnet success over the last year.

Where do you see the marketplace going in 2017?

I am very excited about this next year in racing. The prospect of having another runner in the Kentucky Derby from Japan brings about a tremendous opportunity in having Japanese simulcast wagering on the Kentucky Derby for the first time. We saw from Arc de Triomphe day in France last year where Japanese racing fans wagered over 40 million, and over 7.68 million on one Breeders’ Cup race with a Japanese runner in November at four in the morning Japan time.

NBC Sports is planning live coverage of Royal Ascot this year for the first time, which will not only showcase their world class racing but the elegance of what Ascot is all about. Every year, Royal Ascot continues to increase in wagering, especially with some of the success of U.S.-based runners have had in recent years, and I expect it to be huge this year with the TV exposure here in the U.S.

HAPPY BROADBENT

At the end of last year, the Department of Treasury and Internal Revenue Service announced a big step in changing the rules on withholding and reports on pari-mutuel winnings. This could take effect by the Triple Crown and could result in millions more dollars added back into the parimutuel pools. It will be very positive for our ADW businesses.

I would expect the bloodstock markets to be comparable to what we have seen in 2015 and 2016. The big unknown is what will happen in Washington with the new administration and how it will affect the economy, especially the stock market. My biggest concern in our industry right now is the lack of new owners. Now that our foal crops have stabilized, we don’t have enough owners to buy our horses, which is very concerning, especially in the mid-to-lower markets.

What about the development of products?

Our product development will be to enhance the wagering experience for our players. How can we give our customers better information to help them make a

more informed decisions when wagering?

Last month, the new Brisnet website was introduced after using a 20-year old interface. The new facelift will give us the opportunity to package and sell our products in many different ways that we have not been able to do in the past.

Tell us about your many hats in racing outside of BRIS? The Thoroughbred industry is all I know and it is in my blood from generations before me. I love getting involved in most anything that involves the horse.

Most recently, I was appointed by our governor to the Kentucky Horse Park Commission. The Horse Park is a hidden gem here in Central Kentucky. Aftercare of Thoroughbreds is a big issue in our industry today and there is no place better for our horses to go as a second career than in the show ring as a sport horse. We are seeing more Thoroughbreds competing well in sport horse events across the U.S. and bringing that awareness, which is something I am very interested in helping while on the Horse Park Commission.

Since 2011, I have been on the

Equibase Management Committee as a TRA (Thoroughbred Racing Association) representative for Churchill Downs, Inc. With my 30 years of knowledge, it has been rewarding to work closely with Equibase management and industry leaders to contribute to their mission of supplying our industry with the best information.

Horse Country is another organization that I have done some work for in the background and that I am very excited about. We have all seen what the Bourbon Trail has done for our state, and I think that opening our farms up to visitors will create new ownership and showcase our industry.

From 2013 to 2015, I was president of The Thoroughbred Club of America and I’m still involved on the board. It is an incredible club and I’m very proud of all the accomplishments that have been made over the last few years.

Lastly, I am very active in the Thoroughbred business as an owner and breeder. There is nothing more rewarding than breeding a good racehorse, which is what I have always been passionate about since I was a kid when I owned my first mare back in 1974. n ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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Continuing education for New York trainers 84

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Everyone’s worst anxiety dream – being back in school – has become reality for New York’s Thoroughbred trainers. A rule approved by the New York State Gaming Commission in mid-December mandates that all Thoroughbred trainers and assistant trainers have continuing education of at least four hours every year.

WORDS: BILL HELLER PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK, HORSEPHOTOS, RTIP

T

RAINERS who don’t live in New York and start fewer than 12 horses at New York racetracks can seek permission from the stewards to be exempt from the continuing education program.

The clock is ticking for all the other New York trainers. But maybe that’s a good thing.

“For God’s sake, massage therapists in New York require continuing education,” Rob Williams, the executive director of the gaming commission, said. “Here in racing, we have individuals who are at the peak of the game in the United States. We should have trainers with the best practices, ones that are up to date with scientific findings.”

Dr. Scott Palmer, the New York State equine medical director and an adjunct professor at Cornell University, put it this way: “The goal of this program is to bring new information and research to trainers who otherwise would not be aware of it.

The goal is to make sure that we do our part raising horsemen’s awareness of safety and research.”

Of course, horsemen have an entrenched history of resisting change, so the news of

the rule didn’t have trainers dancing in the streets. “Whenever you are introducing a new concept in horseracing, there’s always going to be push back,” Palmer said. “This is a trainer benefit. It’s not punitive. It’s purely professional development. Being a 40-year vet, I’ve had to do it my entire career. It’s helped me grow, personally and professionally.”

The idea of continuing education for trainers traces back to October, 2006, when the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation and The Jockey Club (TJC) held a two-day “Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit,” which was hosted by the Keeneland Association. “The idea was to develop enhanced programming to raise the bar for licensees, getting a unified trainer’s test first, then getting continued education,” said Cathy O’Meara, the industry information coordinator of TJC. “Some people might think, ‘They’re telling us how to train,’ but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about getting current information out there that may affect them to make better decisions to take care of the equine athlete.”

But even with the backing of TJC and the Association of Racing Commissioners

International (ARCI), the idea didn’t spread like wildfire. In the ensuing 10 years, only Indiana and Colorado adopted a rule mandating continuing education for trainers that is still on the books. South Dakota approved the rule, then abandoned it when no other states approved it.

Washington has a voluntary program.

As a major racing jurisdiction, adding New York was a breakthrough for broad acceptance of continuing education. “It is what it is,” trainer Rick Violette, the president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said. “They were hell-bent on getting this done, and we’ve got to do the best we can with it.”

Palmer said, “We wanted to get this rolling. We’d been talking about it for years.”

To smooth the transition all New York trainers have to make this year, Palmer held a session with 30 horsemen and horsewomen at Aqueduct in mid-December about equine safety, focusing on the results of necropsy the last three years and the origin of injuries. “Dr. Palmer did a great job,” Violette said. “It was pretty well attended. We’ll do the best we can to make this stuff easily accessible.”

Violette and other horsemen pointed out that harness trainers in New York don’t have the same requirement for continuing education. That will change. “We anticipate rolling it out for harness trainers,” Williams said.

Many New York Thoroughbred trainers welcome continuing education. ”In the environment we’re in, there are so many subjects: insurance, workman’s comp, immigration, that will be welcome for us,” Linda Rice said. “I hope it’s something quite useful. Frankly, I think there are various segments in the industry that could benefit from continuing education.”

Rick Schosberg sees a lot of upside as well. “It can help you make more informed decisions regarding your racehorses,” he said. “I’m all for it. If you think you know everything, you’re probably not the smartest guy in the room. Why not absorb any information you can? They’re not ramming it down our throats. If you were a CPA, you wouldn’t have any business if you didn’t keep updated.

“There’s always trepidation. Our industry is resistant to change. It doesn’t always embrace change. I’ve always said, ‘There’s a

“

Dr. Palmer did a great job. It was pretty well attended. We’ll do the best we can to make this stuff easily accessible

Rick Violette 86

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TRAINER EDUCATION

“

The goal is to make sure that we do our part raising horsemen’s awareness of safety and research

”

Dr. Scott Palmer

fence around Belmont Park. It doesn’t mean we’re cut off from the rest of the world.’ Just look at what they’re doing at the Ruffian Medical Center 100 feet from my barn: CT scans, MRIs, scintigraphy. There’s a whole lot of information out there that’s good for trainers.”

Is there enough for hundreds of trainers?

“There are five modules offered for free on The Jockey Club website,” O’Meara said.

“They take 30 minutes to an hour. At the end of it, there’s a little note you can check to be credited for the course by the gaming commission. At the end of 2017, there will be eight modules. Then 12. The content is growing.”

But locating them isn’t easy. “There are five outlets on The Jockey Club website, but prepare to spend half an hour trying to find it,” Violette said. He’s got a point.

If you Google The Jockey Club, on the homepage, there are items under “Aftercare” about the Thoroughbred Incentive Program and the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, and there are “News Releases” and “World Rankings” for horses and jockeys. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage, and there are many listings under “Resources,” “Advocacy/Promotion,” and “About Us.” There is also “Contact Us” and “Follow Us” on Facebook and Twitter, but not a word about continuing education for trainers.

However, if you know where to look, you can click on “Safety Initiatives” under “Advocacy/Promotion” and get a link to the Welfare and Safety Racehorse Summit.

Click on that and you can then click on advanced horsemanship programs and find the courses.

Maybe trainers need to hire a detective or a tour guide.

According to the New York State Gaming Commission, the five Jockey Club modules and the Cornell University and the ARCI’s continuing education programs have already been approved by the gaming commission. Public presentations by Palmer, such as the one conducted at Aqueduct last December, are counted toward completing the continuing education requirement. But other continuing education programs must be approved by Palmer.

A complete list of all courses and complete information about them would obviously be helpful and probably should have been in place and readily available to trainers before the rule was adopted.

Schosberg said, “We have to work on the implementation. I think the rollout was a little abrupt. Anything new takes a little time.”

Violette added additional concerns of policing and monitoring.

Regardless, the rule went into effect January 1st, and not complying with

“

Some people might think, ‘They’re telling us how to train,’ but that’s not what it’s about

Cathy O’Meara

”

the rule can be costly for trainers. “Just like in any profession, like with vets, I’m required to keep my records,” Palmer said.

“There will have to be some audit process later. Falsifying records could affect their licenses.”

Palmer, though, is enthusiastic that mandated continuing education for trainers in New York will work and lay the groundwork for other racing jurisdictions to follow. “I’m excited about this,” Palmer said. “I think they need this information and want to get this information. They go to work every morning at four. It’s important for them to know where they can go to get this information. I think it’s going to help.” n

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M

hard to perfect. Fluctuations of his COPD symptoms caused the treatment with the nebulizer to frequently feel too strong, akin to a burning sensation.

Then we discovered the VibraLung. Because lungs of all animals are quite similar, this overlap between my husband’s treatments and equine treatments gives a broader perspective on the benefits of these therapies.

y husband’s COPD consists

From habit, we used therapy devices

chronic

that I use on horses to try and help him

A Specialized Lung Therapy Tool

bronchitis, and asthma. He

manage his symptoms better. The results,

The VibraVM Lung device entered the

also has acquired out door

with his improved quality of life, surprised

equine market in 2007. The VibraVM is

and food allergies. The combination creates

his doctor. With severe COPD, it is typical

an acoustic percussor with sound waves

numerous challenges. His pulmonologist

to be hospitalized regularly due to severe

and frequencies incorporated into several

put him on COPD medications, and

flare ups. And yet, my husband’s doctor

selectable programs.

supplements to help offset the use of

dropped him from scheduled visits every

The first function is to clear the lungs of

corticosteroids, and handed him a brochure

six months to one annual visit and he is no

particulates and liquefy thickened mucus.

with suggestions on how to live with COPD.

longer on the COPD meds.

Horses cough, sneeze, or swallow whatever

88

of

emphysema,

TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 43

Tel: 503-632-7187

www.therapyproducts.net

RESpiRAToRY REliEf The VibraVM® uses sound waves introduced through the nose to breakup accumulations of harmful secretions in the respiratory system for easy expulsion.

has been released. This can even consist of old blood clots settled deep within the lower chambers of the lungs from bleeders.

Another program acts as a bronchial dilator

“This filly gets excited seeing the VibraVM and sticks her nose right on it.”

to alleviate constricted airways. Horses

Lynn Wallace, Trainer (Lynn’s husband is pictured)

diagnosed with heaves get instant relief with noticeable changes in breathing.

In horses, chronic alveolar emphysema can be a result of long term effects of other chronic lung aliments from over dissension of the alveoli until there is no elasticity. The hopes are that with repeated usage of the VibraVM that the vibrations improve the

Combining veterinary care with MCT and the VibraVM provide options for improving respiratory conditions. You can have confidence in trying them, knowing they are not simply the latest fad.”

elasticity back into lung structures. For example, a horse was treated that had emphysema where there were no air

For horses, after the condition is improved

the machine instantly, something she was

movement sounds in the lowest lobe of the

the VibraVM can be used as a maintenance

sure it would take weeks do to. He now meets

lungs. Then after several treatments with the

device or to improve oxygenation when

her at the gate and patiently waits for his

VibraVM sounds could be heard with a

performance demands require it. A quick

lung treatments. His demeanor is changing

stethoscope.

clearing of any debris or generalized swelling

to friendly, and in his last race he got his best

before a race will greatly improved the

time yet, finishing in the top 10 of 400.

At a recent MCT training and bodywork workshop, one of the elderly horses had a

comfort of the horse.

Therapies that horses enjoy are a crucial component for improving the bond in a

noticeable abnormal breathing pattern. The owner described the older rescue horse as

Healing with Alternative Health Care

always having it, but that anytime the horse

MCT and the VibraVM lung devices are two

being unattached to the horse allows the

was slightly stressed he presented increased

methods that promote wellbeing, with no

horse to make the choice to lean into and

irregular, labored breathing. One of the

adverse side effects. MCT additionally helps

receive treatment or lean away. This builds

attendees had her VibraVM lung device

the entire body recover from a multitude of

confidence, trust and provides feedback.

with her and volunteered to do a treatment.

conditions. Sandee Foster, trainer, breeder,

Horses that need the treatment readily

The horse was surprisingly eager to

and therapist has been combining MCT and

want it and the others simply act indifferent

receive the cup over his nose after a two

the VibraVM in a single session and liking

Combining veterinary care with MCT

minute introduction. After the 6 minute

the results. Her mare that would turn and

and the VibraVM provide options for

session, the horse’s demeanor was calm

run when she saw the nebulizer eagerly

improving respiratory conditions. You can

and he was breathing better and his muscles

waits for the VibraVM and her MCT.

have confidence in trying them, knowing

working relationship. The VibraVM device

they are not simply the latest fad.

were less tense. Interestingly enough, this

Teal Stoll, has a racer only she can ride

is also what my husband notices. He says

due to his bucking and difficult nature. He

Whether the horses treated make it in

you can feel the treatment go straight to

and two of her other horses have COPD, and

racing or are headed to their next venture,

the problem area and that the sensations

all of them absolutely hated the nebulizer.

by using alternative health care to help the

from the machine are different, depending

Stoll contemplated switching from the

horse’s lungs it will keep the horse in a

on the day and the amount of swelling.

medications to the colloidal or chelated

better condition throughout its life.

With the severity of his condition, he uses

silver additives for the nebulizer, until as

it every day. However for horses it is used

an asthmatic herself she tried them and

daily until the desire improvement is seen.

realized how badly they created a burning

There is one caveat, it is nosier than some nebulizers. My husband finds the quality of his life trumps the noise.

sensation her in sinuses.

Stoll’s temperamental horse was her first test case for the VibraVM lung. He took to

T

Deborah Powell is author of MicroCurrent for Horses, MicroCurrent for Dogs and MCT for Bleeders a Quick Guide. For more articles on these therapies and information on training opportunities, visit therapyproducts.net

ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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TRACKSIDE

TRACKSIDE A look at stories in the news from tracks across America and beyond.

Finest City holds off Wavell Avenue in 2016 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint

BREEDING MATTERS Finest City is newest PA-bred Breeders’ Cup winner WORDS: NIKKI SHERMAN

O

ther than the Kentucky Derby, winning a Breeders’ Cup World thoroughbred Championship race is the dream of every breeder in the United States. It often takes decades – if it even happens at all – to reach that pinnacle, but for henry “hank” Nothhaft, it took just a few years.

“I have not been involved in horse racing very long,” Nothhaft admits. “I became directly involved in 2008 with the idea to create a business I could run and enjoy while moving into retirement from my business career in the technology world.”

Nothhaft, who breeds and races under the name hnr Nothhaft horseracing, LLC, wanted to go through a hands-on learning experience in the thoroughbred industry and was able to purchase the promising young stallion Silver train in 2011. he and agent Carl Mcentee attended the Keeneland November Mixed Sale to look for mares that

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would cross well with the son of Old trieste. they found a Lemon Drop Kid mare named Be envied, who was in foal to popular sprint stallion City Zip. Nothhaft purchased Be envied for $37,000 and shipped her to Northview PA to foal. that foal was a lovely chestnut filly who he named City envy. the filly was entered in the 2012 Keeneland November Mixed Sale as a weanling after colleagues convinced him that she should easily bring $150,000. however, early interest in City envy, who Nothhaft had named before the decision to sell came about, fizzled out when onsite veterinary inspections discovered an existing OCD on X-rays. She just barely met her reserve of $50,000, selling for that price to Cobra Farm, who in turn pinhooked her at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2013. Seltzer thoroughbreds purchased the filly for $85,000 and the father-son team of Wayne and tyler Seltzer decided to rename her Finest City after their

hometown of San Diego.

“She was a knockout from day one,” remembers Nothhaft.

“Unfortunately, that’s one of the reasons I decided to sell her, as I thought we were going to be able to get six figures for her and I was focused on building a broodmare band for Silver train to race in Pennsylvania. She was one of the first two or three PA-Breds I bred and was the first horse I bred who sold commercially at auction.” the Seltzers’ trainer Ian Kruljac had great hopes for their new filly from the beginning, as Finest City made her career debut at the prestigious Del Mar summer meet in July of 2015. the filly finished second behind eventual graded stakes winner Gloryzapper. her next start would be a different story; Finest City ran off to

TRACKSIDE

QIPCO British Champions Day 2017 set for October 21st

an impressive 8½-length score in a $70,000 maiden special weight at Del Mar. After an unsuccessful stakes debut on turf in her next start, Finest City again returned to the winner’s circle with an easy 3 ¼-length score in a $53,000 allowance at Del Mar. Finest City competed against some of the top female sprinters on the West Coast throughout the winter of 2015-16, and by April she finally broke through, becoming a stakes winner when she captured the $200,000 Great Lady M Stakes (G2) at Los Alamitos. that race earned her a chance to compete in the Breeders’ Cup where she nearly faced off against Nothhaft’s own Grade 1 winner Living the Life (Ire).

“We originally had fairly elaborate plans to attend the Breeders’ Cup but when (Living the Life) came up lame before the race, I canceled our reservations. I came to regret this decision,” Nothhaft admits. “So, my wife and I were glued to our tv watching the race.

I must be honest, I thought (Finest City) could win, but was really more confident in a top-three finish. When she did win, we were cheering and literally jumping for joy. Within seconds, my cell phone exploded with texts and calls beyond anything we had ever experienced.”

On November 5, 2016, Finest City joined an elite group of just three other PA-Breds who have captured a Breeders’ Cup race when she crossed the wire first in the $1,000,000 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1), holding off defending champion Wavell Avenue by three-quarters of a length under heavy urging from hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith. those other Breeders’ Cup-winning PA-Breds are some of the most talented athletes to grace the Breeders’ Cup: Alphabet Soup won the 1996 Classic in a thrilling stretch battle with Louis Quatorze and Cigar; Go for Wand captured the 1989 Juvenile Fillies as part of a campaign that culminated in her being crowned that year’s eclipse Award Champion two-Year-Old Filly; and tikkanen, who set a track record at Churchill Downs in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup turf.

Finest City enjoyed a short break following the biggest race of her life but has since returned to Ian Kruljac’s Santa Anita barn. She is steadily working towards a 2017 campaign that would ideally give her the opportunity to defend her Breeders’ Cup title, this time in her owners’ hometown of San Diego at her favorite track, Del Mar. She is also now a finalist for 2016 Champion Female Sprinter, along with haveyougoneaway and Paulassilverlining – both of whom finished behind Finest City in the Breeders’ Cup. the winner will be crowned on January 21, 2017 at the annual eclipse Awards gala in Florida.

Win or lose, nothing will compare to the thrill of winning a Breeders’ Cup race. tyler Seltzer said it best when the NBC Sports camera crew caught up with him following the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint. the excitement was overwhelming, and all he could think to say was an emphatic, “She’s pretty great!”

QIPCO British Champions Day is the breathtaking finale to the British Flat racing season.

Ascot racecourse is set alight on the nation’s richest ever raceday, as champions are crowned Kings and Queens of the turf.

Since its inauguration in 2011, QIPCO British Champions Day has firmly established itself as one of the world’s highest quality fixtures in the racing calendar. Last year it was the only day in europe to feature multiple races from the top ten highest-rated races in the world.

As a result, the event attracts not only one of the biggest crowds seen at any racecourse in Britain, but also the country’s most esteemed guests, such as her Majesty the Queen, who has attended every year thus far.

Four Group 1 contests and a Group 2, all run over different distances, ensure that the quality of the racing and the accompanying atmosphere are nothing short of exceptional. this year’s renewal of QIPCO British Champions Day will offer a record-breaking purse of £4.3million, guaranteeing another raceday fit for the world stage. the feature race of the day, the £1.3million G1 Champion Stakes, is the highest rated race in Britain and consistently attracts top-class thoroughbreds, with victory in 2016 going to the 129-rated ALMANZOr. the roll of honour for this race features some of the greats, including FrANKeL and his brother, NOBLe MISSION. the Queen elizabeth II Stakes is europe’s richest mile race, and victory last year added the final flourish to MINDING’S spectacular season. the QIPCO British Champions Sprint Stakes over six furlongs and the QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes over a mile and a half complete the Group 1s on the day.

For more information about QIPCO British Champions Day, please visit britishchampionsday.com or contact joldring@britishchampionsseries.com.

ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

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TRACKSIDE

In Maryland,

It’s the season of hope

t

he breeding season in the thoroughbred industry always presents a clean slate. It is a season of hope.

“Breed the best to the best, and hope for the best” is a familiar refrain, but we all know that it takes a lot more work.

It is important to research pedigrees, evaluate confirmation, race records, and consult with trusted advisors. Make a plan, because producing a thoroughbred race horse takes time and care – and let’s admit some luck. It is important to consider all of the ways to get a return on your investment, whether you plan to sell at auction or race your home-breds. Breeding and racing opportunities have expanded with the times and the competition. there are various incentive programs to encourage business in a particular state. Some regional programs are cooperative, and most require competing in their state to win additional incentive monies. In Maryland we have the Maryland Bred race Fund and Maryland Million ltd. to encourage breeding, foaling and racing.

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Incentive Programs in Maryland for 2017

MARYLAND BRED RACE FUND the Maryland Bred race Fund was established 1962 as the first incentive fund in the nation. the program was designed to encourage and promote breeding better horses. the important goal, is to reward those people who participate in the horse business in Maryland by foaling, raising and racing their bloodstock in Maryland. the current program includes a 30% breeder bonus to the top three finishers in all races in Maryland (stakes purses capped at $100,000); a 30% owner bonus in all overnight races, paid by the purse account, and a 10% stallion bonus.

See the following link for more information: http://marylandthoroughbred.com/cms/pdf/MDBredFundGuide.pdf

MARYLAND MILLION LTD. the Maryland Million is the cooperative stallion program that rewards Maryland-sired horses. this program was founded in 1985

by ABC sportscaster and Maryland resident Jim McKay after his visit to the inaugural Breeders’ Cup races in 1984. the Maryland Million is a sire-stakes program designed to reward people who breed to Maryland stallions. the annual event, now named Jim McKay Maryland Million Day, is run in the fall of the year at Laurel Park with purses and awards of a million dollars. In addition to the race day there is $2500 bonus for Maryland-sired Maiden Special Weight winners in Maryland.

For more information go to: https://marylandmillion.com/

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ISSUE 43 TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM

93

PRODUCT FOCUS

BEMER launch two exciting products for US based trainers Healthy CIRCULATION may be the most critical factor in whether your thoroughbred winds up in the winner’s circle.

From the heart to the capillaries, this system must be operating at peak function. Why? Because impaired blood flow can lead to a multitude of problems for your horse’s parasympathetic system, including digestive disorders, immune system failure, poor hydration in muscle and organ tissue, inadequate oxygenation and nutritional supplies and ineffective waste disposal at the cellular level.

A poorly-functioning circulatory system makes it harder for your horse to recover after workouts and competitions. It increases the chance of injury due to lack of endurance, strength and energy. Worse, it can culminate in heightened stress levels that reduces the animal’s mental acuity and focus – the very attributes a horse needs on race day. Unquestionably - a focused, relaxed horse will have better track times.

So, how can you improve the health of your Thoroughbred?

The answer may lie in a technology that was first formulated nearly two decades ago in Europe. BEMER technology has been helping people to improve their general blood flow and circulation via a wave signal therapy that is different than anything on the market.

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The rubber is available in different densities and thicknesses. Depending on the application you can have harder or softer surfaces. For instance you may want a harder surface in aisle ways, but a softer surface in recovery/foaling areas.

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Once the rubber is installed, trained technicians apply a series of self leveling polyurethane applications so that when complete the Padenpor system is totally seamless. Specially formulated polyurethanes are designed with exceptional elongation and tensile properties allowing them to stretch any stresses rather than split under duress. Padenpor can even run up the walls, incorporating a cove at transitions for easy maintenance. There are no cracks, voids or seams where bacteria can penetrate. With a deliberate cleaning program, you will be able to manage better bio-security to ensure the welfare of all that occupy areas where Padenpor is used.

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Extra content not printed in Trainer Magazine is now available online including an exclusive Arnaud and Leigh Delacour Photoshoot! and If you’re missing your stakes schedules, don’t panic, indexes for stakes races can now be found online!

W W W. T R A I N E R M A G A Z I N E . C O M

SID FERNANDO

A

S if to confirm everything I’d said of her, she’s researched and very stylishly written and edited in this issue of the magazine one of the most unique accounts of Man o’ War in, well, history. This isn’t hyperbole. This isn’t me as a good friend and colleague of hers giving her kudos and preferential treatment at the expense of others who’ve written about the iconic horse, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated this year. This isn’t trading in alternative facts. Her remarkable 7,000word account of Man o’ War is based on good, old-fashioned research of primary source materials.

It’s also supplemented with Frances’s knowledge of farms in Lexington, Kentucky, and with an interview of an insider from that time who turns 100 this year. If you’re reading this and haven’t read her piece yet, go to page 10 immediately, get comfortable, and get ready for a fascinating take on a horse whose pull on us is still palpable.

Speaking of history, I had an interesting conversation on Twitter with Benny Bell Williams, daughter of the late John A. Bell III, founder of Jonabell Farm in Lexington.

Someone had posted a photo of 1936 champion three-year-old colt Granville, a homebred for William Woodward’s Belair Stud, and I’d commented that the famous red polka dots on white silks of Belair had passed to Woodward’s son, William Woodward Jr., upon his death. After Woodward Jr.’s tragic death in the mid1950s, the Belair silks made their way in the late 1950s to Mrs. Thomas Bancroft, who with her husband owned Pen-Y-Bryn Farm in Virginia.

Edith Bancroft was a daughter of Woodward Sr. She also bred and raced champion Damascus in her name in the 1960s, and Damascus had flown the distinctive silks of Belair Stud. Bancroft also boarded her stock at Jonabell, where Damascus was foaled. “My father had the

“

Celebrating the 100-year legacy of Man o’ War Recently on Twitter I was lamenting the overall lack of interest and knowledge in racing history among fans and people in the business today and noted that of the few who do traffic in it, North American Trainer editor and writer Frances J. Karon is one of the most well versed. It’s because she’s an outstanding researcher and writer with deep knowledge of bloodstock and racing history. mares at Jonabell for Edith + her mother, later Tom + Billy,” Benny Williams tweeted.

Tom and Billy were Edith Bancroft’s sons, Thomas Jr. and William Bancroft. After Mrs. Bancroft died in the early 1970s, the brothers bred and raced together as PenY-Bryn Farm, and such Damascus runners as Honorable Miss, Zen, Bailjumper, and Highland Blade continued to carry the red polka dots on white silks. I wondered what had happened to the silks since Pen-Y-Bryn ended in 1995, the same year Damascus died. Benny didn’t know, either. “Tom had something in training for a bit, but that was years ago,” she said. “Wonder if he gave them to Museum of Racing in Saratoga?”

“Interesting. So, kids of Tom or Bill never followed, huh?”

“No. Thought momentary hope for Tom’s youngest,” Benny tweeted back.

And so ended a once-great racing family. The same fate befell the Bancrofts’ Damascus sire line, which appeared so promising at one point but today is virtually nonexistent. Damascus, a maleline descendant of the French stallion Teddy, entered stud at Claiborne, which was once the home to the great Teddy import Sir Gallahad III. William Woodward Sr. was one of the original four partners in Sir Gallahad III, the sire of Belair Stud’s 1930 Triple Crown winner Gallant Fox. The latter sired Belair’s 1935 Triple Crown winner Omaha.

Teddy, particularly through the full siblings Sir Gallahad III and Bull Dog, was vigorously represented at the upper echelons of racing for decades in the early and middle parts of the last century. Bull Dog’s son Bull

Lea, for instance, was the sire of Calumet’s 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation.

Damascus, who traced to Teddy through lesser names, was third in the Kentucky Derby but won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes of 1967. In the Preakness, he defeated In Reality, two-and-a-quarter lengths away in second. A Frances Genter homebred, In Reality was a very good racehorse – he won 14 of 27 starts, including the Florida Derby and the Metropolitan Handicap – but was overshadowed by the trio of Damascus, Dr. Fager, and Buckpasser on the track.

Nevertheless, In Reality became a top stallion. He was a male-line descendant of Man o’ War and was, in fact, inbred 3x3 to the Man o’ War stallion War Relic. Like Sir Gallahad III, Man o’ War had excelled at stud and also sired a Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, who swept the classics in 1937. But the Man o’ War sire line, which was distinctly American since 1876, was on the wane by the beginning of this century, just as the Teddy line was. Neither Damascus nor In Reality, it appeared, would survive in tail-male and carry their historic legacies forward into the 21st century.

Then, In Reality’s stakes-placed grandson Cee’s Tizzy, a son of Relaunch, got the California-bred Tiznow in 1997, and Tiznow won the Breeders’ Cup Classic in both 2000 and 2001 and earned a chance at stud in Kentucky. And against great odds, Tiznow has established himself as a highclass stallion, and one with a number of sons at stud in 2017. And in this, the 100th year anniversary of Man o’ War’s birth, it’s a pleasure to note that the big red icon’s male line is still alive and well. n

Like Sir Gallahad III, Man o’ War had excelled at stud and also sired a Triple Crown winner, War Admiral, who swept the classics in 1937

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”

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