Global Warming Ain’t a Sham

Fillyosophy, Off the Hoof No Responses »
Feb 282010

Yesterday, February 27th was Celebrate Polar Bear Day, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

This got me thinking … what do polar bears and horses have in common?

Both have been left stranded by global warming.

To be fair, global warming is far scarier for the polar bears: projections by the U.S. Geological Survey say two thirds (2/3!) of the polar bear population will disappear by 2050.

When it comes to horses, global warming is just messing with our calendar. The extreme shifts in weather have caused cancellations from coast to coast: snow in New York, rain in California, frozen ground in Arkansas, tornados in Texas – I don’t know about Glenn Beck, but the racing industry certainly believes in global warming.

Unlike a football field which can be plowed, or a baseball diamond that can be covered – a racetrack is a wide open exposed expanse of dirt and grass subject to whatever conditions mother nature has in store. This means that when the ground is frozen, as was the case at Oaklawn Park, or there are 2 inches of standing water on the Santa Anita track – horses and human lives are at risk.

Often the only solution for track management is to reschedule the races. This isn’t a major hurdle – it’s as simple as notifying horsemen of a change to the conditions book. But this isn’t just any ‘ole time of year: we’re in Derby season. And with just 62 days to go, every moment counts.

There are only 25 races for horses to earn the money that gets them into the starting gate. Until the next round of Derby preps in mid-March, every 3yo colt (and some fillies) is considered a contender. Therefore every move – every work, every oat in the feed tub, every rubdown by a groom, every walk of the shedrow – is carefully choreographed to get to the big dance.

So when a Derby prep is rescheduled – such as the Southwest at Oaklawn last weekend or the Sham at Santa Anita this past Saturday – it throws a major wrench into a trainer’s carefully laid out plan.

When a race is moved back even just a week, it can become a major hurdle for trainers: not all horses can handle a shortened time between races, or they may not have been nominated for other races because they were set on their original plan. When John Sadler shipped Domonation to Oaklawn for a run in the Southwest, he not only didn’t run the day he was supposed to, but he was unable to train for 2 days due to the solid earth – thereby setting back the horse’s training schedule for weeks.

As a nod to the critics of the synthetic surfaces: yes, the problems at Santa Anita probably wouldn’t have happened if the track was real dirt.

With weather wrecking havoc on trainer’s Derby plans and 2 of the 25 (or 8%) Derby preps being rescheduled due to weather, can we all agree that global warming isn’t a Sham?

Posted by MJR at 1:03 pm

Ain’t Nothin’ Like A Dame

Fillyosophy, Off the Hoof No Responses »
Feb 112010

It would appear that an agreement has been reached that means Zenyatta v. Rachel Alexandra is going to happen. At Oaklawn Park. In the Apple Blossom. On April 9th.


I wish I could say I was thrilled. Because I am. I’ve become one of those people who believe this is key to the sport’s survival. Lord knows, we aren’t the best at marketing ourselves: the crown jewel of the game is a trophy we’ve virtually bred out of the realm of ever happening again.

So, barring the first Triple Crown winner in 32 years kicking off a campaign in May – we’ve really left the hopes and dreams of a business that’s (beyond seemingly) struggling in the hooves of the fairer sex.

But back to this race on April 9th: my problems are few and are probably quashed rather easily…

1. It’s a Friday: the following day has massive Derby implications, so I understand the “using the Apple Blossom to kick off a major weekend” approach … but did we learn nothing from having the Kentucky Oaks on Bravo! last year? Ratings sucked – and that was with a ton of promotion.

2. Timing: By pushing the race back 6 days, it allows Z to ship later and Rachel to get one last work in – woohoo – Asmussen’s camp couldn’t have thought of this while she was jogging through January and bumped up her work schedule a tad? It’s just suspect.

3. Money: these are two of the wealthiest non-oil-rich-nation-ruling owners in the game and they needed $5 million reasons to get their girls together? Something tells me that money could be better suited elsewhere in the sport – like marketing funds for failing tracks.

And I have one last final initial thought on this matchup. One of my all time favorite sayings in this sport is that if we already knew the outcome, they wouldn’t have to open the gates and run the darn thing. While this is setting up to be the match race of the 21st century, you know there’s going to be a ton of people who just want to get in for a) history (“remember when I ran Nelly Nag against the two best fillies of my time?”) or b) purse money (the field is capped at 10 and last place gets $100k).

So what happens when some local yokel goes out and sets some suicidal fractions, thereby cooking Rachel’s goose up front and killing Zenyatta’s ability to close?

Don’t think it can’t happen: we’ve all seen way worse be attempted (Guadal Canal in the 2008 Belmont) and actually happen (Mine That Bird in the 2009 Kentucky Derby). And it would be the equivalent of 100 turntables halting records simultaneously or dropping 100 bottles of wine on brand new white carpeting.

I really do want April 9th to happen for the good of the game. I just don’t want us to be sitting trackside on April 10th, saying “the two best athletes in our game just got beat by a $15k claimer (and I don’t mean along the Lava Man lines).”

A 32-year drought would be looking mighty good.


Posted by MJR at 3:45 pm

What $2 is Really Worth

Fillyosophy, Off the Hoof No Responses »
Feb 112010

Many racetracks nowadays offer free admission. I imagine the thought behind this decision is relatively simple: if we can just get people through the gate, they’ll be more inclined to wager at the windows.

The logic for this sits somewhere between the theories of Reciprocity, Expectancy, and Boredom.

But an article on Huffington Post today caught my eye: “Nets Attendance: Barely 1000 Turn Out To See Team Lose Again.” The article was interesting not for the fact that Terrence Williams is a friend, nor because I spent a meet working across the parking lot from the Izod Center the Meadowlands.

Buried in the game notes at the bottom of the article is a really interesting line: “Despite the paltry turnout, the paid attendance for the game was 12,873.” The weather – admittedly – sucked, so the very fact that 1,000 people were able to dig themselves out from the snow should’ve been enough news.

But run the numbers: individual game tickets sell for somewhere between $10 and $1,950 through Ticketmaster … and 12,873 people paid, yet only 1,000 showed. While we don’t know the exact breakdown of tickets sold, no matter how you slice it, that’s happy math for Bruce Ratner and his pool of investors.

The Nets are the worst team in professional basketball. (I’d like to make it a rule that if a professional team with a schedule of more than 15 games in any one season starts it by going 0-and-17, they lose the privilege of being considered a member of a professional league.) Yet 12,873 people spent their hard earned money – in this economy – to watch a team that can’t win … and roughly 11,873 spent the cash only to settle for the TV version instead.

This is shocking to someone who often laments that New York racing can’t see 4,000 people turn out for Wood Memorial Day, which has seen really good weather the past few years and includes the allure of free admission. And I promise you the trip to Izod is as long a drive from NYC as it is to Aqueduct, and the two are about the same aesthetically, to boot.

So is the problem that racing isn’t as mainstream as basketball? Maybe. Is the problem that racing is less straightforward than basketball? Probably. Is the problem that basketball is marketed more effectively than racing? Definitely.

I say we start by doing away with the free admission. We’re tossing the baby out with the bath water from the tub that shares a room with the mirror we’re using to cut our nose to spite our face.

Ok, so I’m guilty of mixing my metaphors – racing’s marketers are guilty of a whole lot more.


Posted by MJR at 9:14 am

Hitting the Dirt

Fillyosophy No Responses »
Feb 102010

I showjumped for 15 years and, during the later stages, earned the barn’s coveted Fall Off Award back-to-back-to-back. It was a giant, beautifully made oak plaque given to the person who had fallen off the most – or most impressively – during the year.
Why did I keep “winning” such a “prestigious” honor? My horse, Stuart Little, was a big strapping 16.3 hand tall, off-the-track Thoroughbred … who happened to have a habit of dumping me on the ground just before a jump – not a great trait for a Hunter/Jumper.

Fast forward a few years to today: I host a radio show every Saturday morning, called The Kentucky Winner’s Circle. We are Kentucky’s longest running weekly radio show dedicated to the racing industry and I’m proud to be a member of the team. However, last week’s show was one of those where we kept “hitting the dirt” – no matter how hard we tried.


We opened the show talking about Rachel Alexandra’s work and whether the Apple Blossom was logical for her to face Zenyatta or if we’re going to have to wait ’til Breeder’s Cup. Then we went to break and came back talking about the Bob Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita. We had a healthy handicapping debate that wound up focusing on whether Tiz Chrome was going to be as solid a play down the line – he was a logical favorite in the Lewis, but his future as a Derby prospect was limited (in my book). My argument: if I was going to play a Tiznow colt coming out of that field in a Derby Future Wager, it was going to be American Lion – all things being equal, I believe that a Tiznow x Woodman mare will not go as far as a Tiznow x Storm Cat mare. I was apparently alone in my thinking.

That was Segment 2, which ended about 11:29 am ET. At 11:37, Santa Anita cancelled their card. Ruhroh!

I get that the deluge of rain we had the day before was a killer for the already unfortunate draining system in Arcadia – but did it really have to ruin what was some seriously nice handicapping on our Kentucky airwaves?

I then thought to myself, “well, at least Segment 3 is an interview with Johnny Velazquez – how bad can it be? He rides Quality Road today and his agent (my favorite of the retired heroes – Angel Cordero, Jr.) says he’s keen to talk about it.” We’d planned to give him 15 minutes – his cell phone went straight to voicemail for 20. Ruhroh!

So, like most things with the horse business, you have to learn to roll with the punches. It’s moments like these that I go back to being 14, nicknamed Jelly Bean in the barn because I looked like one when Stuart bucked me off. It was the last year I won the Fall Off Award and Stuey was retired soon after … due to a small, hairline fracture in his canon bone.

I remember asking the vet – a really nice guy named Dr. Markell – how long he thought the bone had been split. He said as much as 4 years. I immediately realized that all the times I hit the dirt, or flew over a jump without a horse under me, or had to clean a cut from my glasses digging into my nose when I got bucked off – I realized that Stuey didn’t want to jump because landing hurt. For a little kid, that was a big lesson.

So when last Saturday’s show went sideways and we all just hung our heads and laughed, I reminded myself that compassion counts big in life. When you hit the dirt, there’s a reason: whether it’s a serious injury like a fractured cannon bone or something relatively minor like a track canceling a card due to rain.

The trick is to get back on the horse.
Posted by MJR at 9:37 am
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