Talkin' Horses

Breeders' Cup Winning Trainer Charlie Lopresti

aspradling — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:07:00 GMT

[audio url="http://www.bloodhorse.com/content/audio/BHTH20121120CharlieLopresti.mp3" title="Talkin Horses: Trainer Charlie Lopresti"]

Talkin’ Horses with Charlie Lopresti

Charlie Lopresti, the trainer of exciting Breeders’ Cup Mile (gr. IT) winner Wise Dan, was the guest on Blood-Horse.com’s popular podcast Talkin’ Horses on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

A multiple grade I winner, Wise Dan put himself squarely in the Horse of the Year picture with his Breeders’ Cup run, accomplished in course-record time over 2011 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Animal Kingdom.

Lopresti, 55, is based year-round at Keeneland Racecourse and operates the 200-acre Forest Lane Farm in Lexington along with his wife, Amy. The couple, who have a solid reputation for breaking and training of yearlings before they go to the track, met when they both worked at Domino Stud, where Lopresti worked under top horseman Ted Carr. The trainer also worked with Carr at Allen Paulson’s Brookside Farm and was trainer for Calumet Farm for about six years when it was owned by the de Kwiatkowski family.

In addition to Wise Dan, among the other top horses conditioned by Lopresti have been Successful Dan, a grade II-winning half brother to Wise Dan, and grade I winner Turallure.

Steve Haskin - Breeders' Cup Insights 2012

aspradling — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:03:00 GMT

Lexington, Ky. – October 16, 2012 - Steve Haskin, Senior Correspondent for The Blood-Horse, was a guest on Talkin’ Horses with The Blood-Horse live podcast at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 23. Haskin discussed his insight and thoughts on this year's Breeders' Cup.

Steve Haskin is an award-winning Turf writer renowned for his Kentucky Derby commentary and his Breeders' Cup coverage. He also moderates the popular "Hangin' with Haskin" blog at BloodHorse.com, which includes weekly "Countdown to the Cup" features. Haskin, who has won six Red Smith Awards for his Kentucky Derby coverage, is the author of biographies of Dr. Fager, John Henry, and Kelso, as well as Tales from the Triple Crown, all published by Eclipse Press.

The podcast was co-moderated by Ron Mitchell, online managing editor of BloodHorse.com, and Esther Marr, staff writer for The Blood-Horse magazine. Following the segment with Steve Haskin, Tom LaMarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse magazine and co-host of "That Handicapping Show" hosted a segment focused on handicapping the races of the 2012 Breeders' Cup.

All live broadcasts of Talkin’ Horses with The Blood-Horse will be recorded and archived for on-demand listening on BloodHorse.com. Visitors can listen to archived episodes directly or download episodes individually. Return here at the time of show to listen.

Trainer Dale Romans

aspradling — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Dale Romans, who is having the best year of his career as a trainer having won the Pacific Classic and Arlington Million, both $1 million races, and two other grade I races, was the guest on “Talkin’ Horses with The Blood-Horse” live podcast Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012 at 2pm EDT.

Currently, Romans is third among North American trainers, with $8.3 million in 2012 stable earnings. Through Sept. 17, he had 97 winners from 560 starters. Last year, Romans ranked 8th in the trainers’ standings, with $7.8 million in earnings.

Among his achievements this year have been grade I victories in the Arlington Million with Little Mike, $1 million Pacific Classic with Dullahan, Metropolitan Handicap with Shackleford, and Just A Game with Tapitsfly.

In addition to winning grade I races coast to coast, Romans has also been an outspoken opponent of efforts to reform medication rules across the country, particularly the move to prohibit raceday administration of the anti-bleeder medication furosemide.

The podcast will be co-moderated by Ron Mitchell, online managing editor of Bloodhorse.com, and Tom LaMarra, news editor for The Blood-Horse magazine and Bloodhorse.com and co-host of Bloodhorse.com’s “That Handicapping Show.”

Barry Irwin - Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Team Valor International

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 19:20:00 GMT

Barry Irwin, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Team Valor International, was the featured guest on the “Talkin’ Horses with The Blood-Horse” live podcast Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012.

A Turf writer who later found success as a bloodstock agent and horse owner, Irwin and then-partner Jeff Siegel began syndicating horses in 1987. Since that time, the 455 horses syndicated under partnerships formed by Irwin over the years have won more than 255 stakes races. Team Valor reached the pinnacle of racing success in 2011 when one of its syndicated horses, Animal Kingdom, won the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) before going on to finish second in the Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

Irwin has also taken a public role in the current effort to reform medication rules in North American racing. He has appeared before Congressional hearings on the subject and is among a group of owners who have pledged not to run their 2-year-olds in 2012 on the anti-bleeder medication furosemide.

The podcast was moderated by Ron Mitchell, online managing editor at BloodHorse.com, and Esther Marr, a staff writer for The Blood-Horse magazine. Also included in the podcast is a handicapping segment with Tom LaMarra, news editor for The Blood-Horse magazine and BloodHorse.com and co-host of “That Handicapping Show.”

Trainer Roger Attfield

aspradling — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:10:00 GMT

Trainer Roger Attfield, who will be inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame this year, was the guest on the latest edition of BloodHorse.com’s popular Talkin’ Horses podcast July 17. Mr. Attfield, a British native who has been based in Canada since the early 1970s, discusses some of his favorite horses and his views on current issues within North American racing during the podcast. In addition, Tom LaMarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse and BloodHorse.com, discusses recent and upcoming developments within racing.

Focus on Furosemide

aspradling — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:34:00 GMT

Thank you for listening!

The controversial subject of furosemide, the anti-bleeder medication widely used in North American racing, will be the subject of the next "Talkin' Horses with The Blood-Horse" live podcast at 2 p.m., Tuesday, June 26 on BloodHorse.com/TalkinHorses.

During the podcast, the medication marketed under the trade name Salix and formerly known as Lasix will be discussed by Dr. J. David Richardson and Dr. Foster Northrop. The podcast will be moderated by Tom LaMarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse magazine and BloodHorse.com, and Ron Mitchell, online managing editor at Bloodhorse.com.

Richardson is chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s American Graded Stakes Committee and a member of the Breeders’ Cup board of members. The AGCS has endorsed a race-day ban on Salix in graded stakes for 2-year-olds and Breeders’ Cup intends to ban race-day Salix in its 2-year-old World Championships stakes this fall.

Richardson will be followed on the podcast by Northrop, a racetrack veterinarian and member of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. Northrop voted against the KHRC’s recent approval of an administrative regulation that would ban the use of furosemide on race-day in graded and listed stakes over a three-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2014.

Thank you for your questions.

Kentucky Derby 138 Winning Trainer Doug O'Neill

aspradling — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:00:00 GMT

Trainer Doug O'Neill, who won his first Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) when I'll Have Another ran down the game Bodemeister in the stretch at Churchill Downs, will be the next guest on Bloodhorse.com's popular Talkin' Horses podcast at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 15.

O'Neill, a Michigan native who has evolved as one of Southern California's leading trainers and among the leaders in stable earnings nationally each year, has had a successful working relationship and friendship with his primary owner, J. Paul Reddam. O'Neill and Reddam
employ some unorthodox practices in their stable operation, including the use of shock wave therapy and having a chiropractor work with his
horses.

In addition to I'll Have Another, O'Neill is perhaps best known for his work with Lava Man, who went on to earn more than $5 million under his
training after being claimed for $50,000 and is now a stable pony within the operation, accompanying horses such as the Derby winner to the
track.

Tom LaMarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse magazine, and Jason Shandler, co-hosts of Bloodhorse.com's "That Handicapping Show," will
conduct the podcast. Following the segment with O'Neill, LaMarra and Shandler will also discuss handicapping, including a recap of the Derby
and the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) victory of Believe You Can as well as looking ahead to the May 19 Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

Thank you for submitting your questions, the podcast will begin at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, May 15.

Trainer Larry Jones

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 18:20:00 GMT

Trainer Larry Jones, who conditioned Havre de Grace to a Horse of the Year title in 2011, was the guest on Bloodhorse.com’s popular Talkin' Horses podcast which aired Tuesday, April 17.

A native of Hopkinsville, Ky., 55-year-old Jones was a top conditioner on the Midwest circuit until he began achieving success on the Triple Crown Trail and in major races on the East Coast. Assisted by his wife, Cindy, Jones has been represented by such prominent horses as Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) winner Proud Spell; 2007 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) runner-up Hard Spun, ill-fated 2008 Derby runner-up Eight Belles, and grade I winners Island Sand, Wildcat Bettie B, and No Such Word.

Jones’ success in 2011 came following a one-year hiatus from training the previous year, with Cindy handling the training duties during his break. In addition to Havre de Grace, Jones’ 2012 stable includes Mark Valeski, who is being pointed toward the Kentucky Derby but may not make the race due to the graded stakes earnings that determine the 20-horse starting field.

In addition to Jones, the Talkin’ Horses podcast will also feature Tom LaMarra, news editor at The Blood-Horse magazine and co-host of Bloodhorse.com’s “That Handicapping Show,” to recap and preview major stakes races, including Derby preps.

Michael Hernon and Brian Graves of Gainesway Farm

aspradling — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:25:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview.

This edition of BloodHorse.com’s popular Talkin’ Horses live podcast featured Michael Hernon and Brian Graves, from the Lexington-based Gainesway Farm. The podcast was recorded at 2 p.m., on Tuesday, March 20.

Owned by the Beck family, Gainesway Farm’s stallion roster includes such prominent sires as Tapit, Afleet Alex, Birdstone, Orientate, and Corinthian, among others. In addition to its stallion success, Gainesway is among the leading consignors at North American auctions, has achieved success with its pinhooking ventures and horses on the track wearing the farm’s colors.

Hernon, a native of Ireland with a commercial horse background, was appointed Gainesway’s Director of Sales in November 1996 and his responsibilities include sales of seasons, identifying stallion prospects, developing partnerships, and purchasing breeding stock.

As Yearling Sales Manager at Gainesway, Graves is in charge of recruiting and purchasing select yearlings for Gainesway consignments, and managing those yearlings to the sale. He is also in charge of Gainesway’s yearling sales and communications with clients regarding their yearling sales.

The podcast is co-moderated by Ron Mitchell, online managing editor for BloodHorse.com, and The Blood-Horse magazine staff writer Esther Marr. The Talkin’ Horses segment of March 20 also includes handicapping analysis by Jason Shandler, a staff writer with The Blood-Horse who co-hosts "That Handicapping Show" at BloodHorse.com.

Special Edition - Lane's End Staff on Zenyatta's Pregnancy and Foal

aspradling — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:33:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview. Sponsored by War Horse Place.

When 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta produced a healthy colt by Bernardini at William S. Farish’s Lane’s End Farm near Versailles, Ky., it marked another chapter in the storied career of the popular mare owned by Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Moss.

Managing such a high profile broodmare is no easy task, and those responsible for the care of Zenyatta discussed the great mare’s pregnancy and delivery of the foal during a special edition of BloodHorse.com’s popular Talkin’ Horses podcast.

Joining Talkin’ Horses moderator Ron Mitchell and Blood-Horse magazine staff writer Esther Marr were Lane’s End manager Mike Cline and Charles Campbell and Donna Vowles, who manage the broodmare operation at the farm and were in charge of Zenyatta during her pregnancy.

The trio of Lane’s End professionals answered questions that included those submitted via Twitter, Facebook, and email about Zenyatta’s personality traits, daily schedule, and how she handled being in foal. They also offered insights into the new-born colt and the plans for him and Zenyatta over the next several weeks.

Photo Courtesy of Mathea Kelley and Team Zenyatta

[brightcove videoid="1500080391001"]

David Milch

aspradling — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview.

David Milch, the Thoroughbred horse owner who created the racetrack-themed dramatic series “Luck” that premiered on HBO Jan. 29, was the guest on Bloodhorse.com’s Talkin’ Horses podcast at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 21.

“Luck,” which is centered primarily at Santa Anita and stars such actors as Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, and Dennis Farina, has garnered rave reviews and large audiences and has been renewed for a second season. The show, which airs on Sunday nights, offers a behind the scenes look at the world of horse racing, including owners, trainers, jockeys, and gamblers.

Milch, who has owned two Breeders’ Cup winners and is the creator of smash hits such as “NYPD Blue”, “Hill Street Blues”, and “Deadwood”, has called "Luck" his “love letter” to horse racing. Retired Hall of Fame jockey and current HRTV analyst Gary Stevens is also among the cast members on “Luck.”

In addition to the questions posed to Milch by Tom Lamarra, news editor of The Blood-Horse, and Ron Mitchell, online managing editor for Bloodhorse.com and moderator of the monthly podcasts, the Talkin’ Horses segment of Feb. 21 includes handicapping analysis by Jason Shandler, a staff writer with The Blood-Horse who co-hosts “That Handicapping Show” at Bloodhorse.com

Photo by Tom Keller

Cot Campbell

aspradling — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:52:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview.

W. Cothran "Cot" Campbell, who revolutionized racehorse ownership and syndication through his Dogwood Stable and who is being honored with the 2011 Eclipse Award of Merit, was the special guest on BloodHorse.com’s “Talkin’ Horses” podcast at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 17.

The podcast was be moderated by Ron Mitchell, online managing editor for BloodHorse.com, and Evan Hammonds, executive editor of The Blood-Horse magazine. Also during the podcast, Jason Shandler, co-host of BloodHorse.com’s “That Handicapping Show” recaps and analyzes the newest Eclipse Award winners that were announced the previous night, including Campbell who was honored for his lifetime of achievement in Thoroughbred racing.

Campbell bought his first horses in 1969 and founded Dogwood Stable in 1973. He introduced the concept of syndicated racehorse ownership, bringing hundreds of new owners into the sport. Campbell estimated Dogwood has attracted approximately 1,200 partners during the past 35 years.

Since Mrs. Cornwallis became Campbell’s first stakes winner in 1971, she has been followed by such Dogwood notables as Dominion, Domynsky, Nassipour, Southjet, Wallenda, Trippi, Smok’n Frolic, Limehouse, Cotton Blossom, and Aikenite.

Dogwood won its first Eclipse Award in 1987 with the steeplechaser Inlander. The stable raced 1990 Preakness Stakes (gr. I) winner Summer Squall, and his daughter Storm Song, who won the 1996 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (gr. I) and became the stable’s second Eclipse Award winner. According to Dogwood, it has raced 76 stakes winners, including 14 grade I winners and six $1 million earners.

Craig Fravel - Chief Executive Officer of Breeders' Cup Ltd.

aspradling — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:01:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview.

Craig Fravel, who just oversaw his first World Championships in the position of president and chief executive officer of Breeders’ Cup Ltd., was the special guest on Talkin’ Horses podcast on Tuesday, December 20 at 2:00 PM EST.

Fravel succeeded Greg Avioli at Breeders’ Cup and took over July 18 after leaving his position as president and general manager of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Southern California. He also served as chairman of the Southern California Off-Track Wagering Inc., chairman of the California Marketing Committee, and serves on the board of Equibase and the National Racing and Medication Testing Consortium. He is a previous chairman and current director of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

Fravel joined Del Mar as it executive vice president in 1990 after working as a partner in the San Diego law firm of Luce, Forward, Hamilton and Scripps, where he specialized in corporate law and finance. He was promoted to Del Mar’s president and general manager in 2010.

Steve Haskin also be joined us as a guest analyst during the live show.

Steve Haskin - Breeders' Cup Insights

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:25:00 GMT

Press the Play button below to listen to the full interview.

Steve Haskin, Senior Correspondent for The Blood-Horse, provided insights into all things Breeders' Cup on Talkin' Horses on Tuesday, October 18 at 2:00 PM.

Steve Haskin is an award-winning Turf writer renowned for his Kentucky Derby commentary, and his Breeders' Cup coverage. He also moderates the popular “Hangin' with Haskin” blog at BloodHorse.com, which includes weekly "Countdown to the Cup" features. Haskin, who has won six Red Smith Awards for his Kentucky Derby coverage, is the author of biographies of Dr. Fager, John Henry, and Kelso, as well as "Tales from the Triple Crown", all published by Eclipse Press.

Jockey Javier Castellano

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 18:15:00 GMT

Castellano, 33, is a native of Venezuela who began his career in his native country in 1996. He relocated to the U.S. in 1997 and began riding in Southern Florida until moving his tack to New York in 2001.
was also the regular rider of Horse of the Year Ghostzapper and Bernardini, the sire of Stay Thirsty.

In addition to riding Stay Thirsty to win the Travers, Castellano also won the Ballerina (gr. I) aboard Hilda’s Passion on Aug. 27.

Bob Baffert - Hall-of-Fame Trainer

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:31:00 GMT

On July 31, Bob Baffert lived a trainer’s dream, winning grade I races on both coasts, with Coil in the $1 million Haskell Invitational Handicap at Monmouth Park in New Jersey and with Euroears in the Bing Crosby Stakes in track-record time at Del Mar in California.

The 58-year-old conditioner, who was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Farm in 2009, has been an iconic figure in Thoroughbred racing since he made the transition from a successful Quarter Horse training career in the late 1980s. Since that time, Baffert has been represented by Horse of the Year Point Given and champions Silver Charm, Real Quiet, Silverbulletday, Chilukki, Vindication, War Emblem, Indian Blessing, Midshipman, Midnight Lute, and Lookin At Lucky.

With his familiar white hair, Baffert became one of racing’s most recognizable figures to television audiences since winning his first Kentucky Derby (gr. I) with Silver Charm in 1997, a year after his first-ever Derby starter Cavonnier was nipped at the wire by Grindstone. Including additional Derby victories by Real Quiet (1998) and War Emblem (2002), Baffert has a record-tying nine Triple Crown race winners.

A graduate of the University of Arizona Racetrack Industry Program, Baffert won Eclipse Awards as North America’s outstanding trainer three consecutive years—1998, ’98, and ’99. Baffert’s stable is based in Southern California.

Donna Barton Brothers - Racing Analyst

aspradling — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:26:00 GMT

Read Donna's answers to your questions now! Download this free PDF of many questions not answered during the Talkin' Horses with The Blood-Horse show.

Donna Barton Brothers is the daughter of Patti Barton, one of the first women to be licensed as a jockey, Barton Brothers is second on the all-time leading earners list for female riders with more than 1,100 victories. Barton Brothers now uses her racing expertise as a commentator and analyst for the Triple Crown series on NBC and the VERSUS networks and for TVG Network. In addition to Thoroughbred racing, Barton Brothers also covers other sporting events, including the World Equestrian Games, the Hambletonian, and the Professional Bull Riders finals.

Married to retired trainer Frank Brothers, Donna Barton Brothers is also the author of Inside Track: Insider’s Guide to Horse Racing, published by Eclipse Press. The book provides an insider’s guide to a day at the races, with tips on what to wear, how to bet, what to look for as a race unfolds, and where to see the best racing. Inside Track: Insider’s Guide to Horse Racing, which will be available in August 2011, can be pre-ordered now. The cost is $16.95, however, if you pre-order you will receive free standard shipping (a $4.95 value). The book can be purchased at BloodHorse.com/InsideTrack or ExclusivelyEquine.com - The official store of The Blood-Horse.

Ron Geary will also be appearing on this week's show. Ron is the owner and president of Ellis Park.

Produced by Prime Sports Network, Talkin’ Horses allows racing enthusiasts to submit questions prior to the live event using the following methods: Tweet questions to Twitter.com/BloodHorse using #TalkinHorses; post questions via Facebook.com/TheBloodHorse; email questions to talkinhorses@BloodHorse.com; or submit questions here.

During the segment of the show when calls will be taken, you can phone 1-877-244-0585.

Talkin' Horses with The Blood-Horse is sponsored by HorseRacingFanShop.com.

* The Live Show Player uses Microsoft Silverlight. For best results, use Internet Explorer web browser.

Steve Haskin - Journalist

aspradling — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:55:00 GMT

Transcript is now available, read below or Download a PDF document here. Thank you for your time!

Steve Haskin is an award-winning Turf writer renowned for his Kentucky Derby commentary, with weekly articles, Classic Spotlights, and the "Derby Dozen" all found on the BloodHorse.com website's special Triple Crown Mania section. He also moderates the popular “Hangin' with Haskin” blog at BloodHorse.com. Haskin, who has won six Red Smith Awards for his Kentucky Derby coverage, is the author of biographies of Dr. Fager, John Henry, and Kelso, as well as "Tales from the Triple Crown", all published by Eclipse Press.

Transcript: Talkin’ Horses With Steve Haskin

Greg: You are listening to the premiere to Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse and Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse is brought to you by Horse racingFanShop.com, your one stop shop for equine apparel, books, and more and we’re very, very proud to have Blood Horse as a new sponsor partner and this all new show, Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse, is going to help a lot of the sports fans on Prime Sports Network educate, entertain, inform what’s going on in the Thoroughbred industry as something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

I’m your host, Greg DePalma and joining me each week will be Ron Mitchell. Ron, first of all, thanks for coming on with me each week because I definitely couldn’t do this alone.

Ron: Thanks, Greg. We are certainly looking forward to the opportunities here and we’re very excited from Blood Horse’s perspective of partnering with you on this.

Greg: Well, let me just let everybody know every week we’re going to have special guests that we’re going to talk to and help us to make this, as I said at the open, a very educational process and it’s going to educate me. That’s what I’m excited about.

We’ll do one a month at 12 noon and we’ll let you know, of course, every month what the situation is on the day and all that but again it’s a once a month show and then hopefully after a few months we’re going to start to go week by week, that kind of thing. So we’re really looking forward to speeding up the process, but again just let everybody know it’s once a month, not once a week but our first guest this month will be Steve Haskin and Jerry Jamgotchian.

Greg: Tell me a little bit about, first of all, our first guest which will be on in about 10 or 15 minutes, Steve Haskin. What’s the deal with Steve?

Ron: Steve is the Senior Correspondent for Blood Horse magazine and he also runs the very, very popular blog in our website called Hangin’ with Haskin. He has been at this for a long, long time and is certainly probably the, as far as racing journalism goes, the preeminent authority on all things Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown. He is interviewed a lot by not just other racing entities but mainstream publications so he’s the go to guy for Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown.

Greg: Sounds great so we got the right guest. That’s for sure for our first show.

Ron: Absolutely. You know this has been a very exciting Triple Crown season, you had a different horse win the Kentucky Derby (gr. I), a different horse win the Preakness (gr. I), and a different horse win the Belmont Stakes (gr. I). You had a jockey who was suspended for seven days as a result of how he rode a horse in the Belmont which by all accounts really screwed up Animal Kingdom, the Kentucky Derby winner, in his ability to win the Belmont. We don’t know that he would have won it but certainly it was a factor in that race so it’s been a very exciting Triple Crown season even though we did not have a horse going for the Triple Crown this year.

Greg: Tell us a little bit about Jammer.

Ron: Jammer is a Californian who owns a lot of horses. He raced primarily in California until moving most of his stock to Kentucky a couple of years ago. He is generally always let’s say “jousting at windmills” so to speak. He files a lot of complaints, actions, litigation, whatever, primarily against racing regulators trying to defend owners’ rights and protect what he thinks is the investment he and other owners have in horses. A lot of horses run in what are called claiming races. That means that the horse runs with a price on its head. Another owner or trainer can say I want to claim that horse, they put in a claim forward--sometimes if there’s more than one, there’s just a blind draw--but if you end up claiming that horse that means you’re going to pay that person X amount whatever that claiming price was and you take possession of the horse.

Kentucky now has a rule saying that once you claim a horse like that there are restrictions on what you can do with that horse as far as racing it out of state. These things are designed to try to keep stock in the state and keep them from going elsewhere. Jammer has a horse he wanted to enter in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has now said that they will not honor these restrictions placed on this horse by Kentucky and so Jammer is continuing to challenge this Kentucky rule and a couple of years ago he’s successful. He did the same thing in California.

Greg: Tell me what’s the reason why the states have this rule. How does that benefit that states?

Ron: Well, again, if they can put restrictions saying you cannot race it outside of Kentucky that supposedly helps the Kentucky racing industry as far as keeping horses filling races, which has become a big issue in recent years as there are a lot fewer horses available to fill races.

Greg: Simple enough. But obviously the situation there is not very simple so we’ll talk to Jammer later probably about 12:45-ish and again that’s Eastern time and by the way we do have a date for our next show and it will be again on a Tuesday and again I’m assuming this is probably the third Tuesday of every month. It’s July 19^th and our special guest is Donna Barton Brothers.

Ron: Yes, a lot of racing fans and even non-racing fans would know Donna. She was a jockey. She is married to a retired trainer by the name of Frank Brothers and now he works as a consultant for a major racing stable. She is known to a lot of people after a lot of the major racing broadcasts. She’s usually the one on horseback that’s interviewing the jockeys so she really knows her stuff and she is also the author of a book that’s going to be released later on this year. It’s being published by Eclipse Press and that book is called “Inside Track: An Insider’s Guide to Horse Racing” so Donna should be a very popular guest.

Greg: Alright, Ron, before we bring in our first guest, talk a little bit about your background and of course you have Talkin’ Horses show on Blood Horse, the website, BloodHorse.com, just quickly talk a little bit about the difference between that show, this show, the reasons for it, and then of course if anybody on Prime Sports Network, any of our listener base doesn’t yet have a full grasp on Blood Horse and how important Blood Horse has been to the Thoroughbred industry, maybe you can enlighten them.

Ron: First of all, Blood Horse itself, the magazine is the pre-eminent International Weekly Thoroughbred magazine and 16 years ago, maybe a little longer than that, we started what has become the horse industry’s premier website, BloodHorse.com. I’ve been a managing editor there for 16 years. It certainly is a go to place for a lot of people in the horse business not just in the U.S .but internationally.

Talkin’ Horses, we started it as just a strictly online chat but as a text only kind of thing where readers send in their questions and we would just answer them with a guest and edit that and post those. It’s morphed into more than that. It became a podcast about a year ago and now we’re in partnership with you guys so that’s how it’s evolved and we still take questions from the racing fans to submit to our guests but certainly with this new format there’ll be a lot more of you and I asking the guest our own questions and mixing it up a bit and then having, as we are today, having Jammer on.

Greg: Yeah. This particular episode we did allow a great deal of questions to come in to Blood Horse and we found out that boy there were a lot of inquisitive minds out there that wanted to know about Steve Haskin and of course that’s how big Steve is and anytime they get an opportunity to ask him a question I guess they want to jump all over that opportunity.

Ron: Having just completed the Triple Crown races is primarily the reason we have him on and we’re trying to keep the content today restricted to that and there were plenty of questions about that so some of these other questions we will not be getting but there’ll be other opportunities for that. Also, I think everyone’s more than welcome to go to Steve’s blog at BloodHorse.com and submit your questions to him there and get more of that personal feedback from him on a daily basis anyway.

Greg: Again, we got this thing going with our interview segments I just want to get your opinion quickly about this past Triple Crown season.

Ron: With a different horse winning each of those three races no one really has emerged as the leader of the class yet. I guess because the Derby is considered the most prestigious of those races--Animal Kingdom won that race--so right now I guess by a lot of accounts and we’ll find out from Steve, a lot of people consider him the leader of the 3-year old gang particularly when you consider all the problems he had in the Belmont which may have impacted his ability to show what he could do in that race. So it’s still wide open but there are a lot of horses, a lot of good 3-year olds that are out there who did not compete in the Derby or the Belmont or the Preakness and so we can see, find out from Steve’s perspective, who might be hanging in the wings there that we should watch for on down the road because there is this late summer group of races, the Haskell Invitational which is a big race run at Monmouth Park in New Jersey and the Travers Stakes which everyone calls the ‘Mid-Summer Derby” that’s run at Prestigious Saratoga racecourse in New York. So we have to wait and see probably as it gets closer end of the year to find out who really emerges as the leader of this three-year old class.

Greg: Is it too early for us to start talking or getting excited about the Breeders’ Cup? I know they got early odds in the Breeders’ Cup Classic already.

Ron: Breeders’ Cup, well, again, that’s something we can find out from Steve. At least the Breeders’ Cup Classic, that’s where all these 3-year olds who for the most part through the Travers and Haskell will be running against each other and it’s usually in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which is going to be held in early November this year at Churchill Downs in Kentucky where the 3-year olds then for the most part will probably face older horses for the first time. So that’s like when it all comes together when you really see who the best horse in America is and who the best male horses in America are. But in the Breeders’ Cup there are a total of 15 races this year for all categories of horses, fillies, and mares, young horses, old horses so it is the championship day but certainly as far as the 3-year olds that participated in the Triple Crown series, you find out what you got there.

Certainly, horse racing is year-round now. Everybody--particularly the non-core racing fans --focus on the Triple Crown races but it’s certainly much more than that. Actually, from your listeners’ point of view, as we continue down the road with this broadcast, their learning curves will certainly be enhanced and BloodHorse.com Talkin’ Horses fans already know most of this stuff so.

Greg: Alright. Again, we’ll have a lot of that kind of stuff to touch while we’re going to have Steve on here very shortly. As I was going over the list of Triple Crown winners, of course it’s been since 1978 with Affirmed and then 1977 Seattle Slew and 1973 with Secretariat that we had a Triple Crown winner.

Ron: That’s what we’ve come to know as racing’s heyday. Just in that short period of time we had those caliber of horses all running and they were on the national scene the whole time. We’ve not seen anything like that since. We had some bump ups with Smarty Jones, Smarty Mania and that type thing but certainly nothing that could compare to that period.

GregDo you think it’s a slam dunk that Secretariat should be considered the greatest horse of all time?

Ron: Not a slam dunk. I mean you’ve got different eras. We don’t know exactly what would have happened let’s say if he had competed against Man o’War. We don’t know what would have happened if he even competed against Affirmed. It really is so subjective and we can’t say because they will never face each other so we can’t say but by all regards, certainly, when you look at what Secretariat did in the Belmont Stakes that has left an indelible image in almost everyone’s mind.

Greg: What is your-- everybody and of course and I’m sure Steve will give his opinion and everybody has an opinion—opinion on why there hasn’t been a Triple Crown winner since 1978. What’s your feeling? Is there a specific reason or reasons why you think that is?

Ron: I think just overall it’s just such a tough achievement and I just don’t think that today’s horses are up to it. Frankly, it’s three races in a short period of time vat arying distances and it really takes almost a super horse and we’ve not seen many super horses. There are several schools of thought on this. Some are that the breed is not as stout as it was in those days. I can’t say that for sure. Others say medication used in horses has led to a less durable horse, breeding patterns. There are a lot of theories out there but no one can say for sure. Certainly, I think everyone does clamor for a return to the 70’s if we could ever get back there with the same caliber of those horses.

Greg: I’ll tell you what. We’re going to try to get Jammer on because we’re not able to get Steve on right now so I’ll try to get him on the air here in the next couple of minutes. So now that the Triple Crown is over, talk about even just the average sports fan that might want to be interested in getting involved with horse racing in between the Breeders’ Cup and the Triple Crown. What would you say is the best way of them going about doing that?

Ron: Well, certainly via websites. There’s a lot of information out there and frankly for the non-racing fans if they came to our website, we update our website probably 25, 30 times a day with a lot of information. There’s a lot of racing between now and the Breeders’ Cup and what you get into are these races in July, August, September that are preps for the Breeders’ Cup so it isn’t like there’s a void. There’s a lot going on all the time. People need to engage in it.

Greg: Well, we’re finally going to get Steve Haskin on here so let’s go ahead and talk to him about a lot of the stuff that we’ve been bantering around here. Again, welcome, Steve, thanks a lot for taking the time out.

Steve: My pleasure. I didn’t know that was you. I was ignoring that phone call. I thought it was coming on a different phone.

Greg: That’s alright. Better late than never. It was only a couple of minutes. A couple of things that I was talking with Ron here about, the average sports fan that might want to get interested in horse racing, the Triple Crown is over, the Breeders’ Cup ain’t going to be for a few months, how would you advice them to get involved, get excited in between those two big parts of horse racing? What’s coming up that you think can excite them about horse racing?

Steve: Well, ideally you want to get them interested before the Triple Crown or before the Breeders’ Cup but if you have to use the window in between, I would encourage people to come out to either Saratoga or if you’re on the West Coast go out to Del Mar and just make an entire racing experience out of it. If you’re going to go out to Del Mar it’s a totally different atmosphere. You wear your flip flops and your shorts and you go out to the beach in the morning and have breakfast somewhere and go out to the track. It’s very casual. A lot of good looking people there. It’s fun. In California you really, really love that.

Saratoga is much more historical. You go out to the backstretch in the morning and you can see all the horses working on the Oklahoma backstretch or the main backstretch, go out to breakfast, go to the museum, go out to the races in the afternoon. You take a walk down Broadway and go on to some of the shops, a lot of racing memorabilia there and arts and crafts and paintings and go out to dinner at night. So the history of Saratoga is still there as it was 60, 70, 80 years ago so it’s two totally different atmospheres but that’s a great way to get interested in horse racing. Just go out to either one of those two racetracks.

Greg: Ron?

Ron: Well, I mean Steve is right. Certainly, these are all very, very nice racetracks. Anybody who goes to these tracks is going to have a great time. You’re going to see some great horse racing particularly at Saratoga and Del Mar.

Greg: Let’s talk about the Triple Crown now, Steve. It’s all over. Another Triple Crown year where we didn’t have the excitement, we haven’t had the excitement of a Triple Crown winner since 1978, give me your reasons, I’m sure you probably are asked this every year when we don’t have a Triple Crown winner, but give me your reasons why you think we haven’t had one since ’78.

Steve: Well, there are several reasons and everybody looks at the most logical one thing. No, the horses aren’t that good, the horses are more fragile right now than they used to be, the three races in five weeks is too much on a horse. I think that it’s a lot harder to win the Triple Crown right now. It’s a lot harder to win the Derby right now because of the fact that you have a 20-horse field every year, 20 horses entered every year and every one of those horses must qualify by graded stakes earnings which means that when you go into the Derby you are up against 18 or 19 top class graded stakes horses whereas in the past if you look at Affirmed and Alydar that year, if you look at Secretariat’s year, you’ll find two, three, maybe four really top class horses and you’ll have Kentucky Derby fields of 9, 10, 11 horses. And you go back into like the early 70’s where they had 17, 18 horses and 10 or 11 of them would be claimers. Literally, cheap claimers, horses that did not belong in a stakes race never mind the Kentucky Derby because anyone could run in the race there so the Derby was not as taxing then as it is now. Just to get to the Derby and accumulate enough graded earnings… once you get there you’ve got to be very lucky and you’ve got to be a full field of horses that qualify and it was not like that years ago.

Ron: Yeah, definitely. That’s a good point, Steve. It seems like we got into this era where anybody that has a good 3-0 that qualifies based on those earnings they’re in the Derby so we’re always pretty much going to see a 20-horse field and it’s lot tougher to beat 19 others than it is to beat only 8 or 9 others.

Steve: Right. You have to remember too by the way that there are a lot of good horses that don’t qualify that are late developers and those horses are going to wait to either the Preakness and Belmont so if you do get through the Derby there are a lot more quality fresh horses that you’re going to be facing in the Preakness and Belmont especially the Belmont Stakes now than you used to. When Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes he won against four horses. Citation only ran against a few horses. Now, if you’re trying for the Triple Crown you look at Smarty Jones, you look at Funny Cide, you’ve got full fields of horses there and you’ve got fresh horses. A lot of them now run in the Derby and skip the Preakness and they’re much fresher for the Belmont Stakes and you have late developers like Ruler On Ice who were getting good later on so you’ve got to now come back and beat a completely different group of horses and the ones you’ve already beaten are now fresher while you have that race in the Preakness in between so to me it is a lot tougher right now.

Greg: Considering this 20-horse field that we’re probably always going to look at in the Kentucky Derby, do you agree with the calls to drastically reduce the number of horses that are allowed to run in the Derby or do you think it’s any owner’s right?

Steve: Actually, I don’t. I mean logic says yes but I just don’t think you can do it. Maybe I’m looking at it from a purest point of view, from a historical point of view but the way I look at it is this the horse’s only shot in his life to obtain the immortality that goes with winning the Derby and it’s hard to deprive 6 horses of that if you’re going to lower the field to 14. You know you can try and make it a more fair race or you can leave it to some mystical event where you need the Derby gods to be smiling down on you. If you do lower it to 14 you cannot let the field be decided on the horses graded earnings in 2-year olds sprint races I don’t think. I think you need a more balanced field than what they’ve accomplished as a 3-year old. You can’t have 2-year old form trump big performances in races like the Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, Sanita Derby, Arkansas Derby. You have to find a happy medium to balance it out so maybe I’ll just use half the earnings that a 2-year-old accumulates in 3-year olds sprint races. But as far as reducing the number of horses now--I think the Derby is an event more than it is a horse race--and if a Derby god is smiling on you or you are so far in a way the best horse then the Derby gods will find a way to let you win as they’ve done in several other years. Looking back, Frances Genter obviously with Unbridled. Nobody was going to beat Mrs. Genter that day when you saw what happens on TV. I say, look, leave the races alone and event and not to deprive any of these horses and their owners and trainers of possible once in a lifetime situation.

Greg: Steve Haskin joining us here on Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse and we’ve got a lot of email questions from our Blood Horse readers, Steve. One, Jennifer wants to know now that the Triple Crown races had been run, what horse most impressed you and why in any one of the Triple Crown races?

Steve: It would have to be definitely Animal Kingdom. First of all, Animal Kingdom is the one horse that actually dominated his field in the Kentucky Derby and he did it as a very lightly raced horse who’d never run on dirt before. So what he accomplished in that race, in a race where they closed very, very fast--his final quarter and final half is the second fastest in Derby history--second only to Secretariat. So I just think that he impressed me the most. He had a bad start in the Preakness. If he had been closer to the pace it might have been different, but he did have every chance to win and finished a solid second, and then in the Belmont Stakes was a total disaster when he clipped heels, almost went down, and then John Velazquez lost an iron. And on that racetrack, you could not make up ground and he’s floundering back in last place while his jockey is trying to find his foot to get back into the stirrups again.

He made a huge move past six horses in an eighth of a mile and actually looked like he was going to win the race. But you can’t make a move like that at Belmont on that kind of a sealed fluffy racetrack. As it turns out, he came out of the race with an injury which hampered his chances even more. So I think by far he was the most impressive horse in the Triple Crown.

Greg: Really, so as far as you’re concerned one of the most impressive performances was not even a winning performance?

Steve: Exactly. I thought his race in the Belmont Stakes was extraordinary and this was even before I found out that he was injured in the race. If you look at the other races, every horse was coming from either on the lead or a length or two back and you know what happens at Belmont Park and a lot of tracks. When they have a sloppy track it becomes a conveyor belt and horses don’t change positions and at Belmont Park when you make that big wide sweeping move on the big turn it’s very hard to sustain it. And if you’re injured on top of it and on that kind of a racetrack then they’ve sensed that he was not going to be able to sustain his run. But as it is, it looked like he had a shot to win and still finished well enough.

Ron: Animal Kingdom’s Belmont aside just overall looking at everything, what was the best part of this year’s Triple Crown, Steve?

Steve: Well, the way I look at it I think the best part in Triple Crown was to have the three races won by trainers that everyone likes. They were all just nice likeable guys, Graham Motion and Dale Romans and Kelly Breen. You can’t find fault with any of them. They’re all three honest great interviews. Dale Romans, he’s just the guy that everybody likes and has been through the wars from the beginning and has worked on the racetracks since he was a kid. Same with Kelly Breen. He needed years and years, waiting for his break that never came until he hooked up with George and Lori Hall and he now is a private trainer. So I think having those three trainers win and also the whole story behind John Velazquez getting the mount on Animal Kingdom. You talk about the Derby gods, John Velazquez, I mean he’s had such bad luck. He’s been on the favorite for three years in a row and all three times his horse never made it to the Derby. Here he’s floundering around, he has no Derby mount, his horse once again gets hurt in the race when he loses Uncle Mo. What happens is that Robby Albarado gets hurt and decides not to ride on the Friday before the Derby and your connections of Animal Kingdom think “so you know what, if he doesn’t like Friday we don’t know how he’s going to be on Saturday.” John Velazquez was open. They gave him the mount and boom, just like that, overnight he winds up on the Kentucky Derby winner. So that’s what I mean about the Derby gods. You never know. There’s always a story somewhere.

Ron: Yeah, the way that entire thing came about was very, very interesting. That brings us to what do you think was the worst part of this year Triple Crown.

Steve: Well, you know I hate to look at the worst of anything. I don’t know. I think some of the injuries. I think the fact that Animal Kingdom did get hurt in the race and it hampered his chances. Again, I always like to look at the positive and I know some people will say well, you know Barry Irwin made some comments that he shouldn’t have. Look, Barry Irwin, he’s a straight-forward honest guy who talks from the gut. I mean I’ll take honesty over controversy any day so when he starts talking “they lied to me”and this and that. Does he wish he could take it back? Sure. But that’s the worst thing that happened in the Triple Crown and to me it was a pretty uneventful Triple Crown from a negative standpoint.

Ron: I like the positive attitude. Also, now that we’re through the Triple Crown, when do you think we should evaluate this crop of 3-year olds?

Steve: I don’t think you can evaluate this crop until after they meet all the horses and we see how they develop by Haskell and Travers time. You know we’ve got a lot of lightly raced horses. Like I said, I don’t know what the situation with Animal Kingdom is going to be but if you look at the three Triple Crown winners, Animal Kingdom had four lifetime starts going into the Derby, Shackleford had five lifetime starts going into the Preakness and Ruler on Ice had six lifetime starts going to the Belmont. That’s not a lot of experience in these horses and the fact that they were able to win the classics anyway, we don’t really know how good these sources ar. So they may develop by summertime, by fall, and turn out to be a lot better than they were. Plus we’ve had so many brilliant horses like Uncle Mo and several of the others like Premier Pegasus and Tapizar. I don’t know the status of these horses. There are a lot of good horses that never made the Derby. We’ll see if they come back in the summer and fall. Some of these really good horses that missed the Triple Crown races come back in fall. Then you have to include them obviously and you have to assess the crop a lot differently than you would right now. Plus we have a lot of horses this year that were grass/synthetic type horses and were bred more for stamina than speed, so a lot of these horses’ speed ratings, speed figures are not going to be very high. But I think it’s because of the fact that these horses are bred more for stamina and to me that’s a good thing. I’d rather have a lot of stamina horses other than Shackleford. Look at the horses that won a lot of these races, they were all well bred distance looking type horses.

Greg: Steve Haskin joining us here on the premier program, Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse on the Prime Sports Radio Network. Before I get to another question from one of our Blood Horse readers, Steve, definitely I wanted to pick your brain on this one. I asked Ron this question before. Do you believe first of all that Secretariat is by far the greatest of all time. If he is, who do you think is right behind him second?

Steve: Normally I try to avoid answering questions like that because horses from different areas are so hard to compare. Yeah, you go back to a horse like Man o’War who, is running in three or four horse fields and you had crop of 5,000 horses as opposed to crop of 50,000 horses in the 80’s. So it’s completely different. If you’re going to ask, if you’re going to pin me down, I’ll break it down this way. The greatest horse over a three-year period as a 2-year old, 3-year old and 4-year old that I ever saw with Spectacular Bid. What this horse did in those three years was unprecedented and will never be duplicated. I mean to me he was the best horse I saw over a three-year period. Secretariat had to be the greatest 3-year old for what he accomplished as a 3-year old and he was Horse of the Year at 2 as well. Another 3-year old I thought was one of the greatest 3-year olds I ever saw was Damascus and the best single year, the single year campaign of any horse that I ever saw was Dr. Fager who carried weight, broke world records, broke track records. These are some of the most extraordinary things I ever saw a horse do as a 4year old. If you want to break it down that way, Secretariat let’s say greatest3-year old, Dr. Fager greatest 4-year old, and Spectacular did great combining two, three and four.

Greg: Here’s another question from one of our readers at Blood Horse. It’s from Flummoxed in Virginia. We heard in the post race press conference how Ruler on Ice’s blood cell count were low after his Sunland Park races but they were back up to acceptable levels for the Belmont. Isn’t that sort of information something that would be of enormous value to serious bettors?

Steve: Well, I’ll say to Flummoxed yes it would, but what would you have the racetracks or Equibase do about it? I mean handicapping big races, there’s a lot more than just looking at the past performances. The horse’s low red blood count was well documented in the Daily Racing Form and on a lot of the racing websites so you just have to read these publications if you want to get as much information as possible on the horses. You just can’t go by the past performances. You can’t put stats somewhere in the past performances that a horse had a high red blood count or a low red blood count or whatever. You’ve got to read up on these horses and do your homework and it was well documented. Flummoxed in Virginia, next time you get to a big race just read all the articles beforehand.

Ron: Actually, Steve, was that information pretty widely available prior to the race?

Steve: I read it. I saw quotes from Kelly Breen. Before the race I knew he had a low red blood count and I read it on the websites but I’m pretty sure it was in DRF and I’m sure it was on some of the others too.

Greg: Another question from a reader is WF. He wants to know if looking back on the prep race season, could you grade the major prep races--I guess just which ones stood out in your mind as the best?

Steve: Well, believe it or not I would have to give an A to the Sunland Derby of all races, for producing the Belmont winner and the third place finisher in the Preakness. When you can get a race like the Sunland Derby or any race that’s going to produce two horse’s in the Classic--that are going to win the Belmont and finish third in the Preakness--you have to rank that race right up to the top. Right after that I think they’re pretty much the same. I would probably give the Florida Derby an A- for producing Shackleford who won the Preakness and Stay Thirsty who was second in the Belmont. And the winner, Dialed In, who did not run a bad race in the Derby and disappointed in the Preakness e made his presence somewhat felt. And I guess I would have to give the Louisiana Derby a B+ for producing the Derby second and third place finishers. Nehro and Mucho Macho Man both come out of that race and of course you’d have to give the Spiral at least a B for producing the Derby winner in Animal Kingdom.

Ron: You do mention the Sunland Derby and of course it gave us Mine That Bird, the Kentucky Derby winner.

Steve: Yeah and not only that but it also gave us this year’s Kentucky Oaks winner.

Greg: Oh that’s right.

Steve: Not the Sunland Derby but the Sunland Oaks. Plum Pretty, who won the Sunland Oaks by 25 lengths, came back and won the Kentucky Oaks so Sunland Park is certainly making its mark in the major races and classics.

Greg: Yeah it sounds like the sun is shining on New Mexico these days. Steve, onto another question here, Lenny says, “I truly believe that if Animal Kingdom’s connections had stayed with the original jockey, the outcome would have been different. What do you think?”

Steve: Well, I don’t know if he means different in a good way or different in a bad way. I don’t know if he means that the horse wouldn’t have won the Derby or he would have won all three races. I don’t think there’s any way you could tell. I don’t think Robby Albarado would have lost on the horse let’s put it that way. Robby Albarado is a top rider. Obviously he didn’t ride the horse and the horse won. If he had ridden the horse there’s no way to tell if the horse would have gotten beat. I don’t see why he would have gotten beat, considering how dominant he was in the race. So yeah many people are looking at it the other way. You can’t blame John Velazquez for any the two defeats in the Preakness and the Belmont so again I don’t know if he means this in a positive way or a negative way. But either way I don’t think anybody could really speculate on what would have happened with a different jockey.

Greg: Larry Oh says such big deal is made of the early interference in the Belmont. In the Preakness I thought Mucho Macho Man veered out even worse and pushed Dialed In into Animal Kingdom costing him the race. What’s your take on it?

Steve: Well, you know I don’t know. Again, is he blaming the jockey here? I mean the jockeys don’t contribute to slow starts. I mean they might get caught napping in one race but it’s hard to blame a horse’s defeat strictly on the start. If I’m going to blame any defeat with Animal Kingdom it’s going to be the Belmont more than the Preakness. I mean the Preakness start obviously didn’t help him by getting him too far out but you can’t say that it cost him the race. Again, if any incident cost Animal Kingdom the race it was the Belmont and the Preakness start wasn’t the best but he was in position to win for most of the stretch run. I just think Shackleford was the better horse that day but he was compromised. But you can’t come right out and state that that start in the Preakness cost him the race.

Greg: Steve Haskin, we’ve got him for a couple more minutes. Steve, the Triple Crown is now over and we’ve got a few months to go before the Breeders’ Cup. What should we all look forward to in this year’s Breeders’ Cup?

Steve: Well, basically the same thing, the same thing you do every year. Hopefully, the best 3-year olds and the best of all the horses will get together and let’s hope that the 3-year olds really mature and can hold their own against the older horses. This is not the greatest crop of all the horses. I mean we’ve got a few good ones that I’m high on – Twirling Candy out in California, Rail Trip and Friend Or Foe--I thought ran an awesome race the last time they ran. Tizway looked very good winning the Met Mile and I like Mission Impazible. He’s a good tough hard knocking horse.

Now, are there any stars there? No. Are there any stars in the 3-year old division right now? No, not big names like we’ve seen in the past. If I owned or trained a filly like Blind Luck, I might be inclined this year to maybe try the Classic because some of these other fillies that are developing might be tough in its own right. So Blind Luck is to me one of the most extraordinary horses. I think she might be the best horse in training regardless of sex and she loves a mile and a quarter so I might be inclined to pick a shot there. And Aidan O’Brien made an announcement the other day that a horse named Await The Dawn, who’s won four in a row now by huge margins and looks like he could be any kind--he looks like a mile and a quarter specialist--and they’ve been pointing for the Classic for awhile. And when Coolmore sets their sights on a race like the Classic well in advanced as opposed to what they’ve done previously, which is what make it an afterthought like after the Arc de Triomphe, so the fact that this horse is being geared toward the Arc, towards the Breeders’ Cup Classic right now. I would certainly remember the name Await The Dawn but again it’s early to try and assess what kind of field we’re going to have. We’ll see who comes back from earlier injuries and who stays sound the whole year.

Greg: I have one last question and then Ron will go but I did want to ask and this is important I think for a lot of fans like me that are trying to follow this sport better. What do you think that horse racing in general can do or what do you wish they could do to market themselves better to the general public?

Steve: Wow, that’s definitely the million dollar question. First of all you’ve got to get somebody in marketing who knows what they’re doing, who knows how to market.

Greg: There you go.

Steve: They’ve tried to come up with silly slogans here and there but they’ve got to look and study what poker has done and what wrestling has done and what NASCAR has done. You’ve got to come up with something to make racing identifiable. You can’t just say oh, you know, for the thrill of coming out here and bet these horses and oh, for the beauty of the horse. You’ve got to take the beauty of the horse, the thrill, and thrust it to people’s homes through their TVs and radios, computers or whatever. But you need someone to come up with a great angle. Sometimes the simplest thing can set a product off and we have to look at racing as a product. And we’ve got to hire the best marketing people available and come up with something to attract people. And not the way we’re doing it now. Racing used to sell itself because it’s a race where you actually become part of the sport. What you bet on a horse you are like the owner of the horse. You have money invested in that horse and you’ve got to enhance that angle and the beauty and excitement of the horse itself. You’ve got to combine those. I’m not a marketing person so I don’t know of anything specific. We’ve got to combine those and get somebody who knows what they’re doing.

Greg: Well, do you think like it would help to have like a specific day like a lot of other sports have like a specific day and time every week that you have an exciting race or something that everyone could say oh, it’s Saturday afternoon racing on ESPN, you know something like that?

Steve: Well, we used to have that but nobody watched it so you can’t just have racing on TV. You have to do something to make people watch that race. Maybe get them involve. I mean years ago they used to have all these supermarket contests where you can buy a card and you get a horse and then you can watch the races which happened to be run like five years, six years earlier but people got involved in it through supermarket sweepstakes. You know we used to have the Irish sweepstakes. That got people involved. If we could have something like an Irish sweepstakes and get people involve and have a monetary interest in it that will open the door for them to appreciate the other aspects of the sport.

Ron: Steve, I got a couple other questions here from non-traditional site participants in our chat. One is from Jean Schnell and she says, “My question doesn’t pertain directly to horse racing. It is related so I hope it is chosen to be answered. As a journalism student who would like to break in to the world of race reporting, any words of advice or paths to take so students such as myself might join an esteemed writer such as yourself someday?

Steve: Well, I like Jean right off the bat. I’ll say this, if you’re listening, the fact that you’re a journalism student, you obviously know how to write so don’t worry about that aspect of it and when you do write, don’t try to be Ernest Hemmingway. Don’t overwrite. I’m certainly not even close to being anywhere near a top, top writer. What you want to show in your writing is number one, your passion for what you’re writing about, in this case horse racing, and have the ability to tell a story. To me, being a storyteller is something that I enjoy doing more than trying to impress people with my writing. So if you can do that and tell a story and be creative and come up with a big opening and come up with a big closing and in between when you tell the story… you have to draw readers into your story with a good, interesting, creative opening and leave them with maybe a few goose bumps or a few tears and they’ll stay in the last part of it, to the last paragraph. And in between, you learn how to structure a story and make it into a story as if you’re writing a novel and just keep people interested and wanting to read more. That’s the best advice I could give anyone.

Ron: As far as getting published perhaps she should set up her own blog or website and go ahead and start working, doing her own work that way and try to get noticed?

Steve: Listen, you know I’ve suggested that to several people already. One person who contacted me who wanted to get into writing was a guy from Chicago named Brian Zipse and I told him, I said, “Look, you got the passion, you can write, you know your history, start your own website.” He started his own website, now he’s credentialed at the Derby and now he’s like an editor for Horse Racing Nation, one of the top racing websites which is a fan oriented website. He’s got thousands and thousands of followers so yeah, definitely. Set up your own website and bring that passion into it and bring it out there to as many people as possible and then if you have a story idea, you know what, write it and send it to the Blood Horse, send it to some of the other publications. It can’t hurt. You know what, even if you write it and have them publish it for free. I can’t tell you how many things I did in the beginning for free just to get published. You’re not going to get rich writing about horse racing anyway so you want to put your foot in the door, just get your name out there and get your work out there so people will know who you are and how well you write.

Ron: Thanks, Steve. Another non-traditional question here comes from 15-year old Anika Olesen who is writing from the Northwest Territories of Canada. “Mr. Haskin, in all your years of following horse racing, what race stands out and some most exciting you’ve ever seen? I love your writing. Sincerely, Anika.”

Steve: Thank you, Anika. I appreciate it. Well, there are so many to choose from. Of course you have to go with Affirmed, Alydar in the Belmont and Sunday Silence, Easy Goer in the Preakness. But a couple others that really resonated with me and got me excited were both of Tiznow’s Breeders’ Cup Classic wins, both times when he defeated European horses, Giant’s Causeway and Sakhee especially the second year when he beat Sakhee. That was just less than two months after 9/11. And the other two at the top of my head would be Forego’s Marlboro Cup where he was carrying a staggering weight of 136 pounds and came flying in the slop to get up right at the end and beat a very good horse in Honest Pleasure. And I think he had everybody just basically gasping and cheering him on in that race. The other one would have to be Personal Ensign, also another race in the slop where Personal Ensign came up and secured her undefeated career by beating a Kentucky Derby winner in Winning Colors. I mean that race and Forego with – I think I might have said 136, I meant at 137. Forego came at 137 pounds. It was just unbelievable. It looks like he had no response so I would say those that I mentioned, those half dozen races are the ones that stick in my head right now, the ones that I’ll never forget.

Greg: Steve, we’re going to pretty much wrap up our segment with you here with this last question. From Natalie Heights, “In the past Derbys who do you think (horse wise) should have won or deserved to win a Derby but did not?”

Steve: Who? Let’s see. Well, again, I will have to go back and I think the most obvious one would be Native Dancer who got into trouble in that race and was beaten. That’s the only race he ever lost in his life. Gallant Man of course when Bill Shoemaker misjudged the finish line and he was beaten. He definitely should have won that Derby. I would definitely have to say Empire Maker who was supposed to win the Triple Crown in 2003 and get beat by Funny Cide in the Wood Memorial. He came down with a bruised foot a week before the race and was not able to train at all the entire week leading up to it. I mean he couldn’t even gallop and for him to go into the Derby with basically no training at all, no workouts, no gallops--one time he did go out to gallop, he aborted it by bolting to the outside fence --and he still ran second in the race and he was a better horse than Funny Cide and I think he definitely should have won the Derby that year.

I would have to include Afleet Alex who ramped in the Preakness. We all know what happened to him in that Preakness with the stumble. He almost went down and romped in the Belmont and he’d won the Arkansas Derby by eight lengths. But in the Derby he finished third and everybody said “well, you know it was a rough trip he had” But what people don’t realize is that he had come out of the race with a lung infection which he had before the Rebel and the connections did not want to make it public to make it sound like they were making excuses so they never said anything. I didn’t find out about it until well after the fact but he did come out of the Derby with a lung infection. Had he not had that lung infection I think Afleet Alex definitely would have been a Triple Crown winner.

Just thinking back a heartbreaking loss was Cavonnier who got beat by a good horse in Grindstone. But I think Cavonnier should have won that Derby because of the fact that he got whipped across the face turning for home and that just really spooked him and stunned him and you could just see him throw his head up in the air. When he opened up he looked like a sure winner in the stretch and Grindstone just beat him like a half a nose right on the wire. I’m not going to put Cavonnier in the same category as the others but he probably should have won that year’s Derby so those are the ones I would think of right now.

Greg: Alright, Steve. Well, we’ve taken up more than enough of your time and anybody else out there. Of course we didn’t have time to read all of your questions but you’ve got a blog, Hangin’ with Haskin on BloodHorse.com so I’m sure that’s the best way also for the fans to interact. Do you interact with the fans? Are you able to talk to them, answer their questions?

Steve: Well, yeah, every story I put on there whether it’d be a recap or a column or a blog, they’re all open to comments so people comment and I always try and get back to as many people as possible. I mean like during the Zenyatta craze, my columns on her were getting between 300 to 500 comments so it takes awhile to keep up with all that but when people comment like that it’s great and I do try to get back to as many people as possible.

Greg: Who says the horse racing industry is down, right, Steve?

Steve: Well, listen, you couldn’t tell it from the Zenyatta. I know from that we need horses to come around once in awhile to capture the public’s imagination. And let’s try and get a horse win the Derby and Preakness and try for the Belmont. That’s more important to me than sweeping the Triple Crown. It’s the interest leading up to the Belmont. That’s more important. That brings mainstream America into racing because you know what everybody wants a Triple Crown winner. Once you get a Triple Crown winner it’s not going to be as big a deal anymore and mainstream America is going to say it back again and they’re going to say you know what, it’s not that big a deal anymore so let’s just keep having horses thrive for it and hopefully one year one of the great horses we’ll get.

Greg: That’s right. Alright, Steve, thanks a lot. We look forward to talking you later on down the road.

Steve: My pleasure. Take care.

Greg: That’s Steve Haskin and again that’s Hangin’ with Haskin blog at BloodHorse.com and he is an award-winning senior correspondent for Blood-Horse so it’s a great opportunity for us to get Steve on here on the very first show.

Ron: Absolutely. Again, Steve’s blog is one of the so many ways in which we interact with fans these days. Steve is very much in demand and well-respected and he’s certainly an authority on what he speaks. I mean he is Mr. Kentucky Derby and Mr. Triple Crown.

Greg: By the way, do you doing the Triple Crown races yourself, Ron? Do you handicap races or give your picks and things like that?

Ron: No. We’ve got a pretty good core of handicappers here.

Greg: You leave it out to them.

Ron: Jason Shandler for one and Tom LaMarra. They do a lot of it. They have weekly handicapping videos on BloodHorse.com and certainly they handle that end of the business. I’m more of the news guy, the business guy and I run the website and that certainly takes pretty much all of my time. I keep up with the handicapping part of it but I’m not a handicapper per se and believe me I don’t think anybody would really want my selections.

Greg: Well, before we get Jerry Jamgotchian on, he’s our next guest, we’ll get him on here in the next minute or two, why don’t you kind of preview again as best you can this whole background story of this claiming rule?

Ron: Well, once again, horse racing has a tier of stepping stone races. Obviously, the best races are called stakes races. If you’re not good enough to compete at that level then you run in what are called allowance races and then it trickles down into what are called claiming races. Now, if you have to be at the competitive level of claiming races, this means you enter your horse for a price. They have a price on their head and that means that some other owner or trainer can put in a bid to take your horse for that price in that race and that’s called claiming the horse. When you claim a horse that means you get it and right now Kentucky and California and some other states have tried to put restrictions on what you can do with those horses once you claim them. What they want to try to do is keep the horses in the state and they’re doing this through the regulatory process because the more horses you keep in the state then certainly the better the horse racing is in that state because there are more horses running in races.

Mr. Jamgotchian has challenged the Kentucky rule as he wanted to race his horse in Pennsylvania after he claimed it and the Kentucky rule, it’s a lot of specifics of this rule, but it said that he could not run his horse out of the state. He has challenged that and Pennsylvania at the racetrack where he wanted to run, they said they would not honor what Kentucky is trying to do and allowed him to enter his horse.

Greg: Well, let’s go straight to the horse’s mouth and welcome in horse racing owner, Jerry Jamgotchian. Jerry, good to have you on Talkin’ Horses.

Jerry: Thank you for the invitation on your inaugural show.

Greg: It’s great to have you on, Jerry. By the way, Jerry, Jammer, what do you prefer?

Jerry: It’s Jerry Jamgotchian. Jerry is fine.

Greg: Jamgotchian, okay. Say? I want to make sure I got that right. Where’d you get the nickname Jammer by the way?

Jerry: You know, I don’t really know. It just kind of stuck with me and I have an email address jammer999 so maybe that’s kind of how it got there.

Greg: That’s cool. Well, how are you? I mean I’m reading the story on BloodHorse.com about the claiming rule and at the bottom of the article and again Ron actually the one who wrote this article, the bottom of it, it mentions when you threatened legal action against the KHRC. You also had a situation here previously a couple years ago where you challenged the California rule and you filed suit against the California Horse Racing Board that later suspended and amended its rules regarding entry of claimed horses. So you’ve been down this road before, it looks like you may have to go down this road again. Why do you always have to be thrust in to the spotlight here on these issues?

Jerry: Well, it’s kind of an interesting question. Ron Mitchell’s article of June 17^th really outlined the story. When I claimed this horse at Churchill, she’s a Pennsylvania bred so my intention was to race her in Pennsylvania. I kind of determined a couple years ago after we received the Attorney General’s opinion in California that the California claiming rule was in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the Commerce Clause specifically, and so when I claimed this horse in Kentucky I figured that the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Churchill Downs would certainly take the same position as the California Horse Racing Board and terminate what clearly is an illegal rule. I don’t think there is any doubt about that it violates the Commerce Clause.

It turned out that when I was getting ready to enter the horse in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Racing Secretary got a call from Churchill Downs Racing Secretary Ben Huffman who basically said, “Hey, that horse can’t run.” At which point I then called Huffman and I said, “Why can’t the horse run,” and he said the horse is “in jail” and that the restriction to race the horse goes with the horse anywhere in the world. I’m saying to myself “well, I’m sitting here with the ruling from the Attorney General’s Office in California citing many cases with regards to extraterritorial restrictions and how they clearly violate the Commerce Clause.” And so I asked them, “Are you sure you want to take this position,” and needless to say his position was that the horse couldn’t run. I then contacted that Kentucky Racing Commission and their position is the horse couldn’t run so I then put everybody on notice that the horse was going to run or that there would be litigation commenced. Then low and behold I entered the horse in Pennsylvania and the Attorney General of Pennsylvania reviewed a case that I had tendered them as well as the Attorney General’s California opinion and they said the horse can run in Pennsylvania and that angered the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. So what we’ve done now is we’ve sent a letter to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission as well as the Attorney General’s Office and we requested a ruling in the letter that was sent out on June 17^th, requested a ruling by the Kentucky Attorney General regarding the validity or the constitutionality of this rule. We expect a ruling any day now to see what the Kentucky AG’s opinion is and if necessary we’ll file litigation against the State of Kentucky. But I don’t believe that’s going to be the case because I think that they’re going to call their own rule unconstitutional.

Greg: Well, maybe we got a whole new saying here, speak softly and carry a big whip because I actually expected that you’re going to be this guy that was going to be ranting and raving and you know of course just reading what you’ve had to go through. Jail? Did you just say that your horse was put in jail?

Jerry: Well, it’s a term. We call it jail time and basically what it does is precludes you from racing your horse anywhere in the world other than Kentucky. And that is clearly in violation of the Commerce Clause because one state’s law cannot go to another state and preclude somebody from another state from doing something. When my horse left Kentucky to go to Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania racing secretary doesn’t have an obligation to follow Kentucky law because he’s in Pennsylvania, not Kentucky. I mean there’s not even a rational sense to export a Kentucky law to Pennsylvania or any other state. In fact the California Horse Racing Board, courtesy of my action a couple years ago, welcomes any horse from any state to race in California, claimed, not claimed, whatever because they know from their own Attorney General’s position as well as the Pennsylvania Attorney General as well as the Attorney General in Kentucky, they know that the claiming rule violates the U.S. Constitution Commerce Clause. I mean everybody knows it. It’s just that the racing commissions and Churchill Downs and some of the racetracks believe that they can take the owner’s horse and basically hold it hostage at their racetrack and force it to race there and have the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and other agencies basically punitively enforce the rules against owners. It’s just clearly improper and that’s what I’m trying to correct.

Ron: Jerry, the people who wrote it and put it on the books believe in it and believe that they are on good constitutional grounds but sometimes you never know until someone like yourself who obviously has all the time and the money to challenge it. You never know until it gets challenged and it looks like you’re the guy that’s out there on behalf of owners’ rights.

Jerry: Well, that’s really the only reason because I have about 60 horses in training now. It’s awfully expensive to keep horses in training and you need to have these horses moving to racetracks for additional spots. I mean if I have 15 maidens (horses that not won their first race), I can’t sit there and wait for races at Churchill Downs. I’ve got to get these horses moving to other racetracks and that’s why my trainer and I have moved a lot of horses to race in other states, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Florida, I mean wherever, West Virginia. I mean we need the spots and one of the things. Somebody asked the question earlier (I was in and out of the radio show when you were talking to Steve Haskin) on how can horse racing be improved. Well, the key to horse racing is so simple. I jotted down a few ideas.

Bringing people back to the racetrack. It’s an incredible experience for anybody that attends a racetrack. Especially if you’re an owner, you go on the winner circle, there’s no better feeling than that. The second thing to do is to lower the takeout and make it advantageous and beneficial for people to come to the racetrack by charging them less, even reduce the takeout, for somebody that comes to the racetrack. We’ve talked about this in California but the California Horse Racing Board doesn’t listen to its customer. Certainly the third thing that’s critically important is that the racing associations as well as the racetracks themselves, as well as the racing commissions need to listen to the customer. I mean it is just crazy ignoring the customer.

Ron: We’ve been talking about that for a long time now. It looks like they would be getting the message.

Jerry: You know, they just don’t want to listen to the customer. It’s just a wild position to take that you refuse to listen to your customer. I mean NASCAR does, wrestling does, everybody wants to know about the customer. What does a customer want? The people that operate horse racing, they just don’t care and that’s something that really disturbs me. Owners like me, who invest hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to keep a string of horses moving and racing to the benefit of the racing association, they should be picking me up and doing whatever I ask them to do with regards to all the handle that I’m bringing in the racetracks. It’s a sad commentary that the racetracks want to, in this particular case, punitively enforce illegal regulations against owners, the lifeblood of their business and more importantly not listening to their customers, not reducing take out, not being more effective, not bringing better technology into play at the racetracks. It’s criminal and from my perspective as an owner, if somebody could figure out the opportunities that horse racing has to be a successful and vibrant sport, they’re there. It’s legal gambling, number one. Most industries like NASCAR and wrestling, they don’t have gambling. The ADW providers who are essentially taking money off track are killing the on track experience because people aren’t going to the track but are betting out of their houses. That money now is being diverted to the bottom line of the corporations and being taken away from the purse accounts, which reduces the owners’ purses, which reduces the horses, which reduces the experience and profit of the business.

I don’t know. We were talking about claiming. I guess I’m off the subject a little bit but…

Ron: We thought that that might happen to you Jerry.

Jerry: Yeah. The issue on the claiming though I believe is that when and if the Kentucky Attorney General comes out with his ruling stating that this Kentucky rule’s unconstitutional, that will pretty much end it in Kentucky. If they don’t do that, we’ll sue the State of Kentucky and then we’ll move forward.

Interestingly enough, if you want to get back to the rules of Kentucky, the Thoroughbred rules, there are three sets of rules for this claiming rule. The one rule relates to Thoroughbred and it says that essentially you can’t race the horse anywhere else, allegedly which is really anywhere else in Kentucky, as the way it’s written but the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission thinks their rule says anywhere in the world 30 days after the meet end. But if you look at the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission rules on harness racing, the horse is released after 30 days, period so there’s a totally different claiming jail period for harness and Thoroughbred and then when you look at it it’s nearly the same as harness. In two of the three horse racing elements under the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, the claiming rules are the most restrictive on Thoroughbreds which to me is just another big problem they have if they want to litigate the case.

Greg: Before we let you go, Jerry, I’m going to make you happy here and put you to the test too at the same time. Let’s say you are commissioner of horse racing for the day, what would be the very first thing that you would do?

Jerry: Well, I would immediately reduce the takeout, I would force a better split with the ADW providers and more importantly I would give people who come to the racetrack an even lower takeout to stimulate on track attendance because the more people that get introduced to horse racing on track… For some odd reason, the first time you go to the racetrack you always win, right?

Greg: Yeah, beginner’s luck.

Jerry: There’s nothing better than that experience and so we’ve got to make it… and of course listen to the customer that’s always been ignored. But those elements of bringing people back to the racetrack, lowering the cost to the consumer, allowing them to wager more rather than take their money quicker. I mean it’s like a slot machine. They basically want to drain you little by little by little. They just don’t take it all and say get out and wait for the next guy. In this particular case, horse racing has got to listen to the customer and they’ve got to lower the takeout and they’ve got to make a significant financial inducement to get people back to the racetrack.

Greg: Well, I mean you hit it right on the head with getting them there. That’s how I was hooked on NASCAR. Most of my other friends that have never really cared for NASCAR, the whole theory about ‘oh, why would I care about NASCAR, all they’re doing is riding around in circles and all that kind of stuff.’ Then I went to the race in Daytona and actually got a great opportunity because of a sponsor to sit up in the suite. They were passing around raffle tickets and it was a contest where you picked a driver and whoever won, if you got the right driver that won the race you won some prizes. Well, I wound up finishing second but it was so exciting for me because I get to follow the driver. Of course Daytona is like one of the most exciting racetracks, if not the most exciting racetrack, in NASCAR so I instantaneously became interested in wanting to know more and that feeling I never would have gotten if I didn’t attend the race in the manner in which I did and it wasn’t even like gambling. It was just having fun getting involved and that’s something as you said is very important more than anything if you’re going to attract more fans.

Jerry: Hey, Greg, when you bring up NASCAR it’s very interesting because the technology that’s developed with NASCAR is incredible. You’re like in the car almost, right?

Greg: Yup.

Jerry: Secondly, that you can go to the pits and look at the car. But there’s one major thing that horse racing has over every sport that NASCAR doesn’t have, wrestling doesn’t have. Horse racing can get the people back into the pits or the stable but you can’t wager on NASCAR like you can horse racing. And that’s the big separator that if the people that run horse racing understand that they have something that nobody else has which is the ability to wager. Just think if you could wager on NASCAR.

Greg: Yeah, you can wager on NASCAR in a sports book or something like that but you can’t go to the racetrack.

Jerry: I’m talking at the racetrack.

Greg: Exactly. You can’t go there and that it would be a huge…

Jerry: It’d be beyond imagination. I mean there’s the NFL. Obviously, wagering is not legal at a football game and wagering is basically driven the NFL, right?

Greg: Absolutely.

Jerry: That’s illegal but horse racing is legal. As I said, I just shake my head with regards to the mismanagement of this sport at every level and the claiming issue that we talked about is clear mismanagement. We have one state’s attorney general saying it’s illegal. And if the Kentucky attorney general says that’s illegal, well, there’s three AG opinions that it’s illegal. I don’t know how much longer the horse racing establishment wants to maintain a clearly unconstitutional rule. But we’ll see if somebody will be able to claim a horse and hopefully by my hard work and money will be able to race it anywhere. That’s my goal because owners’ rights need to be enforced in the United States because we need owners to race horses. Until the tracks realize that you know, what can I say? I just shake my head.

Greg: Just keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t give up and slowly I believe the worm will turn and fans will get what they want. It may take a while but we’ll get there.

Jerry: Well, the worm will turn on the claiming rule. I assure you, Greg.

Greg: Alright. Well, we’ll be on top of it and we definitely look forward to having you back again, Jerry. We really appreciate your time.

Jerry: It’s my pleasure being on your inaugural show and I thank you for the invitation.

Greg: Thanks Jerry.

Ron: Thanks, Jerry.

Greg: Again, we have had for our first show a very educational time here with our two guests, Steve Haskin and Jammer.

Greg: Anyway, what we’re going to do every show too just to let everybody know is we’re going to use this time. After our final guest we’re going to use up the next 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 10 minutes to open up the phone lines, you can give us a call, toll free: 877-244-0585. Again, the toll free number will be and I’m sure of course it’ll be promoted at BloodHorse.com as well as on the top homepage of Prime Sports Network, 877-244-0585 and so as we kind of wrap up every show, if you want to give us a call, phone will ring, I will answer it and if it sounds like a good question we will get you on the air. Unfortunately we won’t have enough time to get you on the air to talk to our special guests but that’s what all the emails are about and that’s why again we had a few hundred there for Steve so first show, how’d you think it went, Ron?

Ron: Absolutely. I really liked it. I thought it was entertaining. I thought it was a good flow. Actually, went longer than I thought it might but that’s okay. Certainly, more is better. I also want to take the opportunity to go ahead and remind you that the third Tuesday of July we will be having Donna Barton Brothers on, a TV commentator and a former jockey and she certainly would have a lot to lend to your listeners and our listeners.

Greg: Yeah. Donna Barton Brothers is a former jockey, a well-known national racing commentator, familiar to racing fans as the broadcaster who conducts the post racing interviews on horseback at major North American races. Barton is also the author of “Inside Track: Insider’s Guide to Horse Racing” and that was recently released.

Ron: No, that will be out in August. Not there yet.

Greg: Okay. That’ll be out in August.

Ron: That’s coming up.

Greg: That’s a couple months away. This is actually the best time anyway to have her on then is because we’ll have her on in July which means that several weeks after we have her on I guess the book will be released so that’s perfect timing.

Ron: Absolutely.

Greg: I always thought that was a really good idea that they came up with to interview the jockeys right after a big race like that. I’m not sure when they started that. Do you remember?

Ron: No. I can’t tell you that either. Certainly, also some prerace, she does some prerace interviews. As a matter of fact, there was one prior to last year’s Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic which is run on Friday before the big Breeders’ Cup races, it was somewhat controversial in the sense that there was a horseback interview with jockey John Velazquez prior to that race and his horse in that race, a really top horse, the favorite, named Life At Ten, he said, “You know this horse really doesn’t seem to be doing right,” and as it turns out the horse ran anyway, finished very, very poorly and later they realized that she did have a medical problem and that has become somewhat controversial. There’s been an investigation by the Kentucky Racing Commission into the circumstances behind that and it even has been suggested that perhaps those racetrack horseback interviews both pre and post race probably should not be permitted so we’ll stay tune for that.

Greg: Should not really, should not be permitted.

Ron: Right. Again, probably primarily the pre-race comment.

Greg: Yeah. I agree with that a little I guess.

Ron: Yeah. I doubt if anything is ever going to happen to the post race because certainly you would not be talking about the same issues you did here where the jockey says my horse doesn’t look right but yet the stewards allowed the horse to run. He did not convey that information to the stewards who are usually the people with primary responsibility for scratching a horse out of a race but millions of people watching on television knew what he was saying but the stewards did not.

Greg: Now, is there a particular analyst whether it’s NBC or ESPN that you like, you prefer?

Ron: There quite a few. You’ve got Gary Stevens who’s a retired jockey and is very, very good on all aspects of horse racing and Randy Moss. Both those guys, not meaning to slight anybody else, but those are the two names that come to mind and they really are excellent, very insightful and know their stuff, not shallow comments when you’re listening to those guys.

Greg: Between this show and our next show which again is July 19^th, anything going on in between shows as far as races, anything that we should be tuning into?

Ron: Well, definitely you got July 4^th coming up. There always a slew of big races over the July 4^th weekend. I mean racetracks, the one thing they do get right is they realize when people have time off work and really want to go to racetrack some holidays. Holidays have always been very big for racetracks. Offhand I cannot tell you exactly which horses will be running in those races but certainly on July 4^th weekend, watch for that. Go to our website and see. We preview every major race and also do an immediate recap including videos of all the big races so that’s the next thing to look forward to. Yeah, pretty that’s it. Saratoga and Del Mar, two of the most prestigious race meets begin in late July so we’ll be able to talk about that on our next segment too.

Greg: Sounds good. Before I let you go and I’m sure every show I’m going to learn a little bit more about you, of course you’re the top analyst here, I’m more of the host, do you have one specific memory growing up that you consider one of your favorite when it comes to horse racing?

Ron: Actually, Greg, I did not grow up in a horse racing environment and I can honestly say I did not become fan till I started working in the industry. I was a journalism guy who always loves newspapers and I got into this via the journalism route.

Greg: Why did you choose it?

Ron: Well, to be honest, I had a fledgling college career at the University of Kentucky.

Greg: Looking for a job.

Ron: Exactly. I walked into the – there was a publication published here many decades ago called The Thoroughbred Record and just on one day I got an appointment with the editor and walked in and told him I wanted to write and he said ‘well, you don’t know anything about horse.’ And I said right but I know how to write and so he gave me a job as a researcher and I did that for three or four years before they ever let me write one word. I have been at it ever since that, which was in ’77.

Greg: Wow. Well, that’s still while ago so since that time, do you have any memories that you...?

Ron: Oh absolutely. I mean some of those things that Steve talked about, the rivalry between Affirmed and Alydar, anybody who lives through that period can never forget that. I mean those are some of the most tremendous, most exciting races we’ve ever seen. Certainly, I mean they were two very, very good horses going at it and if they had not lived and not competed in the same era, the both would have been either bigger than they ended up being. Affirmed ended up being the Triple Crown winner obviously but Alydar was always right there and if Alydar had come let’s say 10 years later, he certainly would been much more of a standout than he was in a firm shadow.

Greg: Yeah, I didn’t grow up in Thoroughbred racing either. I grew up basically more of a harness fan because we lived close to the Meadowlands so we used to go over. My dad used to take me over to the Meadowlands a lot and it’s still. I can’t think there are many other nicer places to go watch racing than the Meadowlands with the restaurant and everything they have there. I don’t know. Have you ever been to Meadowlands?

Ron: Yes I have and I must say absolutely it’s a standout when it comes to any kind of racing but it is more geared to harness racing. In recent years they’ve had a Thoroughbred meet but that’s probably going to change now and it’s going to go back to being strictly harness but that’s at the top. That’s absolutely at the top of harness racing right there. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Greg: Yeah and I remember some of my greatest memories we’re watching Nero and Nihilator. I was there the day that Nihilator had raised the track record. I forget what the time was. I think it was sub 1:50 if that makes any sense because I can’t even remember. It’s been so long. It was one of the things where I was small enough that my dad used to be able to take me around the finish line and kind of lift me up and put me over towards where you could actually stand along the fence and so I could actually right there at the finish line. I mean the place was mobbed watching one of the greatest harness horses of all time and it’s been awhile, I know that they still cover from that mistake in the, what is it, the Hambletonian and was it the Marlborough? What was the other at the Marlborough Cup?

Ron: They have the Hambletonian and Little Brown Jug.

Greg: The Little Brown Jug.

Ron: Yup.

Greg: Do they still do that?

Ron: Oh yes, absolutely and again it’s not my area of expertise but I would say Nihilator, that name stands out. That was probably Harness racing Secretariat.

Greg: That’s right. That’s why I always remember that. It’s been fun, it’s one show in the books and we’re going to look to improve the show every time out and so if you’ve got any questions, comments, anything like that you like pass along, what you’d like us talk more about, talk less about, anything at all that can help us help you inform and entertain you every time you tune in here to Talkin’ Horses, just please let us know and we will do our best.

Ron: Definitely. Don’t forget our sponsor, Horse racingFanShop.com. You go there and I assure you you will not be disappointed. You can find something there that you want, something you can get for yourself or something you can get for someone else.

Greg: Is this also where you’ll be able to get Donna Barton Brothers’ book in August?

Ron: I would think certainly. It’s being published by our own publishing company here, a division of Blood Horse called Eclipse Press, but certainly we’re in partnerships with a lot of other outlets so I would think that could be done also.

Greg: Well, that’s again going to be our next guest coming up on Tuesday July 19^th at noon so again we want to thank Steve Haskin and Jammer for joining us here on our maiden voyage of Talkin’ Horses with the Blood-Horse brought to you by Horse racingFanShop.com. Ron, thanks a lot. Well, talk to you next time.

Ron: Great. It’s really been enjoyable. I appreciate it and look forward to a good working relationship.

Greg: Likewise. For Ron Mitchell and Greg dePalma, we’ll see you next time right here on the Prime Sports Radio Network.

William 'Jinks' Fires - Listen to Podcast

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:45:00 GMT

Jinks Fires Bio

William 'Jinks' Fires - Trainer

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:51:00 GMT

The newest star on the Triple Crown scene, William “Jinks” Fires, will be the featured guest on the next bloodhorse.com Talkin’ Horses podcast.

Fires, 70, expects to be represented by his first Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) starter in Archarcharch, the upset Arkansas Derby (gr. I) winner. Although new to the Derby trail, Fires is no stranger to Churchill Downs. He has been stabled at the Louisville, Ky., track on a continuous basis since the early 1960s.

Fires, who resides in Hot Springs, Arkansas, grew up in a large family actively involved in horse racing. Of the nine boys and two girls in the Fires family, eight boys, including Hall of Fame jockey Earlie Fires, have worked in the horse business.

Family connections also play another role in Fires’ life as Jon Court, the regular rider for Archarcharch is his son-in-law.

The cutoff time for questions is Monday, April 25 at 5:00 PM ET, and the podcast will be recorded on Tuesday, April 26.

Eddie Woods - Listen to Podcast

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:00:00 GMT

To listen to the podcast, click the PLAY button above.

Transcript

Ron: Welcome to BloodHorse.com’s Talkin’ Horses podcast. Today we’re pleased to have sale consignor and agent Eddie Woods with us.

Eddie’s in the process of preparing for next week’s Keeneland’s 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. We won’t spend a lot of time going through Eddie’s background, it’s there on the web site for you to see, but needless to say he is one of the leading consigners of 2-Year-Olds in Training Sales and he is a renowned pinhooker.

Welcome, Eddie. First of all, can you tell us, what is a pinhooker?

Eddie: Thank you for having me. A pinhooker is someone who makes a living just at trading, buying and selling as quick as he can for as much profit as he can.

Ron: I guess traditionally though you’re trying to buy these horses pretty young and develop them in your way and then improve on them and resell them?

Eddie: Yeah. Well, as far as the development and get them to their best to show themselves to their best athletic ability and then move them along.

Ron: Certainly your record speaks for itself. Among the horses that you have worked this with have been Big Brown, Midnight Lute and Left Bank, quite good company there.

Eddie: We’ve been lucky to have some nice horses, yes.

Ron: We’ve received quite a few questions from people. Some are redundant and forgive me if we end up repeating; I’ve tried to weed them out in a way that we won’t be repeating too much.

Eddie: Sure.

Ron: First of all, this comes in from someone who goes by the name of Septor – In your experience how good a predictor is the manner in which a yearling walks to his later action, like a gallop, or later, to his level of racing performance.

Eddie: A yearling has to have a good walk to be a good middle to long distance horse or they’ve got to have that athletic swing. The sprinters, the really, really quick horses, they can maybe not have quite as good a walk and get away with it, but most of the good middle to long distance horses are real good walkers.

Ron: What are you looking for in that walk? What do you like to see?

Eddie: You’re looking for a swagger. They’ve got a bounce, they’ve got a swagger and their tail pops from side to side, they have good overreach as their hind legs cross over the footprint of their front foot by quite a margin and they’ve got a very… just a very rubbery look to them.

Ron: The next question, Steve from St. Louis – and we have quite a few questions along this line – When you attend the sales, does your process begin blindly by just starting to walk the shedrow looking for individuals or do you identify the pedigrees in the catalog first which interests you?

Eddie: We identify more with, not so much the pedigree, but the sire power that maybe we’ve had some luck with or that we feel doesn’t work for us and we start with that and we work on from there.

Ron: Then I guess when you’re able to call the horse out to take a look, a conformation.

Eddie: Yes. Yeah, we go in there and after that it’s a gradual process and we’ll have looked at a horse two or three times as far – no, three to four times prior to bidding on them.

Ron: Do you vet everything that you intend to buy or bid on?

Eddie: For the most part we will have a vet do an endoscopic examination on everything, as in look at the throat and if there are x-rays in the repository which there are mostly anymore, we will have the same vet look at those.

Ron: Jenny H. and Kate the Great want to know – Do you think pedigree is more important than conformation or do you just have to balance the two?

Eddie: I think conformation is number one. Getting them both together is the golden goose. We try and balance the two.

Ron: From Brian Hawkins – What conformation or abnormality that typically scares away some buyers have you found to ultimately be of little racing consequence?

Eddie: Curves on the hind legs. We’ve had a lot of good horses that have had curves and we go ahead and take care of them and at the end of the day they mean nothing. Curves and splints, they fall into the same category.

Ron: By taking care of them, a little bit of surgery?

Eddie: No, no, no. Just rest them, do whatever we need to do.

Ron: So you’ve had good luck with that?

Eddie: Yes.

Ron: On the other hand, what conformational abnormality do you consider a no-no in purchasing a horse to pinhook?

Eddie: Horses that are pretty much back at the knee. Yeah, that’s a big no-no for us.

Ron: Is it pretty universal, do you think, among most guys that go to sales and do what you do that if you’re back at the knees they toss you out?

Eddie: Yeah. No, we’ll go with little slats with the knee and what have you but if it’s something that’s pretty badly back at the knee, it doesn’t matter what he looks like or how he’s bred or anything like that, you just don’t go with it.

Ron: Next question is from Gene Liddy – Is there room for a little guy in the pinhooking business?

Eddie: Always. You know you see so many cases as in like say they have a sale that’s following Keeneland here at the April OBS Sale where there’s 1,300 horses cataloged. There’s a lot of horses in there that cost less than $10,000. They all will make a profit, but if someone worked hard in the year buying the yearlings and everything like that and took the horse to a nice open sale, if they’ve done the job right, they will make a good profit.

Ron: I’ve got several questions here from people that are really wanting to get into the pinhooking business. Is there any kind of secret formula for getting in to pinhooking or do you have to be an agent of another kind of horses first?

Eddie: Well, for those that have been in it (sales) before it shouldn’t be that difficult, even though it would be a step away from what they’ve probably normally been doing and you’re probably maybe buying a different kind of horse what they would normally buy. At the end of the day though what we’re all trying to do is buy athletes – horses that look like they can run.

From a person who’s been in it before in the horse industry, the preparation thing is a little different from getting a horse ready for a sale and ready for the races. Getting them ready for a sale is different from getting ready for the races and you kind of have to adapt to that a little bit. For those who haven’t been in it before and would like to test the water, the best thing they can do is do their homework pretty well, look up a lot of results, look up a lot of buying and selling and see who consistently has got all the horses to the sale and has had a big percentage show up in the breeding shows and everything like that.

Ron: Next question – actually, the next two are kind of related – from Dan – It is my opinion that there is far too much reliance put on pre-vet exams in the purchasing of young horses. Clearly, there are certain flaws that can be overlooked but it appears the vet process has become too critical and minor flaws are reason to discard the horse. What’s your opinion on vet exams and how much weight you put in them?

Eddie: I couldn’t agree more with his statement. People are casting aside horses for very minor issues that are really of no consequence -- that would be both customer and veterinarian for that matter -- and in some instances we have some very professional and knowledgeable veterinarians who add up all the facts and say “yes, he’s not perfect, he’s got a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a bit of the other, but it all really means nothing at the end of the day and it most likely will not affect this horse in any way.” Nine times out of 10, if you find something that’s perfectly squeaky, brand new, honestly clean, the sucker probably can’t run anyway.

Ron: Just too perfect, huh?

Eddie: Yeah. Now, there’s so many good horses out there with all kinds of little things and you just have to be very sensible and not overly analytical about it and just use common sense.

Ron: I guess also having a pretty longstanding working relationship with your vet or vets and they what you’re looking for and that you’re willing to live with and as far as how much weight they put on those defects.

Eddie: Well, we go with that all the time. We put a lot of stock in what our veterinarian says. What we also have to do when we’re buying is to handicap and think what someone else’s veterinarian is going to say. If we weren’t comfortable with what our vet said and comfortable with all the information he gave us with regard to the little issues that we were going to have to go with, we wouldn’t be buying the thing in the first place. Even though we’re quite comfortable with some issues, some of them we even have to step away from a pinhooker point of view because they’re going to bite us the next time around.

Ron: Well, sure I guess yeah, you have to look at the – on down the road as far as even though it’s something you can live with, you have to be thinking about whether or not somebody else will be forgiving of it also.

Eddie: Quite.

Ron: The next one is from Richard, kind of along the same lines – When you are looking at yearlings, how much of an importance do you put on scoping?

Eddie: The scoping is huge. If a horse can’t breathe, he can’t run because he either can’t get oxygen and get air in. If he can’t get air into them lungs that creates oxygen in the blood, he has no stamina whatsoever and he can’t be an athlete. Hence, they have to be able to breathe very well.

Ron: From Dennis (Dennis may be a friend, I don’t know) but Dennis says – Did you get your good looks and happy go lucky nature from your mother or from your father or from both?

Eddie: Oh, we’ll go with both on that one.

Ron: Keep them both happy, right?

Eddie: Exactly.

Ron: Next question is from Abigail – Many people are debating size in the thoroughbred who is racing. Does it really make a difference if one horse is smaller than the other? How does it affect their ability to win or lose how big or how small they are?

Eddie: I don’t think it does at the end of the day. There have been too many good horses at both ends of the scale. I think there is such a thing as too, too small, like tiny, and there is a thing as in too, too big like just massive enormous. There are lots of really big horses out there that have been very good and lots of small horses and, in particular, little fillies, can be deadly.

Ron: Do you think a lot of people go to the sales and think that if a horse is a pretty good size -- they’re more striking looking -- it may help their sales value because people think that they really are so good looking that it’ll be a better runner?

Eddie: There’s no doubt. You know what I mean? Big strapping and imposing looking, flashy looking horses that just got that bit of kind of, I don’t know, they’re eye candy, you know what I mean; they catch your eye right away. Those horses are always very popular.

Ron: Next question comes from Steve – Just curious to know how you guys keep these 2-year-olds sound. At such a young age when their bones are not completely developed, is there a certain training regimen that you use to keep them from bucking shins and otherwise injuring themselves?

Eddie: You use a lot of common sense and we don’t go nearly as hard on them as some people think we do for all those reasons. Shins are something we get and you just you know hope you don’t get too many of them and you hope you don’t get them too badly but for the most part, you just go along at a steady pace and try not to do anything too stupid or too aggressive.

Ron: Eddie, you have an incredible eye for a horse. My question regards one of your sale graduates, Midnight Lute. He is an incredible horse proven by his two Breeders’ Cup Sprint victories. How do you think his first yearlings will do at the sales this summer and fall? And I guess my question is have you seen or heard much about them?

Eddie: Yes, we’ve heard plenty of about them and we’ve seen several. They look like good looking horses. He was a magnificent looking creature, probably one of the best looking horses we’ve ever had. Tom McGreevy bought him as a yearling and buys a very good horse and this was just another one that he got, and if he shows anything remotely like he looks himself that’d be beautiful.

Ron: Let me go ahead and ask you my question. What are you anticipating for the upcoming Keeneland Sale based on the other 2-year-old sales that have transpired so far and what you’re hearing back from your barn?

Eddie: I think we’re going to see… you know with the select sales is we’re getting very use to anymore, very much the same thing all the time. It’s that the good horses sell well and there’s really nobody there for the others. Some of the good horses are going to oversell. You just always hope you have one of them, and that’s just the way it’s going to be.

I think when we go into the sale that follows that up, the April sale here in Ocala, the things are just spread out a little bit so we get a different kind of buyer and they feel they can compete on any day at the sale. In the boutique sales a lot of the people are a little nervous about trying to buy in there because they feel they can’t be competitive on the top lots because of some of the heavy hitters that come and buy it themselves, so they’re inclined to sidestep it and wait for the open sales where they can just feel they’re a bit stronger themselves.

Ron: Would you say the boutique sales are not really a good barometer of where the 2-year-old market is, that you need a sale that has a much more broad base of a price ranges?

Eddie: The good sales are a good barometer for the top end, you know like what the market can sustain and everything at the top end. For across the board thing, no, they don’t get it done. When we get through the OBS June Sale and even the… the numbers seem to change greatly. The clearance number, the clearance rate, always goes up in percentage wise and everything like that, the scratch numbers go down. There’s just more people there to buy those horses so yes, to answer your question, yes, the boutique sale is a tough one to gauge any market on.

Ron: Seth from Wisconsin wants to know – Do you think the pinhookers will be supporting yearling sales this year as they normally have and where do you see the yearling market this year?

Eddie: I think the pinhookers will support the yearling sale as we always have. I think there was a little bit of tampering has been done in the last four or five – say four years ago there was some tampering done and we’ve kind the maintained the level now where the pinhookers are buying and I can see that just carrying on through.

The yearling sales, I think it’s going to be very much more of the same, just like we did in the last couple of years of the yearling sales. Better horses -- again like at the 2-year-old sales -- sell well. If you’re in the lower parts as far as quality goes and everything like that, it could get very ugly on you.

Ron: Next question is from David – Do you think too much is made of the fast workout times of 2-Year-Olds in Training Sales and how do you work your horses?

Eddie: I’ve been cutting away from that a little bit. The buyers we have are pretty sophisticated anymore and they don’t hinge everything on the times. That used to be the case once upon a time. Now, if they’re very nice horses and they work really well and gallop out well and make a great video and everything like that, they’ll stick with that horse anymore.

As far as our own horses go, we try to get it somewhere in between. It’s great if something goes really, really quick, that’s always a bonus, but you’ve got to be careful where you’re trying to get them all… trying to make them all go really, really quick, which they can’t do anyway. You’re inclined to do a little bit of damage, so you just kind to have to… you know sometimes forgive it… so you have an animal in good shape to sell.

Ron: I guess even with all the preparations there could be that horse that just jumps up and runs in really fast time, you can’t control that.

Eddie: No. Some of them really, really quick horses are really, really quick horses. You can’t make them be really quick but you can stop them from being really quick by overdoing it.

Ron: Gerald Tuttle would like to know – What conformation and pedigree differences would you look for in a steeplechaser prospect versus a classic race prospect? I guess he’s asking this because of your background as a steeplechaser from your native Ireland.

Eddie: Some of the better steeplechasers they’re a bit short in the hip and everything and the really good steeplechasers are inclined to look like good mile and a half turf horses. You know what I mean? They got a big old shoulder on them… versus your classic kind of horse who will have a bit more hip and a little bit of a tighter top on them and just not have that kind of all day look to them.

Ron: I guess one thing you would look for in a steeplechaser and a mile and a half turf horse is a horse that can quicken down the lane there at the end when everything closes with a rush.

Eddie: Yeah. Well, that’s very much like the start of grass riding anyway. You know what I mean? Once you go back to grass sprints like they’re exciting races to watch because there’s always horses closing from somewhere and it’s nothing to see a blanket finish in any kind of a good grass race, and that’s basically a lot of the horses styles of running and that’s the way you have to ride them. The steeplechasing thing is the same thing; we’re dealing with basically a lot of the same pedigrees anymore.

Ron: Right. I always wondered why anybody wanted to be on the lead in a long turf race you know. I guess somebody has to have to lead though, right?

Eddie: Someone’s got to be in front and some horse is (there) because they need a pace. They don’t have enough speed to finish like the other horses, like them horses with that great kick and come from behind. Some of the horses that come from behind are a little limited in how far they want to go and hence, they have to ride them that way and they just hope for one kick and get a good finish out of the deal.

Ron: Eddie, is there anything you would change about the current way we sell horses in the US both a yearling sales where you’re a buyer and then a 2-year-old sales where you’re a seller. Are there any changes you could see that we need in the format?

Eddie: I don’t think so. I think in recent times we’ve tweaked the format somewhat to where we’ve gotten away from the two breeze shows back to one which was the original way once upon a time. We had stepped it up to two and it didn’t really work. So we’ve addressed that. I don’t think there’s much of a way of tweaking it too much. What we need in the whole industry is we need more customers, and how we go about getting that, I’m not quite sure.

Ron: Do you think the sales companies are doing a good job as far as promotion but maybe even then it’s still just the same preaching to the choir, so to speak?

Eddie: There’s a lot of preaching to the choir. Our business is a very old fashioned business and once upon a time not that long ago everyone could relate to a horse. You had a horse in the backyard or your neighbor had a horse and someone in town had a horse or horses. We’re evolving past that and people don’t relate to the horse like those people that are now 50 years old and above do and with modern technology and videogames and all that stuff, the horse is a bit of a novelty and it’s a bit of an old fashioned thing and it’s really hard to keep people involved with it.

Ron: Right, and I don’t guess there’s really any way to change people’s behavior so that they become more one on one with the horse in this day and age.

Eddie: The one thing that may help but it’s going to hurt in some aspects, it will make certain parts stronger and some parts it will end, and that’s the boutique race meetings. They survive really well. Saratoga. Keeneland. Monmouth put up a good effort there this year with their very fancy high dollar meet and it worked really well; all their numbers were up and everything like that. Unfortunately for the everyday fellow, that looks like the way we’re going to have to go, and that’s not good news for everyone because that’s going to really hurt the small guy.

Ron: As far as cutting back on the amount of racing and just make it more special, I guess, rather than an everyday thing.

Eddie: Exactly. By cutting back it’s got to be more special; hence, we’re going to need nice horses, we’re just going to need very good horses because that’s all that’s advised. When you need very little of anything, it’s the very best. Our whole industry is dependent on gambling, and a greater part of it is now dependent on subsidized gambling from the internet and lottery machines. In other words, we can’t support ourselves; we need a third party to support us.

At some point in time the states are going to change legislation where as a track you don’t have to have a live meet to have a video poker machine because the actual live meet is eating up so much of their profits, and they’re going to get strong enough where they’re going to be able to get that done and then it’s going to get remarkably ugly for everyone. So we need to be in a spot to be able to handle that before it happens.

Ron: You’re thinking if we take action now, go ahead and cut back on the amount of racing we have, have special meets that seem to really bring out people who are betting a lot, maybe make it more self sustaining by a limited race meets all over the country rather than even just at the Saratoga’s and the Keeneland’s.

Eddie: It’s something we need to look into, yes. I don’t think we have to jump right into it but it does need looking into.

Ron: I think it makes a lot of sense. Sure. Sure. Next question is from Courtland Sims – You sold Vallenzeri who is a very high profile horse, son of Azeri who had been a record yearling buyback, when you sold him as a 2-year-old, did you do anything different as far as prepping and getting that horse shown in exactly what you did or you just handle him the way you would any other horse in your consignment?

Eddie: No, he was really just the same as all the others, the same preparation, just the same attention to detail, the same everything. The horse’s name is now Take Control, no longer Vallenzeri. He looked like a superstar. We thought he was a superstar. He’s had some little soundness issues apparently. To answer the question, no, he got prepped the same as all of the others and he worked in the middle of the show with the others. He was a special horse and I think if he ever got right, we’ll see him as a very special horse again.

Ron: Looking forward to that. Pete M. asks – Do you think buyers buy a horse because of the horse or who the consignor is? It seems to me that some consignors – the bigger consigners – are able to get a premium over the smaller ones at the sales.

Eddie: I don’t think the consigner affects anything. I think that’s a misconception to some extent because the bigger consigners have more horses and have access to more clients and, in some cases fortunately for us, when you’re big people want to sell with you because they’ve perceived that you’re big and everything like that. So we get better stock and we get bigger numbers; hence, it looks like we’re selling better than the smaller guys. The smaller guys could one day show up with a really nice horse, that thing is going to sell really well anyways. So who’s selling the thing doesn’t affect anything; it’s just a misperception from looking in.

Ron: So the horse sells itself.

Eddie: It does. Yeah.

Ron: Coming down to the end here, the next question is from Iowa who just wants to know – What are the current restrictions and guidelines on medications that a horse can have at the sale or are there any medications that are allowed now at the sales?

Eddie: Like we’re going to sell in Kentucky today or preview in Kentucky today, and we’re on the racing (medication) guidelines. We can’t use any more or any less than what, say, they would use to run tomorrow at Keeneland. They’ll test us and they test us hard.

In Florida, we also have the same thing; it’s not quite on the racing thing but the state has serious laws in Florida, probably the toughest in the country as to what kind of medications your horses can be on when entering a sale ring or entering a breed show.

California also where we sell, it’s also under the – for all intent and purposes the same as race day medications.

Ron: It’s pretty closely watched then.

Eddie: It’s very much watched. One upon a time, where people thought we had done whatever and used whatever it was to get it done, I mean you know it was all rubbish. Fortunately the NATC (National Association of Two-Year-Old Consignors), which is a strong unit, addressed the issue pretty well and made people more aware of what actually happens in the 2-year-old business and the testing was something that we encouraged.

Ron: Yeah, and you mentioned the NATC, they certainly have played a big role as far as everyone’s learning curve and just adding a lot of credibility to the entire sales experience, I think.

Eddie: The NATC gave a great education to people who were somewhat ignorant and somewhat led astray as to what we might be doing at the 2-year-old sale.

Ron: Eddie, thank you for your time. As you can tell from the questions that we’ve asked here there’s a lot of interest in what you do as a pinhooker. Obviously, you could tell a lot of people want to go into that. I guess you make it look easy. People seem to think that think that they all want to be pinhookers now. Any parting words here for somebody who wants to be a pinhooker?

Eddie: I think maybe I didn’t answer the question as best I should with the question related to that earlier on. Some people might be better off just easing on in there and getting with somebody and taking a piece of a horse or pieces of horses or getting in some of these partnerships or whatever… and just kind of sitting back and watching how it happens but being involved at the same time. Yes, it’s a tough industry to make money in, it’s a great industry to make money in because when it goes right you can make a lot. But that’s (partnership) a soft way of going in where you can just get the idea about how things go. Hell, it’s a great business and horses are the greatest thing in the world.

Ron: It’s just like anybody maybe who is trying to get their feet wet in even just horse racing, enter into it in a softer way till you learn the ropes, and partnerships are a good way to go.

Eddie: Yeah. We’ve seen a lot of very wealthy people come in to our industry. You know what I mean? Going on the diving board and went in at the deep end of the pool and they come out of the shallow end pretty quick. They attacked it, there was no plan, there’s no fence to the thing and you can’t attack anything that way and hence, you’ve got to ease on in here and see how it goes.

Ron: Yeah, you can’t just throw a lot of money at it and expect to succeed.

Eddie: You can’t buy it, if you know what I mean. You can’t buy the power of our industry because there’s too many things get in the way. I firmly believe someone has to be lucky. You have to be lucky to begin with. If you’re strong in finances and you ease your way in and you just gradually buy nice horses and feel your way around, it will work really good for you.

Ron: Great. Hey listen, thanks for your time. Good luck here in Kentucky.

Eddie: Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

Eddie Woods Bio

Eddie Woods - Leading Pinhooker and Sale Consignor

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:48:00 GMT

Eddie Woods, a leading pinhooker and sale consignor, will be the next guest on Bloodhorse.com’s Talkin’ Horses podcast.

A native of Meath, Ireland, who was a steeplechase jockey, Woods now operates a 240-acre training and sales prep facility in Ocala, Florida. In recent years, he has emerged as one of North America’s leading pinhookers and consignors to 2-year-olds in training sales.

Pinhookers like Woods attempt to identify and purchase young horses that can be developed and later sold for a profit.

Among his notable sale graduates have been Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner and champion Big Brown, champions Midnight Lute and Left Bank, and grade I winners Borrego, Harmony Lodge, Buy the Sport, Haynesfield, Line of David, Mandy’s Gold, Nonsuch Bay, My Great Love, and Pure Temptation.

Thank you for your questions. The podcast will be taped on Wednesday, April 6.

John Asher - Listen to Podcast!

Blood-Horse Staff — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:53:00 GMT

To listen to the podcast, click the PLAY button above.

Transcript

Ron: This is Ron Mitchell with BloodHorse.com’s Talkin’ Horses podcast and this week we’re very honored to have John Asher of Churchill Downs. Mr. Asher is an executive at Churchill Downs. More than that he’s an authority and a tireless promoter, historian, whatever you want to call it for the Kentucky Derby.

Welcome, John.

John: Great to be here, Ron. Great to be here. It’s 73 days till Derby so we’re getting anxious around here.

Ron: I know that it’s certainly a labor of love for you but I’ll tell you between January 1 and that first Saturday of May you go well beyond the call of duty. We all appreciate it.

John: You know it’s what you live for in this business, it really is and I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be here. I grew up on a little farm that had nothing remotely to do with thoroughbred racing when I was a kid but fell in love with the Kentucky Derby like a lot of other Kentuckians and watching it on television and have just been incredibly fortunate to end up here and being a part of it. This is the most wonderful time of the year for me, clearly, and I’m always excited to talk about the Derby’s past and this one, but it’s just the greatest industry in the world and I’m just thrilled to be a part of it.

Ron: Obviously, since we announced we’re going to have you as a guest, we have gotten a lot of questions. Most are related to Derby but some are not and some really are not within your area of expertise but we’ll go ahead and get some of those out of the way right now if you don’t mind.

John: That’s great.

Ron: There are quite a few questions concerning Life At Ten and the incident before and after the Breeders’ Cup and I’m pretty sure most of our readers, listeners, whatever, are already been familiar with that situation. Some of our readers really wanted to know if you have an opinion of what should have been done before or after the race or what could be done in the future.

John: First and foremost, that’s an issue for the Kentucky Racing Commission and the commission ultimately will have a say on whatever ruling comes out of that. It is a situation that affected a lot of people, affected bettors all over North America and racing fans in many, many ways and anytime that happens, we as a company and I think those of us who just love the sport are affected by that, it concerns us, and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

In that particular case, obviously, it’s very unusual case. We try as a racetrack and as a company and I think the stewards try this as well, I think the racing commission has made attempts to do this as well, and you try to cover every contingency going into any event. Even for the Kentucky Derby we go through crisis scenarios, we go through situations to try and anticipate anything that might happen in any area of the operation coming into those events but obviously it’s impossible to cover everything.

I don’t know exactly what happened that evening. I’ll be honest with you, that night I was here at racetrack. Obviously, it was Breeders’ Cup day, the first day of the two day Breeders’ Cup. I was out, I was not in my office and I didn’t even realize this was happening until it was well after the event. When you’re on the racetrack on race day there are a lot of moving parts and sometimes it takes a little while to figure out exactly what’s happening. But I can say that we try to anticipate those issues before any race, before any major event and before just any race, there are some things that are just going to get past you once.

The thing about this is it’s something that will clearly never happen again. It happened once, and it’s incredibly regrettable that it happened once, but it will never happen again. In the aftermath, we as a team here at the racetrack have tried to look at what happened and what could have been done to make the situation more acceptable to our fans and lovers of thoroughbred racing. I mean we’ve talked about big things, small things, even something as small as maybe – and I’ll pretty much guarantee you that anytime there’s a national telecast, there’s a Breeders’ Cup here or Kentucky Derby day– it might be something as simple as just having somebody whose job is just sit in a room and watch the TV coverage just in case anything comes up that might slip through the cracks in some other areas.

Again, I hated that it happened for all the bettors that were involved and for everyone that was involved, for the owners of Life At Ten, for Todd Pletcher, for John Velazquez. I do think there’s responsibility for all involved to make sure those things don’t happen or if an issue arises on the track before a race whether it’s the Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic or the fourth race on Thursday afternoon, there are some things that need to run through all the participants’ minds to make sure that this doesn’t impact the horse in a negative way and the public in a negative way. We’ll see what comes out of the Racing Commission after their thorough investigation and what their recommendations might be. As well as having a great event and a safe event and an event that’s fun for a lot of people, any day we come to work the integrity of what we do in our business is at the top of the agenda for all of us and I think whatever comes out of this we’ll have a positive step in that direction. It’s just extremely regrettable it happened.

Ron: John, thanks for being so upfront about that and taking on the question. Another question was from several readers who want to know why their boxes at Churchill Downs or their seats have been changed I guess to accommodate Derby or whatever. Can you approach that question?

John: There are a couple of issues and I’m not involved in the Derby ticketing nor would I ever want to be. That’s a big, big job and you can’t make everybody happy in it. That’s just the bottom line when you go into Derby ticketing.

I still believe and I would argue with anybody on this, it’s the toughest ticket to get in the world. It just is. I think with all the sporting events, Super Bowls, whatever, the Kentucky Derby ticket is prized, valued, treasured as any ticket in sports. So that makes it very tough from the get go to make everyone happy.

We have had a couple of changes over the years—there was a system renovation and personal seat licenses have been in place since then--and you’ll find that in most sports facilities around the country, especially those of you that have gone through a renovation or in a new facility and there are individuals that pay a significant amount to purchase the right to purchase seats in that. We’ve got some seats that go to personal seat licensed holders and that has caused some movement in Derby seating.

We also have more sponsorships. Sponsorships are becoming an increasingly important part of what we do and again with those sponsors there are seating arrangements with many of the sponsors and that has required the moving of some people who’ve had ticket boxes, have had box seats for the Derby and have seats for the Oaks through the years. This year we’ve had some people that have been concerned that we have more of a focus on the marketing of tickets for Derby and Oaks as a two-day event. Actually, that’s been the case pretty much throughout the recent history of the Kentucky Derby.

We have up until this year 80% of these tickets sold for seats at the Kentucky Derby, box seats, clubhouse seats, grandstand seats –80% of those have been sold on an Oaks and Derby basis. I know every paid ticket I’ve ever purchased here has been like that. We’re actually just working to even that out and make that uniform now, which has made some people who had bought maybe just an Oaks box or a Derby box over the years uncomfortable and we’re trying to find ways to help them with that or give them a more reasonable opportunity at least in terms of what they can afford financially. But I think you’d understand in that case, we’re just trying to make sure that the playing field is even for everyone. So we’re focusing on selling those seats more as a two-day event now and that’s been some change.

Some change is usually good but are never, never completely comfortable and I think those are some of the issues that we’re dealing with that. We do see an incredible demand for these

Derby tickets and we work hard to... I think with our online sales for instance, we have several periods of online sales through the year now and that has been a thing I think that has kind of opened the Derby up to some people who have wanted to come and had never been able to get tickets. They can get there and get through our online ticket site and register for those sales. They’ve got as good a shot as anyone to get those tickets when the sale starts.

For anyone who’s listening to this podcast, I would suggest that if you’re looking for Derby tickets to give that a try. Go to our online box office, which is www.tickets.churchilldowns.com and get on the waiting list. Register on that site and you will be notified when these online ticket sales come up and you’ll have that opportunity just like anybody else would to get those tickets. We’ve had a lot of people that have gotten Derby tickets, Oaks tickets for the first time through that process.

Again, you know our technology is changing, and it changes the nature of what we do. Again the growing sponsorships changes what we do but we are looking to make as many people as possible happy on Derby Day and the best way to get in and get those seats and to get a shot at a seat is to go to that online ticket office site.

The distribution of Derby tickets has been an issue as long as I’ve been here. I’ve been here since ’97 and I covered my first Derby as a radio reporter back in ’82. We’re never going to make everyone happy but we are doing the best we can to accommodate as many people as we can and to give just regular fans out there who’ve never had a chance to get to the Kentucky Derby, get to the Derby or get to Oaks to get a shot of seats through our online process.

I don’t know if I answered any question there except to acknowledge...

Ron: It’s an ever evolving process and you just say you can’t make everybody happy but it sounds like you’re really opening up the opportunities to a lot more people to participate and that’s a good thing.

John: I think it has and I think it’s kind of lost in the discussions in that those opportunities are there. Another thing we do is we do go through those lists and if we find a lot of similar addresses on there that, say, are obvious ticket brokers and folks like that, we look to take those tickets back and give other people a shot to grab them in the next online auction. So we’re watching for those kinds of things. I know when it comes down to an individual basis, it’s kind of like what old Tip O’Neill said: “All politics are local.” When it comes to the Derby it’s personal, and we understand that, but we are working to do the best we can to make it open to as many people as possible and to improve the process and get as many people a shot as we can.

Ron: Now that we’ve gotten the slippery slopes out of the way, and by the way your bosses would be very pleased you’ve got that plug in there for the Derby tickets online website, we’ll get to other questions.

John: There’s some things I’m programmed for.

Ron: Let’s move on to some other things. First of all, it was announced this week that all three Triple Crown races will be televised by one network once again, NBC, and I think we all think that’s a good step for consistency of programming, if nothing else. Do you think this is a first step toward eventually getting back to Triple Crown bonus? Can we see like a Kentucky Fried Triple Crown, something like that?

John: I think that possibility is there. I mean we’re all back on the same page in regard to a broadcast partner, and I think it’s a little late this year to be exploring that route being in late February but I think that’s certainly something the Triple Crown tracks would be taking a look at on down the road and not far down the road. It does open those opportunities back up. You know we at Churchill agree that it’s a very good thing. First and foremost for the fan that watches these races--and you get a lot of people that watch the Triple Crown that don’t watch many races the rest of the year-- it’s first and foremost to make it easier for them to find those races, that’s something you can count on. Over that five-week period you got a Derby on the first Saturday of May, the Preakness two weeks later and then three weeks later the Belmont Stakes and they know where to find it.

Also as part of this deal though you know there are a couple of things we’re very excited about. One is that with NBC and VERSUS, their cable network, the coverage of those Triple Crown races and including some of the races surrounding the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont roughly doubles. I think we’re up to about 25 hours now, where it had been 14 as recently as last year. So through NBC and VERSUS you’re going to have opportunity to see a lot more these days, what makes this day special at our racetracks, and a lot more horses and a lot more races so that’s exciting.

We here at Churchill have been very, very happy with our partnership with NBC. Obviously, we just re-upped the new five-year contract, we’ve had five great years with them, and we love the way NBC looks at the event and we’re on the same page here on that. We’ve got the horses, we’ve got the stars in the show, we got the jockeys, the trainers, the sports event aspect of it is obviously huge so is everything that surrounds it and we think NBC has done a great job in promoting everything else that makes the Derby and the Triple Crown races special--the people, the fashion, the celebrities, the excitement surrounding it. They’re going to be bringing it. It will be a unified approach over those three races and we think that’s extremely exciting. It does present some opportunities down the road and with the NBC Comcast deal, I mean who knows where we go from there. With that merger there may be some other outlets available to bring more racing to the masses. That’s a great thing.

Along with making it easier for the fans to find what they’re looking for, we do think there are opportunities to allow people the chance to see these horses, to see these events, and see what goes on on these days. It just explodes and we think that’s a wonderful thing and there’s opportunity for continued growth down the road. Again, with the approach NBC has used, I just think it’s a win on every possible level. We’re excited to see what happens down the road.

Ron: Now what I’d like to do is find where VERSUS is on my cable lineup and/or call my cable provider to make sure I’ll get the full buffet.

John: Here’s the good thing about VERSUS--I’ve been reading a lot of VERSUS, much more about VERSUS in the last month than I’ve ever read in my life--is that obviously NBC is making a significant push behind VERSUS. Whether they’re going to take on ESPN head-on I don’t know but certainly they want to be a significant player in the sports viewing market out there. So that’s a clear goal and I think the Triple Crown races, the other programming surrounding the Triple Crown races, they’re going to be very, very important early on there.

Ron: Even though we may not know much about VERSUS right now we are going to soon I guess learn a lot more about them.

John: Yeah, I would assume so too and then I’m kind of the same way. I’m looking to see where it is up here as well but again with the push by NBC, with the NBC Comcast merger, I think VERSUS got a leg up at becoming a lot more visible in a pretty short period of time so that’s exciting as well.

Ron: On to this year’s Derby, John, from the beginning you’ve had this horse To Honor and Serve at the top of your list, why and why didn’t you just take the conventional route and go with the last year’s 2-year old champion?

John: For a couple of things I think he’s a very good horse and he proved that last fall in his races in New York in the Remsen and the Nashua. He has a terrific pedigree. I’m incredibly excited about Bernardini as a sire... he looks to me like he’s going to be the next super sire in our business. Certainly the early returns are good with a horse like this but I also like the hands that he’s in. I’m a huge fan of Bill Mott as I am of Todd Pletcher and all the other top trainers but Bill Mott is of course the all time leading trainer here at Churchill Downs. My favorite line from Bill, he told me one day he said, “I’ve been around Churchill Downs so long I remember when you could see all the way across the infield and that’s been awhile.”

Now Steve Asmussen and Dale Romans are gobbling up ground on him on him each year because they win a lot of races here and they start a lot of horses more than Bill’s stable headed by Kenny McCarthy or Churchill Downs but Bill remains a huge force at this racetrack although he’s based primarily in New York. He still is by a wide margin the all time leading trainer at this racetrack. He’s won well over 600 races at this racetrack and he’s just one of the great trainers in American racing history and he’s never even come close to winning the greatest race at the other track that he basically owned for many years.

I’m probably leading with my heart a little bit on the topic although I am a big believer in this horse and he got some things to prove as does Uncle Mo. I mean Uncle Mo turned the corner as a 3-year-old as impressive as any horse you could think of. He just dominated his foes in his races last year. I hear a lot of conversations where people would talk about Uncle Mo and ones like Seattle Slew were dropped into the conversation. That’s pretty good company. I’m not sure that I disagree with that. He’s looked fabulous but he’s got a lot of things to prove over here over the next 70 days or so, and it’s not exactly the contrarian viewed to put To Honor and Serve on the top of the list. But just looking at him, I think he’s got tremendous upside, a lot of room to improve and again he’s in the absolutely brilliant hands of Bill Mott. So that then and a little more than in a nutshell is why I’ve got him on top at this point.

The Derby is a very romantic event. There are always incredible stories come out of it. Again, I’m probably leading with my heart a little bit but I think Bill Mott with this horse and with the chance to win a Kentucky Derby this year is one of the most appealing stories going into this race.

Ron: I guess Bill Mott along with Steve Asmussen are perhaps top the list of two best trainers not to win the Derby.

John: Yeah, I’d say so and then Steve probably a little more on the bull’s eye because he’s got those Eclipse Awards in recent years and has won so many big races and he’s had obviously like horses of the year and Curlin and Rachel Alexandra. But Mott certainly, those two are 1 and 1 A, whichever direction you want to go, and you can throw Ron McAnally and some other great names in there as well. It is a tough, tough, tough race to win but those three you’d have to say right now are on top of the list of the greatest ones not to have won it. Bill, still for

all of his accomplishments and the fact that he’s been in the Hall of Fame for a good while – still a pretty young guy.

You look at Charlie Whitingham’s career and you think of someone like Bill Mott, he still has a lot of years and a lot of opportunities. I have a feeling he thinks this is one of his better shots and while the competition is formidable out there you got Uncle Mo’s obviously a great prospect, Dialed In is obviously a tremendous prospect. We’re going to see a lot of names moving down below.

Right now probably just because I hate blinking lights so much, I’m not a guy that ever likes to take the favorite too much, I’ve got To Honor and Serve on top. There’s no disrespect for Uncle Mo. It’s just tremendous respect for the horse and especially his trainer.

Ron: Just for historical purposes, who did have on your list at this time last year for the 2010 Derby?

John: You know I think about it. Who did I have on top of the list for last year? You’ll have to look back and see. I don’t know.

Ron: I just wondered where he is today.

John: Yeah. I’ve stopped a few of them in my time so I’m hoping this horse can carry the weight.

Ron: The next question comes from Esther Marr, who’s on the staff here at The Blood-Horse. John, describe a day in your life during crunch time of Derby season. Have you nearly had a panic attack thinking of everything you had to do and what are your escape mechanisms during that time if any?

John: Don’t really have any escape mechanisms first and foremost. The Derby is the thing that time of year. Before I came to Churchill Downs, I mean when I was working on radio journalism ,I had the great opportunity while I worked at WHAS radio up here to do half hour specials on the Derby, which is unheard of pretty much in commercial radio. They gave me that opportunity, they greatly supported Derby, and many years I spent a sleepless night or two in those days putting those things together because as we all know the Derby scene can change from day to day in that final week. So I was well used to the schedule by the time I got here to Churchill. The busiest time is leading up to it and roughly from probably mid-March, maybe early March on it and it’s a seven-day a week thing here in the office of getting ready for the Derby, getting the information out. I work with a great partner in Darren Rogers who’s our senior director of publicity and media services here. Darren is a statistical maniac who keeps us all informed on what the horses are doing, where they’re going, and then of course we’re planning for the needs of 2,000 credential media here.

It’s also a very busy time in terms of people wanting to talk about our sport. So along with the daily preparations for the Derby and the various communications that we get on a weekly basis--we do pre-user preps, radio user preps, we have our website activity--we’ve got all of the things we do in trying to accommodate the needs of the media and don’t cover racing throughout the year. There’s a lot of time with the keyboard involved and of course keeping in touch with owners and trainers and trying to keep a good gauge on what horses are doing well, what horses aren’t, whether a horse comes up with an injury. We do our best to keep that information out there.

One thing that keeps me incredibly busy that adds to it but is a great part of it is you get a lot of opportunities to go out and talk about the sport and to talk about the Derby and to speak to groups and speak at special occasions where people are dying to hear about the Derby. So that from here on in that’s a big part of my life, going to various locations throughout the region to talk about the Derby and to talk about thoroughbred racing. You know it might be a small neighborhood gathering, it might be you know during Derby week.

On Thursday of Derby week I speak every year to the downtown Rotary Club that meets at noon and we’ve got a crowd of about 600 there that are dying to hear about which horse I’ve picked for the Derby. I have a woeful record of success in that race, but they still keep coming. That’s a big part of it too. We’ve got a great opportunity at this time of year to go out in the community and to talk about what we do not just in terms of the Derby and how great it is but just give an idea what this business means to this region and this community and that adds a lot of hours to my schedule but I love every one of those, everyone of them.

Ron: Do you sleep at all during this time?

John: Not a lot but I’m not a guy who likes to sleep anyway. I don’t like to go to bed early but I do like to get up early so sleeps kind of been an elective for me over the years although I am getting a little grayer so I might be slowing down a little bit. Last year was the first time with all the weather concerns and everything coming with the Derby I actually slept in the office two nights during Derby week last year. It was the first time I’d ever done it though. Will try to avoid that this year but it was just you know – that’s what you get when you love the job and you’ve got an event like this. But it’s always worth it and my family understands, god love them. They’ve always been great and they know they don’t see much of me that time of year and we try to make up for it later but it’s demanding. It does swallow up a lot of your time but I can’t imagine a greater job to have.

Ron: Do we need to talk to Kevin Flanery see about getting a shower built in there, remodel your office?

John: We do. Actually, I use his shower when I’m in here. The track president (Flanery) has one in his office and usually I’m here some hours when nobody else is here so I have the permission to duck in there and I thank him for that.

Ron: Probably as many questions as people always have about Derby tickets and those things is always the size of the Derby field so these next three questions all relate to that. First of all, Win Place and No Show wants to know if you would ever consider reverting back to 12 to 14 horse field.

Sweed asks – Why don’t you cut the field of the Kentucky Derby, to 18 and that way take out the 1 hole and the 20 hole which nobody wants.

Then finally John asks – Do you see a day in the near future where Churchill will regain its sanity and return to 14 horses because he says “many of Triple Crown winner is denied the crown due to too large of field in the Derby” which (in my opinion) may be a stretch to put all that burden on the Derby field.

What’s the answer there, John?

John: The answer is I probably don’t have a definitive answer on that other than to say that this is an issue that we discuss and study every year and the Derby is the Kentucky Derby. That there is no other race like it, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and--frankly, this is just me strictly speaking on a personal level--I would find it difficult to take it down to 14 because, well, first of all, just getting the mechanism to take it down to 14 I think would be a difficult thing. You still look at graded earnings. Do you then get a selection committee that chooses the horse that gets into the Kentucky Derby?

I can name a couple of horses that have won the race in recent years--Mine That Bird, being foremost among those--that would have had zero chance of getting through any committee that would have selected the entrants to the Kentucky Derby and he won the race by 6¾ lengths. You had to go back 60 years to Assault to find the horse that won the Derby with more authority than he did on the day. I just I think you want to provide the opportunity that you can. We believe that 20 horses is a safe limit here at Churchill Downs, although it is something we look at every year. Obviously, you’re going to have some traffic problems in a lot of Kentucky Derbies, not every Kentucky Derby but in some Kentucky Derbies. I’ve seen the same type of problems in a five-horse field that – I’ve seen horses have more trouble in a five-horse field...

It’s a difficult one to answer but we do take a look at it each year and you look at the horse, you look at those post positions. You know you talked about eliminating the 1 and the 20. I don’t know what that would do other than making the 2 and the 19 the least desirable post positions for a race of that size. The Belmont maximum is 16, of course they got a big sweeping racetrack with more space to take care of it. But all I can say is we do study the issue every year.

We keep coming back to the same conclusion at least to this point that it’s with the allure of the race being a worldwide target we believe 20 horses can be safely accommodated on the racetrack. Then again, you’re going to run into races with trouble everyday of the week and it can happen in the Kentucky Derby especially on that far turn where the speed horses are backing up and looking for a gas station and you got the closers that are coming. There are various spots on the racetrack we can all point to that are potential trouble spots but those are trouble spots on any day.

Obviously, you got other conditions, (including) 150,000 people that these horses have never been around before. It takes a special horse to get it done on that day. There are a couple horses in recent years that I think could have been Triple Crown winners had they won the Kentucky Derby. I think Point Given is one but he didn’t lose the race because of traffic problems and I think Empire Maker is another one. He didn’t lose the race because of traffic problems. It’s a difficult race to win, an extremely difficult race to win and for now we’re sticking with the 20 horse limit although we continue to look at it every year. We seriously look at it every year and we certainly love to hear what people have to say about. But the Derby’s such a special opportunity, that once in a lifetime opportunity that you want to give as many horses as safely possible the chance to achieve it then.

I think in most years when there is a trouble plagued Derby, I mean it’s easy to point to that but you look at most Derbies and they’re pretty remarkably cleanly run. You look back through the charts most Derby’s really are.

Ron: Right, and kind of along the same lines there, Kevin asks: Considering that you’re always going to have a full field of 20, what do you think of using graded stakes earnings to help determine the post position choices. In other words, the connections of the horse with the most graded earnings going in get their pick of the post position of course as you are aware post position formats have been tweaked over the years and you guys have gone back to the traditional system which seems to work pretty well.

John: Let’s say you’re Bob Baffert and you draw a bad position for your horse in a personal draw and you want another shot so again it’s always this year’s situation that’s the most important. We did go to the selection of post position formats or the post selection draw format for several years and you know it worked reasonably well on most years. But you know in terms of using the graded earnings, that’s an issue we look at every year in terms of just Derby eligibility. Here’s the major issue I would bring up in the suggestion to use graded earnings to give first preference on a post for the Kentucky Derby and that’s where those graded earnings were accumulated--were they accumulated in the Delta Jackpot, which is a fine race but has yet to prove itself as a real Derby (prep), a real proven ground for Derby candidates. Once that graded money earned early in the 2-year old year and shorter distances I think you couldn’t just do it as graded money, I think you’d have to put a lot of qualifications on it and I’m not sure that using graded earnings through the post positions would be nearly as fair as just a blind draw for post position order. I think you’d open yourself up to many more questions than really seriously getting anything done.

Obviously, Uncle Mo is a horse that is at the top of the earnings list right now but Godolphin at this point has not nominated anybody to the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown; well what if Splash Point wins the UAE Derby and immediately brings those millions in and there’s a horse that has proven only that he’s won in Dubai, which again is another location, has not proven to be a Derby proving ground as yet. That horse gets first pick. Is that really fair? So while I appreciate the suggestion, I just don’t think it would work well in terms of post order.

Ron: What you just brought up about the big purse 2-year-old races is a good segueway into Jason Shandler’s question, another BloodHorse staffer. Jason wants to know whether any thought has been given to a system that gives more weight to grade I races and 3-year old races in determining the Derby field based on graded stakes. How much serious talk has there been about changing the current system?

John: Again, those are issues that we look at every year. We have batted around using a weighted system, we’ve looked at using races only a mile or over to try to weed out some of the graded races among 2-year olds as determining factors and getting horses in. Those are issues we discuss every year. We have yet to come up with a system that we thought was more fair or more efficient than the current graded earning system which has been in place since the mid 1970’s but they are issues we discuss every year and we’ll look seriously at it again this year when we have our look back at the Derby and what went well and what didn’t. But these are issues we discuss every year just like the Kentucky Derby Future Wager. We get suggestions on why don’t you just throw it (future wagering) open to all 364 entrants or why don’t you use more horses than the 23 horses and “all others” wagering interests and those are issues we discuss every year you know. We’re limited in terms of technology on some things like that but we do go over these things each year and those are issues we seriously look at and will continue to do so.

We’ve had a lot of support in some of these meetings on using a weighted system or using a weighted system if the race is only a mile or over. They are things we discuss but we just want to be very cautious with it and make sure we’re doing the right and fair thing if we do make a significant change because it affects a lot of people.

Ron: Right and then again you’re segueing into my next couple of questions. We have two questions about the Derby Future Wagers and why not open it up to every – have a wager opportunity on every horse that’s nominated to the Derby?

John: I think there are two perspectives on that. For one, one thing that makes the pari-mutuel Derby Future Wager work has been the mutual field, has been the All Others because it guaranteed a winner. If we just threw out 24 horses with no mutuel field – I’ll just give you an idea of the importance of the mutuel field… in 13 years… I’ll just say the previous 12, because we don’t know who’s going to win this Kentucky Derby, but in the previous 12 years since we’ve had the Future Wager starting in 1999, five Derbys have been won with horses that weren’t among the 23 wagering entrants and those included horses like Big Brown, Smarty Jones. Those are two pretty good race horses and they didn’t make pool 1 but we had a winner because of the All Others so I think to make the pari-mutuel Derby Future Wager work, I don’t know any way you could throw it up to 364.

Ron: That’s right because if you had all those horses in there there’s a good possibility that number 225 let’s say wins the – you’re not assured of having a winner.

John: Yeah and again with the mutuel field you get not only the rest of those 364 early nominees. You get every 3-year old of the universe. You get them all over the world because you know somebody can be a late nominee and remember you can supplement up until the day of entry in the Kentucky Derby. If you want to pay $200,000 you can do that to get a horse in... I think when you look at the Derby Future Wager you’ve got to look at it first and foremost as the mutuel field being an attractive option. Now, we would want to expand the roster wagering interests and this is something we tackle each year and up to this point it’s been a technology problem, not that it’s not there, that the technology’s out there but it’s just the expense of implementing the technology not only at our racetrack but especially at those small OTBs around the country that handle this wager. I think we’re getting closer to a solution on that, my perfect number.

What I would love to see that I think would make the Derby Future Wager a more popular bet --it’s been solid, I mean it doesn’t grow every year--we had a very good first pool this time, in pool one last week we had the second largest of pool one in the history of the event and the history of the bet. The previous favorite was back in 2005 when Giacamo won. That, for whatever reason, that was the biggest pool we’ve had and this was number 2 but I would love to see us go up to 40. I think that gives you a nice number with the opportunity to throw in some prospects, some long range prospects, some intriguing prospects and we try to do that in the 23 that we have now. But that would give you more opportunity to do that plus it would still allow the mutuel field to be an important part of this and you got to look at it from two perspectives. You’ve got people like Jason who would like to have the opportunity to wager on every horse nominated and I understand that but you also have on the other side you’ve got some pretty big players in terms of volume of the amount that’s wagered. You remember a few years back we had the guy we referred to as the Lone Star Plunger that put the $50,000 bet down on the mutuel field in pool one?

Ron: Right.

John: I mean we’ve got those players too that like this wager for reasons and one of those is they love the mutuel field. That makes this a playable wager for them. Really, you’ve got a broad range of players. You’ve got now the $2 bettor that shows up at noon on Friday, as soon as the pool opens, to just get their small wager on their horse and to put their ticket away. You’ve got a more serious player say like Jason, he sits in and looks at the prices, wants to get the best price as possible and thinks that 364, especially when you come to Sunday and you’re looking at prospects, is going to give you the opportunity to maybe to find some big ticket value in one of those horses lesser known members on the roster nominee. Then you’ve got those large players that find the wager attractive because of a limited number and the mutuel field which serves as a saver wager.

I know for instance one big player we have, he plays the Vegas books and he’ll play the Derby Future Wager and he just looks for value in both and again the guy as a Lone Star Plunger, he uses the mutuel field as a backup wager for him. It allows him to be a little bit more creative and take some more chances in the pari-mutuel pool and in the Vegas books where he plays so we have to take the entire wagering market into consideration and plus I just don’t know how the 364 would be manageable. That’s my first and foremost where that’s a lot of numbers, especially with exactas now, that’s just a lot of information to process in a two-hour period.

Ron: Exactly.

John: My dream would be 40 entrants, 39 horses and a mutuel field and I’m getting optimistic that might happen in a year or two.

Ron: Yeah so we’re not going to see that during the next two legs of it this year?

John: No, not this year. It won’t be anything this close. I mean again we’re talking about you know some software hardware that’s used and we’ve got to find a way to get past. The technology is there but it’s expensive to do so to implement it at every place it needs to be implemented and again this wager does generate more than a million dollars a year but remember in all fair mutuel wagering, $0.82 of every one of those $1 goes back to the bettor so when you make that investment, it’s an investment for growth, but it’s got to make some financial sense too. I think we’re at the point where I think we’re going to get there but it’s not something I know people think we move slowly on this thing but it’s not something we don’t think about and discuss and try to achieve every year. It’s just that we’re a little limited in our capability to do so but I’m feeling much better that we’re going to see some change in next year too.

Ron: For the record, those questions about the Derby futures came in from Maurice and Dave and weren’t Jason’s…

John: Oh I’m sorry. Yeah, okay. Thanks to Maurice and Dave.

Ron: Moving on, Greg Hoik wants to know – well, first of all, he starts off by saying here we go with another drug suspension for horse trainer Richard Dutrow. He wants to know why Churchill Downs and management and some of the tracks just do not take action against somebody like Mr. Dutrow as far as suspending their license . I guess for a racetrack point of view you probably aren’t able to suspend the guy’s license but use your right of exclusion to say that he can’t race there. Has Churchill done that before, would they consider it, or do you even know what the policy is?

John: Keep in mind too in recent years and especially in the aftermath of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, that we as a racetrack, as a company, established a set of safety policies and procedures and we pump about a million dollars a year into those including testing of racetrack surfaces and just drug testing for horses. So it is an important issue to us. It’s a very important issue to us. As to taking that kind of step, that’s probably something that’s left a little better in the hands of racing commissions and those that have oversight of the sport and our respective jurisdictions. But I do think it probably would be on a case by case basis and we do have rights to exclude any owner, trainer, individual, player, anybody from any racetrack on a given day.

Again, in case of Mr. Dutrow – and I know there’s been especially a lot of discussion of his situation in the last couple of weeks --I think we’ve had probably one episode involving him that happened here outside of Derby a couple of years ago. But I think in his case it would probably be or a similar case – you know I think those would be an issue and it’s an issue we’d look at. That’s a step we would look into but also, I think it’s a matter of reciprocity, which happens with the racing jurisdictions across the country. If there’s a significant issue in one jurisdiction that is large enough to warrant a suspension or a denial of license, something like that, I think you would see that. I wouldn’t say it would never happen here but I think at this point, we would look at kind of larger the picture and see what regulators do in regard to cases.

Ron: Robert Secora, you may have heard of him before.

John: Yes I have.

Ron: He says: “I’ve asked you once now I ask you again. When will the Derby be run in primetime under the lights?” My question, my followup is what kind of safety issues would be involved with that infield mess if you were running this thing at night?

John: I think not only infield but it’s parking, getting people to their cars safely. Those are issues we would all be concerned about. Bob Evans, our company’s President and CEO said publicly a couple years ago that he did not anticipate a nighttime Kentucky Derby. He noted too that NBC has been on record in the past is saying that they really don’t know whether that would add much more value to it. The post time is 6:20 already, you’re edging close to primetime already and that Saturday’s not the strongest day of the week for--in fact it’s the weakest day of the wee--in terms of nighttime viewing so you’ve got to take all those factors into consideration. Again, given the massive scope of the crowd, last year we had as ugly a day you could imagine for Kentucky Derby day and we had 156,000 people here. You’ve got to move those people safely about. I mean we do have lights, we could find a way to light that infield. We actually have some lighting on it now. If need be we’ve got some backlights on the back of the new lighting system here that surrounds the racetrack but I’ll just give probably the same answer to Mr. Secora as I’ve given him before.

We have no plans for a nighttime Kentucky Derby right now. We never say never, you never completely rule anything out, but I just don’t see any movement toward that right now giving all of the pieces that are in place surrounding a Kentucky Derby day.

Again, not saying it won’t happen but surely no one will anticipate one anytime soon. Having said that, I will say that this track sure looked beautiful in the early evening last year on the Breeders’ Cup when the Breeders’ Cup Classic was run here. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this place look more beautiful than that TV shot so that’s a great thing and I think obviously the Friday night was a success in the eyes of the Breeders’ Cup and we’ll get to see that scenario again this fall. I’m sure I haven’t seen any definite plans for post time but I would have to think that as the Breeders’ Cup comes back this fall we’d have the same situation there but there is no event quite like the Kentucky Derby in our sport or frankly in the world sports and that’s a big, big, big decision to move it nighttime.

Again, it’s something we would not rule out and we’ve looked at the logistics of it and it may become more attractive in the years to come but right now there are no plans for.

Ron: John, we’re really coming down for the end here. We’ve still got a lot of questions but…

John: Okay, I’ll shorten them up for you.

Ron: No, it’s okay. On a little bit lighter note A. Spradling wants to know – Will you be the Derby chief party officer this year and what happened to that program anyway?

John: The chief party officer I think has been retired. You know you try some things and see if they work and sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t and we are going to continue to focus on the fun of Derby day and the fun available of that infield. How many Kentucky Derby fans that are in box seats now have their first experience somewhere out in that infield and came here during college days and paid $40 to get into the track and never saw an actual horse on that day. That’s part of a charm in Kentucky Derby and the infield certainly every part of western civilization’s on display on location in that infield, it’s a great thing, but I don’t think we have any plans. We had a couple of chief party officers. They did a fine job but I think we’re looking beyond that right now but if you’d like to volunteer or I would – while they suggested me I would not seek nor will I accept that in the words of Lyndon Johnson but yeah, I think the CPO was a nice idea for a couple of years but we’re looking in other directions now.

Ron: Just judging by how much I see on your Facebook page you are a culture maven so let me ask you what’s on your mp3 player right now?

John: Right now the thing I’m listening to most I listen to Avett Brothers right now, I love those guys, I’m listening Roseanne Cash’s album “The List”, those songs that her father, Johnny Cash, had passed down to her and told her these are things you need to pay attention to and the one that would probably surprise a few folks I have John Legend in the roots of my mp3. That’s a wakeup record of those reworking some great 70’s R&B songs, so I listen a little bit to everything.

Ron: We’re going to wrap up this up with a question from Michael. He wants to know who your sleeper horse is on this year’s Derby Trail and also who’s the most overrated horse on the Derby Trail in your opinion as of today.

John: The second one is tougher to answer for me because I mean a horse that I think whose chances are limited to win the Kentucky Derby – although I like the horse and I love to see him run and he’s a hard trotter is a horse like Comma to the Top. It’s tough for me to see him winning the Derby, although I’ll never forget I was standing next to my daughter when Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby, and when he came home I was just saying that’s amazing. I turned to her and I said… because every year I have to do a newspaper article here in town where you take the Derby first starter to the last and I said “I think I picked that horse dead last,” and I did. It’s not an exact science. Comma to the Top is a nice horse but he’s just one of just I have real trouble see him going a mile a quarter, although I would love it if he comes here and I hope they have a lot of success with him to get him here.

My sleeper horse is in Jerry Hollendorfer’s barn and it’s Indian Winter. He was scratched last week from the San Vicente but just because Jerry didn’t like the pace scenario and probably didn’t like the thought about running against The Factor at seven-furlong, which is a scary thing because The Factor is a seriously fast horse but he’s running him back I think in the Turf Paradise Derby this week. It’s an unusual path. He’s a talented horse. He’s by Indian Charlie but ran a really good race in San Pedro and ran good races at 2. I think his price in the Future Wager was 70 or 80-1. I would legitimately call him an outsider.

He’s in Hollendorfer’s hands and when Jerry comes from the west coast… it used to be when he came out of Northern California, but when he brings a horse out of town you better pay attention to him. He’s won three Oaks here, he’s a great trainer, I think he’s one of those trainers that has recently joined the list of great trainers that have yet to win the Derby and I think he’d be a great story to win. Right now my outsider to watch is Indian Winter.

Ron: OK and we’re all pulling for certainly Jerry Hollendorfer to be in the Derby Winner’s Circle would be awesome, wouldn’t it?

John: It would and I’d love to see it happen in the year that he goes into the Hall of Game. I think he’s got a great shot to go into the Hall of Fame this year and a very, very deserving trainer.

Ron: John, that’s all our time for today. Definitely appreciate it a lot. You’ve been very upfront with all the answers and good luck in the Derby.

John: Thanks so much, Ron. It’s great to have the opportunity to do this. I really appreciate it so it’s a great thing. I listen to the Talkin’ Horses often and I may skip this one but I’ll keep listening to the other ones and again I just appreciate it. I wish everybody a happy Derby and can’t wait to see what happens on the first Saturday of May and the first Friday of May would be pretty call too.

John Asher Bio

John Asher - Vice President of Racing Communications at Churchill Downs

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:54:00 GMT

John Asher, vice president of Racing Communications at Churchill Downs, will be the next guest on BloodHorse.com's Talkin' Horses.

John Asher has worked in the Thoroughbred racing industry as an award-winning journalist and publicist for more than 30 years. He joined Churchill Downs and has served in his current position since March 1999.

As a radio journalist at WHAS-AM and WAVE-AM in Louisville, Asher earned five Eclipse Awards for “Outstanding National Radio Coverage of Thoroughbred Racing.” Other horse industry honors include the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners’ Warner L. Jones Jr. Horseman of the Year award in 2006; the Charles W. Engelhard Award for excellence in media coverage from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders; the Dean Eagle Award from the Knights of Columbus; and a media award from the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association.

His non-racing industry reportage earned a National Headliner and Scripps-Howard Award, and honors from the Society of Professional Journalists, Radio & Television News Directors Association and Kentucky Broadcasters Association. He was honored seven times by the Associated Press as Kentucky large market radio’s “Best Reporter.”

A native of Leitchfield, Ky., Asher is a graduate of Western Kentucky University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism.

Thank you for your questions.

Mike Repole Podcast - Listen Now!

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:09:00 GMT

To listen to the podcast, click the PLAY button above.

Want to know more about Uncle Mo? Twice a month, Mike Repole will be authoring an Uncle Mo Diary as part of Jason Shandler's Triple Crown Talk blog. Look for Derby Mo-jo starting in February.

Transcript

Ron: This is Ron Mitchell with the Bloodhorse.com Talkin' Horses podcast. Today, our special guest is Mike Repole. As many of you know, he is the owner of Uncle Mo, the champion 2-year-old of last year and the favorite for the derby. Welcome, Mike.

Mike: Hey Ron. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it.

Ron: Thanks for taking your time from your busy schedule. We've had a lot of questions for you. Some were repetitive, as we expect, but mainly everybody wants to congratulate you, first of all, on success for your stable, especially your work with Uncle Mo. As we go through the questions, we won't read all of those compliments and congratulations; we'll just try to stick to the questions themselves for the sake of brevity, if that's okay with you.

Mike: Yeah, definitely okay and I definitely appreciate it. It's been really nice that the fans have not only just reached out to Uncle Mo but obviously, to me personally and the Repole Stable connections and it's a good feeling. Mo's got a lot of fans out there and it's nice to see. I'm just fortunate enough to own him.

Ron: I think a lot of that is based upon your excitement level as an aggressive young horse owner and certainly everybody's embracing that. Let's go ahead and get started with the first question and what everybody really wants to know, how's Uncle Mo doing and when he will have his first workout in preparation for the Tampa Bay Derby?

Mike: Uncle Mo is doing great right now. He's galloping a mile and a half a day. His first workout can be as early as tomorrow, as late as probably Monday. Todd is down in Florida right now and he's just going to go by the weather. He'll probably just breeze three furlongs, probably gallop out in four. Obviously, we want to work him on the dry track and it could be anytime this weekend - Saturday, Sunday, Monday, depending on the weather.

Ron: I got a question from Jonathan on Facebook. Were you close to selling Uncle Mo? And then also, he has two questions -Why only two preps before the Kentucky Derby?

Mike: Right after Mo won his maiden race, I was offered a lot of money for him. After he won the Champagne Stakes, I was offered even more money for him and then after the Breeders' Cup Juvenile win, I was offered a lot more than both the Champagne and the Special Stakes. It's been a dream of mine to own a special horse like this. Todd Pletcher gets a ton of calls from people that want to know if the horse is for sale. Jim Martin, my racing manager, gets the same. The horse is not for sale. To me, it's like a child; I would never sell a child and the horse is not for sale. I will own Mo throughout his racing career, so be it. In this game, it could be one more start or it could be 25 more starts. We don't know.

Ron: So we should tell those agents and big time horse owners from overseas just quit calling?

Mike: I beat you to it, Ron. I've already told them to stop calling me.

Ron: Back to the second question there - Only two preps before the Kentucky Derby? Any concerns about a lack of stamina with that kind of a schedule?

Mike: I'm not concerned at all. In fact, lately, if you watched the last - I think either four to five Kentucky Derby winners - it seems to be the norm nowadays. Boys at Tosconova is going to have two preps in the Derby. To Honor and Serve is going to have two preps in the Derby. Obviously, when you're trying to do more than just win the Derby, possibly maybe even win the Triple Crown, you're talking about a race two weeks after the Derby; three weeks after the Preakness is the Belmont Stakes. We know he's good. We know he's fast. He basically had two races at Churchill Downs in which he ran 108 Beyers. We want him to grow up a little bit and we're looking for a long campaign, but it doesn't need to start so early. I'd rather have his campaign go from March to November than go from January to May.

Ron: It makes a lot of sense. Next question is from Mr. Glassoniongirl. What is it that really attracted you to Uncle Mo?

Mike: I really have got to give the credit to my racing connections. Jim Martin, my racing manager, and Jim Crupi from Newcastle Farm who not only buys most of my yearlings, he also breaks my yearlings. I don't go to too many sales. I do look at the pedigree books and I go through that, but I put together a really solid team. Sometimes Todd is involved, sometimes Todd is not involved, but Uncle Mo was really a combination of Jim Crupi and Jim Martin, basically finding a horse at the yearling sale in September. There was over 6,000 horses. Mo was hip #1193-a number I'll never forget--and they really put me on to this horse. I wasn't super excited that he was an Indian Charlie, but I'm definitely a guy who listens to his team and they said I had to have this horse and I paid for it.

Ron: So now you're a big fan of Indian Charlie's, huh?

Mike: I would buy Indian Charlie tomorrow if he was for sale. Yes, I'm a big fan of Indian Charlie.

Ron: Next question comes from Ace Spradling - I'm very interested in following an entrepreneur such as yourself and Rob Dyrdek. You are proof that young people can have fun with horseracing ownership, be involved and use it to your advantage in marketing. Have you used horseracing to grow your personal ventures and found value beyond your joy of racing?

Mike: That's a great question. Being a young entrepreneur, I use a lot of the same business philosophies with horseracing and Repole Stable that I do with Pirates Booty or Energy Kitchen or Vitaminwater when I co-founded that. It's all about working hard, having fun, being passionate, doing things that you love. I really think that all my businesses kind of leverage each other.

The one thing about an entrepreneur being Mike Repole, if you're going to get involved with something, and the advice I've given young entrepreneurs, is make sure you're passionate about it. The one thing I find is that when I'm passionate about something like horseracing, really the sky's the limit and also it just makes it more fun. I see too many people get into businesses where it's something they're not interested in or something they don't like. I've always advised young entrepreneurs, college kids even high school kids, if you love what you do, it's not really work, it's just life.

Ron: And in the end, it ends up working for you and you have been very successful and made a lot of money, so that's a win-win.

Mike: I think at the end of the day, if you have a passion, you love what you do, the money is not really the strategy. It's just an aftereffect of just doing something that you're passionate about and you love and it comes when you're passionate about something, whether you're a baseball player, whether you're an actor, or whether you're an entrepreneur. If you really love what you do, money is not the primary goal. If you love it and you're passionate about it, a lot of times it's the end result.

Ron: That would kind of go hand-in-hand with this next question from Anthony Roberts - As a first time owner, what kind of advice can you give me and other first time owners?

Mike: Go into horseracing with training wheels on. Do not go in there and try to conquer the game day one. I could have spent $3-4 million a year six years ago when I got into the game. I could have bought high-priced yearlings. Start off with maybe a small private purchase. Start off with one of the great partnerships that are out there. There's a bunch of them out there. Start off slow. Put your toe in the water before you dive in head first. See that it's something you enjoy or you like. There are racing fans that love the ownership side and there are racing fans that the ownership side is not for them, it's just better to be a racing fan. And I would definitely become a percentage owner of a horse with four partners or maybe be in a partnership, one of the syndicated partnerships. Just start off slow. Learn the game. Ask a lot of questions.

Man, I mean every time I interviewed a trainer, I asked him a ton of questions. Every time, I spoke to jocks and jocks agents, or racing officials, the more questions you ask, the more answers you'll know about this game. It's a tough enough game when you don't know much about it, but it's a really tough game when you don't know enough about it.

Ron: Would you say it's a pretty steep learning curve?

Mike: Steep might be an understatement. Yes, it's a very steep learning curve because in this game, luck plays such a factor because you can almost do everything right here and have the best principles and the best strategy and the best game plan in the world and maybe the horse just might not cooperate. Unfortunately, sometimes there are injuries that play a big role in this game and the best one on the farm gets hurt or your best yearling gets hurt or your best hero gets hurt. There are more lows in this game than there are highs, but the highs are so much higher than the lows.

Ron: Is there any one word of advice or cautionary word you could give to potential owners?

Mike: Again, ask a lot of questions. Be very careful of who you do business with. Ask trainers if they have references, farm managers if they have references. Call other owners that are doing business with these people. Make sure that they're telling you the truth. Sometimes if you ask the same question 10 different ways, make sure you get the same answer because if you get 10 different answers, I'd be very cautious. You need to do your homework. In any business, you have some people with great morals and you have some people that are going to lie to you and it's not just horseracing, it's any business. To me, do your homework, do your research, and then choose somebody that you think fits your needs and you're comfortable with.

Ron: That's good advice because I'm sure you've heard the tales. We've had quite a few people who have been very successful in one field or another come into horseracing and they seem not to apply the same attributes to the horseracing that they did to their other business and sometimes it doesn't work out.

Next question is from Fran - There's so much talk about the fans of Zenyatta and a lot of trainers, owners, and horses now have their own Facebook pages. Just how important is the fan to the industry as compared to those who are just bettors?

Mike: To me, whether you're a bettor or you're not a bettor, you're a fan. I mean there are people who are just racing fans who don't bet and I think that they play a huge role in the marketing and the future of this sport. They are the backbone of the industry, but there are a lot of people who bet that are also racing fans. So I don't really separate racing fans on whether they bet or they don't bet. To me, if you go to the track just to watch races and you're there just to have lunch and watch races, you're as important to this game as somebody who goes to the track and bets $200 or $2,000. The more people we can get into this game, the better off we're going to be. So to me, I treat all the fans the same whether they're betting $500 to win on Uncle Mo or they're just there to watch him win a race by five lengths. The fans are the backbone of this industry and without the racing fans, there is no sport. I've said this many times and it's our job as an industry to do a better job accommodating in making the fans more accessible and I plan on doing that on my part and hopefully, others will lead by my example.

Ron: Considering that, for example, you got Uncle Mo with Todd Pletcher, whose stable is run very, very tightly, how are you going to make Uncle Mo accessible particularly working within the confines of a stable like Todd's? I love Todd. It's not a knock on him, but he has a lot of horses and it's a very business-like operation. The access has really not been there for a lot of horses.

Mike: I think at the end of the day, the first thing people have to understand is that mostly trainers just like Todd Pletcher start their day at 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning and are really busy until 11:00. I mean they work through a full day. Then a lot of post times are anywhere between 12 and 1 o'clock, and it's a seven day a week job. I mean there's no holidays. There's no vacation time. It's really, really a tough job. I think Todd, for the number of horses that he has, is probably one of the most accessible trainers out there. He has over 150 horses. I think if Uncle Mo keeps doing what he's doing, I think he'll have a lot more access to fans than you can imagine. But fans do have to understand, if Todd Pletcher went to go watch them work every day, it'd be a distraction and at the end of the day, the horses are there to obviously stay healthy, be taken well cared of, and training to get better. But Uncle Mo, there's going to be a lot of access to Uncle Mo. It's not going to be a petting zoo, but there's going to be plenty of times that fans are going to be able to meet Uncle Mo, see Uncle Mo. There's already been a couple of special requests that we've already met, but I mean he's got over 2,000 fans on his Facebook page and people I think that want to see him and meet him, and it is kind of overwhelming. He is focused this year on, I'm trying to do something really, really special; something that hasn't been done in 32 years and that is win a Triple Crown.

Ron: But we will have some access?

Mike: Yes, there will be some access. In fact, there already has been some access.

Ron: Next question is from equination.net - Far too many fan favorites are retired immediately following the 3-year-old campaigns. Provided he stays sound and competitive, will Uncle Mo continue to race in his four-year-old season?

Mike: That's way too early to tell. I did say that if it was up to me and not my connections, I would geld Uncle Mo and run him until he's 10 years old. So obviously I'm a racing fan. I'm not going to get a big thrill of owning him as a stallion. With this racing game, it really is one race at a time. My biggest concern and priority is the health of all my race horses whether you're Uncle Mo or you're a $10,000 claimer. It's hard to predict what's going to happen in the future. I'm just trying to get him to his first spot. After his first spot, we'll try to get him to the second spot and then after his second spot, we will get our fingers crossed that he will be in the Derby on May 7^th. Next year is way too early to talk about it, but to me, I'm a racing fan first. I want him to race as long as he tells me he can race.

Ron: So anything else is really speculation, really. Next question is from Ed - Any kid growing up in Queens has got to want to see his horse win the Wood Memorial. I'm guessing you'll go from the Tampa Bay Derby to the Wood?

Mike: First of all, we're targeting the Tampa Bay Derby, but that's really not set in stone. There's other races on March 5^th. There's other races on March 12^th. When Mo goes into training, I'll have some say, but at the end of the day, Todd Pletcher will make the final decision on where Mo's first start is going to be. Obviously, we're going to do what's best for the horse. There is no doubt that the second start is going to be the Wood Memorial if everything stays on course.

The Wood Memorial has been a race that I've gone to as a kid, when I was13, 14, 15 years old. I've gone there the last five years from Eskendereya to I Want Revenge. It's the biggest 3-year-old prep before the Kentucky Derby from New York racing. I can't fly 5,000 friends and family over to Kentucky, but I can drive them in to the Aqueduct racetrack and get all of the Queens and half of New York City to watch Uncle Mo at the Wood Memorial. That would be a very, very special day.

Ron: So what you're saying almost is that the second start is more set in stone than is his first start this year?

Mike: The second start is more set in stone than the first one, absolutely. If all goes well, the second start will definitely be the Wood. If on the first start, the Tampa Bay is definitely the leading logical target, but it's not set in stone whatsoever.

Ron: I think Todd's phone is now ringing from racing secretaries all over the country to have a decent race on or around the first weekend of March.

Mike: It's been ringing for the last two weeks. Trust me, Ron. J

Ron: This is from our own Jason Shandler - Mike, is your Eclipse Award speech still going and if so, when will it be over?

Mike: As long as Jason is not speaking, I think most of the horseracing fans are pretty happy. So anytime I can speak and keep Jason out of speaking to the racing fans, I think it's good for racing. Todd said the under and over was 30 minutes. I timed it, it was under 30 minutes, so I bet the under, so I thought it was okay. I think that's why they put me at the beginning of the night because they were afraid that I just might take until 9:30 and they're just going to go to Horse of the Year Award.

Ron: That's great, that's great. David C asked - how is it different from being an owner of primarily a claiming stable to one of the champions of classic contenders?

Mike: To me, I always said that my goal was one day to win a Grade I and a $5,000 claiming race on the same day. I love winning. I love horseracing. I'm a huge fan, always have been. The day that Uncle Mo won the Champagne, that was such a special day. I had three horses in that day. The first race, I had won the Grand Avenue. As a kid, I couldn't go to the track and I used to walk to the Grand Avenue OTB. I had 65 friends and family and we won the first race. And in the fourth race was a horse named Gerard Loves Beer which is named after my brother. It's no secret, I can tell you just by the name, you can tell what he loves - and that horse won. So all of a sudden, here it is. Grade I Champagne and I've won the first race and I've won the fourth race. I said, "Oh my God, if I win two $12,000 claimers and I wind up losing the Grade I Champagne, I'm just going to throw up." A lot of people know that I won the Champagne that day but they don't know that I actually won three out of nine races that day and I only had three horses in. You want to talk about one of the best days of racing, that was it. Winning my first Grade I, winning my first graded stake, Uncle Mo proving to everybody he's the real deal and on top of that, I get two other horses to win the same card with all my friends and family. That was one of the best racing days ever.

Ron: Wow, that's exciting! We're going on now to more of the other kinds of questions. Mary P - I know Uncle Mo loves Pirate Booty snacks and I was wondering if he washes it down with a nice dark Guinness.

Mike: No, Zenyatta washes her snacks with Guinness. Uncle Mo washes his Pirate's Booty down with Vitaminwater Power-C.

Ron: Boy, just total marketing all the time, aren't you? Another Pirate's Booty question here from Kelly - Did you pose for the pirate on Pirate's Booty bags? It kind of looks like it.

Mike: No. The pirate was a character and that's been there for a while. I don't think he's the most attractive person in the world so obviously the person that asked that question probably doesn't think I'm that attractive.

Ron: So not a compliment, huh?

Mike: That's not a compliment. Actually, I think I look more like the parrot than the pirate. J

Ron: Will we see Uncle Mo or any of your horses on the Pirate's Booty package on Sunday?

Mike: I kind of keep my businesses separated. Pirate's Booty has its own marketing plan. Mo's got his own marketing plan. Vitaminwater has its own marketing plan. Energy Kitchen, the one thing I'd probably phrase, we always say all 3-year-olds love Pirate's Booty and Uncle Mo is 3 years old, so even champion 3-year-old race horses, but I think they'll be separate.

Ron: Okay. Next question is from Michael Blowen whom you know at Old Friends. Mike, thanks to Uncle Mo for his generosity toward Old Friends and many other thoroughbred nonprofits. Explain your relationship with Cool N Collective, the 13-year-old claimer you donated to us last spring.

Mike: Now Cool N Collective is just a special horse to me. I mean, he's even in my top five favorite horses of all time that I've owned and I've owned probably over 500 horses in my life. He's just a claiming horse that I claimed for the first time when he was 9 years old. I reclaimed him back about six different times. At 11, he won a race at Belmont Park probably one of the oldest horses to ever win a race at Belmont Park. When I got him back when he was 12, I really wanted him to be the oldest horse to ever win on the New York Circuit at 13. So we trained him. We gave him two races. He came in second at his first race which was almost as devastating as losing a great welcoming because I really do love the horse more than anything. And I gave him one more try because he was very sound, very healthy. In fact, he could be still winning today and after he came in fourth in that race, I decided to retire him before somebody claimed him and I wanted to make sure he was in good hands. So I donated him and gave him to Old Friends and Michael does a great job with Old Friends. I'm very close with Michael, the staff, and he's up at Cabin Creek with Joanne up there and she sends me an e-mail at least once a month just giving me an update. When I go to Saratoga, especially during the meet, I go visit him. He won 20 wins, 20 seconds. But any horse that's 13 years old and is competing versus 3 or 4-year-old horses that could be his grandchildren, I just cannot fawn over that horse. I mean, he's just a hard knocking, he wears his hard hat, and I was so happy that I got to have him last and make sure, now I know that he's taken care of the rest of his life. And I know that when he's 25, I can still go see him on Cabin Creek's Farm.

Ron: I'm sure he appreciates the fact that he ended up with you and with Michael. He could have ended up in a lot worse hands, that's for sure. Michael also asked - If you could speak for Mo, why is he such a generous athlete?

Mike: Mo is just a generous athlete because he's good and he knows he's good. There's one thing I've been around a lot of horses and any time I get a little nervous, I get stressed out about the pressure of having the Kentucky Derby favorite. In business usually, I'm the guy that calls the shots. I'm the guy that makes decisions. I'm the guy who takes the shot when we're down two points with two seconds left. Here, it's really up to Uncle Mo. So sometimes having him in the hands of somebody else and such a wonderful animal, it's nerve wracking. All horses have unique personalities.

The one thing about Mo, he's a monster on the racetrack but when he's in the stall, he'll just lay there or he'll just be at the back of his stall and I'll just say, "Hey Mo," and he comes over as friendly as anything; he might put his head on my shoulder. Whether I have a treat or don't have a treat, he's always willing to come over. He's just a model teenage kid. He does everything right. He has no flaws. Even Todd is amazed and it's just like every time he does something for the first time, you look at him and you say wow, it's like he's been doing it like a hundred times. No matter how difficult or how easy the task is, he's just a special, special horse and I really believe that the special horses know they're really, really good and Mo knows he's good.

Ron: Absolutely. It's like Zenyatta, if you spend any time around her, you can just see that she knows, she absolutely knows. Next question is from Paul from Lexington. When will we get an Energy Kitchen restaurant here?

Mike: Right now, Energy Kitchen healthy fast-food restaurants are really in the metro area. There's 12 of them now, there's 60 in the contract anywhere from Boston to Miami and as far west as Chicago. My vision for Energy Kitchen is really to have a thousand stores in the next 10 years. The food tastes great. It's all steamed, grilled, and baked. It's under 500 calories. There's only low calorie beverages. I really think it's the future of fast-food and again, it's low calories. It tastes great and fast and there's so many unhealthy fast-food options out there and Energy Kitchen, you can only get good tasting healthy foods. So within the next 10 years, it's going to be a national brand just like Vitaminwater was and I'm not sure how fast in Lexington but I do know that we've gotten a request from Neville, Lexington, so there are people out there that are looking to bring Energy Kitchen to Lexington.

Ron: Great. Smartbid09 asks - Hey Mike, who would you have voted for as 2010 Horse of the Year?

Mike: I was on TVG and they asked me the question and they framed it up. "Mike, we're not going to ask you about Horse of the Year," and I said, "Listen, I'm a racing fan, you can ask me any question you want." And I clearly said on national TV that I definitely would have voted for Zenyatta, that Zenyatta is one of the racing all-time greats and it would be a shame if one of racing's all-time greats didn't win Horse of the Year. I think Blame and Goldikova are incredible horses. I think they're great horses. I wished I owned both of them. But Zenyatta was something special and she brought so many new fans to the sport. I just thought she was amazing, and it's not like she lost to Blame if by 22 lengths. I mean, she lost by less than a neck. The race could have went either way. Who knows if the race was 10 yards further, she might have won and we wouldn't really be having the debate so I would have voted for Zenyatta no doubt and I would have voted Blame second and Goldikova. Actually, not Goldikova third. I would voted Uncle Mo third and then Goldikova fourth.

Ron: Yeah, a little bit of a bias against the horse that only races here once in the year.

Mike: Yeah, I mean the three-peat I think is incredible. I'm so happy that the connections are bringing Goldikova back. It's exciting but if she only had one race in North America, so be it, with the Breeders' Cup, but the way Uncle Mo won his three races in electrifying fashion, at top of the stretch in all three races he just kind of separated himself from the field without even seeing or with just kind of like a hand ride with Johnny. He's the most exciting 2 year old since Favorite Trick or Arazi or even further back. You can almost make a debate that Uncle Mo probably had one of the greatest two-year-old seasons in history. So in my opinion, he probably should have been third. He had three races - Saratoga, Belmont, and Churchill. Those are three pretty historic tracks and he was by far, the best of these three. Not as an owner but I would have voted Zenyatta, Blame, and Uncle Mo third.

Ron: The next question is from Dick Downey - When will we see a workout for Stay Thirsty and do you hope to get him to the derby? Also, do you think maybe he's more of a Belmont stakes horse?

Mike: Great question. Stay Thirsty and Uncle Mo have been side by side throughout their career. They went to Todd Pletcher at the same time. They both won their maiden in Saratoga. Stay Thirsty was second the whole field. They both went to Crupis Farms for 30 days of resting and freshening. They both do have a workout this weekend. They're going to work out separately. Stay Thirsty is on target, his first race would probably be March 5^th. That would be his first spot. That one is pretty much set in stone unlike Uncle Mo. His second start is the one that is in question, we're going to see what he does in the Gotham.

Obviously being a guy from New York, I wanted to win the Gotham, and Stay Thirsty will be in the Gotham. We'll keep those two separated out for obvious reasons and our goal would what a great dream to have two horses in the Derby. I'd be ecstatic to have one but to have two, I'd have to pinch myself.

As far as his pedigree, his pedigree says that what he did last year as a 2 year old was pretty freakish. He's bred to go two miles in a steeplechase. Does he fit the Belmont Stakes better? While his half-brother Andromeda's Hero came in second in the Belmont. I think Stay Thirsty is going to get better with two turns and the more the distance, the better I think he's going to get. I think he's going to be a big sweeper this year for this Kentucky Derby one. In my opinion, he's a top 10 horse in the country right now.

Ron: That brings us to a follow up question from Josue Escobar - You seem to be so fond of Uncle Mo but how would you take it if it comes Derby day and Stay Thirsty is the winner? Would that be a bittersweet victory?

Mike: I think I'd sign up for that right now if you can guarantee that to me. Listen, winning the Kentucky Derby is a dream. Whether it's Uncle Mo, Stay Thirsty, or anybody, I love them both the same. It's like if you have two children, you don't love one more than the other. Uncle Mo has obviously, what he's done is something special and there is obviously big talk about some of the great things that he can do. If Stay Thirsty happened to be in same race as Uncle Mo and happened to be fortunate enough to win the Kentucky Derby, I can promise you, I will gladly run down that winners circle with the biggest smile on my face and it would probably be one of the happiest moments of my life.

Ron: So it'd be a sweet smile rather than a bittersweet smile.

Mike: It will be a sweet smile and I think I'll have to give him an extra carrot or peppermint instead of Uncle Mo and we'll have to get his Facebook page up to 2000 fans also.

Ron: On to different non-racing topic kind of, Joan Marie - If you could be in charge of marketing and racing to the general public in an effort to get people to the track, how would you do it? Would you find more money for primetime TV ads, for example?

Mike: Orobably the last thing I would do is TV ads. To me, the way you would do it is really focusing on the racing fan and accommodate them. There are so many people that would want to get into the game but just don't know how. When I take in new racing fans to watch one of the races, they have the simplest of questions. Mike, what's an exacta? What's a quinella? They don't even know how to read the Daily Racing Form, so I think we need to educate the racing fans more about the horses, about the trainers, about the Form. A lot of times, these new fans are picking by numbers or names. And listen, if that system works for you, I'm all for that. That's great but I think that the racing industry has to do a better job of educating the fans about the sport, about the game. I always said racing for a new owner is almost like buying a board game with no instructions. How would you know how to play the game if they don't give you instructions? We need to do a better job of educating our consumers.

The second thing is we have to make the experience much better, from how we treat the consumers to how we brand our consumers, from the program to how they're served lunch, making it an experience where they want to come back.

I always give the analogy of if you go to a good restaurant and you get great food and great service, not only are you going to probably go back, you're probably going to tell your friends and family about it. But if you go to a restaurant where the service is terrible and the food is worse, you're not only not going to go back, you're going tell people to stay away. And racing has to make an investment in their brand and their brand is horseracing. And until they make an investment in the brand, we can't expect the fan base to grow. In fact, we're very fortunate that we have such a diehard fan base and we've done a very poor job of accommodating them and we're just lucky that they're so passionate about horseracing that they're still around. But you know what, five or ten years from now, if this sport doesn't embrace change or evolve to cater to the racing fan, you know what, this sport won't exist. They'll have nothing to worry about.

Ron: Do you have some ideas on exactly how they can go about that and maybe work with them in trying to bring it up to a different level?

Mike: I've been in talks with the NTRA. They've been very open about speaking to me. I've been in talks with NYRA. I'm good friends with Charles Hayward. I've been in talks with the Breeders' Cup. They definitely are very open to listening to me. To me, you start with fan first and if you take care of the fan, everything else will take care of itself. There's a million different things. These are tremendous venues. It always boggles my mind when I go to Saratoga and there's 25,000 fans and then I go to Aqueduct and there's 650 fans. New York has 15 million people in the surrounding Metro New York area; why we can't get those fans to go to Aqueduct and Belmont? It's just poor marketing and a poor job on our part.

Ron: I'm sure they will appreciate any input you might have. The next question is from LC - Do you believe horseracing needs to have a national governing body to unite horseracing and implement important things such as uniform drug regulations, fan-friendly year-round racing calendar, et cetera?

Mike: No doubt. To me, it's probably one of the top five priorities I would have. You see it with NASCAR racing. You see it with National Football League. You see it with the NBA. There is a David Stern, there is a Goodell, there is a guy who is the racing commissioner that oversees the entire sport. One of the things that I see is a major issue and a major problem with the sport is I'm all about competition inside the race track. That's where the competition belongs. There is so much competition that is outside the race track that I'm against. Whether it's TVG versus HRTV, whether it's Thoroughbred Times versus Blood-Horse, whether it's New York racing versus New Jersey racing, we have to unite as a racing community outside and at the end of the day, there needs to be one commission above all the tracks with consistency, with different rules and regulations of the different tracks.

There are different medications that are allowed here that are not allowed here. It doesn't make any sense, and I really think in order for the industry to flourish and probably be one of the top spectator sport with a growing audience, obviously other than focusing on the fan, you have to get a governing body that acts in the best interest of the fan, the best interest of the horses, and most important, the best interest of the race.

Ron: Well certainly I hope that you can take a little bit of a leadership role in helping achieve that. I think a lot of people would like to see that.

Listen Mike, we really have taken a lot of your time today. I appreciate it. I've got many, many other questions here but I really do thank you and again, we appreciate it. I understand that starting next month you're going to be having an Uncle Mo derby diary that's going to be appearing on BloodHorse.com. Jason Shandler's going to be helping you with that and we have come up with a name for that called Derby Mo-jo. We'll be looking forward to that. And again, I really want to thank you for your time today.

Mike: Thanks, Ron. I appreciate it.

Mike Repole Bio