Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance : Frank Vespe

De Francis Memory: A Huevo

Blood-Horse Staff — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:46:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable

Once upon a time, there was a trainer widely considered to be “mad” and also a “genius.” His name was Michael Dickinson.

Most often, the words “mad” and “genius” were combined; most people thought of him as a mad genius, tinkering with exotic approaches to the hidebound game of horse racing and achieving racing feats seldom, if ever, witnessed previously.

First five finishers in the Cheltenham Gold Cup? Sure, no problem.

Bring Da Hoss to the Breeders’ Cup off a two-year layoff and win? You got it.

Occasionally, some people chose not to use the word “genius.” They thought that “mad” pretty much covered it. But they were in the minority.

Michael Dickinson was English, and so he was most often associated with turf racing. He also had a rather well-known desire to win the Kentucky Derby, and in this way, he was exactly like every other horse trainer in America. Shortly after our story, he would pursue that dream with a horse named Tapit, who won the Laurel Futurity and the Wood Memorial; that dream, alas, would not be fulfilled.

What Michael Dickinson was mostly not associated with, however, was dirt sprints, which in a way was too bad, because one of the three most important races contested in Maryland, the state in which he lived and trained, was the De Francis Dash (G1) — a six furlong contest on the dirt, or, as the Yanks liked to call it, the main track.

The De Francis Dash had its own interesting history. Inaugurated in 1990, the race memorializes Frank De Francis, who owned the Maryland Jockey Club until his untimely death in 1989. Typically placed a few weeks after the Breeders’ Cup, it provides one last opportunity for sprinters to make their case for Eclipse Awards; and four horses — Housebuster, Cherokee Run, Smoke Glacken, and Thor’s Echo — have successfully done so.

In 2003, a series of misfortunes visited on one horse — A Huevo — brought Dickinson and the De Francis together.

A Huevo was a talented, West Virginia-bred son of Cool Joe (who?) out of the Baldski mare Verabald. He had reeled off victories in his first four starts, including a track record in the West Virginia Breeders Classic (from which he was disqualified because of the presence of clenbuterol in his system).

What made A Huevo an intriguing horse in the De Francis was that the race was his third start off a layoff — a layoff of four years. After his win in the West Virginia race, A Huevo had suffered various injuries. Dickinson gave him two years off to recover but was dissatisfied. So he gave him another year. Still not ready. One more year? Yup, that does the trick.

The hot favorite in that year’s De Francis was former claimer Shake You Down, winner of four prior graded stakes that year, third-place finisher in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and owner of eight consecutive 100+ Beyers entering the race, with figures ranging up to 121. Shake You Down was sent to the post at odds of 4-5.

When the gates opened, Shake You Down, with good early speed, went forward to press the pace set by Crossing Point.

A Huevo, with no early speed, went directly to the back of the pack, and for a while, seemed to be going backwards.

But Shake You Down was getting quite a fight up front. Crossing Point led him through a quarter mile in 21 4/5 seconds and a half in 44 2/5. The pair was pushed along by a couple of others, and when Crossing Point finally backed out, local favorite Gators and Bears and Way to the Top continued to push Shake You Down.

Meanwhile, out in the middle of the racetrack, A Huevo was getting revved up. The bay came rolling up outside of the leaders, motored on by, and cruised to a nearly two-length win in 1:08 4/5. “Another Michael Dickinson miracle,” called track announcer Dave Rodman.

Others agreed. Owner Mark Hopkins told The Blood-Horse, “This might just be Michael Dickinson’s greatest achievement. It is mind-boggling what we went through with this horse. I have no idea what we’ll do with him but hopefully it will be half as spectacular as this was.”

The ending of our tale is a mixed bag.

Unfortunately, A Huevo’s subsequent efforts were nowhere near as spectacular as his De Francis. Even worse, a couple of years after the De Francis, he suffered injuries necessitating his euthanization. He won six of 12 career starts.

Michael Dickinson no longer trains horses. He is the godfather of synthetic surfaces in the United States, which means that the “mad genius” label continues to stick to him, although many horseplayers would probably lean more towards the “mad” side these days.

Shake You Down, who held on for second in the De Francis, raced for three more years, earned more than $1.4 million, and was retired sound and healthy. “He’s a grand looking son of a gun,” says John Evans, of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. “He looks like you could run him tomorrow.”

But probably not off a four-year layoff.

A Beautiful Day for a Night Game

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:10:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable, LLC

“It’s a beautiful day for a night game.”

So said the Fordham Flash, baseball Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch, sometime around 1935. Which almost makes it sound as if the good Jesuits at Fordham were churning out classes of Dizzy Dean-wannabes in the early part of the last century.

Nonetheless, the reason he would have said such a slightly off-kilter thing in 1935 was because that was the year the Cincinnati Reds, in their electrified Crosley Field, played the first night baseball game, against Philadelphia. By 1941, most major league teams had begun playing night games, and though World War II prevented some clubs from hopping on the bandwagon, virtually all had by the late 1940s. (Except for the Cubs, who held out until 1988).

Playing games at night revolutionized baseball and helped cement our national love affair with the game. It allowed the working man — it was widely assumed that the fan was a man (sample grab from the New York Mets’ theme song: “Bring your kiddies and your wife, guaranteed to have the time of your life!”) — to attend games, rather than merely listening to them.

These days, the vast majority of major league games are at night. And attendance has climbed from a shade under 6,000 per game in 1935 to about 30,000 per game today.

Coincidentally — or perhaps not so — the attendance at Churchill Downs for its three recent Fridays of night racing averaged almost exactly 30,000.

Which is another way of saying that it has taken racing about 74 years to discover — and, surely, that’s the wrong word — that scheduling races at a time convenient to fans is a way to encourage more of them to come out.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Seventy-four years is a long time, and a lot of things have happened since then: the US population has more than doubled, as has the number of teams in Major League Baseball. Wars, technological innovations, natural disasters, and economic dislocation have all left searing marks on our world.

And, now, at long last, a major racetrack has introduced night racing.

Truly, the wheels of change oft grind slowly — but this is ridiculous.

On the other hand, it whets your appetite for what comes next. I’ve heard of this newfangled thing called a television that lets you watch actual moving pictures right inside your home. Maybe we could get some races on that…

Preakness Memory: Magic Weisner

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:09:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable, LLC

Most every year, there’s a local angle to the Preakness. After all, in this faded era, the Preakness stands out as the middle jewel of the Triple Crown — and, to Maryland horsemen, our middle jewel.

The Derby, of course, will always be the Derby. But to Marylanders, the Preakness is special in a different, perhaps more parochial way. More than one local horseman, if pressed to name the race they really want, would point to the race named after a horse who’d been named, in turn, after a New Jersey farm.

So, most years, a horse with local connections competes. This year, it’ll be Tone It Down, ridden by local star (and rider of Hard Spun) Mario Pino and trained by William Komlo. He most recently finished third in the $75,000 Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico, which might not, on the surface, seem like the most promising way to be entering a Grade I contest.

On the other hand, maybe it’s more promising than it seems. After all, it was just seven years ago, in 2002, that unheralded local longshot Magic Weisner, off a second place finish in the Tesio and dismissed at 45-1 odds, came within about six feet of stealing off with the money and the Woodlawn Vase.

Magic Weisner was as unlikely as any Preakness contender could be, a scion of a modest local family with modest hopes. Nancy Alberts, his breeder, owner, trainer, and sometime exercise rider, had purchased his dam, Jazema, for all of one dollar — that is not a typo — because of her terrible knees. After surgery and extensive care, Jazema ended up a useful racehorse, winning 14 races.

After retiring Jazema, Alberts decided to breed her — a decision even Alberts admitted in a 2002 story marked her as a “crazy fool.” Modestly bred fillies with bad knees do not productive broodmares make.

Except, of course, when they do. Her ‘99 mating with local sire Ameri Valay produced a son who nearly died of an infection as a foal. Only the expertise — or Magic — of the veterinarian, Alan Wisner — or Weisner — saved the youngster.

Soon enough, Alberts — who in ‘02 had a stable of just six horses — had determined that Magic Weisner could be “the horse of a lifetime.” By April of his three year-old season, he’d validated her intuition, with wins in several local stakes. After a second in the Tesio, folks at the Maryland Jockey Club encouraged Alberts to enter the horse on Preakness day — but in the $100,000 Sir Barton Stakes.

Having none of that, Alberts shot for the moon.

I rather vividly recall talking with fellow handicappers about the race. War Emblem had blitzed the Derby field (topping a juicy four-figure exacta) and looked to be the star of the show. Magic Weisner, meanwhile, rated an automatic toss.

As the field turned for home, War Emblem asserted himself, gaining a multi-length lead. Proud Citizen, second in the Derby loomed a menacing presence but could not get by.

And then, on the far outside, another horse, coming along late like a freight train. He finished three-quarters of a length behind, though he was closing with every step; he simply needed more racetrack.

Who was that? A quick check of the programs, then a look of shock: Magic Weisner.

Magic Weisner went on to finish fourth in the Belmont, then win the Ohio Derby and finish second (again to War Emblem) in the Haskell. While prepping for the Pennsylvania Derby, he contracted West Nile Virus.

He survived WNV, and after a lengthy rehab, returned to racing. On the day of his return, punters crowded around the paddock to see the star, and he looked every bit the part: big, strong, and full of attitude. “I’m back, and I’m back in charge,” he seemed to say.

Until the gates opened. The nerve damage he’d suffered from the WNV left him largely unable to push off the way he needed to. He didn’t race again.

In 2005, after she’d retired Magic Weisner, Alberts said, “I am still proud of him. Even now, he knows he is special.”

That’s still true, because Magic Weisner, as much as any horse of recent vintage, showed that lightning strikes in unpredictable places and that passion and devotion and commitment can still, on occasion, trump wealth and pedigree. And so, reliably, local connections will take their shot at the Preakness each year and hope to capture some of Weisner’s magic.

Signs of Spring

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:12:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable, LLC

Normal people have normal markers for the change of seasons. They might observe spring, for example, by the first buds, bravely sneaking up through the soil; the first robin, trilling in the barren tree; or, in a more sporting vein, the words “pitchers and catchers report.”

But racing folk are hardly normal people, and we have our own methods of marking the onset of spring. Perhaps the most common, of course, is the ramping up of Triple Crown preps and the suddenly ubiquitous custom of Derby Top 10 (or 12) lists. (Regarding that: why? Why are we making top 10 lists of Derby horses? Is there any glory in choosing the 10th place finisher? Did anyone score a payday by picking Z Fortune for 10th last year? Or Nobiz like Shobiz the year before?)

All well and good, of course, but to me, the surest sign of approaching spring is the debut of turf racing in the mid-Atlantic. And though yesterday dawned cold and gray and rainy, spring announced its arrival in Laurel’s fifth race, a 1 1/16 mile turf test for maidens. In true turf race fashion, the horses dawdled through a glacial three quarters in nearly 1:17 before sprinting home, covering the last 5/16 in less than 29 seconds. For the record, Keep Me in Mind, a three year-old son of Smarty Jones, won the year’s first grass race.

Winter racing in the mid-Atlantic is a somewhat less than glamorous endeavor, entailing seemingly endless gray days of middling horses running the same races over and over. It’s “working man’s racing,” hardscrabble days at the poor cousins of the region’s tracks. No much-loved Saratoga, historic Pimlico, grande dame Monmouth for the winter; no, in these months we toil at Aqueduct, Laurel, Philly. No excited crowds pressing to the rail, either; it’s huddled masses turning their backs on the cold, sheepishly coming out just for the race, or staring at the simulcast screens above.

The palette of winter racing is equally monotonous, equally unloved. Winter is brown horses running on brown dirt against a steel-gray sky; even the jockeys’ silks seem to fade.

Saturday at Laurel, it was still winter: cold, gray, brown.

And now it’s spring. Now it’s early buds beginning to blossom; now it’s birds returning, singing the spring onward. Now it’s noble brown horses flashing across a green turf course, galloping past the blue infield pond: a palette full of color, full of promise.

For many Americans, turf racing is a somewhat annoying mystery. The hard-won lessons of dirt racing — of early speed, of form, of figures — are of less value on the lawn. The grass rewards class, closing kicks, astute tactics; it’s like dirt racing turned upside down.

But an upside-down perspective can be an asset, too. There is never any shortage of people looking at the world right side up; sometimes, it’s the person with the skewed perspective who sees what really matters.

In any case, the chart for Keep Me in Mind’s victory notes that he closed and “was along in time.” In that regard, he’s just like turf racing, and spring.

What's In a Name?

cdawahare — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:39:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable, LLC

When True Quality (Elusive Quality-Louve Mysteriuse, by Seeking the Gold) snuck off to win yesterday's Grade II General George at Laurel, he not only earned his first graded stakes victory but also struck a blow for that hoary old chestnut of name type: the aspirational name.

There are several common name types, and the aspirational one -- a name possessing qualities we hope our horse will, as well -- is perhaps the most common. Yesterday's General George featured no fewer than three such names (four, if you consider Lord Snowdon's life one to which you might aspire): Fabulous Strike (Smart Strike-Fabulous Find, by Lose Code), Eternal Star (Five Star Day-Retsina's Princess, by Eternal Prince), and of course, True Quality. These are the sorts of memorable names that look so good on the win photo after a stakes win.

The problem with aspirational names, of course, reveals itself when the horse doesn't live up to them. True Quality is a fine name for a stakes winner; it might not look so good on, say, a lifetime maiden. In fact, names like this are almost an advertisement for the horsemanship and prescience of the namer; a good horse with an aspirational name is a way of showing the world you had it pegged from the start. A bad horse with an aspirational name? Not so much.

Names are on my mind these days as we name our juvenile filly (Peace Rules-Zaylah, by Pulpit). With that sort of pedigree, there are many directions you can go. Decisions, decisions.

Some aspirational names are also emblematic of another common type: the clever combination of elements of the sire's name and the dam's name, or the damsire's name. Funny Cide (Distorted Humor-Belle's Good Cide, by Slewacide) was one example of that approach.

Some combinations work better than others, though. In our case, I'd suggested Concordat; it's fair to say that our partners responded with a resounding shrug. Not so clever after all. Similarly, Gift From the Sea (Stormy Atlantic- So Generous, by Fly So Free), a nice enough young filly that ran yesterday at Laurel is saddled with a name that calls to mind a sort of equine version of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," also known as Venus on the Half-Shell.

Then there's the martial approach. Racing history is dotted with successful military horses: Man O' War, War Admiral, War Emblem. These names seem to generate a "love 'em or hate 'em" response, depending, I suppose, on the tenor of the times and the predilections of the individual.

Many names are all but indecipherable to the outside world but have great meaning to those doing the naming. We own, for example, a filly named The Big Four Oh (Parker's Storm Cat-Nora Dancer, by Runaway Groom). Why The Big Four Oh? A fortieth birthday present, of course.

Ultimately, a nice thing about animals is that they're unaware of the baggage we attach to names. My old, female dog is unaware that she has a male's name and is named for a muppet; sorry about that, Grover.

Likewise, a good horse can outrun a bad name. It's not the horse's fault he's named The Pamplemousse; fortunately, he's faster than a grapefruit. And Capt. Candyman Can should be fine, as long as they don't ask him to take a sunrise and cover it in chocolate. Or have Sammy Davis, Jr. ride him.

We'll have a name chosen soon enough. And then we'll see whether she's good enough to live up to it. Or run from it. Whatever it takes.

Something Missing

cdawahare — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:15:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable

Here are a few articles that were in Sunday's Washington Post:

A quarter pager on an area high school track meet;
Another quarter page article on a local high school basketball game;
Snippets on World Cup skiing, English Premier League soccer, and a hockey all-star game played in Russia involving players in a European league;
Summaries, including box scores, of four local men's college basketball games that drew crowds of less than 2800;
Summaries of numerous women's college basketball games from all over the country;
A long article about a Maryland player who evidently hates Maryland's fans and spent much of Saturday's game cussin' at them; and
A big chunk of space devoted to predicting the tournament field for the men's college NCAA basketball tournament (!), which won't be decided for more than three months.

Here's what wasn't in Sunday's Post:

One word about horse racing nationally or locally. Not one word about, for example, Laurel's What a Summer Stakes, in which young filly Access Fee ran her record to four-for-four at Laurel and punched her ticket to next month's Grade II Barbara Fritchie.

There are many reactions one could have to this curious editorial decision. But it's pretty hard -- no, make that impossible -- to argue that Washington area sports fans have more interest in the outcome of a Russian hockey game, English soccer, or Swiss skiing events than they do in good quality racing at Laurel. Or, for that matter, what Post basketball writers predict the tourney field will be three months from now.

You can't help but surmise that the editorial meeting that resulted in the scrapping of race coverage went something like this:

Editor 1: I don't like horse racing.

Editor 2: Neither do I. None of my friends likes it, either.

Editor 1: Neither do mine. Why don't we get rid of it?

Editor 2: Done.

On the bright side, at least we won't want for information about the Bundesliga next season.

Around the Horn With the TBA

cdawahare — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:44:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable

It's a busy week among the bloggers of the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance, what with important stories developing both nationally and internationally.

Since the TBA includes nearly four dozen bloggers keeping an eye on the racing scene. Sometimes that's a jaundiced eye, or a skewed one, but an eye nevertheless. In any case, we've got plenty of folks with plenty of opinions about plenty of issues.

If you're looking to get caught up on some international racing and issues, check out Striding Thoroughbreds in Japan. From the Philippines comes Go Girl Racing, and if you're like me, you probably said something like, "I didn't know there was racing there," except, of course, now you do. Jen Morrison's Jen's Thoroughblog ably represents our neighbors to the north, as does CanGamble, the "Can" being short for, you guessed it, Canadian.

Several bloggers are currently following the Race Track Industry Program symposium in Arizona. Patrick, of Handride "fame," is participating on a panel about blogging. Dana, who purports to be Green but Game, has her own thoughts, plus advice on how to follow the symposium yourself. Alan at Left at the Gate has also been keeping an eye on the proceedings, as has Pull the Pocket, which also covers the sulky side of things.

A few of our bloggers are also owners, and a couple of them have weighed in on the vagaries of horse ownership this week. Visit Gathering the Wind to see Winston (Not really)'s thoughts on how accountants spoil all our fun, while Ted at Owning Racehorses suggests that perhaps accountants aren't so bad, after all, or at least not bad enough to spoil the fun of racing.

Of course, this is just a smattering of what's going on with the TBA. With so many different people weighing in, you're sure to find someone to agree with - and someone to disagree with, too.

Human Cost

cdawahare — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:31:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe

Ran into my pal the usher the other day at Laurel.

That is, the ex-usher.

Because Laurel -- besieged by nearby tracks with slots-infused purses and battling the collapsing national economy -- no longer needs ushers on normal days. And so my friend is an ex-usher. After 50 years.

Once, a track like Laurel employed a small army of ushers to handle the crowds that thronged the facility. Live racing -- the only gambling game in town -- regularly packed a Laurel grandstand that mystery writer Dick Francis lauded for its comfort and luxury.

Nowadays, the action is largely downstairs, in front of the endless banks of simulcast televisions. On most days, decent seats at the main simulcast theater can be hard to come by.

And Laurel's grandstand -- suffering from too many years of not-so-benign neglect -- is no longer a place of comfort or luxury. Even on days when big crowds visit the central Maryland track, the combination of insufficient air conditioning, too many years since a decent paint job, and streaky windows make the grandstand the seat of last resort. Even in the cold, bettors will huddle outside for the races rather than take in the expansive, cross-track views from the grandstand.

And so, my friend the usher, another victim of our faltering racetrack economy.

"Creative destruction" is the term with which economists describe the workings of the capitalist economy. Creative, in that we're always on to the next big thing; destructive, in that it's the last big thing that is often left behind. From the ashes rises the phoenix.

These days, it can be hard to determine whether from the ashes of closing racetracks will rise a new, stronger game -- or whether the game itself is slated for destruction, the creative part leading to new types of gambling and different sports.

While we may intellectually understand the wisdom, indeed, the necessity of this creative destruction, we are also human. And as humans, we find change unsettling; we inherently understand that what is being destroyed is not just a faceless company or an obsolete industry; there are lives here, and careers on the line. And so we hope for creative destruction tempered with mercy, or at least compassion.

Racing is a labor-heavy sport. It takes a lot of people to put on even one race: trainers, jockeys, backstretch employees, a gate crew, stewards, outriders. The list is virtually endless. Add in the labor needs of the venue -- wait staff, bartenders, customer service people, janitorial staff, tellers -- and you've got the recipe for bankruptcy.

It's one of racing's curses, this need for labor. That won't change. The vagaries of a dozen undersized people on a dozen skittish horses, coupled with the needs of thousands of hungry and thirsty fans, mean that live racing will always require lots of supporting labor. Which means that tracks will find economies where they can: ushers, kitchen help, janitors, security. They'll try to make do with less.

The need for labor is also one of racing's charms. Racing attracts a potpourri of characters, half rogues' gallery, half Bowery Boys, that give it a raffish goodwill that is -- like so much of the game -- largely out of synch with modern life.

On Friday, as I sat in the grandstand, I couldn't fault Laurel for their decision. As is the case at so many tracks these days, there was more than enough room for everyone. Or ten times everyone.

On the other hand, 50 years on the job is a virtual lifetime; a man with such a history is a human archive of the shifting fortunes of a sport and an industry. You wonder if alternatives exist.

"Call me when you have a horse in," he told me. "I like to be there when my friends run."

I'll do that, of course. But, still, it makes you wonder. If we've learned one thing from witnessing capitalism's creative destruction, it's that everything is temporary: a company, a racetrack, an individual's job. Perhaps even the old sport itself.

Maryland Racing on the Precipice

cdawahare — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:44:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable

Sometime Tuesday night - or perhaps Wednesday morning - our nation will have a new president-elect.

And Maryland racing will have a future. Or not.

Maryland voters will decide Tuesday on a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would allow slot machines in the state for the first time 40 years. Under the complicated disbursement agreement crafted by the state legislature, Maryland racing stands to receive from the one-armed bandits tens of millions of dollars for purse enhancements and breeder bonuses and awards.

Of course, that's only if the amendment passes. And a recent Zogby Interactive poll, which actually puts slots opponents slightly in the lead, suggests that passage is by no means guaranteed.

I don't get slots. I don't see what's fun about them, or why anyone would want to spend their hard-earned cash sitting in front of a slot machine while hoping, in essence, to get hit by lightning.

But any clear-eyed analyst can tell you that Maryland racing, besieged on three borders by racing states with slots-enhanced purses, must have slots if it is to survive. Our ability to compete with our nearby rivals depends on our having the same tools that they do - including slot machines.

Not so many years ago, flat racing in Delaware was nearly extinct; the West Virginia tracks were home to a steady stream of bottom claimers running for paltry purses; and Pennsylvania tracks were of no real consequence. Maryland racing was the mid-Atlantic's big cheese.

These days, however, the cheese is getting a little rancid.

From my perspective, as an owner, the effects of our slots-less stature are apparent every time we run a race or pay a bill. Over the last five years, the costs of keeping a horse in training have gone up significantly, as much as 20 to 25 percent. Meanwhile, Maryland's purses have come down by nearly 10 percent over the same period. It doesn't take a degree in math to see where this trend goes.

This week, That's Amore Stable will be running two horses out-of-state, one in Delaware and one in Pennsylvania. Though we didn't send them elsewhere for better purses - both needed a race that wasn't coming around in Maryland - the purses in both cases are at least $2,000 more than the similar race at home.

A couple grand will buy a lot of hay and oats, and many races have even bigger spreads. A first level allowance in Delaware, for example, pays $8,000 more than the same race in Maryland.

The result, of course, is economic migration. Trainers and owners - and their horses - vote with their feet. This past Friday, just 40 horses lined up for the six dirt races contested at Laurel - and nine of those were in a bottom-level maiden race, a condition for which there are always plenty of horses. (Laurel's top-quality grass course continues to draw sizable fields).

And that is the leading indicator of the vicious circle in which Maryland racing finds itself: lower purses, smaller fields, reduced handle, lower purses... Another trend whose end is easy to identify.

You could fill a War and Peace-sized volume with the mistakes that Maryland racing's leaders have made. The same, of course, is true of racetracks all over the country. And those are problems that, in the long run, will need to be fixed if the sport is to thrive.

But the immediate problem facing Maryland racing is not one of its own making. It is, quite simply, that our nearby competitors have revenue sources - namely, slots - not available to us. That allows them to increase purses and attract more and better horses. We're fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

The old curse - May you live in interesting times - certainly applies to Maryland horsemen, who live in fear that this (possibly) last, best opportunity to get the tools we need to be competitive may again go begging. That we might wake up on Wednesday to discover that an increasingly untenable status quo is all we're going to have, that we have no real future at all.

Interesting times, indeed.

Tangible Dreams

cdawahare — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:36:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe

When Frankie Dettori flyingly dismounted from Raven's Pass last Saturday, it marked, in a sense, the end of a decade-long journey for the colorful jockey.

It also marked, from my perspective, another link in the chain of interconnectedness that is one of racing's signal charms.

Ten years ago, Dettori had the mount on European invader Swain in the Breeders' Cup Classic, held that year at Churchill Downs. Turning for home, Dettori had Swain in the perfect spot, and as he steered the bay outside the leaders, it seemed the money was there for the taking.

What happened next, however, has dogged the jock ever since. The Independent put it this way: "Dettori beat Swain across the track in the Classic with a whipping frenzy." By the time they hit the wire, Swain was probably about 15 paths outside, closer to the grandstand than the rail, and just about a length behind winner Awesome Again.

It took Dettori another decade to find his way to the winners' circle after a Breeders' Cup Classic, ten long years to recover his good name (at least to American punters) after what Ray Kerrison, in the New York Post, called "the worst race of any jockey in the history of the Cup."

Swain, meanwhile, is enjoying a placid and fruitful life as a stallion at Shadwell Farm in Kentucky, which is where my wife Erin and I saw him just a couple of weeks ago. Earlier in the year, we'd sent another "family member" to visit with Swain, and The Big Four Oh, our unraced mare, returned in foal.

Racing is a small and in many ways exceptionally class-conscious world. Even in handicapping, "class" is considered a powerful tool. And woe be to the commoner who tries to enter the Saratoga clubhouse boxes.

Yet for all that, the lines between classes are extraordinarily permeable. A good horse can kick down the doors; all the royal breeding in the world can't save a bad one. The Green Monkey may have been the most expensive auction purchase ever, but on the racetrack he was simply a lifetime maiden.

More than that, it is the very slippery-ness of the classes that allows inter-mingling on such a grand scale. Swain, for example, was true horse royalty: regally bred, good-looking, exceptionally successful at the highest levels of the game. The Big Four Oh, on the other hand, was a commoner in every way: modestly bred (Parker's Storm Cat-Nora Dancer, by Runaway Groom), unraced, and, as a youngster, all lumps and sharp angles. Their offspring? We'll see.

It is this sort of injected democratic sensibility that allows the "sport of kings" to capture our imagination. We at That's Amore Stable haven't run in the best races, but we've had the best jockeys: stars like Dominguez, Velasquez, Garcia, Elliott, Pino. We haven't spent a lot of money on horses, as these things go. But we've nevertheless had offspring of Elusive Quality, Distorted Humor, Mr. Greeley, and others.

The interplay works both ways, of course. Plenty of recent stars - Big Brown, for example, or Funny Cide - didn't exactly leap off the catalog page as stars-in-waiting. Once they hit the racetrack, however, they ran exactly that way.

It's no surprise that the pursuit of the dream is what animates horse-racing. After all, the most recent major movie about the game was called "Dreamer." But dreams, to have power, must begin with some foundation in reality. It's the day-to-day interaction of "high" and "low" that makes the racing dream tangible, that gives it shape and heft, that allows you to pick it up, turn it over, hold it close.

I used to own a horse named Skeleton Crew, a successful claim of ours, if brief; we owned him for only two starts. There were stakes performances in his past when we got him. Kim's Dixie Tune, a horse we own now, spent the early part of his career chasing the likes of Cowboy Cal and Atoned.

Those horses might never get to (or back to) that sort of top-of-the-heap level. But then again, they might. It's there on the page, in black-and-white in the company line: Atoned, Arcaro, Kim's Dixie Tune. Sure, it's a dream, but it's more than a dream, too; it's a realistic (if remote) possibility supported by tangible evidence.

Lava Man, famously, was a claimer-made-great; Funny Cide was a New York-bred gelding who outran the odds. What inspires racing dreams is not that something like that might happen again, but that it inevitably will happen again. So we all say, "Why not us?"

In victory, Dettori achieved a vindication of sorts; he'll not have to explain away his ride on Swain again. He also, in a sense, re-connected Swain to the Classic and in so doing, linked (in a small way) the sport's best and brightest to The Big Four Oh and That's Amore Stable.

As a fan, I'd hoped to see Curlin win. But in truth, I can't say that I'm unhappy with this outcome. And, anyway, maybe we can get Dettori for when The Big Four Oh's foal... oh, never mind...

Princesses, Paupers, and Mr. Fat-and-Happy at the Racetrack

cdawahare — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:22:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe

Just checked put our pal Ted's post introducing this week of musings from the small-ownership crowd. There, to my surprise, he'd successfully pilfered a photo of me from our That's Amore Stable website.

In the picture, I appear to be the living definition of fat and happy.

Which, truth be told, I was on that day.

The picture he's grabbed is from a win photo of ours. A gelding we owned named Terri's T Bird had just delivered a decisive score over a field of $14,000 claimers on a cool day at Laurel. In my excitement, I'd leapt to the edge of a railing at the front of the grandstand, urging the horse home. Until, of course, my wife Erin looked over and said, "What are you doing?"

Did I mention it was Thanksgiving day? Plenty to be thankful for, indeed.

Meanwhile, this past weekend delivered the highlight of the true racing fan's year, the (constantly growing) series of races we call the Breeders' Cup. As always, the Cup included fabulous performances aplenty, and more than a few good betting opportunities. It also generated plenty of healthy introspection: what is the place of synthetic surfaces in the game? How did the modifications in drug and steroid rules impact the outcomes? And was the creation of a separate Ladies Day a stroke of genius or a sign of madness?

For all that, the one thing that the Breeders' Cup probably didn't do is create many new horse owners. For the vast majority of us - Joe and Josephine Bagodonuts - the Breeders' Cup is an event to watch, not an outcome to which we might aspire. Of course, American horse royalty - old money Phippses and Hancocks and newly minted Iavarones and the like - are all there. To say nothing of the actual royalty whose charges more than held their own this Cup.

But this does little - nothing, perhaps - to inspire most of us to more than a betting (or rooting) interest. I can't imagine being, or being like, a sheikh, a prince, or, for that matter, Princess Haya of Jordan, who scored twice over the weekend.

There is, however, another princess who did have a significant impact on my journey into the horse owning world. In fact, it's probably safe to say that, without her, Mr. Fat-and-Happy-Last Thanksgiving would never have come to be.

Her name was Princess Lorna, and she was a truly terrible racehorse. She was a Maryland horse with local connections and no discernible talent; in fact, for the first two or three dozen races of her career, she seemed likely to earn the dreaded description, "lifetime maiden." She became one of those horses that you halfway follow, wondering if she'll ever figure the game out, or simply move on to the next career.

The day she finally did figure it out (or catch a field of even less talented animals than she) - "a maiden no more," track announcer Dave Rodman noted - Erin nudged me in the side. "Let's go check out the winners' circle," she said, and so we did.

Not a crowded circle, but a happy one all the same. Her breeder-owner-trainer pumped his fist, shook hands with a friend, beamed ear-to-ear. No Grade I-winning sheikh was ever prouder of his horse than were Lorna's connections.

A wise guy on the apron called out, "Send her to the Breeders' Cup." A joke, of course, but even if it didn't - even for one second - seem plausible, it also didn't matter. You could feel the connections' joy; you could share their moment. Princess Lorna wasn't going anywhere but back to the barn, but she was going back - for the first time - as a winner. Hard work, at last rewarded.

Seeing those smiles, feeling that joy, realizing those were ordinary folks like us in the winners' circle made us plausibly imagine - really, for the first time - ourselves in the win photo. From there, a surprisingly short step to owning horses.

The column inches, bandwidth, and brain power are typically showered on the big horses, the big owners, and the big days. Fair enough: a successful spectator sport (and gambling endeavor) needs fans and bettors, and fans and bettors want to see the best.

But a successful racing industry also needs owners, and no one becomes an owner until that moment when they can imagine themselves in the win photo. Most of us don't have that "it could be me" epiphany watching old-money bluebloods, new-tech billionaires, or foreign royalty smiling after a Grade I triumph. We have it when we see the king-sized smile on a guy who looks kinda like us as he leads a lumpy, tired horse back to the winner's circle after a nondescript victory, or we see a little girl jumping up and down shrieking, or an adult woman transformed into a little girl by the actions of a horse.

Racing, in other words, needs stars; it also needs hard-knockers. It needs princes, of course, and also paupers.

There's joy aplenty in horse racing. So, next time you see an oh-for-life horse break his maiden at the lowest level, sidle on up to the winners' circle. You'll see what I'm talking about.

TBA Partnership Week

Blood-Horse Staff — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:54:00 GMT

Welcome to Breeder’s Cup Day! We were handed the reins of the TBA Blog this week and were to start at a relatively inopportune moment – Breeder’s Cup Day (or Day 2, if you prefer). Given the justifiable focus on the best our industry has to offer today as well as ad nauseum blogs on the races themselves, we will resume your regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

I thought I would take this ‘quiet’ day to introduce you to your TBA bloggers this week. All three run partnerships of various sizes, shapes and forms. No, this won’t be a week long commercial of ‘join my group’, but rather views on racing from one of the many unique perspectives the TBA offers up to readers. In our case: owners.

Many, if not most of you out there are owners so you deal with many of the issues that we do. We may discuss some of those issues this week. We may take you back to that first stakes win, the first win period or that very first race under your colors. We may hit upon some national issues or some more parochial ones. There may be some lessons learned the hard way that we’ll share as well as moments that we’ve had that no other sport can offer to its participants and/or spectators.

I think that what we will be able to offer you is some entertaining commentary on racing from our perspectives. Here are the bios of your hosts this week:

Steve Zorn

Blog: The Business of Racing (http://businessofracing.blogspot.com/)
Location: New York

Biographical Info: Managing Partner of Castle Village Farm, a thoroughbred racing partnership group based in New York. He's also a tax lawyer, former law school professor and United Nations technical adviser. Steve is a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

Frank Vespe

Blog: That’s Amore Stable (http://www.thatsamorestable.net/blog/)
Location: Maryland

Biographical Info: Managing Partner of That’s Amore Stable, a thoroughbred racing partnership based in Maryland and racing throughout the Mid Atlantic and Florida.

Ted Grevelis

Blog: Owning Racehorses (http://grevelisracing.blogspot.com)
Location: Minnesota

Biographical Info: Managing Partner of Grevelis Racing Stable LLC a thoroughbred racing partnership based in Minnesota and racing in the Midwest and Florida. Ted is also a Director of Sales for a leading slot machine manufacturer and has been involved in racing as an owner, fan, handicapper and even ticket puncher since 1985.