Horse Racing questions and answers

[str]

Str, What is your take on the Article in the Blood horse Magazine on the cancellation?

Sorry Batt. Busy week.

1. 1st cancellation in recent memory?

For lack of entries, I do not recall that happening unless it snuck in when I was gone.

2. Go up against the Va. Derby?

Big overlook to run on Va. Derby day. They share horses so everyone will go there for the bigger pots.

I cannot imagine that will take place next year. Make it a dark day or even weekend. Make Friday a real solid card. An honest mistake this year. No problem. But I would learn from it moving forward. The Va. Derby is points towards the Kent. Derby. Enough said.

3. Inclement weather had horses not ready to run?

Nonsense. Guess he had to say something . Like it didn't snow 3 feet at Bowie back in the day. Heck, the Florida Air plane hit the bridge on Jan,. 13th in DC. leaving National( Reagan) airport. We ran a full card that day. My wife was very pregnant with our first child. Never forget it.

4. . A steady shift towards turf racing ? Well Jerry ( John) Robb will get mad at me if he sees this, and we are good friends. I will be talking with him soon as well as others. Never met Jamie Ness and look forward to it. I have been talking to many trainers and the racing office the last few weeks. Really trying to do my part to bridge the gap in Md. racing. It's deep right now but it is not hard to fix. Need to convince the horsemen, not the racing office. Already spoke with them.

Here's the deal in simple terms:
The races are not filling with offering 11 or 12 races a day. So... They have to put up extras. The racing Sec. job is to get as full a group of fields as possible. That is her job. She's paid by management. Turf races always draw a ton of horses. Meanwhile she has trainers coming to her saying can she please write a 5 1/2 F. race 10K INSTEAD OF 6, 6 1/2, 7, OR A MILE. Why? The trainers answer is the horse can't go 6F. Um,... bullshi* ! Run it for the right number and it will go 6F. And if it is winded, Charlestown goes 4 1/2 and leave the horse there. But if she is nice and tries for that trainer, well, then 5 1/2 is too short for 3 other trainers.

Trainers don't want to try and support the sec. office because in the summer, that same race going 6 or 7 might get 7 or 8 horses in it but the racing Sec. decides to use sub 9, the extra race which is a turf race for 10k and it gets 14 in it. So the sprinters are screwed because management puts the heat onto use the big field to help the handle and the sprint trainers get pissed and run out of town and then are not ready for the race when it comes back in 11 days. See the problem??

IT'S A TWO WAY STREET ! BOTH HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT, respect that, and work together. PERIOD !

Any other result will spell disaster for Md. Racing.


It is not incumbent to acquire turf horses. They can only run in Md. from very late April until October and not at Timonium in August. Four months, maybe 5. That's it. Laurel is in a 100 year flood plain. That turf course cannot be run on when it is wet AND, it is slow to dry because of the water table. Anyone that wants to challenge the flood plain issue is hoping you don't really know. Unfortunately, I do. Lived here since I was 18.

Bottom line: I am doing what I can to bring the horsemen and management together to have this discussion. John Robb does know this. He's been there since I was 18 and before then. Think they just need to cool off and have a mediator that knows both sides of it and can't be Bullshi**ed. Well that's me. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. The racing office will have to dance first because we are still in winter. But it won't be too long before management will have to concede some of those 12 horse fields to accommodate the horses that support the off season racing. Work together or fight each other? Which will occur ? I'm going to try. We'll see.

[batt33]

As always STR I enjoy reading your takes! and wanted to hear the"other side" sorta speak..Like you said hopefully cooler heads prevail. The Industry cannot afford to lose Maryland racing....

[str]

As always STR I enjoy reading your takes! and wanted to hear the"other side" sorta speak..Like you said hopefully cooler heads prevail. The Industry cannot afford to lose Maryland racing....

You know Batt, I think I need to expound a bit more. I reread my statement on Md. racing and I want to make sure people know that I do NOT feel as though I have all the answers. Heck, probably don't have many at all. My frustrati0on runs very deep though.

Other than meeting my buddies, or an acquaintance at the track, I have had virtually no contact with the place since I left. Yes, I have a ton of old friends still there and it is always great to see them. But I am really stunned at what I am seeing and experiencing there. Friends and co workers are still there. More than a few that worked with me that are now trainers, starters, owners, agents , all sorts of stuff. What I am when I think about it is disappointed. Almost somewhat embarrassed. Maybe it is because I was so young when I started training. I don't know. It's just that I thought that from what I saw, and how things were handled, I assumed that when MY age group was older and basically ran the place, it would only be better. Not that it wasn't good, but that as all of us grew, we would all improve and make the entire thing be even more . So I am gone and now start to come back around and what I see in my heart is, me, and others that were about my age, are now old but we , IMO, have let the racetrack down in that, we have simply become the old school representitives.
Instead of the younger generation seeing how things were from their viewpoint and building to improve the track for everyone, all it seems we are are now the old people doing what the older people did when we were young. We are NOT making a difference IMO.

Now a big YES, to the question of "has the MTHA and those that have served or do serve on that board, many of which are friends or at least certainly acquaintances, improved the overall status of the backside and the product"? YES. They really have. There are so many positive things that have been implemented. I would call them out if that was not the case. It is sooo much better. But, there is a generation of workers who are somewhat forgotten, and while those that are old enough to remember them do care, and try with what they have, there are others in positions that are paid positions and IMHO, don't give a rats ass about those that either can no longer work at the pace necessary to keep steady work or have had to leave the backside. For those, back when the retirement program was not around or in it's infancy , as 75 and 80 yr. old's today, are left out on their own with little chance to make things work and live much of a life at all.

I have a 6 page proposal I have drafted that I will eventually share I guess, to help those in need as well as prevent the next generation of workers to make the same financial mistakes through education that would actually pay them to learn finance. Yep, pay them to graduate. It would be pass, fail. Fail, nothing. Pass. 300 hundred bucks in cash. And, the knowledge moving forward to be able to plan for retirement. Seven steps that people choose to take that if they did not, they would find themselves in a MUCH better financial position as they aged. Education. The true key to happiness.
I will post all this stuff in due time but not quite yet. I WILL GIVE Md. Racing by best shot first. Those wonderful people I worked both beside and against for 29 years deserve the dignity of at least effort from their fellow workers that might be able to help them. Just as they would have and did help everyone that needed it when they could do so.

By and large the MTHA and those that work there are trying. But there are some that are as worthless as a 3rd stirrup and do as little as possible to collect the paycheck they receive. They are a disgrace in my opinion and honestly, they make me want to puke.

Nothing I respect more than someone who helps the next one in line but it frosts my butt when I see a jackass pull up in a new Tesla while driving past those that spent a lifetime making trainers and riders leaders in their fields without even a wave .
I would not have won a single race if it wasn't for the entire team. Guess some of those have forgotten that or never understood it at all.