Jessica Chapel / Railbird

Retirement

Suffolk Showcase

Are you coming to Suffolk Showcase on Sunday?

Looking for a new horse? The sixth annual Suffolk Showcase is this Sunday, October 23, at Suffolk Downs. From 9:00 AM to noon, visitors will have a chance to check out dozens of great thoroughbreds ready for new careers and ask questions of trainers and owners directly. Browse the CANTER New England listings to get a sense of what’s available. It’s no exaggeration to say there’s a horse for every rider — CANTER volunteers (including me) have been busy as the Suffolk meet winds down, cataloging horses athletic and adorable. Racehorses make terrific sporthorses and companions — as the success stories Susan Salk has been publishing on Off-Track Thoroughbreds prove, there’s little these athletes can’t do when they leave the racetrack.

10/18/11 Addendum: Today’s “I want him” CANTER horse. And more!

Posted in Suffolk Downs on October 17, 2011 / Tagged CANTER NE, OTTBs, Retirement, Second Careers, Showcase / 1 comment

Friday Notes

As Ed DeRosa writes today in a piece about the importance of sanctuaries such as Old Friends, Joe Drape’s reporting on TRF has made the discussion about providing for racehoses when their careers end more public. It also seems to have made the conversation more urgent. The situations aren’t quite analogous, but there’s something reminiscent of the safety debate that followed Eight Belles’ death in the fresh attention on the retirement and rescue issue, a sense that racing has to come up with a solution to a problem that hasn’t been neglected — the work of hundreds of organizations attests to that — but is complex and will probably take collective action to solve. “The only chance that something good can come out of this mess is if this turns out to be a watershed moment in horse racing,” writes Bill Finley. He’s right.

Prepping for the Florida Derby, Dialed In worked four furlongs in :47.55 at Palm Meadows yesterday. Trainer Nick Zito, who said the colt “bounced” in his last race, “caught the final eighth in :11 flat.” Handicapper Mike Maloney calls Zito’s prospect one of three likely Kentucky Derby winners. “If he shows a decent finish in the FL Derby, even if not winning, I think he will be fine.”

Tomorrow is Dubai World Cup day, and Raceday 360 has an overview of every race. I wrote about the UAE Derby, a weak renewal this year, for the HRF Derby Prep alert, and only glancingly mentioned the remarkable entry of two Aidan O’Brien trained starters in the race, the first in six years. Like last year, I assumed that this year no UAE Derby finisher was likely for the Kentucky Derby — Sheikh Mohammed seems have given up on that path for Godolphin 3-year-olds after the disappointments of Regal Ransom and Desert Party in 2009 — but Alan Shuback proposes Coolmore could be using the race as a Derby prep for Master of Hounds or Alexander Pope. “It would be a large irony, indeed, if Magnier & Co. pulled a Kentucky Derby runner out of the UAE Derby hat in Sheikh Mohammed’s backyard.”

Sweet Ducky, recently sold and transferred to trainer Herman Brown, is apparently possible for Churchill Downs, though, if he runs big in the UAE Derby. “It would be tough to turn it down if he runs a great race.” That would certainly be an interesting move, considering the colt’s new ownership. Would Kentucky license Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, called by the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, “a Stalin of our times“?

Black Caviar made it 11-for-11 in the William Reid Stakes.

Thanks to Pull the Pocket and The Knight Sky for posting about Kentucky Confidential. Have you pledged? We hope you’ll consider it.

Posted in Racing on March 25, 2011 / Tagged Black Caviar, Coolmore, Derby Prospects, Dialed In, Dubai, Dubai World Cup, Ex-Racehorses, International, Kentucky Confidential, Retirement, Sweet Ducky, TRF / Comments Off

Save Horses! Mug Horseplayers!

Let’s stop this idea in its tracks now:

Violette said there has been discussion about dedicating one-tenth of one percent of New York’s handle to retirement programs, which would need legislative approval. This would generate about $2.2-million per year.

“That way everybody that participates in racing — handicappers, tracks, jockeys, trainers, owners — would be giving something,” he said. “Yes, it means an increase in takeout. But I can’t think of a better reason for a takeout increase than the protection of our race horses.”

Raise takeout? An unfortunate necessity. Mandate that everyone who registers a foal pay $25 toward racehorse retirement? An impossible dream.

I’ve given money to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and other retirement groups in the past; I’ll surely do so in the future, because horses deserve a decent quality of life after the racetrack. But like most horseplayers, I don’t breed horses. I don’t own horses. And until those who do breed and own horses levy a similar burden on themselves to help cover thoroughbred retirement costs through registration, sales, or earnings — all possible sources of funds — then I’m not going to see a takeout increase, for the horses, as anything other than what it is — a politically palatable passing of the buck.

3/25/11 Note: There’s an excellent conversation going on in the comments about takeout and funding racehorse retirement, to which Violette thoughtfully replied this afternoon. “I will go even further; let’s not raise the takeout and take the same .001 from the existing levels,” he writes. “NO INCREASE. A solution must be found, this is for the greater good.”

Posted in Industry on March 24, 2011 / Tagged Hell No, Horseplayers, New York, Retirement, Shirkers, Takeout, TRF / 20 comments