Suffolk Downs
The Unlucky Ones
Last week, Convocation appeared in the entries for the first race at Suffolk Downs on July 17. Trainer David Jacobson entered him for a $4,000 claiming tag, or $11,000 less than he had paid when he claimed the multiple stakes-placed gelding on May 9 at Belmont. That race was Convocation’s fourth start in six months following a 14-month layoff that began after he finished eighth in the 2011 Woodward. His fifth looked like it’d be a short, final drop to the bottom — the best case scenario, if he had run last Wednesday, was that he would win, get claimed by a local trainer, start a couple more times in East Boston, and then get listed on the CANTER New England website, where he’d be described as a well-bred former stakes-caliber horse who needed a little time off and wanted to be someone’s pet. It was a relief when he scratched.*
Monzante didn’t scratch from the fourth race at Evangeline on Saturday. It was the 2008 Eddie Read winner’s first race in eight months, and the graded-stakes winner who had earned more than half a million dollars was running for $4,000. It wasn’t his first time in for a tag — that had happened in June 2011, when he ran for $50,000 in his first race following a 14-month layoff. From there, the Juddmonte-bred kept falling in class, his losses rarely punctuated by a win, moving from Churchill to Aqueduct to Delta Downs, from the barns of Mike Mitchell and Steve Asmussen to Jackie Thacker.
Maybe there was no reason to scratch Monzante, even though he hadn’t raced in months and his last recorded work was a five-furlong breeze on June 1. I don’t know what the track veterinarian might have seen during a pre-race examination, or what Thacker felt when he ran his hands over Monzante’s legs. Maybe he just looked like any other bottom-level claimer, a little sore but sound enough. If he had been any other bottom-level claimer, what happened in the fourth at Evangeline would have almost certainly gone unremarked by most in racing: Monzante broke down. Monzante was euthanized.
That’s not supposed to be the end for a Grade 1 winner.
“The Monzante case, where a G1 winner runs in a low level claimer, is a BIG flaw in our racing system,” tweeted Alex Brown.
Except, it’s not a flaw: The system functioned as designed. In 2008, Monzante was a stakes horse. In 2013, he was a claimer. He was at his level. What a case such as his exposes isn’t a defect in the system, but the cruelty that is always lurking in claiming racing, which relies equally on commodifying horses and on the ability of the people who participate in it to protect horses from its worst consequences. Too often, that’s where the system fails.
Two years ago, while I and another CANTER New England volunteer were taking listings on the Suffolk Downs backstretch, a trainer called us over to his barn. He had a horse to sell. We followed him down the shedrow to the stall of a chestnut gelding. It was Dubinsky, a horse I remembered from the beginning of his career, when he debuted in a maiden special at Aqueduct. He peaked with a third in the 2009 Hill Prince Stakes; from there, he descended through the claiming ranks. His right knee was swollen, and the trainer told us that the 5-year-old was arthritic before leading him out so that we could take a picture. He’d finished seventh in his last race.
“Dubinsky should benefit from some time off and should make an excellent flat or pleasure prospect,” read his CANTER listing.
He was limping, but alive, and he had a shot at a second career as a riding horse. He was one of the lucky ones. What kind of game is racing that that could be true of Dubinsky, but not of Monzante?
*7:00 PM Update: Count Convocation among the lucky, too — his original owners purchased him with plans to retire.
Way Back, In the 1970s
Donnally confessed that he had every intention of finishing out of the money but was having trouble doing so because so many other jockeys were also restraining their horses.
New England racing, the Winter Hill gang, and one jockey’s story.
– – – – –
Suffolk Downs notes: The Boston Globe profiles developer Richard Fields, “the track’s charismatic public face and largest shareholder” … Andria Terrill has been released from the hospital. The rider suffered three small skull fractures in an on-track accident on July 8 … Multiple stakes-placed Convocation (2nd, 2011 Westchester; 2nd, 2009 Suburban; 2nd, 2009 Dwyer) is entered for a $4,000 tag in the first race on Wednesday. It’s the 7-year-old gelding’s first start since finishing fourth at Belmont on May 9, when Trainer David Jacobson claimed him for $15,000. He’s had three works in the interim, none stellar, and is 9-5 on the morning line. [7/17/13: Convocation scratched.]
Aspire to Win, Girls!
Unlimited Budget is among the 14 contenders entered in the Belmont Stakes. Someone should read “Lean In” to the filly before Saturday, apparently:
“It takes a special filly [to win a Triple Crown race], one that is willing to stare down the boys and say, ‘No, this one is mine,’ †said Dr. Mary Scollay, the equine medical director for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. “It’s so much about personalities and intimidation when these horses match up. I think it’s the same reason women don’t have as much, and the same kind of success, as men in the workplace.â€
Three fillies have won the Belmont, out of 22 starters. That’s not such a bad record — only 141 colts or geldings have won, out of more than 1200.
Rosie Napravnik has the mount on Unlimited Budget, which makes her the first female jockey to ride in all three Triple Crown races in the same year. That’s wonderful, if also a reminder of the progress still to be made, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Julie Krone’s history-making Belmont win.
Meanwhile, at Suffolk Downs —
Elusive Son (inside) outfinishes Step Brother in the first turf race of the meet.
Tammi Piermarini, the leading rider at Suffolk for the past three years, tops the jockey standings again after three days of racing, with five wins from 19 starts. Gary Wales and Andria Terrill are tied for second with four wins apiece. Piermarini’s first win of the meet came in race two on opening day with Broadway Hat, shipping in for trainer David Jacobson. The once-pricey auction purchase obviously found his level, taking the maiden $5K by four lengths. Trainer Ambrose Pascucci made the claim, the only one so far this summer.
Piermarini’s second win came in race six on the same day with Elusive Son, whose thrilling by-a-neck victory over Step Brother withstood a stewards’ inquiry into a little stretch bumping. The first of her two wins on Wednesday’s card offered a different kind of thrill — Mister Dixie, a 5-year-old gelding making his first start since July 2012, won race two by 12 1/2 lengths in :57 3/5, a tick off Rene Depot’s 1972 :57 2/5 track record for five furlongs.
Another rider, Jordano Tunon, scored the biggest upset of the meet yet when he won race six on Wednesday with Lapantalones Fance, the longest shot in a field of 10, paying $87.20 to win. While that might have been the highest win price of the week, it wasn’t the first time since Saturday that exotic payouts have been high enough to trigger the new, onerous 5% tax on winning bets paying over $600 instituted by a 2011 change in Massachusetts law (and affecting only Massachusetts residents). “[T]his is a dealbreaker for Mass. horseplayers,” tweeted one. Per a notice in the Suffolk program, track management is working on a fix. Get in touch to support their effort.
6/7/13 Addendum: Jay Hovdey on the 1993 Belmont Stakes: “It has been 20 years since Colonial Affair emerged from the gloom of a rainy New York afternoon to carry Julie Krone and the colors of Centennial Farms to victory in the 125th running of the Belmont …”
Keep ‘Em Going
Part two of a six-part series on drugs in racing by Ryan Goldberg for the TDN considers the current, not-so-pretty situation (PDF):
It seems a trainer would have to be crazy to use illegal drugs when so many legal ones are at his disposal. Before the days of pharmacological drugs, the goal was to “hop ‘em or stop ‘em,†but what the picture looks like now is an everyday practice of using drugs to manage pain and other complications to get a horse to post. Since the majority of horses race for tags, it makes sense. “The claiming game does not protect the horse,†Scollay says. “It’s like day- trading on the stock market.â€
The respiratory drug clenbuterol, its anabolic properties, and the widely differing state-by-state guidelines for its use get particular attention; Massachusetts is among the states listed in Goldberg’s piece as offering no guidelines. That was the case through the 2012 Suffolk Downs meet — since then, though, Massachusetts has joined seven other states in adopting the Mid-Atlantic Uniform Medication Program, which allows for 24 therapeutic drugs and sets guidelines for their use, and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission began the process of incorporating the new rules in January 2013 (PDF). Under the new guidelines, clenbuterol will no longer be permitted within 14 days of racing. Corticosteroids won’t be allowed within seven days.
Charming Buyers, Finding Homes
Susan Salk reports on the October 14 CANTER New England Suffolk Showcase, in which 80 Suffolk Downs racehorses were featured. Thirteen went to new homes that day, another eight left shortly after, and more are purchased each day as the meet gets closer to its end. Because of Hurricane Sandy, racing at Suffolk on Monday, October 29 has been cancelled and rescheduled for Saturday, November 3. (Hey, that’s means there’s live racing at Suffolk on Breeders’ Cup Saturday!) Saturday is the last day of racing for 2012; horses must be off the grounds by November 14. Check the CANTER New England listings to see the horses available, and check frequently — at this time of year, listings change almost daily.
About
Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
Elsewhere
Find Jessica on Pinboard and Instagram, Railbird on LibraryThing and Twitter.
Etc.
Links
Search
Boston Racing
Spreadsheets/Data
← Home
Copyright © 2000-2026 by Jessica Chapel. All rights reserved.