JC / Railbird

Racing Archive

Missing Juveniles

Jennie Rees wonders:

What happens to all the 2-year-old maiden winners? Not long ago, Churchill had three stakes for 2-year-old colts in the spring. Now there’s only the Bashford Manor (plus the Debutante for fillies). And there’s virtually no such thing as an allowance race for 2-year-olds. How is this, with so many 2-year-olds on the grounds?

Posted in Racing on July 2, 2013 / Tagged Juveniles

Young Dan

Wise Dan seems “strapping” now, easily dispatching rivals despite weight, weather, and rough trips, but he was once a maiden, looking a little green and eager. Partymanners has posted on YouTube the reigning Horse of the Year’s first career win (his second start), a 15 1/4 length romp at Turfway in 2010. “This son of a gun is either a freak or he’s crazy,” an exercise rider told trainer Charles LoPresti after an adventurous training gallop at Keeneland back then.

Wise Dan was given a Beyer speed figure of 101 for winning the Firecracker Handicap (replay). There are four possibilities for his next start, all at Saratoga — the Whitney, Fourstardave, Bernard Baruch, and Woodward. It would be a lot of fun to see him in the Whitney or the Woodward — he hasn’t raced on dirt since finishing second in the 2012 Stephen Foster.

“I’d like to win a Grade I on dirt with him this year,” LoPresti told the Churchill Downs press office. “If we get a Grade I on dirt with him and then keep him going and get a few wins on the grass and then get to the Breeders’ Cup, maybe he’ll get Horse of the Year again.” Sounds like a plan.

Posted in Racing on July 1, 2013 / Tagged Wise Dan

No Trace

When Kentucky mandated last year that state veterinarians give pre-race Lasix shots, in place of private vets, the results were eye-opening, reports Ryan Goldberg in the final installment of TDN’s drugs in racing series (PDF):

Besides the volume of Lasix [which declined], murkier drugs largely disappeared from post-race tests. Scollay said she had seen evidence that a drug called GABA, short for gamma-aminobutyric acid, was commonplace in Kentucky. The amino acid, which is present in the supplement “Carolina Gold,” is endogenous to horses as well as humans — it’s the predominant receptor blocker in the central nervous system. It has a pain-mitigating and calming effect that can conserve a horse’s energy prior to a race. However, because it’s naturally occurring and leaves a horse’s system within three to four hours, finding suspicious levels in post-race tests is difficult.

Its use in Kentucky was apparently curtailed once regulatory vets came in. The “noise” in post-race samples all but departed. Lasix is administered within four hours of a race; private vets were apparently giving GABA at the same time. There was no trace.

Wow. I wonder if the same thing happened in New York after the NYRA detention barn — in which horses were monitored for six hours before a race and only state vets could administer Lasix — opened in 2005, and if the concentration of Lasix in the blood, as well as the presence of other drugs or supplements in test samples, rebounded after it closed in 2010?

Posted in Racing on June 24, 2013 / Tagged Drugs in Racing, GABA, Kentucky, Lasix, Medications, New York, Reform, Regulations