JC / Railbird

Triple Crown Archive

He Might Be Right

… on both counts. Said trainer Rick Dutrow in today’s NTRA teleconference:

And earlier in the call:

I will give Dutrow this: He is charismatic, his confidence is compelling. And he hasn’t been wrong about Big Brown yet.

Posted in Triple Crown on May 29, 2008

The Spoiler

Jockey Edgar Prado, named to ride Casino Drive in the Belmont Stakes, knows how to dash Triple Crown dreams:

He’s the perfect rider for Big Brown’s presumed main rival.
Casino Drive, looking “elegant,” half-worked, half-galloped in a time too slow to officially credit on Wednesday morning at Belmont. “He doesn’t need to go fast,” said racing manager Nobutaka Tada (DRF).

Posted in Triple Crown on May 29, 2008

Material Information

On the IEAH web site, co-president Michael Iavarone is described as “a high-profile investment banker on Wall Street,” but Bloomberg turns up a different story, reporting that the man behind the $50 million Big Brown stud deal and a proposed $100 million racing hedge fund is a sanctioned penny stock broker and failed dotcom bubble day trader.

The NYT adds a few more details: “Iavarone told The New York Times that he had worked for Goldman Sachs, the world’s largest investment bank…. But he never worked for Goldman Sachs.”

Iavarone said he couldn’t reveal much about his background earlier, because it would have been “misunderstood.” No, I doubt that’s it … everything that’s come out is quite understandable, as is why he’d want to keep it quiet.

5/29 Addendum: Investors tell DRF they support IEAH. “We’re all entitled to screw up a little in our pasts, and you get to make up for those things,” said one. “They’ve been nothing but professionals.” The same investor did admit, though, that the information, new to him, about Iavarone’s experience, “disturbs me, maybe, a little bit.”

Posted in Owners/Owning, Triple Crown on May 28, 2008