Monday, January 05, 2009

Columns Not Written

(CHICAGO, IL – January 5, 2008) Although 2008 was one of the best sports years ever, the lament of the horseplayer – “woulda, coulda, shoulda” was heard more often in thoroughbred racing than “wowza.”

Another year of early retirements, a missed Triple Crown, a failed attempt by the Horse of the Year to earn a trip to Europe – these were just a few of the disappointments that horse racing fans faced.

Here is a short list of stories that never developed and therefore were never written:

(ARCADIA, CA, Santa Anita Park – February 28, 2008) A small but select field awaits the assignment of post positions today for a race that veteran horse racing observers are calling the greatest in 20 years.

Saturday’s Santa Anita Handicap has attracted the reigning Horse of the Year Curlin - the Preakness and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner - as well as three other leading thoroughbreds from last year’s stellar 3-year-old crop.

Street Sense, the Kentucky Derby and Travers winner; Hard Spun, second to Curlin in the Classic, and Any Given Saturday, the surprise Haskell Invitational winner are all poised to meet the starter. The last time these three met was in the mud-soaked Breeders’ Cup Classic at Monmouth. All have been rested since then with this renewal of their rivalry in mind.

The showdown is reminiscent of the 1988 Santa Anita Handicap when Kentucky Derby winners Alysheba and Ferdinand met…

Street Sense, Hard Spun and Any Given Saturday were sold to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and retired from racing as 3-year-olds. Curlin was kept racing by owner Jess Jackson and finished fourth in the 2008 Classic before his retirement.


(ELMONT, NY, Belmont Park – June 9, 2008) An achievement that many horse racing observers consider to be the ultimate advertisement for the beleaguered sport is now perplexed with the daunting challenge of turning people at the fringes into bona fide centrists.

An electrifying colt named Big Brown, owned by a partnership with dubious leadership and trained by a loud-mouthed gambler, has earned the right to be called “savior.” IEAH Stable’s Big Brown, trained by Rick Dutrow, Jr., eased under the Belmont Park finishing wire three lengths ahead of the longshot Da’ Tara to capture the 12th Triple Crown, the first since 1978.

“We’ve been waiting for a superstar to ignite a latent fan base, and I guess we’ve found him,” proclaimed Alex Waldrop, Chief Executive Officer of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the marketing body which has labored through five tough weeks of criticism following the death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby…

Big Brown mysteriously pulled up on the final turn in the Belmont Stakes, ending his pursuit of the Triple Crown ignominiously. He ran two more times, winning the Haskell Invitational and a grass race at Monmouth, hardly the kind of achievements that constitute legend.


(ELMONT, NY, Belmont Park – July 12, 2008) To the delight of his owner Jess Jackson, Curlin passed his test on the grass in the Man O’ War Stakes on Saturday. At odds of 0-0, the reigning Horse of the Year beat a talented field of proven turf runners as if the surface was nothing new to him.

Curlin’s easy victory assured him a trip to Europe for a prep race in Ireland or France this September. Jackson’s horse will then take on the world’s best in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on October 1 before trekking to Santa Anita for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The ambitious schedule is further proof that Jackson is a true sportsman. The California wine baron kept Curlin in training as a 4-year-old despite the urging of financial opportunity. To make up some of his sacrifice, he took Curlin to the United Arab Emirates for the $6 million Dubai World Cup, which he won handily. A victory in his next start will place him close to $10 million in career earnings, the most ever by a North American-trained horse…

Red Rocks, a former Breeders’ Cup Turf winner that was considered just below the top rank of European turf runners, defeated Curlin in the Man O’ War, thus ending Jackson’s grand plan to have his Horse of the Year conquer another continent.

(ARCADIA, CA, Santa Anita Park – October 23, 2008) The kind of match-up made in heaven looms for the first Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic, the newly-named Distaff that has been thrust into the spotlight as centerpiece to the Breeders’ Cup’s expanded Friday program.

The undefeated 3-year-old filly Zarkova, winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe against males, is here from France to challenge the 4-year-old Zenyatta, unbeaten also, on the Santa Anita-based filly’s home grounds. Zenyatta enter the Ladies Classic off winning the Lady’s Secret Handicap. She is eight for eight, as it stands, and a legitimate candidate for Horse of the Year.

Nevertheless, Zarkova’s trainer, Alain de Royer-Dupré, displayed confidence after his filly had a last minute workout on the track’s Pro-Ride surface. “The European runners, bred and trained for grass, seem to suit the surface well,” said Royer-Dupré. “She’s an exceptional filly.”…

The Aga Khan, Zarkova’s owner, retired her after the Arc. Zenyatta won the Ladies Classic, making her lifetime record nine for nine. Goldikova, a filly that lost twice to Zarkova in Europe, proved that the Arc winner would have been tough competition by winning the Breeders’ Cup Mile easily.


(SUNLAND PARK, NM, Sunland Park Race Track – December 31, 2008) Officials from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association descended upon tiny Sunland Park Race Track with a special offer to travel Peppers Pride, the 6-year-old mare that is undefeated in 19 races, and her competition to racetracks across the United States. The offer recalled the time of Seabiscuit when competitions between popular horses were arranged for the good of the sport.

“Santa Anita Park will provide a purse of $500,000 plus pay the expenses for New Mexico-bred horses to partake in a six furlong sprint of January 31 called the Peppers Pride Invitational Stakes,” said Keith Chamblin, an NTRA spokesman. “The offer is contingent on Peppers Pride’s participation in the race, and races of similar description, making the same offer, will be created at Aqueduct, Churchill Downs, Arlington Park and so on, for as long as Peppers Pride stays undefeated,” Chamblin added.

Peppers Pride’s owner Joe Allen appears on board with the offer, as do several New Mexico horse owners. “Peppers Pride has given the fans of New Mexico and me more thrills than could ever be imagined. It’s time to share this mare with fans all around the country. If Santa Anita is willing to shoulder the cost of showcasing her and New Mexico racing, we’re set to travel,” he said…

As of December 31, a decision to retire Peppers Pride was still being considered and indications are that her retirement is forthcoming soon. Peppers Pride has won all her races on New Mexico tracks against local competition.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Book Review, Forty Years Later

(CHICAGO, IL – December 29, 2008) One of my favorite presents this Christmas was a first edition book entitled “The Handicapper’s Handbook.” This un-handiest of handy books is a handbook in name only. Yet, the author – a horseplayer named Richard Carter, who used the pen name Tom Ainslie – insisted, of course, that it was.

For the record, Ainslie’s “Handbook” is a big book – a suitable coffee table size, maybe 8 ½ inches wide by 11 inches tall. It is lacking in conventional handbook content; in fact, it’s a workbook. There’s just one “How to…” and that “How to…” is the introduction called “On the Uses of a Handbook,” which, as one might surmise, is a totally inappropriate reference for the series of case studies that follows.

Trident Press, a specialty book division of Simon & Schuster, published “The Handicapper’s Handbook” in 1969. The book did okay, but it was not Ainslie’s most famous. In fact, it probably sold half as many copies as two previous books that the handicapper wrote. These were “The Body Language of Horses: Revealing the Nature of Equine Needs, Wishes and Emotions and How Horses Communicate Them – For Owners, Breeders, Trainers, Riders and All Other Horse Lovers – Including Handicappers,” which, most certainly boasted the longest title ever, and “Ainslie’s Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing,” a paperback that opened the world of publishing up to later, and lesser, horseplayers such as Andy Beyer, Tom Quinn and Steve Davidowitz, who write in the handicapping genre.

It has been said that you can’t sell a book by its cover, but this isn’t true for “The Handicapper’s Handbook.” A photograph of Ainslie on the dust jacket makes him look like the actor William Conrad. Like Cannon – Conrad’s TV detective, the author has a mustache and is wearing 10 pounds too many. He sports a belted tweed jacket and a nifty, wide-banded felt fedora. At the least, it’s a stereotypical portrayal befitting a profession that engages the art of sleuthing.

To his credit, Trident’s art director chose three props to embellish the author’s elements. Ainslie is standing in front of a Belmont Park odds board. He has a pen in one hand and a folded Daily Racing Form in the other. The great Ainslie, indeed, wrote for the Form and the Morning Telegraph. But, given the extent of his prose in “The Handicapper’s Handbook,” it’s unlikely he spent more time at a typewriter than in front of a teller.

By the way, graphics alone don’t reveal that “The Handicapper’s Handbook” is of vintage description. The price of the book was $7.50. In addition, Ainslie’s tips for selecting winners are as old as Methuselah’s. He bets only to win, for example. Nevertheless, it is thinking back to how racing was 40 years ago, not taking the material seriously, that makes browsing through his 197 pages nostalgic.

After the introduction, there are six chapters of past performances and selections to wade through – the first with seven different allowance races, the second with six maiden races, the next with 16 claiming races, a brief primer on starter handicaps and, lastly, two full nine-race cards at New York and New Jersey racetracks.

Ainslie drops an out-of-date gem every now and then, including advice that the races in early May are hard to figure because it’s tempting to rely on form from the previous fall. He warns bettors to stay away from horses that haven’t run recently, and by that he means once in the prior two weeks. He likes horses that race every week over horses that rest three weeks to a month between starts.

In a May 12, 1967 feature for non-winners of $3300 twice at Pimlico, he selected Waterloo Bridge over Misty’s Baby because Waterloo Bridge won her most recent race in a campaign of 10 starts on May 5. On the 18th of May, 1967 at Aqueduct, he chose Walk Out from a field on nine non-winners of three on a layoff of five days and six starts in five weeks. His choices in claiming races seem equally unimaginable.

There’s not one mention of how the deep inside post would affect Gem Richmond’s winning chances in an $8000 claiming sprint at Aqueduct on November 14, 1966. In a similar six furlong dash on July 21, 1967, the author gives the same kind of respect to the rail-sitter Tejuela, a horse without breakout speed. For Ainslie, all claiming races seemed to be quizzes about which horse is the readiest. He wrote, “The central question about every horse in every claiming race is ‘What is the trainer trying to accomplish?’”

As for the two full cards that wrap the book up, Ainslie chose to dramatize the selection process for September 30, 1967, a day at Aqueduct he calls “the greatest racing day in decades” and September 19, 1968, a Thursday afternoon slate at Atlantic City, typical in its composition of seven sprints on the main track, two routes on the grass, three races with allowance conditions and the rest claimers.

Central to the Aqueduct card was the meeting of Buckpasser, Damascus and Dr. Fager in the $100,000 Woodward Stakes. Calling Damascus “an improving horse,” it’s no surprise that the author prefers him to the others on the basis of 14 starts as a three-year-old and victories in seven of his last eight races. Ainslie, if anything, was consistent.

Reading between the lines, “The Handicapper’s Handbook” reveals a sport that was once active, affordable and emotionally engaging. Apart from this romance, no one can say what kind of handicapper Ainslie would be if he lived today. He passed from this Earth at the age of 89 in 2007. But, one thing is certain. Back then, 40 years ago, it was form, class and the trip that engaged his intellect, not computerized data.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Heeding the Anti-Fan

(CHICAGO, IL – December 22, 2008) Despite recent rumors to the contrary, the fan is not extinct. Technology might have driven him into the background and racecourse operators may have made him feel unwelcome. But $14 billion in handle each year isn’t produced solely by myopic gamblers.

The anti-fan would have you believe that only the hardened horseplayer remains. Yet, some horseplayers are fans and vice versa. Truth be told, the sport can’t carry on by exclusively serving the interests of either constituent. The process of horse playing requires information from the soft tissue as well as a line.

Nobody really knows what percentage of handle is developed by the anti-fan, but some would have you believe it’s overwhelming. One can’t come up with a proper number by arguing that 90 percent of all dollars are wagered off-site. Such simple deduction would assume that 100 percent of off-site participants don’t care about the game beyond the gambling, and this simply isn’t true.

In addition, horseplayers, by and large, aren’t making money by pari-mutuel betting. The takeout prohibits them from being competitive with the house. At the end of the day, even they must arrive at the realization that their wagers represent the cost of an experience that’s providing a psychic reward.

On this site and in other corners, it’s become fashionable to ridicule the efforts of the establishment to maintain horse racing as a sport that you can bet on. The anti-fan would prefer to reduce horse racing to a gambling device that utilizes horses to determine the outcome of a wager. Few people see horse racing as both, although that was the vision 50 years ago.

Take the view of one laurelled turf writer who’s occasionally been accused of seeing the glass half empty. He went so far as to write on his Internet site that renewed efforts by the establishment to fill the grandstands were as futile as attempting to win the lottery. His commentary, sensational in the vein of a Rupert Murdoch headline, created the effect of circulation. But it missed the mark when concluding that the sport would never have fans again.

In contrast, the anti-fan believes that gambling on horse racing is superior to other forms of entertainment risk. He posits that the uninitiated, once educated, would choose horse racing over sports betting over poker over slot machines. When a gambler bets on horses he is using his mind, not his emotions. This unique intellectual process provides a more satisfying experience than letting your money ride on the roll of the dice or a spin of the wheel, the anti-fan believes.

Right or wrong, what the anti-fan believes is really irrelevant. What’s relevant is that he seems to constitute a sizable portion of the revenue source. Despite many efforts to serve his convenience at the cost of the sport’s soul, he is feeling neglected. Moreover, nobody has explained to him properly why horse racing must remain focused on matters the anti-fan finds frivolous.

That aside, consider how the sport could exist if it chose to heed the anti-fan’s lament. In the first place, there’d be no reason to open the racetracks to the public in most months, at least not during the run of October through April in New York. There’d be no reason to run stakes races during these periods, so the purse money spent to put them on could be harvested for profit, used to sweeten the pots offered on a daily basis, and be utilized to initiate much needed programs such as marketing, drug testing and backstretch improvements.

Racetracks would benefit from lower operating costs. Like the old days, the public would respect that its opportunity to go to the track was limited. Breeders would continue to produce the same number of horses because there would be no drop-off in the need for them. As a matter of fact, the cream of the crop would become higher valued. Winning a Graded Stakes – those rare events with extremely high purses held in the fan-invited portion of the season – would become a bona fide credential.

Meanwhile, impervious to the quality of the competition, the anti-fan could enjoy his daily dose of dog racing-like, grind-‘em-out programs uninterrupted. Because it doesn’t matter to the anti-fan if a race comes with a fancy name or includes top caliber horses, his contributions to the sport’s revenue base would remain high – the juice, if you will, to fund the proper sport the fans want.

At various times throughout the year, each market would open the sport up to fans in a manner that accommodated the best aspects of the racetrack experience. In effect, as far as the fan was concerned, the year would be composed of festivals – boutique meets. For example, Oaklawn, Santa Anita and Hialeah would host winter meets. Churchill Downs and Arlington Park would split the summer. Del Mar, Saratoga and Keeneland would retain their current dates.

In effect, horse racing could be developed to accommodate two personalities – an underground existence that appeals to the anti-fan’s limited interests and another that features the array of experiences that drew fans to the sport in the first place. Within this context, empty grandstands, not full ones, could serve to bring together the anti-fan and the fan in a new era of horse racing prosperity.