Wandering Eyes

You should absolutely watch the Kentucky Derby segment that is part of Netflix’s “7 Days Out” series. The idea behind the series is to go behind the scenes at famous events like the Derby, the Westminster Dog Show and the CHANEL Haute Couture Fashion Show, giving the viewer an inside look at all that it takes to get to the big day and to make sure it lives up to its billing. It’s Netflix, just about everything they do is well done, and what racing fan can’t devote 45 minutes to a documentary on the Derby? The problem is, the show is good, when it could have been very good. You know from the start that this version of 7 Days Out is meant for the non-racing fan, which is why you have to sit through such things as Churchill Downs President Kevin Flannery explaining the race is run at a mile-and-a-quarter, is for 3 year-olds only, you can only run in it once, people like to bet on the race, the field is limited to 20 horses and, oh, by the way, it’s a really big deal. The show goes day by day, starting seven days out from Derby Day, and takes the viewer through what happens each day leading up to the big race. So, again, the racing insider doesn’t really need to learn that the horses don’t sit in their stall munching hay for seven days, but instead are trained every morning. What the show needs is to take you places that you couldn’t otherwise go, racing fan or non-racing. At times, it succeeds. One of the best segments, and one that shows you a side of the participants you otherwise wouldn’t see, is when Dale Romans’s daughter pulls a prank on her father. Bailey Romans catches her father eating cracklins, which is apparently fried pig fat. She knows her father, who is a large man, shouldn’t be eating something that is 50-50 to give you a heart attack, and grabs the junk from her father and runs off with it. Romans isn’t amused. But it’s actually a cute scene that introduces the viewer to perhaps the grossest food ever invented and shows that Bailey is not only concerned about her father’s health but has a mischievous side to her. They score again when they show trainer Keith Desormeaux serving traditional Cajun food to his family the Thursday before the Derby. Brother Kent, the jockey, is not there and we get an insight into their relationship, which has always come across as a love-hate one. In a good natured fashion, Keith picks on his brother and reveals the real reason he keeps riding him. “I would’ve fired him 100 times already,” Keith says. “I’ve said before that I got no choice in the matter. As long as mamma’s still around, I’ve got no other rider. I can’t take that abuse.” A few more scenes like those and a few less where you learn that, guess what, there are a lot of parties prior to the Derby, would have made for more compelling television. The segments with announcer Travis Stone also worked well, especially the one where he explains how he believes calling a race like the Derby is no different than narrating a story and how hard he works before hand to prepare for any and all possibilities and twists. But the show’s biggest failing is that the producers chose the wrong individuals to focus their attention on. By far the most air time is given to Romans and Keith Desormeaux, with jockey Robby Albarado coming in third. Nothing wrong with any of those three. Romans and Desormeaux, especially, are charismatic and articulate. But by devoting so much time to those individuals, the 7 Days team completely missed out on what was far and away the most important story of this Derby, and that was Justify (Scat Daddy). This was one of the most compelling horses ever to enter the Derby, the undefeated superstar who would try to buck history by becoming the first horse since the Stone Age to win the race without having started at two. Plus, in Bob Baffert, they had a trainer that is as witty and as charismatic as they come. You get glimpses of Justify here and there and Mike Smith provides some wonderful quotes about how special it is to win the Derby. But, for the most part, in the lead-up to the race he is treated like just another horse. We get numerous shots of Romans and Desormeaux watching the race and about a second and a half of Baffert doing the same. After the race is over, we don’t find out what Baffert thinks about Justify, but what Romans thinks of Justify. “He might be the super horse,” he said. Though he wasn’t as an important a figure in this race as Baffert was, Wayne Lukas is also reduced to a little more than a few cameos. When you have, at 82, the most successful trainer in the sport returning to the Derby after a three-year absence, how do you not pounce on that story? Capturing all there is to capture about the Kentucky Derby cannot be easy, particularly if those putting the story together are racing novices. By no means did Executive Producers Andrew Rossi, Joe Zee, Andrew Fried and Dane Lillegard do a bad job. Like a horse, they just ran greenly in their first race over the track. View the full article

New racing regulatory standards have just been published by the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) as part of a continuing process to adapt standards to current integrity threats as well as new technologies and innovation. View the full article

There are two group races on tap for Meydan’s Thursday card, and the $250,000 G2 Al Fahidi Fort, conducted over a grassy 1400 metres, features 2018 G1 Doomben Cup hero Comin’ Through (Aus) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), the debut starter at the Carnival from the Australian barn of Chris Waller. Also the trainer of the superstar Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}), Waller sent out the half-brother to four-time Group 1 winner Criterion (NZ) (Sebring {Aus}) to take the 1400-metre G2 Tramway S. at Randwick on Sept. 1, and he was 12th last out in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Mile to the top-class miler Beauty Generation (NZ) (Road To Rock {Aus}) on Dec. 9. “The distance should be fine for [Comin’ Through] while he’s fresh,” said Waller of the Sir Owen Glenn-owned runner. “He’s had a number of good wins over it. While the [barrier nine of 13] draw isn’t perfect, we’ll see how the race is run on the night. He is a horse who keeps [trying] and is hard to pass.” The Al Fahidi Fort is by no means a potential cakewalk for Comin’ Through, as South African champion and MG1SW Marinaresco (SAf) (Silvano {Ger}) and MGSWs Championship (Ire) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}), who won the 2017 edition of this race and Shadwell’s Janoobi (SAf) (Silvano {Ger}) also take part. There is also a four-strong Godolphin contingent, with Group 3 winner D’Bai (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) bearing the blue-capped James Doyle from post seven. Godolphin musters a full two-thirds of the entries in the nine-horse G2 Al Rashidiya earlier at Meydan on Thursday, with three horses apiece for Charlie Appleby and Saeed bin Suroor. Pride of place has been given to Blair House (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) from the Appleby yard, who won the G1 Jebel Hatta on Super Saturday last March. The chestnut gelding was only a nose behind MG1SW and fellow Godolphin runner Benbatl (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) in the 2000-metre G1 Caulfield S. in October. He enters off of a seventh-place run in the Nov. 10 G1 Mackinnon S. Down Under and should relish the 1800-metre distance. A Group 1 winner in the past for Aidan O’Brien, Deauville (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) is looking to improve off an 11th behind Godolphin’s Dream Castle (GB) (Frankel {GB}) in the course and distance G3 Singspiel on Jan. 3. Now racing for Victorious and trainer Fawzi Nass, the 6-year-old worked satisfactorily over the Meydan course last Saturday. “He needed the race in the Singspiel quite badly and more than we thought he did,” said Nass. “We thought he would enjoy getting on the turf, rather than on the dirt, which I think he did.” View the full article

Pegasus World Cup Turf (G1T) entrant Magic Wand didn't travel alone on the flight from Ireland as trainer Aidan O'Brien also had group 3 winner Hunting Horn shipped to Gulfstream Park for a start in the W. L. McKnight Stakes (G3T). View the full article

Accelerateheadlines the $16 million Pegasus World Cup Championship Invitational Series this Saturday, Jan. 26, live at 4:30 p.m. ET on NBC, from Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida. View the full article

Dean Dorton, supporting partner of the 48th Annual Eclipse Awards, is teaming with the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) to host a webinar February 21 focusing on key federal tax reform items for horse and farm owners. View the full article

The Racing Officials Accreditation Program and Maryland Jockey Club will team up to host a ROAP Certificate Course at Laurel Park Mar. 21-22. The course consists of general racing industry education and job-specific modules for each specific racing official position. Each participant will focus on clerk of scales, horse identifier, paddock judge, patrol judge, outrider, and starter/assistant starter. The course is open to the public and is geared toward those who want to become a racing official or who are interested in learning more about racing officials in general. Current officials are also encouraged to attend. Registration is required by Mar. 14. The cost for the two-day course is $75 and includes lunch for one day. Click here to register and contact Erin Doty-McQuaid via email here or by phone at (859) 224-2702 for more details. View the full article

Gabby Gaudet is joining TVG on a year-round basis as an analyst and reporter, the network announced Wednesday, and she will be live at Gulfstream Park this week to play a major role in TVG’s special programming for the GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational. “Gabby is a sharp, talented reporter and analyst who lives and breathes racing,” said Kevin Grigsby, TVG’s executive producer and VP of television. “We’re very excited that she’ll be offering her insight and perspective to our viewers and players on a regular basis, beginning with our blanket coverage of the Pegasus World Cup and the Pegasus World Cup Turf this weekend from Gulfstream Park.” View the full article

8th-AQU, $68K, Msw, 3yo, f, 1m, post time: 4:28 p.m. TEAM WIN (Malibu Moon) is the lone firster in this this field of eight sophomore fillies and is a 6-1 chance on the morning line for trainer Todd Pletcher and Repole Stables. The filly’s stakes-placed dam, Team (Empire Maker), was acquired by Repole for $300K carrying this foal in utero at the 2016 Keeneland January Sale and would have appealed on pedigree, as Team Win is bred on the same Malibu Moon cross over Unbridled that is responsible for three of her sire’s Grade I winners–GI Kentucky Derby hero Orb and ‘TDN Rising Stars’ Moonshine Memories and Magnum Moon. The mare’s foal of 2018 is unsurprisingly by Uncle Mo, and that colt is bred exactly like Repole’s Grade I winner Outwork as well as GI Apple Blossom H. upsetter Unbridled Mo, who is out of an Unbridled dam. The competition includes Solent (Hard Spun), a Juddmonte homebred daughter of MGISW Sightseek (Distant View); West Point Thoroughbreds’ twice-placed $200K BARAPR breezer Paynterbynumbers (Paynter); and Cariba (Cairo Prince), a $400K KEESEP purchase by Everett Dobson’s Cheyenne Stables. View the full article

The New York Racing Association board of directors announced Jan. 23 that it has accepted the resignation of NYRA CEO and president Chris Kay, effective immediately. View the full article

Chris Kay, who served as President and CEO of the New York Racing Association (NYRA) since 2013, has resigned from his roles effective immediately, the NYRA Board of Directors announced Wednesday. David O’Rourke, NYRA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, has been named interim CEO. Under Kay’s direction, NYRA began numerous initiatives designed to increase the quality and safety of racing operations as well as guest experiences; and was returned to private control. O’Rourke joined NYRA in 2008 as Director of Financial Planning. Since 2011, O’Rourke has been responsible for NYRA’s business development strategies across a range of disciplines including industry relations, simulcast markets and contracts, television and ADW operations, and capital projects. This story will be updated. View the full article

IT was a little bit of a frustrating day last week with Mountain Hunter, who I thought would be hard to beat at Meydan, unable to show his best after being held up off a slow pace. However, I’m looking forward to seeing some of our best runners in action in the Al Rashidiya (3.40) […] The post Kieren Fallon Dubai World Cup Carnival Blog Week 2 appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

Britain’s Cracksman (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and Australia’s Winx (Aus) (Street Cry {Ire}) were named the joint Longines World’s Best Racehorses of 2018 at a ceremony at the Landmark Hotel in London on Wednesday. They both achieved a rating of 130. Cracksman won the G1 Coronation S. and G1 Prix Ganay last year before defending his title with a dominant six-length win in the G1 Champion S., while Down Under Winx has notched 29 straight wins, including a historic four G1 Cox Plate victories. America’s Accelerate (Lookin at Lucky), whose five Grade I wins last year culminated in victory in the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic, was rated third best in the world at 128. More to follow. View the full article

‘TDN Rising Star’ Too Darn Hot (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) has been rated far and away the best juvenile in Europe last season, with his rating of 126 assigned by the European Two-Year-Old Classifications the highest since, and equal to, the marks assigned to joint champions Frankel (GB) and Dream Ahead in 2010. Campaigned as a homebred by Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber with trainer John Gosden, Too Darn Hot-a son of the triple Group 1 winner Dar Re Mi (GB) (Singspiel {Ire})-went unbeaten in four starts last year, including the G1 Dewhurst S., G2 Champagne S. and G3 Solario S. He also received the Cartier 2-year-old colt award. The British Horseracing Authority’s lead two-year-old handicapper Graeme Smith said, “Too Darn Hot confirmed himself an outstanding juvenile in the Dewhurst where he put some strong form lines firmly in the shade. The last three 2-year-olds rated at his level went on to win 15 Group 1s between them, and in what promises to be an above-average Classic crop he already sets a lofty standard with the potential of better still.” Dubawi is also responsible for the next on the list, Godolphin’s unbeaten G1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National S. and G2 Superlative S. winner and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Quorto (Ire), trained in Newmarket by Charlie Appleby. He is rated 121. The Coolmore partners’ ‘TDN Rising Star’ Ten Sovereigns (Ire), a son of champion first-season sire No Nay Never, was the highest-rated 2-year-old trained in Ireland last year at 120. He won The Curragh’s G3 Round Tower S. and shipped to Newmarket to win the G1 Middle Park S. Mark Bird, Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board Handicapper and delegate at the European 2-year-old meeting, said, “Quorto put up the best performance by a juvenile in Ireland in 2018, following in the footsteps of his sire Dubawi in winning both the Bet365 Superlative S. and the Goffs Vincent O’Brien National S. at two, and he rates just one pound below his sire as a 2-year-old on 121. “The leading Irish-trained juvenile was Aidan O’Brien’s Ten Sovereigns, who completed an unbeaten season with a defeat of Jash in the Juddmonte Middle Park S. and who ends the year on a rating of 120, which is one pound ahead of the figure achieved by his sire No Nay Never at two.” Phoenix Thoroughbreds’s Advertise (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) had to settle for second-best to Too Darn Hot in the Dewhurst, but prior to that he had won Newmarket’s G2 July S. and The Curragh’s G1 Keeneland Phoenix S. for trainer Martyn Meade, and he has been given a rating of 119. A pair of colts share a mark of 118: Shadwell’s ‘TDN Rising Star’ Jash (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), second to Ten Sovereigns in the Middle Park, and the Aidan O’Brien-trained Anthony Van Dyck (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), winner of the G3 Tyros S. and G2 Futurity S. and placed in the National S. and Dewhurst. Pretty Pollyanna (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) is the highest-rated filly on the classification at 116. Trained by Michael Bell for Bill and Tim Gredley, Pretty Pollyanna won Newmarket’s G2 Duchess of Cambridge S. before shipping to France to take the G1 Prix Morny. Skitter Scatter (Scat Daddy) and Signora Cabello (Ire) (Camacho {GB}) are the next highest-rated fillies at 114. ‘TDN Rising Star’ Persian King (Ire) (Kingman {GB}) is France’s highest-rated 2-year-old of 2018 with a mark of 114, and one of three French-trained colts included in the classification. Trained by Andre Fabre, he won maiden and conditions races in France for Ballymore Thoroughbreds before shipping to Newmarket to win the G3 Autumn S. over next-out G1 Vertem Futurity Trophy S. winner Magna Grecia (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), who is rated 113. Godolphin bought half of Persian King earlier this month. Overall, 44 juveniles achieved a rating of 110 or above in 2018, which is slightly down historically, with the average since 2010 sitting at 47. There was an even split between British and Irish-trained horses at 20 each. That continues the trend of increasing depth in Ireland and this year’s total is bettered only by 21 Irish juveniles in 2011. Click here for the complete 2-year-old classifications. View the full article

Francis Lui Kin-wai turned 60 on Tuesday and he celebrated the occasion in style by adding an extra zero at Happy Valley on Wednesday night. The unassuming trainer notched the 600th winner of his career when Golden Cannon took out the Class Five Sham Shui Po Handicap (1,650m), holding off a lunging Dashing Dart in the run to the line. Lui acknowledged the mark, but said he’s not finished yet. “It’s not easy [to get to 600], I’m very happy. Hopefully there are still more... View the full article

Say what you will about the overall quality of the fields for the first two editions of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1), but the early season event has never been lacking for a big horse or two. View the full article

Midnight Bisou, a two-time grade 1 winner last year, is the 3-5 morning-line favorite for the Jan. 27 Houston Ladies Classic (G3) at Sam Houston Race Park. The 1 1/16-mile race for older fillies and mares is the meet's richest race at $300,000. View the full article

When it came time to choose a new trainer for grade 1 winner Diversify after Rick Violette's passing, it was a process filled with sorrow and many memories, but one that came to end Jan. 22 when Ralph Evans said Jonathan Thomas will take over. View the full article

Updates on stewards' follow-ups to Friday and Sunday meeting View the full article

Juglall fined $2,000 for failing urine test View the full article

Freedman expecting change of Fortunes for trio View the full article

Equine Sales Company has released its complete 2019 schedule of sales after previously announcing that the 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale will be held Apr. 2. All auctions will be held in Opelousas, Louisiana. The 2019 schedule includes the Consignor Select Yearling Sale Thursday, Sept. 5, and the Open Yearling and Mixed Sale Sunday, Oct. 27. “We think the earlier 2-year-old sale will work well for buyers and consignors according to the feedback we received,” said Sales Director Foster Bridewell. “But we also heard that the other two sales were already scheduled well. Our select sale last year was one of our best ever, so we want to stick with what is working.” Entries are being accepted through Feb. 7 for the 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale Tuesday, Apr. 2. The breeze show is set for Sunday, Mar. 31. For more information go to www.equinesalescompany.com. View the full article

Three Diamonds Farm's Bigger Picture will try to become the second horse in the history of the John B. Connally Turf Cup Stakes (G3T) to win the race three years in a row Jan. 27 at Sam Houston Race Park. View the full article

Dr. No must have been a veterinarian. Such, at least, was the implied verdict of many horsemen and women responding to a tweet posted by Gray Lyster of Ashview Farm the other day. One of Lyster’s many appealing qualities is that you are more likely to find him breaking powder at Jackson Hole than glazing his eyeballs on social media all day. On Saturday, however, he was prompted into one of his sporadic messages by the fact that the “two worst vetted yearlings” in Ashview’s past two crops had both won on debut last week. “When you are vetting horses to purchase, please keep that in the back of your mind,” he added. The reaction was impassioned: “likes” by the hundred, retweets by the dozen, each comment creating ripples of further comment. Mark Taylor, for instance, observed that Taylor Made’s poster of a hundred Grade I winners could equally be titled the “failed vetting poster,” adding: “I actually believe that failing the vet as a yearling could be the most accurate indicator of elite talent we have!” Bluewater Sales, endorsing Taylor, said that its clients are told: “This one may have just enough wrong with it to be a runner.” Yet those most incensed by each other’s perceived positions often turn out to have plenty in common. As so often, the difficulty comes when nuances of grey are stripped out for a black-and-white, right-and-wrong polemic; reduced, in this case, to the catch-all notion that a horse can “pass” or “fail” the vet according to some objective and immutable scientific standard. Even the most cursory consultation of vendors, buyers and veterinarians quickly shows that different people, with different priorities, are absolutely entitled to different perspectives on a highly subjective challenge. They’re all dealing with adolescent, changing animals, whose inevitable and hugely varied imperfections of flesh and bone place them somewhere on a spectrum of risk. Few know the market better than David Ingordo. “The term ‘pass the vet’ is totally subjective,” the agent says. “Vetting is a tool. Some people live or die according to what the vet says. We take a different approach. I can’t read X-rays; don’t want to. I can’t scope horses, don’t want to. So I send a vet in there and he comes back with the information. I only ask him to vet a horse if I have an intention to buy it. I’m not asking him to practice using a scope: I want the okay to buy a horse and sometimes, in a nice way, it becomes a big fight. We’re not just failing them wholesale if a horse has a problem. But I do want the information that’s available.” As one who understands both sides of the deal, also being a pinhooker, Ingordo stresses that different standards must be applied to horses for different purposes. “Horses have problems that may or may not affect their racing ability,” he says. “But if you’re going to resell you must have a horse literally everybody can buy. When I’m doing that, I’m not trying to sell the horse to myself next year; I’m trying to sell to a pool of buyers that have money to spend and an opinion about how to spend it. And what I can accept and what they can accept are two different things. “There are tons of horses with issues that will be fine to race. But when you’re buying them, there’s an associated amount of risk. And it’s a dollar amount. I’m willing to lay out $30,000 for this risk, associated with this vetting report; or I’m willing to shell out $1 million on this one. So there’s a risk and reward in it. “I buy a lot of horses that don’t pass everybody else’s vet but that pass my criteria for what I’m doing. It may be a simple case of some sesamoiditis, the ultrasound shows the branches are clean but the horse just needs an additional 30, 60 or 90 days for the bone to settle down so I can move forward with it. So it ‘passes’ for me, because I’m willing to take the time—but it ‘fails’ for someone else, because they aren’t. These things get labelled in general terms but there’s always more layers to this conversation.” Equally he remembers his vet producing a research paper that surveyed 100 horses with the same problem they were contemplating in a yearling: a spur projecting from the back of the knee into a ligament. Not one of the 100 had made the track. Yet this horse, duly rejected by Ingordo and his team, changed hands for $475,000. So he plainly “passed” the vet, and big time, for someone else. Different things work for different people. Carrie Brogden of Machmer Hall, who applauded Lyster for igniting the debate, gives an example from the recent January Sale at Keeneland. She was underbidder on a $40,000 colt, who had been certified by a vet she recognised. Subsequently she received a call from the consignors explaining that the buyer, who had not had him vetted beforehand, was “freaking out” after his own vet subsequently diagnosed moderate sesamoiditis in the front ankles. “This buyer was having a meltdown, wanted to return the horse, so I said send me the pictures,” Brogden says. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a vet, but I’ve seen hundreds and thousands of X-rays now. And when I saw them I was like: ‘Huh!?’ So we ended up purchasing the horse for a discount. An example of a horse being completely failed for something my vet wouldn’t have called. Nor had the original vet. But the purchaser’s vet is killing the horse. It’s this stuff we deal with all the time.” To Brogden, the key is trust between consignor and buyers. Tepin, the champion who put her on the map, herself had an issue not dissimilar to this colt. “And she didn’t have a perfect throat,” Brogden recalls. “That’s why she was $140,000 as a Saratoga yearling. I lost a lot of buyers.” But the Greathouses knew they could take Brogden at her word, and did so when she assured them that the young Bernstein filly’s hind ankles had never blown up. As the other side of the same coin, she recalls frankly turning Niall Brennan against a very handsome and well-bred horse, whose ankle problems had indeed reached a clinical level. Sure enough, that horse never got to the track—and she trusts that Brennan will remember her candour whenever she gives him the green light in future. “It’s the same farms that raise the graded stakes horses year after year,” she notes. “And to me, the ones that raise a lot of runners don’t raise them like sale horses. They raise them tough and strong. We don’t separate our yearling colts until they go into sales prep and sometimes I watch them and think, ‘My God they’re going to kill each other out there.’ It’s the clash of the titans, a battle zone. So, sure, somebody’s going to get a defect in their sesamoid; somebody’s going to chip here; somebody’s come up with this there. But we try to walk that line. And plenty of times we kick on to the 2-year-old sales with horses that have gotten crunched by the vets as yearlings—just like Maximus Mischief (Into Mischief), for what I thought was b.s.—and… surprise! They vet great.” Ingordo, coming at it from a different side, equally deplores the notion that horses have to be bubble-wrapped to get past a sales vet. “That’s absolutely the opposite of what should happen, if you want horses to perform and be sound and be horses,” he says. “A little cosmetic thing, a cut or whatever, who cares? It’s frustrating [to hear that] because it’s never as simple as someone giving a rubberstamp to say these all vetted, and these didn’t.” If anything, Ingordo wonders whether there might be a chicken-and-egg element, in that prepping young stock is nowadays so intense. If a horse is forced through the commercial process too early, it may come up with marginal issues that simply require a little patience. And that’s where the guy signing the check comes in. Sometimes he will want a horse to be in Ocala on Oct. 1 to start the breaking process. Ingordo will sometimes plead on behalf of a nice horse: it only needs a P1 flake [first/proximal phalanx] taken out, say, the equivalent of a tonsil for us. But if his client doesn’t want to wait, he doesn’t want to wait. “You know, nobody has a crystal ball,” Ingordo says. “But good vets will tell you that in their experience a problem may not manifest itself in one race, or ever, but could become a problem somewhere down the line. And then the people getting the information have to be able to process it. Unfortunately, in the sales environment we’re in today, some people don’t know [how to do that]. Their reliance is on the vet—and the vets, through no fault of their own, are then in a no-win position. Because if they ‘approve’ the horse and anything goes wrong, somebody’s going to get blamed.” Lyster himself actually takes a similar view on that: unlike many consignors, he does not resent the vets themselves for failing horses, instead suspecting that they are given little margin by their patrons. “I don’t buy the ‘vets-are-screwing-us’ scenario you hear from some peers,” Lyster says. “I think it’s the principal, at the end of the line, we need to try to educate a little. It’s all a risk assessment, right. And people are spending a lot of money. And a vet is saying: ‘Hey, to me this yearling is more risky than this yearling.’ And then basically someone takes a pen and marks that number off their list. Any kind of blemish, the horse becomes valueless to that person. So the term ‘a horse fails the vet’ has turned into ‘well, he doesn’t have a perfect set of X-rays.’ “I do think fewer and fewer principals have hands-on horsemanship. They’re not familiar with a lot of the advice they’re getting, and simply sum it up as: ‘Well that horse doesn’t vet.’ And part of me understands that. Honestly, vet work has become very difficult to understand. It used to be you’d have a vet go over something and if there wasn’t a big problem you’d buy the horse. But now it’s become that when a vet talks to an owner, I’ve got to tell you—as a professional in this industry—a lot of the time I can’t understand what the heck they’re saying. When I get confused and owners get confused it turns into: ‘Well, that horse failed.’ What was it? ‘Oh, something in the ankle.'” Lyster accepts that in a crop of 20 there will typically be one that comes with blatantly high risk. But nowadays he feels that a major issue will be made of anything that is “remarkable,” rather than significant: anything, literally, you can “remark” on. And he reckons that maybe half those 20 horses will today be “crucified” for something of that ilk: something merely mentionable. A couple of years ago a prospector came up to him at the sales and said: “I had six horses on my list today but they all failed the vet.” “Do you know what you need to do?” replied Lyster. “No, what’s that?” “You need to fire your vet!” As he elaborates: “Because it’s not possible to hand-pick six yearlings and for all six of them to fail the vet. It’s not possible to vet 20 horses and have 14 fail the vet. You’ve X-ray machines that all of a sudden are seeing three or four times the detail they used to see, and I don’t think that’s benefiting anyone. Because they’re finding more reasons to say: ‘Oh my gosh, that doesn’t look like what the perfect X-ray looked like when we went to vet school.” Brogden concurs. “I don’t think the horses have changed,” she says. “What’s changed is digital X-rays. Before, in 10 years I had one horse called for a knee spur. One horse, a Mr. Greeley colt. Fast forward to digital X-ray, now have maybe 20% called for 2mm knee spurs, and probably 40 or 50% of yearlings called for sesamoiditis.” Of course, the ultimate corrective to the market is the racetrack. If people are letting good runners slip through the net, there is value there for the discerning shopper. “I understand how we have a limited amount of buyers, and how each year people are taking tons of risk in our industry,” Lyster says. “If you’re going out there to buy one or two yearlings, I understand why you’d want to be super picky. But it’s got out of control if horses with a couple of ‘remarkable’ findings, that rarely bother horses, become valueless. “But there are people out there smart enough to go out and target that value. If Horse A and Horse B are both perfect X-rays, they’re both worth half a million dollars. But if Horse A has perfect X-rays and Horse B some ‘remarkable’ findings, Horse A becomes worth $750,000 and Horse B $150,000. The gap just seems to get wider and wider. It seems like with 10% more risk, Horse B will be literally 20% of the cost of Horse A.” At the same time, in Lyster’s view, the gap is narrowing between the horse that legitimately shouldn’t be touched with a bargepole, and those with a “laundry list” of trivial drawbacks. One of the Ashview graduates who won last week had a congenital defect in an ankle—not that the technical diagnosis made particular sense to Lyster. “All I can tell you is that I was told this horse will never stand training,” he says. “So when he runs off the screen you think: ‘Woah, I didn’t think he was able to breeze a half-mile!'” To be fair to the veterinarians, they too object when their own judgements on matters of degree are presented as absolutes. And, as both Ingordo and Lyster have acknowledged, often it is actually the vets’ clients who do that. “We would very rarely use the terms ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ when we’re looking at horses,” stresses Dr. Scott Hay, president of Florida racetrack practice Teigland, Franklin and Brokken DVMs and vice-president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. “Now, some clients don’t understand anything other than pass, fail; and sometimes they drag us into that terminology. But we really resist it. The most important part, typically, is to be working for people with whom we’ve developed a good relationship over time, and whose tolerances for certain findings we have come to understand. “Now over time we may change our level of tolerance for a certain finding, if we realize that maybe we missed a horse because we had a prejudice against a certain finding. The flipside is that sometimes we may prove too tolerant, and horses have a poorer racing career than expected because of something we were happy enough to accept. “We try not to get prejudiced about findings we think will probably be all right for a horse’s racing career. The issue is that some clients just don’t want to take a risk of any sort. I’m not trying to sit here and tell you it’s always the clients, if we miss a good horse. Sometimes the vet leads them down that path as well. But I do think we all take a bad rap for turning down a horse. “My philosophy is that we report on what we see; try to explain what we think that means; try to weigh up the risk tolerance; and let them be the ultimate decision-makers on whether or not to buy. We try to educate them the best we can. But it’s their money they’re spending. And they’re the ones who know how much they want to stick their neck out on something that may, or may not, be an issue.” Everyone knows of champions rejected as young horses on veterinary advice. One consignor who sold a horse now at stud remembers how his spectacular physique was legitimately undermined, as a yearling, by severe question marks over an ankle. A big Kentucky farm sent three different vets to try and get him cleared, but none was prepared to oblige. Nonetheless the horse met his (relatively conservative) reserve. After his championship campaign, the trainer rang the consignor and asked for his yearling X-rays, because they had just taken a new set that suggested they must have deteriorated to a shocking degree. “No problem,” said the consignor. “And I bet you’ll find they’re exactly the same as your new ones.” On receiving them, the trainer rang back and said: “This is incredible. Our vet can’t believe that this horse has never been clinically lame.” But stories like that shouldn’t necessarily alter anyone’s position. If it’s all a question of degree, then those that do survive doubt and prosper as runners don’t—in themselves—prove that the original doubt was misplaced. “Sometimes you’ll see a beautiful horse by a leading sire out of a Grade I winner,” Ingordo says. “And he’s an A-plus physical. And he brings 30 grand. He’s been vetted 20 times, and he brings 30 grand. Were all those people wrong? And if he breaks his maiden by 15 lengths, and goes on to win a Grade I, were all those people wrong on their assessment at the time? I would argue probably not. Everyone would say: ‘Look, he didn’t pass the vet and now look what he did!’ But how many of the horses we all turn down never run because they have an issue that gives them a 1% chance to make it?” “People hire us for a reason,” Dr Hay says. “That’s not necessarily to overly protect them, but certainly to protect their interests. You’re talking about percentage risk—and any time you do that, some of them are on one side of that line and some on the other. If we could figure out which, we’d all be geniuses. But we’re not, so we have to weigh it out and see where that individual lands. Hopefully, we make the right choice and take the right risks but that’s not always going to work out in everyone’s favour. Somebody’s going to miss that horse, and someone else’s going to buy that horse. And they’re the ones who are going to do good or bad, with that horse, because of that risk that was there.” As Ingordo said at the outset, the same issue can look radically different from one perspective to the next. And, as he also emphasises, nobody—on any side of this equation—is always right. “Vets vary in opinions but they all have the opportunity and the right to work,” he says. “So there are some who would turn down Secretariat at the head of the stretch in the Belmont and say he doesn’t vet; and there are others who’ll pretty much wave them through, no matter what. Buyers can be too stringent. Myself, I’m pretty forgiving. We have good clients and use horsemanship in every process. But the buyer’s the one putting up the money and if they want things a certain way, that’s their prerogative. Nobody’s perfect in this game. But the term ‘does not vet’ is very subjective and needs qualification. “I understand people being frustrated when they’ve never had a problem with a horse. Okay, it’s never had a problem for you. But as buyers our job is to assess whether it might become a problem. You hear about the ones that go on and are successful—but never about those that didn’t make it.” Again, different ways of looking at the same thing. Brogden turns it round: “As one of my very dear friends, a 2-year-old consignor, said to me: ‘Carrie, you have to look at it this way. They fail as many horses that can run as they pass horses that cannot.’ And I thought that was spot on.” But that beauty of this business is that we don’t establish who’s wrong or right by arguing about it. We have that oval out there, with a wooden stick opposite the stand. And we can sort it all out there, every day of the week. That said, you would be very welcome to carry on thrashing things out in the horseman’s forum that is TDN. If so, we’d love to hear your views. Email us at suefinley@thetdn.com if you have comments for publication. View the full article

Midnight Bisou, a two-time grade 1 winner last year, is the 3-5 morning-line favorite for the Jan. 27 Houston Ladies Classic (G3) at Sam Houston Race Park. The 1 1/16-mile race for older fillies and mares is the meet's richest race at $300,000. View the full article