Wandering Eyes

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

National Stud stallions Aclaim (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), who won the G1 Prix de la Foret, and G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup hero Lancaster Bomber (War Front) will stand for live foal terms instead of Oct. 1 terms in 2019, Avenue Bloodstock announced on Tuesday. Aclaim stands for £9,500 in his second season at stud, while Lancaster Bomber will command £8,500 in his first year. “Breeders in Britain and Ireland are enduring a tough few years and the foal market in 2018 was especially punishing,” said Mark McStay, who founded Avenue Bloodstock with John Ferguson. “Sure, we’re stallion managers but we’re mare owners too, and we know exactly what breeders are going through–which is why we’ve changed our terms to give breeders who send their mares to us as much support as we possibly can. “Live Foal terms, where the fee is only payable when the mare has a foal who’s up and suckling, are much fairer than the industry standard. Breeders who send mares to Aclaim and Lancaster Bomber–both popular speed stallions with fast pedigrees–will only have to pay after they get what they’re signing up for, not months and months before. Live Foal terms are the norm in Australia, America and in France–we strongly think that, these days, mare owners need a bit of slack to keep their businesses thriving, and we are happy to give it to them. We’d encourage breeders to talk to us, discuss their mares and their ambitions, and we hope that our favourable terms will help them to breed a racehorse, manage their cashflow and–with luck–make some money at the sales.” View the full article

While the field for the inaugural running of the $7 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes (G1T) Jan. 26 at Gulfstream Park has been subject to more than a little speculation over the past months, the wait is finally over. View the full article

Trainers based in Newmarket saddled 37 Group 1 winners in Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia in 2018, breaking the 2014 record of 28, The Jockey Club announced on Tuesday. A total of 1,850 races were won by Newmarket-trained horses, a jump of almost 10% on 2017, with 157 more winners, with the monthly average of horses using the gallops down 0.9% to 2,575 horses. Champion trainer John Gosden sent out the most top-flight winners with 13, with his Roaring Lion (Kitten’s Joy) taking four, Cracksman (GB) (Frankel {GB}) three, Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) two, Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) two and one apiece for Too Darn Hot (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Without Parole (GB) (Frankel {GB}). Godolphin trainer Saeed bin Suroor lifted nine, and Sir Micheal Stoute and William Haggas each took four. “2018 was a fantastic year for Newmarket trained horses,” said Nick Patton, Managing Director of Jockey Club Estates. “The results reflect very well on trainers, their staff and our staff considering the challenging weather conditions, with the ‘Beast from the East’ and a very cold spring followed by an exceptionally dry summer. Since 2010, Jockey Club Estates has invested £3.4million in improvements to the Newmarket Training Grounds and the benefit of that on-going investment in the facilities is evident in the results of 2018. As well as breaking the record for the number of Group 1 wins, several of the smaller yards enjoyed notably successful seasons too and the beauty of Newmarket is that the facilities are open to all trainers.” 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

In this continuing series, TDN’s Senior Editor Steve Sherack catches up with the connections of promising maidens to keep on your radar. In this edition, Standup (Into Mischief), a flashy second on debut sprinting on the Gulfstream lawn last week, is highlighted. Previous runners featured in this column include: MGISW and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Paradise Woods (Union Rags), GSW Backyard Heaven (Tizway) and MSW and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Gidu (Ire) (Frankel {GB}). Clocking his final eighth in a scorching :11.18, Standup (c, 3, Into Mischief–Well, by Well Decorated) stamped himself as one to watch with a visually impressive debut second sprinting five furlongs on the grass at Gulfstream Park Jan. 17 (video). Off at odds of 4-1 sporting a worktab that included a four-furlong bullet in :48 (1/6) on the lawn at Todd Pletcher’s Palm Beach Downs base Dec. 23, the gray was outsprinted in ninth through an opening quarter in :21.35. He took the overland route beneath Javier Castellano while still well out of it on the turn for home and came flying like a wild horse down the center of the course in the stretch to finish within 3/4 of a length of the winner. “For him to produce the type of wicked flourish he did from the quarter-pole to the wire was something you rarely see on that course, especially for a first-time starter,” Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners President Aron Wellman said of the $280,000 OBS March purchase, who is campaigned in partnership with Mike Repole. Bred in Kentucky by Joanne R. Mummert and John C. Barrett Jr., Standup is a half-brother to the talented sprinter Kobe’s Back (Flatter), MGSW & MGISP, $1,116,595; and Well Spelled (Spellbinder), GSW, $364,160. Failing to meet his reserve when the bidding stalled at $190,000 at Keeneland September, Standup brought $270,000 from Cary Frommer at the Fasig-Tipton October Yearling Sale. He breezed an eighth in :10 1/5 from Frommer’s OBS March consignment. “We initially thought he’d be a precocious 2-year-old cut out for Saratoga, but he proved to be a bit too immature during the summer, so we peeled back and gave him some time to grow up,” Wellman said. “When he came back to Todd in the fall, we were actually pretty concerned because he wasn’t showing us much at all on the dirt. Fortunately, we had the luxury of breezing him on the turf at Palm Beach Downs and he took a massive step forward.” As for what may be next, Wellman said, “We always envisioned him to be a pure sprinter. We have no intention of stretching him out at this stage, and while our hands are tied most likely with just five-furlong grass dashes at Gulfstream for the time being, we envision him relishing the one-turn sprints and elongated sprints at Belmont in the spring. Hopefully, he can execute at the next level in due time.” 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

An agreement reached earlier this month between the New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund (“the Fund”) and Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack (FLGR) will see purse enrichments that will finance 40-50% increases for maiden special weight races and at the first two allowance levels this coming season at Finger Lakes Racetrack in upstate Farmington, NY. Maiden special weight race purses will increase by nearly 49% in 2019, with total money available of $31,270, which includes up to $4,770 of open-company awards from the Fund’s incentive program. Horses bred in New York won 90$ of FLGR maiden specials last year, of which 68% were won by New York-sired progeny. First-level allowance races are set to be worth $30,680 (including $4,680 open-company awards) while second-level allowance races will be contested for purse money of $31,860 (including up to $4,860 of open-company awards). “By enhancing multiple conditioned races, we hope to provide a strong incentive for horses to come to Finger Lakes and stay stabled on the grounds for subsequent conditions of value,” said Jeff Cannizzo, executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders. “Also, breeders, owners and stallion owners will get the additional benefit of an opportunity to earn increased incentive awards from the Fund commensurate with the increased purses. This year will see the largest purses at Finger Lakes on record for maiden specials and the first two levels of allowance races. Breeders, owners and stallion businesses will now see 40-50% increases in the awards they earn on these races. It’s a win-win for everyone. Horsemen with stock that belong at this level across the northeast region should truly give Finger Lakes a close look when this enhanced purse structure appears in the spring condition book next week.” Finger Lakes will continue to offer state-bred restricted third-level allowance races. In 2018, New York-breds won 97% of all allowance races at the track, 54% by New York-sired progeny. View the full article