David O’Rourke Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland

[Wandering Eyes]

NYRA CEO David O'Rourke has a lot on his plate these days. There's the rebuild of the Belmont stands, the shuffling back and forth between Long Island and Saratoga for the GI Belmont Stakes and the preparation for the return of the Breeders' Cup in 2027. That meant there was a lot to cover when O'Rourke joined our team for this week's TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland. O'Rourke was the Gainesway Guest of the Week.

On the subject of moving the GI Belmont Stakes a few weeks back on the calendar so that there is more time between Triple Crown races, O'Rourke said that is not something that will happen anytime soon.

“For the near future, nothing is going to happen. Next year is the World Cup. So, it's going to start right after the week after Belmont. So nothing would happen in the near term,” O'Rourke said.

When the idea of running the three races on the first Saturday in May, the first Saturday in June and the first Saturday in July came up O'Rourke didn't seem eager to go in that direction.

“Do people have to stick to the pattern?” he said. “Would we be moving these things just for NYRA's benefit or just for the industry? I agree that for the industry, the Triple Crown is the Holy grail. It's the one thing that works. How much do we want to play with it? If you've moved it that far and it didn't work, what do you do? So I would say that you're probably looking at what's being contemplated internally. And there have been some conversations that would be more of an incremental move than a drastic one because this is the one thing is sacred to really our sport. It's the one thing where the metrics are significant. It's our moment. And if we move, if we play with it too much, we could break it.”

With so much rain falling during the Belmont-at-Saratoga meet, which cost NYRA more than $30 million in handle, is there any talk of putting in a synthetic track at Saratoga?

“We've looked at it,” he said. “It's just difficult with the configuration. So, in the near term, no. Now might we play around with the training surface somewhere, possibly an uphill for long jogs, something like that. But in terms of the main surfaces now, there's even some ideas out there, and you can think of them as sort of crazy, as putting one over at Oklahoma and bringing off the turf races over there in bad weather.”

NYRA has been plagued by short fields in the stakes races it has run so far this year. It not unusual to see them come up with four horses with the racing being run as the second on the card.

“We're constantly looking at the stakes schedule,” he said. “From the owner point of view, that black-type is really important, especially on the female side. I understand your point that there are too many options at certain times for certain divisions and at a certain level? Let's just think about the graded level and I'll fall back onto a pattern committee in terms of kind of forcing the best horses in a certain pattern direction. I think that would be best for the sport, but that's going to take another version of consensus with everyone buying in. But I hear what you're saying.”

In our “Fastest Horse of the Week,” segment, which is sponsored by WinStar, we went over the many reasons there are breed to WinStar stallion Constitution. The fastest horse of the week was Nash (Medaglia d'Oro), who ran a 106 when winning a June 13 allowance at Churchill Downs

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, 1/ST Racing and 1/ST TV, the team of Randy Moss, TD Thornton and Bill Finley discussed the raid of the Delta Downs backstretch by agents of ICE and wondered if this would be the first of many raids at racetracks. They also talked about the situation in Louisiana, which seems to change by the minute, but it now appears that the 2025-2026 meet at the Fair Grounds  will be run. And now that he's won over 3,000 races, including two GI Kentucky Derbies and 43 graded stakes in all, does Chief Stipe O'Neill deserve too be in the Hall of Fame?

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post David O’Rourke Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article