The Week in Review: Yes, They Should Raise the Scale of Weights

[Wandering Eyes]

As a means of getting NYRA management to focus on several beefs they have, including the scale of weights, Belmont jockeys demanded a meeting with NYRA executives Martin Panza and Chris Kay before they were willing to go out and ride in the first race Saturday. The result was a 37-minute delay before the first race was run. The last race, the GI Man o’ War S., did not go off until 7:22.

This might not have been the best way to handle things. Bettors and horsemen were put through an agonizingly long delay before the races started and NYRA might have been more open-minded and sympathetic if the jockeys had tried to have their problems addressed through more diplomatic methods. Then again, maybe the jockeys felt this was the only way they would be heard.

“The guys were all here, we needed to have a conversation with them, we called them before the races and the conversation went much longer than we anticipated,” Jockey’s Guild Chairman and NYRA regular John Velazquez told the Daily Racing Form. “There are lot of issues involved. We don’t have a contract. Obviously, with not having the contract and those issues not being resolved, they need to be addressed. It was never a thought of not riding. We’re here to ride, we want to make sure things get done.”

Nothing is more important than the safety of jockeys and NYRA management certainly seems to agree. They’re not the bad guys here and based on the DRF report it appears that the meeting was a productive one that will move things forward. Likely, things will happen, but not over night.

But there’s one thing the powers that be can’t do fast enough, and that’s raise the scale of weights. The NYRA jockeys want the minimum scale of weights to be raised to 118 pounds. I can’t see why anyone would have a problem with that.

Racing’s scale of weights is something out of a long gone era when human being were simply smaller than they are now. To ask grown, adult men–or women–to weigh 109, 110 pounds in order to pursue their profession is no longer realistic. Nor is it good for the jockeys, many of whom resort to unhealthy practices, like bulemia, in order to stay so light.

That number, 118 pounds, sounds more than reasonable and adding a few pounds to what horses are asked to carry can’t possibly be that big of a deal. This should be done now.

Taylor Made, Harness Racing Powerhouse?

On Oct. 7, Duncan, Mark, Ben and the entire Taylor clan is likely to spend the day at the racetrack in Lexington. Just not at that racetrack. That’s the day of the Allerage Pace at the Red Mile, just a few miles down the road from Keeneland and, as long as their new acquisition stays healthy, the Taylor Made team will likely be there for a race that will go a long way toward deciding what their return on investment will be with a horse named Lazarus.

Taylor Made, which actually started in the harness racing game, decided recently to jump back into that sport with both feet when buying into Lazarus, a superstar in New Zealand. The idea is to show him off this summer and fall in the States and then set him up as a shuttle stallion, going back and forth between the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand.

Lazarus is a pacer by the American-based sire Bettor’s Delight. A New Zealand newspaper estimated that the purchase price was $2.8 million. Here’s him winning the 2017 Victoria Cup.

The reason the Red Mile races are so important is that Lexington harness track is considered the fastest in the sport and that’s where horses go to set world records. In the 2016 Allerage, Always B Miki paced the fastest mile in history, 1:46. The new Lazarus team has said it is out to beat that mark, which would do wonders for his stud value. Keeneland will also be racing Oct. 7.

Yet, last week’s news was met with a heathy does of skepticism by the harness racing media. The headline in a Harness Racing Update story read “Hold off on the ‘Lazarus is the second coming’ expectations in the U.S.” The sub-head read: “Recent Down Under stars have not delivered on unrealistic projections.” Others have weighed in with the same doubts.

Some of the early “Down Under” Standardbreds sent to the U.S. turned out to be sensational, most notably Cardigan Bay, who was the two-time aged pacer of the year in the U.S. in the sixties. But lately, several have not panned out. Most notable on that list is Auckland Reactor. He arrived here with a reputation not unlike the one Lazarus has and he raced in the U.S. three times in 2010, never hit the board and earned $2,560.

Taylor Made took a gamble and Taylor Made doesn’t often lose. This one will be fun to watch.

Chad Brown on Two Week’s Rest…Really?

Chad Brown did the most un-Chad Brown thing when deciding Sunday that he would bring Good Magic (Curlin) back for the GI Preakness S. Brown epitomizes the typical modern trainer who rarely brings a horse back on short rest and prefers five or six weeks between races.

But the few times Brown has run a horse right back he has done perfectly fine. According to Brisnet.com stats, since 2012, Brown has run 132 horses on three week’s rest or less. (Brisnet does not list how many horses he has raced on two week’s rest or less). He has won with 34 of those horse, or 25.7%.

To give you an idea on how much he values giving a horse time between races, Brown has made 2,074 starts since 2012 where the horse has had between 31 to 90 days off.

Baffert versus Ben Jones

Following Bob Baffert’s win in the GI Kentucky Derby with Justify (Scat Daddy), there was reason to debate last week whether or not he is the greatest “Kentucky Derby” trainer ever.

Baffert now has five Derby wins, one less than Ben Jones. Baffert is 65 and should have many good years left in him. If he stays healthy, he will have an excellent chance of surpassing Jones’s record and becoming the winningest trainer in Derby history.

That would be quite an accomplishment, but never underestimate what a great Derby trainer Jones was. Yes, it was a different era and, yes, he was the trainer for Calumet Farm, which was during its heyday the greatest racing stable in American racing history. But Jones won his six Derbies with 11 total starters. Baffert, with five wins, has started 29 horses in the race. Jones won his last Derby in 1952 at age 69, four years older than Baffert is now.

Gulfstream’s Handle Continues to Climb

The Championship Meet at Gulftream is over, which always used to mean racing would switch across town to Calder and the handle on South Florida racing would plummet. That’s no longer happening.

Gulfstream’s betting numbers in April and May will never match what they are in January, February and March, but Gulfstream has somehow become a year-round force when it comes to wagering. Last week, Gulfstream announced that its handle was up 35% during the first months of its spring meet.

It’s not just that Gulfstream’s handle is up, it is that they are crushing tracks you would never expect them to crush. At this time of year, they have settled in as the third most wagered on signal in the country, behind only New York and their sister track Santa Anita. On Saturday, Gulfstream handled $9,167,626 for 12 races. Belmont’s handle for an 11-race card was $15,642,446. Santa Anita handled $11,969,178 on nine races.

It’s not that the overall betting market is growing. It’s that Gulfstream is stealing bettors from other tracks. With a Saturday handle of $5,567,834 for 11 races, Churchill Downs handled $3.6 million less than Gulfstream did. That’s a number that was once inconceivable.

Why is the Man o’War Run on the Turf?

There are too many stakes races with names that just don’t fit, e.g. the Man o’ War. Why name a stakes on the grass after a horse who never ran on the grass? I get it. It’s not that big of a deal, but why not get it right?

I would like to see than Man o’ War changed to the Mack Miller Stakes. With four wins, Miller has won the race more times than any other trainer, and was one of the most respected gentlemen ever to train race horses. He deserves to have a major race named after him.

Obviously, there should still be a Man o’ War Stakes, just not this Man o’War Stakes. Man o’ War won several Grade I New York races where the names can’t be changed, a list that includes the Belmont, the Travers and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Then there’s the Hopeful, which he won in 1919. How about this: for the 100th anniversary of his win in the Hopeful, the name of the race will be changed next year to the Man o’War and the Man o’War becomes the Mack Miller.

 

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