Keeneland CEO Bill Thomason Joins TDN Writers’ Room

[Wandering Eyes]

As an organization with enormous interests in both the racing and sales worlds, Keeneland has been quick to act in response to the coronavirus pandemic, canceling its April 2-Year-Old Sale and Spring Meet in the early days of the sport’s shutdown. They also were quick to reassure nervous buyers and sellers of yearlings that this year’s marquee September Yearling Sale would proceed as scheduled, Sept. 14-26. President and CEO Bill Thomason joined the TDN Writers’ Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday, calling in via Zoom from his home as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss what that auction could look like and much more.

“We are counted on to bring two things together,” Thomason said. “We bring these best horses in the world together in critical mass to a marketplace that people are going to be counting on. So the horses are going to be there. Now we start working on making sure that we add certainty to that marketplace to be able to bring the world to Keeneland. That’s going to evolve in the coming months. We’re in the process now of developing protocols. We know people are scared. They’re scared for their health, they’re worried about the economics of the marketplace, they want to take care of their families. We know those things are happening and we know the angst that’s going on, but we’ve got to evolve. We’ve got to make sure that people can feel safe. We can say all we want to do, but the science is going to dictate where we go with this.”

Thomason also spoke about the feasability of Keeneland running its Fall Meet under normal circumstances, which for this year takes on added significance as it is scheduled to include the Breeders’ Cup World Championships Nov. 6-7.

“The fall meet is being planned and we’re planning for a routine October race meet,” he said. “We’re planning for an extraordinary Breeders’ Cup, which we know that everybody’s excited about coming to Central Kentucky again and coming back to Keeneland, but we can talk all we want about how we’re going to plan for normal operations, the science is going to dictate where we are at. The deck is shuffled. We know that states are going to open back up, businesses are going to open back up on a state-by-state basis. We live in a state where the governor has taken a very aggressive approach to this virus, which we’re proud of and we agree with, and we’ve had great communication with our governor and local officials and the public health employees that are involved in this and making those decisions, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

Elsewhere on the show, in the West Point Thoroughbreds news segment, the writers talked about the news of the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia withholding the purse of the Saudi Cup after winning trainer Jason Servis was indicted, reacted to owner Joe Sutton calling out cheating, looked ahead to the GI Arkansas Derby and touched on Chuck Fipke’s recent act of philanthropy. Click here to listen to the podcast.

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