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Horse racing: Racing cashing in nationally |
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3/17/2006 8:52:01 AM |
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 While Maryland racing suffers through embarrassing times with money cutbacks, the outside world has reached new heights of financial deals planned for later in the year.
The Kentucky Derby already prospers with a $2 million purse; Pimlico's Preakness - second event of the Triple Crown - almost buckles under the pressure of staying at $1 million.
The Dubai World Cup festival in the United Arab Emirates retains all records for big races with a $6 million purse for older horses on the dirt and two $5 million affairs on the turf. If someone surpasses those values, then the plaything of Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum will go even higher. Breeders' Cup officials have been talking about raising the overall value for their annual autumn festival to $17 million or maybe even $20 million.
As a means toward stretching their limited funds further, Pimlico's Preakness meeting will operate on a four-programs-per-week basis and the state's "big-time" racing will be idled for almost three months.
The state that once pioneered year-round racing will be shut down in favor of summer racing at Colonial Downs in Virginia causing Maryland's stables and personnel to get there through long, arduous van drives down Interstate-95. Purses there aren't so big either.
Big money seems everywhere. The celebrated trainer Todd Pletcher, has added to his collection of honors the addition of a 2-year-old colt that became the most expensive thoroughbred ever sold at public auction. The Irishmen who run Coolmore Farm and its English partner, paid $16 million at the Fasig-Tipton Calder sale for the colt by Forestry. That transaction surpassed the $13.1 million that the British racing man Robert Sangster and some of the Irishmen involved in the recent world record purchase joined forces to buy Seattle Dancer as a yearling at Keeneland in 1985.
An underbidder in both of those horses was Sheik Mohammed, now in the world news as a major force in the fuss over proposed Arab operation of five major American ports, one of which is in Baltimore.
An example of the meteoric rise in racing purses can be found in the Fountain of Youth Stakes last weekend at Gulfstream Park in which Corinthan finished first but was disqualified in favor of Brother Derek for a foul in the stretch. The Fountain of Youth, a Grade II event carrying a purse of $300,000, was not carried on any national television network.
It could be seen on HRTV, a racing-only cable site operated by Magna Entertainment, owner of Gulfstream, Santa Anita and Laurel Parks plus 10 or more other tracks.
TURFWAY FUSS: A little fuss arose last weekend at Turfway Park where a gelding named Laity, owned by Claiborne Farm, won the $100,000 Battaglia Memorial Stakes. He's a 3-year-old and therefore a Kentucky Derby candidate like his stablemate First Samurai.. But he paid $15.80, which would be considered a whopping figure considering the encouragement held by the stable last fall.
It turns out that Laity became a gelding after running poorly in the Iroquois Stakes on Nov. 5. The Battaglia was Laity's first start since the Iroquois but he was still listed as a colt. That's a no-no around the racetrack, where almost any information about a horse is considered essential to horseplayers.
Many fans eagerly look at the bottom of each page in the program to determine which horses are racing with blinkers for the first time or have just been treated with Lasix. Each of those changes can actually enhance a horse's chances in a race, as might the operation to castrate a horse.
The Daily Racing Form reported that Turfway officials said they "had no information about him being gelded." The somewhat recent arrangement involving the Form using Equibase charts would seem to leave the "racing bible" free of any blame, but someone ought to be resonsible for the program being correct. It's tough enough to pick a winner with everthing being accurate.
One good thing about it happening in the Battaglia Memorial. Racing officials are easily embarrassed when weaknesses in the system becomes evident to all.
In most racing states, such an operation can be somewhat hidden legally, since no special listing is required for the change, except in the program where the word "colt", "horse," or "gelding" is printed. It's just that the status should be correct.
Horseplayers with good information and carrying their own records might spot the change but that's a longshot. Once in a while, a track announcer will tell about some horse being gelded, but that's only to correct or fill in a mistake.
If track managements really want to help their fans, they could list such changes at the bottom of the pages with "blinkers" or "lasix."
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