Have a comment or question about this week's update? Send an e-mail to davidh@texasthoroughbred.com. Read past updates in the Executive Director's Update archive.
FASTATION, SIMPLY GONE, HOLLY LYNNE, COYOTE LEGEND WIN ‘STARS’ STAKES
Heiligbrodt Racing Stable’s Fastation and Bill and Denise Morrison’s Simply Gone produced strong stretch runs to take their respective $100,000 divisions of the first races in the Texas Stallion Stakes Series for foals of 2008 on Stars of Texas Day at Lone Star Park on July 10.
Fastation’s 3 ¾-length triumph could hardly have been more appropriate as she was bred by the late Larry T. Smith, the 3-term TTA president whose untimely passing occurred last month. The Texas-bred daughter of leading sire Valid Expectations slipped through along the rail to take control of the 5 ½-furlong stakes in early stretch to reach the wire in 1:04.27 on a muddy surface. Rush the Net (Wimbledon) finished second with Last Legend (Gold Legend) third. Steve Asmussen trained the winning $42,000 Fasig-Tipton Texas 2-Year-Old Sales graduate.
Texas-bred Simply Gone, bred by TTA director Keith Asmussen, became the first stakes winner for his sire, Intimidator, by rallying down the center of the track past a bunched field to win by one length in 1:05.39 with Alli’s Legend (Gold Legend) second a head in front of Pacheco (Supreme Cat). Simply Gone is conditioned by Allen Milligan, who is enjoying the best year of his training career.
Clarence Scharbauer’s Texas homebred Coyote Legend notched his third added-money win of the Lone Star season as he added the $75,000 Assault to tallies in the Premiere Stakes and the last leg of the Texas Stallion Stakes Series. The odds-on 3-5 choice was hard pressed after jockey Bobby Walker lost an iron at the start, and, after taking the lead at the quarter pole, held off a late bid from Poltergeist to win the 1 1/16-mile stakes in 1:43.56 by one-half length. Uncle Rose finished third, another four lengths behind.
The newly formed N 2 Win Racing Partnership’s Hollye Lynne, bred in Texas by Dr. David S. Taylor, led wire to wire in the 6-furlong $50,000 Valor Farm Stakes to outlast even-money favorite No Other Tone by a whisker in 1:09.16. The placing judges and stewards needed 10 minutes to resolve the photo. Formal Flyer closed for third. Bret Calhoun sent out both Holly Lynne and Coyote Legend.
PHILLIPS ADVISES TRC ‘MANOR DOWNS IS 99% SURE OF CLOSING ON JULY 25’
The Texas Racing Commission received written notice on July 13 from Manor Downs COO Howard Phillips that the Class 2 track will close its simulcast operations on July 25 and there are no plans to apply for racing dates in 2011. Phillips was quoted in various media outlets as pegging the closing as “99 percent sure.”
Talk about timing...how could it be any worse? This does not send a good message to the Texas Legislature, which is within six months of convening for the 2011 session. While other segments of the pari-mutuel racing industry in Texas are seeking solutions to the problems posed by declining revenue due to competition from tracks in the neighbor states of Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma, Phillips has added to the problems by taking his marbles and going home. Staying open for simulcasting until Manor’s traditional live meet would provide seven months of added purse revenue that now won’t be generated.
Talk about timing...July 25 is a date that falls within the very early stages of three of the most popular race meet simulcast signals offered at Manor, those of Del Mar and Saratoga for Thoroughbreds, and Ruidoso Downs for Quarter Horses with its All American Futurity Trials and Finals and other stakes.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Manor has never been operated with any managerial skill or planning. The most recent example of poor planning occurred on Monday, July 5, a holiday for most businesses because July 4 fell on a Sunday this year. But Manor was closed for simulcasting while Belmont Park, Calder Race Course, Arlington Park, Hollywood Park and other tracks exported their live product. There are many other inconveniences that customers have encountered over the years, not the least of which is lack of attention to maintenance of television sets leaving too high a percent inoperable. In the outdoor simulcast area, there are rickety picnic tables, an influx of flies after the spring racing season, tellerless windows on Wednesday and Thursday, inexperienced tellers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, rusty rest rooms and old tickets and dirt being wind blown throughout an afternoon of simulcasting.
Manor has had a loyal clientele, but customers have been leaving one by one for a more pleasant live and simulcast racing experience mostly due to lack of operator care and attention.
And one question persists...How can Manor be losing money on simulcasting while the Race Barn operates four days per week at Gillespie County Fairgrounds and makes money and Valley Race Park in Harlingen turns a monthly profit on simulcasting while not running live greyhound races?
TTA OFFERS WEBSITE ADVERTISING OF FASIG-TIPTON TEXAS SALES YEARLINGS
Starting this month, Texas Thoroughbred Association is offering a new advertising opportunity on the TTA website, www.texasthoroughbred.com, that allows consignors to highlight their sales yearlings in the Fasig-Tipton Texas Summer Yearling Sale on August 30.
For the cost of $25 per yearling, a consignor can have a color photo, pedigree information and a link to the catalog page posted in a special yearling sale section of the TTA website with discounts available for multiple yearlings from the same consignment. For more information, contact Denis Blake at 512-695-4541 or denisb@texasthoroughbred.com.
Fast furlongs...Caroline Dodwell’s Texas homebred Aces N Kings put his 3-for-3 record at Lone Star Park, including a win in the TTA Sales Futurity, on the line on Louisiana Downs turf on July 3 and scored a 2 ½-length win in the $50,000 Minstrel Stakes for a generous $13.40 payoff to stay unbeaten...The second weekend of racing in Fredericksburg is on tap for July 17 and 18th with the 8-day meet concluding with two August racing weekends on the 14th and 15th and 28th and 29th, the latter in conjunction with the Gillespie County Fair...The New York Racing Association has announced plans to enhance its in-house equine drug-testing program, but will eliminate the 6-hour security barn requirement for horses in to race effective with the July 23 opening of the Saratoga season...New York’s State Comptroller has warned in a press release that the NYRA could be insolvent in 2011 unless revenue flows from VLTs at Aqueduct, but first a slots operator must be approved after nine years of waiting...Responding to an invitation from the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service, the American Horse Council has submitted requests to define “amount wagered” to include the total amount bet into an exotic pool by a “tax ticket” winner rather than withhold federal taxes on winnings over $5,000 if the proceeds are at least 300 times the “amount wagered,” which currently treats a winning ticket as the only bet made...The Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission has approved a new minimum jockey mount fee scale ranging from $75 to $105 after the respective horsemen’s organizations and the Jockeys’ Guild reached an agreement...Putting Instant Racing machines in operation at Kentucky tracks has moved back on the front burner as proponents seek to find a way through either the regulatory or legislative process...Ohio’s Lottery Commission is testing the legal waters as it prepares regulations making slots at state tracks an extension of existing lottery operations...In Indiana, the racing commission has approved a 40 percent purse supplement for Indiana-breds finishing first, second or third in any open company race with a $10,000 claiming price or higher in a move that was termed a “quality of racing initiative”...Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky July Yearling Sale produced a $450,000 sales topper, but the $75,780 average price fell 2.5 percent below the 2009 average, and the median price dropped from $55,000 last year to $50,000 this year...Representative Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) is conducting an online survey on his website asking whether Texas voters favor the introduction of slot machines in Texas, or only at Texas tracks or not at all...The Texas Racing Commission staff has produced excellent handout material for the July 16 and August 13 Race Date Working Group meetings.