My Eclipse Award ballot finally arrived this week. I did what I said I would do after the Breeders’ Cup: I split my Horse of the Year vote between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta. Because the National Turf Writers Association rejected this common-sense approach, my HOY vote will be disqualified.
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Richard Eng
Despite the economic downturn in the U.S. casino business, the horse racing industry continues reaching out to it as a life preserver.
In better times, the annual University of Arizona Symposium on Racing & Gaming would attract more than 1,000 industry leaders to Tucson. Mixing business with pleasure made it a must-attend convention. Lately, though, both industries are not doing as well as they did in the 1980s and ’90s.
Smoke and mirrors are key weapons in any public relations battle between perception and reality. Just ask Tiger Woods and his spinmeisters.
The Daily Racing Form last month ran a small news item about top trainer Doug O’Neill sending 11 horses to Philadelphia Park to race. Jockey Saul Arias was moving his tack there to ride first call for O’Neill.
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Two recent stories made me wonder if the people running horse racing understand the concept that mistreating your customers is a bad business practice.
Without a doubt this year’s Breeders’ Cup was the most memorable ever because of one horse, Zenyatta. Her riveting win over 11 males in the Classic has to move into everyone’s top five races of all time.
The two-day Breeders’ Cup bills itself as the World Championships, and this year the two-day event finally might be recognized for living up to its name. Last year, the Euros won five and placed in five of the 14 races. This year they have a good chance to do even better.
The beauty of betting on horse racing is the $100 bankroll player can enjoy wagering as much as the person who comes with $1,000 or more to bet. Your strategy and win goals might differ. But with smart play, profit might be only a horse race away.
Some smart people in horse racing insist this will be the last Breeders’ Cup raced over a synthetic surface, that the two-year run on Santa Anita’s Pro Ride track has been a disaster.
Are horse racing fans pessimists or optimists at heart? This year’s Breeders’ Cup offers a good litmus test.
I got a lot of feedback for my column last week breaking down where the 14 Breeders’ Cup race winners prepped. The final results were: Santa Anita, five; Europe, five; Belmont, Del Mar, Keeneland and Woodbine, one each.
Over the next two weekends, most of the Breeders’ Cup horses will prep in stakes races at Belmont Park, Keeneland, Santa Anita Park and beyond. I thought it might be revealing to see where the 14 Breeders’ Cup race winners of 2008 prepped, especially since Santa Anita, where the main track is Pro Ride synthetic surface, is the host site again.
The retirement of Lava Man lasted about as long as the 21-month hiatus of champion boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. Mayweather returned last week to pound the smaller Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand Garden. Who knows if Lava Man can do the same again to the handicap division?
At some point in the near future, Santa Anita Park will have a new owner. Let’s pray that it isn’t old owner Frank Stronach. When Stronach formed Magna Entertainment and began buying up racetracks, and started XpressBet and HRTV, he looked like a winner.
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