LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Michael Baze, the leading jockey at Arlington Park last summer and a member of the famed Baze riding family of the western United States, was found dead Tuesday afternoon in his vehicle in the stable area of Churchill Downs. He was 24.
A Louisville Metro Police spokeswoman, Alicia Smiley, said Tuesday evening that police have undertaken an investigation into the death. Churchill spokesman John Asher said track officials were not at liberty to comment on the death.
Dominic Imprescia, the trainer of Timely Writer, the co-highweight of the 1981 Experimental Free Handicap, died Sunday morning at his home in Hallandale Beach, Fla., according to friends. Imprescia was 93.
Imprescia, a onetime used-car salesman who turned to training in the 1940s, raced on the New England and Florida circuits for nearly four decades, mostly with a claiming stable. He retired in 1986, but continued to own horses until several years ago and frequently visited horse and dog tracks in Florida, where he made his home.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – John Velazquez is sharing an unspecified percentage of his winnings from the 137th Kentucky Derby with fellow jockey Robby Albarado, whom he replaced Saturday in winning the race aboard Animal Kingdom. In addition, Barry Irwin, who manages the Team Valor International partnership which owns Animal Kingdom, is matching the amount that Velazquez is giving Albarado.
The national television rating for the final hour of the Kentucky Derby broadcast on NBC-TV on Saturday afternoon was an 8.5 with a 19 share, down 13.3 percent compared with the 9.8 rating share for the race portion of the broadcast in both 2010 and 2009, according to figures released by the network.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Due to the severity of the injury suffered by Archarcharch in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs, the colt has been retired, trainer Jinks Fires said Monday.
Archarcharch underwent successful surgery Sunday at the Rood and Riddle equine clinic in Lexington, Ky., to repair a condylar fracture in his left foreleg, but “there’s some pretty bad cartilage damage in there, too,” said Fires. “It just wouldn’t be worth even trying to bring him back. He’s been great to us, so we’re going to take care of him.” Dr. Larry Bramlage performed the surgery.
Uncle Mo, who was scratched from Saturday’s Kentucky Derby due to a yet-to-be-diagnosed internal issue, was vanned from Churchill Downs to WinStar Farm in Versailles, Ky., on Monday morning, his connections announced.
By going to WinStar, Uncle Mo will be close to several equine clinics while also being able to remain in training, if his connections see fit to put him on the track. WinStar has a seven-furlong Polytrack facility on its grounds.
Federal move seen as attempt to dismiss local interests
I commend Steven Crist's May 1 column, "Federal regulation not the right solution," for pointing out the folly and danger of proposed federal drug regulation. I share Mr. Crist's concern that the horse racing industry will be hurt by the proposed legislation, which purports to be in horses' welfare.
Mr. Crist questioned "why an increasing number of people within the industry are either neutral or supportive of the prospect of federal involvement . . . ." May I suggest two reasons for such support:
LEXINGTON, Ky. – In an open letter published on the Huffington Post website Thursday night, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s chairman, George Grayson, and its president, Tom Ludt, said the organization’s herd evaluation was “generally quite positive.”
According to the letter, multiple veterinary teams evaluated 1,100 horses between January and April at 29 foundation-contracted farms and found that about 10 percent were “below ideal weight.” The letter did not specify body condition scores for those horses but asserted that “the herd is in good overall condition.”
