TUCSON, Ariz. - Lou Raffetto stopped by in Tucson the other day, to share his wisdom and his winning ways with a few of Doug Reed's classes at the University of Arizona Race Track Industry program.
The kids had an opportunity to hear a widely traveled wise man, a veteran of the Thoroughbred racing wars both as a horseman and track manager and operator, and to learn a bit about personality.
The first time Steve Specht and Greg Gilchrist crossed paths was in the spring of 1969 at California's Fort Ord, where Gilly was a non-com just back from Vietnam and Specht was a fresh draftee from the Midwest. It was Gilchrist's job to impart what wisdom he could to the young soldiers, primarily in the form of basic survival skills, and it was their job to pay attention.
"Me just being back, and getting out in six months, I could give a damn what any of them did," Gilchrist said. "If they made it through, they were headed to a bad place anyway.
NEW YORK - There will be a slightly different look and feel to the order of this year's Breeders' Cup races next Friday and Saturday at Oak Tree, due to a factor that is a daily challenge to American racetrack operators: Reconciling the tradition of running races in ascending order of importance with the parimutuel reality that handle suffers amid short fields. The imperative to drive handle usually prevails, which is why an increasing number of Grade 1 races with small fields and heavy favorites have been buried in the early portions of race cards in New York and California this year.
On the day after pre-entries were taken for the inaugural Breeders' Cup, in 1984, John Henry came up lame. America's best and most popular racehorse was scratched from the event, leaving the sport's first attempt at a season-ending championship event without its preeminent personality. Somehow, the Breeders' Cup survived.
NEW YORK - Breeders' Cup officials said last week that they are working on a long-term rotation of host tracks for the event and that management will present a plan running for as long as the next 10 years for board approval this spring. According to a report in the Toronto Star, the plan "would designate a group of 10 North American tracks, including Woodbine, as hosts beginning in 2011, along with the framework of a rotation."
TUCSON, Ariz. - With Halloween close at hand, there are a lot of skeletons rattling around and much whistling in the dark in North American horse racing. And there are governors acting like goblins.
The whistling was done by some important people.
Alex Waldrop, CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, wrote in his blog, Straight Up, about the Thoroughbred industry's "bright future."
NEW YORK - Breeders' Cup clues should be in plentiful supply on Saturday at Woodbine, where the Ontario Jockey Club has positioned the Canadian International and the E.P. Taylor as perfect trials for the BC Turf and the BC Filly and Mare Turf.
In closing the book on the racing career of Sea the Stars, owner David Tsui has left the Thoroughbred world with an empty feeling, at least that part of it that is concerned with horses who run. Not only will Americans be deprived of seeing the great son of Cape Cross and Urban Sea in the Breeders' Cup Classic, a race that had been strongly suggested, but the whole world will be unable to see what he might have achieved as a 4-year-old.
NEW YORK - In 1988, as undefeated Personal Ensign neared her 13th and final career start in the Breeders' Cup, not one person in the world of racing even suggested - much less demanded - that she run in the Classic rather than the Distaff. She won the Distaff in gloriously dramatic style in a race no one will ever forget. She received only a handful of votes for Horse of the Year against classic winner Alysheba, but was voted into the Hall of Fame the first time she became eligible.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Any racing fan who waded through the recently aired 12 hours of "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" by documentarian Ken Burns could not help but think of the grand "parks" that have made horse racing so much more than just a roll of dice. Belmont Park, Hialeah Park, Arlington Park, Santa Anita Park - those also were very good ideas that served their citizens well.
