Princess a Turf Monster? Mabee.

Princess Azula's (V) entry in Sunday's John C Mabee Handicap-G1 at Del Mar comes as a surprise to many. It seems almost counter intuitive after her stakes record win in the Princess Rooney Handicap-G1 a month ago. The dominating win not only guaranteed her a berth in the Breeder's Cup but established her as a major contender in the sprint division. Now she's going fifty percent farther on a completely different surface?

"The Princess actually began her career briefly on the turf at Tampa so it's not that foreign to her. The distance was really the question. Garret worked her a mile on the turf and said she took right to it. She moved so effortlessly and when she came back it was like nothing had even happened. I gave the racing secretary a call and we spoke for a while. It was decided that the Princess would be the light weight. Between the last work and the weight, it seems to me that she has just as much a chance as any," said owner-trainer Troy Racki.

Barcelona Farm's Name Brandy (V) looms the likely favorite given her three back to back wins by a combined sixteen lengths. Name Brandy will be ridden by Patrick Husbands who has been on board for the last two wins. Graded winners Faithful Vixen (V) and Air Affair (V) are the high weights after their wins in the Real Good Deal-G3 and the La Canada-G2 respectfully.

An American Filly

Last night, feeling mighty good after finishing a particularly difficult section of text, I decided to sit down and put together a conceptual book trailer for Regal Heart. While the said trailer is low... make that no budget, I feel like it makes up for that fact by being high quality. Ideally you want a lot more "action" (namely video) to a trailer but during the last two months of web browsing I managed to find a very slow paced but moving piece by the artist "Two Steps From Hell". Not the kind of work you'd expect from such a name, but regardless it’s perfect. The sweeping pace allows for flowing text and graphic stills, while action transitions give it that right touch where the tempo increases.

The agent and publisher for Regal Heart is just for giggles right now. Every trailer should provide the distributor and the production company so I included a "dream team" for the time being. I was tempted to include some more textual credits at the end to make it seem more movie-esque but I decided that the time investment wasn't worth the one second of screen time.

You may be wondering but I'm not a screenwriter or a director. Actually this is my first video composition. What you see is simply seven hours of trial and error with Windows Movie Maker and MS Paint plus a whole lot of creativity. For a guideline on "how to" build the composition I looked to other racing trailers to draw inspiration from them. You may see some similarities to the trailer for Seabiscuit, and to a lesser degree, Dreamer. There's been a significant title change as well. The reasoning stems from my continuous literary research that states a book should be understood from its title alone, hence the subtitle, An American Filly.

My apologies for some color loss and blurring caused by Blogger.

House Rules

Ok, not this House, but today Del Mar announced the adoption of a "house rule" which requires riders to use a new low impact whip. The whip is designed to spur horses through sound rather than via impact. While not mentioned in the article, through e-mail communications with the NTRA, I learned that the adoption of the "house rule" by Del Mar was to gain accreditation with the NTRA's Safety and Integrity Alliance.

I think that the use of "house rules" is an excellent direction for tracks to take if they want to go "above and beyond" and stand out amongst their peers. A track that stands out among their peers is more likely to capture more wagering dollars.

One house rule I'd love to see is closing pools one minute to post or when the first horse enters the gate. Adopting this as a house rule would help circumvent the current political deadlock affecting our leadership. For example on July 23rd, the California Horse Racing Board spent significant time explaining how the pools are perfectly fine as they are. Regardless of whether an advantage is being given to certain bettors or not, a rule to close pools early is about perception. If horse racing wants more customers to perceive the sport as being fair then they need to pass "house rules" which improve the perception. House rules should not be necessary; if our leadership is not willing to do the right thing then the tracks should.

With many tracks being private enterprise they hold the ability to refuse service to anyone in a non-discriminatory manner. For example a track could have its own medication rules that imposes a "water and oats only" situation ten days prior to a race. They could also impose huge fines if anyone is found guilty of a drug infraction. The fines should then be returned to the bettor as a seeding of the Pick 6 or some other exotic wager, returning the fine money to those whom the infraction did the most harm. If trainers do not wish to comply with such new medication rules and fines then they will simply be refused "service". Consequently owners will immediately move their runners to the applicable trainers in order to stay in competition.

If you think these ideas are new, they are not. I've read about returning fine money to the bettor several years ago. I am not certain why it has taken this long for positive change to take place but eventually it will if the customer keeps demanding it.

Perseverance!

Ambassador Program Turns 50

Ok, so the title is a little misleading. The program just turned one in July but I had to use something to bait you into reading further. On Sunday the Ambassador Program had the opportunity to entertain three Southern California pony clubs: Poway, Rainbow, and Ramona. Combined they amounted to a total of fifty-one participants which was the largest group hosted to date.

In the past I had some large groups before, the largest being thirty-six from Woodbury University, so I wasn't too concerned about increasing the group size. I found out however that entertaining fifty-one is definitely a lot to tackle for just one person. Fortunately Donna from the Poway Pony Club helped keep track of all the kids and having many parents on hand made it certain no one strayed too far away. I definitely couldn't have done it without their help.

Fortunately Doug O'Neil was available early on in the barn tour and gave permission for everyone to feed carrots to the horses. This really was popular among the children. I'm sure the horses didn't mind either. After everyone had made a circuit through Doug's two rows of runners I found some tack and explained what the various racing equipment is for. There were a few bumbles on my part along the way but I've been told everyone enjoyed themselves. I got a kick out of wearing "shadow roll" on myself. I think the kids liked it too.

Jimmy the stable farrier had left behind a huge pile of shoes which everyone helped themselves too. A little genuine racing trinket certainly made for a great memento for the day.

The tour parlayed into a meeting with Aaron Gryder who shared his experiences of what it’s like to be riding a racehorse in the world's richest race. I remember Aaron on the last season of "Jockeys". Despite over two decades of riding he hadn't won any major racing events. I'm glad that he finally had his chance and took home six percent of the most lucrative racing purse in the world (which adds up to $360,000). Not too many people make this kind of money in one year, let alone two minutes, yet it’s safe to say he's definitely earned it. While I had only asked him to come by for ten minutes, being the gracious fellow that he is Aaron stayed for twenty in an attempt to answer everyone's questions.

Shortly thereafter Frank Scatoni from Horseplayers Magazine came by the paddock and handed me a box filled with seventy-five free issues of their most recent publication. As he said it was his way of helping do his part in bringing new blood into the sport. I did my best to hand the issues out as quickly as possible but two children immediately started fighting over one copy. This was soon alleviated after which they tore into the magazines, taking quite an interest to the advertisements because of their full page color action photos. Another soon had her finger tracing along the first article, dutifully reading about all the summer action at Del Mar and Saratoga.

After locating our complementary reserved seats at the sixteenth pole, the group caught their first live race in their lives. "Look at how fast they are running," said one parent to her child. As the runners came around the far turn everyone leaped to their feet and the crowd began roaring. After the finish of the race everyone seemed really impressed. I asked if anyone would like to join the Diamond Club on the way down for the paddock tour and several adults took me up on the offer. It looks like there will certainly be some return customers for Del Mar now.

The group soon swarmed the paddock where they got to go on the inside and began taking pictures in mass. I pointed out jockeys from the show "Jockeys" as they strode by. Some of the group hung by Doug O'Neill's #5 runner Malibu Moon and were able to speak with Tyler Baze before Doug gave him a leg up for the race. Everyone in the group seemed to place a wager on either of Doug's runners for that event. Doug seemed harried, constantly having to split his attention between two distant places at one time.

After the second race everyone was welcome to spend their day at the races however they liked. A member of the TOC came by after the third event and spoke to everyone about the TOC's part in the thoroughbred industry. Fliers for the recent CARMA fundraiser were passed around. Later Donna from the Poway Pony Club notified me that several people were very interested in attending. By the fourth race I was completely exhausted, having not eaten or rehydrated since 8:30 am that morning as I never had a moment to do so since arriving at the track. With everyone well situated I made my departure knowing that despite a few hiccups here and there the day had been a success for everyone involved.

Perseverance!

Live Your Dreams

On Sunday I had the chance to meet with two professionals related to horse racing. The first, Aaron Gryder, took a moment to sign my program after speaking with some twenty young riders about his experiences atop a thoroughbred. Mr. Gryder is a real class act, he being so kind to take time out of his busy day to spend it with the often most ignored part of racing, the fans. He explained to the group of how he started riding as a jockey at age sixteen and that following your dreams is the most important thing to finding satisfaction in life. He signed my program as just that, "Live Your Dreams".

So what are your dreams?

For everyone this could mean something different. Perhaps it’s finding a mate, or starting a family, reaching the pinnacle amongst your peers or in your profession, acquiring a lot of stuff, being famous, etc. Concerning my dreams I've been fortunate enough to acquire some of them through a lot of hard work, but there are others that require outside help. One of them is publishing a novel. That is where the second professional came in.

Frank Scatoni is an agent and founding partner of Venture Literary. He represented Gary Steven's work The Perfect Ride. I had the opportunity that afternoon to sit at his finish line box and make a pitch for Regal Heart. Despite some verbal bumbling towards the end, Mr. Scatoni still said that he was "interested in giving the work an in depth look." Rachel Alexandra's romp in the Haskell just an hour earlier certainly made the pitch of a filly chasing the Triple Crown all the more believable. I couldn't have timed it better.

The offer was made that whenever I feel it’s ready, that Frank would be willing to review the first two chapters of the novel. In the publishing industry getting past the query is a challenge in itself. Now it’s to the task of making the first two chapters as sharp as possible.

Perseverance!