Arnold Kirkpatrick Column - Strike Two

Bill Young Jr. is a nice man - quiet, smart, private to the point of being very shy, honest and practical. On June 9, he shocked the Thoroughbred world with the announcement that he was dispersing almost all of the horses who are owned by Overbrook Farm, which had become one of the major success stories in the U.S. Thoroughbred business over the past quarter century.
By Arnold Kirkpatrick (16 July 2009 - Issue Number: 13)

Arnold Kirkpatrick Column - A Point In Time

Happy New Year.  2008 is gone and thank God for that!Last fall, we were ravaged by a perfect storm of a justifiable collapse of confidence in the US economy, accompanied by atrocious results at our major sales, compounded by the anticipation of sales in 2009, where breeders will be selling yearlings and weanlings conceived and born at 2007 and 2008 prices.
Arnold Kirkpatrick (20 January 2009 - Issue Number: 11)

Arnold Kirkpatrick Column - 8 Deadly Sins

When Pope Gregory I consolidated the eight “evil thoughts” of the 4th Century Christian monk Evagrius Ponticus into the Seven Deadly Sins, he perpetuated what I believe may be one of the classic errors of all times by excluding “Arrogance” from the list.
In my opinion, Arrogance should not only be on the list, it should be #1.
While the thoroughbred industry and the press have examined about every possible excuse and reason for Big Brown’s collapse in the Belmont Stakes, ad infinitum et ad nauseum, I haven’t seen arrogance come up as one of the stated reasons for his disastrous performance in the Belmont, but I think it’s probably at the root of most of the excuses which have been proffered for the loss, thus far.
Arrogance: Trainer Rick Dutrow spent the three weeks between the Preakness and Belmont spouting the belief that his horse could not be beaten.
I have not trained a winner of the Kentucky Derby or of the Preakness, but I have been around for long enough to know that there are two types of horses; those that have been beaten and those who are going to get beaten. A couple of years ago the Blood-Horse assembled a panel of experts to name the 10 best thoroughbreds of the last century. There was some controversy over the top horse, but, to put it simply, the list follows (with undefeated status after each name):
1.    Man o’ War—beaten
2.    Secretariat—beaten
3.    Citation—beaten
4.    Kelso—beaten
5.    Count Fleet—beaten
6.    Dr. Fager—beaten
7.    Native Dancer—beaten
8.    Forego—beaten
9.    Seattle Slew—beaten
10.   Spectacular Bid—beaten
So, in the opinion of his connections, Big Brown is a better horse than anyone on that list.
Arrogance: By the time the smoke had cleared and everybody was looking for an excuse, Dutrow began to blame Kent Desormeux for the loss.
There possibly is some validity to Dutrow’s criticism—the horse was very rank going into the first turn and down the backstretch.
Finally, Dutrow apparently was sufficiently overconfident that he took it upon himself to discontinue the monthly dose of Winstrol he was having administered to Big Brown. To me that’s wrong on two fronts: (1) If I had a horse who was competing in the Triple Crown and running like Big Brown, I wouldn’t even change my underwear, much less his training regimen, and (2), if I did, I’d have a damned good reason. When asked by a member of the press why he gave Big Brown Winstrol on the 15th of every month, the trainer, whose RCI fine and suspension sheet looks like his pedigree should read “by Machine Gun Kelly-Ma Barker, by Jessie James” answered, in effect, I don’t really know why; I don’t really know what Winstrol does, I just give it to every horse in the barn every month because I like to.
To me, that’s not a proper answer, just as there’s no proper answer as to why so many racing cards are run today with 100% of the starters on bute and 85-90% on Lasix (oops, excuse me, Salix).
So here’s the bottom line. We can all point at Big Brown and his connections all we want, but we need to do something about it, all of us. 
I have a proposal for a modest start. Why couldn’t somebody in the industry, host a get-together for rookie owners and trainers coming into the Triple Crown, the Breeders’ Cup and other important events where they could meet some of their predecessors who are particularly good with the media so the veterans could remind them that they’re not just representing the horse whom we’re trying to make into a hero, they’re representing the whole racing industry.
Ideally, that would include an articulate vet who could coach the trainer to have an intelligent answer when some member of the media asks a perfectly logical question such as why is this horse on steroids, when all the other sports are outlawing them? And, by a plausible reason, I do NOT mean, “Everybody else does it” or “I like to do it.”
 Basically, the whole course could be summed up very briefly: “Millions of people will be watching you, perhaps including some potential clients, so don’t be an arrogant ass; it doesn’t help you and it won’t help racing."

Arnold Kirkpatrick
 (11 December 2008 - Issue Number: 9)

Arnold Kirkpatrick Column - Drugs in racing - should there be federal regulation?

THE Members of Congress were clearly bored and frustrated. One commented,

"The six members of this panel can't even agree on what to do; why should you expect us to believe that racing can handle this problem on its own?"

Another yawned.

A third snapped, "For more than 28 years, you have been telling us that you'd fix this problem and it hasn't happened; why should we think you can do it, now?"

Finally, another demanded, "We don't know the ins and outs of your industry, how do you to expect us to make a decision if everyone comes in here and says something different?"

Unless you've been in Siberia for the past few months, you've ascertained by now that I'm talking about the recent hearings in the U.S. Congress about drugs in racing and whether or not the Interstate Horseracing Act should be amended to provide that the federal government take over control of the chaos that comprises the current drug and medication policies of horse racing.

The consensus among the industry representatives who testified at those hearings was, in short, that there is no consensus. And the answer to the obvious question of Who's in charge here?" was "no one" - although NTRA President Alex Waldrop did attempt a brave imitation of his namesake Alexander Haig's notorious pronouncement, "I'm in charge here," but was forced to admit later that the NTRA is only in charge insofar as "building a consensus" is concerned, just like The Jockey Club and other organizations in the business which the normal person would assume would "be in charge.

My friend Arthur Hancock, one of the Thoroughbred fraternity's smartest, most articulate spokesmen, attributed our problems to a lack of leadership. "We are a rudderless ship," he said, "and the way we are going, we will end up on the rocks... We are too fragmented and too diverse. We are composed of too many 'fiefdoms, and each one is led by a Nero-like chieftain, who had rather do things his way than help the cause as a whole.

I have to take a little credit for the change of direction which concludes that assessment, because, when Arthur and I first began debating all this, it was his position that the industry's problems were the result of a lack of leadership, whereas I am unalterably convinced that our problem is not a lack of leadership but too much leadership.

As of this writing, we have 183 separate organizations in Thoroughbred racing alone. That's 183 separate egos. 183 separate agendas. 183 separate jealousies. 183 separate suspicions. 183 separate fears. 183 separate paranoias.

To quote an obscure gospel song I heard years ago, "Nobody wants to play rhythm guitar for Jesus; everybody wants to be the leader of the band."

It's probably inherent in the nature of our game, really, that nobody seems to want to cooperate with each other, but it's exceedingly distressing to me that we seem to have reached the point where many of the organizations and most of the individuals to whom we look for leadership would rather see the entire business go down in flames than cooperate with one of their competitors.

With 183 rudders all pointing in different directions, we have two possible outcomes - at best, we'll be dead in the water; at worst, we'll be breaking apart on the rocks.

All that having been said, agreement in racing is not necessarily an impossible dream.

There was one time when the whole industry came together, and, coincidentally, it resulted in the very same Interstate Horseracing Act which is back on the front burner today.

Believe me, it wasn't easy. It took more than 2½ years of hard work, tough negotiations and cooperation between people who were more inclined to detest each other than to cooperate. It was an alliance, not just of the organizations in the Thoroughbred industry, but of the entire pari-mutuel industry, including Standardbreds, Quarter Horses, Greyhounds, OTB interests, etc.

I think it's another failing of people in the Thoroughbred industry that we tend to underestimate the intelligence and level of influence of those who are not involved in our discipline. One of the astounding corollaries of the effort to pass the Interstate Horseracing Act was that we of the Thoroughbred industry discovered that there are a whole lot of smart, powerful and politically-astute people in the world who are not involved in the Thoroughbred business, and, without them, we never could have gotten the Interstate Horseracing Act passed.

So, when the industry went before Congress, we spoke with one voice and got the deed done. In short, it has happened once, and it can happen again.

What will it take? Sure, we could form another coalition, but that would require more than 100 fiefdoms to surrender a measure of their autonomy, and, trust me, they are not going to do that to an entity which is perceived to be advancing the agenda of any particular individual or group, an entity which is perceived to have a bone in any of these squabbles.

It would take years, if not decades, to build the trust and cooperation necessary to diffuse the detritus of years of turf battles between our fiefdoms.

If we are to have any chance at all to generate a consensus that would enable us to prevent federal intervention on the issue of medication and drugs in the horse business, I would suggest that the only ones to do it would be the ones who accomplished it 38 years ago--the American Horse Council.

With all due respect to the other "consensus builders," the AHC is the only organization which has an established reputation of fairness and objectivity toward all participants in the horse business, whatever their interest is; it is the only organization which has successfully convinced the other disciplines in the industry to help racing achieve something positive for it before; it is the only organization with a record of success in an endeavor of this type.

In short, it's time to face up to the fact that we need a trusted, impartial leader to guide us through these troubled waters. We had better pick one, and fast.

Arnold Kirkpatrick
 (14 October 2008 - Issue Number: 10)