In conversation with Jim Lawson - Mr Woodbine

By Giles Anderson

Jim Lawson has literally grown up with Woodbine Racetrack, he was born in the same year that the track opened in 1956. Today Lawson assumes the roles of CEO of Woodbine Entertainment Group, Chairman of Ontario Racing, as well as chairing the board of governors of the Canadian Football League. He recently sat down with Giles Anderson to discuss the future direction and goals for racing and the Woodbine facility in the years to come.

It would be fair to say that you came to racing through a sporting injury and looking back your career may have well evolved on ice.

Yes, I played US College Hockey at Brown University in Rhode Island. By 1978 I was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens. I left school early, I had enough credits to graduate but had an injury-prone two and a half years in their organisation, with many issues. Ultimately, I retired and went to law school, and when I went to law school, like a lot of people, I thought ‘wouldn't it be great if I could do sports law, or be a player agent, or whatever?’ And of course you soon realise that you need that foundation of law and legal contracts, so I ended up  doing commercial law for the most part.

So here I am, 30 years later, being in a position where I am with the Canadian Football League. Even though I was a hockey player, I always had a passion regarding football and horse racing. My dad had Thoroughbred horses from the time I was six or seven years old, so I used to come out here 1965, 1966, when I was 10 years old. He ran a modest stable, but a successful stable. He was a great student of the game and I think he won 67 stakes races here with a very modest stable over the years and he's in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

So I spent my early years around Woodbine and also studying bloodlines.

So how did you end up working for Woodbine?

Mostly because of the clients through my work at a major downtown Toronto law firm and as I'd spent a lot time around Woodbine, the board was aware of me. They initially asked me to come on the board to look after the 700 acres of land that they had here. So I joined the board and then I evolved into being chairman of the board in 2012.

Then in 2015, when the CEO stepped down, the board asked me to step in and, here I am. I've gone from chairman to CEO here now, but I have a big background, as I said, in horse racing and a big part of what we're doing today is real estate development.

How many teams make up the Canadian Football League?

There are nine teams. We're looking to expand it, Halifax to be a tenth team, but there are currently five teams in the west and four teams in the east. Montreal, and Toronto, and Hamilton and Ottawa and as I said, potentially an expansion team in Halifax, so a lot of teams across the country.

“THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE WE HAVE IS TWO-FOLD AND THEY’RE RELATED. AND THAT IS AN AGEING DEMOGRAPHIC IN BOTH SPORTS.”

Why do you think has there not been as much expansion in the last five years as much as there has been of teams in soccer?

Well, that's a good question. In football, the biggest, I think, single achievement is the renewal of capital investment in the stadiums, which has been a big plus. There's been a completely renovated stadium in Toronto, a brand new stadium in Hamilton, a completely renovated stadium in Ottawa, a new stadium in Saskatchewan, a new stadium in Winnipeg. So the biggest achievement, I think, is the reinvestment of capital to keep the league in good shape in the sense that it's very much a gate-driven league as opposed to many other sports, which are television revenue driven. We do have the television contract with TSN and we have good ratings on the sports network, which is a Bell Globe Media property. But I think the biggest thing that the league has done is reinvested itself and set itself up for a strong future.

Do you see a big crossover from what you’ve learned about football into racing?

The biggest challenge we have is two-fold and they're related. And that is an ageing demographic in both sports. Our core customer is probably that 50-year-old to 70-year-old male. I think we're doing a good job in horse racing because of our food and beverage experience and the cost of having a good experience here. We're making great strides in bringing up that younger customer. But our real core wagering customer fits in that 50 to 70-year-old demographic.

Woodbine’s vision for the future

The same is true in the Canadian Football League, it may well be true in the golf world and the tennis world, and so that is a real challenge to see and it is actually of interest for me to see how both organizations from the marketing partnerships approach that. And then secondly the challenge in both sports has been the consumption of the sport and what I mean is that the Canadian Football League is a gate-driven league, while in order to get people interested in horseracing, you really need to get them here and see the horses and feel the horses and just the excitement.

In both cases now, in a large part on the football side the evolution, it's not just overnight, it's the last 15, 20, 25 years depending on your measure of the large screen TVs that sit in everyone's den or family room. People want to consume sports in luxury, and television has done a great job with production, with slow motion and replays and analysis and making that television experience so great, so that a lot of people would rather than sitting out in colder weather, they'd rather sit in home in the comforts of their den or family room, watching television on a big screen TV. The same thing for horse racing, really. We have, for business purposes, made it very accessible to wager on horse racing through the internet. People don't have to come out here any more and that's a challenge.

So we've got a couple of sports there where, because of technological advances and just raising the level the game of how we distribute our content in both cases, you're challenged in terms of getting people interested. People are only going to invest in horses if they are out here and they get the excitement of the game. We need new owners, we need new breeders and you're not going to get that from people who are gambling over the internet, you're going to get that from people who come out here and say, "Wow, I love this, wouldn't it be fun to own a horse."

And the same with football, you need to get them out to the game to experience it and meet the players and see the players. One of the challenges with football, especially in Canada with so many sports coming - soccer has grown huge, or European football, shall we say - I think that one of the things we need to do with football is to get youth playing it and the likelihood of that happening is if they can get out to the games and feel the excitement, and watch it and meet the players.

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Osteochondrosis - genetic causes and early diagnosis

By Celia M. Marr

Osteochondrosis (OC) is a common lesion in young horses affecting the growing cartilage of the articular/epiphyseal complex of predisposed joints at specific predilection sites. In the young Thoroughbred, it commonly affects the stifles, hocks and fetlocks. As this condition has such important impact on soundness across many horse breeds, it is commonly discussed in Equine Veterinary Journal. Four recent articles covered causes of the disease, its genetic aspects, and a new and very practical approach to early diagnosis through ultrasound screening programs on stud farms.

OC is a disease of joint cartilage. Cartilage covers the ends of bones in joints, and healthy cartilage is central to unrestricted joint movement. With OC, abnormal cartilage can be thickened, collapsed, or progress to cartilage flaps or osteochondral fragments separated from the subchondral bone leading to osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD). OC and OCD can be regarded as a spectrum rather than two discrete conditions.

Certain joints are prone to OC and OCD, and there is some variation between breeds on which joints have the highest prevalence. In Australian Thoroughbreds, 10% of yearlings had stifle OC, 8% had fetlock OC, and 6% had hock OC. The prevalence data may seem very high, but Thoroughbred breeders may take some comfort in learning that similar, and indeed slightly higher prevalences, are reported in the warmblood breeds, Standardbreds, and Scandinavian and French trotters. Heavy horse breeds have the highest prevalences.

In an article discussing progress in OC/OCD research, Professor Rene Van Weeren concludes that the clinical relevance of OC is man made.  In feral horses, where there is no human influence on mating pairings, OC does occur but at much lower prevalence than in horse breeds selected for sports or racing. Similarly, in pony breeds where factors other than speed and size are desirable characteristics, OC is also rare. These facts suggest that sports and racehorse breeders have inadvertently introduced a trait for OC along with other desired traits. There is a strong link between height and OC, suggesting that one of the desired traits with unintended consequences is height. This is of particular relevance in sports horses: the Dutch warmblood has become taller at a rate of approximately 1 mm per year over the past decades, which might not seem much but it is still an inch in 25 years. Van Weeren points out that if the two-hands tall Eohippus or Hyracotherium and the browsing forest-dweller with which equine evolution started some 65 millions of years ago had evolved at this speed, the average horse would now have stood a staggering 40 miles at the withers.

Drs. Naccache, Metzger and Distal, based at the Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics in Hannover, Germany, have worked extensively on heritability and the genetic aspects of OC in horses. Their work has shown that there is not one single gene involved. In fact, genes located on not less than 20 of the 33 chromosomes of the horse are relevant to OC.

These researchers use whole genome scanning—otherwise known as genome-wide association studies, or GWAS. This approach has only been possible since the equine genome was mapped. GWAS look at the entire genetic map to detect differences between subjects with and without a particular trait or disease. Millions of genetic variants can be read at the same time to identify genetic variants that are associated with the disease of interest. Based on the number of genetic markers already found in warmblood OC, it is unlikely that a simple single-gene test will prove to be useful for screening young Thoroughbreds for OC.

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Racing To Comply: How The New GDPR Internet Privacy Rules Affect Trainers And Other Equine Professionals

By Peter Sacopulos

The Great Privacy Policy Alert

As the summer of 2018 began, every company doing business on the internet appeared to have developed a new user privacy policy overnight. Service providers, search engines, social media platforms, news sites, online retailers and others bombarded Americans with emails and pop-ups, urging users to review the new policies immediately and adjust their personal privacy settings accordingly. There is no official count of how many consumers dutifully clicked on links, doggedly read new rules, and deliberately updated their individual privacy preferences, or how many simply shrugged, ignored the alerts, and went on with their online lives.

Some who wondered what all the fuss was about may have thought the new privacy policies had something to do with recent headlines about corporate data breaches. Others may have associated them with the fallout of 2016’s US presidential election and UK Brexit referendum, after which reports emerged of foreign meddling online and a political consulting firm stealthily collecting data from tens of millions of Facebook users without their permission. (Criminal investigations are ongoing.) But many internet users knew the truth: the renewed focus on privacy was far from sudden and was the result of a European Union law known as the General Data Protection Regulation, that had been passed in 2016 and took effect on May 25, 2018.

The General Data Protection Regulation

Even though it is a European law, the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR) has implications for Americans who use the internet to conduct their business. Horse trainers and other equine professionals are no exception. This article will address the basics of GDPR, how it affects American businesses, and the primary steps your business should take to achieve and maintain GDPR compliance. Make no mistake, spending the time and effort to do so now will go a long way toward avoiding legal headaches and financial penalties in the future.

Privacy policies exist to protect personal data. Personal data is defined by the European Union as: “…any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual….” It includes:  “…Different pieces of information, which collected together, can lead to the identification of a particular person….” In short, any form or combination of information that can tell others who you are is personal data. In the US, personal data is also referred to as personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive personal information (SPI).

Personal data typically includes information that can allow others to locate, contact or monitor you. Examples of personal data include your first and last name, home address, email address, telephone number as well as an identification card number, such as your social security number, driver’s license number or passport number. In the digital age, it can also take far more subtle forms, including some you may not have even realized, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your mobile phone location data or a “cookie” ID on your computer. Personal data does not include anonymous information, such as that found in statistics.

The Big Question

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The General Data Protection Regulation is based on the answer to this increasingly important question: Who owns an individual’s personal digital data?

In the United States, the answer to that question is still being debated and, some privacy advocates would go so far as to say, avoided. But the countries that make up the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) have determined that, when their citizens are concerned, every individual owns his or her personal data, wherever it may appear online and however it may be gathered and used by others. The GDPR enshrines this principle of personal data ownership in law. It grants specific data privacy rights to individuals and sets out rules that businesses must follow when dealing with a consumer’s data. It mandates harsh financial penalties for businesses that violate those rules, along with strict notification standards whenever a business suffers a data breach.

The American Question

The first question most Americans will ask about the GDPR is obvious. Why would an American citizen doing business in the United States need to worry about complying with a European law?

Like nearly all businesses in the digital age, the vast majority of the Thoroughbred racing community routinely conducts business on the internet. And therein lies the answer to the American GDPR compliance riddle. The web truly is worldwide and that means your website, and any and all social media platforms you use (such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter and any Thoroughbred-biz-specific websites and platforms), are as easily accessed in Europe as they are in America. In the course of conducting business online, you can come into contact with a European citizen as easily as you do an American citizen.

The General Data Protection Regulation clearly states that when any business entity, based in any location, deals with a European citizen’s data, GDPR rules apply. But there are some important exceptions. If a European citizen’s data is collected while the individual is not physically in Europe, that data is not governed by the GDPR. If, for example, a German visiting America takes an online marketing survey while in New York and offers up personal information in the process, only American regulations regarding the use of that data would apply.

The GDPR also takes intentionality into account. Basic, broad-based, generic marketing materials are exempt from the law. If an Italian citizen who has in interest in Thoroughbred training happens across the English-language website of an American horse trainer whose services are only offered in the US, the GDPR does not come into play. But if an American trainer’s site appears to target European citizens, gathers information on them, or seeks to do business with them, GDPR rules do apply.

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Ride & Guide - our guide to what horses can run in

By Annie Lambert

Bits and related training accessories are not all they depend on, however. The talented exercise riders they hire represent the hands using those bits, an important factor in the process.

Whatever bits and riggings a trainer prefers, they have a logical reason as to why their choices work within their program. A lot of that reasoning is chalked up to trial and error experiences.

Bit Bias

Some bits are legal for training and racing while others are not allowed in the afternoons. The most recognizable of the morning-only headgear would be the hackamore. Using a hackamore requires approval from officials.

California trainer Danny Hendricks’ father and uncle, Lee and Byron Hendricks respectfully, toured the rodeo circuit with specialty acts, trick riding and Roman jumping over automobiles. They were superior horsemen that began retraining incorrigible racehorses. The brothers introduced many bits that race trackers had not yet explored. Danny was too young to remember those bits, but did inherit the Hendricks’ talent.

“I had a filly for Dick [Richard Mandella] way back that wouldn’t take a bit, she’d just over flex,” he explained. “If you just touched her she’d put her nose to her chest and go straight back. I put a halter on her with a chifney, so it just hung there, put reins on the halter and started galloping her. It took months before she’d finally take that bit.”

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The fat, egg butt snaffle is popular with many trainers as is the standard ring bit

The majority of trainers shrug off which bits are not allowed in the afternoons as they are not devices they’d think of using anyway. In fact, most trainers never ponder “illegal” bits.

Based in Southern California, Hall of Famer Richard Mandella personally feels it’s easy to make too much out of bits. He prefers to keep it simple where possible and to change bits occasionally, “so you put pressure on a different part of the mouth.”

“I don’t want to hear a horse has to have a D bit every day or a ring bit every day,” Mandella offered. Adding with a chuckle, “It’s good to change what you’re doing to their mouth, which usually isn’t good with race horses.”

Mandella learned a lot from a Vaquero horseman, Jimmy Flores, a successful stock horse trainer. His father was shoeing horses for Flores, who encouraged Mandella, then eight or nine years old, to hack his show horses around.

“Jimmy would put a hackamore on them, to get the bit out of their mouth,” Mandella recalled. “He said to me once, ‘You don’t keep your foot on the brake of your car, you’ll wear the brakes out.’ He was a great horseman.”

Trainer Michael Stidham introduced Mandella to the Houghton bit, which originally came from the harness horse industry.

“The Houghton has little extensions on the sides and it is like power steering,” Mandella said. “As severe as it looks, it’s not hard to ride. We’ve had a lot of luck with horses getting in or out, it corrects them.”

David Hofmans, a multiple graded stakes winning trainer, did not come from a horse background. He fell in love with the business when introduced to the backside by Gary Jones and went to work for Jones’ father, Farrell, shortly after.

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One of many well-used tack combinations is a figure 8 over the rubber-mouthed ring bit

“We’re always trying something different if there is a problem,” Hofmans said of his tack options. “I use the same variety of ring bits and D bits with most of our horses. We use a martingale, noseband and sometimes a shadow roll. If you have a problem you try something different, but if everything is okay, you stick with what works.”

Michael McCarthy spent many years working for Todd Pletcher before moving his base to California. When it comes to bits, he hasn’t varied much from his former boss. McCarthy reminded, “When the horses are comfortable, the riders are more relaxed and everybody gets along better.”

“Most horses here just wear a plain old, thick D bit,” he said from his barn at California’s Del Mar meet. “Some of the horses get a little bit more aggressive in the morning, so they wear a rubber ring bit. In the afternoons, if we have one that has a tendency to pull, we may put a ring bit with no prongs.”

McCarthy discovered the Houghton bit in Pletcher’s where they used it on Cowboy Cal, winner of the 2009 Strub Stakes at Santa Anita. He uses the Houghton sparingly to help horses steer proficiently.

Louisiana horseman Eric Guillot said from his Saratoga office that he uses whatever bit a horse needs – a lot of different equipment combinations.

“I use a D bit with a figure 8 and, when I need to steer them, a ring bit with figure 8 or sometimes I use a ring bit with no noseband at all,” he offered. “Sometimes I use a cage bit and I might use a brush [bit burr] when a horse gets in and out. Really, every situation requires a different kind of bit.”

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Unravelling ulceration - The causes, treatment and prevention for squamous vs. glandular gastric ulceration

By Emma Hardy, PhD

Gastric ulcers remain a common condition facing competition horses. This poses an ongoing and persistent challenge to trainers who face the negative effects of ulcers in terms of training and performance. To address the issue, the typical trainer spends a small fortune on scores of omeprazole and other ulcer remedies, only to find the problem isn’t resolved or simply comes back.

Meanwhile, researchers have been testing the very notion of “what is an ulcer?” The data casts doubt on whether go-to treatment approaches will actually work. A look at what the research now tells us about equine gastric ulcers may provide some new guidance for how best to address this nearly ubiquitous concern.

The two faces of gastric ulceration

While many people think of gastric ulcers as one specific disease, equine vets and researchers refer to gastric ulcers as a “syndrome” (Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome, or EGUS). The medical definition of a syndrome describes a set of symptoms and signs that together represent a disease process. In practical terms, this means that ulcers are really a clinical signs—truly a symptom—of underlying disease conditions.

A few years ago, articles began to appear in the scientific press highlighting differences in the healing of ulcers in two distinct regions of the stomach—the upper “squamous” area on the one hand, as compared to the lower “glandular” portion on the other. In recent years, researchers in Australia published a series of articles (Sykes et al, 2014) to “clarify the distinction between diseases in different regions of the stomach” (i.e., to describe the differences between ulcers in the squamous area of the stomach from those in the lower glandular area). The articles described significant differences between the two conditions, including prevalence, risk factors and response to treatment.

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An example of a cherry ulcer

Squamous gastric ulceration

The upper region of the stomach is minimally protected from the corrosive effects of stomach acids. As such, squamous gastric ulceration (i.e., ulcers in the upper region of the stomach) is believed to result from the increased exposure to acid and other contents of the stomach. Ulcers in the squamous region are also more common, affecting upwards of 70% of Thoroughbred racehorses, as demonstrated in multiple studies over the past 20 years.

Glandular gastric ulceration

By contrast, ulcers in the lower glandular region of the stomach are believed to arise from a different set of conditions. The lower portion of the stomach is composed of numerous cell types including those that secrete gastric acid. Because horses secrete stomach acid continuously, the mucosal lining in this lower portion of the stomach is in direct contact with stomach acid at all times.

The lower portion of the stomach is also better protected—the glandular mucosa is lined with a thick layer of mucus that offers natural protection from acid. It is believed that glandular ulceration results from the breakdown of this protective lining. Although no research has conclusively shown exactly how this defence mechanism breaks down in horses, research in humans shows NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) use and bacterial agents are contributors.

Based on this, equine squamous gastric ulceration (ESGUS) is a specific condition distinct from equine glandular gastric ulceration (EGGUS).

Beyond the stomach….

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Trainer Profile - Bill Mott

By Andrew Champagne

Some trainers start their careers with dreams of winning a garland of roses, or a gigantic trophy.

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott’s first big prizes, though, were substantially smaller.

“When I was 15, I got my first horse to train, which my father purchased for $320,” Mott recalled. “I put the horse in training. We ran her at a small fair meet in South Dakota, and she dead-heated for the win the first time I ever ran her.”

“The purse was $500, and we had to split 60% down the middle. I also won a blanket and a cooler. Because it was a dead heat, we flipped a coin.”

Mott still has the blanket and cooler from that race, and over the past 50 years, he’s added plenty of other pieces of hardware to his ever-growing trophy case. His career is one built on simple values instilled in him by some of the top horsemen in the Midwest during the 1970s, a group that included Keith Asmussen, Bob Irwin, and Hall of Fame conditioner Jack Van Berg.

“The major lesson I learned is, just show up and work,” Mott said. “The Asmussens were a hard-working family, and of course you can see what they’ve produced. Van Berg was the same. You worked hard, and you were a part of everything that went on. If you were interested, you were going to learn something.”

Riley Mott and Elate

After several years of honing his craft as an assistant, Mott went out on his own in 1978. When asked about obstacles he had to overcome as a new head trainer, he was quick to thank Van Berg and an assortment of owners that helped him get off on the right foot.

“Jack had given me a big opportunity, and I had owners that came to me,” Mott explained. “I didn’t go out and hustle any horses or try to recruit anyone. Everything just fell into place. I showed up for work and things kept happening. My phone was ringing, and people were wanting to send me horses.”

Less than 10 years later, a son of Nureyev found his way into Mott’s barn thanks to owner Allen Paulson, and he would help shine a light on his conditioner’s world-class talents. His name was Theatrical, and while he had won several stakes races in Europe, it wasn’t until he came to the United States that he achieved his greatest success.

Theatrical won seven of nine races in 1987, including that year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf at Hollywood Park. In total, his campaign included six Grade 1 victories, and he was crowned as that year’s Champion Grass Horse.

“Theatrical was my first champion, my first Breeders’ Cup winner,” Mott said. “He let everyone know that I could train a good horse, that I could train a Grade 1 winner, that I could train a champion. Theatrical being owned by Allen Paulson is the reason I got Cigar.”

Six and a half years after Theatrical walked off the racetrack for the final time, Cigar was transferred to Mott’s care. He had started his career in California for trainer Alex Hassinger, but was sent east at the recommendation of Dr. Steve Allday following double knee surgery.

“I remember getting on him when we took him to Belmont,” Mott recalled. “One morning, we went to the training track. I galloped him, and I remember going back to the barn and just raving about this horse. The adrenaline had kicked in, and I was spouting off. I said, ‘this horse is like a machine.’

“I’d been on a lot of good horses, and I know what most good horses feel like. There’s a difference. You can sometimes feel that special horse underneath you. He was one of those.”

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Trainer of the Quarter - Uriah St. Lewis

By Biller Heller

What could possibly be better for a trainer than winning his first Grade 1 stakes? Owning that horse and getting a free trip into the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Three days after Uriah St. Lewis’ five-year-old Discreet Lover captured the $750,000 Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup by a neck at odds of 45-1, St. Lewis, who said he bet $200 across the board on him, was still smiling. Who wouldn’t?

“I really thought I could win the race,” St. Lewis said. “He always gives me everything he’s got.”

Now Discreet Lover, whom St. Lewis bought for $10,000 as a two-year-old in training at Timonium in Maryland, will take him to the biggest race of the year for older horses at Churchill Downs. This is heady stuff for St. Lewis, a 60-year-old native of Trinidad who used to literally run to Aqueduct to bet on a couple of races after he was done for the day at Clinton High School in Brooklyn, where he ran on the track team. “You can actually see the racetrack from the roof of the high school,” he said.

St. Lewis was 15 when his family moved to Brooklyn in 1973.

Ten years earlier, his older sister had taken him to the track for the first time. “I remember like it was yesterday,” St. Lewis said. “In Trinidad, they have Boxing Day a day after Christmas. I was five. She took me to the races, and I saw this gray horse. I fell in love with the gray horse. I was hooked.”

Eventually, he would work for AmTote as a computer technician and wager on Thoroughbreds regularly. He wasn’t doing well. “I didn’t have a clue. My wife says, `You’re just throwing your money away. Why don’t you learn about the business?’”

So he did. He went to Oklahoma with his family, purchased an 88-acre ranch and began to learn about training. He was instructed to buy his own horses to train, and that’s what he did. “I bought two horses for $5,000,” St. Lewis said.

He became a trainer in 1988. His family’s real estate business in Brooklyn and his wife’s job as a registered nurse financed their equine business, which they operate as a family, including their 23-year-old twin son and daughter. “We’re all hands on,” St. Lewis said. “We do everything ourselves, because I know it’s done right if I do it myself. We work a lot in the afternoons and evenings. We’ve been having success with it. We aren’t going to change.”

But he did take a near-sabbatical, winning just 14 races from 2006 to 2013 as he shepherded his twins through high school. “I stopped for a while to make sure my kids finished high school and got to college,” St Lewis said. “The day they went to college, I started back in. I really started to get serious about racing.”

Now they have 28 horses based at Parx led by a certified superstar. Discreet Lover had made more than $940,000 before the Jockey Club Gold Cup, when he cashed in on a hot pace. “When I saw :22, :45 and 1:09, I said, `Unless they’re super horses, they’re going to stop,’” St. Lewis said. “He picked them up real quick. He ran his heart out.”   

Asked why he had bought Discreet Lover, St. Lewis said, “He was the first baby from his dam. I like buying first foals. You don’t know what you’re going to get. What the hell? Take a chance.”

That chance had him standing in the winner’s circle after the Jockey Club Gold Cup and heading for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. That’s a long way from Trinidad.

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The important role played by the CBA

By Cynthia McFarland

Thrilling. Challenging. Rewarding. Overwhelming.

Ask anyone whose livelihood is tied to the world of thoroughbred sales, and all of those adjectives apply, depending on the day. Or the moment.

Because the whole sales process can also be intimidating at times, it's reassuring to find there's actually an organization that represents all players - large and small.

Located in Lexington, Kentucky, the Consignors and Commercial Breeders Association (CBA) is comprised of a far-reaching group of people who make their living in the thoroughbred breeding industry. The organisation was created to provide a unified voice of representation for the breeders and consignors who provide the horses that drive the industry.

The CBA was launched in 2005 by a group of prominent consignors and breeders who believed the thoroughbred industry could improve the way commerce was handled. They sought to do that by creating a non-profit, dues-based organisation that would educate and promote unity.

"If you look at the wine industry in California and Europe, the automotive industry and other trades, more often than not, unity brings about better trade. There is a cohesion of ideas and a progressive sharing of trade interests," observes Joe Seitz, current CBA president.

"There was a void where the people producing the product didn't really have a voice. We wanted to have a seat at the table when issues came up regarding ethics and integrity, veterinary topics, sales company practices, regulatory entities, legislation, and even how sales companies design and lay out their sales and facilities," explains Seitz. "This is a moving, fluid market, so we're always needing to make things better for breeders, sellers and buyers."

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“The CBA is a great organisation to provide support for both sides (buyers and sellers).” LIZ CROW, Elite Sales/BSW Bloodstock

The CBA has filled that void in a most productive manner. The organisation's mission statement says it all: "The CBA works democratically on behalf of every consignor and commercial breeder, large and small, to provide representation and a constructive, unified voice related to sales issues, policies, and procedures. The association’s initiatives are designed to encourage a fair and expanding market place for all who breed, buy, or sell thoroughbreds."

That might sound ambitious, but the CBA has stepped up to the proverbial plate and become an educator, advocate, and representative for pretty much everyone who makes a living connected with the thoroughbred breeding business.

Although the name does not refer to them, buyers are an integral part of the CBA's mission. After all, when buyers have the information they need to make knowledgeable, confident, buying decisions, everyone involved - breeder, consignor, sales company and buyer - benefits.

Several important initiatives lie at the core of the CBA. These include:

• education

• ethics and integrity

• veterinary science issues

• working directly with sales companies

Education…

One highly successful project of the CBA is the "Plain and Simple" series of educational books, which clearly explain various aspects of the sales process and are available for free download from the CBA's website.

The booklets educate both buyers and sellers about key aspects of the public auction.

"They've been requested all over the world and have been reprinted in multiple languages, even Japanese," says Seitz.

"We've also held three symposiums in Lexington that were well received and covered a myriad of topics important to anyone buying or selling thoroughbreds," he says, adding that broadcasts are posted on the website.

Additional educational efforts include the CBA's quarterly online newsletter, as well as a monthly sales calendar email filled with sales deadlines and requirements designed to help breeders who are selling, as well as consignors.

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PA Day at the Races

By Jennifer Poorman

Pennsylvania’s Day at the Races 2018 was held Saturday, September 1, 2018. It proved to be a great day of PA-Bred racing, featuring $1 million in purses for the first year in the event’s history! Over 110 PA-Breds showcased their talents as they battled down the stretch in each of the card’s 11 races.

The Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association treated Pennsylvania breeders and their guests, owners and trainers to a buffet lunch, complete with a private third-floor view of the track. Raffle prizes included PHBA bags full of PA-Bred swag; a hand-painted cornhole game set, courtesy of J & M Custom Cornhole; and baskets loaded with horse-related items donated by the PTHA and Turning for Home. The winning stakes owners received a leather PHBA overnight bag and the winning stakes trainer received a cooler with the name of the stakes race embroidered on it for the winning PA-Bred, presented in the winner’s circle. All stakes participants received a Patagonia backpack filled with PHBA goodies. All breeders and their guests who attended the luncheon received a PHBA tote bag filled with a blanket, hat and coffee mug.

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Zipper's Hero winner of Dr. Theresa Garofalo Memorial Stakes.

Kicking off the stakes races of the day was the Dr. Teresa Garofalo Memorial Stakes, for fillies and mares three and up. Won by Castle Rock-bred Zipper’s Hero, the five-year-old mare by Partner’s Hero broke a step slower than the rest of the field but opened up a clear lead after the opening quarter. She led by two entering the far turn, and held off Risque’s Diamond to win by three lengths. It proved to be the most emotional race of the day. Dr. Teresa Garofalo was the treasurer of the PHBA board before she passed away in 2010 from acute myeloid leukemia. Her equine practice in West Chester, Smokey’s Run Farm, focused on equine reproduction, and the stakes in her name is a special one to the PHBA. Dr. Garofalo’s mother, Vera Vann-Wilson, and brother, Ted Vanderlaan were in attendance to present the winning trophy. “It’s such an honor to be here and I’m grateful to you all for continuing the race in her memory. She would love this,” Ted Vanderlaan expressed to PHBA staff in the winner’s circle. The emotion didn’t stop there. The win brought trainer Eddie Coletti Jr.’s earnings to over $1 million for the year so far for the first time in his career. It was also the first stakes win for the owner of Zipper’s Hero, Mario Mangini, and jockey Johan Rosado had his first stakes win for Ed Coletti, Jr. The biggest celebration of the day was in that winner’s circle! Congratulations to all on their achievements!

The Mrs. Penny Stakes was moved to the main track due to rainfall the night before. The change in surface didn’t deter Mr. and Mrs. Rodman Moorhead’s bred and owned Rose Tree as she continued her incredible comeback year with her second stakes win in a row. About six lengths behind on the backstretch, the four-year-old by Harlan’s Holiday gained from there, taking command at the top of the turn. June’s Lyphard Stakes winner Imply pushed ahead to catch the leader, but Rose Tree dug in and held on for the win. Rose Tree, under regular rider Andrew Wolfsont, and trained by Hall of Famer Jonathan Sheppard, paid $10 to win. “She held on gamely. She’s a very nice filly,” Jonathan Sheppard told PTHA’s Dani Gibson in a post-race interview.

The Banjo Picker Stakes was one of the most anticipated of the day, featuring last year’s winner The Man, bred by Glenn E. Brok LLC. Despite another wardrobe malfunction this year, he proved to be the best again, in more ways than one. Untacked in the walking ring and retacked in the paddock stall with minutes to spare, the cool-under-pressure six-year-old trained by John Servis let everyone know that he really is “The Man”. (Last year’s malfunction came after the race when he stood quietly in the winner’s circle to have a shoe pulled that came partway off during the race.) The Man, with regular rider Jorge Vargas Jr., broke well, picked up a short lead off the turn. Midtowncharlybrown, waited for room, and Pop Keenan made a late run but couldn’t outrun The Man. “We have won nine races out of ten. You cannot ask for a better horse,” said jockey Vargas post-race. This win pushed his record at Parx to 7 for 8.

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Grasshoppin, winner of the Roanoke Stakes coming across wire with jockey Edwin Rivera.

The first of two upsets came in the Roanoke Stakes. Michael Jester’s bred and owned Grasshoppin, going off at 12-1, had a perfect trip under jockey Edwin Rivera. Trained by Claudio Gonzalez, the seven-year-old son of Cat Thief sat a length back down the backstretch and kept position after fractions of 23.62 and 47.41. He caught up to pace setter Navy Commander around the final turn and opened up in the stretch. Keeping the lead under urging by Rivera, he finished in 1:44.42, paying $27. Grasshoppin finished third in the same race last year, and the connections were thrilled to come back this year and win. “To be able to come back this year… he’s not a young horse, and to run as hard as he does, it really shows you the great athlete he is,” Mike Jester said after the race.

The second of the upsets came in the last stakes race, the Power By Far, run on PA Day at the Races for the first time. Five furlongs on the main track after being moved off of the turf, She’s Chubs, going off at 12-1, finished a length and a quarter in front of Charlybrown’s Rose. Following about two and a half lengths behind leader Captain Sam, She’s Chubs closed the gap after the first quarter mile of 21.67. Under urging from rider Roberto Rosado, she surged ahead at the eighth pole and finished in :58:68. Bred by Rebecca Fawn Stepanoff & John Phillip Taylor Jr., owned by Aurora Vista LLC and trained by Scott Lake, the five-year-old daughter of Albert the Great racked up her first stakes win, paying $26.40. “So happy for the owners. We entered this horse 13 times, couldn’t get a race to go. Last minute we decided we were going to run off the turf and it was just tremendous,” trainer Scott Lake told PTHA’s Dani Gibson.

We extend a sincere thank you to all of our members and guests who attended, as well as the board members and special guests who presented the gifts in each race. We’re looking forward to a successful and productive 2019 breeding season and wish everyone the best of luck in the coming year. Visit www.pabred.com for a full gallery of the day’s photos.

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Understanding Concussion and Protection

By Lissa Oliver

As helmet technology moves forward, concussion remains an issue. So the question we must ask is whether this is despite improvements to helmets, or because of them. Could the lifestyle of a work rider contribute to the risk of sustaining concussion in a fall, or could a change in lifestyle protect against the risk? Can a poor state of mental health increase the risk of concussion, or is mental health affected by repeated concussion? These are just some of the questions being asked by scientists, doctors and engineers in ongoing research to protect riders.

A concussion is a brain injury that occurs when a blow to the head causes the brain to spin rapidly in the opposite direction from where the head was struck and is the most common type of “closed brain injury,” where the skull is not split. Those suffering from concussion may have symptoms such as headache, sensitivity to light, tinnitus, dizziness, sleepiness, confusion and behavioural changes; although many of these symptoms can also be caused by other injuries sustained in a fall and unrelated to brain injury. A specific diagnosis is vital to securing the necessary treatment and correct aid to recovery.

Our natural protection comes from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which cushions the brain within the skull and serves as a shock absorber for the central nervous system. CSF is often thought of as existing only between the brain and the skull, but the brain has a much more complicated structure. CSF also fills a system of cavities at the center of the brain, known as ventricles, as well as the space surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

The transfer of energy when a rider’s head hits the ground causes rapid acceleration and deceleration, which briefly deform the brain. Because of this deformation, the volume of the brain decreases while the volume of the rigid skull remains unchanged. CSF flows into the skull from the spinal cord and fills the empty spaces created by the brain deformation, flowing back with acceleration and forward with deceleration, to prevent the brain impacting against the skull.

Research on turf impact has shown that concussion can occur without any associated helmet damage. The soft surface of the turf distorts and collapses, instead of the helmet, and the energy from the impact is transferred to the head. Currently, equestrian helmets are designed and tested to protect the head from impact with hard surfaces, but concussion most commonly occurs after being thrown from a horse onto a soft surface such as turf.

To improve performance for concussive injury, helmet technology needs to be rethought. Several research projects have risen to this challenge, with help from the sporting communities most at risk. A key player in this research is the NFL and in 2016 pledged $100 million, to become one of the largest funders of concussion research in the U.S. Its "Play Smart, Play Safe" initiative aimed to spend $60 million to create a safer helmet as a means of reducing concussion, joining with global sports organizations such as the NHL and World Rugby.

Another major research group is HEADS, an Innovation Training Network funded under the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie Programme, structured around 13 individual research projects focusing on the three main topics of accident reconstruction and simulation, head model refinement and helmet certification improvements. This involves six partners, three industry and three academic across five countries who are already involved in working toward new helmet standards: Lead Partner, University College Dublin, Ireland; KU Leuven, Belgium; KTH-Stockholm, Sweden; AGV, Italy; Lazer Sport, Belgium; and Charles Owen, Britain.

Charles Owen is widely recognized as one of the leading manufacturers of riding helmets and the company was chosen in 2015 as one of five first-round winners of the $60 million Head Health Challenge presented by the NFL to develop new advanced materials for helmets.

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Roy Burek

Professor Roy Burek of Cardiff University is the managing director of Charles Owen, and one of the supervisors of the HEADS project. He explains, “The length of time the impact lasts in contact with the surface is becoming an important factor. For example, impact lasts five milliseconds on steel, but 25-30 milliseconds on softer surfaces. We are seeing concussions at much lower force levels which can only be explained by taking the time into account.

“There are a huge number of blood vessels in the brain, which are stronger and stiffer than neurons (brain cells), so when you are distorting the brain you are straining neurons through a matrix of blood vessels. In CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) studies, the damage is focused around the blood vessels due to the much, much higher local strains.

“The neurons have viscoelastic properties and if you stretch them over a short space of time they stiffen and resist stretching, but if you continue to pull, they start to stretch. It is the amount of stretch that causes the body to react. This is why we are particularly interested in the time interval of impact.”

Burek suggests that helmet development in the past, by not looking at the surface or impact time, may have failed in protecting the milder forms of brain injury that we are only starting to understand their importance. “Slowing the rate of energy transfer rate down is the normal thing we do, but at some point rather than protecting the brain we could actually be causing injury. Are we finding a ground and helmet combination that is making the impact last so long we’re causing injury?” he wonders.

“There is another area we need to consider in how the helmet works with the ground. Historically, helmet design has just focused on the exterior surface. However when the helmet hits the ground, it comes to an abrupt stop as there’s not much momentum due to its lightness. On the outside the helmet sticks to the ground, while the head slides within the helmet, which means we have two active surfaces. So now we have to design the inside of the helmet, which is very revolutionary.

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Spreading the joy of ownership

By Linda Dougherty

NEW Blood - examples of how farms, tracks and trainers are attracting new owners to the racing world

The lifeblood of Thoroughbred racing has always been its owners, and in recent years there have been many creative ways to attract newcomers to the sport, as well as retain those already in it.

Rather than sitting back and waiting for new clients to seek their services, trainers have taken a proactive role in bolstering their business, often in partnership with farms and racetracks, while industry organizations are increasingly focused on providing a plethora of information as well as assistance to prospective owners.

“From what I see, the number of owners in Thoroughbred racing is staying the same or decreasing,” said Duncan Taylor, president of Taylor Made Farm in Nicholasville, Ky. “And people that you want to stay in the business often don’t stay very long. They get frustrated with the status quo and there’s an ‘old guard’ in Kentucky that don’t want to change.”  

Taylor, who serves on Keeneland’s Board of Directors and the Keeneland Executive Board, is also a board member of Horse Country, Inc., an organization of horse farms, equine medical clinics and equine attractions, the aim of which is to develop fans and future owners of the sports through tourism. For a small fee, people can sign up for tours of Lexington-area farms on the web site visithorsecountry.com.

“Kentucky is in a prime spot,” said Taylor. “And where Lexington is situated is about a six-to-eight hour drive of three-quarters of the United States population. We have the Bourbon Trail here, and tours of distilleries are very popular. About 2-½ years ago myself, Headley Bell, Price Bell, Brutus Clay and others thought we should have a similar venture for the Thoroughbred industry. We started Horse Country, and we feel Kentucky can be a destination for travelers. Our first year we had about 1,800 people sign up for tours here at Taylor Made, while this year we’re looking at about 9,000, so it’s growing. We could have even bigger growth if marketed correctly.

“Of those 9,000 people, maybe 40 are interested in doing something, so we plant the seeds in people’s minds about ownership,” said Taylor.

Taylor Made has branched out into other areas to attract new owners, including a pinhooking venture with Bloodstock Investments, run by Katie Taylor-Marshall, and Medallion Racing, a racing partnership with the aim of offering an ideal experience for potential owners. Medallion, headed by racing manager Phillip Shelton, buys minority interest in graded stakes-caliber fillies, immediately bringing investors to the graded stakes level.

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Duncan Taylor, president Taylor Made Farm, with California Chrome

Taylor said there have been discussions about doing something, perhaps a syndicate, with progeny of Classic winner California Chrome, who stands at Taylor Made, but there isn’t anything on the table right now. The farm partnered with journalist Geoffrey Gray when he started the “People’s Horse” venture, which had 300 people sign up for $100 each and became “owners” of the Munnings mare Colorful Bride, in foal to the stallion.

The birth of the Chrome foal was broadcast live on a “horsecam” that streamed around-the-clock from Colorful Bride’s stall, with an estimated 1,000 people watching.

Taylor also feels that if the sport wants to get new fans and owners, it needs to treat horseplayers better.

“Years ago, there wasn’t as much competition for the betting dollar,” he said. “Now we’re competing against casinos, which really cater to customer service. Racing doesn’t focus on people who want to bet, and we haven’t been innovative on changing how you bet. Most people that bet the lottery want to put a little money down and have a life-changing experience. We ought to think like that. If we can get on the same web site or platform as sports betting, if someone sees they can bet baseball, football and horse racing, it could help us tremendously. We can’t keep doing business as usual.”

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Javier Jose Sierra - Invisible no more

By Ed Golden

Javier Jose Sierra has survived if not prospered for 45 years in a game he loves. Yet, he does not warrant a bio in any media guide.

He is racing’s Invisible Man.

The 66-year-old trainer has been sedulously plying his trade despite lack of recognition, ego be damned.

A native of El Paso, Sierra stands on a foundation adorned with pillars of self-confidence, gained in no small part from a proper upbringing in a family of 12 children, and tours early on with legendary trainers D. Wayne Lukas and J.J. Pletcher, father of Todd Pletcher.

Sierra grew up in Juarez where he played soccer as a kid. At 14 he aspired to be a jockey at Sunland Park in New Mexico, but his father, Cirilo, a native of Mexico, made education a priority. Javier aborted racing, went to school at the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Eventually, he earned an MBA while still working full time.

“I was doing well as an engineer,” Sierra said. “I worked my way up to vice president at an aerospace company.”

The appeal of the turf, however, proved an alluring temptress. Duly smitten, Sierra ultimately came to California in 1976.

“As soon as I graduated from college, I loved racing so much, I bought a couple horses,” he said. “I was doing both jobs at the same time, training horses and working in the aerospace industry.”

Most of Javier’s family were involved in racing. “All my brothers worked in racing in different positions, grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders, thanks to my father, who was a trainer.

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“While in college, I worked three summers for Lukas when he trained quarter horses in New Mexico, and with J.J. Pletcher one year at Sunland Park. I remember Todd being there. He was probably five years old.

“I learned a lot from both men, especially Pletcher. I was impressed with the quality of horses he brought in from back east. One was a son of Bold Ruler named First Edition. J.J.’s training regimen was amazing, completely unlike everyone else there at the time.

“Gerald Bloss was another big trainer from New York who was in New Mexico in the ‘60s. He was like Baffert is now. He had big owners, like DuPont, and used different techniques from those of the cowboys. We learned a lot from those guys.”

Bloss trained the great Gallant Man in the first part of his two-year-old season before he was transferred to New York with John Nerud.

Gallant Man, along with Bold Ruler and Round Table, in 1957 comprised arguably the greatest crop of three-year-olds ever. Gallant Man finished second by a nose to Iron Liege and Bill Hartack in that year’s Run for the Roses when Bill Shoemaker, aboard Gallant Man, misjudged the finish line and stood up in the stirrups in the shadow of the wire.

Gallant Man went on to win the Belmont Stakes and at age 34, became the longest living horse to win a Triple Crown race. He died on Sept. 7, 1988. Count Fleet was the previous record holder, having died on Nov. 30, 1987 at the age of 33 years, eight months.

“My older brother, Cirilo Jr., was an assistant trainer for Jake Casio who conditioned quarter horses in New Mexico for many years,” Sierra continued, “but when Jake died, I asked my brother to help me train at Santa Anita. Ten years ago, he retired and I took over training full time, giving up my job in aerospace.”

All these years later, he is a mainstay in the Golden State, making Santa Anita his headquarters save for tours at Del Mar when the seaside track is open. He lives 17 miles from Santa Anita in La Crescenta, with his wife, Dulce. He has never raced on the East Coast.

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