#Soundbites - How closely do you follow your veterinarian’s advice if it conflicts with your gut feeling about your horse?

Article by Bill Heller

Bruce Brown

         That’s a good question. I usually have a good enough relationship with my vets. I really trust their judgment. It seems like nowadays there aren’t many vets who would do something you don’t want, something that you really don’t need, whatever it takes to get a horse in a race. That’s not in our game anymore. I have in my head what I think, but usually it matches well with my vets. 

Kelly Breen

I probably use a vet’s recommendation, maybe 85 percent of the time. I have gone against their recommendation because of my gut. Usually, my gut is the right answer. For sure, there are times when my gut is wrong. But sometimes the scientific answer is not always correct. Generally, the advice given from the vet is the textbook version, and not everything is textbook in horse racing.

Charlie Baker

Well, if it conflicts with my gut feeling, percentage wise, I would say 65 percent I’d follow the vet. It all depends on the situation. Is it one I’ve dealt with in the past? If so, I would use my experience, especially if it’s a younger vet, one fresh out of school. If I’m totally confident in my vet, I listen to him.

Carla Gaines

That’s a good question. You always want to do what’s best for the horse. You kind of have to go along with the veterinarian. These days, with just being way more cautious—not that it was irrelevant before—if you have a gut feeling that a horse is fine, you still do diagnostics to make sure your horse is fine.

Ian Wilkes

Ian Wilkes

You talk to him. Common sense prevails.

Burl McBride

  I stick with my gut feeling, but I do trust my vets because I can’t see an X-ray. I can’t see an ultrasound. I’m pretty opinionated. These horses will talk to you if you listen. 

Leonard Powell

A lot of times, I would use the vet for a sounding board. I’d really consider his opinion. Ninety-ninety percent of the time we come to a consensus.

Tom Proctor

I don’t ask a veterinarian for advice. I have a license. They have a license.

Tim, Mark and Linda Cohen - Red Baron’s Barn and Rancho Temescal

Article by Bill Heller

Just one month after the Cohen family lost 89-year-old patriarch Jed Cohen, Dicey Mo Chara brought them back to the winner’s circle at Santa Anita, capturing the Gr. 2 San Gabriel Stakes. It was a familiar scene. Red Baron’s Barn and Rancho Temescal were the leading owners of the 18-day Santa Anita Autumn Meet with five victories. They were also the leading owners of the 2022 Santa Anita fall and winter meets, and dead-heated for first at the 2022 Del Mar meet with Nicholas b. Alexander.

California truly lost an impactful force when Jed passed.

“The San Gabriel was our first stakes win since he died,” Jed’s son Tim said. “It was really emotional—more than I thought it would be. You miss a good business partner. When he’s your father, it’s deeper. I know Jed would be happy for everyone.”

Tim’s grandfather, Harry, would have been happy, too. Harry, who lived in Long Beach, New York, would take Jed to the track. “He was just a fun-loving guy,” Tim Cohen said. “I was maybe 15 before he passed.”

Tim said his grandfather began betting at the track with three friends, who each chipped in fifty cents to make a $2 bet. “He’d go along with other people,” Tim said.

Tim’s father graduated from NYU with a law degree, but decided he didn’t want to be a lawyer. He had uncles living in California, and ventured there, becoming a successful investment banker. “He worked his way up,” Tim said. “He had a different perspective on things. He was a salmon. If everyone goes downstream, he was going up. That’s how he made a difference in investments.”

Jed was an advisor to Walter Heller, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors from 1961–64 who was an influential advisor to President John F. Kennedy.

Jed did well enough in business to follow through on his passion for horses and pass it forward to his sons, Tim and Mark, and his daughter Linda. In 1999, they purchased the historic, beautiful and multi-faceted 6,000-acre farm Rancho Temescal in eastern Ventura County—45 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Temescal is one of the oldest neighborhoods in North Oakland. The farm was founded on September 13, 1871.

The Cohens use it not only for Thoroughbreds, but also as a vibrant fruit farm, with 100 acres of avocado trees producing a million pounds of fruit a year— 100 acres of citrus trees yielding a half-million pounds of lemons and countless rows of blackberry vines. Another part of the farm is used for movie, TV and commercial locations, which has been used in the 2022 movie Babylon starring Brad Pitt, the TV series Westworld and CSI, and boasts a guest book that Tom Cruise once signed. As if that wasn’t enough, the family owns and operates a pizza restaurant in nearby Piru. “It keeps me busy,” Tim laughed. “Every now and then, I get to go to the races.”

Tim, who is 56, switched careers nearly 25 years ago. “I used to manage luxury hotels and restaurants. Now I manage luxury horse facilities,” he told Dan Ross in his March 4, 2019 story in the Thoroughbred Daily News. “What I knew about water and dirt was don’t bring the dirt in the house, and water went well with Scotch.”

Tim elaborated: “I went to school for business, Northern Arizona, that had a hotel and restaurant program. I did that for 15 years. I worked for Hilton and the Kimpton Group.”

How happy is he now that he changed careers? “I’m extremely glad we did it,” he said.” I always enjoy new tasks, new adventures. This was an opportunity to do something significant. It worked out well.”

And he got to see Tom Cruise, who was filming a movie, and Brad Pitt. “Our staff is always with them,” Tim said. “It’s a little disruptive. I always say it’s like your mother-in-law. You’re glad they came, but you’re happier when they leave. It can be a lot of work.”

Hard work never deterred his dad. “He ran hard,” Tim said. “He enjoyed his life. He was passionate. He was loyal.”

Then he got tired after battling diseases in his final years. “Most people would have given up years earlier,” Tim said. “His will kept him going longer than most. He was a fighter. He eventually wore out.”  

Riley Cofer was Jed’s first trainer. “He was his trainer for a long time,” Tim said. “Then Darrel Vienna. When Darrell retired (in June, 2016), I basically stepped in and took over the management and acquisition for horses.”

When Jed passed on November 27, Vienna shared his thoughts with Thoroughbred Daily News: “He was the perfect owner. If a horse needed rest, he absolutely was, `Let’s do the best by the horse.’ After I retired from training, we kept in close contact. We spoke regularly about life and politics. I’ll miss having access to his wisdom and his kindness. He was an exceptional listener. He was always paying attention. He was just a unique, extraordinary person. He’s a big loss to horse racing but an even bigger loss to anyone who knew him.”

Dicey Mo Chara’s trainer Leonard Powell was touched by Jed, too: “Jed Cohen was a patriarch. Jed always gave you confidence you were doing the right thing. He was always pushing you to do better. His trust was very satisfying. We really felt like we were working as a team. Tim and his family are continuing what Jed was doing. They love the game, and, hopefully, we have continued success.”

The Cohens use five trainers to handle their 65 horses: Powell, Jeff Mullens, Mark Glatt, Phil D’Amato and Michael McCarthy.

Tim will carry on his father’s legacy. “I love it,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful bonding experience. We’ll carry on in some form.”

The bar has been set really high. Their top horses include newly turned three-year-old Packs a Wahlop, who won the Gr. 3 Del Mar Juvenile Turf and the Gr. 3 Zuma Beach Stakes by 2 ¾ lengths on October 9. Previously, they have campaigned Gr. 1 winners Janet, River Boyne and two-time Gr. 1 winner Dr. Schivel.

Tim was asked what his grandfather might think of all their success and their spectacular Rancho Temecula: “I think he would shake his head and wouldn’t believe it.”    

The Long Game - what can be done to bolster the “staying” division?

Words - Annie Lambert

North American distance races appear to have an ever-shrinking number of entries. The pool of horses willing and able to run a route of ground has slowly contracted. Finding a reason as to why, however, does not have a singular answer.

The Jockey Club statistics expose a downward trend in foals produced in the United States. The mid-1980s saw the high point with the 1985 foal crop exceeding 50,000 registered foals. But since that peak, the numbers have slipped. The economic downturn in 2008 caused many breeders to sell off or curtail breeding operations, which led to the number of foals falling from around 32,000 in 2008 to just over 17,000 in 2021.

That stunning 45% decline of potential runners could explain smaller fields, but not necessarily a loss of distance runners. Or could it?

Fewer horses to enter races with certain conditions revolves into a vicious circle; when racing secretaries cannot fill longer races, for example, they will inevitably offer fewer of them. 

It does not come across as though lagging purses are the biggest culprits, but it may be that breeders are looking toward pedigrees that produce runners with more speed than endurance. Do sprinters provide a faster return? Economics usually proves a strong motivator, especially in such a competitive industry as Thoroughbred horse racing.

Fewer breeders breeding fewer Thoroughbreds in general, plus more commercial breeders seeking speed that sells, could be a major factor.

One thing for certain is that no one can offer a definitive answer as to why it is difficult to fill races at classic distances. Solutions to the problem are also elusive. Those within the Thoroughbred racing industry will only offer personal hypotheses. 

Nature, Nurture & Breeding

The modern Thoroughbred’s ancestry traces back to foundation sires imported to Europe around the turn of the 17th century. The Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerly Turk, from the Mediterranean Middle East, were crossed on native English equines. The result was a horse that could carry weight while sustaining speed over extended distances.

The foundation Thoroughbred originated in Great Britain with its genetic origin being Arabian, which might suggest endurance. Generations of selective breeding have sped up the North American Thoroughbred. Study condition books from any racecourse, and you’ll find only a small percentage of distance races— those being one mile and one eighth or further.

When it comes to breeding, experts often disagree on the heritability factor of genes—heritability being a measurement of how completely a trait is passed down through the genes.

E. Gus Cothran, PhD, was formerly a research professor with the University of Kentucky’s Department of Veterinary Science. The emeritus professor is currently an advisor and consultant to the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences (VIBS) at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The retired professor believes racing performance has a heritability of 30–35%. The remaining 65–70% he attributes to non-inherited factors, the likes of training, nutrition and health care.

“Very few people understand heritability,” Cothran said. “It’s the trait itself that has the heritability of roughly a third. That means that about 30% of what causes the trait is genetic, and the rest of it is environmental. It has to do with training and upbringing; about a third is nature and two-thirds nurture.”

Having a low genetic contribution to the trait means it will be more difficult to select for thorough breeding, according to Cothran. A complicated trait is probably made up of multiple genes having to interact. For example, there are multiple genes that would contribute to speed.

“Typical animal improvement breeding practices, which means you pick the animals that have the traits you desire to the highest degree you can find, breed them together and hope they will produce individuals that are equal or better than the parents,” Cothran explained. “And you’d have to do that probably several generations to make a large improvement, if it is even possible.”

“There may be one gene that has a maximum contribution to speed, one form of it, [for example] a particular gene with muscle characteristics,” the professor added. “But by itself, it is only going to make up a little bit of the total package of the speed.”

Andy Havens, founder of Havens Bloodstock Agency, Inc. in California, sees the trend toward speed; but he believes his ideas as to why things have changed are merely guesses as there are no statistics to back up the ideas.

 “I think the phenomenon is real,” Havens said of vanishing distance horses. “For a number of years and for a number of reasons the trend has turned more toward speed-oriented racing on the dirt, going away from the European type distance horses. Most of the races, other than Del Mar, that were longer races have been shortened.”                

A Turn of Foot

California-based, multiple-graded stakes-winning trainer Leonard Powell believes a lot of breeders are looking toward marketing their equine product. Since speed sells, there may be fewer classic-distance horses being produced. Powell hails from a racing family in France, riding races and training there prior to relocating to the United States. He has had plenty of experience with route horses.

“We run all day in Europe and have one pace, and it isn’t that way here,” Powell pointed out. “We bring middle-distance horses here; you want a horse that has a turn of foot. He can go a mile, mile and one eighth. With tactical speed, you can be in a good spot.”

Powell noted that the racing office has trouble filling races going one mile and one eighth or further. Those races might draw five or six horses on a good draw, but if they drop the race back to one mile and one sixteenth, it will have a full field.

Jeff Mullins is based at Santa Anita and recently set up an annex stable at Gulfstream Park. He was hoping the condition book in Florida would provide more opportunities, and larger purses, for his distance runners; that turned out not to be the case. 

“A lot of those [classic distance] horses have gone elsewhere, where there is more money,” Mullins opined. “If you go to Churchill or Keeneland or Oaklawn, those purses are higher than California.”

Mullins, with career earnings approaching $55 million, has won graded stakes with imported horses, the likes of Itsinthepost (FR), Battle of Hastings (GB) and River Boyne (IRE). He and his customers choose European horses for their surface preferences as much as their running distances.

“We purchase some sprinters and some distance horses—it just depends on the horse,” he said. “The main thing that we look for over there are horses that like firm ground.”

According to Mullins, there are not enough distance horses in California to fill those races, but “there are not enough horses in California period.”

It’s Not Just Canada 

Scott Lane, racing secretary at Woodbine in Ontario, Canada, was quick to point out that a lack of entries in stayer races was not solely a Canadian problem.

“It’s a North American issue,” he lamented, “not just a Woodbine issue.”

Lane did not have an “expert reason” why the problem exists, but thought there were many more stallions with shorter-distance pedigrees.

“You see a lot of middle-distance, milers now that are the vast percentage of the sires available in North America,” he pointed out. “You just don’t see many of those classic-distance horses that are going to stud, horses that race at a mile and a half and a mile and three quarters. You don’t see many of those turned into studs. That could be a reason why.”

Havens, a leader in bloodstock sales in California for over 30 years, would agree with Lane’s opinion on North American stallions. Very few stallions that are primarily distance horses seem popular with breeders.

“All I can really say is, it’s a function of selecting the stallions that we like,” Havens offered. “I think the choices of stallions that we go to stud with are speed oriented horses that like to run early. We like those really hot, brilliant horses that are precocious enough as two-year-olds to get enough experience to run in the classics [at three].”

Lane, who has written Woodbine’s condition book since 2019, leaned away from blaming North American purse structures. He cited Gulfstream’s $3 Million Pegasus World Cup (Gr. 1), as a case in point. In the field of nine, only first placed Life Is Good (Into Mischief) and runner up Knicks Go (Paynter) had won Gr. 1 stakes. The balance of the field, although most were graded stakes placed, had not.

“We have two Gr. 1’s [at Woodbine] going a mile and a half on the turf that we’ve seen very difficult to fill over the last couple of years, unless we get some European interest,” Lane cited. “With the [pandemic] travel restrictions we had to modify those races a little bit. 

“For the Valedictory Stakes (Gr. 3) we cut back from a mile and three quarters to a mile and a half. The Singspiel Stakes (Gr. 3) used to be at a mile and a half and is now a mile and three eighths. We’ve modified our distances to try and suit some of the handicap horses that [normally] go a route of ground at a mile and a sixteenth to a mile and a quarter to try and help fill longer races.”

Those changes, and other distance race changes around North America, may prove a lack of quantity and quality of horses for the stayer divisions everywhere. Many more horses are bred to sprint or run middle distances, according to Lane.

“We never have problems filling Woodbine races from five furlongs up to seven furlongs,” he noted. “You start getting to a mile and a sixteenth, we still have a lot of interest for those races. A mile and a quarter and over, we don’t have as many of those horses with the classic pedigree, so to say, anymore. We definitely see the farther you go, the less and less pool of horses you have to pick from. It’s just the way it is now.”

Texas Hold ‘Em

Texas Thoroughbred racing has had its ups and downs for decades but is ascending in recent years with popular racetracks, high-value incentive programs and prospering horse auctions. Ken Carson is the general manager of Valor Farm in Pilot Point, Texas, which was founded by Dorothy and Clarence Scharbauer who campaigned 1987 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Alysheba (Alydar). Their son, Doug Scharbauer, now owns the farm.

Carson, who has been on the Texas Thoroughbred Association board for nearly 30 years, agrees breeding trends are at least partially responsible for decreasing distance horse numbers. He does, however, have a lot of clients that breed to race.

Although Carson is a Texas native, he spent a decade or more in Kentucky working many facets of the racing industry, including five years as pedigree consultant at Three Chimneys Farm in Versailles. Carson believes commercial breeders have contributed in part to the vanishing distance horse pool.

“The market drives the bus,” Carson voiced. “The speedier horses sell better; they look better at the sales, and you don’t wait as long on them. I’m not saying it’s right, but I think that’s driving a lot of it. The two-year-old in training sales—they work an eighth real fast, and they bring the big dough.”

 Conformation traits of speedier pedigrees tend to portray a more precocious individual. They appear balanced as though they are mature and grown into their frame, even as a two-year-old. Distance horses are often rangier, long-bodied with leaner muscle leaving their overall look as not being finished, which they are not. It will usually take that immature looking distance-bred horse longer to mature physically as well. Thus, the economics of a quick return are diminished.

Carson has no doubt there are still North American mare owners breeding to increase those classic distance horses—even in Texas. After many years of deflated numbers, The Jockey Club report of the number of mares bred shows Texas annual foal numbers are rising.

Most acknowledge the trend toward fewer stayers is real. It seems to have crept into the industry slowly, but does anyone truly care? It would not seem so.

“I don’t think it is a planned influence,” Havens opined of the shorter-faster phenomenon. “I don’t know if anybody really thinks it’s a problem.”

Hybrid Stayers

With a shortage of distance horses in North America—those running one mile and one eighth or further—steeplechase horses occasionally take to the flat track to help alleviate the problem.

Scott Lane, racing secretary at Woodbine in Ontario, Canada, said the hybrids are “few and far between now,” but they can help to fill a race now and again.

“[Trainer] Jonathan Sheppard comes to mind as one that would have some of those hybrid horses,” Lane pointed out. “They’d see a flat race at Delaware, then go to Saratoga and run over the hurdles. You do see some horses that race here through the years that transition to the hurdles afterwards. Some of the United States interest will buy these horses that are no longer competing at Woodbine and transition them into the U.S. hurdle races during the summer months.

“They have extensive hunt meet racing from July through October with races in Virginia and Maryland; and I think probably South Carolina and Pennsylvania. The top ones run in Saratoga in the summer.”

Leonard Powell - the French trainer in California

By Ed Golden

“When I learn that a nation can live without bread, then I will believe that the French people can live without glory.”—Charles de Gaulle

Leonard Powell can live without neither, although with a workload that consumes the majority of his very existence, he still finds time for required sustenance and moments of exultation when they present themselves.

The 42-year-old Frenchman is a world-class horseman, weaned on Thoroughbreds from early youth, starting on his family’s 200-acre stud farm in Normandy followed by stops around the globe in Australia, England, Singapore and the United States, and calling California home since 2004.

When attempting to buttonhole him in person, however, an APB might come in handy. At Santa Anita, his base of operations, a sighting at the track’s popular early morning watering hole, Clockers’ Corner, is rarer than a Triple Crown sweep.

Leonard Powell is either sedulously conducting business at his barn, or high upon horseback supervising jogs, gallops and breezes on the track.

A former amateur jockey in France, where he rode in steeplechase races as well as on the flat, landing in the winner’s circle on occasion, his work schedule is Trumpian sans the tweets.

“I wake up at 3:45 and leave the house just after four,” Powell said explaining a typical day—his accent as thick as one of France’s nearly 300 varieties of cheese. “I get to the barn just after 4:30, check the horses and provide any medications as needed.

“The first set of horses goes out at 5 o’clock, so from 5 o’clock until 10 o’clock I’m on horseback, either on a Thoroughbred or a pony. At 10 we school horses if necessary, review their condition with a veterinarian or myself, check on the horses that worked the day before or that morning.

“That takes us to 11:30 or 12. Usually from 12 to about two I go over paperwork that needs to be done in the office. In the afternoon, we go to the races when we have horses running, or back to the barn feeding, walking or grazing them until 4:30.”

Powell’s day begins well before he arrives at the barn. He commutes from his West Hollywood home to the Arcadia track, a stretch of 25 miles.

“I was living in West Hollywood when I was stabled at Hollywood Park (which closed in December of 2013),” Powell said. “I have three daughters (Louise, 14, Blanche, 13 and Jeanne, 9) and they were going to a bilingual school that taught French and English.

“When I moved my barn to Santa Anita, the kids were doing very well, so I decided to make the commute instead of them. I didn’t want them to change schools.

“Actually, my commute in the morning is easy, because at 4 o’clock, there’s not much traffic. I can make it in 25 minutes going with the traffic. In the evenings, when I’m against the traffic, it can take 45 minutes.”

Married to Mathilde—his sweetheart from their days at Caen University—all their children enjoy racing, particularly Jeanne who rides and spends time with her father at the track on weekends.

Of the 25 head Powell has in training, by far the most celebrated is an 11-year-old gelding named Soi Phet. The tassel-haired trainer was not suffering from insipience when he made the claim for $16,000 at Hollywood Park on May 23, 2013.

Since then, the California-bred son of Tizbud has achieved success of mythic proportions, and after a recent freshening, is expected to resume his racing career.

“I’m going to take my time with him,” Powell said, “but I would expect him to return to the races at some point.”

When Soi Phet posted a 47-1 upset winning Santa Anita’s $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes by a head at age 10 in 2018, he was believed to be the oldest horse ever to win an added money event at the storied track, which opened on Christmas Day, 1934.

The Crystal Water was his 58th career start.

“At the time I claimed him, he had all his conditions,” Powell explained. “He had only won a maiden 20, he was a non-winner of two (races), he was a Cal-bred; it was the spring of 2013, and the Del Mar meet was coming up with very generous purses.

“When I took him, it was because he had conditions left, and I felt I could move him up.”

Wow and double wow! Eight stakes wins and a million dollars in earnings later, Powell now looks like the Nostradamus of trainers.

When he has occasion to give a leg up and pre-race instructions to jockeys Brice Blanc, Julien Couton, Florent Geroux, Julien Leparoux and Flavien Prat, fellow Frenchmen all, the bilingual Powell does what comes naturally.

“If the owner of the horse is there,” Powell said, “I speak English so that he can understand. But if it’s only me and the rider, we speak French.”

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