Sid Fernando - The thought-provoking

By Giles Anderson

I can’t quite believe that it’s just over six years since Sid Fernando first wrote his quarterly column for North American Trainer. The Triple Crown 2018 issue (number 49) was his last with us, and his regular thoughts can now be found in a bi-monthly column in the excellent Thoroughbred Daily News.

But, before we unveil our new columnist in our “Breeders’ Cup” / Fall issue later this year, I thought it would be interesting to read through the Sid’s old columns here and pick out two to revisit. With 25 to choose from, narrowing the list down has certainly proven to be a tough choice!

Sid’s first column was published in our Triple Crown 2012 issue (24) under the headline of “Scratching beneath the surface of the injury debate.” This was at the time when the New York Times and writer Joe Drape were at their most vociferous about racing, drug issues, and a correlation between breakdowns on track. In the column, The Jockey Club’s president and CEO James L. Gagliano was quoted (New York Times) as saying that “The Jockey Club continues to believe that horses should run only when they are free from the influence of medication and that there should be no place in this sport for those who repeatedly violate medication rules.”

I’m sure that the powers that be will continue to beat the same drum, and they are right to do so. But six years on, it would be fair to say that we’ve become far more aware of those who violate rules on multiple occasions, and perhaps the industry as a whole isn’t as tolerant as it was six years ago towards the minority of trainers who do flout the rules.

But in all this time, have we made up enough ground to educate the wider public on what is acceptable for the purpose of medicating animals as opposed to drugs with the intent of enhancing performance?

Sid’s article also included analysis from studies conducted by the now defunct Thoroughbred Times, which clearly showed how the risk to injury / “incident” rate was greatly reduced when horses ran on a synthetic surface compared to a conventional dirt surface.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen an updated variation of the same analysis, and indeed the trend is still there. It’s just a shame that synthetic surfaces seem to have fallen somewhat out of fashion.

Fast forward to the August -- October 2015 issue (37), where Sid came up with what, for me, was one of his most thought provoking columns. It first appeared in 2015, just after we had our first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. In his column, Sid compared the state of the wagering industry in Affirmed’s Triple Crown-winning year of 1978 against 2015, American Pharoah’s year.

The key points of the column are succinctly covered in the following four paragraphs:

If 1978 was a watershed year until American Pharoah in 2015, consider this about the 1970s: It was also a time when racetrack handle funded purses and the pari-mutuel tax was the major gambling revenue generator for state governments. In stark contrast, this isn't the case today.

Truth be told, under the nostalgic gold-plating of the 1970s, there were chinks in its armor that are gaping holes now. It was, for instance, the era when Lasix was legally introduced, and what a lightning rod for controversy that's become now. More significantly, though, it was the era of the Interstate Horse Racing Act (IHA) of 1978, a piece of federal legislation enacted to address on-track pari-mutuel declines -- big signs of future trouble -- as technology spawned the growing phenomenon of simulcast wagering and the growth of Advance Deposit Wagering (ADW) platforms across state lines.

Between 1978 and 2015, a Trojan horse -- the racino -- entered the game as state governments looked for other opportunities to boost coffers. And like a "pusher" in a 1970s playground, the racino hooked racing, already weakened through years of neglect and relegated to the fringe from the mainstream as a "niche" game, by giving it a taste of huge purses from gaming monies. Horsemen got sky high, but at what price? The deal was done in party with state governments in exchange for expanded gaming that competes with racing's core product, gambling. And that gaming money is now funding purses at racinos, and racing is as dependent on it as a junkie on dope.

Ultimately, the only way to organically grow the game is through an increase in pari-mutuel wagering, and one way to do that is to make betting on horses as attractive as other forms of gaming. At present, the takeout is too high to compete, and this is an issue that racing's leaders must address with the same zeal they address Lasix and other matters. There's still some $10 billion bet on racing per year, but this game doesn't have the legs to last another 37 years in its current state.

With the coming of age for sports betting in 2018, the sentiment of this piece perhaps rings more true today than it did three years ago.

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Sid Fernando - Army Mule earned O'Neill stripes

Todd Pletcher won three consecutive graded races at Aqueduct on April 7 – the Grade 1 Carter Handicap, the Grade 3 Bay Shore Stakes, and the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes. Vino Rosso won the latter race for owners Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable and got most of the ink at the time as a well-bred Derby prospect by Curlin, but the star of the day was a four-year-old ridgling by a regional young sire.

Army Mule, by Maryland-based Friesan Fire and owned by St. Elias Stable, had won his first two races – they were nine months apart – and was making only his third career start in the Carter, against some veteran sprinters including graded winner and favorite Awesome Slew, but he won the race by six-and-a-quarter lengths in the outstanding time of 1:20.94 for seven furlongs. One race later on the card, the talented Speightstown three-year-old colt National Flag won the Bay Shore at the same distance by four lengths in fine style, but his final time of 1:23.16 only served to underline the magnitude of Army Mule’s performance.

Army Mule doesn’t have a fashionable pedigree like those of National Flag and Vino Rosso, but he was nevertheless an expensive two-year-old at the 2016 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale in May. The sale topper was a $1 million Uncle Mo filly, but Army Mule, bred in Pennsylvania by Hope Hill Farm, was the next-highest price. He brought $825,000 after working a co-bullet :10 – a big lick for a second-crop son of a stallion who entered stud for $4,000 live foal and still stands for that price. Friesan Fire is at Country Life Farm and was an accomplished racehorse – he won the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby and was the favorite in the 2009 Kentucky Derby – and he is by A.P. Indy, whose son Malibu Moon also started off inexpensively at the same farm. Who knows? Maybe he will become another star like Malibu Moon. But the easy way in which Army Mule breezed at Fasig-Tipton – he apparently galloped out a quarter in :21 and change – and the way he handled himself at the barn made him a star on the sales grounds.

Jimmy “J.J.” Crupi’s Crupi’s New Castle Farm signed the ticket at the time for an “undisclosed buyer,” who ended up being Vinnie Viola – owner of St. Elias, a West Point graduate, and once tapped by Donald Trump to fill the position of Secretary of the Army. What’s not listed in the sales results or is readily known about the Army Mule purchase is the role played by bloodstock agent Dennis O’Neill, who has an uncanny eye for a two-year-old. If you go back and read some of the industry reportage of the sale, you’ll come across some clues – press notes of O’Neill accompanying Crupi and of O’Neill commenting after the purchase that the ridgling was headed to his brother Doug O’Neill’s barn in California. The fact is that it was O’Neill’s big recommendation of the future Grade 1 winner that prompted Viola to take the big swing that day in May.

After the purchase, Army Mule was indeed sent to Doug O’Neill in California, where he was in training for 30 to 60 days until he came up with a “minor issue,” Dennis O’Neill said. “We liked the horse so much that I told Vinnie he needs about 30 to 60 days off, and Vinnie said, ‘Do what you have to do.’ We didn’t want to take any chances with him, but it was a minor issue and I don’t even remember what it was. Maybe a shin.”

O’Neill had first met Viola at the Derby – “I think it was Nyquist’s” in 2016, he said – and they’d spoken after that, but when he ran into him by chance at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sale, Viola asked him to pick out a horse for him to buy. “There’s only one horse I like,” O’Neill had said, and that was Army Mule. O’Neill had recommended the ridgling to several of his clients before speaking to Viola, but none of them had wanted a son of Friesan Fire for the money O’Neill thought he’d bring. Viola, however, was interested and undeterred. “Jimmy went over and saw him and liked him, too, and Vinnie decided to take the big swing. I thought he’d bring $300,000 or $400,000, but Vinnie and Jimmy went until the end.”

O’Neill has an outstanding record at two-year-old-in-training sales with horses purchased for $400,000 or less, and it’s the reason why Viola had faith in his judgement. O’Neill had signed tickets in the past for Derby winners Nyquist ($400,000 Fasig-Tipton Select) and I’ll Have Another ($35,000 OBS), as well as for such Grade 1 or Grade 2 winners as Gomo ($75,000 OBS), Land Over Sea ($130,000 OBS), Mopotism ($300,000 Fasig-Tipton Select), Bond Holder ($125,000 OBS), Goldencents ($62,000 OBS), Notional ($235,000 Barretts), Stevie Wonderboy ($100,000 Fasig-Tipton Select), etc.

O’Neill said that about two weeks after Army Mule was given rest in California, Viola called and told him he didn’t have anything else out west, had invested a lot of money in the two-year-old, couldn’t keep an eye on him out there, and would be more comfortable with Army Mule recuperating at Crupi’s place. O’Neill said he completely understood, and the horse was shipped to Florida, where Viola uses Crupi for his young horses and Pletcher as his primary trainer. “That’s how Todd got the horse,” O’Neill said.

“We were cheering for him from Santa Anita when he won the Carter,” O’Neill said. “We’re happy for Vinnie, but it’s bittersweet he’s not in the barn.”

That’s how it goes sometimes.


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Sid Fernando - The Grass is Greener Stateside

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Sid Fernando - What have you done for me lately?

Juddmonte Farms’ Arrogate, the champion three-year-old colt of 2016, has won seven of 11 starts and earned $17,302,600 – a record for a North American-trained racehorse – he entered the Breeders’ Cup Classic, but following two consecutive losses, in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap on July 22 and the Grade 1 Pacific Classic on August 19, he did not go off as the favorite in the race.

It wasn’t that long ago, following emphatic wins in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes in January and the Grade 1 Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airlines in March, that he was being heralded in the media as one of the all-time greats. But in a classic case of “What have you done for me lately?”, the big grey son of Unbridled’s Song’s stock has plummeted. His workouts leading up to the Classic had been put under the microscope by all types of “experts” on social media, and their consensus view is that Arrogate didn’t train as well as he did last year before he defeated California Chrome in a thriller of a Classic.

Some of these same folks, however, had said the same thing about Arrogate before the Pegasus – there’d been an issue with his right hind foot that required a three-quarter shoe – but Arrogate won that race in brilliant style.

Arrogate’s losses this year have all been at Del Mar, the site of the Breeders’ Cup, and the track’s surface has also been mentioned as a culprit. He’d run at Del Mar last year in an allowance race in early August that he’d won by “only” a length and a quarter, but in his next start, the Grade 1 Travers at Saratoga, he’d walloped a field by 13-and-a-half lengths at 11.70-1 in track-record time...

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Sid Fernando - Training for Classic

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Sid Fernando - the rise and fall and rise again of US bloodstock

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This article appeared in - North American Trainer Issue 41

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The Sid Fernando Column - highlighting why Uncle Mo is proving to be a hot young sire

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Sid Fernando - Curlin leads resurgence in bloodstock industry

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Sid Fernando - Out with the old and in with the new

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Sid Fernando - The Lasix anomaly

Sid Fernando talks about how Wesley Ward's successful raids on the elite European race meetings goes in some way to dispel the myth that Lasix is a performance enhancer. Time after time Ward sends out winners in Europe at meetings such as Royal Ascot but with Lasix being a banned substance it shows that maybe there is too much faith put into the drug in America.

 

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Sid Fernando - Dishing out the dirt

Read Sid Fernando's excellent column on how race tracks across North America are shedding the All Weather tracks and returning to Dirt surfaces. But just why would they want to do this?

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Sid Fernando - Why are intact males such a rare breed?

His like is endangered nowadays. I was jolted by thoughts of this while watching the HRTV broadcast of the Eclipse Award Ceremony from Gulfstream Park on January 18. Wise Dan was the equine star of the evening, a "people's horse" in the same way as Curlin. He, too, is a two-time Horse of the Year and top older horse, plus top turf horse. But Wise Dan is a gelding, and he's by the unheralded Wiseman's Ferry. And he's a turf miler - the weakest division of North American racing.

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Sid Fernando - Focus on the top tier ignores the bigger picture.

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Sid Fernando  (North American Trainer - issue 31 - February 2014)

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Sid Fernando - Let's hear it for the regular Joes

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THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - NORTH AMERICAN TRAINER - ISSUE 29

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Sid Fernando - the whipping boy of international racing - fights back

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THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - NORTH AMERICAN TRAINER - ISSUE 28

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Taking horseracing fatalities and the treatment of horses seriously

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THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - NORTH AMERICAN TRAINER - ISSUE 27

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Sid Fernando - no lie, no link (yet) between lasix and breakdowns

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North American Trainer (Issue 26 - Fall 2012)

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Sid Fernando - The Lasix Anomaly

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The 50 shades of gray in the EIPH and Salix debate

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THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN - NORTH AMERICAN TRAINER - ISSUE 25

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Sid Fernando - Scratching beneath the surface of the injury debate

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Sid Fernando - (Issue 24 - Triple Crown 2012)

 

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