Changing Paths: How the Road to the Kentucky Derby Has Changed the Path to the Triple Crown

Article by Jennifer Kelly

The Triple Crown has evolved into more than three historic stakes races; indeed, it dominates the first half of the racing calendar, driving the complexion of the three-year-old division and influencing both owners’ and trainers’ goals for their horses. The first of the three, the Kentucky Derby, has become the stuff of dreams, inspiring many owners of a young Thoroughbred to pursue their own piece of history. Preparing a horse for the first Saturday in May has taken on a new dimension with the addition of the Road to the Kentucky Derby points system. 

How much has this new priority affected trainers’ plans for their Triple Crown hopefuls? While trainers remained focused on preparing their horses to peak in late spring, how they get there has changed in the decades between the first eleven Triple Crowns and the 21st century’s two winners, a change that is both a result of and an influence on the approach to the Derby prep season. 

Path to the Crown

Preparing for a Triple Crown campaign over the last century has been as individual a pursuit as the horses themselves with the approach falling into a pattern in the later decades. Sir Barton went into the 1919 Kentucky Derby a maiden with no starts before his trip to Churchill Downs, a strategic move on trainer H.G. Bedwell’s part: the Derby had maiden allowance conditions at the time, which meant that the son of Star Shoot went to the starting line carrying twelve pounds less than favorites Eternal and Billy Kelly. 

Gallant Fox had only the Wood Memorial ahead of the Preakness Stakes, which came first in 1930. Counting that classic, the Fox had two races prior to his turn at Churchill Downs. His son Omaha was similarly tested in 1935; he opened his season with a win in a one-mile, 70-yard allowance before finishing third in the Wood Memorial at the same distance. War Admiral started 1937 with wins in a six-furlong allowance and then the 1 1/16-mile Chesapeake Stakes before heading to Louisville. 

The four Triple Crown winners of the 1940s were war horses not just because of the international context of that decade, but also because of their preparations for the triad of races. Whirlaway raced seven times at distances from 5½-furlong sprints to 1⅛-mile tests between early February and the first Saturday in May and all were in-the-money finishes as Ben Jones struggled to find a solution for the colt’s tendency to bear out on the far turn. Count Fleet echoed Omaha with his two starts in an allowance and the Wood Memorial, winning both. Assault started his path to Derby with three starts, a six-furlong sprint, the 1 1/16-mile Wood Memorial, and then the one-mile Derby Trial two days before the big race. Citation raced eight times in early 1948, finishing second only once, before his Kentucky Derby, starting with a six-furlong sprint in early February and stretching out to 1 1/8 miles twice. 

Secretariat’s path to Louisville went through a trio of races in New York, progressively lengthening the distance from seven furlongs in the Bay Shore to 1⅛ miles in the Wood Memorial. Seattle Slew had a similar preparation in 1977, stretching out from a sprint to nine furlongs, while Affirmed started four times, starting with a win in a 6½-furlong allowance, in California before coming west for his 1978 Triple Crown run. 

Keeneland Library Morgan Collection - War Admiral with C. Kurtsinger after winning Preakness Stakes 05.15.1937

Most of the first eleven winners prepared with races increasing in length as the first Saturday in May grew closer. While the number of races to get there varied by horse, that philosophy remained mostly unchanged, though now the need for points puts a heavier influence on the choice of prep races for potential Triple Crown horses. 

A New Approach 

Prior to 2013, the conditions for entry into the Kentucky Derby evolved from paying the entry fees to using criteria like graded stakes earnings to rank potential starters ahead of the first Saturday in May. The oversized 23-horse field in 1974 made it clear that the field size for the first Triple Crown classic needed to be capped. The following year, Churchill Downs limited the field to 20 horses with career earnings as the criteria for qualification. Contrast this with the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, which both have 14-horse limits. 

As 20-horse fields became more common in the 1980s and onward, Churchill Downs had to change their metric from career earnings to stakes earnings to graded stakes earnings. The points system evolved as a fairer solution to the problem of qualifying for the Derby starting gate. In 2024, the Road to the Kentucky Derby series offered 37 races with points ranging from 1 point for fourth place in an early prep to 100 points for the top tier qualifiers like the Santa Anita Derby, the Wood Memorial, and the Bluegrass Stakes. In addition to the traditional American prep races, Churchill Downs has added both European and Japanese Roads to the Kentucky Derby in an effort to make the race more global. 

Since the introduction of the points system in 2013, the number of races for North American horses has remained relatively the same, with the inaugural season counting 36 races and the 2024 edition with 37. To make the Derby more appealing internationally, Churchill Downs added the Japanese series in 2017 and the European in 2018. The series starts with 13 two-year-old races, ranging from one mile to 1 1/8 miles, and then picks up steam in mid-January with the Lecomte at Fair Grounds and ends with the Lexington at Keeneland in mid-April. The same-year series starts with one-mile races and expands to multiple 1 1/8-mile tests, with the Louisiana Derby clocking in as the longest at 1 3/16 miles. 

With that in mind, how has this shift from graded stakes earnings to points changed how a trainer approaches conditioning their charges for the five-week Triple Crown season? 

Now and Then

Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher is no stranger to the Triple Crown season. Since 2000, he has started 64 horses in the Kentucky Derby with two wins, Super Saver in 2010 and Always Dreaming in 2017, and four Belmont Stakes to his credit, including Rags to Riches, the last filly to win the historic stakes. 

Looking back at his first Derby winner, the path to Louisville with Super Saver “was sort of an interesting one because we really got behind schedule. After the Tampa Bay Derby, he got sick, which ended up pushing us back a week, and we ended up landing on the Arkansas Derby as his final prep, when generally we would have preferred to have four or five weeks from our final prep to the Derby itself. Seemed like the horse had the best month of his life during those three weeks leading up to the Derby.” Getting the WinStar colt enough graded stakes earnings to qualify for the first Triple Crown classic worked out with his placings in the Tampa Bay and Arkansas Derbies in addition to his win in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes the previous season. 

In 2017, though, the road to Louisville required collecting enough points to get into the gate. Always Dreaming started his three-year-old season with a win in a maiden special weight and then Pletcher and the colt’s partnership had to make a decision. “The real conversation that we had to have was whether or not we ran in the Fountain of Youth or if we ran in the allowance race the day of the Fountain of Youth. The horse was training exceptionally well, we were very confident that we were on the path to the Derby, and that we had a legitimate derby contender. But in order to make the decision to run in the allowance race, we had to have everyone on board to say that they were willing to roll the dice on one prep race.”

To earn his points, Always Dreaming then had to win the Florida Derby, his lone stakes before the Derby, where “if we didn't finish in the top two, or even if we finished second, it wasn't guaranteed that we would get in based on points,” Pletcher remembered. “Everyone was comfortable with that decision. Everyone wanted to bring him along that way. In this case, we decided to go with that plan and take a shot with one prep race.” The Bodemeister colt won his lone prep and earned 100 points, which guaranteed his place in the Derby starting gate. 

Nick Zito won his two Kentucky Derbies in the 1990s, when graded stakes earnings were the standard for qualification, which meant that juvenile stakes wins counted more than they do today. “Go for Gin won the Remsen as a two-year-old and then came back in the Fountain of Youth and in the Florida Derby, and then he was second in the Wood. So he had already qualified,” he remembered, “Basically, today, with the point system, they're just trying to get as many points as they can because they know there are a lot of horses that are trying to get to the Derby.”

Now, the Hall of Famer sees the Kentucky Derby as “more of an event. I remember Carl Nafzger’s ‘I love you, Mrs. Genter.’ […] And then, of course, Lukas and Baffert keeping this thing up. A lot of people just wanted to be in the Derby after that.” The increasing cachet of having a horse in the Derby has driven more owners to chase the points necessary to be in the Top 20 by the first week of May. 

If a trainer has a Triple Crown contender in the barn, then the point system changes how they map out the horse’s early starts in pursuit of points. “I think what they're doing is, at two they're trying to break the maiden. Then when they get to three, if they haven't broken their maiden at two, [they] go longer […] to try to break the maiden. And after they break the maiden, a lot of them go right into a stakes,” Zito observed. “My theory is they get the calendar out, they see the Jeff Ruby, or they see the Rebel, or they see this race, or that race, or this race, or Gotham, I better go there because I got to get some points.”

The Road to the Kentucky Derby may have influenced some changes to trainers’ strategies for their hopefuls, but it also has mirrored the trend toward racing less often in order to optimize a horse’s performance. The points distribution plays into that strategy, prioritizing the traditional preps in late spring.

Changing Strategies 

All of the races in the points system are a mile or longer, which favors horses stretching out earlier than they may have previously, making shorter races, even stakes, less of a target. “The point system has, I'm not going to say eliminated, but to a large part, greatly decreased trainers running horses in, let's say, the Swale,” Pletcher observed. “Traditionally, a lot of guys would do that and then go to the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby and kind of take that gradual route of stretching out. And that's just not the way a lot of people are training. They're going to go straight to a long race, and long races have points.”

“Now most of them concentrate on the bigger races. If they don't have the points to begin with, they're going to have to run in a place where they could qualify,” Zito pointed out. “If you run first or second in one of those, chances are you might get in over horses that have accumulated points during the year. So, basically, it'll come down to those last three days, sometimes.”

This emphasis on points rather than earnings has eliminated the chance for early graded stakes winners and stakes-winning sprinters to get into the gate on the first Saturday in May. Even if those early winners did not train on at three, they still had earned a chance to try the Kentucky Derby; similarly, sprinters could set or stalk a fast pace early in the race, setting the stage for closers to make their run for glory in the stretch. The points system instead favors classic distance horses, especially those who can win at eight furlongs or longer early in their three-year-old seasons. With the higher point value preps in late spring, the system minimizes what a horse does in their juvenile season, which means that trainers face a new challenge: how to season a Triple Crown hopeful enough to handle the dynamics of a 20-horse field over ten furlongs while also having them in peak condition for that distance. 

Pletcher also pointed out “the other biggest impact is on fillies. A filly would have to step out and run against colts in a final prep in order to earn enough points,” as Secret Oath did in 2022, but only after she had accrued enough points toward a place in the Kentucky Oaks. Swiss Skydiver also stepped outside of her division to run second in the pandemic-delayed 2020 Bluegrass Stakes, which gave her enough points to qualify for the Derby starting gate. In the end, both fillies deferred that opportunity and ran in the Kentucky Oaks, leaving Devil May Care as the last filly to contest the Derby, finishing 10th in 2010, three years before the points system was instituted. 

Another trend over the five years has been the decreasing number of Derby starters contesting the Preakness. Other than Super Saver and Always Dreaming, Pletcher has “historically skipped the Preakness with a lot of our Derby contenders, and I think that's a good example of trainer management that's evolved over the years. And taking those horses and giving them five weeks in between the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont is part of the reason why we've had a lot of success” in that final Triple Crown classic. 

Zito followed a similar path with his most recent Belmont Stakes winners. “We ran Birdstone, one of the most memorable Belmonts ever, beating Smarty Jones. But he ran in the Derby; he didn't run in the Preakness,” the Hall of Famer observed. With Da’Tara, “he never ran in the Derby, and then he won the Belmont and stopped Big Brown.” His most recent Triple Crown starter, Frammento in 2015, earned his spot in the Kentucky Derby through in-the-money finishes in the Fountain of Youth and the Bluegrass Stakes. After finishing 11th behind American Pharoah, Zito opted to skip the Preakness and instead sent Frammento to the Belmont, where he finished 5th behind the Triple Crown winner. 

The Road to the Kentucky Derby is in its twelfth year, the number of horses going from Louisville to Baltimore remaining steady, with an average of four horses making the trip, until 2023, when only Kentucky Derby winner Mage tried the Preakness Stakes. So far, the decreasing number of horses returning for the Preakness may be attributed more to the trend of spacing races out rather than the effects of pursuing points, a phenomenon which has prompted discussion about expanding the gaps between the Triple Crown classics. As of 2024, any changes to the classic calendar remain an ongoing debate without an immediate resolution. 

The sport has seen two Triple Crown winners since Churchill Downs introduced the Road to the Kentucky Derby points system. Those two champions plus I’ll Have Another and California Chrome were the only horses to win two or more classics in the 2010s; in the century since Sir Barton, that number echoes most decades except the 1920s and the 1950s. So far, the 2020s have not seen any horse win more than one classic, but the question of what is behind trainers’ changing approaches to the Triple Crown season will require more time to answer.   

#Soundbites - Why are the average number of starts and field size declining annually?

Article by Bill Heller

The 2024 Jockey Club Fact Book showed that the average field size run in 2023 races was 7.40, down from 7.59. Thoroughbreds’ average number of starts also dipped from 6.01 to 5.87. Back in 1990, the average field size was 8.91 and the average number of starts 7.94. Why are the average number of starts and field size declining annually?

Todd Pletcher

I think the number starts, in a lot of cases, is management. I think over the years trainers have become more conservative about how many starts horses have with more time between races. More rules about when you can train your horses may be a factor. And the foal crop is having an absolute impact.

Dale Romans

That’s a good question. It’s above my pay grade. I’d say the reduction in foals every year. Also, it’s a lot more difficult to run a horse. More horses are scratched by veterinarians.

Barclay Tagg

The horses just aren’t as hardy as they used to be. Justify, he ran six times and he’s one of the leading sires in the country. And he didn’t start until his three-year-old season. You can’t do basic therapy anymore. These horses are athletes and you need to take care of them. You’ve got to be able to train your horses. They make it really hard. You can’t pinfire your horses’ shins. You can’t blister a horse any more. Horses don’t even feel that. It’s about the calmest thing you can do. They’ve got the wrong people making these decisions.

Wayne Catalano

It’s very simple. The foal crop has been down for a long time. It should be 40,000 (In 1990, it was 40,333; last year an estimated 17,200). Obviously, it’s going to catch up with us. Also, you’ve got the new ruling body. It’s a different game these days. You have people coming up that don’t know how to take care of horses.

Brian Lynch

Is it the foal crop? That would be my answer to that. There’s always concern that the tracks haven’t been the best. There have been more breakdowns than I’ve ever seen. More to the point, it’s the foal crop.

Mark Casse

I think it’s pretty simple. I run over a thousand starts a year. I have to enter over 3,500 times to do that. I would have 50 percent more starts if there were races for me. That tells you. I’m lucky because we have options. I can look at different tracks. But I can have 15 horses in my barn with no races for them.

When I first started, they didn’t publish every trainer’s statistics. They’re all worried about their percentages. Their horses stay in the barn. 

The other thing, in my opinion, the state programs have really hurt, and I’ll tell you why. Fifteen, maybe 20 years ago, I went to California, I never got a long maiden long race. The Cal-bred horses did. That’s another factor. 

Ron Ellis 

The truth is with HISA coming in and veterinary restrictions, we can’t run the horses as often as we used to. All the restrictions and all the veterinary requirements, including expensive scans we’re under now, are certainly one of the reasons. We have a lot more restrictions.

Karl Broberg

Golly, where do you begin? I was looking at the Fact Book last night, and what I was most concerned with was looking at foal crops by region. I began shaking my head. Every region is down. In the future, there’s only going to be racing in Kentucky and New York. It’s returning to the sport of kings. I think what’s missed, due to the economics, is that people are giving up on horses much quicker. That’s a huge factor. Also, there are fewer opportunities. 

Tom Proctor

Wow. You would need more than a sound bite. I’d be forever telling you why. I don’t have a say in how this business goes. There are people who win a zillion races and their opinions don’t matter.

Whit Beckman trainer of Kentucky Derby contender - Honor Marie

Article by Bill Heller

Trainer D. Whitworth Beckman grew up around horses but had never made the connection his parents did. His father, David, is a vet. His mother, Diane, rides and shows horses.  “I was around them, but I wasn’t really interested, horses weren’t even on my radar.”

He spent two semesters at the College of Charleston. “I partied a lot,” he said. “I didn’t have any purpose. I was aimlessly floating around on alcohol. After two semesters, I figured I was wasting my time and wasting my parents’ money.”

His life got worse after dropping out from college. “I got pretty heavily involved with drinking. I hung out with a crew. A little wild. There was nothing that gave me purpose. I was a selfish kid.”

Eventually, he began helping his mom take care of polo horses and old show horses. And then he met his mom’s most difficult horse, a cantankerous Thoroughbred named Black Pearl. “I still have him,” his mother said. “We call him Blackie. He was a kook. He couldn’t be trained. He took off with his rider every morning, constantly switching leads. Whit taught himself how to ride on that horse.”

She still can’t believe it.

Beckman had found his purpose. “What I found with this horse was a new connection,“ he said. “He taught me a lot. You can lie and cheat with people. With a horse, it’s 100 percent honest. They do all the crap we ask them to do. They don’t lie or cheat. I think that’s refreshing. We should learn from them.”

He still is, and he doesn’t preclude learning from people, too. He worked for Todd Pletcher, Eion Harty and Chad Brown. Sandwiched in between, he trained in Saudi Arabia.

In 2023, only Beckman’s second full year on his own in the United States, he posted 13 victories, 13 seconds and four thirds in 102 starts with $1,468,695 in earnings, more than double what he earned the previous year. He recorded his first stakes victory and, soon afterwards, his first graded stakes. His stable grew from one horse to 26.

He had help, especially from his best friend Kristian Villante, a bloodstock agent who trades under the name of Legion Bloodstock. They became friends when they both worked for Todd Pletcher. “We have very similar personalities,” Villante said. “We became friends and it kind of grew.”

Villante helped Beckman grow his stable. “We said we’d give him the push,” Villante said. “You can open the door for someone, but then, it’s up to him what to do with it. You can provide the opportunity. A lot of credit to Whit.”

It’s been a journey. His mother said, “He doesn’t give up and he always shows up.”

“He didn’t get lucky,” Harty said. “He conducts himself in an exemplary fashion. He’s a good communicator. He’s a very good person. He inherited it from his family. I got to meet them a couple times. You can tell where he got it from.”

But his family didn’t see it coming.

“If you would have told me when he was in high school that he’d get up at 4:30 in the morning to take care of horses, I’d say you’re crazy,” recounted his father, David. “He’d go to a variety of farms with me and he didn’t seem to like it at all.”

His parents sure did. David and Diane Beckman met in a barn. “I was just out of college and I ran a barn in Goshen,” Diane said. “David came to the barn one day. He’s like Whit, very quiet. I thought he was very good-looking.”

David, who had just graduated from veterinary school in 1979, asked her to a University of Kentucky football game. They both went there.

Diane was smitten: “After a couple of months I said, `I want to marry him.’ His character … we’ve been married 42 years and I’ve never known anyone I respect more. He’s been a great father. He works every day. He’s kind. He was on call 24/7.”

The Beckman’s have four children. Whit is the oldest. “When the two boys would get in trouble and David wasn’t there, I’d say, `You’re going to go with your dad and work on weekends.’ I think that’s what turned Whit off on horses – for a while.”

Beckman explained, “She’d say you’re going to work with him. I associated being bad with horses.”

Whit seemed isolated growing up. “He struggled,” his mother said. “He was so shy. He was a kid who lived in his imagination. We sent him to college when he wasn’t ready for it. The College of Charleston put him in a hotel because the dorms were full. It wasn’t a good fit. He came home, and at that point he was really lost. He didn’t have the straight path in life. He met his struggles and has worked through them. Whit was a late bloomer.

“I have always been proud of the person Whit is. He’s trustworthy, and he’s always going to do the right thing, like his father. He’s never going to say anything unless he means it. He’s going to be honest. I’ve always been proud of him because he had the roughest road. He willed himself to where he is today.”

It took a decade and a half and many, many miles. After working with his mother’s horses, Beckman began working with Walter Binder at Churchill Downs and Louisiana Downs. Beckman returned to Kentucky in March, 2006, and his father helped him get a job with Alex Rankin at Up and Down Farm. “It was a great place to learn,” Beckman said. “It gave me a lot of experience. I developed horsemanship.”

He continued to develop that working with Dave Scanlon and Danny Montada getting Darley two-year-olds ready for sale at Keeneland.

Beckman was fortunate to meet trainer Eoin Harty, who reached out to Todd Pletcher for him. Later, Harty would hire Beckman to be his assistant.

Beckman began working for Pletcher at the 2007 Saratoga meeting. “Towards the end of the meet,” Beckman said. “You go to Kentucky. You see the routine. At that time, I could just wake up every morning and say, `How cool is this? I’m working for the top trainer in the country.’”

Pletcher was glad to have him: “He was always a very top-level assistant. Good horseman. Good demeanor around the barn. I’m not surprised to see him doing well.”

After working for Pletcher, Beckman journeyed to Saudi Arabia, an experience with mixed blessings. “At that point, I had just turned 30,” Beckman said. “It was an opportunity to go on my own. I thought it would be a cool thing to go to the Middle East. A rich tradition of horses. We won some races, but it was an extremely different environment. They bring you over, but they don’t listen. They say, `God’s will.’ Religion and their faith take precedence. It was sticky.”

In 2014, Beckman learned his girlfriend was pregnant. He returned to the U.S. and took a job with Harty. “He was already a qualified trainer by the time he got to me,” Harty said. “He was looking for a job and I was looking for an assistant. It worked out immediately. I showed him the way I like things to be done. He was a huge asset. He deserves nothing but the best.”

With a daughter on the way, Beckman returned to Saudi Arabia. He then returned to America to be there for her daughter Violette’s birth on December 23rd, 2015, three days after his 34th birthday. “When she was born, it was the best thing in my life,” he said.

Yet he was ready to return to Saudi Arabia a few days later. “I got to the jetway,” Beckman said. “I was standing there. I couldn’t do it. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to be home with my daughter. I turned around. I felt great about it.”

He felt even better when Charlie Boden, then with Darley, told him Chad Brown was looking for an assistant, as if Beckman was being rewarded for staying with his daughter.

Beckman began working with Brown on April 4th, 2016, and stayed until the summer of 2021 when he ventured on his own with the full support of his sister, Lindley Turner, who had been doing their fathers’ bookkeeping since 2008. Now she does both. “When Whit decided to train on his own, I offered to handle all the financial and the bookwork,” she said. “Not fun stuff, but necessary to keep the business going. Whit was away for 20 years. I wanted to see what he spent 20 years doing. It’s really cool to watch.”

She really liked what she saw from her brother: “He did all aspects of the job. He put a lot of time in everywhere. He had a very clear vision of what he wanted his stable to look like. As a money person, I said, `I believe in your vision.’ We put in basically everything a top barn would. He knew how he wanted to take care of his horses. How his shed row would look. He did the digging. He raked it out himself. From the very start, he put in the system he knew. He told me if you do this now, it will pay off. He was exactly right. It’s come to life, even though we started with one horse.”

She vividly remembers when that first horse, Truly Mischief, an unraced two-year-old owned and bred by Newtown Anner Stud, arrived, September 11th, 2021: “I remember the horse coming to me, and feeling bad for him because he was the only horse in the barn. I said, `We’re going to get you some buddies.’ It was really exciting, just watching Whit train his own horse. He’s very hands-on. It’s not a number thing with him. It’s about the individual.”

It always will be. “There are 20,000 Thoroughbreds bred every year,” Beckman said. “We have to do everything we can to make them reach their potential, no matter what level they’re at. Keep them happy; keep them healthy, get them fit to run. It’s funny, you constantly learn things. You show up every day. Get there early. Make the adjustments that have to happen for the individual. You’ve got to be passionate about it.”

His buddy Kristian Villante knew that he was: “I think he genuinely has a passion for it. It’s more than just a job. It’s a craft. There’s an art form that goes into racing. It’s not just the x’s and the o’s. There’s not really a playbook. What makes great trainers great trainers is they can make adjustments.”

Truly Mischief needed them. He was sixth in his debut, December 1st, 2021, then raced five more times before finally breaking his maiden at Horseshoe Indianapolis on September 28th, 2022, a year and 17 days after he arrived at Beckman’s barn. On February 26th, 2023, at Tampa Bay Downs, Truly Mischief finished fourth and was claimed for $25,000.

Beckman’s neighbor and friend at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Chip Montgomery, sent Beckman his second horse, a two-year-old filly named Think Twice. She didn’t do much, finishing fifth in her debut, then seventh when claimed for $30,000.

Legion Racing’s four-year-old filly Sabalenka, Graham Grace Stable’s five-year-old gelding Harlan Estate and Ribble Farms’ three-year-old colt Honor Marie have been Beckman’s first three stars.

Sabalenka has two wins, two seconds and two thirds from nine starts with earnings of $427,498. She finished third in the 2023 Christiana Stakes at Delaware Park, July 15th, and second in the Dueling Grounds Oaks at Kentucky Downs, September 3rd. She is the most talented horse Valante helped him land. “They always had my back,” Beckman said. “She was the first one, as far as a nice horse, that gave me a little exposure. She was just a nice filly.”

  In between those stakes placings, Harlan Estate, sent off at 37-1 in the $500,000 Tapit Stakes at Kentucky Downs, delivered Beckman’s first stakes victory – after surviving an inquiry. Far back in the field of 11 early, Harlan Estate won by a length and three-quarters under Declan Cannon. “The horse came from Canada, Beckman said. “We were looking for a turf horse who could compete in open company. She filled all the criteria. Everything blossomed. I knew we were on the right track. It was an awesome day.”

Also rallying from last in the field of eight, Honor Marie captured the $400,000 Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes by two lengths under Rafael Bejarano, earning 10 qualifying points for the 2024 Kentucky Derby. Honor Marie, a $40,000 purchase at the 2022 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, has two wins and a second in three career starts. “From the time he came in, he was a quality horse,” Beckman said. “He needed to mature on a physical level, but I knew I had a good horse in my hands. We knew two turns would help him. I wasn’t surprised, but it was awesome. We got to see what he did in the morning, materialize in the afternoon.”

Of course, he’s on the Kentucky Derby trail. His next start will be in the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at The Fair Grounds. 

Beckman’s stable has grown to 26. His momentum is considerable. “I’m really proud of him,” Beckman’s father said. “He is my oldest child of four. He got a little lost. He’s overcome a lot. Horses saved his life.”

Villante’s father, Joe, who sells trainer products, is a big fan of Whit: “Whit is fantastic. He’s really good at communication and he doesn’t think he’s splitting the atom or inventing the game. I really appreciate that.”

He shared this: “About a year ago, we were at Tampa Bay and training horses were coming off the track. Whit had a low-level horse. He asked the rider what he saw the whole way back to the barn. He wrote all these notes. That’s attention to detail. It’s a moment that stuck in my head. I have friends for 20, 25 years. They don’t ask questions. They think they know everything. I was very impressed. This kid is going places.”

He already has. And he’s only just begun.

#Soundbites - What do you think racing will be like five years from now?

By Bill Heller

Todd Pletcher, Hall of Fame trainer

It’s difficult to project, but I think we’re going to continue to see what we’ve seen the past five years: a reduction in the tracks that are open. I think we’ll see continued growth in gambling, period. I think racing is benefitting from that—an open mindedness to gambling. Everyone now is gambling on football—pretty much on everything. One thing that grew during the pandemic was gambling. There will be fewer tracks but more of them operating successfully.

One thing we need to do is continue to make improvements on safety.

Assuming it (the HISA) goes through, it’s a good thing for the sport. We need some uniformity. It’s very difficult as a trainer to keep track of all the different rules in every jurisdiction. It should level the playing field.

Graham Motion, trainer

I hope, once we have the Horse Racing Integrity (and safety) Act in place, we’ll be in a better place five years from now. There will be smaller foal crops and less racetracks but a better product—one with more integrity. The status quo is unacceptable. It’s almost impossible to keep up with the different rules. We need uniformity and integrity, and right now we have neither.

Kelly Breen, trainer

I think what we saw in the pandemic was that people are betting—maybe more online. So many people learned how to bet on their phones and iPads during the pandemic that we’re setting record handles.

On track, you go to Saratoga, and it was mobbed. On the blue ribbon days, everybody is going to show up. I’m at the Keeneland Sales, and you can’t raise your hand. Racing is good. If you can get a good legislative body, and get everybody together for where we need to be in the next five years so you don’t have different rules on medication, the good horseman will be around.

Cliff Sise, Jr., trainer

Will we be here in five years? They are just tearing it apart. In New York, they have great purses now, but the new governor wants to take all that money and spend it otherwise. If that happens, purses will go so low. In California, Del Mar does well, but we don’t have the contract to get the purses up to where they should be. Owners are getting disgusted. We’re all shaking our heads wondering if we’ll be here in five years. It depends a lot on governors. If they look down on us, they can just say no more horse racing. PETA is watching us. We’re under the microscope so much. It’s a tough game to enjoy anymore.

Eric Jackson, Oaklawn Park Senior Vice President

Five years is a pretty short time from now. There will be fewer tracks than today, but those that survive the withering will be better than before. Sports are popular. I think it will be quality over quantity. In any sport, there’s demand to see it at a better level.

Chris Merz, Director of Racing, Santa Anita

I’m going to shed a positive light. I’m hoping this new bill puts everybody on the same page with the same rules. Then we can coordinate post times so they don’t conflict. It will be an industry working together to help the industry. We need to make this work. I think we’ve seen what happens when we don’t.

Michael Dubb, owner

There will be more consolidation, and we’ll be probably at the infancy of a marriage to legalized sports betting providers. I think that’s the future of racing. Anything that grows handle is probably good. You get a sports provider and a content provider, and the future will be TVG horse shows—you get on somebody’s platform. Do I want to bet if it’s sunny or cloudy? Do I want to bet football? Here’s horse racing. Do I want to bet that? think that’s the future of racing. Twenty years ago, we didn’t know the future of racing would be iPads. That’s how it turned out.

Barry Schwartz, owner and former CEO of the New York Racing Association

A lot has changed because of the pandemic. I think it exposed people to gambling on the Internet. Handle is everything. To me, right now, racing looks very alive and well. You see what’s going on at Keeneland. They’re already way past last year. Critical to racing is HISTA. They’ve got to get that up and running so the public has more confidence in racing, and that racing is legitimate. I think if we have a real strong organization in place, it will make people a lot more confident about racing—about racing being legitimate. The bottom line is I see a lot of things to be happy about with racing going forward. I didn’t  feel that way five years ago.

Nick Cosato, owner

I would like to think we’re headed in the right direction with the Integrity Act. I’m optimistic.

Jack Knowlton, owner

I’m optimistic that racing will be in a better place in five years than it is today. In part, I do believe that the federal legislation will allow more resources to do the kind of testing we need to stay one step ahead of the cheaters. One of the big things is we never had enough resources to do the research. They’re coming up with new stuff to cheat. In my mind, that’s the biggest issue racing is facing. I think you’re going to have owners feeling better about participating.

And we’ll have one set of rules. The other thing, and we’ve made strides, is the issue of safety. We look at the data, and we’re getting a lot better, but there’s more work to be done. We have to continue to improve it. That’s definitely going in the right direction. The other issue is after-care, making sure we find a place for these athletes when they’re done with their careers.

#Soundbites - trainers - horses had the fewest number or average starts per year - smallest field size

By Bill Heller

The new Jockey Club Fact Book showed 2019’s average field size dropped again to 7.24, and 2019’s starts per runner dropped again to 5.96. Both numbers are the lowest since at least 1950. Does that concern you?

Todd Pletcher

It does concern me. There’s a concern that today’s horses aren’t as durable as they were in the past. We need increased field size to increase handle. That’s a worry. But we also want to try to lessen breakdowns, and trainers are spacing races out more to make sure their horses are ready to run an optimal performance. We found over the years that horses, especially after hard races, need more time. It’s a complicated issue. It’s a constant learning curve. Each horse is different. Certainly we see that when we approach Triple Crown races for three-year-olds.

Neil Drysdale

Neil Drysdale

It does, obviously. It keeps contracting. We know that from the foal crops. It leads to us to say we should have less racing to get better field size. I think it will happen. When I started, we didn’t have year-round racing. Racing has been proliferating, but the boutique meets have done so well: Keeneland, Del Mar, Saratoga, Hot Springs.

Tom Albertrani

Tom Albertrani

It’s interesting to hear statistics about it. Am I concerned? I don’t think so. I think we’re still a pretty strong industry. I know there’s been a lot of smaller fields the last couple of years.

Ron Moquett

Ron Moquett

Not where I’m at. I go to the track at Remington Park, Oaklawn Park and Keeneland. They offer some of the largest field sizes there are. If you look it up, I think Remington is No.1, and Oaklawn is No. 2. That’s where I race most of my horses. I like bigger fields for handicappers to bet on. It’s easier to win races when they’re less, but I like people to see big fields with good horses. 

Tony Dutrow

Yes. No. 1, I’m not surprised. It’s been alarming me for a number of years. Horses are not as sound. The reasons for the drop in starts, in my opinion, is that racing’s become enormously commercial. When I was so much younger, more breeders bred horses to race them much more than they do today. The people that have the funds fuel this game. The people who fuel the game need good broodmares. Then they breed them to a successful stallion. They spend a lot of money. And then they’re going to sell that horse at a sale. They’re not going to keep that horse running in the field with his buddies. That has a lot to do with why horses have less starts.

John Shirreffs

John Shirreffs

It does not really concern me. When I first was working on the racetrack as a hotwalker/ponyboy, Laffit Pincay was just beginning to ride. The rumor was that if you use him, you wouldn’t be able to run your horse again for 30 days because he got everything out of the horse. Now all the jockeys are like Laffit. Jockeys are now fitter, stronger and ride harder from gate to wire. I think the horses are asked to do more, so recovery takes a little longer. Horses are also carrying a lot more weight than they ever did. There used to be weight allowances. Look at the scale of weights. Much higher.

Wayne Catalano

Of course it concerns me. We’re running out of horses. We’re not breeding as many horses as we used to. I don’t know the numbers, but it’s finally catching up with us. Field size is handle, right? We get paid by the handle.

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#Coronavirus Soundbites

By Bill Heller

We asked trainers how they are handling the coronavirus pandemic and what advice they have for getting through this ordeal

Todd Pletcher

We had to close down our Belmont division. There were workers with symptoms. They went to the clinic and were quarantined. More than anything, it was making it difficult to have a safe workplace. At that time, we thought there wasn’t going to be racing in New York for a while. We had 20 horses at Belmont. That normally would be the time we’d be sending horses to Belmont. We had to put that on hold.

We left it up to owners to decide what to do with their horses. Some went to their farms; a couple went to Fair Hill; some went to Ocala and some went to Palm Beach Downs. We did not move any workers [but] have about 100 horses at Palm Beach, a small string at Gulfstream Park [and] four at Oaklawn scheduled to run. We’ve been fortunate with Gulfstream being able to run. We’ve been able to keep some schedules. It’s juggling a lot of schedules. It’s trying times for everyone. We want to make sure to keep our horses and our employees healthy.

Current practices at Palm Beach?

We’re just going by the recommendations as to what the government is saying. Masks are optional. Some are wearing them; most are not. At Gulfstream, we’re just trying to use common sense, keep people from congregating, keep six feet apart. The one thing we are learning is that social distancing is working. We try to keep that policy in mind.

Planning ahead?

That’s something I have to work around. I’m a target-oriented trainer. I like pointing to specific spots. At Aqueduct, the condition book is in the garbage—Keeneland, too. These are unique times. You have to adjust on a daily basis. Everyone’s in the same boat. Everyone’s facing several challenges.

Suggestions?

Use common sense. Take care of your horses and your staff. In time, we’ll return to normalcy. Try to remain positive.

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Eoin Harty

It’s been no harder for me than everybody else. You worry about your family, in California and Europe. Every day you wake up, that’s the first thing on your mind. With horses, you have to take care of them every day. It would be a lot worse for me if we were home 24-7.

Eoin Harty

Precautions?

You can feel that tension in the air. I check every person in the barn; nobody’s coughing. Everyone is wearing gloves and masks—masks for sure around the barn. You don’t have to ask people twice.

Racing?

There’s been a lot of speculation about Santa Anita using Los Alamitos. I don’t know if it’s viable. I think we could be racing at Santa Anita again. The best case scenario is racing at the end of the month or in May. We haven’t had a single case on the racetrack. There hasn’t been a single one. That’s a good thing.

Personally?

I keep six feet away—don’t touch anything.

Suggestions?

Do what you have to do to protect yourself and your family. Right now, it’s common sense. Look out for your friends. Racing will take care of itself.

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Graham Motion

Graham Motion

My family is all home. My wife is trying to run the business from home. As far as the barn, we’re taking a lot of precautions. We have one person disinfecting everything first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening. He takes everybody’s temperature when they come in the morning. We’re trying to have employees not group up in the tack room. After a week or two, you have to remind them.

Six feet away?

We try to. It’s not totally realistic. You have to give a leg up. Most of the time with gloves. We try to do the best we can.

We’re going to try to get everybody to wear masks. We tried to order some. We have 100 employees all told at all the locations: Fair Hill, Palm Meadows. Normally, we would have pulled out from Palm Meadows for Keeneland, but now we’re staying at Palm Meadows.

Normally I train down there while my son, Chappy, goes to spring break. We got from Fair Hill to North Carolina. We planned to overnight in North Carolina. Once we got there, things were getting bad. We spent two nights in North Carolina, and we decided we’d rather be in Maryland. We went back to Fair Hill. It kind of reminded me of 9-11.

Advice for horsemen?

I think in general, the horsemen are lucky. We get to keep on doing what we do. The horses have to get out of their stalls. I think the unsettling part is not knowing when we’ll race again. We worry about our owners who are paying training fees every day. I’m worried about them. We have 60 horses at Fair Hill and 20 at Palm Meadows. I just brought in a few two-year-olds.

When new people come in, they stay away for two weeks. We’re trying to follow the guidelines.

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Tom Proctor

 I’m in a little better shape than most. Other than Gulfstream and Tampa Bay, I have horses at Oaklawn, and the rest are at Glen Hill Farm south of Ocala. Most of my horses are gathered up at Ocala. We probably got 25 in Ocala and a dozen are at Tampa Bay. I’m spending most of my time in Ocala.

Precautions?

We did have horses at the Fair Grounds. We kept those people from Fair Grounds separate for two weeks. We did get out of New Orleans pretty early—about the middle of March. 

Tom Proctor

In Ocala, gloves and masks?

Most of our people don’t leave the farm. We’re not really wearing masks. We’re washing our hands. The zip code we’re in hasn’t had a single case.

When you go to the track, do you take precautions?

I’ve stayed away from people—social distancing when I can. For a trainer, it’s easier than most. I check on the horses when nobody else is around.

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Tom Amoss

(Tom Amoss was exposed to the virus by being with New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton, who contracted the virus, at the Fair Grounds. Amoss self-quarantined for two weeks while continuing to work from home for TVG.)

Did you have the virus?

 I never really found out. When it happened, it wasn’t easy to test. I stayed at home for two weeks. Now I’m going to work every day. They really don’t want us up and around in New Orleans. I’m here at my barn every morning from 6-10. My routine is the same.

Protocols at Fair Grounds?

 That’s an evolving thing. Our temperature is taken when we come into the track. We’re not allowed in the buildings. Social distancing is a requirement. Fifty percent of the people on the backstretch are wearing masks. We’ve had zero issues in my barn, and none in other barns as well. There’s a reason for that. My help lives on the racetrack. They’re self-contained. There’s a grocery on the backstretch—Canseco’s. We’re the opposite of how New Orleans is doing. We have nothing bad in our barn. I haven’t heard of one case.

Suggestions for other horsemen?

It’s a tough question. Look, there’s a difference between our horses and the horses in California. Our horses are allowed to ship to Oaklawn. No people are shipped. I’ve got a barn up there. I’m blessed in the fact that I already have people there.

Stables?

Ever-changing. There are a lot of horses I have who race on grass. They have been sold or turned out. Other horses who don’t fit the condition and book at Oaklawn have been sold or turned out. We’ve down-sized about 20 percent.

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Linda Rice

Linda RIce

Handling this?

We’re doing very well. We’re being very careful on Long Island. We know New York City has a lot of cases. We’ve been using masks, gloves and social distancing. We’ve been doing that for three weeks now. We have a regular training schedule at Belmont. It’s good to have a routine. We’re happy to go to work every day. A lot of people are stuck at home. They can’t work. We can.

Response so far?

The help is doing great. Everyone is concerned. We watch the news. It scares the hell out of you. But it’s the old adage: the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man, or a woman.

What’s going on with racing in New York?

Aqueduct, obviously, is being used as a hospital. I think everyone here is under the impression that we’ll be racing at Belmont. It’s just a matter of when. We’re looking at June 1st. If it’s sooner than that, great.

Outlook?

The entire world is dealing with this. If there is small business assistance, that’s great if it can get processed. Unemployment for those out of work will help. We’re making sure of helping everyone on the backstretch who needs it. We’re making sure our horses and our people are safe.

Hit the Books!

By Denise Steffanus

Continuing education for trainers and their assistants has been a topic kicked around the racing industry since 1999. In the world at large, continuing education is a standard requirement to maintain an occupational license. Even hair stylists must complete courses to renew their credentials. But horse trainers, who have the lives of horses and riders in their hands, do not.

The Jockey Club's inaugural Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit in 2006 identified the need for trainer continuing education to enhance equine welfare, health and safety. The Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) joined the movement in 2008 when it issued the model rule requiring trainers to complete at least four hours per calendar year of approved continuing education courses in order to maintain a current license. 

Model rules are suggested policies. They have no power of enforcement unless they are adopted by individual jurisdictions. The Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Safety Committee followed up by urging all racing jurisdictions to adopt the continuing education model rule. 

The initiative gained supporters, with the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, the North American Racing Academy (NARA), and the University of California-Davis joining forces to produce a series of 11 online modules called the Advanced Horsemanship Program. Cathy O'Meara, manager of Industry Initiatives for the Jockey Club, coordinates the program.

"The request from the industry was to provide an online platform for educational content that could be accessible for free to the industry and provide tracking," O'Meara said. "These [modules] were produced or reviewed by professors at NARA and UC-Davis, with most of the topics stemming from the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit. The system used is Articulate, which is a standard online course development program used by many universities."

The courses include timely issues, such as bisphosphonate use in racehorses and the management of equine herpesvirus (EHV-1). Another module teaches trainers how to identify horses at risk for a breakdown. 

The UC-Davis modules on scapular and humeral fractures provide illustrations of the injuries that are reinforced by actual photos of the post-mortem examination of the fractured bones. The combination of the two, plus information about factors that contribute to these fractures, give trainers a better comprehension of what's going on inside the horse. 

As of mid-June, 365 participants had accessed the program, completing 715 course modules. When a participant has completed a course, he or she can specify which racing jurisdiction(s) to notify. At present, New York, California and Delaware accept these certifications of completion. O'Meara maintains a file of certificates for other jurisdictions to be provided to them if and when they adopt a continuing education program. 

The most popular course, with 106 completions, is UC-Davis' module on humeral fractures. The least popular course is "The Hoof Inside and Out," with only 20 completions. For a full list of the online courses, see the sidebar "Online Continuing Education Modules for Trainers and Assistants." These courses are free and open to the public.

New York: What not to do

New York is the only U.S. racing jurisdiction that requires continuing education for trainers and assistants. The New York State Gaming Commission approved the requirement in December 2016, mandating four hours of approved continuing education each calendar year as a requirement for license renewal, effective January 1, 2017. Those not domiciled in New York who have 12 or fewer starts during the previous 12 months may request a waiver of this requirement. 

The New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) produced classroom presentations at the racetrack for horsemen to comply with the gaming commission's regulation. Online access to the continuing education program, which is available via YouTube, is simply a video of the classroom lectures, with no way to verify if the trainer actually watched the video. The gaming commission also accepts approved continuing education credits offered by the Grayson-Jockey Club, American Veterinary Medical Association-approved Colleges of Veterinary Medicine, other North American racing jurisdictions, and the ARCI.

The New York program fizzled. Nine days before the first year's deadline for compliance, a memo from Dr. Scott Palmer, the gaming commission's equine medical director, extended the deadline for compliance by 45 days, until February 15, 2018, because "many" trainers had not complied. What is interesting is that trainers need only email a form to the gaming commission that states they have completed the required continuing education courses. It's the honor system, with no proof required.  

Attendance at the classroom lectures has been sparse. A presentation on August 22, 2017, delivered by Palmer, was attended by 30 participants, with one man visibly asleep in his seat; a presentation on biosecurity on August 21, 2018, had just two attendees, with the corresponding YouTube video gaining just 18 views.

Claude “Shug” McGaughey III

Racing Hall of Fame trainer Claude "Shug" McGaughey III, who has mastered the powerhouse Phipps stable since 1985, expressed his frustrations, not with the program but with the way the gaming commission presented it. 

"It almost looked like, 'Well, you're a bunch of idiots, and you have to take this stuff to catch up.' And it was almost sort of a threatening gesture that if you didn't have it done, you weren't going to have a trainer's license," McGaughey said. "I called Dr. Palmer and he sent me the stuff, and I did it. There was some pretty interesting stuff in there. It was easy to do. But the threatening manner in which they did it didn't suit me."

McGaughey, with the help of NYTHA Executive Director Andrea "Andy" Belfiore, completed the online courses; plus he attended a classroom presentation on insurance. The 68-year-old trainer, who admitted, "I'm not really good with all that tech stuff," said it all was easier once he had some help. And the information presented was so interesting, he recommended it to his assistant and his son.

 McGaughey said the gaming commission needs to brush up on its public relations.

"I think that probably the biggest mistake they made was when they kind of came out and were as aggressive as they were about it," he said. "A lot of times it doesn't hurt to explain to people in person instead of just online or in a memo or something. 

"Don't make it look like we don't know what we're doing. I've been doing this for 40 years, and I'm not a genius, but I've got some sort of idea of what the rules are, what you need to do, how you get licensed, and all that kind of stuff. And I don't really need to have somebody throwing that in my face. So I would think that maybe if they had presented it a little better, if they would present it better, some of the stuff that they do, they just didn't handle it, I think, in the right direction."

Todd Pletcher, who has amassed 40 leading-trainer titles in New York since 1998, criticized the lack of communication regarding the program…

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Resisting Deworming Traditions - with Todd Pletcher

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