For the love of all things, please rename the race.  Honor the man who created the race and/or his family name. Call it the Duchossois Million or anything without Arlington in the name.  If CD wanted to pay tribute to Arlington, a better way would have been to not fight with the Illinois horsemen for 20+ years, piss nearly everyone off, and help expedite the demise of the product to ultimately shutter the place.  

For those of you at or going to Saratoga today or watching the races elsewhere, enjoy the day, the pageantry, sunshine, rainstorms and all.  Cheers to all!!!

Agreed!  Collmus got lucky with a cute execution of My Wife Knows Everything/My Wife Knows Nothing, made the national news, and then got primo race caller jobs that I don\'t think were warranted. No knock on Larry for taking advantage of the opportunities.  Shouting the call does not make it better.  

Make it fun and get Richard Grunder out of retirement to make the derby call. Good lord would that be fun.

I agree with you in that I don\'t think Reed did anything inappropriate with Rich Strike.

I ask rhetorically; does any substance exist that could improve a horse from a single win of a M30K race with those running lines into a Kentucky Derby winner?  

If Reed did have some magic to inject, why would he not use it to get the horse some derby points and not chance having to be 20-something on the list hoping to get into the race.

I tip my hat to the Rich Strike and the connections.

Did Taiba ever test positive?  Is Yakteen banned from running in the Kentucky Derby?

For all of the Baffert enthusiasts here, listed below are Bob\'s starts in the past five plus years with the amount of starts in graded stakes races along with win percentages.

Year    Starts         Graded Stakes
2022 -   68 (33%)       35 (37%)
2021 -  341 (32%)      118 (28%)
2020 -  323 (30%)       96 (30%)
2019 -  325 (24%)       96 (18%)
2018 -  348 (32%)      103 (26%)
2017 -  313 (27%)       99 (31%)

Baffert is not a choir boy.  He\'s treated as if every horse he ever raced was drugged.  He wins a lot, I get it. He\'s got the best clients in the business with some of the best stock in the world.  Runs in a circuit with dwindling amount of average starters.  I think his win percentages should be high.


Baffert is the perfect magician\'s distraction using sleight of hand in that he has nearly 100% of the eyeballs on him while a large handful of the industry\'s trainers enter way more horses and move them up way beyond reasoning on a daily basis to pull rabbits out of hats.

If Baffert is dirty, I trust that the system would catch up to him.  In the meantime, I don\'t find it difficult to avoid betting on small horse fields in California anyway.  Which only leaves the few dozen times Baffert enters horses elsewhere in the country, which I can use my handicapping judgement to determine if I want to invest or not.

Question for Jerry Brown if you are comfortable to answer:  With all of the data that you\'ve been collecting on \"move up\" trainers, is Bob Baffert a blip on your radar?

I wouldn\'t even know where to begin with the endless possibilities that CDI still may have for plans in Illinois, whether it's racing, casinos, or both.  CDI has been a half-dozen chess moves ahead of the Illinois horseman and the state governing bodies for 20 +years.

The Chicago Bears are purchasing Arlington and their long-term  betting partner is none other than Rivers Casino so nothing is out of the realm of possibility here with CDI (majority owner of Rivers).  Professional teams in Illinois are allowed to build a sports book BUT the Bears do not own Soldier Field so they have to negotiate with the Chicago Park District as to the terms, which are not as favorable as owning your own facility outright.
 
That brings it back to square one if the Bears build a football stadium at the Arlington facility.  CDI knows that the Bear ownership would build a casino on the Arlington Heights property so of course they'll want their hands in this without being the outright owner of a racetrack or football team.  It's going to get more interesting with the Arlington deal in the next few years.  "Thank you sir, may I have another"

My feelings about CDI aside, I am glad that the Arlington Million and the top stakes races have been preserved......at least for nostalgia sake.

The stewards may not take action but I wonder how many owners want to take a chance on Lezcano and that dull of a ride on their live mounts in the future.


I love the chart comment:

FOXTAIL came away well while asked, showed in front early then was taken under a tight hold and relinquished the advantage, stalked outside the leading duo under stout restraint, engaged those leaders while still in hand in the
four path around the turn, had the rider take a peek behind him at the five-sixteenths, took the advantage while the rider took five
more looks to his inside into upper stretch, was asked while surprised by the presence of the winner to her outside at the three sixteenths then lost the advantage, kept on under a drive while fighting inside that foe in the final furlong and just missed while
well clear for the place

By rough count, Baffert has 17 TC nominees this year.  Maybe Bob accepts the CD ban and thumbs his nose by winning the Preakness and/or Belmont.  To my knowledge, he\'s not banned from running horses in those races.

TC nominee PP\'s: https://bit.ly/3Gy2kqj

I don\'t begrudge anyone for choosing what to do with their own money so good on Michael Beychok for choosing to leave wagering on horse racing.

In respect to the lawsuit, eff Michael Beychok!  It\'s very presumptuous for him that he is smarter than everyone else and would have had the winner if not for Bob Baffert and Medina Spirit with 21 picograms of Betamethasone in a post race sample.  Medina Spirit did not move up all that much in the Kentucky Derby and was on the lead while being stalked by the great Soup and Sandwich. Mandaloun was a bigger improvement and harder to get to on figs than Medina.  Medina Spirit came back to win a GI in the Awesome Again and run second in the BC Classic while literally under a microscope.  

I hear more screaming about Baffert while other trainers move up horses on a daily basis at a track near you.  Clean up the sport, YES.  Sue because you lost, come on man.

Technically, he can run in the derby. The horse will earn no derby points under the care of Baffert or anyone in his employ.  The horse will have to be transferred to another conditioner to qualify for enough points to run in the derby.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-09-10/churchill-downs-bob-baffert-horses-points-policy

Not sure Gerry but as screwy as things are these days, it was the most favorable situation for racing to reveal its ugly head.

I\'m trying to explain to friends why the horse that won the Juvenile is not going to be allowed to run in the KY Derby.  The retort was; \"Then why was he allowed to run in the Juvenile?\".

I\'ve run out of defenses to this game to outsiders.  Starting to scratch my own head.

Good luck to all today!

Has anyone else watching Saratoga Live the past two days notice that Linda Rice\'s name has been blatantly not mentioned?  The crew mentioned one of her contenders yesterday but not that she was the trainer. Less than an hour ago, Saratoga Live showed Voodoo Song winning at Saratoga and mentioned Barry Schwartz as the owner but nothing about Linda Rice. Really?  Censorship here too??