PREAKNESS COVERAGE
Live racing, live music from 1 – 4 pm by Motion, Family Fun Park & the simulcast of the 140th Preakness Stakes–it all happens this Saturday at Lone Star Park! Gates open at 11:30 am, first post at 1:35 pm. Simulcast of the Preakness Stakes will begin at approximately 6:15 pm.
On May 15 at 8 p.m. TVG will air the “Preakness Handicappers Preview” with commentary from hosts and handicappers on-site and at its California studio.
Horse Racing Radio Network (HRRN), the official radio home of the 2015 Triple Crown, will offer a two-hour broadcast Saturday from 5-7 p.m. EDT produced in partnership with NBC Sports and Westwood One. NBC Sports will broadcast the Preakness Stakes on NBC from 4:30-6:30 p.m.
The May 16 programs can be heard on Sirius 92/XM 92. Live streaming both days is available at www.horseracingradio.net.
2014 Texas 2-Year-Old Champion Colt/Gelding W V Jetsetter (Jet Phone – Better Than Most) will run in Saturday’s $100K Chick Lang Stakes on the Preakness Stakes undercard at Pimlico. The now 3-year-old colt most recently won the My Dandy division of the $75,000 Texas Stallion Stakes at Retama Park on November 15. He also won the TTA Sales Futurity at Lone Star Park last July and got up for the show in the $300,000 Gr. 2 Toyota Saratoga Special Stakes in August. Bred by the late Clarence Scharbauer Jr., he is now owned by R. A. Hill Stable & Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and trained by George Weaver.
UPCOMING DEADLINES
Mark your calendars and plan to attend the TTA Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner on June 20th at Lone Star Park. Early registration at the rate of $65 per person goes through June 8th.
Please note that Monday, May 18 is the deadline to make room reservations for the event with the Hyatt Place Dallas/Arlington Hotel (817.649.7676) at the special Texas Thoroughbred rate of $119.
At the event, we will conduct both live and silent auctions of items to benefit TTA’s 501C3 charitable organizations, the Texas Thoroughbred Educational Fund and The Paddock Foundation.
Items may include, but are not limited to, sports or other event tickets, use of racetrack suites, gift certificates, jewelry, feed, discounts on goods or services such as horse transportation, books, memorabilia and artwork. Contact Mary Ruyle in the TTA office at 512.458.6133 to make your tax deductible donation.
May 31 is the last day to accredit foals of 2014 at the TTA member rate of $75.
June 10 is the consignment deadline for the all new TTA Yearling Sale at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie to be held on August 24, 2015. New benefits for consignors include:
- No fees required with your consignment contract. All fees deductible from proceeds of sale with original Jockey Club papers accompanying your consignment contract.
- Stall gates provided at no charge to consignors.
- Stall cards (11” x 17”) provided at no charge to consignors.
- Initial bedding (shavings) provided at no charge to consignors.
- Consignors paid within 15 days after the sale.
Consignment contracts are available at http://westernbloodstock.com/sales/tta2015/contract.pdf or by calling Jeff Hooper at 817.992.0609 or the Western Bloodstock, Ltd office at 817.594.9210.
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
For more than a decade, horsemen have urged lawmakers to provide measures that would allow the Texas horse industry to survive and compete with neighboring states. The industry was very encouraged this session by legislation sponsored by Representative Roberto Alonzo (HB 3667) and Senator Kel Seliger (SB1027) that would increase horse racing purses in Texas without expanding the footprint of gaming or introducing any form of new gaming.
Representative Alonzo presented the purse enhancement legislation to the Ways & Means Committee at a public hearing on May 5, 2015. TTA and TQHA testified in support of the bill. The purse enhancement legislation was the ideal opportunity for the Texas horsemen to educate state legislators about the problems that plague the Texas horse racing industry. HB 3667 was an attempt to find an alternative way, some way, any way for the horse industry to compete with our neighbors without the same tools. HB 3667 provided an economic development incentive to increase Texas purses without new forms of gaming.
This week the Texas House of Representatives faced one of the largest end-of-session deadlines. The House had until the end of May 14, 2015, to take initial action on any bill or resolution coming out of that chamber. If a House bill had not received a vote by the deadline, it effectively died. The purse enhancement legislation was one of the bills that just ran out of time to receive a vote.
We appreciate the Texas horsemen’s determined efforts and support to advance the purse enhancement legislation. As we move toward the end of the 84th Texas Legislative Session, we shift our focus to fully restoring funding for the Texas Racing Commission. A Texas without the horse industry is no Texas at all.
ARCI RULE TO ADDRESS “EXCESSIVE” OVERAGES
The most egregious abusers of performance-enhancing equine drugs and those who load up on supposedly therapeutic medication regimens might soon face more intense scrutiny and the threat of drastic penalization based on a new rule modeled on whole-horse health that is being drafted by the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI).
In addition to the traditional US system of imposing penalties based on established threshold overages, the ARCI wants to give state racing commissions a tool to go after the human connections of any horse found to have been “excessively” administered any substance.
The ARCI aims to do this by requiring trainers and veterinarians to prove, as a defense, that their actions did not actually endanger the welfare of the horse.
The proposed new rule is posted and open to public comment on the ARCI website at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2HwTiDKu_FHaF96T2o2OVV3TEE/view?pli=1.
The ARCI Model Rules Committee will discuss and possibly amend this proposal when it next meets on July 15. It would then be up to individual state racing commissions to adopt and enforce the rule.
NOTES: The Breeders Sales Company of Louisiana announced Tim Boyce, formerly with Fasig-Tipton Texas, has been named sales director for the 2015 yearling sale that will be held Sept. 29 at the Ike Hamilton Expo Center in West Monroe…Saying the bill would have expanded gambling in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence has vetoed a bill that would have allowed state residents to use advance deposit wagering to bet on horse race…Lone Star Park stats show jockey CJ McMahon in the lead with 30 wins and Karl Broberg at the top of the trainer list with 25 wins thus far…Texas-bred Promise Me Silver, the undefeated winner of the Grade 3 Eight Belles Stakes, appears to have bounced back nicely as she worked four furlongs in :46 4/5 this morning at Churchill Downs, the second fastest out of 60 horses at the distance. She is being aimed for the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes on Belmont Day in New York…Best of racing luck to Gold Flight (Early Flyer – Rockin Regent), competing in the $55,000 Duke City Sprint at Albuquerque Downs on Saturday…Congrats to new Texas A&M graduate Michael Davidson, and University of North Texas Health Science Center graduate Andrea Hartis; both are TTEF scholarship recipients.