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The board of stewards of The Jockey Club announced July 30 the election of Everett Dobson as chair. Dobson succeeds Stuart Janney III, who had served as chair of The Jockey Club since Aug. 8, 2015.

The legacy of two of the top trainers of the last few decades will be honored by 1/ST with the announcement of graded stakes races being renamed in their memories.

Racing is canceled at Thistledown July 30-31, the remainder of the scheduled race week, with the track surface there going through continued examination.

Geovanni Franco and Mychel Sanchez tied in the voting for Jockey of the Week for July 21-27 by the panel of racing experts.

America's Best Racing has compiled a schedule of radio, television, and streaming coverage of upcoming races and industry events.

John and Debby Oxley's breeding exploits produced 2024 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) victor Sierra Leone, one of the headliners in the $1 million Whitney Stakes (G1) Aug. 2 at Saratoga Race Course.

Maiden Watch: Week of July 21-July 27

Thistledown canceled racing July 29, a day after its eight-race card was scrapped following a fatal breakdown in the first contest. But there is hope that racing can resume July 30.

With his Hall of Fame induction around the corner on Aug. 1, Smarty Jones is still just as strong and as popular as ever. The superstar currently resides at Equistar Training and Breeding near Annville, Pa.

At the Board of Directors’ meeting held July 28 at the Maryland Horse Breeders Association’s office in Reisterstown, the new board elected Richie Blue as president, Josh Pons as vice president and William K. Boniface as secretary/treasurer.

Scandinavia slowly but surely inched his way past his stablemate and the favorite Illinois to earn his first graded stakes win in the Goodwood Cup (G1) July 29.

Keeping a 3-year-old in its comfort zone can be difficult when there are rich rewards for taking a gamble.

No Time provided a July 26 Woodbine Oaks victory in memory of Boss Lady J.

Caroline Stautberg has been selling her yearlings at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale for three decades now, but the Maryland breeder will record a personal first when the boutique auction opens next week. Through the Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services consignment, Stautberg's Willow Oaks Stable will offer the very first horse through the ring Monday when bidding starts at 6:30 p.m. Hip 1 is a daughter of Vekoma out of Tapit's World (Tapit) and a half-sister to graded winner Il Miracolo (Gun Runner).

“It's been 30 years since my first Saratoga sale and I haven't missed a year, but I've never been in the first 10 [hips],” Stautberg said with a laugh. “So I guess it was my turn. Thankfully, she is a filly with a nice page and I think she will sell herself. And this is a sale that people are pretty well there when it starts. It's not like some of those sales that start at nine in the morning and you know nobody is there. I'm not jumping up and down about it, but it could be worse.”

In addition to her graded-winning half-brother, the yearling is a full-sister to a now 2-year-old filly who sold to Charlotte Weber's Live Oak Plantation for $575,000 at the 2024 Saratoga sale. The trio are out of graded-placed Tapit's World, who was acquired for $175,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton November sale.

Stautberg admitted that purchase a decade ago harkened back to the mare who provided her with her biggest success as a breeder, Fun Crowd.

Stautberg and her late husband, Jerry, purchased Fun Crowd for $115,000 at the 2002 Keeneland November sale. Eleven yearlings sold out of the mare for over $2 million, including Grade I winner Funny Moon (Malibu Moon).

“What a mare, that Fun Crowd,” Stautberg said. “She was really a great mare. When she died, I got the prettiest tree that I could find and had a stone made and she is buried on the farm with a really, really pretty tree marking her stone. She was something else. I just didn't have any idea, really, of how lucky I was. Davant Latham found her for me. And he is still helping me pick out broodmares. She wasn't that expensive because she hadn't raced. But she had a great pedigree and, man, did she produce.”

Latham recalled that purchase when he and his client were bidding on Tapit's World in 2015.

“Davant and I watched her in the ring,” Stautberg said of Tapit's World. “He said, 'The only reason you love her is because she reminds you so much of Fun Crowd.' And she did. She was a chestnut with a white blaze and a couple of white socks. She went through and she RNA'd, so I said, 'Come on.' We ran back to the barn and we offered the price they wanted and they took it.”

Funny Moon | Horsephotos

With just seven broodmares, Stautberg will offer almost her entire foal crop–four yearlings–at the two-day Saratoga sale next week.

“I sold one at the January sale and [Fasig-Tipton] accepted all five I had left,” Stautberg said. “But one of them had an abscess, so she is going to have to wait until fall.”

The group, all consigned by Bluegrass Thoroughbred Services, includes four fillies and one colt.

“For the last two years, I've had all fillies and only one colt,” Stautberg explained. “It happened again this year. You feel so sorry for that colt all by himself. I live in Monkton, Maryland, so he has to ship up by himself. My farm manager, Darin Martin, is bringing up the fillies, but he can't come with them. He has to have his own transportation.”

Other than the filly out of 15-year-old Tapit's World, the other yearlings in Willow Oaks' Saratoga offerings are out of mares Stautberg has acquired in the past two years. Hip 64 is a filly by Uncle Mo and is the first foal out of stakes-placed Champagne Ivy (Shackleford). She was purchased in utero for $210,000 at the 2023 Keeneland November sale.

Hip 74 is a filly from the first crop of champion Epicenter out of graded winner Cosmic Burst (Violence). Stautberg acquired Cosmic Burst for $260,000 at the 2023 Keeneland January sale.

Rounding out the group is a colt by Mandaloun (hip 147) out of multiple stakes winner Lucky Stride (Declaration of War). Lucky Stride was purchased for $170,000 at the 2022 Keeneland November sale.

“I am 84, almost 85, and I keep saying I don't need to buy any more, but I just can't resist,” Stautberg said of the recent purchases. “I get the catalogue and I see something and I say, 'I think I will hang around for that one.' I keep adding, but I think maybe this is it.”

Stautberg sends her mares to Kentucky to foal and be bred back before mares and foals return to Maryland.

“I have watched them all grow up,” Stautberg said of the yearlings she will offer at auction next week. “You get very attached to them. I went over this morning to Oklahoma [training track] and saw one that I sold last year, a Twirling Candy filly, and she's so happy and doing so well. And that just makes you feel so good.”

Stautberg and her late husband used to raise Black Angus cattle and steeplechasers on their 600-acre Willow Oaks Farm in Monkton, but a trip to Saratoga in the mid-1990s changed the trajectory of their operation.

“[The late steeplechase trainer] Tom Voss was a neighbor,” Stautberg recalled. “My husband and I came up and stayed with Tom and [his wife] Mimi. “We went to the horse sale and ended up buying a yearling that Tom had picked out to be a steeplechaser. In the meantime, the Bluegrass Thoroughbred partners had a party where I met John Stuart and Peter Bance. So all of a sudden I said, 'I know a bloodstock agent'–this was probably 1994–and I said, 'Let's buy one.' My husband was an automobile dealer and he said, 'No, one won't do it. We need more than that.' So we ended up with four. I think my first sales were in '95.”

Willow Oaks will be offering its 30th class of yearlings–beginning with the first hip through the ring–at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale next week and Stautberg's love affair with the upstate New York town is still going strong.

“I usually come up before the sales,” Stautberg said. “I love the racing and I love the people and I love the restaurants. I love everything about it. You are a person here, not just a number. I think the Fasig-Tipton people do such a good job and I am very happy here.”

The Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale will be held next Monday and Tuesday at the Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion. Bidding commences each day at 6:30 p.m.

The post After 30 Years, a Fasig-Tipton Saratoga First for Stautberg appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Many involved with the sport probably know little about trainer Librado Barocio. But that could be about to change. His small stable has been on fire as of late and it recorded a milestone when Lovesick Blues (Grazen) upset his better known rivals to win the GI Bing Crosby Stakes Saturday at Del Mar. For the trainer who has been training off and on since 1999, it was his first Grade I win.

How did it feel? That was among the questions our team asked Barocio when he joined us on this week's TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland. Barocio was this week's Gainesway Guest of the Week.

“It's a blessing and it's a big blessing for my family,” Barocio said. “I consider myself an underdog who is trying to play in this arena. I found a horse that was an underdog, too. The horse did it all. For him just to accomplish that, it means a lot for my family. It means a lot for my parents.”

Lovesick Blues is a 7-year-old veteran on the California circuit whose best surface appeared to be the grass. Barocio approached his owner, Nick Alexander, about purchasing another horse, Desmond Doss (Grazen), but when told that horse was not in serious training, he decided to buy Lovesick Blues.

The Bing Crosby is a “Win and You're In” race for the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint, but Barocio will still need to pay $100,000 to get in the race because the horse was not nominated for the Breeders' Cup.

Barocio said he was not sure which way to go until his son intervened. Also called Librado Barocio, the son is an assistant coach for the UCLA football team. He talked his father into committing to the Breeders' Cup.

“He said, 'Dad, you made it to the Super Bowl,'” the elder Barocio said. “Right now he's at UCLA, but two years back he was with the Washington Commanders and Coach Rivera. And of course, their goal was to get to the Super Bowl. And when he played football at UCLA, their goal was to get to the national championship game. He said, 'Dad, you're in the Super Bowl.' He equated this victory with the Super Bowl. I agreed with him. The Breeders' Cup is the Super Bowl of racing. He said, 'You have to go,' and I said, 'absolutely, you are right.'”

Barocio, who says he divides his time between racing and his business as film maker, had his best year in 2023 when he won 24 races. This year, he is 16-for-65, good for a win rate of 25%. Barocio won his first graded stakes race in 2024 in the GIII Senorita Stakes with Visually (Enticed).

“I have to give all credit to my help, my workers, my assistants,” he said. “They work endlessly and they don't miss a beat. They do everything and sometimes they do it twice a day. We work on horses twice a day. I think the horses respond to that.”

In our “Fastest Horse of the Week,” segment which is sponsored by WinStar, the team went over the many reasons there are breed to WinStar stallion Heartland. The fastest horse of the week was none other than Lovesick Blues, who got a 105 Beyer for his win in the Bing Crosby.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by 1/ST Racing, 1/ST TV, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, and West Point Thoroughbreds, the team of Zoe Cadman, Bill Finley and Randy Moss reviewed the big effort by Sovereignty (Into Mischief) in the GII Jim Dandy Stakes and lamented the fact that he skipped the Preakness in a year where he might have won the Triple Crown.

As for the 2-year-olds, 'TDN Rising Star' Brant (Gun Runner) was a hot topic. A horse that cost a record $3 million at OBS March, he romped at first asking in a Del Mar maiden race, earning a 101 Beyer figure, the fastest number run by any 2-year-old this year.

The team also reviewed the GI Whitney S., which attracted possibly the best field of older dirt horses assembled this year. The consensus was that Fierceness (City of Light) is the horse to beat.

To watch the Writers' Room, click here. To view the show as a podcast, click here.

The post Librado Barocio Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Everett Dobson has officially been elected by the board of stewards to be the next chair of The Jockey Club. Dobson succeeds Stuart Janney, III, who has served as chair of the organization since August of 2015.

“It's a great privilege to follow Stuart as chair of The Jockey Club,” Dobson said. “Stuart has been an integral part of The Jockey Club as we strive to improve Thoroughbred breeding and racing. I will continue with our endeavor to develop initiatives that support and grow the sport.”

Dobson has been a member of The Jockey Club since 2014. He served as a steward from August 2017 through August 2021 and was elected again in 2024. A longtime owner and breeder of Thoroughbreds, the Oklahoma native is owner of Candy Meadows Farm and races under Cheyenne Stables.

He serves on the executive committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and is immediate past chairman of the American Graded Stakes Committee. Dobson also serves as a member of the Breeders' Cup, in addition to being a trustee of the Keeneland Association.

Dobson is the executive chairman of Dobson Fiber, a telecommunications company based in Oklahoma City. He is also an investor in the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder team and serves on its board of directors.

Janney will continue to serve on The Jockey Club's board of stewards.

“It has been an honor to serve as the chair of The Jockey Club these past 10 years,” Janney said. “I could not be more pleased with the accomplishments that have been made in the industry with the support and leadership of The Jockey Club. I have no doubt that, with Everett as chairman, The Jockey Club will continue to pave the way forward for our wonderful sport.”

Dobson will serve as the 11th chair of The Jockey Club since its establishment in 1894.

The remaining stewards are William S. Farish Jr. (vice chair), Ian D. Highet (treasurer), William M. Lear Jr. (secretary), Louis A. Cella, Gary Fenton, Terry Finley, David O'Farrell, Marc Holliday, Stuart S. Janney III, Bret Jones, and Vincent Viola.

The post Everett Dobson Officially Elected Chair of the The Jockey Club appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Graded races at Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park have been renamed in honor of the late trainers D. Wayne Lukas and Christophe Clement, 1ST, which operates both racetracks, announced Wednesday.

Beginning in 2026, the GII Santa Monica Stakes at Santa Anita will be renamed the D. Wayne Lukas Stakes, while the GIII La Prevoyante Stakes at Gulfstream Park has been renamed the Christophe Clement Stakes.

“D. Wayne Lukas and Christophe Clement were not just generational horsemen, they were top-class people,” said 1/ST President Aidan Butler. “Santa Anita and Gulfstream were blessed to be their homes for many years. It is an honor to salute them for years to come at our tracks by renaming races that helped launch their success stories.”

Lukas saddled Flack Flack to win the 1980 Santa Monica, then run as a handicap. It was the trainer's first Grade II race at Santa Anita Park and just his ninth graded stakes win since transitioning to Thoroughbreds from Quarter Horses. Lukas would go on to add five more Santa Monica's to his extensive resume with Parsley (1980), Bara Lass (1984), Pine Tree Lane (1987 and 1988) and the Hall of Fame filly Serena's Song (1996).

Only trainer Bob Baffert's seven wins bests Lukas's record in the seven-furlong race, which has been contested since 1957.

Lukas, who began his successful career based at Santa Anita Park in the 1970s-1990s, passed away June 28, less than three months before his 90th birthday.

The 1992 La Prevoyante provided Clement with just the second graded stakes win of his young career when Irish-bred Sardaniya won for His Highness the Aga Khan, coming less than a month after his first graded win at Gulfstream Park.

Currently run at Gulfstream over 1 1/2 miles on the grass for fillies and mares, the 1992 running at Calder was the first of Clement's six wins in the race, followed by Tampoli (1994), Caretta (1998 and 1999), Irish Mission (2014) and Beautiful Lover (2022).

Clement passed away May 24 at age 59.

The post 1/ST Renames Races in Honor of Lukas, Clement appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Retro payment checks for racing conducted at Golden Gate Fields from Dec. 26, 2023 through June 9, 2024 are ready for distribution, according to a release from Thoroughbred Owners of California.

The statement read, “As a result of a thorough review, it has been determined that a total of $670,455 was underpaid to the purse account. This resulted in an 8.04% retroactive payment to all participants who earned purse money in overnight races during this period.”

Eligible owners can log into their InCompass Horsemen's accounts to view the exact amount they are entitled to receive.

The post Golden Gate Fields Retro Payments Available appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

After growing clamor among horse players about the role that Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) players had in driving a spate of marked late odds changes at Del Mar this summer, track officials announced Tuesday that starting this Thursday, they would close CAW access to its win pools at two minutes before the off time.

“I'm really pleased. This is a stepping stone to getting things right as it effectively creates a retail only pool, and it stabilizes prices,” said Marshall Gramm, an economics professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee and someone who has studied the effects of CAW teams across the country.

At the same time, more could be done to “stabilize pricing” in all the visible non-win pools at the track, said Gramm.

“But this is certainly going to help things,” Gramm said about Tuesday's announcement. “It's a big step in the right direction.”

The debate around CAW players typically surrounds the major edge they wield over regular gamblers thanks to their use of sophisticated technologies that allow them to precisely read the markets and to place massive wagers across nearly all polls in the final seconds of betting, as well as the attractive rates and rebates offered to them which are unavailable to the average punter.

Since the start of racing this summer at Del Mar, there have been a growing number of examples of drastic late odds changes, many of them circulated on social media by frustrated horseplayers.

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (DMTC) president Josh Rubinstein wrote in Tuesday's press release about the win pool change:

“This is part of an overall effort to ensure an optimal wagering experience for fans on-track, at simulcast locations and those playing via our advanced deposit wagering partners.”

Rubinstein added, “We had taken steps to encourage CAW players to process their win wagers earlier in the cycle, but it has become clear that we need to take additional measures. We will continue to do our best to create a racing and wagering product that appeals to all segments of the horseplayer market.”

Emphasizing how he views Tuesday's announcement as a major net positive for horseplayers, Gramm added how track officials should now take further steps to curb CAW play in the place, show, Exacta and double pools.

As an example, Gramm pinpointed Saturday winner Nanci Griffith, who went from 18-1 while loading to a final price of 6-1.

Analyzing ADW Tote cycles, Gramm found that while about $10,000 was bet on Nanci Griffith before the last cycle in the win pool, some $25,000 came in for the filly after the last cycle, constituting 36% of the total amount wagered on her.

Furthermore, while she jumped from 4.4% to 11.4% in the win pool, “she went from 4.7% to 11.6% in the Exacta, so it wasn't just a win plunge,” said Gramm. “There was an Exacta change. A Double change. And that was fairly typical for these big market movers.”

Gramm's Del Mar analysis follows his recent study of last cycle activity at New York Racing Association's (NYRA) Aqueduct winter meet since 2022.

In that study, Gramm found that the estimated percentage share from CAW players of monies wagered into the Place, Show, Exacta, Trifecta, Superfecta and Early Pick 5 pools at the last cycle (now moved to 30 seconds) has increased noticeably since 2022.

He found that the estimated increase in CAW participation in these pools is significantly higher than that seen in the Win, Late Pick Five, and Pick Six pools, for which NYRA has taken tough steps in recent years to curb CAW play.

The largest apparent increase in last cycle money occurred in the Place pool (a 23.2% increase since 2022), and the Show pool (a 22.7% increase since 2022), according to Gramm.

Interestingly, Del Mar's steps to curb CAW access to the win pool at two minutes to post follow steps NYRA had already implemented since 2021. NYRA blocks CAW access to the win pool at three minutes to post.

The TDN recently asked three influential figures from the world of gambling to respond to Gramm's NYRA findings.

They suggested several measures for all tracks to better manage CAW activity, such as incrementally broadening the steps NYRA has already taken in its Win pools to include all visible pools, and cutting the rebates CAW teams receive, so tracks make more on each dollar bet.

Over the last couple of years, Del Mar has been the focus of scrutiny for its pricing policies in terms of the rates it charges individual CAW teams, and the potential impacts from these pricing decisions on the track's pools.

The TDN found that in 2023, Elite 17–one of more than a dozen individual Elite Turf Club players–enjoyed a noticeably more favorable rate than those other players that year.

Owned by The Stronach Group and NYRA (the latter with a 20% non-controlling interest), Elite Turf Club is a CAW wagering platform that makes up a significant portion of Del Mar's handle. But the favorable rate that Elite 17 enjoyed gave the betting breakdown of Elite Turf Club's ledgers that year a lop-sided look.

Indeed, Elite 17's play constituted nearly 47% of Elite Turf Club's total handle on Del Mar in 2023, according to data obtained by TDN. This was no small amount of money–Elite 17 wagered some $53 million on the track alone that year.

And little had changed last year, with Elite 17 still wielding the same lop-sided impact on CAW wagering at the track.

According to 2024 data obtained by the TDN, the amount Elite 17 wagered constituted 46% of the overall handle that Elite Turf Club players placed on Del Mar's product–what amounted to $63.4 million of a total $138.1 million (including Breeders' Cup play in the fall).

Earlier this month, however, Rubinstein told the Paulick Report that “at the request of the TOC (Thoroughbred Owners of California), we have further modified our [CAW] pricing policies for this year.”

The TDN reached out to Del Mar for a response to Gramm's suggestions. A track spokesperson said that it had no comment beyond Tuesday's press release.

The post Del Mar CAW Change Analysis: ‘Big Step in Right Direction,’ but More Needed to ‘Stabilize’ All Visible Pools appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

After winning the July 5 Sanford Stakes (G3) by 10 1/2 lengths, Leland Ackerley Racing's undefeated Obliteration will look to add to his resume Aug. 2 in the $200,000 Saratoga Special Stakes (G2).