Hong Derby Winners in Kentuck Derby????

[Seabiscuit]

yep, folks you read that right. Under the silly rules for the Kentucky Derby it is possible that one of those poor excuses for a Derby winner (ie a Hong Kong Derby winner) could be in the Kentucky Derby if the trainer felt so inclined.
You see the rule is that if more than 20 horses want to run then order of entry is determined by earnings in Graded Stakes races. Steve Crist pointed out in the DRF that there are problems with this rule. The main problems as I see it are caused by foreign Graded or Group races. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against foreigners (some of my best friends are foreigners). But how do we know if races like the UAE Derby or HK Derby are up to scratch??? I mean as Crist pointed out those billionaires from Dubai could make the prizemoney so huge that the first 4 finishers in the UAE could all qualify for the Kentucky Derby. But they may be hopeless. The Stakes are so big in HK that the plodder who wins the Hong Kong Derby could go straight in (you only need $100000 or thereabouts to qualify for the top 20). Let's face it people - the winner of this years Hong Kong Derby Olympic Express would have less chance of winning the Kentucky Derby than Osama bin Laden has to become President of the USA. When they run that first half mile in a mighty fast 45 seconds flat chances are that Olympic Express would drop dead from a cardiac arrest. If he ran in a $10000 claimer at Penn National nobody would buy him as he is a dud. However the horse would be able to run in the Kentucky Derby because of the inflated and undeserved prizemoney in Hong Kong.
There would be no problem if everyone who wanted a start got one. But because the entry rules are based on money then it is possible that the UAE Derby and HK Derby winners could enter under possibly false pretences. The last thing we want is for the Run for the Roses to be hijacked by suit wearing, limo riding billionaire playboys from Dubai or Hong Kong at the expense of battling American trainers who live with holes in their shoes and struggle to put food on their tables and even in their horses feed bins. Money is the root of all evil and should not be used to determine Derby entry. Certain races should be assigned points and a points system used. If money has to be the standard it should only be based on winnings in USA Graded Stakes as our racing is the best in the world and then we will have a common basis for comparison.

[hobbes]

When they run that first half mile in a mighty fast 45 seconds flat chances are that Olympic Express would drop dead from a cardiac arrest.
half mile -- what is that ? rest of the world uses metric system which i think the yanks tried, but found it just to hard to change their ingrained habits.
also re that 45 secs -- exactly how many metres in front of the starting gates do they have the electronic beam that starts the clock. how wierd is that. can you tell me of any other sport that starts the clock after the race has begun ??

[shapke]

American horses may rule the (dirt) racing world, although not even that niche is theirs all of the time.
Much of the rest of the world prefers to run on turf. Much of the rest of the world prefers to time the runners from when they actually start.
In the US, the handle is hardly exciting, the takeouts less so and if you're good enough to get over the top of that, they want to take half of what you win.
The USA is well behind in the real racing world, Biscuit.
Drug-assisted squibs, mostly, breeding the same and the racing industry there is widely regarded as something of a jingoistic, blinkered joke.
Have a nice day. Want fries with that?
________
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[masun]

If earnings is the sole criteria, I think all the Kentucky runners will be Japanese. For the QEII Cup, I checked out the prizemoney each horse had earned and wondered why on earth they were in the same race. For example, Agnes Digital had won HK$49,247,000, Eishin Preston HK$31,764,570. The other top contenders, Grandera just HK$3,508,330, less than 1/10 of that of Eishin Preston; Universal Prince HK$10,888,280. Even Idol ($5,325,838) has earned more than Grandera!
While still on the subject of prizemoney, I just read that the veteran Indigenous has already earned its owner over $5 million this season alone!

[Seabiscuit]

Shapke, what do you mean by the "real" racing world? Define it for those of us less enlightened than yourself. Do you mean Japan where the tote turnover sinks into the murky depths every day along with the rest of the economy? Do you mean HK where the turnover is also going down? Probably they will introduce soccer betting there soon then Honkers will go into freefall and probably this bulletin board with it. Do you mean Australia where also tote turnover is falling steadily and they are running out of horses for their races (we get Simulcast of Australia in the USA and the Sydney race fields are tiny)? Do you mean Dubai where the track is like something out of a Baywatch set and where there is no betting?
Sure it is hard to win in the USA but you can if you have any talent (not that I am suggesting you have no talent). As the handle is small you need a different strategy but the odds are not insurmountable.
I am most intrigued by your comment that they want to take half what you win. What does this mean? In other countries you pay no tax on your winnings??? I find this surprising. If running a business of betting you should be subject to tax. I cannot believe that people want to avoid paying their fair share of tax in the first place. What about the money for roads, schools, hospitals and the cops. Don't you want the kids to have a good school to go to where they can learn to read and write? Don't you want the hospital to be able to treat the sick and injured. Those who don't pay tax in whatever country I am sure sit with the sword of Damocles over their head. One day they might just get found out.

[baldric]

Reading ol' Biscuit's stuff strongly suggests he's a true advocate of his signature.
I'd just like to point out, there's never any chance in hell of a HK Derby winner running in the Kentucky Derby - no matter how much money he's amassed. Cause he'd be a year too old !!!!

[shapke]

Hmmm, Biscuit.
I think that the good ol' boys of the US of A would kill for the sort of turnover of Japan or Hong Kong can generate per race. In fact, I would be interested to know what the aggregate turnover is in the US racing business - on all 37,000 races of it. And I wouldn't be too concerned about soccer betting having an impact on HK - it has been huge for a long time.
And though the fields in Australia are frequently small - in Sydney anyway - it would be tough to find a place where fields are averaging smaller than the US. Imagine how they would be without medication!
And no, you do not pay tax on winnings in more enlightened countries. Frankly, I don't see why gamblers should be solely responsible for schools, roads and hospitals. They are taxed when they have a bet - at a ridiculously high rate in the US - so why should they be taxed again because they back a winner? It is, paradoxically, a moral judgment on gamblers by politicians (!) which is itself morally reprehensible.
Business people and corporations should be taxed - properly - and there would be hospitals as far as the eye could see.
Why anyone would bother having a bet in the States is beyond me...and apparently beyond most punters in the US, where turnover has been right down to the core for some time. :D :D
________
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[hobbes]

v. g. point baldric.
seabiscuit i was about to answer your post in more detail but shapke has covered it pretty well. in most of the rest of the world gambling winnings are theoretically taxable if run as a business but the IRS equivalents have lost some cases in aust & HK over the last 20 yrs and generally do not pursue same currently.
but does not the IRS require deductions from j/pots on slots or longer priced racing payoffs where the collect exceeds $1,000. now that is sick.
my favourite piece of grafitti i saw in landmark casino restroom in las vegas circa 1979 >>
"stamp out organised crime -- abolish the IRS."
"power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Astor.
guess who has too much power?

[imaufo]

Champion's tale leaves literary rivals all at sea
By Max Presnell
May 3 2002
"A jockey in the pack heard a deep plaintive sound rise over the shouts of the crowd. It was Pollard, crying out a prayer. Seabiscuit felt the urgency and tugged at the reins. Pollard had nowhere to send him. A slender hole opened. Pollard measured it in his mind; maybe it was wide enough, maybe it was not. If Pollard tried to take it, it was highly likely he would clip his right leg."
Seabiscuit and Red Pollard are two of the major players in Sea Biscuit: An American Legend (Random House) by Laura Hillenbrand, probably the best racing book I've read.
Certainly it is in the trifecta with Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley and Horse Trader by Patrick and Nick Robinson. I have not included Australian stories, as I don't want to seem biased.
Horse Heaven, set in the United States, is a novel, while Horse Trader is about "Robert Sangster and the rise and fall of the sport of kings".
There is no Dick Francis in my selections. Close associates might tell you this comes from an old injury from when Francis, an amateur jockey, got beaten on a good thing I had my last on when desperate in Britain during my stint there in the 1960s.
Perhaps my trifecta is interesting only because two out of the three are written by women. When I first started in racing, a zebra in the racecourse press boxes was more likely than a lady. Subsequently, on the local scene Shelley Hancox and more recently Caryl Williamson have earned their stripes. When it comes to turf writing, like training and even riding, the ladies have come to the fore.
With Seabiscuit, the prose of Hillenbrand has brought to life a great true story about a champion racehorse, a story studded with wonderful characters such as jockey Red Pollard.
In 1936, prior to riding Seabiscuit, the Canadian Pollard "was 26 and in the 12th year of a failing career as a jockey and part-time prize fighter. He was, statistically speaking, one of the worst riders anywhere. Once he was one of the best but those years were far behind him. He had no money, no home; he lived entirely on the road of the racing circuit, sleeping in empty stalls carrying with him only a saddle, his rosary and his books: pocket volumes of Shakespeare, Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, and maybe some Emerson, whom he called 'Old Waldo'.
"The books were the closest things he had to furniture and he lived with them the way other men live in easy chairs."
Pollard did his apprenticeship as "a bug boy in the 'bush leagues', which had more in common with ice hockey than the sport of kings.
"With no race cameras and only two patrol judges, jockeys could and would do anything to win.
"Jockeys on trailing horses would grab onto a leading horse's tail or saddle cloths so their horses could be towed around the track, saving energy. They joined arms with other jockeys to 'clothesline' jockeys trying to cut between other horses, formed obstructive flying wedges to prevent finishers, and bashed passing horses into the running rail. Because many tracks didn't have running rails the jockeys cut through the infield, dodging haystacks to win. In some cases riders even toppled opponents off their horses."
This was the foundation of Pollard, known as the "Cougar".
Pollard was blind in one eye, the victim of a flying clod. He kept his blindness secret otherwise he would have lost his licence. But the real crunch came when he worked a horse during a training session for another rider. The mount went on a bolting frenzy and finally crashed into the corner of the barn.
"A sickening noise ran down the line of barns," Hillenbrand explained. "It was Pollard, he was screaming. His right leg was nearly sheared off below the knee. The flesh of the leg had been ripped away, exposing the bone."
There was no ambulance. Pollard had to be packed onto an old truck the race starter used to get to the barrier. Horse rugs and towels were placed in it to give the injured jockey some cushion as he bounced to hospital.
During the trip, Pollard bellowed at Tom Smith, trainer of Seabiscuit: "Stop this wagon. I can't stand it any longer. Stop, that's the place."
He pointed at the liquor store. "I tell you I can't get to hospital if you don't get over there and buy me a bottle of beer."
Pollard returned to the saddle and Smith stuck by him when others wanted him sacked off Seabiscuit.
Smith made Jack Denham look downright gabby. The New York Herald racing correspondent maintained Smith, obviously nothing like his Australian counterpart, "says almost nothing constantly".
Known as the "Lone Plainsman", Smith hailed from the prairies, where he learned about horses studying mustangs (American brumbies).With Seabiscuit, it was love, or mutual understanding, at first sight.
"The colt was practically sneering at him," Hillenbrand explained. "Smith was standing a by track rail weighting the angles and gestures of low-level horses as they streamed to the post when a weedy three-year-old stopped short of him and 'looked right down his nose at me'."
On behalf of owner Charles Howard, Smith finally purchased Seabiscuit out of one of the great stables, under the control of the legendary Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, for $8000. Before he went to Smith, Seabiscuit had been shipped more than 6000 miles by road and had raced a staggering 35 times, at least triple the typical workload.
Years later, Fitzsimmons maintained the schedule, which could have been been termed horse torture, gave the horse the "seasoning" that enabled him to race for so long as an older horse.
However, Smith had the key to the stallion, which he loved to condition "in private" - to the extent he even had Howard purchase a lookalike to throw everyone off the Seabiscuit trail.
"The benefit of the secret workouts was sadistic pleasure," Hillenbrand maintained. "Smith took immense satisfaction in making reporters and clockers miserable."
Once asked to describe Seabiscuit at length, Smith replied, "He's a horse" and walked away.
Possibly you'll be disappointed in this review that so few words, unlike in the book, are given to the owner and the horse. Howard, like most owners, was just the money. And Seabiscuit? He was just a champion.
Back to the final race. Remember, Pollard had a screwed-up right leg. One bump and he was crippled.
"Carrying 130 pounds, 22 pounds more than Wedding Call and 16 more than Whichcee, Seabiscuit delivered a tremendous surge," Hillenbrand wrote.
"He slashed into the hole, disappeared between two larger opponents then burst into the lead. Pollard's leg cleared Whichcee by no more than an inch.
"Seabiscuit shook free and hurtled into the home stretch alone as the field fell away behind him."
Hoofnote: I'd like to hear of the best three racing books, with limited comments, from any turf enthusiast. Maybe we can develop a most-favoured list. Try me on: