opinion

No, Kentucky Derby 150 Doesn’t Need An Asterisk

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

This past weekend, Nysos won the Robert Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita, and he did so very impressively. In the process, he moved his career record to a perfect 3-for-3. That effort, combined with an underwhelming showing from Fierceness in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park, made many think he’s the top 3-year-old in the country.

Nysos, though, won’t run in the Kentucky Derby. He’s trained by Bob Baffert, who also conditions several other top-class 3-year-olds. Baffert’s Kentucky Derby ban has been extended through this year’s renewal, and unlike the past two seasons, owners connected with those horses decided to keep their runners in the same barn.

Outcry has, predictably, been pretty harsh, and not just from the usual suspects on horse racing Twitter. Several journalists I respect a great deal have chimed in, claiming that this year’s Kentucky Derby has a stain on it from the lack of Bob Baffert trainees (several of which would be considered logical contenders).

As you can probably guess from the headline, I don’t agree with that sentiment. However, my thoughts on this are similar to the ones I had about the Alix Earle situation at the Pegasus World Cup: Many people have this very, very wrong.

I’m going to throw my readers a curveball here with this next sentence (at least in the eyes of some who will see this article): I don’t love the way Baffert was suspended an additional year. The precedent of tacking on additional time after a verdict was handed down, and as a punishment is being served, isn’t a good one.

The long-running legal battle between Churchill Downs and the Baffert/Amr Zedan camp undoubtedly played a role in this. It was ugly, and I think most of the racing world breathed a sigh of relief when Baffert and Zedan stopped pursuing the case earlier this year. I understand CDI doing what it feels is best for business, but it’s also logical to think this stacks the deck against someone who may have a legitimate case of some sort down the line.

Acting as though one person or one entity is above the game is misleading, at best. On the other hand, though…acting as though one person or one entity is above the game is misleading, at best. Much like Churchill Downs, Bob Baffert and his owners aren’t more important than the rest of the industry.

Owners of horses like Nysos had a choice. They could’ve gone the routes made popular in 2022 and 2023 and sent their Derby prospects to the barns of Tim Yakteen, Sean McCarthy, Rodolphe Brisset, Brittany Russell, or other trainers in the game. More than one trainer can condition top-tier animals. Those owners chose to go another route, and that’s their right. I won’t criticize them for doing what they feel is correct. They pay the bills, not me.

What I also won’t do, though, is act as though those people are victims. Baffert was blackballed from the Run for the Roses, not the owners. Just because those connections aren’t pointing those horses to the Kentucky Derby doesn’t mean I’m going to devalue that race, and I don’t think anyone else should, either.

Barring a flip-flop by the owners of horses like Nysos, Muth, and others, those thoroughbreds won’t be in the starting gate. That’s not ideal, and neither is acting as though everything’s fine and the efforts of those horses don’t exist (as Churchill’s doing). However, it’s not the first time horses at or near the head of the class won’t go postward on the first Saturday in May.

Horses get knocked off the Derby trail every single season. Injuries derail the chances of major players frequently. Most notably, Forte, who would’ve been favored a year ago, scratched the morning of the race. Life Is Good and Shared Belief sure would’ve made the 2021 and 2014 Derbies more interesting, too. They didn’t run, either, and both years, fans and handicappers more than made due on the first Saturday in May.

The difference, of course, is that Nysos isn’t injured. As far as we can tell, he bounced out of the Lewis well. We’ll probably see him in either the San Felipe or the Santa Anita Derby, depending on what Baffert decides to do with his other 3-year-olds, and wherever he winds up, he’ll almost certainly be a very heavy favorite (and justifiably so).

Yes, the Kentucky Derby would be better with Nysos in it. Yes, the Preakness sure looks like the Bob Baffert Invitational, where that barn will undoubtedly be loaded and ready to feast upon horses being wheeled back in two weeks and other “new shooters” that almost certainly don’t stack up well in the form. Saying otherwise is naive and acts as though a major issue doesn’t exist (which, to be fair, is in line with horse racing’s approach on other topics that it’s kicked the can down the road on and can no longer just ignore).

However, there’s a lot of blame to go around for the way this wound up. Giving the race a physical or mental asterisk solves nothing. I’ll never agree with those acting as though the Derby is somehow just another 3-year-old race because one trainer, and owners who made conscious choices to stick with that trainer, can’t participate.

(As an aside, an acquaintance of mine has said they’re taking screenshots of folks insisting they don’t care, won’t bet on the race, and making other bold statements. I look forward to the “then and now” posts made when those people inevitably cave.)

It gets old saying “everyone’s wrong.” I genuinely believe most people mean well. I don’t think anyone’s happy horse racing is in the shape it’s in right now. These conflicts, though, solve absolutely nothing and make unifying for meaningful change beyond one big day much, much harder.

Here’s hoping that stops, and does so sooner rather than later.

Alix Earle Went To The Pegasus. Horse Racing Twitter Lost Its Mind.

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

I write today not to bury Gulfstream Park, nor to praise it. My latest entry in the “does anyone actually read these?” files instead strikes a familiar refrain that can be applied to a staggering number of situations.

Some background, for those unfamiliar with the situation: Influencer Alix Earle attended the Pegasus World Cup Saturday. Her social media content from the event reached a staggering 6.5 million people in 24 hours. This, of course, drove horse racing Twitter bananas, with fanatics grumbling about how Earle’s presence contributed nothing to the event.

Some further background, for those unfamiliar with me (and because, the last time I did this to establish myself as an “expert witness” of sorts, a few people missed the point and lost their minds over it): I have more than 13 years of experience in digital and social media marketing. Outside of horse racing, I’ve grown brands in the non-profit and college athletics sectors. Inside of this particular industry, I’ve shepherded online outlets for some of the most well-known news and entertainment operations in the game and, of course, had Lord Miles at 59-1 in the Wood Memorial (and the reaction that gets is why I still bring it up; I know my audience!).

All of this is to say I’m as well-qualified as anybody to discuss the layers of this, and that familiar refrain I mentioned earlier is a simple one: Almost everyone is wrong in some way, shape, or form.

The first thing you do, when you want to present your product as “cool,” is find people who others think are “cool” and use them to your benefit. Given the media landscape in 2024, the best way to do this is influencer marketing, and it’s a really simple concept provided you’ve got the money to do it.

As a sport, we talk about needing to try new things to get the sport in front of new fans. Given how many people saw Alix Earle’s content, that box was checked, multiple times over. Sorry to say it, folks, but industry channels and publications aren’t reaching 6.5 million people a day. We’re all statistically insignificant by comparison.

On that level, I have no problem with the presence of Alix Earle at the Pegasus. It seems like a mutually beneficial partnership. Gulfstream gets social media exposure, and Alix Earle gets eyeballs on her content, even if those eyeballs aren’t necessarily those of hardened handicappers (whose eyeballs instead rolled hard as this content got rolled out).

To use a marketing term, though, this got people into the funnel. The next step, now that they’re there, is to convert those people into customers. So what’s Gulfstream Park doing to give these people every reason to come back to the track?

There are ways this can be done. Hit the demographics Alix Earle’s trying to hit with social media ads that have her Pegasus photos or footage in them (assuming you have the rights to something). Use what you’ve got to drive Pegasus-goers back to the racetrack more than once, and when they get there, have resources that are there to introduce people to the betting side of the game. More informed fans are better fans. Better fans wager more and are more likely to introduce the sport to their friends. This isn’t complicated.

There’s a place for influencer marketing in horse racing, but like everything else, there has to be a follow-through. Gulfstream Park has five stakes races on Saturday’s card. The headliner, the Holy Bull, features Fierceness, who’d be the Kentucky Derby favorite if the race was run right now.

Do we think the people who saw Alix Earle’s videos know that? My money’s on “no,” and that’s where it falls apart.

Alix Earle being at the Pegasus World Cup isn’t the issue. The lack of a follow-through is, and that’s where horse racing’s in trouble. If the industry isn’t marketing correctly to new fans, or to the fans it has, what’s going on here?

The data doesn’t present a pretty picture. Handle is down pretty considerably, and only being kept afloat, at some venues, by CAW groups that have certain capabilities unavailable to the average player. The increased availability of legal sports betting can’t help matters. Why go against the sharks at the racetrack when you can spend your gambling dollars at sportsbooks that know their customers and give them what they want?

At its best, horse racing is the best gambling game on the planet, and there’s no close second. It’s what got me into the game as a kid, and it’s why the only times horse racing Twitter comes together with joy is when a player makes a big score. Marketing it as the premier betting opportunity in the country isn’t going to solve all of horse racing’s ills (we’re still breeding fewer horses that don’t run as much as their predecessors), but without that, handle’s going to keep circling the drain and put the sport in an even worse position moving forward.

In that regard, I share the frustrations of my horse racing Twitter brethren at the sport’s continued inability to effectively communicate with its fanbase. That’s my “why,” and it’s a big reason why I show up with content every year at Saratoga, Pleasanton, and a few other outlets. There’s a legitimate gripe that needs to be addressed by tracks across the country, in the form of effective marketing, fan education, and getting people hooked on the game the ways many of us were.

If your problem is with Alix Earle, though, the blame is misplaced.

(Oh, and if you’ve got an issue with well-known, younger women attending sporting events and being seen a lot, you probably shouldn’t watch the Super Bowl.)

Getting Back To Writing For Fun, And Writing What I Know

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

Somewhere between Newark, New Jersey, and San Francisco, California, as an Alaska Airlines flight attendant repeatedly barreled into my right shoulder with a lower body reminiscent of Earl Campbell, I realized I hadn’t written anything consistently solely for my own pleasure in quite a while.

I’ve written for work, I’ve written because I’ve felt a need to write something, and I’ve written calls to action of sorts. However, for a bunch of reasons, the urge to write things because I enjoy writing was gone for a while.

It’s back now, thank goodness, and my early New Year’s Resolution of sorts is simple: Write more. I figure I’m good for a column a week most weeks, with the exception of when Saratoga Race Course is open for business (more news is coming on my plans for this summer in the next few months). Want more than that, or want me to focus on something in particular? Tell me. The “contact” feature on my site works, and I see everything that comes in.

People smarter than me say to write what you know, so let’s give it a whirl. Most of my experience is in the gambling space, so there’ll be a healthy dose of that in a lot of what I put together. However, there’ll be some other stuff in there, too (stuff I hope someone out there either enjoys reading or needs to hear).

With that in mind, here’s a list of the things I’ve come to know that, hopefully, proves helpful to someone out there.

I know that more educated, informed fans become better, more devoted fans that will spend more time, energy, and money on a given product.

I know that, to be a better horse racing fan, you’d be well served to spend time reading stuff written by folks named Clancy, Nevills, Voss, Scheinman, Grening, Wincze-Hughes, Beyer, and Crist, rather than stuff put together by people who can barely put out a somewhat-coherent, 280-character post on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

I know that renaming the previously-mentioned platform X was a cataclysmically-stupid move, so I’ll reference it as such as little as possible.

I know that the previously-mentioned flight attendant must have seen what I wrote in the first paragraph, because she damn near elbowed me in the temple just now. Sorry, ma’am.

I know that, from the perspective of horse racing’s establishment, the problem is never the problem, but people TALKING about the problem. I know this because of what some in the media are experiencing now, and from first-hand experience nearly 10 years ago.

I know that, at some point, I’ll tell that story publicly. Not yet, though.

I know that, if horse racing continues this harmful and borderline-shameful practice, the chances of there ever being any sort of productive change within an industry that sorely needs it get lower and lower.

I know that, if you give attention whores attention, they win.

I know that because you’re still hearing about Lord Miles in the Wood Memorial eight months later. If it didn’t get the reaction of “drive some people crazy and get under the skin of people whose buttons I enjoy pushing,” do you really think I’d still be doing it?

By extension, I know that not nearly enough people have ever learned that lesson.

I know the biggest winner in most legal cases is “billable hours.”

I know that Saratoga hosting the Belmont for a few years is a polarizing topic.

I know that Saratoga can throw a horse racing-themed festival like few other places on the planet.

I know that there are very real, very logical objections some have involving the race’s distance and plans for after the mid-2020’s.

I know horses haven’t been bred to go 12 furlongs for decades now, and that dismissing that fact seems dangerous (especially when a career turf sprinter somehow saw 293 mares this breeding season).

I know that I’m going to miss Golden Gate Fields when it closes in June, and I hope that closure doesn’t impact the Northern California fair circuit that’s near and dear to my heart.

I know that, heaven help me, I’m going to miss Aqueduct, too.

I know Mike Repole’s heart is in the right place, and that I have a significant amount of respect for his acumen as a businessman, a horse owner, and an ambassador of horse racing.

I know nobody has ever won anything of substance based on a Twitter poll.

I know that anyone with a net worth north of $100 million should be paying new college graduates living wages to snatch their phones from their hands when the urge to let fly with a platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter rampage comes bubbling to the surface.

I know we’ve got one life to live and that there’s no excuse spending any of it being miserable on social media, to people you’ll never meet, for reasons most logical people will never understand.

I know that public and semi-public figures put themselves out there and sign up for backlash.

I know that family members are off-limits.

I know that everyone needs a support system to go to when things get rough.

I know that I appreciate everyone that constituted mine when I went through some rough stuff earlier this year. I’m on the other side of most of it, and I’m in the debt of anyone reading this who took the time to check in, send a message, make a phone call, or otherwise reach out.

I know time is the most valuable resource we have.

I know there’s no substitute for time spent with family, friends, and loved ones. I love you all, and you know who you are.

2023 Kentucky Derby Recap: From Chaos Comes Clarity

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

Want to read a Kentucky Derby recap that has very little to do with the race? If so, I’ve got just the ticket.

(Editor’s note: Uh oh.)

(Writer’s retort: Come on. It’s me. You knew this was going to be weird.)

I did a ton of Kentucky Derby content leading up to Saturday. Catena Media allowed me to get my hands dirty on a bunch of sites within the company’s portfolio, and I’m grateful to them for that. I love my job, and I very much enjoy collaborating with some of the best co-workers (and friends) one can ask for.

I did a ton outside of my day job, too. You may have heard me on a few podcasts, and if you were in Ithaca or Albany (two of my former places of residence), you may have heard me on local sports radio affiliates, too. I woke up on Saturday morning bright and early, fully prepared to compile everything into one nice, neat package.

And then Forte scratched, and everything came crashing down.

Not literally, of course. Life goes on. However, with that scratch, almost every piece of content I conceived, produced, edited, and/or published the prior four or five days became irrelevant.

You may have seen a few social media posts from me in that vein that hinted I wasn’t in a great mood. As I told a few family members and close friends, I was absolutely devastated, and not because Forte wasn’t running.

There’s no worse feeling than seeing a lot of hard work fueled by passion go down the drain. I spent the entire week touting Forte enthusiastically, so everything that enthusiasm touched was instantly rendered obsolete.

(Quick note: If the vets determined Forte shouldn’t have run, then he shouldn’t have run. It’s truly as simple as that, so please don’t put words in my mouth.)

I audibled reasonably well the morning of the race. I put out a revised betting strategy, and if you acted on it, you came out ahead. Mage was my third choice, but a win bet at overlaid odds proved profitable. My exactas were toast, so I didn’t get rich, but I’ve had far, far worse Derbies.

After the race, a tweet of mine went around pretty quickly. I said Forte would have stomped that group, and I sincerely believe that. He’s beaten Mage twice already, and I don’t see a reason a healthy version of him couldn’t have done so again this weekend. I hope we’ll get a chance to see him sooner rather than later, ideally at an overlaid price.

The interactions that followed, though, gave me a lot of insight into my feelings and motivations. For as much bluster, pompousness, and ego my detractors (and there are many, for reasons passing understanding…) will claim I have, I genuinely enjoy going back and forth with about 90 to 95 percent of horse racing Twitter. I’ll talk shop in any setting anyone wants, and more often than not, I’ll genuinely enjoy it.

I was miserable most of Derby Day, and not because a horse I was excited to bet wasn’t going to run. It was because I put a lot of my spare energy into creating content for horseplayers to digest and enjoy, and I do it because there’s no better feeling than using my knowledge and insight to help someone else make money.

It’s why I keep doing all of this stuff on top of a day job I very much enjoy. I’m not getting rich off of these passion projects, and that’s not the point. The things I do in horse racing are because I want to do them, and because, over the years, there’s enough evidence to support the idea that I know what I’m talking about (you might have heard about Lord Miles…).

Saratoga’s in two months. I’ll be back in the pages of The Pink Sheet and online on this very site with full-card analysis, selections, and bankroll plays. Before that is the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton. I’ll be in Europe for the first week of that meet, but most weekends, I’ll be co-hosting handicapping seminars just outside the grandstand that preview each day of racing action at the Northern California fair track.

In the meantime, you can keep checking this site and my social media platforms. I’m an easy guy to find. If you’ve got any ideas for content, or just something you’d like to see, use the “contact” function. I see everything that comes through.

To those that enjoy what I do, thank you. You’re a large part of why I’m still able to do it.

Sounding The Alarm To Fix Major Horse Racing Issues

Posted on by Andrew Champagne

The inspiration for this article came from a conversation I had with a good friend who works in the horse racing business.

(Editor’s note: Wait, Andrew has friends? We’re as shocked as you are.)

(Writer’s retort: You’re a jerk.)

On the whole, I don’t share the “doom and gloom” outlook on horse racing possessed by some loud voices on horse racing Twitter. I don’t think horse racing is on its deathbed, or that the sport will cease to exist in a certain number of years. I love this game, and as anyone who follows me can attest, I pour a great amount of energy into it on a consistent basis.

The fact is, however, that competition for legal wagering dollars has never been greater. Sports betting is being legalized in a majority of states around the country. The latest state to approve the industry is Kentucky, whose governor signed a sports betting bill last week.

Sooner rather than later, residents of the Bluegrass State will be able to log on to DraftKings, FanDuel, or whatever platform they want. They’ll be able to lock in wagers on their favorite teams, at set odds, with an abundance of free information at their fingertips. The rules of these contests are iron-clad and laid out for all to see, high standards for competition and the settings of competitions are set, winners and losers are known when the clock shows all-zeroes, and, by and large, confusion is at a minimum.

Meanwhile, in horse racing, all of the following items on the list below are true.

  • Racetracks, on occasion, have major issues correctly timing races from start to finish.
  • Three major racetracks (Gulfstream Park, Churchill Downs, and Fair Grounds) have had significant problems growing and maintaining grass on their turf courses.
  • Late odds changes are commonplace across many prominent circuits.
  • The California breeding industry is facing immense obstacles, and a major source of Cal-breds, Ocean Breeze Farm, has been put up for sale by the Reddams.
  • One state’s racing circuit, which had been handling record numbers over the past few years, stopped sending its simulcast signal out of its state, resulting in millions of dollars in lost handle each month (and that’s being conservative).
  • At the time of this writing, nearly two years after the 2021 Kentucky Derby, we still don’t know the official winner of that race.
  • Nearly four years after the 2019 Kentucky Derby, we don’t have one uniform answer to the question, “what is a foul that merits disqualification?”

With all of that in mind, why would any novice who doesn’t have the time to dig into specifics choose to bet on horse racing rather than sports? This is true even in Kentucky, a state that prides itself on being the heartbeat of the racing industry. Call me crazy, but I don’t think the history of horse racing matters too much to someone who’s been to the track once a year, has $100 to gamble with, and has a choice of a Pick Four or an NFL game he/she/they can research a thousand different ways without spending a dime.

Take all of the things we horseplayers bicker about on Twitter and throw all of them out the window for a moment. Instead, let’s ask ourselves this question: What are we, as a sport, doing to ensure we get things as right as possible, as quickly as possible, for the benefit of every stakeholder involved?

Optics matter, and not just for whatever part of racing’s multi-legged stool you happen to reinforce. There are no simple answers to the below questions, but they need to be asked.

  • What are we doing to educate new fans, make them more informed fans, and give them the confidence they need to put their money through the betting windows more than once or twice a year?
  • Why are we breeding fewer horses, and why are the ones we breed now running fewer times, needing more time after races, and becoming harder for the average fan to develop interests in than thoroughbreds of years past? More importantly, how do we reverse this trend to where we’re breeding to race instead of racing to breed (or, even worse, breeding to sell on a widespread basis)?
  • What are we doing to get new owners involved in the game when the economics to do so have never been more challenging for the non-gazillionaires out there?
  • How do we keep the mid-sized, 10-12% trainer in business when the 20-25% trainers seem to have all the top bloodstock, owners, and riders on lockdown?

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m a bettor and a marketing/communications guy. I’m not a horseperson, or a veterinarian, or someone who’s intimately familiar with the challenges barns of all sizes face on a daily basis.

(Editor’s note: Wait a minute. He’s actually NOT a pompous know-it-all?)

(Writer’s retort: Shocking, right? Don’t tell anyone. Wouldn’t want to ruin a good shtick.)

I’m also not trying to insinuate the industry isn’t doing anything at all. A number of outlets are doing good work, and, in many cases, doing so while fighting numerous uphill battles. Acting as though they don’t exist, and/or minimizing their efforts, paints a biased picture.

(Also, say what you will about HISA, a well-meaning but imperfect piece of legislation clearly absent input from horsepeople before it was drafted and signed into law. However, it’s attempting to get everything under one roof with one set of rules. We can debate parts of the legislation all day long, but that particular goal is an admirable one.)

Still, there’s more that can be done across the board by everyone in racing’s ecosystem. Acting as though everything is fine and dandy when it isn’t is flat-out delusional, and it’s long past time for the industry to stop kicking the can down the road.

We don’t have to agree on everything in order for this to happen. If anyone knows about not being agreed with by some very vocal members of horse racing Twitter, it’s me (shoot, I got read the riot act once by someone angry I posted resources for victims of domestic violence). We can check our opinions about HISA, people in the game, and almost any other racing matter at the proverbial door.

The important thing we need to agree on is this: Things in horse racing are broken. If the industry is to survive (and maybe even thrive), a lot of things need to be fixed. The answers aren’t small tweaks. They’re huge, foundation-level adjustments that may require short-term sacrifices (a dirty word, I know, but go with it) to ensure the sport is still around for future generations.

The solution to these problems I’ve mentioned isn’t shooting the messenger. The problems are the problems themselves, not people talking about them (a lesson those quick to criticize the media would do well to learn). Whatever solutions are out there will take lots of thought from lots of smart people.

If we don’t find them soon, the consequences will be real and have longstanding effects for everyone. Let’s start the work now.