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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS JANUARY 27, 2012 by Dick Powell Speaking of VLTs at Aqueduct, the latest results have to be concerning to all involved. Usually, the first three months of the year are very strong. The holidays are over, the weather is bad and with most activities limited, business at the various racinos around New York State usually picks up. The past two weeks at Aqueduct saw the daily win per machine drop down to an average of $315. When the VLTs began operation at Aqueduct back in October, there were only 2,486 machines in place. Five weeks ago, the number doubled to 5,000 and naturally the daily win per machine went down. The first three weeks that Aqueduct had the full complement of machines were right around the holidays so expectations had to be restrained. There really hasn't been anything out of the norm with the weather so an upward trend could be expected as January progressed. To give you a comparison, Yonkers Raceway has 5,352 VLT machines in place and they have averaged $313 the past 44 weeks. The history of the racinos in New York does show growth as time goes on. There's a review process with the Division of Lottery that enables the operator to maximize their best performing games. While that will be true at Aqueduct, and the daily win per machine will undoubtedly increase, the one advantage they had was that the Lottery has already implemented a system of free play subsidies where the state does not tax the action that is part of a free play promotion. Since this has been implemented, after being pioneered by Jeff Gural, owner of Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs, all the racinos saw robust growth. The system has been in play well before the VLT operation began at Aqueduct and it's surprising that the numbers are not stronger since it was available to them from day one. The $60,000 maiden special weight races are fine but to move the needle, more is needed. If Kentucky maintains its progress towards implementing gaming at their racetracks, you can bet that they will allocate a higher percentage of the gross gaming revenue towards purses and breeders awards. Churchill and Keeneland will most likely have even higher purses than NYRA will, so the head start that NYRA has at the upper echelon of racetracks with gaming will have to be maintained. The competition for top quality horses will be at an all-time high when Kentucky racetracks finally get gaming. *** As has been the case for many years, I had the distinct pleasure to attend the National HBPA's winter conference at Hollywood Beach, Florida. On Saturday, January 14, they had a morning session on Lasix and like all their medication panels, it was educational and instructive. The main piece of news coming out of the panel was research being done by Dr. Thomas Tobin, who is a professor of Veterinary Science, Gluck Equine Research Center and Graduate Center for Toxicology, University of Kentucky and acts as a National HBPA Veterinary Advisor. Dr. Tobin is doing research that indicates that one reason that our horses might bleed as much as they do is the jarring of the stride that the Thoroughbred racehorse uses in full flight. He even went so far to suggest re-naming Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage (EIPH) to Shock Wave-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage since he now feels that one of the main culprits is how violent the stride of the Thoroughbred is and how hard our racetracks are. Not all exercise results in EIPH; horses that swim do not suffer from it so maybe the exercise part of the term needs to be dropped. Rick Violette, top trainer at NYRA and President of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, told me essentially the same thing last summer about how hard Thoroughbreds' strides are and how hard it is on their muscular-skeletal structure which might be contributing to bleeding. Now, Dr. Tobin is finding a correlation that if a horse is running on his/her right lead, the right lung is the one that is more likely to bleed and vice-versa. The research that Dr. Tobin is doing begins to connect some dots. It explains why EIPH is more of an issue with Thoroughbreds than it is with Standardbreds. Standardbreds have a fluid gate and do not have the rocking horse stride of Thoroughbreds. On Saturday at the Meadowlands, more than 50 horses are racing that are not regular users of Lasix. On Saturday at Aqueduct, only six horses (five first-time starters) are not regular users of Lasix. This makes sense and please don't think that harness racing does not have medication problems. A pacer or a trotter races with their head pretty steady due to the smoothness of their gaits. When you see a close finish in a harness race, it's not a head bob like Thoroughbreds. Another dot that can be connected to Dr. Tobin's research is how our dirt races are conducted compared to how our turf races are conducted and how foreign turf races are conducted. With our dirt races, the gate is sprung and the horses run full tilt for as long as they can. Nearly all dirt races go fast early and slow late. In turf races, most of them are run slow early and fast late. It's not unusual to see turf horses come home in 22 seconds for their last quarter since they went slow early. The jarring of the stride is less on turf and it might explain why EIPH is not the big issue it is overseas. Plus, and this is especially true in foreign racing, the turf courses are almost universally softer and kinder to race over to the point where if a turf course gets too firm overseas, it is usually watered to soften it up. So even with the jarring stride of the Thoroughbred, the pounding that might burst capillaries would be less on surfaces that are not as firm as our dirt tracks. Clearly, more research needs to be done but if Dr. Tobin's continues to support his theory, many dots can be connected and it will explain why the American Thoroughbred suffers from EIPH more than his international counterparts.
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