Episode Transcript
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The Daily Gazette Company presents the parting Shots podcast. Now here's your host, Daily Gazette sports editor Ken shot. Thank you, Scott Kesey, and welcome to the Parting Shots podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe today. Thanks for joining me, the parting Shots podcast studio in Schenectady, New York. We have another great show for you. Won't be as long as I usually have these podcasts. Just one guest this week, and that is, of course, the Gazette sports writer Mike McGaddon. Recovering Saratoga it is at the track with Max segment. We'll look back at last week's racing at Saratoga race course, including Whitney Day. We saw an upset in the Whitney. A couple of the races were canceled because of weather. Mike will talk about that. And we'll talk about the Whitney Dazz as well as the hall of Fame induction at the National Racing Museum last week in Saratoga Springs. So we'll talk a lot about that. And Mike McGaddon's up next. So stay tuned here on the Parting Shots podcast.
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[00:02:31] Speaker D: Hi, this is Union College hockey alum Josh Juris. You're listening to the parting shots podcast with Daily Gazette support editor Kent.
[00:02:41] Speaker C: Welcome back to the podcast. We're at the halfway mark of the Saratoga horse racing season and Mike McAdam joins us with his at the track with Mac segment from the at the track with Mac segment studios unknown location how's it going, Mike?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: I'm home today. It's Tuesday, so that's where you can usually find me.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: So, yeah, for some reason you want to tape early. Why.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Might be a little issue of taking a degenerate Wednesday this week because that has graciously given me and some of my siblings the 1863 club table on Wednesday. So I'm not going to be very well equipped to contribute to the, at the track section of the paper. So let's just put it that way.
[00:03:29] Speaker C: Oh, enjoy the time there. Thank you. So after much anticipation, Whitney Day started off with a thud when overnight rain prompted naira to postpone the Sarah Turkey Derby Invitational and the Troy until this Saturday. The silver lining is there's an interesting lineup of turf stakes coming up. As long as it doesn't rain again. The weather's playing a role in this again.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't looked at the forecast today. It looks like kind of on and off the rest of the week. Tomorrow, Wednesday is going to be pretty good.
I'll take another peek at it on Thursday and see what's happening on Saturday. But hopefully it's, you know, I, you know, there isn't anything going on Friday night which would affect the turf racing.
You know, you mentioned Whitney Day and how they, they had a couple of nice turf races on the undercard and a half an hour before first post, Frank Miramati, the track announcer, said the Saratoga Derby Invitational and the Troy would be postponed until this coming Saturday, which was a shame. But, you know, it was the right thing to do. It was kind of a last minute announcement, which kind of thrilled, threw things into a little bit of chaos. But then what you wind up with this coming Saturday is you got four turf stakes, including those two I already mentioned, as well as the grade one four star Dave and the Galway, which is a listed stakes. What it kind of did was so they redrew those two races, Saratoga Derpy Invitational to grade one, $600,000 for three year olds on the turf. And the Troy had drawn Cogburn, who's kind of one of the buzz horses of season because he ran a north american track record, north american record time in winning the Jaipur at Saratoga during the Belmont Racing Festival. So he was entered in the troy last Saturday. He sticks. So you kind of wanted to see that star show up again. Saratoga Derby Invitational, though, kind of got kind of thrown into disarray. The top two on the morning line, Diego Velasquez and Cugino, are not entered in the race this Saturday. After it was redrawn. I don't know why. I don't know what they're doing. I do know that three horses that are entered back who weren't originally entered in the Saratoga Derby Invitational, Chicari Fulmineo and First World War are in the field now, which is good as long as they run in it. What happened was they're also cross entered in the secretariat at Colonial Downs on the same day. So I don't know which of those three is going to go in which race, but if you get Tricardo in there, that would be. That would be a good addition to make up a little bit for the loss of Diego Velasquez and Cujino. Again, I don't know what the story is, why those two didn't just run this Saturday. If they, you know, the race was canceled on last Saturday. I don't know where else they would go. They're not entered in the secretariat like these other three are. So that kind of, you know, that was kind of a negative effect of the rain off. But I. In the meantime, we do have very solid four stakes races. Three of them graded this coming Saturday. So it's kind of an interesting package for this week.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, before we get to look back at the Whitney itself, the annual National Racing hall of Fame inducted its class of 2024 last Friday. It was highlighted by contemporary category honorees. Joel Rosario, Triple Crown winner, justify and gun runner. What was the ceremony like?
[00:07:08] Speaker A: It was good, Joel.
They left him last in the lineup, as they always do. Like the people in the human. The humans in the contemporary category go last. And so we got to hear from Steve Asmuston, who got very emotional talking about Gunrunner, who, of course, was horse of the year and won the woodward at Saratoga. Memorable for the fact that one of the other horses in the field flipped the shoe on the back stretch and it came down and landed in gun runners tail and got tangled up in the tail. So he wound up winning with this horseshoe hanging off of his tail. But a phenomenal horse. And Steve Ashmussen was very attached to as the trainer, very attached to the horse, and kind of got choked up there, which, you know, is not unusual at these ceremonies. I know John Velazquez had a hard time getting through his speech a few years ago when he was inducted as a jockey and his wife had to kind of go up there and coach him through it a little bit. You know, justify is kind of interesting, all three of these in the contemporary category. Rosario, justify and gun runner went in in the first year of their eligibility justify, you know, I don't consider myself an absolutist, but if you win the triple crown, you kind of punched your ticket for the hall of Fame and first ballot.
But he doesn't come without some controversy because there's still the question of his Santa Anita Derby, where the California Horse Racing Board completely botched a negative drug test, or I mean a positive drug test, negative for the sport out of the Santa Anita Derby, which is still kind of up in the air and isn't fully adjudicated, which would take that race off of his resume. If something happens where they dq him, I don't think it's going to happen, but it's still kind of throws not an asterisk on justified, but it throws a little glimmer of controversy on him going in kind of tainted a little bit. Then, of course, Rosario is still riding. He's only 39 years old from the Dominican Republic and one of the best riders on the naira circuit for the last few years after he left California. So he was rightfully inducted into the hall of Fame. But most people were pretty cheerful and happy and grateful. Steve Asmussen was the one person that kind of indicated really how much this means to people because he did get a little emotional when he was up there talking about gun runner.
[00:09:39] Speaker C: When I was reading your story and I saw the age of Joel Rosario, I was like, wow, that's kind of young to be put into hall of Fame, but he's got the credentials, as you said.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, off the top of my head, there's certain rules, like trainers have to be licensed as a head trainer for 25 years. And, you know, they can, which means they can still be active if they took out their license when they were 20. I think for jockeys it's 20 years. So Joel, you know, took out his jockey license in the US, you know, when he was 19, I guess. And so there's certain rules, like for the racehorses, they have to be retired for a full five years, I think it is, which makes sense because justify won the triple crown in 2018.
So it's so weird because, I mean, these people all belong, but, you know, the jockeys and trainers, but they're still, like, actively pursuing their career and still piling up. You know, like Bill Mott was inducted in 1998. He just won the Whitney on Sunday for the first time ever. So it is kind of unusual. It's the one sport where people are still plying their trade. Of course, you can be any kind of age if you're a trainer. You know, jockeys generally, when they get up into the mid to high thirties, that starts to be retirement time. Their age starts catching up with them. But I'm not, not that old. I'm sorry. Like more like 50. Like Mike Smith is. I think he's 53. He's in the hall of Fame, and he came here and won a race earlier in the meet. So, you know, it's one of those sports where they induct. There's hall of famers all over the place. Like, you could look at any day's card and go, oh, he's in the hall of Fame. He's in the hall of Fame. So it's kind of one of those weird quirks of horse racing.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Is there any leading candidates for next year's induction?
[00:11:29] Speaker A: I'm not sure who's eligible, to tell you the truth. And as a voter, I can tell you there's, I can't remember all the finalists off the top of my head.
There might be one or two in there that I may have voted for but didn't get in. And then we'll just have to wait to see what the nominating committee comes up with next year, additions to the finalists that are already in place.
But you might see, like, a trainer or jockey suddenly is eligible next year based on those criteria that I just mentioned. But I'm not sure who that would be off the top of my head.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: Mike McGadam, joining us for his at the track with Mac segment, the outcome of the Whitney. Mike threw the older male dirt division into a little bit of chaos as Arthur's ride won it impressively while making his career stakes debut. And then national treasure simply looked ordinary.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you don't see this every day. Somebody, a horse, you know, Arthur's ride had, like, I don't know, eight career starts, making his stakes debut in the grade one Whitney. You know, it doesn't work that way. Usually you're, you know, maybe you hit when you're a three year old and you kind of get, you know, grinding away at the graded stakes schedule. And by the time you get to the Whitney, you got some experience under your belt. But Arthur's ride came in there just off of a great allowance win, by the way, at Saratoga, where he won by, I don't know how many lengths it was, but he posted a 111 buyer speed figure, which is very one of the highest in North America this year at a distance that was accommodating for the next jump, being, you know, a mile and an 8th in the Whitney. So they threw him in there. He ran away from the field. He was the only one on the front end. He didn't mind whatever moisture might have still been in the track and crushed it.
National treasure. I haven't really gotten a good answer out of the Bafford camp. I haven't seen one. I know. Flavian Pratt, the jockey, right after the race, said he didn't think he liked the track, which is what? Connections to the losing horses. He usually say something like that. Meanwhile, Bill Mott, who trains Arthur's ride, you know, I specifically asked him if the track condition changed, how they were going to approach the race at all. And he said, well, I don't think the track really was, you know, by the time they've been harrowing it all day and it's been drying out all day, I mean, even though it was listed as muddy sealed, he said it was drying out and it was getting pretty fast. So. So the winning connections said the track wasn't an issue. And the losing connections, of course, on cue, kind of complained about their horse not handling it that well. We'll see what happens with national treasure next.
You know, maybe train up to the Breeders cup. He's still going to be one of the top contenders for the Breeders cup classic, but he was. He finished in the middle of the pack and was kind of stalking in third or fourth place, heading into the second turn and just didn't have it, and went backwards and finished in the middle of the pack. You mentioned the disarray in the older male third division.
That's partly reflected in the fact that the NCRA poll, which I also vote on, came out this morning, and out of the 33 voters, there were eleven different first place choices this week. I don't know if I've ever seen that before, but it kind of is a reflection of how wide open it is. Suddenly, with Arthur's ride winning the Whitney, eleven different horses out of 33 voters getting at least one first place vote. That's insane.
The older male division right now, you have to throw next in there, too. This is a very interesting horse who won the birdstone at Saratoga last weekend, and it's a listed, non graded race at a mile and three quarters, which is an insane distance. There just aren't that many long distance races, marathons like that. And he's a specialist at it. And he's in the conversation maybe not for horse of the year, but he's certainly in the conversation for why doesn't he run in the Breeders cup classic at a mile and a quarter? And his trainer, Doug Collins, has just got bombarded with questions about that after the race because the horses kind of run the same schedule the last two years, and it's all mile and a half dirt races and, you know, mile and three quarters in the birdstone at Saratoga, people are clamoring for this horse to run, maybe in the Jockey Club Gold cup at Saratoga at a mile and a quarter, but he, he's reluctant to run him at a shorter distance than a mile and a half, which there just aren't any great ones at that distance on the dirt, you know, certainly not between now and the end of the year. So it seems like a kind of a no brainer to run, to at least try the Jockey Club Gold cup. And if he bombs, then, you know, don't run in the Breeders cup classic. But, you know, people are, you know, fans, observers, everyone's sort of clamoring for them to at least try it. In fact, I use this in my story right after birds, right after nest next won the Birdstone by 22 lengths, by the way, against a very short field.
One of the fans outside the fence at the winter circle yelled to Doug Collins, the trainer put him in the classic.
The trainer laughed and he said, beers cup or Charlestown, which was a kind of a funny, cheeky answer, but again, kind of illustrates how, how reluctant they've been to throw this horse at a shorter distance. And, you know, to answer that question in the winter circle after the race, he said, well, those shorter races, you know, he's going to have to run harder in those. And, you know, we want to keep him racing for another year or two. He's six now, which is pretty old, so they don't want to, I don't know, they just don't want to run at shorter distance. It seems insane to say that, oh, a mile and a quarter is too short for him. That's like, that's too long for the bulk of the thoroughbred population.
So we'll see what happens with him. But you kind of have to throw him into that equation, too, with that older male dirt division where, you know, Arthur's ride, you know, made a big step up, national treasure took a step down, and that creates a situation where the division's wide open.
[00:17:53] Speaker C: You mentioned earlier that this windy victory was the first for trainer Bill Mottley.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: What did it mean to him?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: See, he's very humble when you ask him questions like that, and I kind of jokingly threw a loaded question. So he's been training on the New York Racing association circuit for decades now. He's won everything under the sun.
He's never won a Kentucky derby. You know, he doesn't usually have horses that are, you know, he's won the Belmont, but he usually doesn't have horses cranked up for the dirty. But two very glaring absences on his resume was the Whitney and the Travers, the two biggest races at Saratoga. He's been running horses here for 30 years, and he's never won either one until. So I asked back to my loaded question, I said, does this mean you're going to win the Travers now? And he just totally deflected attention away from, you know, his lack of a Travers win and said, well, today's about the horse winning, and I'm happy for him and the owners. They're long time, you know, very loyal owners to him, the glassmans. And so he kind of like, you know, he kind of chuckled, but he, you know, deflect, you know, he wasn't going to answer that. He does have batten down, who looks like a good candidate for the Travers after he ran well in the Jim dandy, so maybe he can knock both of them off this year after never having won him. I did dig up his record in the Whitney, so he's, he was inducted in the hall of Fame in 98. The equibase charts only go back to 91 for the Whitney, and Arthur's wright actually was his third horse in the Whitney that he had entered in the, you know, the ran in the Whitney, and he finished second a couple times.
He had a long gap after he was inducted in 98, where he didn't have another Whitney entry for like 13 years or something like that. And then he's had, like, a bunch of them in the last, you know, probably 15 years or so, including some live shots, but never managed to win it until Saturday. So that, so that was a nice little notch for him. But, you know, when you bring that stuff up with him, he's always going to deflect attention to the horse and other people and try not to make it about himself.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: Well, we had a little, I guess I can see a little funny scene after the race ended, after Arthur's ride across the finish line threw his jockey, junior Alvarado, off his mouth.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: I still have not seen a clip of it because it was so far past that after the race was over, and I found out about it when I was in the winter circle waiting for the horses to come back, Richard Migliori, who's one of the, our buddy, well known retired jockey who's one of the fox analysts was going nuts because he saw it, and they actually have film a bit. I haven't, you know, I haven't seen it myself, but he was going crazy, said, oh, my God, that was amazing, because something spooked Arthur's ride. Like, he was over by the rail and some fans ran over or something. But he dumped Junior Alvarado, his jockey, while they were in motion. And Junior had to, like, he's not going to let go of the reins under any circumstances, even if they get to drag face first through the dirt, because he can't let this horse get away, you know, even though the outriders do a phenomenal job whenever there's a loose horse. But he didn't let go of the reins and actually hit the ground running and just was, like, running alongside his horse until he finally got him to stop and jump back in the saddle. But Richard Migliori was going nuts because he saw it. He goes, oh, my God, that was amazing.
And junior comes back and he's cracking up. He said that part of it was harder than winning the race.
So it's kind of one of those funky things you see. But, you know, hats off to junior for, you know, having the presence of mind and the courage to, like, hang on to this guy and not let him get away, you know, by the time he got back to the winter circle, all was calm. Everything, you know, remain calm all as well.
[00:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah, because I saw it on the Fox broadcast. It was like, you know, kind of weird how that was going on, but everything. And then when they brought Arthur's ride to the winter, so I got to see somebody was holding his hand up to block the left eye of Arthur's ride just to make sure he was.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Um. Where was the horse when that was happening?
[00:22:19] Speaker C: I think it would bring it to the winter circle at that point.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Okay. Like, into the winner circle, I think.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: So they had, we're just putting the bouquet of, uh, flowers.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah. On the blanket of pink Mary Lou Whitney roses.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah, it was good.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: I didn't notice that.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Good.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Good eye.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Um, but, hey, it proves I watch horse racing.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: See what you're missing, all this craziness.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: Well, Mike, enjoy your, uh, Wednesday with your family and friends at the club, and we'll talk again next week as we get ready for the, as we get, as we hours right now, second half of the racing season. It's going to be fun.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And next, and the following week leads into the Alabama. So it'll be interesting to see who runs in that since trainer Kenny McPeek announced that torpedo Anna was going to run in the Travers and not the Alabama, which will absolutely help the Alabama field. So we'll have a few things to talk about there.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: All right, thanks again, Mike. Appreciate it.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Thank you, Ken.
[00:23:18] Speaker C: That's Mike. We get him. We're back to wrap up the podcast in just a moment.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: You're listening to the parting shots podcast.
[00:23:37] Speaker E: If you really want to know what's going on in your community, you have to read the Daily Gazette. We don't take a side. We're right down the middle and we're going to get to the truth. Our reporters and photographers are out in the field bringing you updates every minute with trust, accuracy and integrity from the first page to the last page. Independent, probing journalism. We're finding out what's going on in the community where nobody else is covering who we are. It's what we do.
[00:24:07] Speaker F: Hi, I'm Rick Marshall from the Daily Gazette's martial arts podcast. In each episode, I interview artists from around the region, from musicians and comedians to dancers, sculptors, even video game designers. After you finish the latest episode of the Parting Shots podcast, I hope you'll give martial arts a try.
[00:24:23] Speaker E: Hi, this is Daily Gazette editor Miles Reed, and you're listening to the parting shots podcast with Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Shae.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Back to wrap up the podcast. After a two week layoff, the Daily Gazettes auto racing contest is back. The Olympics are just about over. Thank goodness. You can pick the top five finishers and have a chance to win a dollar 50 gift card. Of course, I'll announce the auto racing contest winner's name, and that winner's name will appear in Saturday's Daily Gazette. To play, go to dailygazette.com and click on the auto racing contest banner.
Just because Covid-19 mandates are easing, that does not mean you should relax. Be vigilant. If you have nothing, gotten vaccinated or received a booster shot, please do so. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, and do it for your friends. That wraps up another edition of the parting Shots podcast. I want to thank Mike Begatum for coming on the show. If you have questions or comments about the podcast, email them to me at shot. That's schot tailygazette.com. follow me on x and threads at slapshots.
The views expressed on the parting Shots podcast are not necessarily those of the Daily Gazette Company. The parting Shots podcast is the production of the Daily Gazette Company. I'm Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Schott. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time. From the parting Shots podcast studio in Schenectady, New York. Good day, good sports.
