Bluegrass Cat is yet another top 3-year-old that has been retired prematurely from the track; this time due to an injury to his hind pastern. The injury came at a very bad time for Bluegrass Cat, he had just exhibited what Todd Pletcher described as a “break-through performance” in the Haskell and he seemed to be maturing well and getting better with each start. At that pace Bluegrass Cat could well have become one of the important players next year in the misnamed ‘handicap’ division.

But WinStar Farm, the owner of Bluegrass Cat, had no intention of ever racing him next year. Readers of the Bloodhorse already were seeing the clues after the Haskell. At first it came as a stylized claw with blue outlines in a white background and nothing more. As the issues kept coming, the advertising campaign became clearer showing pictures inside the claw of Bluegrass Cat winning the Haskell. I, like many others, was scratching my head trying to figure out if Bluegrass Cat had been retired before the Travers and I had somehow missed the announcement. After all, it is not standard practice, nor logic, to spend so much advertising money in a teaser campaign if the horse’s retirement is not immanent.

It is obvious to all that the horse was not yet as good as Bernardini and for that matter Invasor, Lava Man or Sun King. So it is not likely that he would have caused a huge impact in the Breeders Cup. He also seemed to be out of the running for top 3 year-old honors. But the injury to Blugrass Cat, as tragic as it is for the horse and for racing fans, could not have come at a better time for WinStar. Bluegrass Cat had just had a runaway performance in the Haskell and now all involved are hinting that he may have done better in the Travers had the injury not occurred. “I guess we will never know how close he was to Bernardini” will no doubt be the sales pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

(As appeared in the Letters to the Editor section of the Bloodhorse July 22, 2006)
Once again the California Horse Racing Board got it wrong and completely missed the point when stewards ruled in favor of Intercontinental by stating that furosemide was “a legal pre-race day medication” and that there was “no evidence that proved that the late administration of the authorized medication provided an edge to Intercontinental”.

Have they completely forgotten what happened on that day? That day a veterinarian lied about the time she administered the shot of Salix and falsified reports that stated the times at which the shot was administered. The connections of Intercontinental knew or should have known at what time the shot was administered and it should have been their obligation to report the situation immediately to the stewards; but they did nothing! Hoping, no doubt, that no one would notice. It was only because security was able to video tape the time of administration that this all came to light.

The rules state that Salix must be administered at least four hours before the time of the race. The penalty for breaching the rule is that a horse must be scratched from the race – a very severe result. This rule was put in place no doubt to protect the integrity of racing, the health of the horses and to assure that no one obtains an unfair advantage. This rule was clearly violated when the Salix shot was administered to Intercontinental 20 minutes too late. The stewards would now have us believe that this rule is immaterial and that no unfair advantage was obtained. Are they really saying that their rules are meaningless? Read the rest of this entry »