Saratoga Race Course began it’s 2022 season in fine fashion with good racing, good weather and little competition.
On the wagering front the opening weekend betting handle easily surpassed previous years’ totals. Two new wrinkles we highlighted here last week operated flawlessly as the two races run out of the Wilson Chute went forth without incident (with the expected advantage to horses with early speed) and the new Paddock Bar proved popular with fans and treated with aplomb by horses passing nearby.
Saratoga’s main competition tends to be California’s Del Mar race track, which is opening later than usual this year on July 22. The lack of competition for the betting dollar during the first week of the Saratoga meet, the good weather and a two-day Pick 6 carryover worked to generate a healthy mutuel handle the first 4 days. Familiar names dominated the racing as jockeys Jose Ortiz, Irad Ortiz and Joel Rosario; trainers Chad Brown, Todd Pletcher and Christopher Clement all won multiple races. Trainer Chad Brown continued his annual dominance of the first Graded Stake of the season – The Diana - by training the first FOUR finishers of the race. Even by modern standards where top trainers have large stables and multiple entrants in big races, this accomplishment was astounding. In addition to familiar human participants - some familiar equines also won during the opening week as both City Man and Baby Yoda showed their affinity for the local oval by winning again this year.
While the names and faces remained the same - the racing had a decidedly different appearance that was not easily discernable to the untrained eye. Thoroughbred owner Patrick W. Cannon quickly observed that the jockeys were responding to new regulations which limit the use of the whip, or “crop” as it is uniformly referred to on television. New Federal regulation of horse racing under the recently implemented Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (“HISA”) severely limits the number of strikes a rider may land on a horse with the riding crop. The limit is six total in the entire race. There are other limiting factors in the new rules requiring a horse be allowed the opportunity to respond before the crop can be used again. Repeated successive strikes are now impermissible and exceeding the limit of six total strikes brings a host of consequences.
There are graduating and escalating penalties and suspensions for riders who run afoul of the new regulations and my understanding is that at least one Saratoga jockey has already been hit with a yet-to-be announced one-day suspension. While it is open to debate as to how much this will affect the outcome of races, there is no question these limitations will greatly affect rider strategy and therefore the look and flow of most races. With jockeys limited to a specific number of crop uses, the natural tendency is to save those uses for the late stage of the race when encouragement can make the difference in a tight finish. With race fans accustomed to seeing vigorous crop use with more than a quarter mile left to race at the top of the stretch, this new patience on the part of jockeys can appear to indicate overconfidence or worse, apathy. Already, we have seen horses that have looked beaten respond to belated encouragement to overtake leaders whose riders had already used their allotted number of strikes. Similarly, horses that are struggling to the finish appear to be eased once the number of strikes have already been used - giving the appearance that the rider failed to persevere.
Of course, there are numerous ways to encourage a horse to give a top effort and the riders with strong arm/hand motion will benefit from the new limitations. Fans watching races should carefully watch to discern whether riders are actually using the crop to hit the horse, which is limited, or simply waiving the crop in front of the horse, which is permitted an unlimited number of times.
The new rules put out to pasture (pun intended) numerous racing idioms, that in my mind, have not served the sport well in recent times with the general public. The terms “whipping and driving” and “going to the whip” long ago entered the general vernacular from the world of racing but to many evoke an unpleasant image. The new language is likely to be a “waiving, pumping, driving finish” or “showing the horse the crop to the wire.” Riding strategy, finesse and nuance will play a greater role than brute force in the new racing dynamic and being attuned to the new rules will assist the observer in accurately watching and enjoying the races.
