By T. D. Thornton
The 29th annual “Day of Champions” series of stakes races for Thoroughbreds that have gone through the ring at an Ocala Breeders' Sales Company (OBS) auction is in search of a new spot on the calendar.
Tom Ventura, the OBS president, confirmed in a Dec. 11 phone interview that because of concerns over the possibility of short fields if the 2018 stakes are held in their traditional one-day slot in either January or March, OBS is considering carding those stakes later in the year, with late autumn emerging as a likely time frame.
“We're considering doing it in November, but we haven't sorted it out yet,” Ventura said. “With both Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream Park running lucrative stakes schedules, it's difficult in January or March pull from the same pool of horses. It's become a little more of a challenge, and we felt that the timing was no longer appropriate. It hasn't been decided when and what type of races they will be, but we're considering races in the fall, say November before Tampa starts up, and we'll look for a place on the calendar where it makes sense for everybody.”
OBS will, however, be running a single day of racing on Jan. 23 that is entirely separate from the Day of Champions stakes. A condition sheet posted on the company's web site lists 11 Quarter Horse races and six Thoroughbred races that will be used as the basis to draw up an eight-race program with pari-mutuel betting.
Ventura explained the differences between the two separate race programs, the requirements of which are rooted in Florida's complex layers of regulation for maintaining different types of pari-mutuel permits.
The simplest way to understand it, according to Ventura, is that the Day of Champions program–in addition to being a nice perk for buyers who purchase horses through OBS–is the mechanism that allows OBS to conduct simulcasting year-round.
Separately, the running of the single day of pari-mutuel racing in January is what keeps the OBS Quarter Horse permit active.
Over the past several years, the Florida Legislature has been mulling a sweeping overhaul to its gaming laws. It's possible that any entity that holds any sort of active pari-mutuel license could be in line for beneficial changes, which is why OBS believes it is important to maintain its Quarter Horse racing permit.
“As things are in a state of flux here with the gaming, we want to make sure that our Quarter Horse permit is active, so we're running that one day,” Ventura said. “It's all up in the air as we try to wade through all of this gaming stuff.”
Separately, Ventura continued, “part of the requirement for the inter-track wagering (ITW) license—and there's only one of its kind in the state that's issued—is to have a certain number of Thoroughbred horse sales and Thoroughbred racing with a minimum purse schedule of $250,000 of non-wagering races.”
In 2016 and 2017, OBS opted to combine those two mandated days of racing as one program preceding its January Winter Mixed Sale. So last year's card featured two $100,000 stakes and two $50,000 stakes for Thoroughbreds, plus seven Quarter Horse races paying out $38,000 in total purses. All of the Quarter Horse races and one of the Thoroughbred stakes had pari-mutuel betting; the other three stakes did not. This setup fulfilled both statutory requirements.
The situation gets even more complicated with regard to the types of races OBS can card using its Quarter Horse permit. Ventura said the statute allows OBS to substitute half of its scheduled Quarter Horse races with Thoroughbred races, so there will likely be four of each on Jan. 23.
“The Quarter Horse [program] may include up to 50% Thoroughbred races,” Ventura said, adding that Quarter Horse outfits “are not here [in Florida] in vast numbers, because Hialeah has resorted to the barrel-racing match races [as a way to fulfill its pari-mutuel permit requirements].”
Moving forward, yet another complexity in the Florida statutes is that the licensing requirements for holding an ITW permit follow the Jan. 1-Dec. 31 calendar year, while the Quarter Horse permit goes by the July 1-June 30 fiscal calendar.
“So potentially, in November we'll run them together again,” Ventura said.
Ventura added that although OBS has not made an official announcement regarding the movement of its Day of Champions, he has been informing owners and trainers what is going on when they have inquired.
“These races have nominations and sustaining payments, and we haven't had any of those go out,” Ventura said. “So it's not like [horsemen] are completely shocked, because they haven't made any payments.”
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