Op/Ed

by Hal Handel Over the course of the past 40 years, I have seen the sport of Thoroughbred racing encounter significant challenges and I've witnessed them from a couple of different perspectives. As a deputy attorney general in New Jersey in 1975-77, I supervised the Tony Ciulla race-fixing case. (For those of you too young to remember, Ciulla admitted to fixing races at a host of tracks, primarily in New England, New York and the Mid-Atlantic region, between 1972 and 1975. Ciulla became a state's witness and eventually was resettled...

Back in 2009, I was presenting on a panel at the Canadian Gaming Summit. Along with me on the panel was Mark Davies, one of the original founders of British betting giant Betfair, and a friend who is a professional gambler. After the panel concluded (which tackled the topic of new ways to bet and the future of wagering), the three of us sat down for a chat.

In the Olympic annals of Track and Field, for every Jesse Owens and Babe Didrikson there has been a Ben Johnson and Marion Jones. Every hero seemingly can be counterbalanced by an athlete who tested positive for a banned substance or who was suspected to have done so.

The new TDN Topics feature (click here to read TDN Topics: Should the Crop Be Banned?) creates a great opportunity for those of us who care about the long-range health of racing to stand up and be counted. Therefore, I am moved to write one last time, despite being "retired" from 40 years of handicapping, betting, pedigree analysis, breeding, and racing.

I watched Golf Channel's Feherty the other day when the host, David Feherty, was interviewing the CEO of the PGA Tour, Tim Finchem. I found one segment of the show particularly interesting.

About two-and-a-half hours after American Pharoah won the 2015 Kentucky Derby, a mare we own in partnership lay down and foaled a colt. Another dream began.

Twice in recent editions of Thoroughbred Daily News there has been mention of a foal being a three-quarter sibling to another.

There is a popular notion that if horseracing somehow managed to have a league office running the show, our troubled game would be saved.

Anyone who has studied Australian history shouldn't be surprised that the premier states of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria are at loggerheads over the future of the media rights to Australia's racing vision.

I was more than a little intrigued by the Op-Ed piece published this week in TDN penned by John Fulton. The bloodstock agent brokered the private sale of a major horse and then watched as members of the media speculated on the name of the buyer and the purchase price.

"Well, if Bayern holds on to win, he will come down," I said just a few seconds into the running of the Breeders' Cup Classic Saturday at Santa Anita.

In comments in the TDN this week, both Dr. Larry Bramlage and Arthur Hancock took the position that Lasix needs to be banned because bettors want that to happen, and handle will suffer if we don't (click here). Those gentlemen are certainly qualified to comment as professionals about veterinary medicine and breeding, but when it comes to bettors and handle, they are playing in my ballpark.