Fatal error of the day: 'I might like Man of Iron'

That's what I told myself when filling out my Darby Dan contest bracket. "I might like Man of Iron."

Then I decided I didn't. Not enough. So my Marathon entry had the beaten favorite, Mastery, and no-shows Nite Light and Gangbuster.

Cloudy's Knight was on my radar, too. But ageism got the better of me and I left out the 9-year-old, too.

Shows what I know.

Congrats to the connections of both winner Man of Iron and of Cloudy's Knight, who ran a winning race under Rosemary Homeister Even if Rosemary was, according to Caton Bredar, cussing her luck after the race.

Zenyatta: Root for, but bet against in Classic?

Less than 36 hours from now, we'll have no more questions about one of the greatest race mares of the last 20 years.

Zenyatta -- champion older female in 2008 and an unbeaten 13-for-13 against females -- has been entered in the Breeders' Cup Classic against the opposite gender.

It isn't just the step-up to facing males that is a question mark for the 5-year-old Street Cry mare. Zenyatta also never has raced the 10-furlong distance of the Classic.

Both of those unknowns -- plus her being favored on the morning line at 5/2 and, I believe, not likely to drift a lot higher -- lead me to figure that Zenyatta is a bet-against in this race.

After all, the talented mare has not been quite as dominating against her own gender in four races of 2009 (best Equibase speed figure a 116, six points below her career high). And now she tackles a field of 12 boys and men with their own distinguished list of accomplishments.

Eight of Zenyatta's male Classic opponents have won at 10 furlongs, a total of 12 times. Most notable are Gio Ponti (3-for-4 lifetime at the distance) and Summer Bird (2-for-3).

Three of the horses have victories over Santa Anita's all-weather strip, paced by Colonel John, who has won half of his six lifetime starts on that track and just missed a Grade 1 victory by a neck in the Goodwood there on Oct. 10.

Zenyatta is a California-circuit all-weather-track specialist, but despite a field peppered with East Coast-shippers, foreign invaders and turf horses hoping for crossover success, half of her opponents (including Gio Ponti) do have synthetic track victories to their credit.

And while the older males will carry 126 pounds and the mare does get a weight break for gender (123 pounds), the impost on the several talented 3-year-old colts and geldings in the group is even lower, at 122.

This isn't to say that Zenyatta has no strengths. She isn't favored without cause.

Beyond her unblemished lifetime mark, she is 4-for-4 over the track at Santa Anita, has the highest career all-weather speed figure per Equibase (122), and a jockey in Mike Smith who both knows her and knows Santa Anita (51 percent W-P-S during the meeting, third-best in the field among riders).

There's every reason to believe that a Street Cry mare out of a dam by Kris S. should be able to get 10 furlongs.

And she has been handled masterfully, but carefully, by trainer John Shirreffs, whom I doubt would cast her in this role if he didn't think she could handle it. ... I particularly like that Shirreffs has worked her at 6 furlongs four times in a row prepping for the added distance; she's the only horse in the field to have worked 6f more than once in the past few months and of the others, only two have drilled longer than 5f at all.

So if Zenyatta has all that going for her and is still a bet-against, for whom would I wager? Which one of these dozen males is going to beat her?

It's a tough call, but I'm leaning toward the 7-year-old veteran, Einstein, and I love the morning-line odds of 12/1.

Einstein is a battle-hardened competitor with G1 wins on both turf and synthetic. The Helen Pitts trainee is the only other horse in the field with a 120 or higher Equibase speed figure on an all-weather track, and he earned that 120 in winning the Santa Anita Handicap in March -- going this distance, over this track.

He's fallen off the radar a bit, but with only a bit of better racing luck, he wouldn't have.

Were it not for a trip in which, per the charts, he "bobbled," was checked, and was bumped, perhaps Einstein wins the Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs on June 13 to become only the second horse (the other being Lava Man) to have G1 wins on all three racing surfaces. Instead, he loses by a length to Macho Again and by a nose to Asiatic Boy (neither in this Classic field), finishing third.

Coming off a poor effort in the Arlington Million on grass (won by Gio Ponti with Einstein fifth beaten 8 1/2 lengths), Einstein came back to miss by only a neck to Richard's Kid (also in the B.C. Classic field) in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar, another G1 on synthetic.

Pitts has Einstein working well. An Oct. 11 four-furlong move at Churchill was done in a less-than-scintillating 49 seconds, but the times were slow that day and he was still fifth of 58 at the distance. Same story on Oct. 18 when a 1:01 for 5f was still second of 60. And, he's since followed up with a bullet 59.8 for 5f (best of 54 at CD on Oct. 25), plus a Santa Anita work of 47.80 for 4f (6 of 45).

I think Einstein could be sitting on a big race, and that could make him the man to take down Zenyatta.

Others certainly have a chance.

Irishman Rip Van Winkle is quite talented, with several losses to certain European champ Sea the Stars, but how will the 3-year-old Euro turf horse handle older males and females, a U.S. synthetic track, and the ship all the way to California?

Colonel John can win at SA (3-for-6) and win at 10f (1-for-4). Richard's Kid is coming in off a G1 all-weather win at this distance two starts back and a career-high Equibase figure in the Goodwood last out. Gio Ponti relishes 10f but his synthetic speed figures are a notch below his brilliance on grass. Summer Bird, Quality Road and Mine That Bird all are talented, G1 winners, but as 3-year-olds can they best their elders?

Looking for a long-shot, particularly to fill out the exotics? Awesome Gem at 30/1 on the outside is 8-for-12 lifetime win/place/show on synthetics and 20-for-30 on the board overall, is coming in off a G2 dirt win in the Hawthorne Gold Cup, and has a career-best all-weather speed figure of 116 -- better than Gio Ponti (114) and Mine That Bird (114) and only two clicks slower than Richard's Kid, all of whom are at 12/1.

This year's Breeders' Cup Classic certainly is an intriguing race.

Shirreffs and owners Jerry and Ann Moss are taking a big chance with Zenyatta, risking her unbeaten lifetime record to race a new distance and against males, presumably in a gambit to dethrone likely favorite Rachel Alexandra as Horse of the Year.

I'm definitely not rooting against Zenyatta in her quest. But at 5/2, I just don't like the odds.

Setting my alarm on the Darby Dan challenge

Some of the coolest contests in the horse racing industry of late have been the Darby Dan Fantasy Stakes.

Darby Dan Farm -- which stands a slate of stallions including Perfect Soul, Magna Graduate, Repriced, Sun King and Suave -- on a couple of prior occasions has hosted these online contests in which "Darby dollars" are spent to create a competition stable for a given race or races. In this case, for the races of Breeders' Cup weekend. The horses you choose score points for you based on their finish.

There are cash prizes, but the grand prize winner is rewarded with a complimentary season to one of the Darby Dan stallions, valued at up to $15,000.

I really enjoy playing Darby Dan's contests, and others, such as Road to the Roses, "the official fantasy game of the Kentucky Derby."

But, being a busy (and sometimes forgetful) sort, I also have an unsettling habit of neglecting to finalize my entry or set my roster of runners for a given week.

This time, I've plugged in a warning alarm on my cell phone. I don't want to pick my stable too early for Darby Dan's Breeders' Cup challenge; there could be scratches, or other news that causes me to rethink my entry. So I really do want to enter at the last minute, so to speak, much like I end up placing my bets on those rare visits to the track.

At noon on Friday -- the deadline is 3 p.m. Eastern -- I'm going to take a break from whatever it is I might be doing and fill out my stable.

Because even though the contest is a lot of fun, without that alarm, I just might forget. And I'm always kicking myself when I realize that I've missed a deadline just 15 minutes or a half-hour after I've missed it.

Pennsylvania Takeout: The Garbage

Most sports industries have to battle conflicting interests of the parties involved.

Ownership and management, the athletes, the league and spectators all have a stake in a sport such as, say, the National Football League. Operating a sports franchise and a league of franchises is a delicate balancing act of trying to run a well-organized operation that pleases fans well enough to rake in the cash for owners and athletes.

A post on Monday at the Horseplayers Association of North America blog illustrates that it's possible that nobody does it worse than horse racing.

HANA points out that an Allentown Morning Call story credits slots at Pennsylvania tracks with saving the state's horse racing industry. It's a fair claim. Once struggling to stay in business, Pennsylvania tracks have not only stabilized, but flourished and, with the addition of Presque Isle Downs, expanded in number. Purses have ballooned by roughly 400 percent and rival any state's racing programs.

All of this is excellent news for the tracks, for the state which collects considerable revenues for its budget, and for horsemen, who can come a lot closer to making a good living (or at least breaking even) in a business where losing money on a horse is a very real prospect every time you breed or buy one to race.

But HANA notes that Pennsylvania is screwing over its horseplayers (my term, not theirs), and horseplayers are letting them know it by withholding their wagering dollars.

HANA notes that total handle in Pennsylvania has declined by 15.3 percent between 2006 and 2008. That's because the takeout is so high -- 35 percent, HANA reports as an example, on tri- and superfecta wagers on harness racing at Pocono Downs. Which, HANA says, swallows up more of the financial pie, leaving less for the gamblers, than even the Massachusetts state lottery.

As a result, on HANA's 2009 rankings of 72 North American thoroughbred racetracks for their friendliness to horseplayers, Penn National ranks 43rd, Philly Park finishes in 63rd, and Presque Isle is 68th.

Now, losing $100 million in handle between 2006 and 2008 would more than alarm everyone involved if it weren't for all the money from slots to make up for it. So while it can be argued that slots at the racetrack are beneficial, they also can mask very real inadequacies or inefficiencies in the overall operation.

No reasonable business owner would sit idle while revenues shrank so dramatically in so short a time. He would determine what was necessary to bring his customers back through the doors and spending at least the kind of money they used to spend, if not more.

Now, it might be a stretch to expect politicians to be reasonable. And I suspect that track management is just so happy to be back on the positive side of the ledger that its executives aren't losing sleep over shrinking handle. Yet.

But anyone who stops for even a moment to consider these numbers can see that the takeout is killing handle. More and more over time. And anyone with business sense ought to reach the conclusion that a reduced takeout (easily made possible by those same slot revenues that provide so much revenue) would allow handle to grow again.

Talk about your diminishing returns: Pennsylvania is taking so much out of horse racing wagers that horseplayers have reduced their wagering, resulting in less revenue realized for the state than if Pennsylvania were to take out a more reasonable share.

If I were a politician in Pennsylvania, I'd much rather see the state take out half as much from a handle that is twice as much. The net revenues to the state would be the same, while the horse racing business within the state would be thriving more than ever, increasing revenues collected by the state in the form of sales tax at the track, property tax from increased investment and value in horse farms and racetracks, and income tax from all of the industry's employees and principals. That includes horseplayers, who would bet more, win more, and pay more tax on those winnings.

But the current takeout in Pennsylvania, as HANA shows, is garbage.

Standing to be counted is aided by a backbone

I have criticized New York Times reporter Joe Drape on more than one occasion for writing that "many veterinarians" agree with his stories' claims that "lax oversight" of medication rules and an overuse of even legal medications are significant factors in the mortality rate of racehorses in the United States.

I am troubled that Drape -- in my reading -- has neither quantified nor identified those "many veterinarians."

And I'm not backing down from that criticism. Names attached to claims always add weight to the opinions offered.

But this denunciation of my position, left beneath Friday's blog post about another story of Drape's, merits deeper inspection. Because while it is intended as a defense of Drape, a criticism of me, and a suggestion that Drape's reporting is accurate -- and it serves as all of those things -- the fact that it was left anonymously tells us even more:

I am one of Joe Drape's anonymous sources, a practicing racetrack veterinarian, who has spent probably 5 hours conversing with Mr. Drape about racing medication issues.
I can assure you that I will continue to insist on anonymity until this subject becomes a less combustible issue, as your unwarranted attacks on Mr. Drape's journalism prove.

That might be one to make me chuckle if the person wasn't serious. Namely the suggestion that my calls for higher journalistic standards and transparency on the subject matter are an "unwarranted" criticism, perhaps even a threat to people of good conscience.

I give remarkably little weight to anonymous critics. I'm very certain that sentiment isn't one held by me alone. The powers that be in any endeavor -- certainly in an industry like horse racing, with deep traditions and a rigid underlying culture, aspects of which do need changing -- are far less likely to be swayed by muffled voices emanating from the darkest corner of the room.

It isn't that anonymous sources or whistle-blowers have never provided necessary information that exposed serious issues and initiated change. They have and they will continue to do so. Anonymity is particularly worth seeking -- and, as a journalist, protecting -- if the source's life is on the line. Like a mob informant.

But I assure you, if you really want to make a difference -- particularly on issues of life and death for others who have no power to speak for themselves and in a field in which you claim documented education and expertise -- the fastest way to start is by growing a spine.

The New York Times' allegedly increasing list of "many veterinarians," few or none of whom I guess will go on-record with their names, does not amount to list of "many veterinarians" in any way. They all might as well be figments of our collective imagination.

In fact, I would respect Drape's reporting on this issue more if he actually phrased his claim as such: "Veterinarians who have voiced their concerns to the Times anonymously due to the volatility of this issue believe ... ."

But that never seems to be what he writes. His language suggests that there's some obvious or documented groundswell of sentiment among the veterinary community; a groundswell that is never really pinpointed. A movement that perhaps can't be quantified because its participants won't stand to be counted.

Certainly the issue of drugs -- legal and illegal -- at America's racetracks, is inflammatory. But is an aggrieved veterinarian's need to protect his career somehow more crucial than, say, mine?

I'm fooling with my reputation in two fields with this blog. I am a professional journalist with 20 years in the business -- fully qualified and experienced to criticize Joe Drape -- and I am also an entry-level breeder of thoroughbred racehorses.

Am I making nothing but friends with my comments here, on this and other issues?

Hardly.

Could my opinions, and the frankness with which they're delivered, potentially cost me opportunities in the fields of both journalism and horse racing?

Certainly.

But I was brought up to believe that if I stood for something, I shouldn't -- nay, couldn't -- be afraid to say it. Even if it made enemies. Even if it came at the price of money or so-called friends or a job.

If standing for what you believe in costs you allies and allows those in the wrong to still prevail, as a small-town police chief once told me, "then this is a job I don't want anyway."

How strongly held are your convictions about preserving the health of these animals if it is more important to protect your business or connections or reputation among powerful people than it is to publicly stand up and safeguard your patients and their equine peers?

It starts with a simple statement. Print this off and have your fellow veterinarians who agree sign on, too.

"I am Dr. ________. I have been a licensed veterinarian in the horse racing industry for ____ years. And I'm sick and tired of what some of my colleagues and their clients are doing to these animals in the name of competition and profit. There is a better way."

Certainly your opposition will be determined and well-financed. They will collude against you. That might indeed cost you some income; perhaps your whole practice if it largely involves racehorses. But do you want to stay in the business if it's that filthy?

Besides, changing the world isn't for the meek.

The most notable hero from the Tiananmen Square demonstrations remains anonymous, other than the moniker "Tank Man." But this "unknown rebel" did not seek anonymity. Far from it. He walked into a public square where one day prior -- by some witness accounts -- armored vehicles of the People's Liberation Army had crushed cars and civilians beneath their treads.

And he stood his ground in front of a column of Type 59 tanks.

To this day we are not certain of Tank Man's identity, not because he sought anonymity, but in fact because he did not shy away from his moment in history. And for that courage, he was dragged away by unknown people, to face an unknown fate.

In Beijing on June 5, 1989, one man, refusing to cower from the adversary, stood down a column of tanks in hopes of changing his nation and the world.

In 2009 America, highly trained and licensed professionals with meaningful experience demand anonymity before giving their professional opinions to a newspaper reporter because the issues are too "combustible" ... in trying to change a sports business.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers."

And we've all heard that there's strength in numbers.

But how can the movement to "clean up" horse racing quantify its strength, how will it ever know when it finally outnumbers the opposition, if even the movement's truest believers fear shouting out their names at roll call?