Bad News Friday: Paralysis, setbacks and death

Not to be the anti-Paulick Report, where Fridays are usually for good news, I was struck this morning by the general "downer" that faced me in my daily Blood-Horse e-mail this morning.

-- "Jockey to Have Surgery, Paralysis Feared"
-- "Back Leg Injuries Tied to Synthetic Tracks"
-- "Grade 1-winning Stallion Sunriver Dead"
-- "OBS Sale Ends with 36.6% Decline in Gross"

Ugh.

First things first, best of luck today and my prayers go out to apprentice jockey Michael Straight, who underwent surgery Thursday afternoon in an effort to repair four fractured vertebrae suffered in a Wednesday spill at Chicago's Arlington Park. Straight's twin brother, Matthew, issued a statement on behalf of the family Thursday afternoon saying that an update of his injured brother's condition would be issued this morning.

A family friend has said the prognosis that Michael Straight will ever walk again is "very grim."

The Straight brothers, who are 24, both are graduates of Chris McCarron's North American Racing Academy in Lexington, Ky. Michael won on his first lifetime mount March 6 at Tampa Bay Downs and has won on 39 of 372 mounts this season, a sign of much promise. He'd been riding primarily at Arlington this summer, while his brother was riding at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky.

The potentially paralyzing spill is the second at Arlington this season. Highly regarded veteran Rene Douglas is still recovering from a paralyzing fall suffered May 23.

My prayers will continue to go out to both injured riders and their families.

Meanwhile, death struck the younger stallion ranks again as Sunriver, Grade 1-winning full brother to champion mare Ashado, suffered an apparently heart attack or aneurysm at the youthful age of 6. Sunriver retired with $816,414 in earnings from six lifetime races, including victories in the Hollywood Turf Cup S.-G1 and Bowling Green H.-G2 on lawn and the Peter Pan S.-G2 on Belmont's main track.

Empire Stud of New York, where Sunriver stood, reports that there should be around 150 foals combined from the stallion's two crops, the weanlings of 2009 and the anticipated foals of next spring.

Sunriver, by Saint Ballado, was a fine racehorse and splendidly bred. His dam, Goulash, was herself a stakes winner and graded-placed, and in addition to the aforementioned Ashado (champion 3-year-old filly of 2004 and champion older mare the following year) had produced a third stakes-winning full sibling in Saint Stephen (Native Diver H.-G3, etc.) and yet another full sibling, Ballado's Halo, was blacktype-placed. The quartet's half-brother, Storm Creek Rising, was also stakes-placed.

Sunriver's death is certainly an untimely loss both of good blood and some stamina influence from New York's stallion ranks.

As for other setbacks, it's hard to put any positive spin on either the news that synthetic tracks might not be a trouble-free improvement over traditional dirt surfaces, or on the plummet of prices at the OBS yearling sale.

I'm unfortunately not surprised that while synthetic tracks might be reducing some traumas among the racing stock, they could be causing others -- specifically, as it turns out, hind leg injuries.

I think that in some circles, hopes have been too high that synthetic tracks were "saving horses." From some problems, yes. But as with many changes in life, there's usually a tradeoff.

Preliminary study results from the California Horse Racing Board and the University of California-Davis show that fatal injuries due to hind leg injuries are significantly higher on synthetic surfaces than on the remaining dirt surfaces in the state. In fact, only one horse out of 65 traditional dirt-surface fatalities was the victim of a hind leg injury. Conversely, of 111 horses to die racing or training on synthetic surfaces -- which were mandated by the state at major tracks, and at major expense -- 19 of the deaths were a result of hind leg injuries.

Those numbers suggest that trainers who were complaining of an increased incidence of hind leg injuries weren't imagining things. And that there's still work to do in figuring out which racing surfaces are the safest and best for our equine athletes, knowing that in a sport where speed and traffic are the order of the day, we can never keep them perfectly safe.

Finally, Ocala was apparently a great place to steal a yearling racehorse prospect this week, and there still weren't enough takers. The four-day sale not only saw a nearly 37 percent decline in gross receipts, but the average price paid for a yearling there fell from $16,160 last year to $11,463 this year.

The buy-back/no-bid rate actually was a bit better, but not significantly so, at 33.4 percent vs. 35.6 percent. I would attribute that tiny improvement to sellers attempting to set attainable reserves amid a desperately sour economy. And still, one in three sellers took the horse back home, unsold.

This probably would be a good year to be a pinhooker looking ahead to 2010, or particularly with this year's weanlings toward the 2011 2-year-old sales, when hopefully the economy will be considerably improved. But without reading the full results from this OBS sale to look for trends among the buyers, it doesn't appear there's anybody stocking-up on young prospects in hopes of cashing in when times aren't so tough.

Paulick Report anniversary a time for celebration, contemplation

I noticed upon a visit to RaceDay360 that the "Paulick Report" is celebrating its first anniversary today. That's red-letter date, not just for Ray Paulick, former editor in chief of The Blood-Horse, who started his site after leaving that job, but also for all of racing journalism.

Paulick has noted that turf writing, as it's called, has long lacked the independence necessary to be a wholly reliable source of information on the industry. The Blood-Horse, for instance, is published by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and thus controlled by a board of directors that also includes members of The Jockey Club; obvious potential conflicts of interest there.

Regardless of ownership, at many trade publications there is an ongoing struggle between journalists and, as Paulick calls them, "bean-counting publishers," over whether honest, sometimes by necessity critical journalism compromises the publication's ability to sell advertising to the very individuals and businesses the newsroom is covering. In the case of turf writing, those businesses include racetracks, stud farms, wagering sites and other horse- and racing-related concerns.

But in one year of his site, Paulick has proven that good, honest journalism can attract an audience, and doesn't completely repel advertisers.

In a brief item on the front page of his Web site, Paulick reported that in May his site saw 135,786 user sessions. That's an average of 4,380 per day. Some of those might be the same people returning to read new stories later in the day, but for a year-old "maverick" online publication, it's healthy traffic nonetheless.

And, Paulick's pages are smattered with advertising from key players in the industry. A quick glance this afternoon shows support from Airdrie Stud, Walmac Farm, Liberation Farm, McMahon of Saratoga, Werk's eNicks, Buck Pond Farm, Margaux Farm, Team Valor and TVG, among many others.

This advertising appears despite the fact that Paulick for the past year has reported extensively on troubles, squabbles or even outright scandals in the thoroughbred industry, ranging from extensive coverage of the Ernie Paragallo horse-abuse case, the furor created by the Breeders' Cup's December decision (later overturned) to ax its special stakes program supplements and how the Breeders' Cup's "old guard" and "new guard" have struggled behind the scenes for control of the series. He's joked about TOBA giving an award to its own Sales Integrity Division, and either he or his guest writers have tackled issues like drugs in racing, the antiquated tote system, and machinations in track management from Magna's mangling of its holdings to Churchill's power-play to push wagering through its Twin Spires account-betting system.

Most of that coverage you wouldn't see from the mainstream publications; at least not in the depth and with the honesty Paulick has provided.

In the interest of depth and honesty, I'll confide that I e-mailed Ray Paulick on June 11 wanting to discuss precisely these issues (and the market for independent turf writing) and I haven't heard back from him yet. I still hope to. I'm sure he's busy and he doesn't know me from Adam.

That stated, on the occasion of the Paulick Report's anniversary, for full depth and honesty I'll go on record with my one legitimate quibble about that online publication. Amid the mind-boggling array of dozens or even hundreds of links to Paulick's reporting and aggregated racing news stories and blog headlines is one link that gives me pause: "Donate to Paulick Report."

I hope Ray Paulick makes out well with his advertising sales and is richly rewarded for his renegade turf-writing efforts. But my personal journalistic code makes it difficult to accept "independent" and "donation" in the same conversation.

Advertising is a commodity. Even industry players who have quarrels with how Ray Paulick reports on racing might continue to advertise with him if they see that the readership he generates is a healthy market they can't afford not to reach. So a business deal takes place: Paulick Report's stories generate readership; that readership lures advertisers who pay Ray Paulick for space; the advertisers receive said space and thus reach Paulick's readers. ... End of transaction.

Yes, it's the very same business transaction that goes on between any of the racing industry pubs and their advertisers, with the lone difference being that Paulick as an individual can, and does, show more backbone in his reporting, in spite of the threat of lost advertising revenues as a punitive response to coverage that steps on toes or wasn't flattering. (Which does happen in the media business when advertisers get offended. Trust me.)

But donations are different. A donation is, by definition, a gift. And while in an ideal world, a gift is given without expectation of anything in return, we all know that isn't always the case. That's why, in my own journalistic code of ethics, I'd never leave myself open to the negative possibilities -- that a financial contributor would come back on me later expecting favorable coverage, or that readers could be left with any question in their minds whether my list of anonymous donors holds even the slightest sway over who and what I'm covering, and how.

In 20 years of newspapering, I've never let a source so much as buy me lunch. And I've grown to realize that sometimes, heck most of the time, even compliments come to me only as the thinly veiled precursor to the asking of a favor, like a request to write a story about their business, or to leave out of the police blotter someone's kid's DUI.

I trust my own integrity. It gets questioned all the time, but that goes with the territory. My greatest pride in journalism has come from the many times I've been criticized by both factions of a controversial issue for "taking the other side" against them. What that really means is that I've told both sides of the story well and completely, for my readers' benefit. I haven't shortchanged one side or the other.

Since I do trust myself, I could probably accept a city manager's picking up the tab after a business lunch and know that I wouldn't sell out for an $8.95 cheeseburger and steak fries. But in a career where my motives and actions are questioned every single day by somebody, I can't accept sitting in a restaurant surrounded by others -- readers of my newspaper, in our small town -- and let them see such an authority figure reach across the table and pick up my check.

Paulick's donor list is private, but I'm not sure that confidentiality adds any measure of confidence; it only leaves you guessing about who did donate.

I do know it's tough to make it in a new business venture. And I'm fully aware of hundreds of sites that accept donations as a means of keeping them alive on the Web. When it comes to journalism, if you're National Public Radio, that's your business model. If you're an independent source of industry coverage, accepting donations is something I recommend against.

Ray Paulick knows himself better than any of us know Ray Paulick. I admittedly don't know him at all, though I'd like to. (Don't know whether I'm helping or hurting my chances here.)

I'm sure that he has full faith in his own journalistic integrity, just as I have full faith in mine. And I'm not trying to knock Ray Paulick down a peg -- as if I could -- I'm merely recognizing that in the journalism biz, sometimes it's healthy to wrestle with this sort of philosophical topic as a means of keeping everyone on his (or her) toes; though admittedly I'm at toe-level in this field, while Ray Paulick stands tall.

What I do consider to be a good sign: Ray Paulick is a guy so dead-set against even appearing to have favorites that he had to be dragged against his will into a William T. Young horse's win-photo. So he's probably a better bet for readers seeking impartial journalism than anybody else in the turf writing field.

His writing for the past year at Paulick Report has pretty much proven that. And, my reservations about donations aside, I suspect that it always will.