SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020 FROM ME TO CA, THESE MO TOWN COLT LEADS THE WAY INTO BOOK 4 AT KEENELAND TRACKS ARE GONE BUT by Brian DiDonato A total of 265 head changed hands for gross receipts of NOT FORGOTTEN $6,278,400 Saturday during the first of two Book 4 sessions of the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. The average price was $23,692 and median was $15,000. The RNA rate was a notably low 16.4%. While year-to-year comparisons are perhaps slightly inexact due to a smaller KEENOV catalog this year, during last year=s corresponding sixth session the average was $29,426 and median was $20,000 with a 24.7% buyback rate. Topping the day=s trade Saturday was hip 1913, a colt from the first crop of Mo Town purchased by agent Davant Latham for $185,000. Consigned by Alliance Sales Agency, the Jan. 18 foal hails from the female family of recent local GII Lexus Raven Run S. heroine Venetian Harbor (Munnings) and Hall of Fame sprinter Safely Kept. Cont. p5 IN TDN EUROPE TODAY What remains of the Great Barrington Fair, one of the 28 now- defunct tracks where Bill Finley saw racing | T.D. Thornton AUDARYA ENHANCES FANSHAWE’S PORTFOLIO James Fanshawe reflects on his Breeders’ Cup success with by Bill Finley Audarya (Fr) (Wootton Bassett {GB}), his first runner at the Do you remember Bowie? The Marshfield Fair? Or, how about meeting. Click or tap here to go straight to TDN Europe. Liberty Bell? I do. I've been to them all. Someone sent me a link the other day to a list of all the defunct racetracks in the country and it got me thinking how sad it was that I had been to so many that have disappeared into the ether. That and whether or not I hold some sort of unofficial record of having attended more former racetracks than anyone else. I have been to 28 North American tracks that no longer operate Thoroughbred racing. I started compiling the list when I was just a small child and my father would take me to the local tracks near Philadelphia and along on a lot of his business trips so that we could visit a new track in a new town. It grew when I attended college and picked up the Massachusetts fairs, Suffolk Downs and Rockingham, all of them now gone. My early years as a racing writer took me to places like Hialeah and Hollywood Park. One is a casino, the other a football stadium. There are so many that were unable to make it in an era where outside competition for the gambling dollar, real estate values and racing's struggles to expand its fan base have made staying in business hard to do. Cont. p3 PUBLISHER & CEO Sue Morris Finley @suefinley [email protected] SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT Gary King @garykingTDN [email protected] EDITORIAL [email protected] Editor-in-Chief Jessica Martini @JessMartiniTDN Managing Editor Sunday, November 15, 2020 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Deputy Editor Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN Associate Editors Christina Bossinakis @CBossTDN Joe Bianca @JBiancaTDN News and Features Editor In Memoriam: Ben Massam (1988-2019) ADVERTISING [email protected] Director of Advertising Alycia Borer Advertising Manager Lia Best Advertising Designer Amanda Crelin Advertising Assistant/Dir. Of Distribution Rachel McCaffrey Advertising Assistants Amie Newcomb Kristen Lomasson Rider Joel Rosario piloted his 3000th winner Friday at Aqueduct when Hit the Woah took a maiden special weight. “I knew when I was a couple away, and I thought it might Photographer/Photo Editor take a long time to get, you know how it goes,” said the 35-year-old native of the Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] Dominican Republic. “I’m so glad it happened and thanks to all the owners and trainers for the opportunities.” | Adam Coglianese Social Media Strategist Justina Severni Associate Producer KARAKONTIE FILLY BEST IN OFF-TURF MRS. REVERE 9 Katie Ritz Lightly raced Princess Grace (Karaktonie {Jpn}) handled the main track best of a turf-meant group in only her fourth lifetime start Director of Customer Service Vicki Forbes in Churchill’s GIII Mrs. Revere S. [email protected] Marketing Manager PRICEY SPIELBERG ONE TO WATCH IN BOB HOPE 10 Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen With the ongoing Del Mar meet renamed a few years ago to honor Hollywood icon Bing Crosby, it seems only fitting that a colt named Director of IT & Accounting Ray Villa Spielberg (Union Rags) would take his shot in the GIII Bob Hope S. [email protected] [email protected] TODAY’S GRADED STAKES WORLDWIDE INFORMATION ET Race Click for TV International Editor 7:00p Bob Hope S.-GIII, DMR TJCIS PPs TVG Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] European Editor Emma Berry [email protected] Associate International Editor Heather Anderson @HLAndersonTDN Newmarket Bureau, Cafe Racing Sean Cronin & Tom Frary [email protected] 60 Broad Street, Suite 100 Red Bank, NJ 07701 732-747-8060 | www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 10 • THETDN.COM SUNDAY • NOVEMBER 15, 2020 Finley cont. from p1 workday was done, we'd make the short trip down the Atlantic In a few days, I will be able to look back on the 48th City Expressway to catch the last half of the card. Like Suffolk, anniversary of the first time I saw Secretariat run in person. It Atlantic City limped along for years with short meets that was Nov. 18, 1972 and I lived in the Center City section of allowed them to maintain their license, but ceased racing after Philadelphia and, of course, our family was not going to miss the 2014. The track still sits there, its owners trying to figure out opportunity to see Secretariat run in person in the Garden State what to do with the property. Stakes. He was on the verge of superstardom and his appearance at the Cherry Hill, New Jersey, track drew a crowd of 25,175. The great horse did not disappoint, winning by 3 1/2 lengths in his final start as a 2-year-old, cementing his first of two Horse of the Year titles. The track burned to the ground in 1977, but was resurrected in 1985 by Bob Brennan. The new Garden State was supposed to be "the track of the 21st century" but come the early 2000s, its days were numbered. Unable to compete with the Atlantic City casinos and with too many racetracks in the Mid-Atlantic region for horseplayers to choose from, it limped to the finish line and never ran again after a short meet that ended in May of 2001. Today, over the hallowed ground over which Secretariat, Bold Ruler, Kelso, Dr. Fager, Citation galloped down the stretch you can find a Cheesecake Factory. Very depressing. Through the seventies and eighties I made many a trip, as well, A famous moment at Suffolk when a fan ran onto the track at the to Atlantic City Race Course. My brother worked for Philly's finish of the 1966 Mayflower S. |Harry Carfagna afternoon paper, the Philadelphia Bulletin, and, after his Cont. p4 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 10 • THETDN.COM SUNDAY • NOVEMBER 15, 2020 Finley cont. The tracks I really miss are the ones in New England that were such a huge part of my life while I majored in Suffolk Downs and minored in economics while a student at Tufts University. There was a time when there were tracks in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Maine. They are all gone, leaving an entire region of the country that once embraced racing without a single track. I made it to the old Rockingham once, early on in my freshman year, before it, too, burned down, in 1980. It was rebuilt and reopened four years later, but the new Rockingham was one of those places where there was no there there. It ran its last Thoroughbred race in 2002. My favorite track, maybe of all time, was Suffolk Downs. I had an affinity for a hardscrabble, blue-collar, unpretentious track nestled between oil tanks where much of the racing was conducted during the harsh New England winter. For those who prefer Saratoga, Del Mar, Santa Anita, I don't expect you to understand. Suffolk Downs held on as long as it could, holding five or six-day meets to keep its license while ownership hoped to be granted a casino license. When Suffolk lost its bid, it was over. The track last raced June 30, 2019, and I was there to say goodbye. The property will soon be developed and include housing, stores, offices, you know, the usual stuff. The paddock at beautiful Hialeah | Keeneland library The Massachusetts fairs didn't make it nearly as far. Back in the day, there was nothing like them. With a Ferris wheel, carnival games and 4-H club exhibits as a backdrop, Marshfield, Northampton and Great Barrington were New England institutions. With the legalization of pari-mutuel wagering in Massachusetts in the thirties, a thriving fair circuit got going, a refuge for horses and jockeys that couldn't win any place else. Cont. p5 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 5 OF 10 • THETDN.COM SUNDAY • NOVEMBER 15, 2020 Finley cont. Editor=s note: Think you can beat Bill=s Finley=s visits for live Everybody who went to the fairs had a story about the fairs, racing to 28 (soon to be 29) defunct tracks? Email us at like seeing 17-year-old Golden Arrow win at Great Barrington in [email protected] 1978 or the time Zippy Chippy finished second at Northampton in his 98th attempt to break his maiden.