MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2019 PHOENIX FOUNDER SYNTH AN OPTION--BUT NOT AN IMMEDIATE ONE--FOR SANTA ANITA ALLEGED AS MONEY The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton Lost in the shuffle of last Thursday=s marathon six-hour LAUNDERER WHO California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) meeting was a key update on the future of track surfaces at Santa Anita Park and plans for ALSO STOLE FROM new stabling on the Southern California circuit. Aidan Butler, the chief strategy officer and acting executive PONZI SCHEME director of California racing operations for The Stronach Group (TSG), which owns Santa Anita, outlined the company=s near- and longer-term plans during 47 minutes of questioning by commissioners prior to the track being awarded a conditional license for its upcoming winter/spring meet. Butler reported that Santa Anita is about to undertake a Afull renovation@ of its dirt track that involves Aremixing and reblending the whole surface.@ Cont. p4 IN TDN EUROPE TODAY DONNACHA O’BRIEN RETIRES, WILL TRAIN IN 2020 Donnacha O’Brien, two-time Irish Champion Jockey, will cease riding and turn his hand to training in 2020. Click or tap here to Amer Abdulaziz | Racing Post Photo go straight to TDN Europe. by T.D. Thornton Amer Abdulaziz Salman, the founder of Phoenix Thoroughbreds, has been named as a Akey figure in a major money-laundering operation@ and is also alleged to have stolen i100 million from the sham cryptocurrency project he purportedly helped to run, the Racing Post has reported. Over time, Abdulaziz then allegedly whitewashed his ill-gotten gains by buying racehorses and breeding stock for Phoenix, the global Thoroughbred ownership enterprise he launched in 2017. the Racing Post story said. These stunning allegations were reported Nov. 24 by the Racing Post (here and here) and appear to be based in part off of live-Tweeted testimony reported earlier this month by Inner City Press (here) from a United States federal court trial. On Nov. 21, that federal trial in New York resulted in a guilty verdict for U.S. lawyer Mark Scott on charges of fraud and laundering $400 million in illegal funds for the global cryptocurrency entity known as OneCoin, which was created in 2014 but has since been exposed as a Ponzi-style scam that promised unsustainable returns to multiple levels of unwitting investors. 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 Monday, November 25, 2019 Alan Carasso @EquinealTDN Senior Editor Steve Sherack @SteveSherackTDN Racing Editor Brian DiDonato @BDiDonatoTDN Associate Editors Christie DeBernardis @CDeBernardisTDN 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 Assistant Amie Morosco Photographer/Photo Editor Sarah K. Andrew @SarahKAndrew [email protected] Social Media Strategist Corey Nakatani comes back after winning the 2017 GI Del Mar Futurity aboard Bolt Justina Severni d'Oro (Medaglia d'Oro). Nakatani, a winner of more than 3,900 races over a career Director of Customer Service that spanned nearly three decades, announced his retirement from riding Saturday Vicki Forbes [email protected] night. Read more on page 7. | Benoit Marketing Manager Alayna Cullen @AlaynaCullen DEL MAR CANCELS THANKSGIVING CARD 7 Director of IT/Accounting In anticipation of heavy rain forecast for the San Diego Ray Villa area Wednesday and Thursday, Del Mar has canceled [email protected] its Thanksgiving Day card. [email protected] WORLDWIDE INFORMATION TAPIZAR FILLY TAKES BESSARABIAN 7 International Editor Amalfi Coast (Tapizar) became the fifth graded stakes Kelsey Riley @kelseynrileyTDN [email protected] winner for her sire when convincingly annexing the European Editor GII Bessarabian S. Sunday at Woodbine. 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 | 732-747-8955 (fax) www.TheTDN.com TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 3 OF 8 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • NOVEMBER 25, 2019 Abdulaziz cont. from p1 100 million Euros from OneCoin, he started buying race horses, The Racing Post reported that Abdulaziz was Aone of the for like 25 million Euros.@ operation=s web of money-cleaners under the guidance of US Attorney: Who was this Mr. Aziz? Gilbert Armenta, boyfriend of OneCoin=s other co-founder, Dr. Ignatov: One of the main money launderers for [OneCoin]. Ruja Ignatova.@ US Attorney: Did you ever report to the police any of On Nov. 6, Inner City Press [Abdulaziz=s] theft? live-tweeted sworn testimony Ignatov: No. [Because] the delivered by Konstantin Ignatov, money came from a criminal the co-founder of OneCoin. The activity. Racing Post reported that On Sunday evening, TDN was Ignatov recently pleaded guilty not able to corroborate the to his own money-laundering live-tweeted testimony against and fraud charges as part of the an official court transcription. estimated $4-billion scam, and TDN could also not reach has been cooperating with U.S. Abdulaziz via phone to ask his prosecutors. Inner City Press side of the story, and a voicemail reported the following message seeking comment from exchanges that TDN has Tom Ludt, the head of U.S. condensed here for brevity: operations for Phoenix US Attorney: Who did Gilbert Thoroughbreds, was not Armenta work with on money Amer Abdulaziz | Fasig-Tipton photo returned in time for deadline for laundering? this article. Ignatov: Mark Scott, Amr Abdul Aziz [sic] and Alex OrtegaY. Cont. p4 [Abdulaziz], after he stole TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 4 OF 8 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • NOVEMBER 25, 2019 The Racing Post reported that it has seen Aa draft transcript of the September 2018 interview between Mark Scott and FBI agents after he was arrested on suspicion of money-laundering, in which he claimed a Dubai-based investment fund named Phoenix was sent $190 million.@ The Racing Post continued: AIn an interview earlier this year, Abdulaziz said he created Phoenix as an equine investment fund geared towards providing investors with a >sustainable return realized through acquisition and breeding of top-quality Thoroughbreds= and claimed to have raised $250 million. However, Abdulaziz has never disclosed who his investors are-- citing a desire to protect his client base--other than to say they are >non-racing people.=@ The Racing Post added that AThe U.S. Attorney=s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Mark Scott, declined to comment on Sunday when asked if Abdulaziz was a person of interest, while the FBI said it >neither confirms nor denies= having an interest in the Phoenix founder.@ The Racing Post reported that Abdulaziz=s bloodstock agent, Dermot Farrington, Ais understood to have quit his role after becoming aware of the accusation ... Kerri Radcliffe, Abdulaziz's first bloodstock agent, was fired by him last year and he has since relied on Farrington@ for helping to build what is now estimated as a 300-horse international racing and breeding operation on five continents. The Week In Review cont. from p1 The job was originally scheduled to start last week Abut because of the inclement weather, we had to hit pause on that,@ Butler said. He said the new timetable for the work could start as early as Monday, Awhich means the main track will not be in use for the three days while it settles, and then we=ll be reopening it again towards the end of [Thanksgiving] week to continue training.@ When the CHRB asked whether or not TSG was considering a switch to a synthetic main surface for Santa Anita, Butler disclosed that the idea has come up, but added that TSG will tread with caution before committing to any sort of change. AWe=ve met with quite a few [synthetic track specialists], including Michael Dickinson and his wife, Joan, regarding a conversation about Tapeta,@ Butler said. AWhat I didn=t want to do is any form of knee-jerking and putting in a track that we-- you know, in the past, synthetics haven=t necessarily worked out that well in California. So I want to make sure whatever we do is done with data and science. Cont. p5 TDN HEADLINE NEWS • PAGE 5 OF 8 • THETDN.COM MONDAY • NOVEMBER 25, 2019 it=s a much better environment, and also it lessens the traffic and the amount of usage on the Santa Anita main track.@ The San Luis Rey expansion would be done in stages, Butler said. First would be the construction of barns with 500 new stalls, with the ability to add another 750 at a later date for an eventual total capacity of 1,750 stalls. AThere=s an unfortunate thing with Santa Anita that a lot of the barns are actually on the historic registry [dating from] when Santa Anita was used as an internment camp during the second World War,@ Butler said. AOne strategy that we=re particularly looking at is if we have the ability to lower the amount of horses in Santa Anita, then we can we can use that time to actually restructure and clean up some of the barns,@ Butler said. AWe do have pretty much an ongoing maintenance schedule with our crews at Santa Anita. It=s just that the barns were built a hell of a long time ago, and The Tapeta racing surface at Presque Isle Downs | Coady it=s pretty unfortunate that you can=t just knock them down and AMy preference would be to actually trial different sorts of start again.@ surfaces out at Santa Anita in real-time weather conditions, in the real climate, to make sure whatever we fundamentally end up doing--be it more turf racing, be it synthetic, be it a hybrid dirt and fiber, more like a Fibresand--it [will] stand the test of time and be the best that we can do,@ Butler added.