Once again, the CTBA Board of Directors is having their protective custody of keeping its members in the dark about the annual elections. I have not seen any announcement in the CTBA magazine and not on the CTBA web site and not in the CTBA weekly newsletter for any person that wants to run for the board.

The TOC magazine had a full page discussion on their elections for next year. The nominations close 90 days prior to the annual meeting and that will be approximately the middle of November. How is one expected to obtain the necessary signatures and submitted to the CTBA in a reasonable time schedule.

If it takes 25 signatures for your petition, I strongly urge any person that gets their petition in to have 30 signatures. The CTBA needs new directors for leadership.

I mentioned this last year and believe it or not, the following week information came out about the election.

The CTBA Board does not help our members who look for guidance. Look at the California sales for the last two years in Northern California and in association with Barretts for yearlings. Sellers are losing money at an alarming rate. Our breeding industry is hurting and what does the CTBA do to help us. NOTHING. The board members meet every other month and do we know how many board members actually show up? The minutes are never disclosed.

The board members are not helping us, and what is needed are new people on the board; but the CTBA under the guidance of Doug Burge has not given the California breeder any hope for the future.

Why can’t the CTBA have a venue for a sale and not depend on the Barretts sales company. The only sale a breeder has for a mixed sale is January and that will be a blood bath, with an average that will be below any in the past ten years.

Perhaps giving your horses to CERF is the most logical way to end your demise and suffering.

How does Barry Abrams even consider running a horse, Lethal Heat, two days in a row? It worked ok one week apart, but I have to think this is cruel and the trainer out of his mind. Of course, I could be. The mare surely cannot win both races, maybe neither. I would stick with one race and call it even. If anything happens to the mare, he will really get some heat.

Yesterday, I received simultaneously in the mail Don Engel’s plan and my Registration papers from CTBA. Had I not run down the mailman I would have been forced to go to the Post Office to retrieve said papers.

Don’s plan is very simple and should be put into effect. The only horses requiring identification / additional approval criteria are those conceived outside California — roughly 5% of any foal crop.

I can see why Don’s plan has fallen on deaf ears. The CTBA would lose thousands of dollars in Registration revenue. It would be hard to justify a $100-$125 dollar charge by just looking at the Jockey Club Foaling State Information and charge a breeder $100 dollars. That said, I would not have a problem paying a Cal Bred fee, but let’s dispense with all the unnecessary mailing of paper for no legitimate reason. Let’s take advantage of technology and create a public list of Cal Breds that anyone can view, pay a Registration fee and be done with it.

Finally, more than 13 years after I first proposed a common-sense change in Cal-bred registration procedures, somebody is interested! Bless you, Sandy Nickols!

I searched through the files of “The TIA Newsletter” and found my original article in the August 1995 issue. It took up a full newsletter page, and that’s just too much for me to copy and post here.

So if you want to read the whole article and get the full explanation, email me your mailing address and I’ll make a copy of the newsletter page and snail-mail it to you. (Sorry, Sandy, I no longer have your address, so send it along.)

The essence of the plan is that since all registration certificates issued by The Jockey Club show the state of foaling, Cal-breds are automatically identified. Nothing more needs to be done to tell racing secretaries which horses are Cal-breds.

Those California foals have to be registered in order to qualify for incentive awards and to be eligible for any races open only to registered Cal-breds. They can be considered to be automatically registered.

The only California foals that cannot automatically be registered as California-breds are those conceived outside California. Each year that is a tiny percentage of the entire crop of California foals.

The CTBA can require the breeders of those few to submit proof that their dams were bred back to California stallions and thus are qualified for Cal-bred registration. A fee should be charged for that, but there’s no reason for any other breeder to have to pay a registration fee.

The CTBA can create a list of the handful of California foals that don’t qualify for registration and provide it to racing secretaries so they can identify the few that aren’t eligible for any race restricted to registered California-breds.

Simple as that. Nothing else needs to be done.

Hello Don, good to get some feedback from you.

I, for one, would like to know your plan. We have been at a sink or swim state for so long you would think everyone would like to hear about a plan that would reduce administration costs and help the breeder.

I’m all ears........

This exchange about mailing Jockey Club certificates back and forth reminds me of the plan that I proposed for Cal-bred registration that would have made all that trouble and fuss unnecessary.

It was an exquisite plan, and I explained it in detail twice in my old TIA Newsletter. It would have made the whole Cal-bred registration procedure so simple that breeders would have had to do nothing at all and the CTBA not much more.

No applications, no fees, and very little action by the CTBA.

The first time I was surprised when I got not a single response. I didn’t expect anybody at the CTBA to respond, since they have an overwhelming interest in keeping things the way they are. But I was surprised when not a single breeder expressed any interest.

The second time I suggested it, a couple of years later, the result was the same.

Anybody who would like to know how the plan would work can let me know by writing to “Voices.”

But I expect that the result will be that my score will drop to 0 for 3. It isn’t likely that I’ll have more influence now than I did, pre-retirement, when such things mattered to me.

I don’t have any idea who the powers that be are that got Joe Talamo on “The Tonight Show,” but they deserve a lot of thanks. I watched the morning workout with Mine That Bird and also the interview of Joe and Conan (see September 29, 2009 blog entry).

This is the thing that horse racing needs more of. Why not have trainers and owners of the big stakes winners on there. You get a chance to hear the good things about racing and not just the negative. Did you notice how Joe was dressed? Very nice suit and all.

I applaud them all!

In response to Don’s question (below):

We request the original Jockey Club Certificate because we use a notary type seal to put the Cal-bred seal and number on the original certificate. This way when the horse is entered at the racetrack there is no question that it is Cal-bred. I’m afraid if we used some type of card it could easily be torn off or even put on the wrong horse.

A breeder can always send us the Cal-bred application and fee and have the Jockey Club Certificate stamped at the racetrack by one of our representatives if they worry about mailing the original.

Hi everyone! I’ve been involved in the horse racing industry for about 7 years now. I worked at many different racetracks including Santa Anita, Del Mar and San Luis Rey Downs (for Leigh Ann Howard), in the track maintenance department, under Steve Wood. I came across this website in doing research on the web for my wife, Kellie.

Kellie has an extensive background in handling and riding horses. She began riding horses at the age of 4 years. She grew up in Sacramento, Northern California, around her father’s racehorses on the fair circuit; her father’s name is Sean McGowan. We recently moved down from Northern California, in an effort to establish a better life.

Kellie has experience in exercising horses, pony riding, grooming and handling horses overall. If anyone can give us some guidance or insights on where she can get an opportunity at a possible employment, it will be gladly appreciated. We are located in between Fairplex and Santa Anita Park.

Thank You!

First I have to agree with Eric, our industry certainly needs more television time especially when you have a filly like Rachel Alexandra making history! This filly is one (if not THE one) filly who just might rival Secretariat with her accomplishments. This race should have been televised like any other major sport event such as golf, football, baseball, basketball or tennis.

I was amazed and shocked that while three miles from Del Mar Racetrack and 3,000 miles from Saratoga, I could not view the Rachel Alexandra Woodward on television. The residence we were in has Time Warner cable; which on their Saturday afternoon menu/guide had no mention of anything related to horse racing in the 2:30-4:00 slots. HRTV was not available on their subscribed package and TVG wasn’t offered.

Perhaps this is another reason our industry is shrinking. I long for the old network coverage from the Saturday sports shows. Enough football, tennis, baseball to fill numerous channels pretty much all day, yet not a 15-30 minute time slot for what turned out to be a historical moment.

My heart goes out to the suffering Richard Shapiro. Writing that groveling letter must have been the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do. If it wasn’t, he must have led a hard life.

But I think he wasn’t completely honest in his protestations of remorse, at least not when he said that he just can’t understand why he did such a thing.

Here is a guy who’d found his family’s wealth stripped away in the Bernard Madoff mess and who’d continued to be hounded by Jerry Jamgotchian, on and on, month after month, year after year.

Then, he finds himself alone in the Hollywood Park parking lot and Jamgotchian’s car right there, an irresistible target…How many of us could have resisted? What satisfaction!

Oops! Too bad for Shapiro: Surveillance cameras captured the scene and led to his identification.

I don’t contend that Shapiro did the right thing. We honorable citizens all shake our heads and agree that he did a very bad thing.

Shapiro says in his letter that he just cannot understand why he did what he did.