Feb

9

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

by Barry Roos
Published: February 9, 2010 1 Comment
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The Good

Oaklawn could boost Apple Blossom purse to $5-million – Here’s the kind of thing that will actually get people to watch racing. It doesn’t sound like it will come off, but kudos to Oaklawn for trying.

The Bad

The first month of this year handles are down 12.03% compared with January of 2009. Purses were down 10.04%.

Ouch.

Purses dropping handles off don’t make you feel too rozy about the future.

The Ugly

No matter how good a trainer does, owners will blame them for any problems. But here is a shocker. Imagine you are a trainer who wins the Belmont, The Travers and the Eclipse award? You would think you were fairly safe at least for a year. Tim Ice found out that isn’t true. Owner K. K. Jayaraman fired him citing communication problems. No, you can’t make this stuff up. K. K. Jayaraman said last year that he had used 89 different trainers since the couple entered the business in the early 1980s. Amazing how foolish some men with money can be. 89 trainers? Time to look inward KK.

Fifth Third Bancorp now claims Ahmed Zayat concealed the death of multiple Grade 1 winner Thorn Song last summer to hide $2.75-million in mortality insurance proceeds that he should have paid to the bank. This lawsuit is really getting ugly. When one of your sports leading owners is embroiled in this kind of stuff, it hurts everyone. Our business can’t stand any more bad pub.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Preston A. Whitehead on February 10, 2010 3:52 pm

    K. K. Jayaraman is a total a$$hole. Imagine saying you have had 80+ trainers?

    What a creep!

    Good luck to Tim Ice, I wish you all the best. As for K. K. Jayaraman you will never get any loyalty and will keep going through trainers until they tell you where the f*ck to go. You are lucky trainers can’t afford to tell you off because if they could you’d be training for yourself. And how did that go? $hitty, because you are a moron.

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