Horse racing newsletter: How to change the Oaks points system

Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter as we try and get caught up with stewards’ rulings but don’t quite get there.

Our Kentucky correspondent Louis Rabaut, of the Horse Racing Happy Hour, otherwise known as Mr. Oaks, is back and wanting to overhaul the Oaks points system. It’s actually a pretty good idea and you get to see Louis ask himself questions in the third person. Louis, it’s your turn.

“Admit it: that stretch run between Letruska and Monomoy Girl made your weekend. Those fillies and mares did it again.

“I learned years back to fall in love with the fillies, because they run for what feels like forever. Colts? Nah. Authentic won’t be racing Tiz The Law this year, and we’ll never see Improbable run again. If not for geldings, we’d have never had the years with Whitmore and Channel Maker. (And how awesome are they?)

“Swiss Skydiver, Gamine, Monomoy Girl, and Letruska are all running this year. I’m hopeful this year’s crop of 3-year-old fillies has a few good years in it, too.

“As the Kentucky Oaks preps are all completed, and the field largely set, it’s a good time to examine the points system. Generally speaking, I’m a fan of the points system concept. It needs tweaking, but in no way should it go away.

“I’m in finance for a living, so I put my numbers skills to work and spent my Sunday assembling a spreadsheet of the Oaks preps, trying to nail down from where this year’s qualifiers originated. Not surprisingly, the qualifiers are coming from the most recent preps, the 100- and 50-point races. This manner of points system makes reasonable sense: horses with the best recency are given preference in the Oaks field, and when handicapping younger horses, this is a reasonable tact to take.

“The system, however, favors second-place finishers far too much, and values the early preps far too little. Case in point: of the 30 Oaks preps, 16 of them award 10 points to the winner, and 4-2-1 points to the next three finishers. Those 16 races make up 14% of the total points awarded on the Oaks trail. What? Why have them if none of them is worth even 1% of the total points?

“On the other side of the coin, you have Ava’s Grace, Pass The Champagne, and Maracuja. What do they all have in common? They qualified for the Oaks by virtue of a second-place finish in a 100-point race, earning 40 points. In fact, before April 3, only Ava’s Grace had run in a non-maiden race. She hit the board in the Grade 3 Adirondack at Saratoga back in August.

“The Oaks points system is so top heavy, it could get all of its starters from 13 races. Why have 30 races if 13 are so heavily weighted they negate the earlier ones?

“I propose a change in points allotments, and one that weighs winners more, and runners-up less.

“Change #1: Points are distributed to the top three finishers only.

“Change #2: No winner ever earns fewer than 20 points.

“Change #3: No second-place horse ever earns more than 20 points.

“Change #4: The new race points scales are 20-5-2 (instead of 10-4-2-1), 50-10-5 (50-20-10-5), and 80-20-10 (100-40-20-10).

“But Louis, how badly would this have affected past winners?

“Terrific question, faithful newsletter reader. The answer: it wouldn’t. Every winner of the Oaks in the points era would have qualified for the Oaks. The best fillies still qualify in this revised format.

“Why stress the earlier races so much?

“Horse racing has the same issue as college basketball: the country only pays attention to college basketball during March, and we’re lucky if people pay attention to horse racing outside of May. By implementing a system that pumps these earlier races, owners and trainers will be enticed to chase points, creating better races more often. I’m a little fatigued of four-horse stakes fields.

“Would you change which races are designated as points races?

“I might not include the UAE Oaks as part of the trail, especially its designation as a 50-point race. Otherwise, highlighting big races at tracks such as Santa Anita, Keeneland, Gulfstream Park, Aqueduct, Oaklawn, and the Fair Grounds is reasonable and good.

“All in all, here is how the points would be distributed in the system laid out here:

“The new points weighting doubles the points of the early races, but leaves the importance of the later races intact. This system allows for recency to still rule the day, while encouraging greater participation (and bigger fields) in the earlier races. Let’s meet more of these fillies as 2-year-olds and as young 3-year-olds, so we can watch them develop and turn in those great mares we all love.

Louis Rabaut is a Louisville-based co-host of the Horse Racing Happy Hour podcast, alongside Megan Devine and Mike Gandolfo. New episodes release every Thursday on all major podcast platforms. Follow him on Twitter @LouisRabaut. You can catch the HRHH’s coverage live at Churchill Downs for Oaks & Derby on ESPN Louisville. 9 a.m.-noon PDT on Oaks Friday, and 10a.m.-noon PDT on Derby Day. You can ask your virtual assistant to “Play ESPN Louisville,” or find the stream at www.espnlouisville.com, or the iHeart Radio app.

CHRB rulings

Well, the California Horse Racing Board is still not caught up on posting its stewards’ minutes, so if these rulings seem a bit outdated, it’s because they are. But let’s go to them anyway.

--Trainer Peter Miller was fined $500 for a late declaration of scratching Nerves of Steel from the eighth race on April 2. Miller did not want the horse to run in that race. Instead, the horse ran on April 9 at Golden Gate Fields and won a maiden special weight.

--Jockey Tyler Baze was fined $500 for violating the riding crop while aboard Coastal King in the fourth race on March 28. Baze used the riding crop more than six times, the allowable limit. Coastal King, the favorite, finished third. Baze accepted responsibility for the violation. It was his first offense in the past 60 days.

--Exercise rider Cesar Salcedo was fined $50 for galloping on the rail during morning workouts. Morning outrider John Cortez cited Salcedo on April 1. The incident was compounded because a worker had to maneuver around Salcedo. The exercise rider said his horse was difficult to handle and he tried to get the horse to outside but could not do it in a timely manner.

--Jockey Mario Gutierrez was suspended three days (April 11, 17 and 18) for careless riding while riding Found My Ball in the 12th race on April 3. Found My Ball was disqualified from fourth to seventh for crossing over without sufficient clearance on the backstretch and causing interference. Gutierrez admitted he made a mistake by allowing his mount to drift but said the horse on the inside could have helped by reacting earlier.

Who goofed, I’ve got to know?

In the Sunday newsletter, I reported that there were four horses in the Californian at Santa Anita. Actually, there were five. But it was a strung-out field.

Sorry to report …

On Saturday, My Child Sbud fractured his left front ankle while running in the second race. The 3-year-old gelding was running in last place when he suddenly appeared in distress near the top of the stretch and was pulled up by jockey Heriberto Figueroa. He was transported for diagnostics before being euthanized. It was the seventh racing or training fatality at the track this racing year. By this point in 2019, there were 23 fatalities. Last racing year, the track had reduced its fatality count to 16.

Santa Anita review

Two graded stakes races on Sunday, let’s look at them.

Grade 3 $100,000 Tokyo City Cup: There aren’t a lot of 1 ½ mile dirt races but this one of them. However, the five-horse race wasn’t much of one. Tizamagician moved to the front after about a mile and just cruised from there winning by nine lengths.

Tizamagician paid $3.20, $2.20 and $2.10. Zestful was second followed by Lure Him In and Ronamo. Multiplier, a 7-year-old gelding, was pulled up approaching the five-sixteenth marker. He was taken to the equine hospital where it was determined he had a fractured sesamoid. He is in stable condition and will be re-evaluated in the morning with the hopes of doing life-saving surgery. Here’s wish him the absolute best.

Flavien Prat (winning jockey): “I wanted the other horse to clear me, because you can’t take a hold of my horse. He settled very nice and it looks like a mile and a half is a great distance for him.”

Richard Mandella (winning trainer): “It’s great when you win, there’s a lot of nice, happy people, but it’s scary when you lose and they’re mad, I’ll tell you that. They’ve all been very good and it’s a great operation (My Racehorse). Not only does it create people to own a piece of the horse, but they all have friends and the idea is, if they get their friends, they get people into racing and that’s what we need. We need people here, it’s not the same without them. It’s so strange to win races and nobody is here to cheer and celebrate with. It means everything in the world that people are here.”

Grade 3 $100,000 Kona Gold Stakes: When you pay $3.65 million for a horse, you probably expect a quicker return on your money than your first graded stakes win four months into your 4-year-old career. But if you look at Cezanne’s performance in this 6 ½-furlong race, you’re feeling better about his future. Cezanne won his third of four races in overpowering fashion riding the rail around the turn into the stretch to win by 9 3/4 lengths.

There were only four horses in this race and Cezanne stayed on the rail as Brickyard Ride and Ax Man broke out into a blistering speed duel going 21.18 and 43.60 for the quarter and half. It allowed Cezanne to cruise around into the stretch as the front runners fell into the real-view mirror.

Cezanne paid $5.80 and $2.40. There was no show betting. Brickyard Ride was second followed by Fight On and Ax Man.

Jimmy Barnes (assistant to winning trainer Bob Baffert): “We knew there was going to be a hot pace. Not sure how fast but it ended up being fast, and you know Cezanne just ate them up. [Flavien Prat] gave him a wonderful ride and Bob had him ready. It’s tough to find a spot to run these horses off a layoff, we chose the Kona Gold and made the right decision.

Flavien Prat (winning jockey): “It worked out well. We had a fast pace in front of us and we were able to save ground. He gave me a good kick when I asked him. He ran really nice.”

As a final note, Santa Anita had a single winner in its pick six that paid out $423,202. How much was invested? It was bought with a ticket of $64.80 at Los Alamitos. Drinks at the Vessels Club should have been on this person.

Big races review

A look at graded stakes or races worth $100,000 on Sunday.

Aqueduct (7): $200,000 New York Stallion Stakes (Park Avenue Division), NY-bred 3-year-olds, 6 ½ furlongs. Winner: Shaker Shack ($12.80)

Aqueduct (8): $100,000 Memories of Silver Stakes, fillies 3-years-old, 1 1/16 miles on turf. Winner: Bubbles On Ice ($9.80)

Santa Anita (3): Grade 3 $100,000 Tokyo City Cup Stakes, 4 and up, 1 ½ miles. Winner: Tizamagician ($3.20)

Santa Anita (8): Grade 3 $100,000 Kona Gold Stakes, 3 and up, 6 ½ furlongs. Winner: Cezanne ($5.80)

And now the star of the show, Sunday’s results. See you on Friday.