This is the Way!

My friends, I trust your holiday was suitably excessive—too much food, too much drink, and just enough poor decisions to keep life interesting. And now, as we stand on the precipice of A big racing weekend, I found myself this morning in a reflective mood. Scoping out the present, shaking loose the past, and keeping a watchful eye on the ever-troublesome future.

I kept circling back to last month’s Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar—two names in particular: White Abarrio and Sovereignty.

Now, riddle me this. Aside from being scratched, what do these two share?

Cue the Jeopardy thinking music…

“I’ll take No Works for $500, Alex.”

Correct. Neither horse has recorded a single work in over four weeks.

White Abarrio—whose scratch unleashed a Greek tragedy of owner theatrics and social-media lunatics—hasn’t worked since October 21. That’s not the pattern of a perfectly healthy horse “scratched for no reason.” That’s the pattern of a horse who is decidedly not fine, no matter how many conspiracy theorists scream into their ring lights.

And Sovereignty? Ah, yes—the mysterious “fever.” Two races in six months and not a whisper of a work since October 27. The truth? He was already damaged. The Derby, the Travers—they took their pound of flesh. He needed five to seven weeks simply to exist comfortably again. In this business, that translates to what we politely call “extensive veterinary intervention.” But instead we’re handed the classic fairy tale. A fever. A convenient, alleged, fever.

Please. He could’ve staggered out of that stall like a three-legged pirate and we still wouldn’t have heard the truth.

Because truth in horse racing is treated with the same reverence and secrecy as top-secret intelligence.They hide it behind that ridiculous phrase—National Security.

This isn’t about safeguarding missile technology. It’s about horses. But you wouldn’t know it from the cloak-and-dagger nonsense that surrounds every scratch, every whisper, every limp stride down a shed row.

"Shhhhhh... don't tell anybody" is a whisper heard from the grandstand, the paddock to the backstretch.

And then there’s White Abarrio—the million-dollar enigma. Seven-point-one million earned, still out there jogging at Gulfstream as if they are waiting for a divine intervention. Gordon Gekko once proclaimed greed was good. But this isn’t greed. It’s delusion wrapped in ego, wrapped in a horse blanket. A warrior being marched toward a cliff so someone can insist they “were right.”

If I were inclined to wager on the future—and you know I always am—I’d bet neither White Abarrio nor Sovereignty races again. Sovereignty will be whisked away to the breeding shed where his genetics can be monetized without the inconvenience of running. White Abarrio? He deserves retirement, not the slow, public unraveling that ego demands.

I imagine he will be retired, without fanfare, in the secrecy of the cloak of midnight, hoping that people have forgotten, after all as a society there is an epidemic of amnesia enveloping today's world.

We trumpet horse safety like a badge of honor, but when a horse is retired—properly, responsibly—these same would-be guardians clutch their pearls and cry foul. As if horses ride off into retirement sound as violins. They don’t. They retire because they can’t race. But some spectators would happily watch them run on three legs, and then offer thoughts and prayers when horse and rider hit the ground.

Most people couldn’t spot lameness if it walked up and handed them a note, it may need to be in brail, however. They watch a horse hobble past and type “looks great” with all the conviction of someone who has no earthly idea what they’re seeing.

In today's world, ignorance is not merely tolerated—it’s brandished proudly, like a trophy. And in its shadow, warriors are sacrificed to prove a point.

It is grotesque.

And while we’re addressing grotesqueries, let’s talk about the Breeders’ Cup cozying up to the CAWs and selling out the everyday horseplayer. Fans took a stand—refused to shell out obscene ticket prices —and I applaud them. Let that trend blossom. Cater to the rich and famous all you want, but they are fickle creatures, like exotic birds. They fly off at the slightest disturbance. And when they do, the very players you’re shoving aside will be the ones you come crawling back to.

Thankfully, some tracks still remember who keeps the lights on. CDI, Keeneland, Oaklawn—they fund the Video Workout Library. They give players a fighting chance. They democratize the backstretch. Fair Grounds didn’t want to pay for it—fine, that’s their right. But players will go where the information lives.

Click on the image and bookmark for Oaklawn Video Works

Because once you get past the cold mathematical tyranny of the CAWs, you reach something their algorithms can never compute:the way a horse moves, breathes, flicks an ear, carries anxiety or confidence like an aura.

Click on the image above and bookmark Kentucky Works at the KTA.

Bookmark Keeneland Workout Videos by clicking image

That was once proprietary knowledge. A secret code spoken only by the backstretch. Now it sits on a screen on your monitor at your fingertips.

You want to beat the CAWs?

First, stop bitching about them, wasting precious energy, and watch videos, read workout reports instead. Use the vidual aids, watch races, use your eyes because that's what the CAWs can't calculate, their numbers are blind, and take your game back.

This—this—is the future.And that is exactly where my eyes are focusing.

This is the way!