Truth be Known
- Bruno@Racingwithbruno
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
I grew up in a very strict household.
My parents taught me the difference between right and wrong. Between truth and lies. Between facts and opinions.
Those lessons have stayed with me my entire life.
I remember being seven years old. My mother handed me a shopping list and sent me down Via Bernardo Cavallino to the neighborhood store.
The lady behind the counter apologized and said she couldn't make change. I'd have to come back later.
Well, I wasn't about to go home empty-handed. I didn't want to disappoint my mother.
So I walked another mile down the road to a different store. They had change. I bought what my mother needed and started the long walk back up the hill.
Halfway home, who do I run into?
The lady from the first store.
She points at me and yells, "You liar! You went somewhere else!"
I was mortified.
I didn't say a word.
I just kept walking.
In my seven-year-old mind, I had accomplished exactly what my mother asked me to do. It wasn't my fault she wasn't prepared to make change.
Yet I have never forgotten how it felt to be called a liar.
Today?
People wear that label like it's a badge of honor.
Business is business.
Money is money.
Lie. Cheat. Manipulate.
As long as there's a dollar attached to it, too many people simply shrug their shoulders.
Maybe that's why I see the world differently.
Maybe it's my pedigree.
On my mother's side, my grandfather was an undercover Carabiniere, the State Police.
I never had the privilege of meeting him. He was murdered by the Mafia during a black-market sting operation when my mother was only six weeks old.
That's my pedigree.
Integrity wasn't something we talked about.
It was something we lived.
Today I still believe in an old racetrack saying:
"You might as well tell the truth at the racetrack, because everyone thinks you're lying anyway."
For over forty years I've tried to educate horseplayers about one simple truth.
You cannot blindly trust the times printed in your past performances.
I'm not making this stuff up.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
That's why I put almost zero faith in published workout times or workout rankings unless I've clocked the horse myself.
Years ago an old official clocker barked at me,
"What makes your stopwatch better than mine?"
Nothing.
It's not the stopwatch.
It's the person holding it.
People looking at the exact same work can come back with different times.
Some start too early.
Some start too late.
Some stop too early.
Some stop too late.
Some click the watch when the horse reaches the pole.
Wrong.
By the time your finger reacts, the horse is already several feet beyond the marker.
Great clockers don't react.
They anticipate.
The pole.
The finish.
Every click.
Time never stands still.
You're literally racing the clock.
I've always taken pride in getting it right.
Unfortunately, not everyone shares that philosophy.
There's always a hustle.
Always an angle.
Especially when money is involved.
Take this week's workout.
Cruising Again buries Cactus Closer by ten lengths.
Officially?
Only .44 of a second separates them.
Seriously?
I clocked Cruising Again in :46 flat. The official time?:47.80.
Third fastest of 116.
Had the work been timed correctly, it would've been the bullet by a full second.
Instead, Shefflin gets the published bullet with :47.
If you're one of the thousands of horseplayers who scan the workout page looking for bullet drills, you're following the wrong horse.
You're betting Shefflin.
Meanwhile, Cruising Again is the horse who actually worked the fastest.
This has become routine at NYRA.
The manipulation of workout rankings and bullet works has gone on for years, while the Daily Racing Form faithfully publishes whatever they're handed.
Horseplayers deserve better.
And for those wondering...
You don't time from the gate.
You time from the five-and-a-half furlong pole and every short pole thereafter.
That's Clocking 101.
I've railed against bullet works for years because too many of them are fiction.
Some are made up.
No...Let's call it what it is.
Most of them are.
Which reminds me of one of the most infamous mornings I've ever witnessed.
Hop into the Time Machine.
July 16, 2016.
Almost ten years to the day.
Todd Pletcher sends out a pair of two-year-olds from the gate at Saratoga.
Squire Creek, a son of Hansen owned by Twin Creeks Racing, with Nick Bush aboard.
Working alongside One Liner, a son of Into Mischief—long before Into Mischief became the dominant sire he is today.
I still have my handwritten notes.
The pair were flying.
As they approached the half-mile pole...
Horror.
Squire Creek went down.
One Liner continued on and finished his work.
There was a long delay.
Never a good sign.
Nick Bush suffered a fractured back and was taken away on a stretcher.
Squire Creek never made it off the track.
Later that afternoon I looked over the official workout tab.
And I couldn't believe what I was reading.
The horse that went down.........Received the faster official time.
The better workout ranking.
One Liner—the horse that remained standing, completed the drill, and had been head-and-head with Squire Creek when the accident occurred—was somehow assigned the slower workout.
Think about that.
The horse that couldn't even finish the work received a better official time than the horse that actually did.
Seven days later, One Liner broke his maiden and paid $7.80.
He later won the Southwest Stakes before finishing his career in Steve Asmussen's barn.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Even in the middle of a tragedy, the published information misled horseplayers.
And that's only one example.
I've seen horses all-out under the whip, pull up bad on the gallop-out, get vanned off...
...and somehow still receive the bullet workout.
I've watched a modest maiden claimer struggle home in :48.1, while a fresh Curlin colt effortlessly dusted him in :47 and change, galloped out in 1:00 and change, yet somehow the claimer gets the bullet while the better horse is buried down the workout list.
The very next week at Saratoga, that same maiden claimer tripped over his own feet on the gallop-out.
Because of that fake bullet, horseplayers bet him in his maiden claiming race.
He never hit the board.
I could tell stories like this all day.
And all night, but i will say there are honest clockers, the Keeneland and Churchill crews are above board, honest as the day is long. I'll stop while I'm ahead.
I've come a long way since those walks down Via Bernardo Cavallino.
Ironically, Cavallino means horse.
Maybe it was destiny.
But one thing hasn't changed.
I'd still rather tell the truth.
Because at the racetrack...
Everyone already thinks you're lying anyway.
The Saturday Saratoga card is some of our best work, we have exclusive works, the other guys dont have. Don't get left out from some juicy Kentucky shooters.
Del Mar looks strong as well, and will be posted shortly.