The Blood-Horse has long been considered the place to go to get up-to-date info for almost every statistical category in thoroughbred racing. And it's important that those stats be 100% on the money, especially since so much industry advertising depends on it, you know, those little asterisks at the bottom of the page that give credit to the magazine for the info through a certain date.

    Since I do so much research for this website, along with keeping up websites for various farms, I'm constantly poring over stallion pages and leading sire lists, etc. What I have found lately is the Blood-Horse is not keeping up with the job.

    Take Ocala Stud Farm's freshman sire Adios Charlie, for instance. As of today, on the frosh lists they have him with three winners this year, one repeat winner and progeny earnings of $142,203. His leading earner is listed as R Luckey Charlie, with $52,509. Adios Charlie does have three winners, one of them being Elfin Cove, the $675,000 OBS March filly sold to Japanese interests, but she's 2-for-2 and has earned $118,182. You can find that out by going to Adios Charlie's stallion register page and looking for "current performers worldwide."  

    As for R Luckey Charlie, he's run three times, and has a first, a third and a fourth, with purses of $9,233, $20,400 and $1,600. That comes to $31,233, not $52,509. Then there's R Sweet Exchange, who has earned $20,800, and Let Love Rule, with $12,380. That adds up to $182,595, not $142,203. Looking further, in another spot they have Elfin Cove with $117,574.

    Two Step Salsa's leading earner this year is Classic Salsa, with $191,810. In the Stallion Register, under current top performers, they have him winning at Aqueduct in January and February, and that's it. But he won again at Pimlico on May 3, at Belmont Park on June 18 and Penn National on July 1. Those victories aren't posted.

    Causeway's Kin is a freshman sire from Prestige Stallions. He's listed on the frosh sire lists as having three winners, with earnings of $4,614, and his top earner is Causeway's Cutie, with $2,614, and who hasn't won. He also has Im a Lawman, who hasn't won but has earned $2,000. Where is the winner? Since the son of Giant's Causeway isn't represented in the Stallion Register, I couldn't get any info there and the two who have run have all of the stallion's earnings of $4,614 by themselves.    

    And, finally, I check the "upcoming races" on the stallion page of several horses I'm interested in and have found that the entries are far from accurate. I'll be watching a race on TVG and the analysts will mention that a runner is by so and so - one of my interests - but that horse wasn't on the entries page. It happens repeatedly.

    I don't know if the problem has anything to do with the change of ownership of the magazine, or if it's something else. I do know it needs to be rectified if Blood-Horse is to retain its credibility. 

comments powered by Disqus