Catching up with Matt Dinerman

You know what? It's Thursday.

If you are so interested in that, he calls the races at

Monmouth Park and of course earlier in the year was called

them at Oaklawn as well. We wanted to get him his

thoughts on Triple Crown stuff about Oaklawn, about Monmouth in

general. Just kind of a nice spot in the

season to have Matt on the show. Our most frequent guest of

anyone that isn't a handycamer is Matt Ditterman.

And frankly, you do a bunch of handicapping.

So Matt, good morning, man. Or afternoon.

Now, how are you? Good.

Afternoon. Yeah.

And good to be on with you once again, especially on a rainy day

like this. It's raining in New Jersey.

Yeah. So I'm.

I'm wearing something warm, you know, Watched a bunch of Netflix

last night while it was raining. What is your go to Netflix at

this point? You know, because I imagine

you've moved on from Race for the Crown.

Like what are you watching these days?

Oh, I've been, I've been binge watching a few different things

because I worked so hard at Oak Lawn and now I'm here and right

now we're two days a week. So I'm really taking this time

to just take a break, you know, not do too much.

I actually watched the Brett Favre thing last.

Night. OK, Yeah.

Is I mean I had known the whole back story and everything but to

rejog my memory it Netflix always seems to find the

scandalous stories, don't they? So they nail it for sure.

I guess I haven't seen it yet, but of course I work at a sports

talk radio station and I should definitely go watch it.

But the. I think that's by watching

tomorrow night. I'm just a Thursday.

Friday ends up being a busy taping time for me, but the that

story is so bonkers as far as the where the funding comes

from, how he treats other people, all of the things I'm

I'm sure it's it's a it's a must watch for sure.

Out of a five star rating, what is Matt Dinnerman given that

one? I gave it a four-star.

I mean, there were a couple things I there were a couple

things I would have liked to have seen more of questions, a

couple questions I had coming out of it.

But overall I thought it was a good documentary.

And all these documentaries seem to have messages and even though

they're sort of hot button scandalous stories like this

one, for example, I think you can learn a lot from it.

And that especially includes, you know, when you have, when

you have power, somebody else's power, you're in a position

where you're making a lot of money or you have authority.

It's important to know, you know, that some people do take

advantage of that. Other people, you learn, hey,

that's not how to treat people. So that's what I took out of it.

Matt Duerman with us, he's calling races currently at

Monmouth Park, called him at Oaklawn over the winter and

spring, of course. Wanted to get your thoughts up

first here on the Triple Crown. So far I've, I thought so far

we've had two very different races.

I thought the Derby, in a rare occasion, Matt went to form, we

said, hey, these four or five horses are going to go to the

front and they did these, you know, 5-6 horses are going to

trail and be in stalking position.

They were, it included journalism who ran second.

We're going to have a bunch of these horses in the back of the

field trying to make a late run and we did.

And Sovereignty did that, won the race.

We saw Sandman make up late ground as well.

We had a surprise finish from Owen Almighty, a very, very good

fit as well. But Matt, what I think I learned

in the Preakness was that, yeah, journalism is probably the best

3 year old going. It's a fair and reasonable thing

to say, but boy, we've got a bunch of fun.

Whatever the second tier is behind journalism.

Number of three-year olds this year.

Like I think your Haskell this year is going to be spectacular,

for example. I hope it is.

I mean, we've got the Jim Dandy and the Haskell sort of around

the same time. So along with a couple of other,

I mean, West Virginia Derby and Mountaineer, a couple other

races like that just off the top of my head.

So you're going to start and you know, everybody's sort of for

the most part, at least going to the Derby, they're all on the

same boat. They're they're traveling on the

stream and then eventually you're going to see these

different paths and horses are going to go this way.

They're going to go that way. And then they're the best ones

are going to meet up in the Travers again.

So we're excited. I mean, this certainly at this

point in time seems like we have a strong crop of three-year old

Colton gelling. So it'll be interesting too.

I know sovereignty is also a good dolphin horse, but does

good cheer. What what does she do?

I mean, does she try the boys at some point?

But it's it's been a very intriguing a three-year old

season for these horses. Definitely good cheers.

Clearly the best one in the Philly division, the male

division. You've got all different types

of horses. So especially a bunch of late

bloomers. I think this year for.

US. Just a really good summer season

for us in that division. It's interesting with the

three-year old cropping, you know, all the discussion around

the timing of the Triple Crown and the distances and those

things. We'll get to that in a second

because you had a tweet that you spent a fair amount of time on

frankly that about four days ago that I want to get into the the

late blooming thing that I think that's going to become more and

more common in our sport and some of these summer derbies are

going to be the beneficiaries of it.

I think the Haskell is a good example.

You mentioned all those other regional ones.

You know, I'm lucky I get to spend every July, the Saturday

after July 4th up in Indiana, you know, for their Derby, that

kind of stuff. I think those fields are really

from whatever this version of training is that trainers are

doing now, where they're bringing not necessarily along

more slowly, but are willing to bring them along more slowly.

They don't have to be champions at 2, you know, in the modern

era for them to, you know, to get any kind of, you know, good,

good reviews that way. I think there's a chance that,

you know, races like the Haskell, Jim, Danny, etcetera,

become stronger races as we move forward.

And something you said earlier, I think is a really important

point as well, which is you're right, everyone's on the same

stream going into the Derby. And then the streams kind of

break apart. And frankly, it's probably like

a more of like a river or an aqueduct going straight to the,

to the Kentucky Derby. And then it does branch off into

different ways. By the way, that's not bad.

It's OK that only one of those branches is a Triple Crown.

It's also OK if a horse like Oscar runs in the Lexington,

shows up in the Preakness and then we see him again, you know,

in that Haskell or Jim Dandy or an Indiana Derby, whatever it

might be, right. And so I, I think that's part of

it that we lose is we so focus on that one branch off of the

river going toward the Triple Crown.

We forget there's all these other ways to go.

Yeah, I mean, you look just like Dragoon Guard, right?

Last year who perfect example, a horse that was a late bloomer

probably wasn't good enough to win a race like the Travers of

the Haskell, but he found a bunch of these other avenues to

go. Brad Cox has slowly gotten him

to progress and get better little by little.

And now you're looking at a horse that took some time off.

He's coming into his four year old year and could do some

damage there. So there's different ways to go

and I think in an era where we're really a lot of us at

least racing fans would like to see these horses run longer.

Longevity important to the fans and in my opinion the business.

And another Speaking of Ave. this way you can talk about the

way we breed horses, whether we need to breed a stronger horse.

We can talk about all those things, but we would like to see

longevity. And I think one way we can do

that is by managing the horses properly.

And some of these horses are, there's certain trainers who

want to see them win early and the owners want to see them win

early. That's the way they go.

But I don't think longevity that necessarily helps some of these

horses. So some horses are precocious

and you strike when the iron's hot and it works for them.

But look, it took until St. Sense for a Breeders' Cup

Juvenile winner to finally win the Kentucky Derby.

So that tells you it took a long time and these that are a little

more patiently conditioned, You see even a horse like

Sovereignty who Bill Mott, I mean, he's known not to squeeze

the lemon dry right away. And even when he ran in the race

before the Florida Derby, even the Florida Derby, he didn't

really have this horse fully cranked.

And then he really tightened the screws on him for the Derby and

he got the win there. So I, I think there we'd like to

see that's another thing we'd like to see horses that win by

12 that. Are the flight lines, yes,

right. Yeah.

Right, But there's nothing wrong with giving horses a race, or

even not cranking them up and seeing them gradually get

better. Because at the end of the day,

sometimes those are the ones who win the long game.

I appreciate you mentioning sovereignty in this part of the

conversation because I think using Godolphin as the example

of needing to change the Triple Crown is not the right

motivation here. What they do is they're for, for

their operation. And I'm not, I'm not doubting it

at all. I I've talked a lot, frankly,

I've been fortunate to talk with Michael Banahan quite a few

times this spring. And, and I think a lot of what

they do in North America, it's an incredible operation farm on

up and they have a different goal than America Thurber owners

do. And and so not going to

Baltimore, frankly, I thought it was always on the table.

It was always something that might not happen with them.

But last year you got a guy in Kenny Mcpeek who's, you know,

from Central Kentucky. This is what he does.

He runs on all three of them with Mystic Dan.

And, and so I, I think, you know, part of that goes back to

this tweet that I referenced from you at 3 Colts handicap on

Twitter for everything that Matt does there.

And he wrote, let's analyze the last 15 years of horses.

The only one I I think I don't agree with was didn't Swiss

Skydiver run? She didn't run 15 days before in

2020, right? Because it was.

Always a mistake on mine. You don't even have to disagree

with it. It's just affected error on my

on my part. So I apologize.

A couple people noted that yeah, it's that was an error on my

part. It's OK because what I'm

pointing out is it it was that one doesn't matter because it

was COVID. Nothing was normal about that

year and it. Took all those problems.

Yeah, exactly right. And so, like, you know, we get

authentic out of that race. He comes back at Keeneland the

next month and goes ahead and wins the Breeders Cup Classic.

But you mentioned journalism and Sandman first and third in the

pre sees the grey comes out of the pad Day mile on Derby day

wins. Mage runs third.

It wasn't his best effort, but he still gets a big boy check

in. 20/23/2022 Epicenter second to the Derby, second in the

Preakness, Midnight Bourbon 6th in the Derby and Medina Spirit

Cross the Wire first exit the Derby and they run second and

third in the Preakness, etcetera, etcetera.

You give these examples back to Exaggerator, back to American

Pharaoh, of course, California Chrome, Oxbow, I'll have another

Shackleford, etcetera. Back to looking at Lucky Why?

Why is this hard, Matt? What is it about?

What is it about that that people can't just do?

When you say that, what do you mean by that?

Your your evidence that this isn't what people make it to be.

Essentially that that we're just we're supposed to have 20 in the

Derby and then fourteen of those horses are supposed to go

straight to Baltimore. Well, I think because you've

got, for lack of a better term, people that have been following

the game for a good ways, You don't see a lot of beginners

that are tweeting things like this.

You're noticing as they're trying to learn and they're

living back in the days of 15/20/25 years ago, farther back

when horses ran back quicker, you saw horses like Captain

Badgett and Silver Charm and real Quiet in that era even

where a lot of horses were more willing to wheel back.

And for whatever reason that's not the case now.

I think part of that is because there are other options.

It's about resume building. It's about resume building to

make stallions. And that's a whole nother

discussion is breeding to race or racing to breed.

And I think that when you look at this resume, you see horses

can wheel back quickly. Other people made a good point,

and this was only a little part of the whole story.

Is this tweet that I put out, which is just from Kentucky

Derby to Preakness, how do these horses fare?

But ones that are good horses typically wheel back two weeks

and they're able to do that. My theory has always been it's

harder to win the third leg than it is the second leg.

You can do it once. You can even wheel horses back

twice. But if you keep Wheeling them

back quick, eventually for most horses anyway, it's going to

catch up to them. And I've always thought that I

don't think the Preakness is an issue Wheeling back in two

weeks. I think if you go to the third

leg, that's where you may see a horse that's a little more

tired. I think A2 week turn around.

In fact, for trainers that are good trainers, most trainers,

but especially good trainers, it's easy to do that, very easy.

You don't have to do anything in the mornings.

You just have to jog, maybe gallop.

You keep them happy, they're fit and then you wheel them back in

two weeks. And there are some people that

have pointed out on the that tweet, including Mike Roppoli

was one of them who said, well, what about this whole long span

of, yeah, they can do it, they can wheel back quick, but how

does that affect their whole year?

And while that is a good point, I believe it's very difficult to

pinpoint and prove that if you're doing a study, let's just

say half these horses get hurt. You cannot prove that the reason

they got hurt and they didn't have a good rest of their career

or three-year old season is because they ran in those races.

There's no way to prove that. So there's some of these things

you you can't prove necessarily, but the the numbers speak for

themselves and the numbers indicate that horses are coming

back and they're doing this move just fine.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I met there, have been with us,

the Preakness itself, the move by journalism.

Have you ever called anything like that?

Not that I can think of. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure it's

happened in a claiming race that I can't remember where a horse

gets bumped. I mean, that one horse, Morning

Addiction, that stopped running, that was probably the craziest

thing I've ever seen, where she stopped running on the far turn

and came back to win. But I haven't seen, especially

in a race like that since a Fleet Alex, where a horse lost

that much momentum and was able to come back and win.

I texted Michael McCarthy and said it almost reminded me of

Zenyatta, the way he closed, you know, there was a horse in front

and here comes Zenyatta, here comes journalism.

He's not a closer, but he closed like a turf horse really, and it

was sensatio to watch even though your heart went up to

your throat for. Oh my gosh, yes.

Yeah, for sure. I loved it.

I, I I'm so glad I got to be there, Matt.

No, I loved every second of it. And I won't lie, I had a big bet

across the board on Gozger. So it actually ruined part of my

day that way, but it was still, it's a good part about this

format. Even if your bet doesn't hit,

you might see something that you've never seen before.

You might see an effort that you've never seen before.

And we got exactly that on Saturday.

And I just, I wanted to ask too, because I know what it is in my

mind. Would you rather journalism be

heading to Saratoga for the Triple Crown or for this rematch

that we could potentially get with sovereignty?

I would, it's hard for me for me to say because I think that I'd

like to just see whatever is best for the horse to run

longer. I, I would say if I was actually

just on the phone with somebody and I was taught it was a pretty

lengthy conversation about Michael McCarthy and I've gotten

to know Michael. I think Michael is a fantastic

manager of horses. He's a good horseman.

He's hands on, but he's a fantastic manager of horses.

You think about all the good horses he's trained and just

most horses in general that have ability.

And I can't think of a single one where I've said Michael

McCarthy mismanage that horse. He has managed every horse very

well. So he's running this horse in

the Belmont. That tells me he thinks this

horse is just that good to do it.

He's feeling good, he's got that sort of physical build and the

mental ability to be able to do this, and he's confident that

running in this race is not going to affect the horse long

term in a negative way. I would like to see him in the

Belmont. Personally, I think it would be

great. I would rather see him if it was

just me as a fan. I would love to see him run in

the Belmont and I would love to see him in sovereignty.

Go at it again because this is what racing needs.

Racing needs rivalries. They need rivalries.

Silver charm and free house. You know, victory, gallop and

real quiet. Absolutely.

We need this is how you captivate people.

This is how people to pay attention.

So a long answer to your short question, yes, I would rather

see him in the Velma. I would love it.

But if Michael McCarthy says we're not doing that for

whatever reason, then I am going to 100% trust that what Michael

is doing is best for the horse along with the ownership group.

So I, I would love to see him in the Belmont.

I, I, yeah, it's going to be a problem for him either.

It that's right, it's a good take by you all around, but I

also just seeing the horse the day after the Preakness, I

there's nothing about his demeanor that makes me think

that he's not ready to go. So hopefully even, you know,

what, the three weeks, whatever, he'll be really, really ready to

go, maybe get a work in, in a couple of weeks, whatever it

might be. But I, I think I got the sense

they were going to Saratoga, Matt, when they, they were the

last ones to leave out of that freakness group, you know,

outside of part of honor, but that was more of a international

shipping kind of thing. But, you know, when I, you know,

I saw Brandon Walsh at the airport on Sunday and, you know,

Gosger was headed back to Churchill, you know, that kind

of stuff. I'm like, OK, I know what he's

doing. But when, when Michael McCarthy

was hanging around and, you know, we're going to Saratoga,

we're going West, what are we doing?

And he ended up going up to New York.

It was kind of the giveaway. He selfishly am also very well.

You bought those two at the Haskell?

Yeah, right. I love to see journal them, say,

you know what, we'll just wait for the Haskell or run in the

Belmont and then go to the Haskell.

Just just figure out I'm going to way to get him to New Jersey.

That's my bias take. Man, my my brain is I'm crapping

out right now. Pharaoh ran in the and won the

Haskell right. Who was that?

Say that again. Pharaoh Pharaoh in 20. 5th

American Pharaoh did. Yep, Yep.

Yeah, that's what I thought. You lost the Travers but won the

Haskell, right? Wasn't that the?

Another thing that I, I sort of scratched my head over is like,

I'm surprised there aren't more horses that you know, into the

hassle. I, I may say this in a biased

way because I'm a Monmouth guy, so I can't deny that.

But if you've got a really good horse, like why do you feel you

need to prep in a grade 2? Like just run in two grade ones

in a row. Like it, it surprises me there

aren't more. I should agree with you

personally. Yeah, especially with the money,

right? I mean, because the 3rd, 4th

place finish pays a lot of bills, man.

It's on something seriously for sure.

And and and the Haskell, if you want to talk about breeding, I

mean, you win the Haskell and that's a, that's a big race for

your your colt. You know, it's a say you won the

Haskells a big deal. 621 races at Oaklawn this year.

How many did you call 6? Two one 621 I I did not take a

break and there were a couple days where I was not 100%.

You were not, I remember. You remember OK.

I do. Oh, no, we were talking.

I hated it for you. The look purse is over 900 KA

day. You know, Oaklawn is just its

own thing. The expanded schedule and what

you're looking at for next year as well.

Matt, what stood out for you this year at Oaklawn?

What did you how did you? You know, because the returns

haven't been stellar since, you know, the Arkansas Derby as far

as the three-year olds, as far as the top end winning as far as

the Derby and the Preakness and that kind of stuff.

But Sandman showed himself just fine in the Preakness.

Frankly, how good was the how? How good was the Arkansas road?

Do you think? Cold Battle all those horses.

I think it was right below the top echelon this year.

And here's the thing, you look at Florida Derby, Santa Anita

Derby and now Arkansas Derby. I would say those are the three

most prominent races generally and changes every year.

I mean, you see Santa Anita Derby one year it's strong, one

year it's not or to Derby strong race typically, but not every

single year. And the same is with the

Arkansas Derby. You didn't get slouches in

there. You got a horse like Sandman,

who's probably as you mentioned earlier.

In the show, one of those second echelon type of horses, second

tier, he's not going to be journalism probably 10 out of 10

times. He's probably not going to be

sovereignty 10 out of 10 times. But there's nothing wrong with

that. And hey, you know, he's a solid

horse, cold battle, probably grade two, grade 3 type of

horse. I don't wonder how far he wants

to go. I think he might be sort of like

a mile, mile and a 16th type at his best.

It's my own personal opinion. But and then the Philly

division, you know, 5G, she scratched out of the Kentucky

Oaks, but she came back when the Florida or the Gulfstream Oak.

You you see quiet side. She didn't.

She got a 14 post position, not a great post in the Kentucky

Oaks and she didn't embarrass herself by any means there.

So I think that both races were solid.

They weren't necessarily the top echelon of the division.

There's no Phillies in the Fantasy or the the Honeybee like

Good Cheer was. There's nothing wrong with that

either. And we've seen some of the older

horses that have run at Oakland going to do pretty well in other

places, like Banishing, who probably should have won the

Churchill Downs the other day in Kentucky.

So yeah, I think second year for both the three-year olds, but

this year, but that could change next year as we saw the year

before, we had a Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby winner coming

out of it. A 14th training title for Steve

Asmussen down there in Hot Springs.

When does that get? Broken once.

He doesn't train 400 horses. He may, you know, he, he's got

so many. I think he's got about 400

horses and it's, it's amazing to me because you could sit there

with him near the paddock if he's not raised and say, hey,

how's this a $10,000 claimer You got that I've seen you saw run

at Louisiana Downs the other day and he'll tell you everything of

where the horse is at, where he where is he running next?

It's incredible. So I think just on a sheer

numbers perspective, Steve was 9% this year at Oakland.

He actually had a low percentage meet, but he was still the

winning trainer because he just started that many horses.

And I'm pretty sure, like if he really wanted to, he has enough

horses throughout the country and all these different strings

that if he really wanted to, he could probably enter a horse in

every race in every condition book if he really wanted to.

I mean, he's got that many horses, so that's his his.

His superpower, yeah. It's so many different options

and that's another thing when you see him, for example, send a

maiden special weight horse on Rebel Day from somewhere, you

know he has horses to choose from and that he's going to send

the one that he thinks is the best shot to run well on a big

day. John Ed Anthony from Shortly

Stables became the winningest owner in Oakland Stakes history

this year. That's an interesting but cool

distinction, frankly. Any of any favorite runners out

of there stable? Well, I think I think quiet side

was just really cool to watch and I thought they did a really

good job with her. Quite frankly, I think they

really managed her well and got her to progress little by

little. And then the the Oaks came

around and she ran on a sloppy track the 14 post.

So I think they that was their big runner this year for sure.

And what I respect about shortly, they've been around a

long time obviously, but they have different levels of horses.

I mean, they have lower level main claimers, they have

claiming horses, and then they have really good horses.

And I just respect the fact that they keep all of their home

breds, which are all of them. You don't see that you'll see

that, well, most of them, you see, sometimes they'll buy a

horse in a sale, but you see a lot of home breds from them as

well. And even if they're not the best

horse out there, they keep them and they try to get them to win

and put them in the right spot. And they're very big on

thoroughbred aftercare, very much do their own thing to make

sure that all their horses are well taken care of after they

race. So just a really classy

operation all the way around from them.

And it was good to see him get a win in the owner or do well my

owner standings in terms of money.

I always ask you about jockeys because I think you and I are

are similarly interested in jockeys and their styles and

different things. By the way, shout out four-star

Golden Gate Fields Armando Ayuso off to a banger start at Santa

Anita this recent meet. We, I think you and I have known

for a long time what a talent that guy is.

For example, watching him ride Northern California, getting

better mounts now in Southern California, But it's Francisco

Arrieta who wins a second riding title there gets to 1000 wins as

well, Matt. So we're talking about a guy.

Look, 1000 wins is a lot. So I don't want to downplay that

at all. But he's just getting to 1000

wins but has multiple titles at arc in in Arkansas at Oakland.

Excuse me, what about him works at Arkansas?

Why does Francisco ride so well? I think that he knows the track

very well, he knows the colony very well.

We've seen the same types of riders show up the last few

years. He knows the other riders

strengths and weaknesses and he can play into that.

But this year he was what, 3rd, 4th early on and he made a big

run. I mean, he was just winning,

right? You know, three wins, four wins

the next day, three wins. I mean, he was just winning in

chunks. Christian Torres had a big lead

on him and he ate into that lead.

Now Christian missed 7 days of live racing in Oakland.

He had a family issue he had to get to.

He got a couple days. So some things didn't work out

in his schedule. He wrote on Kentucky Derby day

at Churchill Downs, another day. So Francisco beat him by three.

If Christian had ridden all seven days, he would who've been

around, but he just got so confident.

Francisco Arrieta, he just was riding winter after winter, and

it was like the whole race was slowing down for him.

I mean, every move that a rider made, that was a mistake.

It seemed that he countered that in a way, like he was playing

chess, like he knew exactly what to do and it was perfectly on

display. What happens when jockeys get A,

live mounts and B, get really confident.

All of that encompass what happens in that scenario, which

we see, by the way, with certain riders like Irad Ortiz, Flavian

Pratt, these big names that win race after race, day after day.

That's them all year round. That's them year after year

after year. And you saw that with Francisco

riding as good as anybody for that reason, because he just got

really confident getting live horses.

He's not making mistakes, he's out riding people.

He's being smarter than most of the other riders.

And that's no knock on other riders, but he was just in

another zone to me watching races and it was very

impressive, very impressive to see that.

Obviously I have a lot of respect for our riding colony at

Oaklawn, but everywhere I've been, I mean, even you mentioned

Golden Gate, that it's the most underrated riding I've ever

seen. And it's a shame because ever

since this whole one circuit thing happened, a lot of them

have not been able to produce what their stats were at Golden

Gate and been able to get back on that rhythm.

When I know in my heart and my brain that these guys have the

physical ability to ride well, it's just about getting a

chance. So yeah, I think that confidence

comes a long way in that profession.

You got to ride the right horse. If you're riding a bunch of 20

to one shots and trainers all the time, you're winning a 10%,

but no miracle work is going to be done on horseback.

However, if you ride the right horses and you have the right

confidence and you start getting that confidence, it's going to

shine. And I think the horses can feel

that as well. Yeah, watching Billy Ante

Georgia get the mouse that he does in Southern California

hurts my heart a little, I'm not going to lie.

Because just when he was getting up north and then like if he had

a decent amount at all he was the must include immediately at

Golden Gate and other places for sure.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen, you know, a rider

who's six 8% somewhere they go, somewhere else, they ride for

top trainers, they get live horses, they start winning at

1820% and wow, they got a lot better.

Well, yeah, they probably got better to a point.

But no, it had nothing to do with that.

They couldn't do this. It's just they weren't getting

the right opportunity. If you're, if you're a, if

you're a minor, a type of player, and you can be a really

good minor, a AA type of player, or I should say, I'm thinking of

literally single a AA type of player.

Let's go into the Baseball League here.

If you're a solid minor league player and they throw you in the

majors and you don't do well, and then you go back to the

minors and you start producing you, you know, maybe the major

leagues, maybe that wasn't the right scenario for you.

It's baseball. Maybe you're not as good as the

top echelon. However, this is a different

game, right? It's horse racing, horses,

trainers, all of these things can make a difference in a win

and a loss. The jockeys have to have the

horse to do that. You called you 10 thousandth

race this year at Oaklawn as well, and I know you don't

personally tend to keep track of these things.

You told me once you have a buddy who does, which is

awesome. You have good friends, Matt.

It's nice to that's a cool. That's a really good friend,

frankly. But you hear a number like

10,000, Matt. And and I think in horse racing

more than any sport I've ever been around, we take the numbers

for granted. Like in the last year, Matt, I

went to Derby 150, Wood 100 and Preakness 150.

And it, you know, like you just take for granted that going on

this way, 10,000 race calls, though, for a guy that this is

what you've always wanted to do, man, right?

I mean, you, you are, I remember very, very, very clearly talking

with you when you were at Golden Gate and it was clear that

things were not going in the right direction.

And you still said something like, hey, 30 years from now, if

I'm calling races here, this is going to be a spectacular career

for me. Obviously now you're calling

grade ones and different things, but 10,000 that number, Did it

mean something? Yeah, absolutely.

You think about like all the hard work that went into it.

People that I talk to regularly now who I can very, very much

remember when I sat there and told them I want to be a race

caller. And they said, really, you do.

Or listen to my first call on tape that I presented and they

go, wow, that's pretty good, Keep working at it.

Just all the hard work and all the people that help give me an

opportunity. And I mean, I think it's the

same as when a a baseball player gets their two thousandth hit or

if a jockey wins their a thousandth race.

It's it's special. And when my friend texted me and

say, we got a milestone coming up, you're about fifty wins away

here. I was actually very surprised.

I'm like, no, there's no way I can call that meeting.

So that that was cool to get a text like that.

And, you know, we were talking about it at Oaklawn and, and I

mentioned it to somebody and then it got through to the

marketing team and, and they ended up putting something up

for it, which was really nice of them.

So just just it, it makes you think reflect about the journey

to get to where you're at. And there were some ups and

downs like anything else. And we're really excited about

that. And, and hopefully, you know,

the next 10,000 can be just as smooth, if not a little smoother

because we've had our ups and downs, but that's how it's

always going to be. But it's, it's been a, it's been

a joy. And also, like when I think

about some of the races I call, you know, listening back to

years ago to now, you don't even realize the improvement until

you listen. To it, right?

No, it's a great point. Who did you get a note from that

you were like, oh, that's really nice of them.

From from this this particular. From the 10,000, yeah.

From 10,000, yeah. Did you get a nice note from

anybody? Just fans, I mean, just fans.

I mean that that's that's important to me because I see

this job as hospitality. I'm not here trying to be, you

know, somebody who needs to be liked or admired or worshipped

or any of that. But when you get people, fans,

customers that are telling you we appreciate your work, that

means a lot to me because that's why I have a job.

The reason I have a job is because of the customer.

If the betters, the fans, if they're not around, there's no

game. And it's amazing to me that

there are still people that don't seem to figure out that

concept. There's certain and and just

being totally blunt, there are certain people that you read

online you're like, what are you talking about?

Like betters and customers are what make the game, whether you

want to do it or not. And my job is hospitality.

It is to help hopefully enhance the experience, not do it not

well. I'm going to be the one to

enhance the experience, but it's simply helping to enhance that

experience. If somebody likes a race caller,

it's going to help them. And that's part of the reason I

got into this job because when I was watching races, the race

caller enhance my experience. And I, I wanted to help enhance

the experience for other people. So for them to come to me and

appreciate my work is it means that I'm doing the job that I

need to be doing, which is helping enhance people's

experience. And I'm not going to enhance

everybody's experience. Not everybody's going to like my

work. And I can be said for any race

caller, whether you're at a lower level track or a higher

level track, but to hear that, get some thoughts that, hey, you

know what, we really appreciate you.

You have helped enhance my experience naturally, it's going

to make me feel really good. Matt Derman with us.

He'll be calling the races at Monmouth this week and including

the cliffhanger will be race 9:00 on.

Saturday there in the first week, the cliffhanger.

I've heard worse. I got to say it's one of my

favorite things about it's one of my favorite things about

Preakness weekend is how good the steaks names are.

I think the dinner party is an unbelievable steak.

It's like. Perfect.

The the stories about the horse Preakness himself about what a

jerk he was. I think that's great.

And then you know, like the the very one and you know those

sorts of just over and over. Maryland just doesn't miss other

steaks names. It's really great.

The cliffhangers are pretty solid one as well.

If you haven't watched many races at Monmouth park #1 shame

on you, but #2 here's a great opportunity to get going.

They do have a turf shoot in the middle of the turf course.

They're one of the better turf courses in all of the United

States there. 100,000 on the line here.

This is for three and up here some horses almost certainly

that if you follow horse racing and turf racing around the

country, you would have heard their name.

Signature will break from the one here.

Highest distinction draws the two you'll see forever Super,

who's been running on the East Coast up and down as well.

And full Mineo comes in as the 9:00 horse here as well.

Matt, do you have a favorite in this one yet?

Well, I like signator in this race as as a morning line

favorite forever supers, the morning line favorite at 7.

My top pick at the moment anyway, I think is going to be

signator third start off a layoff.

It seems that ship Mcgahee, I mean, we all know he's very good

at developing horses and it seems that he's found this

horse's niche, which is turf. They tried to make him a dirt

horse. They bought him for a lot of

money, 1.7 million, and things didn't really pan out for him on

the dirt. Then he's gotten to the he's won

a couple races off this layoff. He improved second start off the

layoff and I think that there's more room for him to run good

again. And that's sort of how should AE

trains, you know, just getting them to improve little by

little, especially off the layoffs.

I really think with this angle, third star, he's going to run

his best race and he's a bit of a closer, doesn't have a ton of

speed. I'm looking on paper here.

There's not an abundance of pace.

So that's a concern for me. But I think it's going to be a

race where maybe they can sort of pack up a little bit.

Maybe this horse who has shown a kick and out kick some horses

here. I really liked his last race.

I thought it was a very, very solid effort.

So he's going to be the pick in here, but this is going to be a

good gauge to see where he fits because I think definitely this

is a stronger field than when he's seen his first two races,

including that stake at Laurel Park last time, the Henry Clark.

Yeah, I do like the Arnold Delacour train, full Medeo on

the outside, especially for the price here.

Matt, if I can get that full 8 to 1 coming in, this is second

off the layoff here after an extended amount of time off from

September of last year. I think just being able to break

from that spot going the mile last time I think the race were

any longer, the horse probably gets there.

I like the mile and a 16th for that purpose and I think Victor

Kraskel will give this one a good ride as well.

So interested in Fullmaneo at that price, especially if we get

anywhere near that. I'm not sure that we will at

this point, but a couple coming off the layoff here.

But this point, I got to say, this looks like if you're

looking at the peepees for Monmouth Park, this is it.

You see the horses from Laurel, from Parks, from Aqueduct.

This is it money. For sure.

And we there's positives and negatives, right.

I mean, the positives is that for the horsemen, there's a lot

of different places you can go. Negative for certain tracks is

there's a lot of places you could go.

So see a bunch of horses. Some are local, some are

shipping in from New York, Maryland, Philadelphia.

We've seen horses come from Florida because a lot of Florida

trainers, they have strings in Florida in the winter and then

they come up in the summertime. So all things considered, you

get this horses and it reminds me a little bit of Oak Lawn in

that respect, trying to figure out, OK, this horse ran at this

level over here, this horse also ran at the same level.

Which one's better? Which race is tougher?

Obviously at Oakland, when you see, you know, Kentucky, Maine

special weights, those are going to be tougher than Remington

Park, Maine special weights. When you look at the difference

between Laurel Park and Delaware or Gulfstream and New York, it

can get a little bit more tricky in this scenario.

And you've got horses coming off of layoffs as you mentioned,

you've got horses New Jersey bred.

There are no words. You did some really good work

here. He's pure gold.

The same thing who probably on their best they could compete

against open at this level. They're not out of the the hunt

here. So a really good race, really

good race. Yeah, I was thinking it was very

Monmouth Park because the breeding was Kentucky, New

Jersey, France, Florida, in Maryland.

Like it's just a very, like it's a problem.

Perfect, fantastic Monmouth race.

That's exactly right. So that will be Race 9 on

Saturday. 451 is the post time out there and he'll be on the

call. His name is Matt Nerman, who

wins the Belmont. Man, I would say.

I would say if journalism is in, I'd give him the nod because I

think Michael will know he's ready to run good again.

And, and you know, I'm also, I will say I'm not of, I'm not

subscribing to the fact that journalism got a bad trip to

lose the derbies. I don't think this trouble was

as bad as some people are going to have to be.

I'm not, I don't you know, he was just second best on the day

as far as. I'm correct.

Yeah, Correct. Yeah, that's OK by the way.

That's OK. I think they're very evenly

matched. I don't think either of them, if

they run their race is ever going to be that far off from

the other one. I think it's at this point in

time anyway. Who knows, maybe journalism.

Sometimes horses, they run a race like the Preakness and they

wake up even more, which is scary to think about.

Or they regress. And I will say I think

journalism's either going to run a really big race in the Belmont

if he runs, or he's going to regress in the Belmont and

people aren't going to be surprised because he ran so hard

in his last couple of starts. But I would be 100% willing to

bet if he's entered in the race, Michael McCarthy and Aaron

Wellman talk it over and Michael's saying this horse is

showing us signals that he's ready to run again and he'll be

just fine. And he probably will because

Michael is very good judge in that respect.

As we mentioned, really good at managing horses.

So I would pick journalism, I would pick him.

But I think those two would clearly be the horses to beat.

And I I think people would try to beat them.

And I don't necessarily think that would happen personally.

What would what would be the bigger uproar in our ridiculous

social media around horse racing sovereignty, winning the Belmont

and everyone going, oh come on, what are we doing here?

Or or a third horse that we haven't mentioned here, winning

the Belmont. I would say sovereignty winning,

yeah, because I think people would be going, well, this horse

could have won the trip. He would have won the Triple

Crown because in a lot of people's opinions and including

mine, if journalism got that trip in the Preakness.

Sovereignty, probably. Is outside just pranced by?

Yep, I agree. Yeah, so he would have won the

Triple Crown and people are go, what the heck is this?

I think now I'm not sure that they would be in quite as much

of an uproar as when we all listen to Steve Asmussen's

podcast interview, but it would be close.

I I It's too bad we don't know how he feels, man, You know,

this is too bad. We.

And actually, I respect him just on the record, like he's saying

what's on his mind. I have no problem with it.

He didn't. We need much more of that to.

Be honest about it. That's fine.

We. Need much more of that.

Yeah, we need much more of it. If that's how he feels, he needs

to tell us. I agree.

All right, well, he's bad dinner, but it'll be at Monmouth

Park this weekend. You can catch all the races

there. You guys are Saturday and Sunday

currently. When do you guys go to three

days a week? So well, here's the good news.

We do have three days a week this week, Saturday, Sunday,

Monday, Memorial Day. But I believe I'm going to make

sure I got the calendar here right.

I'm going to pull this up. I believe we would go to, let's

see, three days a week starting June 20th.

Because OK, oh, it's later. I thought, OK, 14th.

Of June is going to be Haskell Preview Day.

That's. Right, big, big day for us.

And then the 15th is going to be Father's Day, which is the

second largest on track crowd every year behind the Haskell.

So we are figuring right after that we could go to three days

and we're looking, I'm really looking for that.

I like at least three days a week person.

I get it, I get it. It's.

A blessing in disguise for me. Oakland's like a 5 month

Saratoga. You're going hard, you're going

out to dinner. We're handicapping a lot, doing

a lot of work. I don't, I'm not a partier

necessarily, but I like to go out to eat and enjoy myself and

doing a lot of work there. So to come here and maybe not

quite as much workload is, is nice for someone like myself

because mentally it it's, it's a fun as heck me, but it's also a

lot of work and there's some pressure involved as well.

So it's good to come here, get a few two weeks, but mid June

we'll be back three days a week and then you know, in a month

after that and school will be around and we'll get to have you

watch the UN again live hopefully.

It was a spectacular one this year.

No, no, no, my plan is to be there for sure.

Beautiful Haskell preview day though.

Will bother you then, OK. Beautiful.

That sounds like a wonderful plan.

I would love and and the couch is still there.

The couch. The comfy couch is still there.

It's God's work, that's what that is.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure FDR, when he

made his way to Monmouth, sat in that couch at some.

Point, no rubber duckies in there at that point.

But no, if people have not been either the Monmouth or the

Haskell Day itself, I don't know if I got lucky.

And that was like a spectacular version of Haskell Day last

year, Matt. But it was, it was packed.

It was, you know, what really stood out And I was really happy

to see it. The crowd was young.

Everybody was a lot of people were younger than me.

That was a cool thing to see, man.

It was. I mean, that was a spectacular

day of Haskell. I know that they were saying

that was the biggest crowd other than American Pharaoh on Haskell

Day or since American Pharaoh, a lot of young people and that

really almost and I, I hate to say this, but it was a surprise

that there were. It was, I agree.

People, I was like, holy smokes. And I had to put cotton balls in

my ears like a horse because it was so loud because my and as

you saw when I call the races, Sean, by the way, Sean Collins

did a great thing with us upstairs.

If you want to look at it, viewers game Pharaoh. 12 is that

that account both both on. I mean, he does a phenomenal

job. I watch all those videos because

I want to feel on track. Awesome.

But yeah, it was that loud. It was just incredibly party

fested all the way around. Yeah.

It was a spectacular day. The only place I know that has a

bar in the in the paddock, it's Monmouth Park.

They're having fun. They got a beautiful library.

They got Tom. I mean, you got people.

I mean, it's a whole. Thing just walk if you are an

owner or a trainer or someone in the paddock, free bar in the

paddock. Go enjoy yourself.

Why not? It's Haskell party.

Have fun. Make sure you're doing

everything along the lines of being legal, but make sure that

you have a good time if you'd like and behave yourselves, but

have a good time. Looking back, Dordick and Mind

Frame in the stretch, that was a heck of a stretch and his run,

frankly, but also Mind Frame coming back the way he did,

certainly in the Churchill Downs.

We'll see him again in the mile in a few weeks.

So he's mad Dinner man at 3 Colts Handicap.

We'll be up there in Monmouth calling the races Saturday,

Sunday and Monday this week, so make sure you get in with him

that way. I'm Louie Rabot.

We're going to call it quits from here, so we will see you

next week. Talk 1020 here since 8:00

Eastern Time finding ESPN 680 here at Louisville will preview

the state bread steaks in California before our full card

analysis on Socal Saturdays here on the platform as well.

He's mad Dinnerman. I'm Louie Rubel, thanks so much

for making us part of your Thursday.

Happy before.