STALLIONS FOR Your Key To Success

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1 Each and every stallion is a proven, stakes winning performer on the track; is eligible to a rich sire stakes program; and traces to the Hall of Fame broodmare BJ s PLEASURE ENCORE ENCORE 3,1:53.3f ($418,337) Broadway Hall-Key s La Nina, by BJ s Mac 2YO stakes star first season 2011 Fee $6,000 Lindwood Farm-PA (724) AMERICAN WINNER 3,1:52.3 ($1,302,451) F A R M S STALLIONS FOR 2011 Your Key To Success Super Bowl-BJ s Pleasure, by Speedy Somolli The sire of Credit Winner 2011 Fee $4,000 Lindwood Farm-PA (724) SUPER PLEASURE 3,1:58f ($827,238) Super Bowl-BJ s Pleasure, by Speedy Somolli Sire of two millionaires 2011 Fee C$3,000 Kendall Hills Stud Farm-ON (905) AMERICAN MIKE 3,1:54.3 ($430,450) American Winner-Sweet Michelle, by Mac Breton 2YO Grand Circuit SW 2011 Fee $3,000 Rodney Farms-NY (585) MAC S CROWN K For booking information contact the individual farms, or WINNING KEY FARMS Phone (800) or (724) Fax (800) or (724) winningkeyfarms@gmail.com 3,1:54.3h ($482,827) BJ s Mac-Angela Crown, by Speedy Crown World Champion hmt 2011 Fee C$2,500 Kendall Hills Stud Farm-ON (905) STAR CHALLENGE 1:54.2 ($292,665) BJ s Super Star-Amity Flo, by Lindy s Crown Sires sub-1:54 trotting speed 2011 Fee $1,500 Schwartz Boarding Farm-IN (260) GSI, LLC 2011 / RACEHORSEPHOTO.COM

2 Anders Lindfors Offspring Management AB is Europe s largest provider of breeding services for the Standardbred industry. We re based near Malmo, Sweden and provide one central location for distribution of frozen semen across Europe. Among our portfolio of stallions that we handle are Angus Hall, Broadway Hall, Duke Of York, Kadabra, Muscles Yankee and Revenue S. If you want to tap into the lucrative European market talk to us. YOUR EUROPEAN CONNECTION Tel: Fax: info@offspringab.com THE EUROPEAN VIEW ~ By Klaus Koch STILL THE GAP BETWEEN US IS TOO WIDE... Those words are taken from the famous Swedish rock opera Chess and accurately describe the bureaucratic relationship between European and North American harness racing. Why is it so easy for a North American horse to compete in Europe but a nightmare for a European horse to race in the US? Klaus Koch Photo by Monica Thors In this month s column I will describe the differences between our countries in terms of the ease in getting a horse raced and the confusion and even sometimes rage it creates when it seems almost impossible. The French people are known throughout the world as keeping a little bit to themselves. Meaning, that France is in some kind of way enough for the Frenchmen. In many ways that applies to their horse racing as well. The French have their own Standardbred breed, the Anglo-Norman trotter, which they protect from alien influences. They have difficult and odd shaped tracks and they also protect their rules which in many instances can be termed old fashioned. But, conversely, France is also a broad minded country, which has adjusted rapidly to the computer age, much faster than Scandinavia for instance. So if you, a North American trainer, look into the race conditions to find a race, where the box closed Tuesday at 10:00 in the morning, you may call the race office at 9:55 a.m. and nominate your horse X, although neither you nor the horse have been even close to France. When the entry list appears a couple of hours later, X will show on it. It might not be with the correct earnings, and the space for the name of trainer and owner might be empty, but the horse is in, and by the starting declaration three days later everything will be settled without having you to take any further action, the French race office will retrieve the necessary information by themselves. It s the same thing in Italy. In Scandinavia the entry is even the starting declaration, so we have the rule that horses which haven t raced in our country before must be nominated 24 hours in advance in order to give the race office a chance to retrieve the information from the horse s home country. It is important to note that European countries do not operate common computer systems, they all have different terminology. When you arrive with your horse you will be free to choose whether to stable it on the racetrack or on a farm. There is no quarantine whatsoever. To provide a comparison, say I must find a race for my horse Z in the United States and I call the race secretary at the racetrack five minutes before the box closes. I will be informed that my chances of racing that horse in the US lies in a distant future. I ll have to register as a member of April 2011 The Harness Edge

3 the USTA, my stable name will have to have a separate registration, my race colours as well. Owner, trainer, driver and groom will have to retrieve memberships. Then the horse has to be registered. And it all costs money. Well, now we are finished..no, nobody has a licence to race yet! That all has to be done as well, not one licence but several, as you have to have licences with the local racing commissions as well. That procedure includes fingerprinting, and the commissions prefer that it is done already while in your home country, but that is not possible, because in Sweden, for instance, only criminals are fingerprinted. Trainer Robert Bergh (best known in North America for Adrian Chip) went into a police station in order to have his prints taken, and the officer asked him: What have you done? to which he replied: Well, nothing, but I need them for this US form. He was told: Sorry mate, we do not fingerprint people not convicted of a crime! Anyway, we ll have the fingerprints taken upon arrival in the US. So now we can race? Not yet. I have two choices to have Z brought into the US. Either I send him over not later than six days in advance of the race. Upon arrival at JFK Airport he will be sent on a sealed truck to the quarantine facility in Newburg, where he will be separated from his groom for the next 42 hours, before they both can continue on in a sealed truck to the racetrack where he is supposed to race. Provided the racetrack has been able to get an on track quarantine facility approved by the government body, the USDA, the horse will have to remain in isolation there for the entire stay and will only be allowed to leave to barn at hours when there will be no other horses on the track. He will be constantly followed by guards in order to prevent him from interacting with other horses. This goes for Z if he is a stallion or a mare. A gelding is allowed to leave Newburg as a free horse. If the track is not approved as a quarantine host, my horse Z may be allowed to race anyway, as Adrian Chip did at Yonkers in He was quarantined at the Mead- When horses travel from Europe to race in North America the quarantine protocols are quite strict for stallions and mares. A standout trotter who finished second to Donato Hanover in the 2007 Hambletonian, had to race out of a sealed truck in his next start in the US to satisfy the quarantine rules. The Harness Edge April 2011

4 THE EUROPEAN VIEW ~ By Klaus Koch owlands for the Hambletonian, and remained there for three weeks in order to participate in the Yonkers Trot as well. He went to Yonkers on a truck and, this is the truth, he had to race off that sealed truck, meaning that the groom had to harness him in the truck, clicked the bike on outside the truck and send the horse directly onto the track. After the race he got his shower, on the truck! There is a option to prevent the on track quarantining. If you are willing to let your horse go into a farm quarantine in Maryland (three weeks for mares) without access to efficient training facilities, your horse will be free to move around after that, but that is rarely an option for horses racing only once. Going back to Adrian Chip, who finished second to Donato Hanover in the Hambletonian (to watch that race please click here) and in the World Trotting Derby and third in Yonkers Trot. He earned a lot of money. If your horse X should earn purse money in Scandinavia or France, somebody from the racetrack will contact you within short time after the race in order to retrieve banking information. Within a few weeks after the race, the entire sum will be wired to you. If my horse Z earns purse money in the US, nothing happens, until you find some horseman s bookkeeper willing enough to assist you. But he cannot do much if you do not have an ITIN, the American tax identity number. You have to fill in a lot of forms, send them to the IRS and then nothing happens. Contacting the IRS is meaningless, unless you love Mozart s music, for you ll have to listen to it for hours being on hold on the telephone C A L L F O R E N T R I E S Alberta Standardbred Horse Association Annual Yearling Sale Saturday, September 24, 2011 Olds Agricultural Society - Megadome in Olds, Alberta Sale starts at 4 p.m. Entries Due: May 2, 2011 Consignment Fee: $250 plus GST Join us for a BBQ lunch Saturday, September 24 at noon followed by the sale at 4 p.m. Alberta Standardbred Horse Association Bay th St. S.E., Calgary, Alberta T2G 5M8 Tel: (403) Fax: (403) harness@asha.ab.ca Our columnist suggests that this topic and the inequity of it, should be discussed at the upcoming World Trotting Conference in the US this summer. For me as a harness racing advisor it is difficult to explain to European trainers and owners what they can expect by racing in the USA. Ironically enough, Canada is, apart from the (to Europeans) humiliating action of fingerprinting, almost as easy as Europe, even the quarantine is performed in an appropriate and smooth way. The bottom line is: Of course we ll have to accept the rules of any country if we want to visit it. Otherwise we should stay at home. But being invited and urged to race, there should be some separate rules for horses and horsemen racing only once or for a limited period before returning home. The north European countries are extremely clean and well controlled for diseases. I have been dealing with Victory Tilly, Order By Fax, Revenue, Adrian Chip, Jeanbat du Vivier, Jaded, Brunton Tilly, Glen Kronos, Reven d Amour, and everybody loved to race in North America no matter the results, it is a thrill to at the Big M or at Mohawk, but the rigorous bureaucracy is causing grey hair. Maybe this topic is something for the World Trotting Conference being held in New Jersey this summer.? Till next time, Klaus Koch Klaus Koch is one of Scandinavia s leading racing administrators and is perhaps best known for his former role as director of racing at Solvalla Racetrack. April 2011 The Harness Edge

5 ALEXIE MATTOSIE p, 4, 1:49.1 ($447,045) No Pan Intended Dame Crombie Abercrombie IN THE CHAMPION S CLOSET 1. He wears a blind bridle. 2. He has a shadow roll, he s always worn one and I ve never taken it off. The odd time he gets looking at things so I think it s best to keep it on. 3. His bit is a snaffle mini line bit and straight overcheck. 4. The only piece of equipment we ve added are ear plugs. Mr. Montini and John Drennan added those when he was racing at the Meadowlands to keep him relaxed in the post parade and they ve helped. 5. He races with a head pole on the inside. 6. He wears a Walsh lightweight harness. 7. His hopples are Walsh Lightweights and are set at 61 inches. I snugged them up when I first got him, but he s really good gaited, so they re usually between 61 and 62 inches now. Trainer Don Lindsey s comments: We bought him at the end of his three-year-old season. He was one of the top OSS Grass Roots colts and showed a lot of quality and we thought he d be good going forward. He s a very big horse and he grew quite a bit between last year and now. He s certainly exceeded our expectations. I think the Presidential Final when he was first up with Bettor Sweet on his back the entire time and he still won has been his most impressive race for us so far. We re shooting for the moon with him this year and have staked him heavily for the races on the bigger tracks. He can get around a half-mile track, but it s not his game, he s better on the big tracks. He s like a big spoiled kid, he likes things his own way and that can translate on the racetrack both good and bad. There are times he simply doesn t give 100 per cent but when he s on his game he can do things we never expected. In The Champion s Closet is sponsored by: Photo by New Image Media 8. His shoes are aluminum in front and steel behind. 9. He wears knee boots and shin boots. He needs the knee boots if something is pinching him. At the start of this year he wasn t racing the best and we discovered he had a splint bothering him and he s been fine since we fixed that. He s a low maintenance horse. 10. His bike is usually an Advantage or Paul MacDonell s 4 Stars. The Harness Edge April 2011