Stride Morning Herald
November 29, 2011This article is in Monday’s SMH regarding one prominent owner and accompanied by a picture that had a few tongues wagging given the content of the article and its timing amidst the current scandal.
The article probably needs some straightening out as at times Mr Rosati appears sadly misguided. It will be unfortunate to have to show Mr Rosati up, but if he has the temerity to make bold, if not slanderous accusations, then he brings himself into the line of fire.
Considering this is a swab scandal, and it would appear that stables like ours have been subject to blanket swabbing at the behest of others on suspicion, let’s turn the tables.
Can we ask why the horse GRAND STRIDE – as driven by Greg Bennett in the Group 1 Bathurst Gold Crown was NOT PRE RACE SWABBED? Every other runner was PRS’ed, except Grand Stride and one other. There was an excuse given for the other horse in the Stewards report, but for Grand Stride there was no explanation. Simply no pre-race swab. That in itself should be subject to a retrospective enquiry. Not suggesting for one moment that anything untoward happened, but the report said every horse was to be swabbed, but Grand Stride wasn’t. Let’s move on and we’ll elaborate in bold
Harness Industry clean-out not before time, says frustrated owner
Chris Roots – November 28, 2011
Talented … Excel Stride carries the Rosati colours.
Fact: Excel Stride is carrying more than the Rosati colours – it is also carrying the NSW Police charged and HRNSW stood down Greg Bennett – the biggest name arrested to date in the current scandal. This is something that escapes a mention in the article below written around cleaning up the sport. This journalist would be well aware of the above.
Sick of paying big money for the best yearlings in the country and watching them getting beaten by no-name buys out of New Zealand, Rosati and wife Maria had decided to take the same path they did 20 years and sell all their horses.
Fact: If at birth you lined up the children of the fastest athletes it is highly unlikely Usain Bolt would have been there – more on this below. And in all of those horses the best to race to date is not one that was a high-priced yearling purchase but one they bred.
“That time it was the Chris Gleeson era and I just said ‘that’s it’,” Rosati said. “I got rid of everything and walked away for four years. It was very hard for my wife and I because we love the sport. But it wasn’t fair what was happening.”
Fact: Chris Gleeson was in fact outed over the Coloresque superfecta
Rosati returned and has built a huge string of horses as well as being the sponsor of the NSW Oaks with his company Form 700.
Fact: raced in it in 2011 and also had security guards assigned – for both the heat and final from memory when we flew home in 54 and change for 3rd over 2300m.
He is a friend any sport needs.
Observation: my definition of friend is obviously a little different. No doubting the financial input – perhaps benefactor is more apt?
“This is my passion and Maria’s as well,” he said. “She loves the trotters so we have some of them. We have been in it for 40 years and I would hate to think what I have spent on the sport.”
Observation: Perhaps more than a few buying decision have not been all that they could be?
Rosati’s horses are easy to find in the form guide with most names including the suffix stride. He has had a successful year, Excel Stride winning the NSW Derby and Newcastle Derby, while four-year-old mare Lilac Stride won her division of the Breeders Crown.
Fact: Greg Bennett has extensive experience driving both the horses above. The last person to drive Excel Stride in a race was Greg Bennett. Let’s come back to Lilac Stride
Trivia: Excel Strides original driver was Robbie Morris before he was replaced by Greg Bennett. And then on Saturday night Robbie Morris replaced Greg Bennett on Karloo Mick in the Miracle Mile
“It has been a good year when you look at those results but it was the week-in, week-out races that were hurting me,” Rosati said. “You watch some horses win heats of big races but then they can’t go a yard in the final because they know they are being watched closely.”
Question: who exactly are we talking about?
However, Rosati had become disillusioned watching his horses getting beaten by “things that would jump out of the ground”.
Observation: Considering the name was brought up let’s have a look at Lilac Stride. A very nice filly, and set a nice precedent winning the Linden Huntley Little Memorial 2yo fillies event won by a handy little filly the year after. The filly had a stable change mid-season and after blowing its first start, went on to rack up a picket fence – the very picket fences that the pontificator has a strong aversion to. From a C3-C6 to a Group 1 win in 6 starts. Could this be one of the horses that the pontificator says “that would jump out of the ground” ?
The time had come to leave again and this time harness racing would have to be left behind for good.
Observation: This is, of course, assuming that the perception and assumptions were 100% correct.
“I was going out and paying for the best yearlings in Australia, New Zealand and the US and then someone would bring something with no form from New Zealand and beat me,” Rosati said.
Fact: Buying the highest priced or best bred yearling in the catalogue has never been a guarantee for race track success in harness racing or any other racing code.
You would think that someone with such an intricate knowledge of yearlings would also have a better grasp of the inherent risk in them. One would certainly challenge the belief that these yearlings were necessarily the ‘best’ yearlings. Probably the most expensive yearlings but not necessarily the best. Just because you let the wallet run rampant and you pay considerable sums for yearlings, this is by no means a guarantee of the following:
a) Hitting the track
b) Being any good
c) Generating a return on an often inflated initial investment
Fundamental economics dictates that. For some reasoning there is a thought that floats around Mr Rosati’s head where he believes that because he spends the most, and has the most horses, he should therefore be winning the most races and earning the most prize money. Sorry but welcome to the real world.
“That happens in racing but these things were winning four, five, six in a row.
Fact: Excel Stride has recently changed stables to a barn that is doing exactly what is stated. Whilst making no inference if it were another trainer previous form suggests they would be sullied and slandered.
“They were there paying only $12,000 for them, so I went over and asked a few questions and got told the horse couldn’t run two minutes over [in New Zealand] and they were coming and running 1:54 at Menangle. That doesn’t happen.
We needn’t sail back further than Tuesday’s meeting at TABCORP Park Menangle on Tuesday 29th November 2011. The results are interesting and have a tendency to make a mockery of Mr Rosati’s claims. Lets investigate:
What better place to start than on Race-8 won by the flying OUR TORIAS SECRET. Of course we are post the scandal so there can be no suggestion of ‘green lighting’ and an added bonus here is that it belongs to Mr Rosati’s main stable: The Luke McCarthy barn. Firstly it’s NZ form. 42 starts: 5 wins 11 places. Nothing flash by any stretch of the imagination.
Best Mile Rate in NZ? 2.00.3. So falls into the Rosati criteria of not won inside 2 minutes.
Has it picket fenced? No but it has won 4 from 8 here in Oz, ran 2nd 3 other times and its winning times include a track record at Penrith, and a 1.54.2 banged out today at Menangle.
Again fitting clearly into Mr Rosati’s ‘That doesn’t happen’ criteria. Oh dear. Do we expect him to reprimand his trainer as he is never wrong, or is he?
Another example today was FLASHBANG from the Molander yard. It went dead on 1.55.0 today and as it was only its 4th start in Oz, could well be on her way to building a picket fence – the one Emilio so despises. Looking at her NZ form she had a paltry 2.06.5 mile as her best in NZ! Quick, call in Strike Force Tairora! This cannot happen……….
As for the Thorn Stable of horses Mr Rosati would be glad to know of the following statistics:
GIDUP THE AVENGER: Best MR in NZ: 2.01.5. Picket fence? Yes. 4 in a row, 6 from 8. Best Menangle MR: 1.54.8. Ticks all the boxes!!!! And cost exactly $12k.
EILIS ROSE: Best MR in NZ: 2.00.9. Picket fence? Not really. Could be on the start of one. Banged out a 1.55.3 slewing to a nice win on Miracle Mile delight. Starting to tick all the boxes.
GIDUP TUSCANY GOLD: Best MR in NZ clocks in at 2.00.4. Picket fence? Yep, banged out a monster 5 timer from 1st up in Australia, including becoming the fastest progeny of Julius Caesar when smashing the Menangle gadgetry in 1.53.6. Much to the delight of the owners. Ticks all the boxes!!!!!! Cost a little more than $12k but done a sensational job.
SPLENDIFFEROUS: Only just missed winning in 1.55.0 today, so will fall into the criteria shortly. Best Kiwi mile was in 2.03.3. Hopefully a picket fence is around the corner. Was very cheap. Less than $10k. That’s got to upset the ogre.
JACCKA TWAIN: Just won in a 2300m event in a very fast 1.57.4 today, but has run 2nd in a blistering 1.54.4 at Menangle. So again knocking on the door. Cost more than the others, and only had a lifetime mark of 2.01.4 in Kiwi land.
The Thorn stable has been able to refute the Rosati claim of ‘That doesn’t happen’ and refute it quite easily. Of course Rosati only needs to consult his trainer of the moment and he will also tell him it is possible. The problem is we are not allowed to win races because if we do, we are drug cheats!
It might be worthwhile knowing too that LILAC STRIDE’s best mile rate before it embarked on its picket fence escapade was 1.57.2 at Menangle. Probably a 2.02 in NZ??? Since the change of stable it has gone at Menangle over a mile: 1.54.9, 1.54.4, and even banged out 2 x 1.56 over 2240m at Melton!!!!!! Horses are allowed to improve you know. Just like Lilac Stride.
The bottle was ruling again and the enjoyment of the sport was gone for me and my wife.
Question: Who exactly are ‘they’? The pontificator has strong conviction here that he is talking about a particular horse. Whom could he be talking about? He seems very specific about the horse in question. Let us see. Would a stable he has persistently targeted and publicly slandered have any horses in it that cost $12k, couldn’t win in 2 minutes in NZ and go 1.54 at Menangle? Oh yes. GIDUP THE AVENGER! Winner, winner chicken dinner?!
Fact: Having seen first hand some of the best form students combine with some knowledgable stables to identify suitable ready-to-run and affordable horses makes for a compelling ownership proposition.
“All we wanted was a level playing field and the best horse to win.”
Fact: We all do but it depends on your definition of ‘level playing field’. Whilst we have no issue and even welcome it the constant surveillance for some and not others is hardly level. Moreso when at the very least a perception emerges that the same surveillance may be partly attributable as appeasement to other disgruntled, ill-informed participants.
Fact: According to the HRNSW stewards report in the 2011 Gold Crown there was only one horse that was not the subject of a swab – Grand Stride.
Observation: I think if they were being brutally honest they want their horse to win.
Rosati sought the counsel of several industry leaders before beginning the process of once again selling up.
“I went to [Harness Racing NSW chief executive] Sam Nati and [NSW Harness Racing Club chief executive] John Dumesny and told them I had had enough,” he said. “They told me to wait a couple of months that something was happening but they couldn’t tell me any more.
Observation: August minus a couple of months equals June. Why would the NSWHRC be across a highly confidential HRNSW investigation when the less people who knew it was happening was better?
“Then the letters started to go out [in August] and it was clear they were doing something.
Aaah this is interesting. Especially in light of what happened today with the release of the 37 races under investigation. Let’s see how many of these races were won by stables whom he blatantly labelled as drug cheats in his drunk moment of stupidity at Bathurst. NONE.
So he expresses how he will leave the sport because he is sick of racing against the drug cheats. How many STRIDE horses raced in the 37 races mentioned in today’s paper? NONE.
Are we starting to enter a zone where the term hypocrite would be appropriate?
“This is the best thing that has happened to the sport. I think everyone was sick of what was going on because it was so obvious.”
Fact: It would also help the industry if people did not fuel the fires with unsubstantiated and ill-informed rumours.
Vertigal's Blog 
Wow, this is one of the best written things i have read in a while. Emilo’s comments annoyed me greaty, money does not mean you win races. great to see good horse picked up cheaply out of NZ and suited to managle well done guys
You should have heard some comments directed our way earlier this year! BTW like the name
Probably one of the best thought out and presented arguments I have read in a long time – well done.
The things others think but will not say
Let’s have a level playing field – where all participants are equal.
[ except for those with a truckload of cash – who should misguidedly expect to be a bit more equal than the rest ? 🙂 ]
There is a very apt quote from Animal Farm about all being equal that is later appended with but some are more equal than others
Please call E Rosati yourself and ask him about the article.
Do you need me to post his cell number , when you have done this I would be interested to hear more from you.
Good luck with the anger management course:)
He has made his thoughts known very clearly earlier this year but has since declined the to make them public. FYI this was written not in anger but more bemusement.
The best piece of writing I have read in my life. I too have a $14k nz horse that has gone 1.53 And used to FLOG and leave lilac stride eating dust before the “unbelievable” improvement In form upon a new home, just like her other stable mates – Mandy Rambo, our Torias secret, even the great juvinile lady euthenia who like lilac stride couldnt win on a Tuesday meeting but have since gone on to many a picket fence and numerous time improvements. Hypocritical sums it up perfectly!
The Rose Bay battler? Hello Neo – you are the one. To re-confirm this is nothing against Luke who is a great trainer but more the hypocritical stance if another stable has any semblance success approaching his they must be cheating; and because of the size of the stable will feel entitled to tell anyone who’ll listen.
Certainly wasn’t a dig at Luke more a sarcastic vent that a lot of horses in his main stable have had improvements like the ones he suggests might be questionable.
Understood and it was as much us reinforcing we were not accusing Luke of anything except being a great trainer
Lets also not forget the aforementioned Rosati’s threat of physical violence towards a member of the Vertigal crew at Menangle on the final night of the season right in front of NSWHRC CEO John Dumesny outside the grandstand right after the last race .
Quote: ‘Be warned……I will do an Italian job on you’.
Nice bloke.
Cereal Agitator, your post has helped me see things clearer.
Why not just ask the vertical form boys how they select nice horses at probably 1/10th of the price.
God forbid, you might even learn something new. Seems it’s easier (less work involved for sure) to criticize others than try to better educate oneself.
Pelican.