Marquardt honored with third annual Stan Bergstein Writing
Award
Team Valor International on Friday honored writer Lucas
Marquardt with the third annual Stan Bergstein Writing Award for his story in
the Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN) magazine on the introduction and growing departure
of synthetic racetracks in the United States.
At a luncheon at the Thoroughbred Club of America in
Lexington, Kentucky, Team Valor founder and CEO Barry Irwin presented Marquardt with the
$25,000 winning prize, along with a bronze trophy from sculptor Nina Kaiser.
The five judges Team Valor entrusted with selecting the winner
were NBC Sports’ Tom Hammond, Turf writer and HRTV producer Karen Johnson,
former Baltimore Sun Turf writer Tom Keyser, HorseRacingInsider.com Executive
Editor John Pricci and Daily Racing Form bloodstock writer John Sparkman.
Marquardt’s story received four of their five votes.
In “Is This the Death of Synthetic Racing? And If So,
Why?,” Marquardt tackles the rise and continued fall of synthetic racetrack
surfaces in America, challenging anecdotal conclusions with an array of
statistics about the safety of those tracks compared to traditional dirt.
“Few would argue that racing has a problem keeping its
stars healthy,” Marquardt writes. “Do synthetics help or hurt the cause?”
He
provides quite a bit of evidence to ponder as the standalone story in the TDN’s
seasonal e-magazine, available at the following link: http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/restricted/pdf/magazine/Synthetics-Aug2014.pdf.
Stories published between November 2, 2013, and November 1,
2014, in North America were eligible for the award, which Irwin created shortly
after Bergstein’s death in 2011 to encourage and recognize hard-hitting
journalism on the subject of horse racing. The judges chose from 11 finalists.
“This year the types of stories nominated
spanned a wide territory of interest, from drugs to con men, from synthetic
tracks to compounding labs, from jockeys plugging in horses to a trainer that
just cannot seem to keep his horses on the proper level of drugs, from a scandal
that rocked the sport to its very foundations to a story about labs that test
medications for racing jurisdictions,” Irwin said.
“The writers are doing their jobs. I am
proud to sponsor an endeavor that honors such outstanding and courageous
journalists.
“In his winning story, Lucas Marquardt pointed out that if horsemen and
owners really care about the lives of racehorses, then they may have been
misguided in their efforts. Those preferring dirt tracks may have won the
battle, but they just as easily might lose the war to win the hearts and minds
of a public sick and tired of watching horses die on the track from catastrophic
breakdowns, which statistically occur less frequently on all-weather surfaces
and more frequently on dirt.”
Ned Bonnie, delivered the keynote speech, drawing on his
more than 50 years in the Thoroughbred industry, as an equine attorney, owner
and breeder and a member of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.
“We need to show respect for journalists willing to speak
truth to power in spite of possible ramifications,” Bonnie stated. “These are
the journalists who write without fear of failure and communicate to the public
because it is the right thing to do. When they see an injustice, a cheater, an
abuser, they have to get it off their chests. When they write about it, they can
help change it.
“These are the journalists that Stan Bergstein epitomized and which Barry
Irwin supports and which I know are essential to effect positive change in the
racing industry. They surely don’t do it for the money. They do it because they
can’t help themselves.”
The other nominated stories were:
Despite the Evidence, Trainers Deny a Doping Problem
— by Joe Drape, New York Times
Texas Compounder Draws Scrutiny
— by Frank Angst, The Blood-Horse
Donnally: The Story of ‘Electric Jockeys’ and How to Rid Sport of Them
— by Rev. Eddie Donnally, Paulick Report
The horses are all right, right?
— by Joe Clancy, ThisIsHorseRacing.com
Florida Sham: Florida ‘Racetrack’ A Mockery of the State and Sport
— by Ray Paulick, Paulick Report
Drugs = Fewer Starts = Less Money for the Owner
— by Bill Finley, TDN
He Lied Like Nobody’s Business: A Racing Con Man and His Trail of Deception
— by Ray Paulick, Paulick Report
Ruidoso: All American Futurity Last Straw for a Crackdown?
— by Ray Paulick, Paulick Report
Frustration Builds Over Drug Testing Delays at LGC Labs
— by Ray Paulick, Paulick Report
Insanity, Stupidity, Cowardice, Call it What You Want, CHRB’s O’Neill Ruling a
Farce
— by Bill Finley, TDN
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