by Debbie Little

Since the calendar flipped from March to April, the number of weekly qualifiers at The Meadowlands has more than doubled, going from an average of 6.6 to 13.5.

The prospect of being at The Big M on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m. — less than 10 hours after live racing wrapped up on Friday night — may not be appealing to everyone, but professional punter Les Stark, and commanding general of the #SendItIn army, Gabe Prewitt, think it’s must-see TV.

“If you don’t watch them, you have no way of knowing the level of fitness that the horse is coming in with,” Stark said. “Once you’ve been around for a while and your eye is trained to know when a horse is well within himself or not, that’s what you’re looking for.

“You’re looking to see what kind of a winter they had and how they were training back, because if you talk to trainers, they’ll tell you this one’s been training really good, this one’s been behind, had a little problem over the winter and is a little bit behind, and you know, you have to play catch up.

“So, all these things you can see for yourself without having any inside knowledge just by kind of having an eye for it.”

Since being named the vice president/general manager of racing at Harrah’s Hoosier Park, Prewitt doesn’t get to watch as many live qualifiers as he used to.

“But I do watch them,” said Prewitt, adding with a laugh, “and, I mean, I’ve been dealing with the beginning of a race meet here [at Hoosier Park], so I’ve watched enough qualifiers to make someone sick the last few weeks as I’m handicapping Hoosier, because, with them so readily available, it’s very easy to do.

“I think there’s so much you can learn in a qualifier. Like a guy might crank a horse up for just the last eighth-of-a-mile, when he finally shakes loose and gets out or something. So, in the final quarter, if you’re just looking at race lines, maybe it doesn’t look overwhelmingly great, but you know if you saw it, that the horse was airborne, say, that final eighth-of-a-mile when he finally did turn the horse loose.

“It’s like watching race replays. For every qualifier you watched, it’ll give you a nugget of information, or something visually will catch your eye. It’s a lot of work, but I think in this environment that we’re in today, as tough as it is, as gamblers we’re looking for every edge we can get, and it’s just a huge tool. And the majority of the people probably don’t put in the time to do it, so I think it’s something that can give gamblers a huge edge if they’re willing to put in the work.”

Over the last couple of weeks, several stakes horses have made their seasonal qualifying debuts, including the 2024 Dan Patch 2-Year-Old Filly Pacer of the Year, Miki And Minnie.

“Well, you know, not all horses come back the way they left the year before,” Stark said. “So, Miki And Minnie, while she was great at the end of last year, you don’t know what kind of a winter she had, but when you watch her first qualifier [April 19] and you see how sharp she looked, it doesn’t matter where she finished, she looked spectacular. Others would not be that way.

“This is a reference from very, very long ago, but a horse called Donerail, who was the 2-year-old champion [in 1994] for Stanley Dancer, when he came back at 3, he looked bad. And he qualified twice and he looked bad and eventually they ended up retiring him because he wasn’t the same horse that he was at 2. So, these are things that you’re looking for.”

Stark said there is a 100 per cent direct correlation between how a horse like Miki And Minnie qualifies and whether he’d bet her in her first pari-mutuel start of the year.

“Of course, we know about her talent from last year, so we kind of know what kind of horse we’re dealing with, but if she came back with a lackluster qualifier and she was in a race, because of her reputation, she possibly would be favored, I’d be looking to go the other way,” Stark said. “Whereas, she qualified so great [last Saturday] and she’ll probably qualify again [April 26] and they’ll let her out another notch, but this is what you’re looking for, how did they return from 2 to 3?

“And even from a horse that’s off a month layoff, even if it’s a regular racehorse, you want to see that very thing.”

In addition to Miki And Minnie, Stark mentioned another horse that caught his eye in last week’s qualifiers.

“Mr Walner Fashion, who was a trotter from Jim Campbell’s stable, who showed a lot of speed but made a lot of breaks last year when he could have been winning races,” Stark said. “He looked sensational [last week] and if his colt overcame whatever manners or injuries that he might have had last year, I would look for him to have a big year.”

For Stark nothing beats watching the qualifiers in person.

“Just the angle of which you can focus on the back of the pack through your binoculars if you’d like to, you’re not kind of locked into whatever the feed is showing, and, of course, it’s showing it from a distance and, with bad eyes, it’s hard for me to see the things that I can see when I’m there live,” he said.

Prewitt said he’d love to be able to watch qualifiers in person, but that’s not realistic, and at this point in time, he hasn’t even seen the recent ones at The Meadowlands yet.

“Unfortunately, I missed [the qualifiers at The Meadowlands], but that’s typical in my playbook,” Prewitt said with a laugh. “I’m a guy where half the time I don’t even know I’ll be in my office. I don’t even catch them all at Hoosier live. I’m a big replay guy. But before I am going to be investing, those will be reviewed.

“In qualifiers, there’s no obligation [for the horses] to do anything. There are guys that just want to get them around there and teach them to race. So, you want them to finish with confidence, so to speak, if they’re sitting far back, but you never really know what their motivations may be, so that’s why, visually, you just want to watch those.

“A thing with 2-year-olds that I really watch for, and it really helps when you’re there in person even more, you can kind of watch a horse’s manners when they’re just coming on the track. Is it a hot horse that’s a little erratic, maybe giving a driver some problems? I’ve caught several of those being at Breakfast With the Babies over the years, and played against them even though their qualifiers looked fine. I sort of note the negatives just as much as I note the positives.”