Happy Columbus Day

Or as the former (California) school of a current colleague says, Happy Indigenous People’s Day. A collection of random thoughts on the weekend’s racing: After multiple attempts, I was finally able to catch Spooky Mulder’s race on Calracing; it was a four-horse field, but a typical Spooky race: he hung about four lengths off the…

Off the beaten track

Because today’s big races are so widely covered elsewhere—The Blood-Horse, The Daily Racing Form, Steven Crist’s blog, Left At The Gate–and because it’s impossible to talk about the races without also talking about the injuries, which I don’t particularly feel like doing (not because I don’t care, but because I do), I’m going to talk…

The Jamaica, the Frizette, and the Champagne

It’s the mid-week doldrums in fall racing in NY. Keeneland opens on Friday with a host of stakes races through the weekend, and NY horses and jockeys will be heading west; later in the week we’ll take a look at the NY invaders. For now, we’ll take a quick look at the stakes races at…

Hard Spun

Choklitz noted that the TVG broadcast of the Kentucky Cup mentioned that Hard Spun was pretty wound up before the race, and it reminded me of his antics in the paddock before the King’s Bishop. You won’t be able to tell really from these photos, but he was wildly impatient…I titled the two photos “frisky…

“A wall of horses before the favorite…English Channel will have to try to squeeze through on the inside…oh, it’s so tight! English Channel has just muscled his way to victory…” Standing on the rail just before the winner’s circle, I couldn’t believe my eyes…or my ears. What a call by Durkin (read the wrong way,…

And the winner is…

What a great, great day to be at the races. There was a nice crowd, though the announced attendance of 19,000 included those who showed up for the folding chair giveaway and then left; shockingly, I saw spinners for the first time at Belmont: people going through the turnstile multiple times to get multiple chairs.…