Happy new year! Over at Forbes, I’ve got a quick look back at the year in Thoroughbred racing…here, tomorrow, we’ll do a look back and a look ahead. Best wishes to everyone for a very happy new year — For a niche sport that often begs for media attention, Thoroughbred horse racing got a lot…
He made his first start at the very end of two-year-old year–December 16, 2006–and it was not what you’d call an auspicious debut. Racing for his breeder, Majesty Stud, Stud Muffin finished seventh by 17 lengths in the 1 1/16 miles race over the inner dirt at Aqueduct. It would take Stud Muffin another five…
Earlier this month, the new board of the New York Racing Association held its first meeting. Last spring, NYRA’s president and CEO was removed following the discovery that the Association was charging a higher takeout on the public’s wagers than was allowed by law, and two weeks later, Governor Cuomo announced that he was reconstituting…
In 2011, Tom Hessert went to his first horse race. It was the 2011 Preakness, and, he said, “after trying to figure out the tote machine for half an hour,” he decided to place a wager, $5 to win on a horse whose odds were 5-1. After cashing his winning ticket for $30, he was,…
He and his sister joined my roommate Susan and me in September 1996. Rescued from a feral mother somewhere in London, Floyd and Madison were none too certain about humans; they spent much of their first few weeks in our flat under the couch. Before we adopted them, we agreed that the girl would be…
The first meeting of the new NYRA board felt a little like a first date. Everybody seemed intent on making a good first impression; controversy was avoided; common ground was sought; and at the end, everybody said that it would be great to get together again, and soon. Board president David Skorton did exactly what…
When the line-up for last night’s concert at Madison Square Garden for Sandy relief was announced, it was not surprising to see the usual crowd-pleasing suspects among the performers: Billy Joel, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi. What was surprising was that among the initial list of performers was one woman’s name: Alicia Keys.…
When Chad Brown moved to New York City from Virginia in October, he learned that New York real estate wasn’t as bad as he’d heard. [No, racing fans, not THAT Chad Brown!] It was worse. Currently ensconced in a Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn sublet that expires on New Year’s Eve, the 26-year-old freelance writer (@chadbrownrva) is…
The first board meeting of the latest incarnation of the New York Racing Association, Inc. will take place this Wednesday, at 3 pm in Manhattan. New board chair David Skorton, the president of Cornell University, announced last month that all NYRA board meetings would be open to the public, in accordance with New York State’s…
Horse lovers and auction owners make strange bedfellows. Oh, not those high-end, Keeneland/Fasig-Tipton/Lexington/Saratoga auctions, where well-bred babies are sold for hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars, before their careers even begin, before anyone knows whether they can run. Horse lovers, even the poor ones, flock to those auctions: we stand at the bar, we…
Brooklyn Backstretch 