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…
December is, some would say, much too early to start thinking about the Kentucky Derby. Not Sally Faith Steinmann. Her Kentucky Derby musings begin long before the final 2-year-old stakes races of the year, long before the Breeders’ Cup. In fact, she’s thinking Derby before Saratoga and Del Mar have even ended their summer meets.…
As we head into the last month of 2012, the Belmont Child Care Association looks forward to one of its signature events and a national honor, and back at a year of accomplishments in serving the children of the people who take care of the horses. Having opened two new classrooms in 2011, Anna House…
November? What November? I’m writing this on Thursday night, and a month ago tonight, I sat in my apartment as the full force of Sandy hit New York City. That night, we knew it was bad, but not how bad it would be. With an almost guilty sense of good fortune, I can say that beyond…
Days before the Nets were supposed to make their Brooklyn debut at the Barclays Center, on November 1, their long-time announcer was home in New Jersey, preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy and thinking about a flight to Texas, where he was scheduled to call the Buffalo-Houston game on November 4. Ian Eagle started…
The lights dimmed, and projected on the screen at the front of the auditorium were her finest moments. Her talent was extolled, her accomplishments enumerated. A hushed, rapt crowd sat expectantly, and as the leggy brunette prepared to make her entrance, the auctioneer intoned, “Ladies and gentlemen, we present Havre de Grace.” The 5-year-old bay…
Thoroughbred owner Mike Repole is no stranger to the Kentucky Derby trail, having brought Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty to Churchill Downs to run for the roses in 2011. He’s also no stranger to Derby disappointment: Uncle Mo scratched the day before the race and Stay Thirsty finished 12th. So when his 2-year-old Overanalyze won…
If you’re a couple of rockers in your late 60’s who want to go on tour to celebrate an album about youthful disaffection, how do you make yourself not look ridiculous? I don’t know whether the Who’s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey actually considered that question as they put together the current Quadrophenia tour, in which they…
We interrupt our regularly schedule horse racing program to talk a little about music… When a friend asked me last summer if I wanted to see the Who at the Barclays Center in November, I said yes, but not without reservations. A Who fanatic through high school, college, and early adulthood, I’d seen them once…
Brooklyn Backstretch 