It’s a few minutes past 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning in Lexington, Kentucky; it’s still pretty much dark out, and the temperature is a few ticks north of 40 degrees. But it’s opening weekend at Keeneland Race Course, and the ground floor of the grandstand is bustling. The horses have been on the track…
TAA press release New York, N.Y. – October 11, 2012 – The Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (TAA) announced today that several industry groups, including 13 prominent breeding farms in Kentucky, The Jockey Club, two racetracks of the Stronach Group, the California Retirement Management Account (CARMA), Keeneland Association, Fasig-Tipton, Barretts Equine Limited and Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company…
On April 18, Justin Nicholson was on a train from Washington, D.C. to New York; his father, with whom he owns horses in AJ Suited Racing Stables, was scheduled for minor surgery the next day, and Nicholson wanted to be with him. His phone rang and it was Jimmy Toner, trainer for AJ Suited’s horses…
Two years ago, a yearling bay filly went through the sales ring at Keeneland. Her sire, Empire Maker, won the Florida Derby, Wood Memorial, and Belmont Stakes, and he finished second in the Kentucky Derby. Still, no one was much interested in the filly; bidding reached $22,000, less than her reserve, and she left the…
When Emma’s Encore walks onto the track at Keeneland this afternoon for the Grade II Thoroughbred Club of America, she will, in a sense, be coming home. She was sold for $22,000 at the Keeneland September sale in 2010; she ran here as a two-year-old; and her owners both live in the Bluegrass. Their proximity…
In the five months since the first target date for the Aqueduct injury report came and went, rumors and questions abounded about its contents and the process by which it was compiled. Through much of the Saratoga meet, whispers of new release dates circulated weekly, with no official information coming from either the governor’s office…
The last time Barry K. Schwartz, former CEO and co-founder of Calvin Klein Inc., won a Grade 1 race was in 1999. His trainer, Michael Hushion, had never won one. On Saturday at Belmont Park, Schwartz had two rooting and one betting interest in the Grade 1 Vosburgh Invitational Stakes. A three-year-old colt that he…
On Sunday at Belmont, the Matron will be run for the 106th time – inaugurated in 1892, it was open to both fillies and colts until 1902. That year, it was run in two divisions: one for the colts, one for the fillies. The purse for the race was divided among them, if not exactly…
2012—well, late 2011—was supposed to be the start of a new era for New York racing. After a decade of uncertainty, the leadership and financial holes were closed, management stabilized, a positive revenue stream guaranteed by the opening of the Genting Resorts World New York City casino at Aqueduct Racetrack, a percentage of whose profits…
Like those poor refugees in Casablanca, here in New York, we continue to wait…and wait…and wait. We wait for Governor Cuomo’s announcement about the reconfiguration of the NYRA board, the board that will be made up mostly of the governor’s appointees, the board that will graciously allow a horsemen’s representative to attend board meetings but…
Brooklyn Backstretch 