Earlier this week, the Schenectady Gazette ran a story about the ways in which B.E.S.T. (Backstretch Employees Service Team) will work on behalf of the Saratoga backstretch workers this spring and summer (thanks, Equidaily, for the link to this story). B.E.S.T., located on the backstretch at Belmont, began as a drug and alcohol treatment program…
Following my post last week about synthetic surfaces, I saw links at both Thorough Blog and Equidaily to this article by Art Wilson on the debate in California over the safety of synthetic tracks. Notable quotation: “I’ve had nine horses put down in 40 years, and five of them have been since the synthetics” (trainer…
Photo credit Adam Coglianese I’ve referred often to my night-time visit to the Middleburg Training Center last fall, and the acquaintance I was fortunate to make of a woman connected to the training center and the horses who live there. Some of them are babies in training; some are horses resting after a season’s racing;…
Sunday morning workout on the Oklahoma Obliging horses and riders from the James Bond stable on the main track
I first heard of T.D. Thornton’s Not By A Long Shot last May, a year ago, when it came out; listening to a podcast of the WBUR sports program Only A Game focusing on the Derby, I was captured by host Bill Littlefield’s interview with Thornton. Completely absorbed in the engaging stories Thornton told about…
Katie, winner of the Brooklyn Backstretch Take Ten! mini-league, has decided to donate her money to the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, which is a part of NTRA charities. When Katie let me know where she wanted the money to go, she wrote, “…it will help people that are forced to face life changing circumstances due…
In the aftermath of Eight Belles’s breakdown in the Derby, we have no shortage of suggestions about where to put our energy and attention into making racing safer. Commenters on yesterday’s post offered their opinions; elsewhere, ideas—both informed and uninformed—are flooding blogs and newspapers. One suggestion–or in some cases, demand–that repeatedly arises is that tracks…
I regret to inform Superterrific Stables of Green but Game that based on updated Take Ten! standings, I must unfortunately remove her blanket of roses as the winner of the Brooklyn Backstretch mini-league, and toss it over to Katie at Trip’s Triple Crown Stable, who finished first in our league and sixtieth overall. Congratulations, Katie—please…
I’ve got several posts in the pipeline that I’ve been waiting to put up: about my trip to Delaware Park a week ago; about a great article on Saratoga Russell and Ready’s Image sent to me by a Bloomberg reporter last week; about the final Take Ten! standings and where our charitable donation will go.…
So the comments have started, in blogs and on comment boards and in conversations, wherever the Derby is being talked about. Porter and Jones should never have raced Eight Belles against the boys. All tracks need be changed from dirt to synthetic surfaces. I have many reservations about horse-racing; when Ruffian broke down, I turned…
