“Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing…” (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 87) Really… you had to know that this English teacher wouldn’t let the retirement of Shakespeare go by without throwing in a little poetry. The various Breeders’ Cup defections are covered…
A commenter on Steven Crist’s blog today noted the change in format since the end of Saratoga, to which Crist replied, “I began the Belmont meet noting the similarities to Saratoga — 30+ days, a dozen or so Grade 1’s etc. — but pretty quickly saw it just doesn’t have the same feeling. Part of…
I (and thousands of other people, likely) received this message from the Hennegan brothers this week, regarding their terrific film First Saturday in May, which follows the fortunes of six horses and trainers on the 2006 Derby trail: “Our film needs your help to continue building an audience. Word of mouth can make or break…
A friend and I made a mammoth weekend road trip to Lexington in April: We drove all day Friday; did horse things all day Saturday; and drove home on Sunday. We spent a few hours at the Kentucky Horse Park in between the morning workouts and the races at Keeneland. It felt pretty special to…
On a rare day of Monday racing at Belmont, there are many good stories to be told. They’re not about major stakes winners, or huge money earners, or even big prices…and fortunately they’re not about breakdowns, either. A look at a few of the more interesting races over the last few days: Sunday, October 7th:…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
