Santa Anita: The Grade II, $400,000 San Felipe at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #1 Lord Nelson (4-1): The first of two from Baffert has long been rumored to be a runner and finally showed it last time, when he won the local GII San Vicente last month to secure his first…
Tampa Bay Downs: The Grade II, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #1 Divining Rod (6-1): The wildcard added Lasix, stretched to two turns, and gave one of today’s heavyweights, Ocean Knight, one heck of a tussle in the local prep, the GIII Sam Davis last time, and…
Aqueduct: The Grade III, $400,000 Gotham at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #2 Combat Diver (12-1): Price player kicked off his campaign in a minor stakes at Laurel and closed nicely to just miss going a one-turn mile, in an effort that should set him up nicely for a return to two…
On this first weekend of 2015 without a scheduled Derby prep race, Mike Dorr and I want to thank everyone who has pledged in our Kentucky Derby charity league. Entries closed last week with 42 stables and $2,430 in pledges, not counting various bonuses/incentives, which are detailed in the comments on our original post. One…
At 6 am on Tuesday, February 24, temperatures in the greater Baltimore area hovered in the single digits. Though classified as below normal for the region, they were all too normal in this winter of 2015, when words like “polar vortex” and “Siberian express” and “biting wind” have become an unwelcome entry into the vernacular.…
Three-year-fillies got equal time with their male counterparts this weekend, as the 2015 Kentucky Oaks Championship Series made its debut in New York, Florida, and Louisiana. The final stage of official Kentucky Oaks prep races as designated by Churchill Downs, Championship Series races offer 85 points to the top four finishers (50-20-10-5). The top 20…
The weekend’s Kentucky Derby preps, the first in this year’s Champion Series, saw familiar faces get their pictures taken in New Orleans and Hot Springs, but an upstart in Florida knocked the horse of the same name out of the winner’s circle at Gulfstream Park, via a controversial disqualification. In the oddly-run Grade II Besilu…
The first Kentucky Derby, in 1875, was won by Aristides. On his back was a black jockey, Oliver Lewis; the man who trained him, Ansel Williamson, was also black. Five years earlier, Kingfisher had won the Belmont Stakes, ridden by Edward Brown, trained by Raleigh Colston, both men who had been born into slavery. That…
I’m a little late in wishing Evening Attire a happy 17th birthday–the big day was Valentine’s Day, two days before his namesake race was scheduled to be run. Bad weather scuttled that, so the Evening Attire–formerly the Aqueduct Handicap, which this guy won in 2002–is being run today. And in his honor, his retirement home,…
Oaklawn Park: The Grade III, $300,000 Southwest at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 10-4-2-1) by Brian Nadeau #1 Bayerd (5-1): Tricky read was a solid second in the local prep, the Smarty Jones last month, in his first two-turn start on dry land and goes for a powerful Asmussen barn that knows how…
Brooklyn Backstretch 