The paint on the weathervane at Pimlico, which carries the colors of the Preakness winner, had barely dried before California Chrome’s Triple Crown bid erupted in controversy. The chestnut colt’s length and a half victory on Saturday afternoon put to rest any lingering doubts that his performance in the Kentucky Derby was the result only…
Pimlico: The Grade I, $1.5 million Preakness at 1 3/16 miles #1 Dynamic Impact: Rapidly improving son of Tiznow exits a fast win in the GIII Illinois Derby at Hawthorne but certainly tests the big boys today in his first GI assignment. Casse charge has come to hand in his last two, which includes an…
A year ago, Kentucky Derby winner Orb was practically pronounced a Triple Crown winner in the two weeks between his win at Churchill Downs and the Preakness Stakes. Whether the rigors of the prep season had their toll or whether he didn’t like the track at Pimlico, the odds-on favorite finished fourth and never won…
When it comes to marketing to women, racetracks generally rely on a familiar formula: raise money for breast cancer, promote wearing pink, emphasize fashion, and act like you’re at a garden party instead of a horse race. Black-Eyed Susan Day this Friday at Pimlico hits a lot of those notes, but it doesn’t stop there,…
The Preakness is Maryland’s race: it’s “Maryland, My Maryland” and black-eyed Susans and blue crabs. It’s so important to the state that when financial difficulties threatened racing in Maryland,the governor stepped in to make sure that the Preakness would stay in Baltimore. But 124 years ago, when financial woes imperiled the racing industry in Maryland, nothing…
Last Friday night, the local Time Warner News NY1 aired a report about fatalities at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, linking horse racing with the contentious Central Park carriage horse issue. On the face of it, it’s not a stretch to consider the issues together; both, after all, raise issues of equine welfare; both have made…
Shortly after booking tickets to my first Kentucky Derby three years ago, I realized, with no small amount of regret, that the first Sunday in May that year was Mother’s Day. Instead of being in Saratoga with my mom that day, I’d be travelling home from Louisville. It didn’t feel the right thing to do,…
There is something unsettling about the name of Peter Pan, the 1907 Belmont Stakes winner by Commando out of Cinderella. Thinking about Cinderella giving birth to Peter Pan is the stuff that childhood nightmares are made of, and “Commando” certainly brings up rather a different image from Prince Charming. Peter Pan’s racing career was relatively…
Kentucky Derby 140 is in the books, and now the talk of the first Triple Crown winner since 1978 begins. But before we move on to Baltimore to see if California Chrome can head to Belmont Park on June 7 to make racing history, let’s wrap up Kentucky Derby weekend. The story of California Chrome has…
In a scenario that I’d have thought less likely than my hitting the Kentucky Derby superfecta, NPR’s Only A Game asked me to talk about…Derby Fashion. “For a select not-so-few, the Kentucky Derby is about bringing to the starting gate a horse that, however temporarily, will be a candidate for racing’s Triple Crown. “For the not-so-select many,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 