Last fall, Anna Hieronimus and Elise Kornack were all set to open their new restaurant/yoga studio, on a quiet, beautiful street in Carroll Gardens, awaiting only the final permit from the city. The Fire Department was scheduled to do the final inspections on October 29, but instead of the visit they expected, they got, instead,…
In June of 1913, the racing world slowly began to return to normal, or at least to a new normal, one in which bookmakers were banned and bets were made furtively, as customers tried to figure out how they could wager without running afoul of the law. In further good news for racing, within weeks…
Just about a year ago, Sagamore Farm was wrestling with the unexpected loss of its star three-year-old filly. In a freak training accident at the farm, Millionreasonswhy, the winner of the 2011 Matron (gr. II), crashed through a rail and died of internal injuries. From six starts, she had won three times and never finished…
“There are no second acts,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “in American lives.” If the relationship between Sam-Son Farm and Malcolm Pierce is any indication, though, Fitzgerald’s oft-quoted words do not, it seems, apply to Canadians. In 1988, when Sam-Son won the first of the farm’s five Queen’s Plates, Pierce worked at the farm as an…
Earlier this month, when horses gathered in the paddock at Belmont Park before heading to the track for the Belmont Stakes, they walked around an iconic white pine tree, thought to be a part of the estate on which the racetrack was constructed in 1905. Estimated to be nearly 200 years old, the tree was…
On Saturday, January 19, Ramon Dominguez won his third consecutive Outstanding Jockey Eclipse Award. He didn’t know it at the time, but the day before, he had ridden in his last race. While his friends and colleagues John Velazquez and Javier Castellano accepted the award on his behalf, Dominguez was in a New York hospital…
On the racing calendar, June represents something of a breather. The relentless push to the Triple Crown wraps up early in the month, and the summer racing season is still a few weeks away. While races continue across the country, the pressure of spring racing seems, at least, to have abated a little. Unless you’re…
High quality racing, customer service, and history were the subjects of a New York Racing Association media event June 24 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at which the organization’s executives detailed plans for this summer’s race meet. While this summer’s meet will be the 145th in Saratoga, both the town and the track are celebrating the…
This year’s Royal Ascot meeting got off to rather a racy beginning when it opened on Tuesday afternoon at the renowned racecourse in Berkshire, England. Not racy in the sense of horses running on the track—racy in the NSFW way, if looking at equine erections is something frowned upon in your workplace. On opening day…
The New York Racing Association, as many had expected, on June 18 hired Chris Kay as its chief executive officer, effective July. The vote was unanimous during a late afternoon meeting. The CEO position has been vacant for about a year. NYRA board chair David Skorton called Kay a “dream candidate” and praised his high…
Brooklyn Backstretch 