Oaklawn Park: The GIII, $500,000 Southwest at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 10-4-2-1) #3 Collected (5-2): Son of City Zip represents another Santa Anita invader for Baffert, who has won about 15 of these OP 3yo prep over the past decade or so, including a pair last year with Triple Crown hero American…
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…
It wasn’t supposed to happen again. After that devastating winter three years ago, after Governor Cuomo called for a task force, after an investigation and dozens of recommendations, we weren’t supposed to be sitting here wondering why so many horses are breaking down at Aqueduct, again. But we are. In the 20 days since Aqueduct’s…
Yesterday The New York Times published a photo essay about Aqueduct, “Where Horses Race, but No One Wins.” It was the typical Aqueduct article: the weather is terrible, the customers are losers, the place is a dump. Among the scenes pictured in the photos: a man asleep in a chair, a littered betting carrel, losing…
The 2015 road to the Kentucky Derby kicked off in New York on Saturday with the Grade III Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. The first race this year to carry Kentucky Derby qualifying points was won by Zayat Stables’ El Kabeir, getting the third win of his career on a miserably cold and…
In addition to the other accolades he’s received, as both a celebrity chef and a Thoroughbred owner, Bobby Flay can now claim that he won the first stakes race held in the United States in 2015. The third race yesterday at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, the Affectionately Stakes is a minor event on…
Brooklyn Backstretch 