Last weekend’s Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita was a triumph of sport and spectacle. The Distaff was a nail-biter between fan favorites Beholder and Songbird; the Saturday races offered storylines and close finishes, with both Tepin and Lady Eli in action, along with a headlining showdown between California Chrome and Arrogate. The spectacular backdrop of…
Back in August, Dancing Rags debuted at Laurel for trainer Graham Motion. Despite her dirt pedigree, Motion elected to start the Union Rags filly on the turf, not an unusual decision for him with first-time starters. “I like to start some of them on the grass,” said the trainer by phone from California. “It’s much…
“There’s this nice boy next door,” trainer Paul Kelley remembers his mother-in-law, Mary Beninati, telling him a little more than 20 years ago. “He loves the horses. Can’t you give him a job?” Beninati lived in Mechanicville, New York, next door to Jerry and Patti Brown and their horse-crazy son, Chad, who’d grown up going…
