Fifty years ago, as the centennial Saratoga racing season came to a close, this paper’s editorial board began, after a summer looking back at Saratoga’s history, to look forward. More reliant then than now on the summer season for economic prosperity, Saratoga was anticipating the opening of a new hotel, one expected to attract more…
Among the many complaints leveled at racing’s regulatory bodies — specifically state racing commissions — one of the most serious is that trainers with multiple medication or drug violations get off too easy. With a model rule passed on July 31 in Saratoga, the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) hopes to bring those complaints…
On July 17 at the annual preview of the Saratoga race meeting at the National Museum of Racing, trainer Linda Rice was asked if there were any horses she was looking forward to running. “Palace,” she said without hesitation. He finished fourth a couple of weeks later, but if the people in the audience that…
As Allen Jerkens made his way out of the winner’s circle on Monday afternoon, he was unable to go more than a few steps without being stopped by fans who wanted their picture taken with him. His eyes still red from the tears he couldn’t hold back as he was applauded by Saratoga’s crowd, standing…
In November 2011, Benjamín León went to Lexington, Kentucky to buy a racehorse. Not just any racehorse—he had his eye on one in particular, and he was, he said last weekend, determined to get her no matter what. He actually bought nine horses at the Keeneland November sale that year, spending $22.4 million on fillies…
The New York Racing Association held its second public forum Monday, Aug. 26, providing an opportunity for its customers to speak directly to the association’s management. The first public forum was held at Belmont Park in June. The June meeting was commandeered by a local union, which sent representatives not employed by NYRA to challenge acrimoniously the…
A day after two horses broke down in the same race on the turf at Saratoga Race Course the issue dominated a scheduled New York Racing Association Equine Safety Committee. The committee met via teleconference Aug. 25. Committee chair Anthony Bonomo Sr., whose homebred Heading to Toga was euthanized on the outer turf course earlier in August, said he…
The Travers was shaping up to be the race of the summer when the winners of the three Triple Crown Races—Orb, Oxbow , and Palace Malice—all pointed to it. Without a clear divisional leader, one of those three might have sealed up the three-year-old championship with a win. Oxbow didn’t make it to the race; sidelined by…
I want to like Palace Malice. I really do. I’ve wanted to for a while, going back to before the Belmont. He’s owned by likeable connections. He’s got a good racing story, that whole blinkers-in-the-Derby debacle and all, then coming back to win the Belmont. He won the Jim Dandy. But I have a hard…
In this historic summer at Saratoga Race Course, as the town of Saratoga Springs celebrates the sesquicentennial of Thoroughbred racing, the Travers Stakes—run for the 144th time this year—is living up to its billing as the Mid-Summer Derby. Though tomorrow’s $1 million race will not, as anticipated earlier this summer, feature a match-up of the…
Brooklyn Backstretch 