My first day at a Thoroughbred race track was August 27th, 1979: General Assembly’s Travers. My family had moved to Saratoga the summer before; my brother and I were barely teenagers. To Saratoga kids, the track was a social scene. What to do on an August afternoon? Go to the races. We knew that we’d see our friends there,…
“’We bid you welcome to our cabin by the sea.’” With these words, the Coney Island Jockey Club announced its existence in September, 1879. Headed by Leonard Jerome, the club was formed to build a new racetrack in Brooklyn; “the sea” was Sheepshead Bay, in the southwest corner of the borough, and the racetrack that…
At about 5:25 Saturday afternoon, Gary Stevens and Skyring gave Forbes 400’s Brad Kelley and his Calumet Farm their first Grade II victory when they won the Dixie Stakes at Pimlico Race Course; in the same race, Kelley’s 2012 Kentucky Derby runner Optimizer finished third, missing second place by just a head. “Skyring won the Dixie, and…
No shortage of racing memories have been made at the track they call Old Hilltop. That hill in the infield isn’t around anymore, but there are plenty of people at Pimlico this weekend whose memories of the track and the race go back decades, and who were happy to talk to us about their memorable…
Shortly before 6:20 tomorrow evening, nine horses and jockeys will head towards the starting gate at Pimlico Race Course. The noise of more than 100,000 people will accompany them as they step into small metal stalls, standing patiently until the gates are sprung and they take their first strides in an attempt to win the…
Pimlico: The GI, $1 million Preakness at 1 3/16 miles #1 Orb: Kentucky Derby hero made it five in a row in Louisville when he sat off a suicidal pace in the slop, rallied wide and rolled home as tons the best and will look to take the next step towards racing immortality in Baltimore.…
Let’s get this out of the way: Michelle Beadle blocked me on Kentucky Oaks day, after this exchange (you can click to enlarge): It seems a little mild to warrant being blocked, but Beadle can hardly be blamed for having an itchy block finger, given some of the abuse that she has to put…
While no one would suggest that making money on the Kentucky Derby is an easy proposition, at least the big field offers a variety of ways in which to cash a juicy ticket. The Preakness, on the other hand, offers a different kind of wagering challenge. Orb, this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, is the morning…
It’s Saturday afternoon, and Shug McGaughey sits placidly in a chair in the shedrow of barn 20. Intent on his Blackberry, he seems pleasantly oblivious: to approaching visitors; to an impending storm making itself known in stirring winds and scudding clouds; to a tempest of another kind, one created by the media as he gets…
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 120 years ago, when financial woes imperiled the racing industry in Maryland, nothing…
Brooklyn Backstretch 