Thanks to Jim Barber of Capital OTB for writing in regarding Saturday’s NYRA program on MSG+: Producing 2 TV programs at once with the same crew and the same equipment is difficult. You must keep pace with the normal simulcast product as well as keep pace with an hour program that probably had commercials. An…

Saturday marked the maiden voyage of the collaboration between NYRA and the Madison Square Garden network, the first of six scheduled broadcasts devoted to New York stakes racing. Saturday’s show was broadcast on MSG+, as will be this summer’s shows; the channel is available throughout much of New York on regular cable, and nationally on…

Spring break is over. The inner track is closed. The Wood Memorial is less than a week away. All the signs are there…but spring is staying stubbornly away from New York, and if, as the weather forecast indicates, April showers bring May flowers, they will most certainly not bring turf racing back to New York,…

Back in Brooklyn after two terrific weeks on the road. While I can’t say that I’m thrilled that vacation is over, it was pretty great to glimpse the skyline as I drove in, and pretty nice to be home after being a guest for so long. Madison and Floyd are quite happy that they can…

Having spent about half of this vacation on racing-related activities, it seems mightily unjust that on this Big Day of Racing, here and abroad, I’ll be on the road, with no access to races or results until this evening. Maybe I can find a rest area with wi-fi access and time a stop to coincide…

We interrupt our regularly scheduled southern programming with this important news from Aqueduct: “Distaff” is not a dirty word. On Saturday at the Big A, the Distaff Handicap will be run for the 55th time. It’s been won by storied fillies and mares, several of whom have been profiled here: Hirsch Jacobs’s Searching (1957); her…

Approaching Ocala from the north on 301, the signs, both literal and figurative, let you know that you’re coming into horse country. North of town, a big billboard points you towards a restaurant called The Yearling, named for the eponymous Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings book (which is actually about a fawn and not a horse, but…

As expected, there was a lot of movement in our Brooklyn Backstretch Road to the Roses League yesterday. I’ve begun my descent to the bottom, and Superfecta’s Sleipnir Stables has vaulted to the top. Thanks to Brian’s previews and recaps, I probably know more about Derby hopefuls this year than I have any other year—but…