A year ago, I offered thanks for the racing gifts of 2007. It was the year of Street Sense, Curlin, and Hard Spun, and of Rags to Riches; a year of writing about racing and reading about racing and friends made at the racetrack. In some ways, 2007 was a more memorable racing year than…
Reader, commenter, and self-proclaimed #1 Curlin fan Libby will be heading to Churchill this weekend to bid farewell to her favorite, and she’s soliciting tributes to the big chestnut. Libby will compile them and present them to Curlin’s connections this weekend, so if you’re interested in contributing, please contact her at libbybar@gmail.com. One final word…
I rarely watch television on Sunday morning, but early yesterday I had the TV on to the local NBC channel, and my attention was caught when I saw the meteorologist broadcasting live from the Meadowlands. In addition to giving the weather report, she was touting a food drive being conducted by the Meadowlands in conjunction…
A photo of Discovery’s grave, on the day of his eponymous race, thanks to reader Joan, who sent it in after reading yesterday’s post. She recently visited Sagamore Farm, home of Discovery and the base of Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s racing and breeding operation. Both Jerry Bossert in the Daily News and Ed Fountaine in the…
Saturday at Aqueduct brings the running of the Grade III Discovery Handicap, named for the horse whom author John Eisenberg calls “the most important equine purchase” of owner Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s life. Apparently unable to resist the obvious wordplay, Edward Hotaling, in They’re Off! Horse Racing at Saratoga, wrote that at age three “Discovery discovered…
Lots of talk lately about the possibility of a revised racing schedule in New York; as Jessica Chapel recently pointed out, Jeremy Plonk proposes a year-round, nationwide schedule, and Paul Moran recently speculated that NYRA is mulling a winter hiatus from racing. Haven’t seen anything to suggest that such changes are actually in the offing,…
Saturday was quiet at Aqueduct. Though warm, it was moist everywhere; even when it wasn’t raining, it was hard not feel sodden. And I was inside for most of the time; the jockeys, grooms, and horses must have felt like it was time to develop webbed feet. Two races offered the sort of finish that…
The, ahem, rigors of the last few weeks have finally caught up with me: having traveled to Lexington and Saratoga since the beginning of the month, and with the Rangers’ season and its attendant obligations having begun, I had no choice but to stay home today, firmly rooted to my couch, and attack the pile…
There were happy people all over Belmont on Saturday afternoon. The sun in the backyard was warm, the leaves were turning, and a crowd of nearly 7,000 turned out to celebrate New York racing and autumn. Picnics were set up, kids ran everywhere, and the folks who turned out accepted with alacrity the various promotions…
Last Friday, Frank and Erin of That’s Amore Stable were kind enough to invite me to tag along with them on their visits to the Shadwell and Darley breeding farms. Their visit to the former was expressly to see the perfectly-named Swain, to whom a That’s Amore filly is currently in foal, and Kent Barnes,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 