I know: it’s the day after the Derby. This of all days should provide a surfeit of racing material, of reports and recaps and impressions and opinions. But…it’s Mother’s Day. And as important as the Derby is, mothers can’t get pushed aside for post-race coverage. Mama Backstretch – she hates when I refer to her…
Churchill Downs: The Grade I, $2 million Kentucky Derby at 1 ¼ miles #1 Archarcharch (10-1 ML): Derby post positions are more overrated than Derek Jeter’s glove at shortstop, with one glaring exception and that’s the rail, where this GI winner landed. The good news is he’s taking back and making one run anyway, so…
“What are the odds,” asked Ken Ramsey, “of naming a horse Derby Kitten and him getting in the Derby?” He can’t contain his glee; he’s laughing infectiously, and everyone within earshot smiles with this man, taking such obvious Joy (yeah, pun intended) in his Derby contender. Last year, I spoke with Ramsey about his Kitten-naming…
In retrospect, I should have known. The indicators were there, but I ignored them. I delighted in the auspicious and ignored the ominous. espite rain in New York, my nearly empty plane left New York on time and landed 40 minutes early – EARLY! The smooth, quick flight did much to mollify my outrage at…
“One of my earliest memories,” recalls poet Andrea Cohen, “is Dreamland. When one is going off to Dreamland, one is riding a stallion. When I was very young, before going off to sleep, my brothers and I would say, ‘See you in Dreamland,’ and we’d describe the horse we’d be on.” That’s about the closest…
Paul Wagner describes his documentary Thoroughbred: Born To Run as “horse racing 101.” He set out to make a film for people who, as he put it, “maybe watch the Derby, and that’s all they know about racing.” He planned a movie that would show various elements of the industry, that would explain racing and…
Steve O’Brien picked up the phone on Sunday, April 10th, the day after the Wood Memorial, and before I finished identifying myself, he asked, “What happened to Uncle Mo?” O’Brien is a racing fan. He grew up in Grand Island, Nebraska, and broke his racing maiden at Fonner Park. “I first went with my family…
I have a little media fantasy. Several, actually, but this is the big one, the one in which I get to assemble, as if I were putting together a new laptop, my ideal of a cable system. I’d get to look at that vast array of choices, and I’d get to pick exactly what I…
Saturday was closing day at Aqueduct, and by the time that last race is run, most people who have spent the winter in Ozone Park are unashamedly declaring their enthusiasm to get back to Belmont. The grittiness of Aqueduct, the lack of aesthetically pleasing outdoor space, the long weeks of (charitably) mediocre racing have taken…
A quick look at the Lexington… Keeneland: The Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington at 1 1/16 miles DERBY KITTEN impressed mightily when flying late to just miss against a nice 3yo turfer in Longhunter last time in a grassy GP stakes; should take to the Poly and gets the call to upset this modest crew with…
Brooklyn Backstretch 