As I’ve read responses over the last few days to what I wrote about Thoroughbred retirement, here (below) and in Thoroughbred Times, two ideas have come up repeatedly: the sport needs a commissioner and mandatory money needs to be set aside – from purses, from breeders’ fees, from wagers – and put towards Thoroughbred retirement.…
When I saw the headline in the New York Times last Thursday night – “Ex-Racehorses Starve as Charity Fails in Mission to Care for Them” – I was, unsurprisingly, dismayed. I clicked on the link, expecting to read another story about a well-meaning, small, grassroots-type rescue that had been beset by financial difficulties, or corruption,…
Oaklawn Park: The Grade II, $300,000 Rebel at 1 1/16 miles #1 Archarcharch (ML unavailable): Upset winner of a rough renewal of the local GIII Southwest is back for more today and drew extremely well in this deep and competitive spot. Love his stalk-and-pounce style and he’s the lone entrant in here with a graded…
Numbers. They’re only numbers. The variables are too many, the sample too idiosyncratic to be meaningful. But for the heck of it, following Uncle Mo’s breeze on Saturday afternoon, the value of which I questioned, I went back and looked at a bunch of Derby winners and examined their roads to Louisville, just to see…
Random thoughts on this Tuesday morning: I am intrigued by this whole Uncle Mo story. I watched the race from Saratoga last Saturday, and while obviously the horse turned in an impressive performance, I don’t quite get how it does anything in terms of preparing him for the madness that is the Kentucky Derby, where…
Santa Anita: The Grade II, $250,000 San Felipe at 1 1/16 miles #1 Albergatti (6-1): Sped off to an extremely fast maiden win going 7F’s over the track last time in his second career start and now steps up to tackle winners, stakes foes and two turns all for the first time. Certainly bred to…
Photographer Juliet Harrison describes herself as “your typical horse crazy kid.” Perhaps atypically, she knows exactly when that horse craziness hit. “When I was five years old,” she recalled recently by phone from her home in the Hudson Valley, “I had a babysitter who gave me a picture book of horse breeds. I still have…
Tampa Bay Downs: The Grade II, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby at 1 1/6 miles #1 Striding Ahead (10-1 ML): Exits a resounding gate-to-wire maiden win over the track and distance, and that was also his first start of the year, so it looks like he’s really grown up since disappointing in his lone start last…
Brother Backstretch is a big fan of the last race. He stays to the end of most days, but particularly on Belmont day, when he’s got an uncanny record of success. He likes the last race because, he says, “You can’t give back your winnings.” He should know, I guess. On Belmont Day 2006, Michael…
Though it’s only early March, my Saturdays at Aqueduct are numbered: family commitments, pet responsibilities, and travel plans (work and play) mean that available March and April weekends are in short supply, so on this first Big Day of Racing at the Big A for 2011, I determined to settle in for the long haul.…
Brooklyn Backstretch 