Today’s running of the ungraded, overnight Sky Beauty Stakes at Aqueduct seems, in some ways, to reflect Sky Beauty’s legacy: kind of a big deal, but maybe, not really. The race kind of honors her, and kind of doesn’t. The Sky Beauty was run at a mile over the inner track and as – ugh…
A quick post here today, from gray, cold, wet of Whirlaway day at Aqueduct. Really, one Saturday this winter, could I have a sunny day at Aqueduct? Just one? Please? But on we trudge, and while today’s Whirlaway doesn’t look like it’s going to be much of a race, one never knows what might emerge…
“…The sport’s expansion…led to angst among large numbers of its most elite participants. They lamented the passing of previous decades, when, at least as they recalled it, horse racing was dedicated to pure sport and not to crass commercialism. As events had evolved, the sport’s rapid expansion had given rise to a three-headed monster: the…
I love the word “vagary.” It comes from the Latin vagari, “to wander”; one definition is “an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion.” I also rather like alliteration. Horse of the Year. Hart Trophy. Halls of Fame. Hockey. Horse racing. Hmm…surely something there to wander through? And maybe a great excuse to finally figure…
He’s back! Brian Nadeau has returned to the Backstretch to offer his handicapping skills on key Derby preps. Other responsibilities will mean that he’s writing on fewer races this year, but you can get more of his insights at Horseplayer Now, where he handicaps and appears in live chats regularly. So a hearty welcome back…
You’d think that getting a snow day on Thursday could be about the best news that a turf-writing teacher could get…and for much of the day it was. I slept a little later, I got caught up with my grading, I hung out with the cats…the dreamy stuff of which snow days are made. But…
In 2010, my racing and literary worlds collided spectacularly when Jaimy Gordon’s Lord of Misrule came out of nowhere to win the National Book Award, catapulting both book and author right into this country’s literary conversation and splendidly blending books and the backstretch. If you’re a literary type, you can’t ignore the National Book Award…
It’s Monday morning, 5:22 a.m. 7 degrees here in Brooklyn. The Jets lost. If I had any sense at all, I’d still be cranky. I might even be crankier. But the weekend offered perspective. Hours of research into the weekend post on the Toboggan – its history, the horses and connections who’ve won it, the…
Originally this race was run over the memorable six-furlong straight course at Morris Park, then the newest and most elaborate of Metropolitan racing plants—which was a bit down grade and for that reason nicknamed the “toboggan slide”. (sic) (Hervey) It’s fitting that a race called the Toboggan is going to be run on a day…
It’s time for a return of the Racing Curmudgeon, with a hat tip to Frank Deford’s Sports Curmudgeon (who doesn’t seem to have made an appearance recently…another reason to be cranky). I’m cranky because Ron Franklin, the guy who harassed Jeannine Edwards at ESPN and subsequently got fired for it, is now suing ESPN for…
Brooklyn Backstretch 