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…
Holiday Mondays are a beautiful thing. Many of us get a day off, and the racing fans among us often get a chance to get to the track or place a few wagers at tracks that are ordinarily shuttered on Mondays. Aqueduct, Santa Anita, and Gulfstream Park will all be open tomorrow, but only one…
The disparate elements of the racing world are often accused of not playing nicely with each other. Tracks compete with each other for dates and gambling dollars; what’s good for horsemen isn’t always good for gamblers; what makes fans happy doesn’t always jibe with the decisions made on the backstretch; charitable organizations fight for donation…
When I visited Claiborne Farm late last June, there wasn’t much – if any? – talk about Blame, even though at that point he was riding a winning streak of four consecutive graded stakes races. The Claiborne folks might be forgiven, though, and not blamed (sorry, couldn’t resist), given the hefty hunk of racing history…
Some of you may remember that in October of 2009, I wrote about Pappy’s Double H, the three-year-old Birdstone gelding who died on the track at Belmont in the last race on Jockey Club Gold day. In following up on the story, I spoke with Pappy’s owner, Lois Engel of Pucker Ridge Racing; their story is…
If there’s any “network” in social network, let’s see if we can put it to some good. Robin Smullen, assistant trainer to Barclay Tagg and Funny Cide’s exercise rider, reports that her Kentucky Derby ring, along with a horseshoe necklace, was stolen when she was recently in Barbados. The ring is a large diamond with…
The Eclipse ballot stipulates that voters make three choices in each category; failure to make three choices invalidates the vote for that category. These choices determine the top three finalists in each category; the champion in each category is determined solely by the highest number of first-place votes. In most cases, I spent more time…
Brooklyn Backstretch 