Crazy Catlady isn’t the only feline equine with whom I spent some time when I was in Florida; on my way home up the Gulf Coast, I spent a day at Tampa Bay Downs, starting the morning at the barn of Bernell Rhone. Ted Grevelis is a fellow blogger and managing partner of Grevelis Racing…
Nearly as important as post-Derby racing coverage is post-Derby media coverage. Equidaily has devoted a whole section to links to media commentary, and no shortage of mainstream and Internet racing writers (including this one) have dropped an opinion about what they saw on television on Saturday afternoon. I thought about writing my usual scathing coverage…
On June 18th of last year, two baby felines moved temporarily into my home. They’d been found in a Brooklyn backyard, offspring of a feral mother, and at about a month old, they needed immediate foster care. “No more than a week,” I warned as I accepted them from their rescuer. “We have to find…
Congratulations to Todd Pletcher for getting off the Derby schneid. Pletcher and his wife Tracy have been major supporters of the Belmont Child Care Association, and two years ago they were honored for their work on behalf of the children of Anna House. And now we can, happily, stop hearing about his winless streak. Pletcher’s kind of like the…
We finally made it. After all the preps, it comes down to the 136th Run for the Roses. This year’s Kentucky Derby once again drew an oversubscribed field that was filed down to 20 3-year-olds Wednesday morning. They’ll head to the post at or around 6:24 PM Saturday evening, and some 2 minutes later, one…
It’s here. It’s Derby weekend. For weeks the prognostications have been coming; handicappers, analysts, turf writers have weighed in, posited picks, watched workouts. It’s time to make the call. Later today, Brian will be here with some serious handicapping; but first, here are the third annual Backstretch Derby picks, by the letters. For the poetically inclined,…
So here we are, April 29th. Two days to the Kentucky Derby; two days to the end of the Road to the Roses Backstretch Charity League; two days until the end of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation hay drive. Our league table is posted below, and it appears that HoosYourDaddy is going to wire the field…
It starts in the late spring and early summer. You look at the two-year-olds racing in Kentucky and New York. You examine pedigree and performance. You hope that by the following spring, you’ll have found your Derby horse. But sometimes, your Derby horse finds you. Bud Perrone grew up in Louisville, going to “the Downs”…
Over the weekend, I wrote about the withering of the Withers, about the loss of the historical and contemporary significance of the race: no big-name horses; a short field; an abiding lack of interest from the greater racing world. Just another minor, meaningless, low-level stakes race at a largely-empty racetrack. Ho-hum. Check, please. And then…
Withers: “The high part of the back of a horse or similar animal, located between the shoulder blades.” (American Heritage Dictionary, via Wordnik) Well, that’s certainly appropriate. Withers: Mr. David Dunham Withers, member of the American Jockey Club and one of the founders of Jerome Park (via NYRA). He was also instrumental in the re-opening…
Brooklyn Backstretch 