It’s Sunday morning in Lexington, Kentucky. Sundays are meant to be a day of rest…but there’s much, much too much to do to rest. On the road to Keeneland for workouts, we end up behind a horse van, and we wonder which Kitten might be inside. If the race card holds any hints, we are…
Monday morning, April 19th: It’s been quiet for a little while, but at about 8:25, the stirrings begin. The clockers resume their places: binoculars are raised, stopwatches poised. After a morning of commonplace workouts—oh, except for that bullet that Rachel Alexandra fired at 6:30—the Churchill Downs track is about to become something of a private playground. Under…
It’s Sunday morning, and I confirm that yes, mass will be celebrated on the grounds at Keeneland at 10 am. “I call it ‘Our Lady of the Sales Pavilion,’” quips a local acquaintance. The little room off the main sales area is packed, with barn workers and racing fans, Keeneland employees and families. Out the…
You know how every week I remind you that you can check out Brian’s handicapping for NYRA races at Horseplayernow.com? That he participates in a live chat about three-year-olds every Friday at 2pm? He also participates in chats on Saturdays during the Derby preps, and if you’d been listening last Saturday, you’d have heard him…
“How can I convince people that horses have personalities?” This is the question that director Liz Mermin asked herself after she was approached to make a documentary about Irish racehorses. “I know what I like about horses,” she said during Tuesday’s Q&A after her film Horses was screened at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village,…
At racetracks as in life, first impressions count for a lot. Our first experience at a track will, fairly or not, determine whether we return; just like visiting an open house or going on a first date, our gut tells us whether we want a little more, or whether we’d like to just move on, thank you very…
Credit where credit is due. As commenter Andy first noted Saturday night, Brooklyn Backstretch’s own Brian Nadeau picked the top two winners in the Blue Grass. OK, so he didn’t pick them in order, but he did give out the winner on his Saturday afternoon chat on Horseplayer Now after seeing Paddy O’Prado’s odds, and…
I wrote this a year and a half ago, shortly before the 2008 Breeders’ Cup. I recalled it this weekend, during so many conversations about Zenyatta, the Breeders’ Cup, Personal Ensign…and this race. It originally appeared at The Blood-Horse. What agony to be a fan of the distaff side in November of 1988. Root for…
I am a late adopter. I don’t buy new appliances until the old ones stop working; I was nearly the last of my friends to have a cell phone. When something new comes along, my attitude generally is, “But I don’t need that.” Until, months or years later, I decide that I do, and I…
Oaklawn may not have gotten Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra Friday in the Apple Blossom, but they did get a pretty solid renewal of the Arkansas Derby. The newly minted Grade I has a trio of top Kentucky Derby contenders in Rule, Noble’s Prospect and Dublin, and there are some decent new shooters looking to make…
Brooklyn Backstretch 