On Travers morning, the gates at Saratoga open at 7 am, several hours earlier than usual, in order to allow the expected crowd to jam in, secure picnic tables, and while away the time until first post. NYRA entertains us by showing, on the TV screens throughout the track, the runnings of the Travers that…
So I arrive at downtown law firm to take care of a little business; I’ve never been there, I don’t know this firm, and I figure that I’ll be waiting a while, so I’ve brought a book, The Buccaneers, an unfinished novel by Edith Wharton. I open the novel in the waiting room, and read…
May your day be full of boules, good wine, French cuisine, and revolutionary spirit. The Francophile in me is honoring the holiday by doing a little historical digging on appropriately-named horses—at least before the Champagne and Provencal rosé are broken out. The chestnut colt Bastille was born in 1918 and, according to Pedigree Query, won…
In no particular order, racing bits that have recently amused me: Day of the Kitten at Belmont on Friday afternoon—and race 4 had “hunch bets” written all over it for me: three Kitten’s Joy offspring (Raise the Kitty, Lisa’s Kitten, Jill’s Kitten) and an Afleet Alex filly. Unfortunately, they were all blown off the track…
The Grade I Man o’ War leads off Saturday’s tough Pk4 sequence. You better have your turf handicapping shoes on for this one. Enjoy and good luck! –Brian Nadeau Please note horses are preceded by their betting number. 7th. The $500,000 Grade I Man O’ War for 3-year-olds and up. 1 3/8 miles on the…
Not that one needs an excuse to head to Saratoga, even briefly, but a bit of business called me there this week, and I used it as an opportunity to mix business with all kinds of Saratoga pleasure. Mama Backstretch had not yet made the acquaintance of Furlong and Ruffian, so they made the trip…
So Rick Dutrow heads to the sidelines again, this time for thirty days following a Clenbuterol overage that took place in, ahem, May of 2008. Glenn Craven wrote about this at length at his site yesterday; his piece and the Associated Press report that appeared in Wednesday’s Saratogian both note that while a 15 day…
Last summer, I wrote about a filly who went through the ring during the New York bred sales in Saratoga; she sold for $200,000 and is a half-sister to New York favorite Naughty New Yorker. By Songandaprayer out of Naughty Natisha, the filly makes her racing début on Wednesday in the second race at Belmont.…
On Saturday’s big day of racing, there were stories to be told, photos to be taken, and races to be analyzed…but you’re going to have to look elsewhere for all of that, because for the first time in ages, I spent Saturday at the races as a pure fan. Adam Wiener of Hello Race Fans…
A few thoughts before heading out to celebrate Independence Day at beautiful Belmont Park. Widely noted this week was the pensioning of Rahy at Three Chimneys in Lexington. Ed DeRosa wrote about it in Thoroughbred Times and reflected on it at his Big Event Blog. A number of years ago, I brought my friend Jessica…
Brooklyn Backstretch 