It’s hard not to consider New York’s premier day of racing an unqualified success. Handle was unimaginably impressive; the place was packed with happy people enjoying a day at the races; Summer Bird, Tim Ice, and Kent Desormeaux provide terrific storylines and a satisfying ending to the Triple Crown season; and all the horses and…
If you’re looking for a little fluff piece on Belmont Day, you’ve come to the right place. At 8:30 am, outside Barn 18, home of Mine That Bird, the self-appointed Official Cat of the Belmont Stakes holds court. The small assemblage of press pays more attention to the cat than to Chip Woolley. The cat…
Let’s take a look at the major contenders in the stakes races Saturday at Belmont. From top to bottom, it’s one of the best cards NYRA has put out in quite some time, from both an equine and betting standpoint. I think it’s about the toughest Pk4 you’ll ever see and the Manhattan very well…
On Friday morning, the children at Anna House got a surprise visit from New York’s new favorite, Mine That Bird’s trainer Chip Woolley. Donna Chenkin, executive director of the Belmont Child Care Association, said that Woolley sat down and played with and talked to the students, and that they quite readily crawled all over him,…
I hit Brooklyn Thursday night at around 9:00 pm; four days of fun, food, and community service in Baltimore with our senior class had come to a monumentally successful end, and it was with a combination of fatigue, relief, and satisfaction that I swung off the Verrazano Bridge and headed north. The trip was over…
We’ve finally come to the end of the road. The Triple Crown trail, that is. The Belmont Stakes and one lap around the glorious main track of Belmont Park. There’s no Triple Crown on the line this year, no big bonus for the winner and no exciting rematch between the Derby winner Mine That Bird…
Yes, that’s right, August Belmont and Edith Wharton. Belmont the Jewish immigrant financier arriviste, he who changed his name from the German Schonberg to the French/Italian-flavored Belmont, the parvenu who married into the establishment, taking as his wife Carolyn Slidell Perry, daughter of the Commodore. Wharton the descendant of the great old Dutch New York…
It’s difficult for contemporary racing fans to see August Belmont as anything other than the namesake of the stakes race first and then the racetrack, but when he died in 1890, his very long New York Times obituary doesn’t even mention racing until the thirtieth (!) paragraph. A native of Germany, Belmont was born August…
Alex Waldrop’s May 22nd post on his blog at the NTRA site is a sunshiny look at the state of horse racing, pointing out some recent bright spots and offering an optimistic view of the state of the game. At the end of the post, he asks for reader input on next steps, and, predictably,…
Thanks to everyone who wrote with good wishes and comments about my little radio gig yesterday. It was fun and less nerve-wracking than anticipated, likely due to the presence of John “Poppa Fink” Loscalzo, the epitome of a classic racing fan. Poppa Fink was brought by his father to the old Jamaica track when he…
Brooklyn Backstretch 