Shortly after college, I lay on my bed, with my cat next to me, reading an article about animal testing. I turned the page, and there was a photograph of a conscious cat with a metal cage over its head, and with screws/electrodes drilled into its brain. I don’t remember what the testing was for,…
Well, Kiaran McLaughlin didn’t win the Eclipse for training, and I guess I wasn’t at much of a disadvantage for not having TVG, as The Blood-Horse was publishing winners’ names (OK, at least one winner’s name) before it was announced on television. Nice. Thanks for the head’s up on that, Valerie, in your wonderfully-named post.…
Tip of the hat to Equidaily for pointing me in this direction, to an article by Art Wilson in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, in which the president of Hollywood Park calls for a summer forum on the pros and cons of racing on synthetics. Oak Tree executive vice-president Sherwood Chillingworth (The Scarlet Letter, anyone?)…
Open on Monday for the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, Aqueduct will run the Jimmy Winkfield, named for the last black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. Formerly the Best Turn Stakes, the race was named in honor of Winkfield in 2005. On the NPR site, these photos are credited to Churchill Downs/ Kinetic. Jimmy…
Saturday was the first day that I’ve ever spent on my own at Aqueduct, and I’m not entirely sure that it’s an experience I’d like to repeat, though I did seem to make a lot of friends. I’ve been to lots of other tracks on my own—Gulfstream, Saratoga, Belmont, Tampa Bay Downs—but all of them…
Well, he almost got there. As most people surmised this week, a mile and a sixteenth just wasn’t long enough for a ten-year-old gelding; he wants to run longer, and while Angliana was impressive in running down Judiths Wild Rush, it sure looked as though Evening Attire might have caught him if the wire hadn’t…
Nice day for Kiaran McLaughlin at the Big A on Friday: he had three winners and swept the early double with Labadeel and Cadet Blue. He also took the finale with Hatta Diamond. Three owners, three jocks (Garcia, Maragh, Dominguez). Anyone paying attention to racing knows that today’s feature at Aqueduct is the eponymously named…
Welcome to the new look of Brooklyn Backstretch. This html-challenged blogger prevailed upon the good services of Patrick at Handride, who obligingly configured the new three-column format, thereby enabling me to display more prominently several elements of the blog. I love it; thank you, Patrick. I decided to play with colors and fonts once the…
It’s nice when the good folks at the various racing publications serve up material that’s too good not to share. How pleasant to click open this evening’s electronic Daily Racing Form to see an article in which Pat Kelly, trainer of Evening Attire, discusses the top ten moments in the grey gelding’s career. Evening Attire…
Every once in a while I get the urge to clean up my DRF watch list, about as often as I get the urge to clean out my closets or put away the stack of filing on my filing cabinet. And I act on the urge about as often as I file: the current stack…
Brooklyn Backstretch 