Wednesday, August 2 At the races Stakes races: $100,000 Shine Again, fillies and mares three years old and up, 7 furlongs on the dirt Irish-American Day. Find traditional Irish music, dance, food, and entertainment at the Saratoga Pavilion (behind the grandstand, near the top of the stretch), 11 am to 5 pm. Saratoga Perks Discount…
In early 2017, the New York Racing Association announced that it would pay a $1 million bonus to any Japan-based horse that won this year’s $1.5 million Belmont Stakes. Although Lani’s presence in the three Triple Crown races attracted a good deal of fan interest, particularly given that horse’s quirkiness, the NYRA bonus was about more…
Week of July 26 Wednesday, July 26 Stakes races: Grade II, $200,000 Honorable Miss, fillies and mares three years old and up, 6 furlongs on the dirt Military Appreciation Day. All veterans and active duty military get into the grandstand free with military ID, and local service members and veterans will be in the winner’s…
That shouting you heard from the vicinity of Saratoga Race Course just before 7 p.m. on Sunday night? That was Joe Appelbaum, long-time backyard denizen, screaming at one of the TVs as he rooted home the eight horse, Cookie Crisp, on the lead heading to the wire under jockey Kendrick Carmouche. Appelbaum was live to…
I’m a little slow out of the gate this year with the Saratoga events, but I’m hoping to make up lost ground as we head up the backstretch, early in this 2017 Saratoga meet, the 148th at Saratoga Race Course. By the time we get to Labor Day, we’ll have seen 40 days of racing,…
For thirty years and more there was hardly a great race run in which one of their horses did not figure conspicuously. They were a city-bred pair, but they possessed an instinctive knowledge of horses and a talent for management that made them formidable from the beginning of their career. William H.P. Robertson, The History of…
By the eve of the last century, the Suburban Handicap had already been run 15 times, a fixture at the old Sheepshead Bay track in Brooklyn, already established, according to The New York Times, as “one of the great Spring handicaps.” That last 19th century renewal of the race was held on June 17, the cusp…
Though the first Belmont Stakes was run in 1867, it wasn’t run at Belmont Park until 1905. The race was inaugurated at Jerome Park in what is now the Bronx, where it stayed until 1889, when it moved to Morris Park, also in the Bronx. Run there until Morris Park closed in 1904, the Belmont…
On last year’s Belmont Stakes Day undercard, Paul Pompa Jr.’s Rally Cry ran third in the Easy Goer Stakes. This weekend, the 4-year-old returns to the Belmont undercard—but this time, he steps up to take a shot in the Mohegan Sun Metropolitan Handicap (G1). “He loves Belmont,” said Pompa of the horse, who is two-for-three at…
A look at Benner Island‘s past performances might suggest the filly entered in Saturday’s Acorn Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park is due for a loss. After all, she won last out in the Eight Belles (G2) at Churchill Downs in May, and following each of her two previous wins, she’s slumped a bit before returning…
Brooklyn Backstretch 