Carmouche: “It Just Broke Me Down”

Over the weekend of May 30, amid coast-to-coast protests against racism and police brutality, jockey Kendrick Carmouche couldn’t hold back his feelings any longer. He propped up his phone and spoke from his heart on Instagram Live for nine minutes—roughly the same amount of time Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck, leading…

Triple Crown “Tradition”: More Fancy Than Fact

At the risk of stating the obvious, this year’s Triple Crown became something different from what we were used to the minute that Churchill Downs announced that it would host the Kentucky Derby on September 5. We’d suspected before that, of course. A month before the traditional Derby date, virtually the entire country was limiting…

Brian Nadeau’s (Longer) Road to the Triple Crown

Churchill Downs: The GIII, $150,000 Matt Winn at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 50-20-10-5) by Brian Nadeau. Brian handicaps at Capital OTB and Horseplayer Now, and he’ll offer analysis and selections of Derby points races, hoping to make us all a little money as we head to the Belmont Stakes. Follow him on Twitter here. We promised…

The TRF’s “Life-Changing Program”

On July 19, 2019, the venerable Thoroughbred Quick Call breathed his last. Humanely euthanized at age 35, he had lived for 18 years at the Wallkill Correctional Facility as part of Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Second Chances program. Quick Call earned $807,000 in a seven-year career, counting among his victories the 1988 and 1989 Forego Handicaps…