On Saturday morning, Andrew Motion didn’t look like a man who hadn’t had much sleep over the last couple days. Two days earlier, he’d loaded a yearling filly onto a van and driven overnight to Saratoga from his Upperville, VA farm; three days before he’ll send his first horse through the auction ring here, he…
The Olympics are as much about stories as they are about competition. The athlete who overcame adversity. The rags-to-riches story. The “discovery” of a diamond in the rough. A bit of heartbreak, a lot of sacrifice. As they say in the world of Thoroughbred auctions, Blackfoot Mystery ticks all those boxes. And like the world…
“We’ve been very lucky,” reflected Sandy Fubini. Given Fubini’s successes, “lucky” might perhaps be a modest assessment of what she has accomplished. A veterinarian, a businesswoman, and the principal owner of Machmer Hall, the breeding operation based in Paris, Kentucky, Fubini could as easily attribute her achievements, and those of her partners in the farm,…
More than 15 years ago, folklorist Ellen McHale was asked by the National Museum of Racing to do a short-term consulting project on the life of backstretch workers at Saratoga Race Course. “The education department wanted more information about the people who worked on the backstretch,” said McHale recently from her office at the New…
We’ve been spoiled. Over the last few years, the rain has avoided Saratoga like a gambler avoids an overbet bad favorite, but over the last few days, the wet stuff has descended like punters on a Pletcher firster. We’ve been off the turf for two days, and Tuesday isn’t looking much better. Fortunately, there’s plenty…
Opening weekend at Saratoga brought many reasons to smile, not the least of which were two terrific stakes races in the Diana and the Coaching Club American Oaks. The blanket, competitive finish in the Diana contrasted with Songbird’s romp in the CCAO, each stirring the racing fan’s heart in its own way. Pleasing, too, is…
How about that Diana? Will admit that I was rooting for Recepta (how could I not, after writing about her trainer?), and she sure seemed to run too good to lose…but Dacita got there by that tiny nose. What a way to kick off opening weekend. And how lucky are we not only to see…
Two years ago, on the advice of bloodstock agent Tom McGreevy, Fox Hill Farm’s Rick Porter entered the bidding fray in the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion at the Fasig-Tipton yearling sale in Saratoga, trying to add a dark bay Medaglia d’Oro filly to his already prodigious list of stakes-winning fillies and mares. Four-hundred thousand dollars…
Jimmy Toner might keep a low profile, but his horses are easy to spot, especially in the morning. Just look for those bright orange bandages. Long before trainers began equipping their exercise riders with distinctive vests for easy identification during morning training, Toner was wrapping his horses’ legs in those bandages, mirroring the orange “JJT”…
Though it lacked a representative from the New York Racing Association for the first time in recent memory, the annual preview of the Saratoga Race Course meet at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame the evening of July 20 drew a near-capacity crowd of participants that peppered panelists with questions on everything from…
Brooklyn Backstretch 