by Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB TV. Belmont Park: The GI, $1.5 million Belmont at 1 1/2 miles #1 Governor Malibu (12-1): New York-bred gave odds-on favorite Unified a scare when second in the local prep, the GII Peter Pan last month, and is certainly on the rise for Clement, who won this race two…
For the first time in three years, the New York Racing Association will host a Belmont Stakes without a Triple Crown on the line. Preparations at Belmont Park have proceeded much more quietly, with none of the national and little of the local coverage of the last two years, when TV crews descended on the…
On the afternoon of June 9, Bob Baffert walked into the paddock at Belmont Park for the first time since saddling American Pharoah before last year’s Belmont Stakes (gr. I). “I got goosebumps,” he told a crowd of about 75 people at Belmont that evening, part of a Q&A held by the New York Racing Association to celebrate…
As it waits for a decision on the future of the New York Racing Association, the organization’s board of directors May 25 spent less than five minutes discussing rumors of a proposal that would keep the association under state control. The NYRA board, at a meeting in New York City, implicitly acknowledged a report that emerged…
Horse racing found itself in the spotlight on Saturday afternoon but not quite in the way that it wanted to. The day was supposed to be about the 141st running of the Preakness Stakes, about the undefeated Nyquist trying to keep his record intact, about the possibility of another Triple Crown run at Belmont in…
The weather forecast for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes may be dismal, but the outlook for Nyquist to become the fourth horse in five years to nab the first two legs of the Triple Crown is much more auspicious. Impressive on the track Thursday morning in a brisk gallop, the Kentucky Derby winner has given every indication…
by Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB TV. Pimlico: The GI, $1.5 million Preakness at 1 ¼ miles #1 Cherry Wine (20-1): Deep closer used the race flow to muck up for third in the GI Blue Grass at Keeneland and will need an epic pace meltdown to have any kind of chance in the second…
Ten years ago this week, the racing world watched in horror as shortly after the start of the Preakness Stakes, jockey Edgar Prado pulled Barbaro up with a catastrophic injury to his right hind leg. Stricken with a shattered leg that in almost any other case would have led to immediate euthanasia, Barbaro was transported…
The mint juleps were flowing, and the music, supplied by a jazz trio tucked into the dining room, was southern and sweet. Women in elaborately designed hats and men in snappy fedoras selected from a menu in which bourbon played a featured role, their Derby-best attire not deterring them from digging into the ribs…
by Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB TV. Churchill Downs: The GI, $2 million Kentucky Derby at 1 1/4 miles #1 Trojan Nation (50-1): Gigantic longshot almost blew up the board at 81-1 when he came up the inside in Aqueduct’s muddy GI Wood Memorial to run second, beaten just a head by fellow rival Outwork,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 