The legacy of Allen Jerkens will live on in plenty of official documents. He’s in charts and programs, racing manuals and the Hall of Fame, profiles and race recaps, and record books and photographs. When you train horses for more than 60 years, you leave a pretty long paper trail. But it’s not on paper—or…
Growing up on Long Island, Albert Fried Jr. started riding horses, he says, when he was about 10 years old, in the early 1940s. A talented horseman even at that young age, within a few years he was given an assignment that, if a little hyperbole can be forgiven, may well have changed the course…
Oaklawn Park: The Grade II, $750,000 Rebel at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #1 The Truth or Else (4-1): Tricky read woke up in a big way when he added Lasix and was second in the local prep, the GIII Southwest last month, and certainly seems as if he’s turned the corner…
Last Friday morning, the thermometer in Saratoga Springs read -8 degrees. On February 24th, it was -17. In weather like that, most sensible human beings throw another log on the fire or grab another blanket, pour a hot drink, and refuse to leave the house. But not Michele Jennings, who regardless of temperature or precipitation,…
Saturday saw Kentucky Derby Championship Series prep races coast to coast, with 85 points each available in races in New York, Florida, and California, and a Kentucky Oaks prep in Arkansas thrown in for good measure. Under the Kentucky Derby points system instituted in 2012, the 20 horses who earn the most points in a…
Santa Anita: The Grade II, $400,000 San Felipe at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #1 Lord Nelson (4-1): The first of two from Baffert has long been rumored to be a runner and finally showed it last time, when he won the local GII San Vicente last month to secure his first…
Tampa Bay Downs: The Grade II, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #1 Divining Rod (6-1): The wildcard added Lasix, stretched to two turns, and gave one of today’s heavyweights, Ocean Knight, one heck of a tussle in the local prep, the GIII Sam Davis last time, and…
Aqueduct: The Grade III, $400,000 Gotham at 1 1/16 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 50-20-10-5) #2 Combat Diver (12-1): Price player kicked off his campaign in a minor stakes at Laurel and closed nicely to just miss going a one-turn mile, in an effort that should set him up nicely for a return to two…
On this first weekend of 2015 without a scheduled Derby prep race, Mike Dorr and I want to thank everyone who has pledged in our Kentucky Derby charity league. Entries closed last week with 42 stables and $2,430 in pledges, not counting various bonuses/incentives, which are detailed in the comments on our original post. One…
At 6 am on Tuesday, February 24, temperatures in the greater Baltimore area hovered in the single digits. Though classified as below normal for the region, they were all too normal in this winter of 2015, when words like “polar vortex” and “Siberian express” and “biting wind” have become an unwelcome entry into the vernacular.…
Brooklyn Backstretch 