As the field for the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes hit the eighth pole on Monday, owner Ahmed Zayat was probably thinking that he had a pretty good shot at winning his second Kentucky Derby prep this month, and a heck of a weekend. On Saturday, Zayat accepted the Eclipse Award for American Pharoah, last year’s…
He won six straight races from December 2013 to May 2014, including the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and while California Chrome won only once in four races in the second half of the year, Eclipse Award voters found his campaign worthy of Thoroughbred racing’s highest honor, giving him the Eclipse Award for 2014 Horse…
The road to Churchill Downs stopped in the Big Easy on Saturday for the Silverbulletday and the Lecomte Stakes, prep and points races for the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby respectively. The third 2015 points race for the Kentucky Oaks, the Silverbulletday at Fair Grounds in Louisiana was won by I’m A Chatterbox, trained by…
She was a last-second impulse purchase, and her owner called her “a gift from God.” She lost only once in her first 12 races, and in 1999, she was the 3-year-old filly champion. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009, she earned more than $3M and ran like her name. She’s Silverbulletday. Continue reading…
He’s back! Brian Nadeau joins Brooklyn Backstretch for the seventh year to handicap Kentucky Derby preps and take us through the Triple Crown. Brian handicaps at Horseplayer Now, is a regular on Capital OTB TV in upstate New York, and writes a weekly Breeders’ Cup newsletter in the run-up to that event. I’m thrilled that he’s back,…
The road to the Kentucky Derby made its way through California on Saturday, when Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, CA hosted the latest points race, the Grade III Sham Stakes on Saturday afternoon. Despite being winless in four previous starts, the Florida-bred Calculator was sent off the odds-on favorite and proved himself worth every bit…
While the eyes of the U.S. racing world will be focused on Gulfstream Park on Saturday night when this year’s Eclipse Award winners will be announced, next Monday a less-heralded but equally important event will take place in South Florida when jockey John Velazquez offers the opening remarks for the 2015 Jockeys’ Guild Assembly. Not…
It wasn’t supposed to happen again. After that devastating winter three years ago, after Governor Cuomo called for a task force, after an investigation and dozens of recommendations, we weren’t supposed to be sitting here wondering why so many horses are breaking down at Aqueduct, again. But we are. In the 20 days since Aqueduct’s…
In some ways, 2014 was just like a lot of other years in New York racing: unstable, unpredictable, a waiting game to see what will happen next, as the first full year of the newest NYRA leadership put its stamp on racing in the state. While the state-controlled NYRA board held its first meeting in…
Yesterday The New York Times published a photo essay about Aqueduct, “Where Horses Race, but No One Wins.” It was the typical Aqueduct article: the weather is terrible, the customers are losers, the place is a dump. Among the scenes pictured in the photos: a man asleep in a chair, a littered betting carrel, losing…
Brooklyn Backstretch 