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…
The 2015 road to the Kentucky Derby kicked off in New York on Saturday with the Grade III Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. The first race this year to carry Kentucky Derby qualifying points was won by Zayat Stables’ El Kabeir, getting the third win of his career on a miserably cold and…
In addition to the other accolades he’s received, as both a celebrity chef and a Thoroughbred owner, Bobby Flay can now claim that he won the first stakes race held in the United States in 2015. The third race yesterday at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, the Affectionately Stakes is a minor event on…
Buyers of Thoroughbred racehorses in 2014 got an early Christmas present when H.R. 5771, the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, became law earlier this month. Retroactive through this past year, a provision of the law renews the three-year tax depreciation for racehorses, which allows taxpayers to depreciate racehorses 24 months of age and younger…
Followers of trainer Mark Hennig’s Twitter timeline were the first to hear the news last Friday, when Hennig posted a somewhat cryptic message after the fourth race at Aqueduct. Great, get some rest big boy! — Mark Hennig (@Hennigracing) December 26, 2014 The “big boy” was Socialsaul, the horse that Hennig had purchased for owner…
Returning to the track over which he suffered his only career loss, Shared Belief pushed his earnings over the $2 million mark in winning the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita Park Friday. Owned by a partnership group that includes sports radio personality Jim Rome and his wife Janet, Shared Belief was making his first…
Thank you for reading, commenting, challenging, questioning, and caring about racing in 2014 — here’s to an even better 2015. Warm wishes to you and yours for a wonderful Christmas, a happy Chanukah, and a very happy new year.
Brooklyn Backstretch 