Who Do You Like? Betting The 2014 Preakness

A year ago, Kentucky Derby winner Orb was practically pronounced a Triple Crown winner in the two weeks between his win at Churchill Downs and the Preakness Stakes. Whether the rigors of the prep season had their toll or whether he didn’t like the track at Pimlico, the odds-on favorite finished fourth and never won…

Beyond Pink: Black-Eyed Susan Day Aims To Empower Women

When it comes to marketing to women, racetracks generally rely on a familiar formula: raise money for breast cancer, promote wearing pink, emphasize fashion, and act like you’re at a garden party instead of a horse race. Black-Eyed Susan Day this Friday at Pimlico hits a lot of those notes, but it doesn’t stop there,…

The Preakness and the Lost New York Years

The Preakness is Maryland’s race: it’s “Maryland, My Maryland” and black-eyed Susans and blue crabs. It’s so important to the state that when financial difficulties threatened racing in Maryland,the governor stepped in to make sure that the Preakness would stay in Baltimore. But 124 years ago, when financial woes imperiled the racing industry in Maryland, nothing…

First Carriage Horses, Then Race Horses?

Last Friday night, the local Time Warner News NY1 aired a report about fatalities at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, linking horse racing with the contentious Central Park carriage horse issue. On the face of it, it’s not a stretch to consider the issues together; both, after all, raise issues of equine welfare; both have made…

Happy Mother’s Day, or Racing And Family

Shortly after booking tickets to my first Kentucky Derby three years ago, I realized, with no small amount of regret, that the first Sunday in May that year was Mother’s Day. Instead of being in Saratoga with my mom that day, I’d be travelling home from Louisville. It didn’t feel the right thing to do,…

Peter Pan, & Handicapping According To The Tides

There is something unsettling about the name of Peter Pan, the 1907 Belmont Stakes winner by Commando out of Cinderella. Thinking about Cinderella giving birth to Peter Pan is the stuff that childhood nightmares are made of, and “Commando” certainly brings up rather a different image from Prince Charming. Peter Pan’s racing career was relatively…

Only A Game: Kentucky Derby Fashion Fever

In a scenario that I’d have thought less likely than my hitting the Kentucky Derby superfecta, NPR’s Only A Game asked me to talk about…Derby Fashion. “For a select not-so-few, the Kentucky Derby is about bringing to the starting gate a horse that, however temporarily, will be a candidate for racing’s Triple Crown. “For the not-so-select many,…