As Trinniberg and Currency Swap dueled to the wire in the quagmire that was the 2011 Three Chimneys Hopeful Stakes (gr. I), I stood in the winner’s circle in a rooting quandary. Currency Swap was trained by Teresa Pompay, a Saratoga native whose family I had known since I was 13 years old. A win would mean her first…
Join Infinite Hope Animal Rescue this Thursday night at the Nu Hotel on Smith Street (at Atlantic Avenue) to celebrate a year of helping animals and to help fund the organization’s rescue efforts. Infinite Hope is an all-volunteer animal rescue based in Boerum Hill that houses, cares for, and places abandoned animals; the organization’s adoption center is…
Saturday’s meeting was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. EDT, the time the gates open at Belmont. But with few people in attendance, the forum was delayed until nearly 11:30 a.m., which put it up against a jockey autograph signing scheduled by the New York Racing Association. NYRA’s only role in the fan council forum…
On Saturday at Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association will run its annual autumn showcase for New York-bred horses. Re-named this year, Empire Showcase Day will feature 11 races exclusively for horses that were foaled in this state. More than 100 horses will compete for purse money totaling more than $1.6 million. Showcase Day…
A couple of dozen Thoroughbreds took to the track at Pimlico last weekend, but not to run in a race. There was no starting gate, no betting, and no jockeys, but more than 600 people bought tickets to see what the horses could do beyond competing in a horse race. The Retired Racehorse Training Project took over…
Following a wildly successful Thoroughbred yearling sale at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky last month, the English auction company Tattersalls is hoping for similar exuberance at its yearling sale this week. As was the case here, the European market for expensive racehorses took a hit over the last five years, but a combination of factors, not…
By all accounts, the pun in Miss Behaviour’s name is not an apt one. “Over in the barn this morning,” said one of her owners, Cal MacWilliam, in the winner’s circle at Belmont Park last Sunday, “she was absolutely calm, lying down, sleeping.” The same could not be said of MacWilliam, his partner Neil Teitelbaum,…
Trainer Leah Gyarmati gave up an academic career for a life at the racetrack, so it is, perhaps, a little ironic that the filly who brought her her first graded stakes victory is named Sweet Reason. Gyarmati had an off-again, on-again relationship with reason earlier in her life, wrestling with the decision to stay in…
“Spectacular.” That was the word the Keeneland Association used to describe the results of its Thoroughbred yearling sales last month. The 12-day sale started with a bang, with four horses selling for at least $1 million on the first day; by the time it was over, the sale price for 18 yearlings had reached seven…
In April of 2010, Edward Stanco sent his mare Storm Dixie to Kentucky to be bred for the first time. He’d purchased her for $67,000 in 2006, and after she won just once in 10 starts, he decided, after years in the racing business, to take a shot at breeding a horse. The mating didn’t…
Brooklyn Backstretch 