Call me “the woman who left Keeneland to drive to Charles Town.” It’s true, even if no one would believe it. Charles Town Races sits in the Blue Ridge Mountains, roughly equidistant, a 90-minute car trip, from both Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It’s been around since 1933, and visitors walking through the facility will see…
On Saturday night, Joe Torre was sitting in the restaurant at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, about 75 miles west of Baltimore. Among those at his table was his friend Bernie Schiappa, and they were there to watch their horse, Game On Dude, run in the $1.5 million Charles Town Classic. Torre and Schiappa go back…
Keeneland: The Grade III, $200,000 Lexington at 1 1/16 miles #1 Winning Cause: Well-bred son of Giant’s Causeway closed like a freight train when winning at seven furlongs earlier in the meet to raise his local mark to 2-for-2, and he rates as a real up and comer in this wide open GIII. Stretch runner…
Keeneland: The GI, $750,000 Blue Grass at 1 1/8 miles #1 Dynamic Sky: The first of two for Casse and Oxley drew a nice ground-saving post in this deep and oversubscribed field of 15 (only 14 will go) and gets back to the scene of his second place run in the GI Breeders’ Futurity last…
Oaklawn Park: The Grade I, $1 million Arkansas Derby at 1 1/8 miles #1 Carve: Local two-time route winner tries again after he was sixth, beaten nine lengths, when breaking from the rail in the local prep, the GII Rebel in March, and will need to hurry to factor today. If you’re looking for positives,…
Miranda Weber remembers going to Gulfstream Park when she was a little girl. She remembers that her mother liked the racetrack, and that they bet on horses. She remembers winning. She also remembers going to greyhound racing and to jai alai, but one horse racing memory stands out, even if some of the details are…
Thanks to everyone who signed up and pledged a donation in this weird, abbreviated, slimmed-down version of the Road to the Roses this year. We’ve got 13 players and about $500 in pledges, so a lucky racing charity is going to get a nice donation next month. Below are the standings, offered with condolences to…
Gabby Gaudet grew up almost literally on the racetrack. Her father, Eddie, trained horses in Maryland for more than 50 years; her mother, Linda, has saddled her own horses since 1996 and has 11 top-three finishes from 17 starts this year; and her sister Lacey started training in 2007. Until eighth grade, Linda home-schooled Lacey…
When the undefeated three-year-old colt Verrazano won the $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, New York, on Saturday, he also earned the chance to make history in next month’s Kentucky Derby. Verrazano made his first career start on New Year’s Day, winning at Florida’s Gulfstream Park by nearly eight lengths, and in…
Last Saturday at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, Kentucky-bred Animal Kingdom, winner of the 2011 Kentucky Derby, ended three years of United States futility in the world’s richest horse race. Inaugurated in 1996, the Dubai World Cup had been won 9 times in 14 years by horses based in the United States, all when the race…
Brooklyn Backstretch 