Two sentimental winners took Saturday’s stakes races at Aqueduct, perhaps the most unsentimental of race tracks. The grade III Bold Ruler was run as the fourth race; in a field of five, Jack Bruner’s Sing Baby Sing was the favorite; Allen Jerkens’s Le Grand Cru was the longest shot at 7 – 1, a fact…
She’s two years old, and she’s something of a bad girl. She’s a chestnut. Between them, her parents won 9 Grade or Group I races. She started life as Gossip Gal, but that was too close to Gozzip Girl, and so her name is Superior Selection. She’s named for her dam, Society Selection, and her…
I met City On Line last summer, on the backstretch at Saratoga. Allen Jerkens’s barn is as far north of the track as you can get, before the grounds at Saratoga give way to the old Greentree facility. It was feeding time in the afternoon, and the Chief pulled up in his golf cart. “Let’s…
The last time I saw him, in November, he was sitting in a rehab facility, reading the newspaper, looking out the window. He was a little frail but recovering well, and happy for visitors. Shortly after that visit, he left for Florida, and I kept up with him only through entries and results. Now it’s…
In an unabashed bit of theft from the Quinella Queen…I’ve got a new crush. Timing is everything, they say, and after a relentless grey and cold winter, the last three weeks of which I have spent fending off germs of various sorts, I was ready for a little warmth and TLC. And who, most unexpectedly…
We walk into his room and he has his back to us; he’s sitting in a chair, reading the paper, the sun streaming in the window in front of him. His eyes are on the newspaper, but right next to it lies the Aqueduct condition book. “Good morning, Chief.” He pushes his chair back and…
Tomorrow will be too late to enjoy what you can today.At the Belmont Breeders’ Cup party yesterday, I was given a fortune cookie, assured that it was meant just for me, and this was my fortune. Though not much given to aphorisms or any sort of truth that can be summed up in one pithy…
Arrived at Belmont at 11:15; greeted by three fire engines (not, as it turned out, a harbinger for the Hook and Ladder first-time starter who finished fourth in the second race) and a mess of people hanging outside the clubhouse. We were nearly instantly cleared to enter the building; a transformer fire had knocked out…
Sometimes, being third feels like winning the Kentucky Derby. Or so it seemed to me, as I watched the connections of Above All Odds exult when he crossed the wire a nose in front of Crafty CJ, six lengths behind the winner. The people around us (all twelve of them, at Belmont on a Wednesday…
Follow my post yesterday about Tiger Woods and Big Brown, and the subsequent announcement about Tiger Woods’ season-ending injury, Valerie from Foolish Pleasure commented, “And, in true thoroughbred fashion, Tiger is now out for the rest of the year.” Citing the specifics of the injury and of Tiger’s swing, Rick Reilly of ESPN said that…
Brooklyn Backstretch 