When Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park opens for the season on Friday, Nov. 2, it will do so with little fanfare. The track that first opened in 1894, making it older than most other sporting venues in the country, will host Thoroughbred racing for six months, longer than the Belmont Park and Saratoga Race Course…
Brian Nadeau is back this year to offer insight and analysis on this year’s road to the Kentucky Derby. A handicapper at Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB, he’ll analyze every official Derby points race and the three Triple Crown races, back at Brooklyn Backstretch for the sixth year. Aqueduct: The $300,000 GIII Gotham at 1 1/16…
More than 24 hours after Paulassilverlining won her second graded stakes, the Distaff (gr. III) at Aqueduct Racetrack April 17, owner and breeder Vincent Scuderi was still beaming. “Yeah,” he said. “I still have a smile on my face.” A 4-year-old daughter of Ghostzapper, out of the Grindstone mare Seeking the Silver, Paulassilverlining won her first stakes race,…
by Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB TV. Aqueduct: The GI, $1 million Wood Memorial at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 100-40-20-10) #1 Shagaf (2-1): Expected favorite made it 3-for-3 when he rode one of the most intense speed biases in recent memory early before tipping out off the far turn to win the…
originally published in March 2010 It was nearly 70 degrees in New York yesterday; warmer temperatures and delayed darkness have many of us thinking spring. And for New York racing fans, there is no surer sign of spring than the return at Aqueduct to the main track. Racing on the inner track generally begins in…
On Sunday, March 20th, New York horseplayers and racing fans will be able to join the rest of the country and indulge in a little wagering, following the signing into law of Assembly bill 6949 and Senate bill 4934, which “permits racing or licensing race meetings on Palm Sunday.” TIL: it was unlawful before today…
Aqueduct: The Grade I, $1 million Wood Memorial at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 100-50-20-10) #1 Tiz Shea D (8-1): Lightly raced runner didn’t disgrace himself in the least when he was second to one of today’s heavyweights El Kabeir in the GIII Gotham in the mud here in March over the inner…
Image: Postcards from Eugene Wood to the nieces he supported following the death of their mother, his sister. When Eugene D. Wood died in 1924, his local paper –The New York Times – didn’t pay that much attention. Despite his prominence in New York City, through decades of political involvement locally and in Albany, through…
The roads to the Kentucky Derby and the Oaks resume this weekend, with six races at four racetracks nationwide. In the points system initiated by Churchill Downs in 2012, this weekend’s races represent the beginning of what Churchill calls the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks “Championship Series” of prep races, each race offering a total…
Originally this race was run over the memorable six-furlong straight course at Morris Park, then the newest and most elaborate of Metropolitan racing plants—which was a bit down grade and for that reason nicknamed the “toboggan slide”. (Hervey) When the first edition of the Toboggan was run, back in 1890, the race’s creators couldn’t possibly…
Brooklyn Backstretch 