On Saturday, the weather was gorgeous (it may have been only the second day since before July 20th that it didn’t rain); the Old Spa was packed; and the card featured full-field, frequently good betting races with some competitive finishes. And if you weren’t happy with the product in front of you, you could turn…

On Monday morning, I sat in the upper level of the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion and watched as three humans and three horses were inducted into the Hall of Fame. I was touched, as I wrote on Tuesday, by the humanity and the humility of the event; as several publications have noted, the unplanned theme…

Jessica Chapel of Railbird and I have been invited to appear on Call to the Post with Seth Merrow of Equidaily tomorrow (Monday) at 9:45 am on the Capital OTB channel. Capital Region residents can watch on Time Warner cable channel 12; those outside the region can view the program (and all other Capital OTB…

Ed Fountaine in today’s New York Post reports that Godolphin is considering running Music Note in the Travers on August 23rd. While I have written here repeatedly that I have no trouble with fillies running against colts, I don’t see why you’d make this move. (Railbird has a different opinion.) In a development that I…

Rain. More rain. Torrents. Lightning. Thunder. Flooding. Biblical in magnitude. In line early Saturday morning to grab a picnic table: the security guard tells us that the gates will open a little after 7:00, because horses are on the path to the track. A chorus from those waiting: “Can’t you hold up the horses so…

In response to requests from Jessica and Winston: An audience member asked about the possibility of Trackus coming to New York. Trackus, also known as dancing Chiclets (OK, maybe only by me), allows viewers to see the order of horses throughout a race by displaying saddlecloth-colored squares at the bottom of the televised (on- and…

Published in Friday’s New York Daily News: Season passes for the upcoming Saratoga meeting, which starts on Wednesday, areon sale at Belmont through Sunday, closing day. The passes are available at theCustomer Service Center and cost $35 for the grandstand and $75 for theclubhouse. A friend and I make an annual pilgrimage to Belmont on…

A few thoughts on the mind of Brooklyn Backstretch this summer weekend: The feature race on Friday at Presque Isle Downs was the Willy Wank. Yep, the Willy Wank. Google that and see what, ahem, comes up. I did; the only surprise was that the fourth result actually had to do with racing. According to…

I loved Belmont Day 2006. The weather was terrific (sunny, cool, breezy); the place was alive but not too crowded; and another horse I loved was in the Belmont. We all know it had been a rough three weeks in racing; Barbaro’s breakdown was on everyone’s mind, and I think that many of us felt…

As posted last week at Curb My Enthusiasm, and as Tom LaMarra reported in the The Blood-Horse yesterday, our United States government is about to get into the racing game. Letters were sent to various racing industry leaders requesting information on “details on equine injuries; whether racing programs bolstered by gaming revenue use money for…