This year’s Royal Ascot meeting got off to rather a racy beginning when it opened on Tuesday afternoon at the renowned racecourse in Berkshire, England. Not racy in the sense of horses running on the track—racy in the NSFW way, if looking at equine erections is something frowned upon in your workplace. On opening day…
With no Triple Crown on the line in this year’s Belmont Stakes, we don’t need to worry about rooting for history and we can focus on making money. The race isn’t called the test of the champion for nothing: the winner will have to have the stamina to run a mile and a half, longer…
Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay doesn’t have a horse running in this year’s Belmont Stakes, but next Thursday night, he’ll join his two passions—food and horse racing—to support two major racing charities. Each year, the Jockey Club, which is the breed registry for Thoroughbred racing, holds the official Belmont Stakes Charity Celebration, to be held this year…
At about 5:25 Saturday afternoon, Gary Stevens and Skyring gave Forbes 400’s Brad Kelley and his Calumet Farm their first Grade II victory when they won the Dixie Stakes at Pimlico Race Course; in the same race, Kelley’s 2012 Kentucky Derby runner Optimizer finished third, missing second place by just a head. “Skyring won the Dixie, and…
While no one would suggest that making money on the Kentucky Derby is an easy proposition, at least the big field offers a variety of ways in which to cash a juicy ticket. The Preakness, on the other hand, offers a different kind of wagering challenge. Orb, this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, is the morning…
The horses are entered, the post positions assigned, and the betting account topped off. At about 6:24 pm Eastern time on Saturday, the gates will spring open, and 20 horses will try to get to the finish line first, to win nearly $1.5 million, a blanket of roses, and a place in racing history. Whether…
You can play. With these three words, a unprecedented movement of inclusiveness was started a year ago, and earlier this month, the You Can Play Project and the National Hockey League announced a ground-breaking partnership “to make the NHL the most inclusive professional sports league in the world,” according to a league release. The You Can…
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…
The inaugural Dubai World Cup was held in 1996 at Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates. Worth $5 million, the race was won by the U.S. horse Cigar, contributing to his retirement later that year as the leading money earner among U.S. Thoroughbreds. In a four-year career, he raced 33 times and…
In September of 2008, Robert LaPenta paid $160,000 for a yearling colt from the first crop of Bernardini, the 2006 Preakness winner and 3-year-old Eclipse champion. Five months later, he sold the same horse for $500,000…and he regrets it to this day. “I bought a number of horses from Bernardini’s first crop, and I made…
Brooklyn Backstretch 