For some Midlantic trainers who are Saratoga stalwarts, the summer of 2020 may well look similar to their operations in years past. But that doesn’t mean it will feel the same. For the last several years, Graham Motion has rotated horses between his Fair Hill base and his 10 stalls on Saratoga backstretch, leaving the…
The familiar red and blue Herringswell sign is gone, as are the matching table and chairs that for years had been set up on the backstretch at Saratoga Race Course, right in the middle of the final turn. It was one of the most prominent and visible spots on the main track backstretch, a high-traffic…
At first glance, Isabel de Tomaso and Gaston Grant would appear to have little in common. De Tomaso, a scion of the family responsible for the creation of Monmouth Park, splits her time between Europe and Palm Beach. Grant, the son of Jamaican immigrants, lives in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. De Tomaso grew up riding horses…
Deplorables. Emails. Threats. Speeches and tax returns, released and unreleased. And oh, that video. That video. There are four days left in a presidential campaign that has left many U.S. citizens hanging our heads in embarrassment, a campaign that has riven friendships and roiled the country, a campaign that has turned social media into a…
Back in August, Dancing Rags debuted at Laurel for trainer Graham Motion. Despite her dirt pedigree, Motion elected to start the Union Rags filly on the turf, not an unusual decision for him with first-time starters. “I like to start some of them on the grass,” said the trainer by phone from California. “It’s much…
The Grade 3 Saranac was Saratoga’s final 2014 stakes race, and Graham Motion won it. Ring Weekend’s triumph gave Motion two graded stakes wins on the meet; his first was Main Sequence’s Grade 1 Sword Dancer victory on August 17 — 10 years and three days after Better Talk Now provided Motion his first win in the race. The…
Last Friday afternoon, a group of 25 trainers, including some of New York’s top conditioners, released a statement declaring their support for a phase-out of the raceday medication furosemide by 2016. Among them are trainers, such as Todd Pletcher and Graham Motion, who have in the past advocated for use of the anti-bleeding medication. Furosemide,…
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…
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…
Wandering around Churchill Downs last week, anticipating a big race, I thought about the last time I was there: last November, for the Breeders’ Cup. That was, of course, the Zenyatta Breeders’ Cup: no matter what else happened that weekend, it was all about her, all about the Classic. She was the story on the…
Brooklyn Backstretch 