“In 1903…a skinny, pleasant lad of 15 applied for a job at the Sanford Stud Farm in Amsterdam, N.Y. His name was Hollie Hughes and he was taken on as a night watchman.” — Red Smith, “Some Reflections on a Horseman” Hughes’ name is practically a byword for Sanford Stud Farm, the racing and breeding…
It was in 2008 that I first made the historical acquaintance of Hollie Hughes, a man who devoted himself to and made a life in horse racing, a man as closely linked to one of racing’s first families as anyone could be. In 2008, I wrote of Hughes and of Sanford Farm, the place where he…
The race named for Hollie Hughes hasn’t been around all that long – only since 1979 – but it honors a man whose life in racing began 98 years ago, a man who worked for a stable – Stephen Sanford’s Hurricana Farm — that was racing at Saratoga as far back as 1880. The Sanfords’…
My Saturday mornings are often a leisurely stroll through racing history; with a cup of coffee (aside: for Christmas, my mother gave me one of those old-time stovetop espresso pots, and it makes the best coffee I’ve ever drunk. It’s a sublime source of Saturday morning pleasure), I check out the New York feature race,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 