New York-bred Champions In Action on Showcase Day

This Friday at Saratoga Race Course will see the last of the 13 stakes races carded this summer for horses bred or sired in New York. Saratoga Showcase Day was added to the racing calendar in 2014 and scheduled for Travers weekend, increasing the visibility of the state’s breeding program on the biggest racing weekend…

Robin Sparkles’ Improbable Trip To A Graded Stakes Win

“Improbable” would be a generous way to describe Robin Sparkles’ route to the winner’s circle for a graded stakes race at Saratoga Race Course. Her dam, My Sparky, was modestly successful, winning five races from 17 starts and earning $147,000. In 2014, My Sparky was sold at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga fall mixed sale, a sale…

Green Machines: Turf Winners on Saratoga Showcase Day

Family connections and the power of pedigree fueled particularly sweet victories for the connections of City Man and Giacosa, winners of the turf events for older horses on New York-bred Showcase Day at Saratoga Race Course on Aug. 27. The owners of both winners also raced their sires, millionaires whose bloodlines are infusing the New…

Varied Paths to Victory on Saratoga Showcase Day

The winners of the Fleet Indian Stakes and the Albany Stakes at Saratoga Race Course are both lightly raced three-year-olds, but beyond that and their stakes wins on Aug. 27, the horses represent very different paths to New York-bred stakes success.  Albany winner Americanrevolution boasts elite connections: bred by notable New York breeders Fred W.…

Home Court Advantage for Saratoga New York-bred Sale

With apologies to Thomas Wolfe, this year’s Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale of New York-bred yearlings proved that you can, indeed, go home again. Absent from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 2020 because of the coronavirus, the sale returned this year, recording gains in all metrics. Sellers of New York-bred horses last year were forced to set up…

“Nothing is normal” For New York-breds And Sales

There’s never a good time for a crisis, but it’s hard to imagine a less convenient time for Covid-19 to have hit the New York racing and breeding industries than mid-March. Mares were foaling and being bred; high-stakes races were on the calendar at Aqueduct; and the popular sales for two-year-olds in training were hitting…

Fare Thee Well: A Salute To Three Retired New York-Breds

It is the rare Thoroughbred that gets a formal retirement ceremony. Earlier this year, Justify, the 13th winner of the U.S. Triple Crown, paraded on the track before heading off to a stud career, but most horses move quietly on from the racetrack, their retirements noted only in their disappearance from the entries. As 2019 begins,…