New York-bred Kharafa won the Ashley T. Cole Stakes at Belmont Park for the first time in September, 2013. He was four years old, and the winner’s circle ceremony was especially poignant. The win was Kharafa’s first in a stakes race, and his owner and breeder, Lawrence Durocher, had died four months earlier, leaving daughter…
After the first stakes race at Belmont Park on Monday, owner Michael Dubb reflected on winning the Mount Vernon with a New York-bred mare out of a New York-based stallion. “I go to the New York-bred dinner every April, and there’s a real camaraderie,” he said. “It’s a family.” As it does each spring, Belmont…
The frozen paddocks of upstate New York are a long way from the sweltering devastation of Puerto Rico. At the ReRun adoption and retraining facility in East Greenbush, New York, about 40 miles south of Saratoga Springs — where the temperature was 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-17 degrees C) on a recent morning, a nine-year-old U.S.…
Four years ago, London Bridge became the first New York-bred to win a Breeders’ Cup race when he won the $500,000 G2 Marathon at Santa Anita. Bred by Patricia S. Purdy and owned by Waratah Thoroughbreds, London Bridge raced in England and France, making his first and only start in the United States that day.…
I went to Aqueduct for the first time on January 29, 2005. That was the first year that I followed horse racing year-round, and after nearly seven years in Brooklyn, I had yet to visit the only extant track in New York City. I was drawn to the Big A that freezing day not by…
The new year is so far indeed a happy one for 5-year-old Saythreehailmary’s and her connections. On Jan. 10 at Aqueduct Racetrack, the dark bay mare picked up where she left off in 2015, winning her second consecutive stakes race and first in open company when she took the Ladies Handicap by 1 3/4 lengths. On Dec.…
If you look at the numbers, it’s a very good time to be a breeder in New York. Yesterday the New York Racing Association held its first Saratoga Showcase Day of New York-breds, building on the success of the original day in October at the Belmont fall meet and last year’s addition of the Big…
In what could be an indicator of the strength of the market for New York-breds, a first-time buyer at the Fasig-Tipton New York-bred yearling sale made his first dive a deep one by purchasing the session-topper for $250,000. French bloodstock agent Hubert A. Guy, who has offices in California and shops at both domestic and…
On the heels of a healthy selected yearlings sale earlier this week, optimism is high on the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga grounds as attention shifts to New York-breds for this weekend’s preferred yearling sale Aug. 9-10. New York-breds brought high prices from prominent buyers in the open sale, with Stonestreet Farms, George Bolton, and Darley bloodstock agent…
Tomorrow at Belmont Park, graded stakes step aside to make way for a day of New York-bred racing. Seven stakes races offering combined purses of $850,000 will be headlined by the first running of the $150,000 Commentator, named in honor of the New York-bred who won the Whitney Handicap in 2005 and 2008. In 2003,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 