With an eye toward a possible proposal to change New York’s rules on the race-day medication furosemide, the state’s Gaming Commission met in Saratoga Springs Aug. 25 to solicit opinions about the medication. The Gaming Commission is staffed by members who requested the forum be held, admitting that they have no background in horse racing…
On Saturday at Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association will run its annual autumn showcase for New York-bred horses. Re-named this year, Empire Showcase Day will feature 11 races exclusively for horses that were foaled in this state. More than 100 horses will compete for purse money totaling more than $1.6 million. Showcase Day…
“It’s a long story,” Francis Paolangeli cautions when asked how he first got into horse racing. He doesn’t add that it’s also wildly improbable. As he tells it, Paolangeli–Frank to his friends—was at the racetrack in 1982 for one of the few times in his life. The native of Ithaca, New York went to Finger…
Fifty years ago, as the centennial Saratoga racing season came to a close, this paper’s editorial board began, after a summer looking back at Saratoga’s history, to look forward. More reliant then than now on the summer season for economic prosperity, Saratoga was anticipating the opening of a new hotel, one expected to attract more…
The Preakness is Maryland’s race: it’s “Maryland, My Maryland” and black-eyed Susans and blue crabs. It’s so important to the state that when financial difficulties threatened racing in Maryland,the governor stepped in to make sure that the Preakness would stay in Baltimore. But 120 years ago, when financial woes imperiled the racing industry in Maryland, nothing…
When New Yorkers rang in New Year 1913, they did not, as many of us do now, anticipate a day at the races. Even if tracks raced in the winter here then, New York was starting its third year without organized racing, the sport a victim of political activism that made gambling so onerous that…
And so begins the Cuomo era in racing. Late Thursday afternoon, Governor Cuomo released the names of the government-appointed members of the newly reconstituted New York Racing Association board. Horse owners are among them, a chef, a university president. What will they bring to racing in New York? Time will tell. While we in New…
2012—well, late 2011—was supposed to be the start of a new era for New York racing. After a decade of uncertainty, the leadership and financial holes were closed, management stabilized, a positive revenue stream guaranteed by the opening of the Genting Resorts World New York City casino at Aqueduct Racetrack, a percentage of whose profits…
Rules of the race, 4035.2: Foul riding penalized. (b) A horse crossing another may be disqualified, if in the judgment of the stewards, it interferes with, impedes or intimidates another horse, or the foul altered the finish of the race, regardless of whether the foul was accidental, willful, or the result of careless riding. The…
Several members of the racing press have alluded this week to an interview of Charles Hayward that was broadcast over the NYRA cctv system at the track this week. As I tuned in to my TiVo’d Inside Racing tonight, expecting to watch Evening Attire’s win in the Queen’s County for the twelfth or thirteenth time,…
Brooklyn Backstretch 