Didn’t we just do this? Like…a few months ago? A huge thanks to everyone who participated in last year’s elongated (interminable?), unconventional charity league. I’m grateful to all of you who stuck it out through revised schedules and added races and a prep season that seemed like it might never end. When we launched this…
YEAR TWELVE! TWELVE! When we launched this in 2009, we were able to donate several hundred years to a racing charity. Last year? More than $2,700. Since that first contest, nearly $13,300. That’s a lot of money to benefit the horses and humans that make this sport possible, and you don’t have to be an…
Looking for events later in the meet? Here you go. Wednesday, July 31 At the track… $100,000 Shine Again for fillies and mares three and up, seven furlongs on the dirt. $150,000 New York Stallion Stakes Statue of Liberty Division, one mile, three-year-old fillies sired by stallions standing in New York, turf Breakfast at Saratoga,…
Wednesday, July 24 At the track… $200,000 Grade 2 Honorable Miss Handicap, fillies and mares three and up, six furlongs on the dirt. $150,000 New York Stallion Stakes Cab Calloway Division, one mile, three-year-olds sired by stallions standing in New York, turf In the community booth by the jockeys’ silks room: Battlefield and Beyond, which…
There’s a lot of summer and a lot of racing left, but the early highlight for me came in a Sunday afternoon optional claimer, when T Loves a Fight closed like the fighter he is to win by three-quarters of a length. His young owner/trainer, Orlando Noda, has trained horses to just 16 starts; all…
We’re a bit slow out of the gate this year, so apologies if you missed anything yesterday. But we’re underway at Saratoga Race Course for the 151st racing meeting, and as always, you’ll find a list here of all of the terrific events going on in Saratoga this summer. Our list comprises events relating to…
I can’t really believe that this is the 11th year of the Brooklyn Backstretch Kentucky Derby charity league. Who would have thought, back in the early days of this blog (when it was still an actual blog), when I piggybacked off the Saratoga Special’s Derby fantasy league, run by Brian Nadeau, that we’d still be…
A week frguom right now I’ll have just finished my first back-to-school meeting and I’ll be waiting to greet my student teacher–the first time I’ve worked with one. I’ll be anticipating a chunk of multi-hour meetings and planning sessions, and then running to the train station to come back up for Labor Day weekend. How…
I brought neither a raincoat nor rain boots to Saratoga this year, and I keep thinking, “No, it can’t keep raining. You won’t need them.” But of course it CAN keep raining, and it has (it’s thundering and gray as I type), and I DO need them. And as soon as I buy them, we’ll…
Guess what? It’s going to rain this week. Quelle surprise, I know. Are your feet webbed yet? At least you don’t have to water your gardens. And hey, because of that rain, we got a storybook Whitney last Saturday, when a rainbow emerged as Diversify cruised home to his second Grade 1 win. Don’t sleep…
Brooklyn Backstretch 