We heard a lot about Secretariat over the weekend. Secretariat lost the Wood and won the Triple Crown; Uncle Mo’s owner Mike Repole told reporters Saturday afternoon that on Friday night, he watched Secretariat (“It was probably a stupid idea,” he added). I wondered about the reaction to Secretariat’s loss in April of 1973, wondered…
Greetings from Aqueduct! It’s early – 8 am – and I don’t have a lot of company here. The horses have returned to the backstretch after their winter sojourn at Belmont, having given way to the construction crews for a while, but there are few horses on the track, and upstairs, one clocker and I…
Numbers. They’re only numbers. The variables are too many, the sample too idiosyncratic to be meaningful. But for the heck of it, following Uncle Mo’s breeze on Saturday afternoon, the value of which I questioned, I went back and looked at a bunch of Derby winners and examined their roads to Louisville, just to see…
The highlight of today’s racing at Aqueduct is the Grade 3 Gotham, appropriating the nickname of the city that hosts it. But the spirit of New York may be better embodied in the horse for whom a race earlier on the card is named: Tom Fool, who won 21 races and earned $570,165; who won…
The path to racing history doesn’t always run smoothly, as I unfortunately discovered earlier this week; technical difficulties at the Times website left me feeling like Tantalus, able to see the objects of my desire (articles on George Widener’s Rare Treat), but not able to touch them. Tantalus, though, didn’t have Facebook, so he couldn’t go…
Last Thursday night, Gelf Magazine celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Varsity Letters series. Monthly, the magazine hosts an evening of readings by sports writers of all stripes, boasting such alums as Joe Drape of The New York Times, Will Leitch of New York magazine and founder of Deadspin, and Amy Nelson of ESPN. The…
Today’s running of the ungraded, overnight Sky Beauty Stakes at Aqueduct seems, in some ways, to reflect Sky Beauty’s legacy: kind of a big deal, but maybe, not really. The race kind of honors her, and kind of doesn’t. The Sky Beauty was run at a mile over the inner track and as – ugh…
A quick post here today, from gray, cold, wet of Whirlaway day at Aqueduct. Really, one Saturday this winter, could I have a sunny day at Aqueduct? Just one? Please? But on we trudge, and while today’s Whirlaway doesn’t look like it’s going to be much of a race, one never knows what might emerge…
“…The sport’s expansion…led to angst among large numbers of its most elite participants. They lamented the passing of previous decades, when, at least as they recalled it, horse racing was dedicated to pure sport and not to crass commercialism. As events had evolved, the sport’s rapid expansion had given rise to a three-headed monster: the…
Originally this race was run over the memorable six-furlong straight course at Morris Park, then the newest and most elaborate of Metropolitan racing plants—which was a bit down grade and for that reason nicknamed the “toboggan slide”. (sic) (Hervey) It’s fitting that a race called the Toboggan is going to be run on a day…
Brooklyn Backstretch 