The Travers was shaping up to be the race of the summer when the winners of the three Triple Crown Races—Orb, Oxbow , and Palace Malice—all pointed to it. Without a clear divisional leader, one of those three might have sealed up the three-year-old championship with a win. Oxbow didn’t make it to the race; sidelined by…
I want to like Palace Malice. I really do. I’ve wanted to for a while, going back to before the Belmont. He’s owned by likeable connections. He’s got a good racing story, that whole blinkers-in-the-Derby debacle and all, then coming back to win the Belmont. He won the Jim Dandy. But I have a hard…
In this historic summer at Saratoga Race Course, as the town of Saratoga Springs celebrates the sesquicentennial of Thoroughbred racing, the Travers Stakes—run for the 144th time this year—is living up to its billing as the Mid-Summer Derby. Though tomorrow’s $1 million race will not, as anticipated earlier this summer, feature a match-up of the…
On August 17, 2012, a two-year-old filly named Heading to Toga lived up to her name, making the first start of her career at Saratoga Race Course. She won by five lengths; a horse named Fantastic Eyes finished fifth. Bred by Anthony Bonomo’s Brooklyn Boyz Stable, owned in partnership with his wife’s MeB Racing Stables,…
Saturday, August 17, 6:31 am, barn 62, Oklahoma training facility Ed Stanco is at Todd Pletcher’s barn with his son Adam and Adam’s wife Kate. Mike Tyburski, a long-time Stanco friend and a partner in King of Prussia Stable, is there, too. “There’s nothing more to say, really,” says Stanco, petting Princess of Sylmar. “Marty…
Last week, the Breeders’ Cup announced that for the first time since 2007, its headline race for fillies and mares will once again be called the Distaff, rightly consigning to the rubbish bin the Ladies’ Classic. It’s unfortunate that there will be five winners of the race who will forever be saddled with that name…
While the opening of the Oklahoma training facility in April is usually greeted with enthusiasm, there’s at least one person and a lot of felines who mark the return of the horses and the humans with mixed feelings. In the off-season, the barns belong to the cats of the three colonies who call the Oklahoma…
While the topics at this year’s Saratoga Institute on Racing and Gaming Law were similar to those at other industry meetings this summer, the tenor of the presentations and perspectives of the panelists were not. Two days after The Jockey Club Round Table conference, at which chairman Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps declared that the organization…
Some children want bicycles. Some want skateboards. Michael Straight wanted an Equicizer. Growing up in East Greenbush, about 40 miles south of Saratoga, Michael and his twin brother Matthew were obsessed with horse racing. Brought to Saratoga Race Course by their parents as children, they became instant fans. “We fell in love with the track,”…
Arising early last Saturday morning, I thought about August 3, 1863. I thought about what might have been going through John Morrissey’s mind on that summer morning 150 years ago, about how the guests in the downtown hotels might have prepared for the races, about the horse and carriage traffic jam that might have taken…
Brooklyn Backstretch 