Among the many complaints leveled at racing’s regulatory bodies — specifically state racing commissions — one of the most serious is that trainers with multiple medication or drug violations get off too easy. With a model rule passed on July 31 in Saratoga, the Association of Racing Commissioners International (ARCI) hopes to bring those complaints…
Earlier this month, the Mid Atlantic Cooperative named Phil O’Hara its executive director, which might lead the casual racing fan to ask, “What’s the Mid Atlantic Cooperative?” According to Chris McErlean, vice president of racing for Penn National Gaming, which owns Penn National, Charles Town, and Sam Houston along with casinos across the country, the…
On June 1, the New York-bred filly Lovely Syn kept her spotless race record intact with a 10-length front-running score in the Bouwerie Stakes at Belmont Park. She’d won her four races by a combined margin of nearly 30 lengths. “We’re having so much fun racing her,” said her owner Michael Parisi after the race,…
Just about a year ago, Sagamore Farm was wrestling with the unexpected loss of its star three-year-old filly. In a freak training accident at the farm, Millionreasonswhy, the winner of the 2011 Matron (gr. II), crashed through a rail and died of internal injuries. From six starts, she had won three times and never finished…
On the racing calendar, June represents something of a breather. The relentless push to the Triple Crown wraps up early in the month, and the summer racing season is still a few weeks away. While races continue across the country, the pressure of spring racing seems, at least, to have abated a little. Unless you’re…
As Mid-Atlantic trainers reflected on Friday morning about Ramon Dominguez’s retirement, they talked about his talent as a rider and his commitment to horse racing. But their first reactions were about Dominguez the man, not Dominguez the jockey. “#1, he’s an exceptional person,” said Linda Gaudet. Read more at The Racing Biz…
Talk to most of the jockeys around your local racetrack, and you’ll find that they’ve taken one of a few paths to get to where they are. They grew up around horses; they started riding at a young age; they attended a jockey academy. Talk to jockey Samantha Colvin, and you’ll get quite a different…
When Dan Silver got to Penn National last fall to serve as the track’s director of racing operations, one of the first things he did was to meet with racing secretary Dave Bailey and corporate vice-president of racing Chris McErlean. The three men looked at the national stakes schedule, trying to find a spot for…
Shortly before 6:20 tomorrow evening, nine horses and jockeys will head towards the starting gate at Pimlico Race Course. The noise of more than 100,000 people will accompany them as they step into small metal stalls, standing patiently until the gates are sprung and they take their first strides in an attempt to win the…
It all started at Aqueduct, on a Saturday afternoon in January of 2005. It was the day of the Sunshine Millions: a horse named Lava Man was racing at Gulfstream, and an undefeated Florida-bred, California-based sprinter had shipped east to make his third start. Lost in the Fog won that day by four and a…
Brooklyn Backstretch 