What else does one do on a rainy Saturday than work on some long, long, LONG overdue website updates? Here, a collection of this fall’s stakes races I covered for Brisnet/TwinSpires–a fun fall of racetrack travel. Grade 1 Frizette at Belmont Park: Jaywalk Owners: Cash is King and Leonard C. Green Trainer: John Servis Breeder:…
There’s nothing in Leroidesanimaux’ pedigree that would lead to his being rather presumptuously named “King of the animals,” but Goncala Torrealba apparently knew what he was doing. Bred by Haras Bage Do Sul, “Leroi” (“the king”) is out of the Ahonoora (GB) mare Dissemble (GB) and sired by Candy Stripes, who was standing at Taylor…
I remember the first time I saw Shakespeare. It was the day of the Jockey Club Gold Cup in 2005, and I’d headed out to Belmont with a couple of fellow English teacher friends, and he, along with English Channel, was running in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational. We bet to win, we bet…
When John Velazquez’s agent Angel Cordero told him that he was going to Churchill Downs in late November 2011 to ride Wise Dan in the Grade I Clark Handicap, the jockey didn’t hold his back his skepticism. “I said to him, ‘What? We’re going to ride one horse? A horse that I don’t know wants…
When Dawn Lupul was about six years old, her father, a chemical engineer who worked for the Canadian government, decided that he’d like to get into horse racing. Not a man, apparently, to do things half-heartedly, he ended up with a herd of about 30 standardbreds on a farm just outside of Edmonton, Alberta. Not…
With three Eclipse Awards for Outstanding Owner and one for Outstanding Breeder; nine meet-leading titles in 2013 (including breaking records for wins at Gulfstream Park, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Kentucky Downs, and Saratoga); the #1 sire by earnings in 2013 and the current leading turf sire in Kitten’s Joy, it might not be much of a…
“There are no second acts,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “in American lives.” If the relationship between Sam-Son Farm and Malcolm Pierce is any indication, though, Fitzgerald’s oft-quoted words do not, it seems, apply to Canadians. In 1988, when Sam-Son won the first of the farm’s five Queen’s Plates, Pierce worked at the farm as an…
In some ways, my weekend trip to Woodbine was ill-timed: the opening of Saratoga in two days leaves too little time to discuss Woodbine in the detail it deserves; I couldn’t stay for Sunday’s Nijinsky, featuring local favorite Rahy’s Attorney; and it poured nearly constantly on Saturday afternoon, confining us to the indoors for most…
One of the topics highlighted in the recent edition of The Blood-Horse is the lack of information about equine breakdowns during training hours. Tuesday’s Daily Racing Form noted three breakdowns during morning training that day on Hollywood Park’s Cushion track; the item was buried in a longer piece, headlined by a story on Nashoba’s Key.…
Brooklyn Backstretch 