If you enjoyed the Kentucky Derby dream, no sense waking up now. You might as well keep dreaming until you are jolted back to reality, if and when that ever occurs....
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Of all the stakes on NYRA's calendar to change to the H. Allen Jerkens Memorial, none would have made the Hall of Fame trainer happier than the King's Bishop, named after a horse he trained and run at the track in which he scored his most memorable upset the same year he won a grade I stakes with King's Bishop....
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Todd Pletcher and old-school training have never exactly been synonymous. Pletcher is known for being a conservative trainer, preferring long periods of time between races. Pletcher has been known to run impressive maiden winners right back in graded stakes, even in grade 1s, and not using their allowance conditions. Since 2007, Pletcher has not run any of his Kentucky Derby starters back in the Preakness...
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As I have done the past several years, I thought it would be interesting to go back week by week and re-live the observations, race reports, workout reports, and any news regarding the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, who in this case first appeared in the Knocking at the Door section on February 28....
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Looking back, Brooklyn in the 1950s and ‘60s was a concrete and asphalt Wonderland, a constant whirlwind of activity, a time when sports were born of the imagination, not just on the ball fields and basketball courts. The streets were the arena where stickball, punchball, Johnny on the pony, kick the can, ring-a-levio, and stoopball ruled, and where a kid's place in the pecking order depended on how...
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Steve announces his final selections and wagers for the 2017 Kentucky Derby....
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Racing fans who were not around before the 1980s may find it difficult to appreciate just how much the dynamics of the Kentucky Derby have changed since then and how much more difficult the race is to win since they incorporated the graded earnings and now points system. In fact, today's Derby bears little resemblance to the Derby of the past....
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With the recent passing of trainer Lyn Whiting and this year marking the 25th anniversary of Lil E. Tee's victory in the Kentucky Derby, it brought back a flood of memories. Lil E. Tee's stunning score at 16-1 over that year's Cinderella horse Casual Lies was extremely popular in Kentucky because of the always amiable Whiting, a longtime fixture in the Bluegrass, and the legendary Pat Day finally winning his first Derby. But the 1992 Run for the Roses will always be remembered for the phenomenon known as Arazimania....
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Steve Haskin shares memories of covering the Kentucky Derby...
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With Awesome Gem arriving at his new home at Old Friends April 7 I thought it would be an appropriate time to reprint a column I wrote in 2010 on this old warrior and the person whose life he changed....
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John Nerud's influence can be found in both the male and female family of Arrogate, the sensational Travers, Breeders' Cup Classic, and Pegasus World Cup winner who set off a frenzy of emotion and superlatives with his incredible victory in the Dubai World Cup....
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Arrogate is as great as each individual perceives him, and it has nothing to do with competition or longevity. Years from now, Arrogate's Hall of Fame plaque will be there among the others, and nowhere will it mention the quality of his competition....
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Steve Haskin shares his impressions of Arrogate after his awe-inspiring Dubai World Cup victory....
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Classic Empire follows in a long line of misbehavers amongst talented Thoroughbreds ...
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Back in racing’s glory days, which people my age call racing in the 1960s and ‘70s, there was little in the way of televised races. There was no simulcasting, no home computers and cell phones, and once a week during the ‘60s, TV viewers in New York would tune in to the affable and folksy Win Elliot broadcasting the races from Aqueduct, which was the center of the racing universe, where the likes of...
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With the Dubai World Cup preps concluded and the big night only a few weeks away, I thought I would get everyone in the mood by reprinting a feature my daughter Mandy wrote for Dubairacenight.com in 2010 about her experiences....
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Throughout the 1960s and '70s, the name Darby Dan Farm and the Galbreath family were synonymous with the Triple Crown, especially the Kentucky Derby....
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With Stewart Elliott being named the winner of this year's prestigious George Woolf Award and with Smarty Jones' birthday this coming Tuesday, it rekindled memories of those glorious five weeks in racing and Triple Crown history that will endure for as long as the sport's great Cinderella stories are recalled....
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And then there was Grover "Buddy" Delp, who trained what he called "the greatest horse ever to look through a bridle." Delp, although a successful trainer and one of Maryland's best, was a relative unknown on a national scale when he unleashed Spectacular Bid on the racing world....
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Winston Churchill once said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” No one can really put into words the centuries-long bond between horses and humans, especially the emotional and sometimes mystical attachment we have had with these magnificent creatures throughout history. But there are times when Churchill’s quote is taken to a far deeper level, and...
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As long as the New England Patriots keep winning Super Bowls, and doing it in such dramatic fashion, I will keep telling this story, which first appeared in a much shorter version in 2001 and has been expanded since. What better time to re-tell it yet again,16 years after it all began. This time the story shifts to a wild and crazy night in Houston, Texas where the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick...
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Since last year's Travers Stakes, the racing world has been trying to place Arrogate's astounding feats in historical perspective. With the Juddmonte colt having started in only three stakes races, it's been nearly impossible to explain his mind-boggling performances and meteoric rise to stardom, because no one has seen anything like it before....
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In honor of American Pharoah's Birthday, I thought I would reprint my column recapping his historic Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown victory. Brings back a lot of special memories....
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Atlanta Falcons’ starting tight end Jacob Tamme is having a ball as a partner, along with fellow NFL star Wes Welker, in the Hat Creek Racing partnership run by Gatewood Bell....
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Remember all the fun dissecting the chart of the Travers Stakes and finding all those unique statistical gems that when strung together resulted in one of the most remarkable performances we had ever seen, with stats that boggled the mind? Remember how the fun continued analyzing the chart of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, as we attempted to find out just how Arrogate managed to run down the older California...
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