If there was one thing I learned about covering the Kentucky Derby it was to stay objective and don't let personal relationships obscure your vision. It was all about the story and backstories and telling them with a clear thought process. But I have to admit there was one year when I let my personal feelings trickle to the surface. Although I had numerous stories and backstories on most of the Derby...
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This column is for me and couple of guys from Brooklyn. If anyone wishes to relive it with us you can continue to the reprint of my 2017 Derby recap below....
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It was just me, American Pharoah, and Jimmy Barnes with not another soul around in as intimate a moment as I could ever recall with a Derby favorite....
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1. What horse won a six-furlong stakes in 1:08 1/5 then three weeks later won a mile and a quarter stakes in 1:58 3/5? Turkoman in the Tallahassee Handicap and Widener Handicap 2. In Dr. Fager's world record mile, name the horse in the field who once held the world record for the mile and name the horse in the field who set the fastest fractions in the history of the Kentucky Derby? Hedevar and Kentucky...
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These are not your typical trivia questions, as they are meant to be informative and fun even more than testing your knowledge of racing, They are just put in question form. Some are fairly easy, but there are others that are more offbeat. So have fun with them. I will provide the answers to the questions no one gets in the comments section on Thursday. Remember, there is no fun Googling it. If you don't know the answer, guess or just wait until Thursday. It will be more fun that way....
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The Women's Lib movement hit the Sport of Kings in '71 when the best 2-year-old male in the country, Riva Ridge, took on the best 2-year-old female, Numbered Account, in the rich Garden State Stakes at Garden State Park in Cherry Hill, N.J....
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So, here I was on April 17, 2009. All the preps had been run and the Derby field was pretty much set. I was pretty certain I had all my bases covered. Then the phone in my home office rang....
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Now here we were in 1959, only 12 days after the reopening of Aqueduct, and the new track was already showcasing the event everyone was calling "The Race of the Decade."...
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I have just written a script. It's not your everyday script. It is futuristic...well, not too far in the future. Some of the names are made up and some are real. Yes, the script is fiction, but that's not to say it can't happen. You never know....
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Thoroughbred racing is facing a crisis unlike anything it has faced before, and it is something those in high positions cannot see or fathom. The country is in a desperate, bordering on panicky, state right now and it has every right to be, because we are dealing with a faceless enemy whose life span is unknown, as is its power of destruction. ...
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What can be more surreal to racing fans than the Kentucky Derby (G1) postponed until Labor Day weekend, racetracks throughout America being shut down, and major stakes like the Curlin Florida Derby (G1) run in front of empty grandstands? That is just a minuscule example of how the Coronavirus has affected the entire world, or should I say ravaged the entire world. ...
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Their names echoed throughout Saratoga Springs in the summer of 1978. From the whispers through the elms to the shouting down Broadway and Union Avenue, the Spa pulsated with the names of Affirmed and Alydar....
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The newspaper headlines referred to His Majesty and Good Counsel as "Darby Dan's Dynamic Duo." They had come a long way since their boyhood days playing in the paddock....
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There are a lot of decisions to be made in the next few weeks or months regarding the rescheduling of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) and the ramifications it will have on the other two Triple Crown races and several major race meets, especially Saratoga. ...
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War Emblem will always be remembered as one of the fastest, most brilliant, and fascinating horses in many years, with an aggressive personality that spilled out onto the racetrack....
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Sometimes, we just don't appreciate the gifts we are given. It took a $20 million race halfway across the world in a place Americans know little about to finally make many people appreciate the gift that is Maximum Security, who is to the new Saudi Cup what Cigar was to the Dubai World Cup. He has made the race....
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Let’s start off by saying that from a historical standpoint, the Louisiana Derby (G2) and the Fair Grounds road to the Kentucky Derby (G1) have not been a successful one. Only one Louisiana Derby winner has gone on to capture the roses in the past 96 years, and that horse, Grindstone, came back to run in the Arkansas Derby (G2)....
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I have never taken a puff of a cigar, but the smell is intoxicating, bringing me back to my childhood and Ebbetts Fields and my Uncle Sam's cigars, and then later Yankee Stadium and then the old Madison Square Garden on 50th Street. Those were the special places of my youth where the smell of cigar smoke blended so perfectly with the smell of beer and mustard. Soon those three aromas would come together in the grandstand of Aqueduct Racetrack, which was only eight years old when I first inhabited it in 1967....
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Very often it is not the Kentucky Derby itself that provides the greatest memories as much as the road leading to the Derby....
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In some years we are fortunate to have a horse that possesses all the attributes to win both the Vox Populi and Horse of the Year. There is an excellent chance this will be one of those years....
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So Omaha Beach likely will have one more start in the marked-down Pegasus World Cup before retiring to stud. He will take with him an excellent pedigree, courage in the heat of battle, and exceptional brilliance, but we will always wonder to what heights those attributes could have taken him....
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Who should be the champion older horse? There is the distance horse in Vino Rosso and the sprinter/miler Mitole. So, will Vino Rosso take home the Eclipse for champion older male and Mitole the sprint championship or will Mitole nail down both awards and Vino Rosso get nothing?...
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Secretariat, Dr. Fager, Affirmed, Hoist the Flag, Cougar II, and now Maximum Security. This is quite an elite group, and to be included would link you with four Hall of Famers and five champions. But, alas, in this context it is a list trainers and owners would prefer not to be on. You see, all these horses were disqualified from first in major stakes; some warranted, some questionable, and some extremely...
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Here I am again back on my soapbox, much to the dismay of those who are tired of me preaching the same sermon ad nauseam. But the truth is I don't care about those who have tired of the message. I will keep shouting it from my pulpit even knowing it will fall on deaf ears. But once on a rare occasion, such as in 2016, some trainer will go old school and follow the path to the Kentucky Derby that once...
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Between oddsmaker Mike Battaglia and the general public it is quite obvious that no one has a clue what to make of Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Storm the Court. The colt will remain an enigma until he launches his assault on the Kentucky Derby, most likely in next year's Robert B. Lewis Stakes. He also is going to cause a great deal of head scratching when the voting begins for champion 2-year-old...
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