My interview with the late Bobby Frankel today on his former assistant Chad Brown? It would go something like this: SH: So Bobby, what do you make of your boy Chad Brown? Could you have envisioned the amazing success he's had? BF: Why do you think I had him saddle Ginger Punch in the Breeders' Cup Distaff when the love of my life, Happy, was dying and I couldn't leave her? You think I would have trusted...
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It was March 23, 16 days before the Wood Memorial and Blue Grass Stakes, and Chad Brown was discussing his Blue Grass Stakes starter and main Kentucky Derby hopeful Practical Joke. Brown was providing the typical upbeat obligatory comments you usually hear from a trainer of a Derby horse, providing reasons why he thinks the colt will run well in the Blue Grass and will be able to move forward off it and get the mile and a quarter on the first Saturday in May....
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For Bobby Frankel, he was to be the Messiah; the gifted regally bred racing machine that would be racing's next superstar. He even had the appropriate name – Empire Maker....
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At first there were three, then one scratched and one failed to meet its reserve. That left one Frankel yearling in the Keeneland September sale. All three had been consigned to Book 1. The gray colt, Hip #571, walked into the ring with the swagger of his sire, and also his namesake. ...
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Can anyone explain this European sensation?...
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Behind-the-scenes look at 2004 BC Classic...
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As the field passed the three-eighths pole in the 135th Belmont Stakes, the massive, rain-drenched crowd, snake bitten by years of dashed hopes, braced for the inevitable. They had been here four of the past six years, and eight of the past 25 years, hoping to be part of history. Each time, their cheers fell silent....
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As we approach the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I thought, rather than rehash how one of the most cataclysmic events in American history affected the racing world, I would reprint a story I wrote of my visit to Belmont Park four days later on Sept. 15 in order to recapture the atmosphere and the emotions that prevailed at the time, as well my own observations and feelings....
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