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."...
Read More
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....
Read More
It is appropriate that the New York Racing Association moved the Kelso Handicap from its fall Super Saturday card, where it was pretty much lost, to its own weekend. Now the focus is not only on those versatile horses prepping for either the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile or the Classic, but on one of the all-time great Thoroughbreds for whom the race is named....
Read More
When was the last time you used weight among your criteria for greatness?...
Read More
Dr. Fager emerged from his street brawl in the United Nations Handicap in good shape, despite having to withstand the fight of his life against the tenacious Advocator, the 134 pounds on his back, and the 22-pound weight concession to his adversary. But, unlike his previous races, the Doc was not ready to come back in only 17 days to face his arch rival Damascus in the Woodward Stakes. John Nerud had...
Read More
If you go back through the 20th century, the typical equine hero was a 3-year-old or 4-year-old male who excelled at our classic distance of 1 1/4 miles....
Read More
Why is Shared Belief beginning to remind me of a pint-sized Forego, a Black Stallion version of Kelso, and a warrior that rivals John Henry?...
Read More