After writing the Hangin' With Haskin column for 12 years and the Derby Dozen, numerous features and columns, and providing lead coverage of all the major stakes for 22 years, I no longer will be writing for the Blood Horse and Bloodhorse.com due to my contract coming to an end. So this is my final column. As most of you know, I resigned from my regular job at BloodHorse in 2015 and have been working...
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Let's look at this year's Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) realistically. After the top three it is a study in futility trying to rank the rest of the horses. There simply isn't enough to go by, as these horses keep beating each other and the vast majority of performances have been fairly ordinary....
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One thing you have to say for racing today, there is plenty of TV coverage, from TVG and MSG to several of the major networks. And the on-air talent comes not only from the broadcasting industry, but from all walks of the sport....
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The field has been drawn for this year's version of the Belmont Stakes (G1), and whether you feel it belongs in the classification of classic race or just another mile and an eighth prep for the Kentucky Derby (G1), there is a great deal intrigue to the race, highlighted by the presence of the top-ranked 3-year-old in the country Tiz the Law. There are several factors regarding the post position draw...
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Although the Belmont Stakes (G1) is not the Belmont as we know it, far from it, by being run around one turn at a mile and an eighth with a testing pace likely down that long straightaway, this version of the Belmont may actually be more attractive to breeders than the traditional Belmont Stakes, as it should resemble the Met Mile (G1) more than it resembles your typical two-turn classic race going longer....
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Looking back at my Triple Crown memories, one of the special ones was in 1997 when
I flew to Louisville from New York about a week before the Belmont Stakes (G1) after making arrangements to fly back to New York with Silver Charm on his quest to become the first Triple Crown winner in 19 years....
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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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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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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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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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There are times when you just can't help root for a horse, a trainer, or an owner. When you look at trainer Carlos Martin about to embark on the Breeders' Cup trail with the brilliant filly Come Dancing, there are a number of thoughts that run through your head, at least if you have any sense of history and are impressed with hard work and an astute knowledge of horses, racing, and breeding....
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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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That is not the purpose of this column. As I mentioned, this column is personal, but it reflects the love owners and trainers and everyone connected with the horses have for these noble creatures. The horses are their life, and unless you can witness firsthand the affection and camaraderie between the horses and the people who sacrifice so much to care for them seven days a week, 365 days a year, you had best reserve your disdain for the sport until you are more knowledgeable on the subject....
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It was April 2, 1974. It should have been April 1, for what better April Fool’s joke than telling someone that a filly who had just finished second in a four-furlong maiden race at Fonner Park, a five-furlong bullring track in Grand Island, Nebraska would one day be crowned a champion and elected into the Hall of Fame....
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With Saratoga about to open, you can bet there will be new stories added to the lore of this hallowed racetrack that is so steeped in history, dating back to the Civil War....
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The whole concept of Off the Track Thoroughbreds has created new stories and new love affairs between people and horses....
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It was only a matter of time that we had a Belmont winner infused with the blood of the Gainesway Farm stallion Afleet Alex. It was 14 years ago that Alex's Cinderella story touched the heart of the nation, culminating with a rousing seven-length romp in the "Test of the Champion."...
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Try to imagine how tough it is to win a Triple Crown race. Then try to imagine winning two of the three legs. Then try to imagine winning two of the three legs with two different horses. In the past half century you can count on one hand the number of times that has been accomplished....
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Despite the controversies and horse racing continually working to reinvent itself with modern technology, the sport’s future will remain bright as long as the Thoroughbred can captivate us like no other animal and inspire deep passion in people starting at a young age. It is the centuries-old love of the horse that will guarantee its preservation....
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Every January, well before the roses are in bloom, jockeys and their agents begin the arduous and often times stressful task of finding the Kentucky Derby winner. It is a pressure-packed four months, first finding a horse early on, then hoping he’s good enough to continue on the Derby trail, then hoping he stays sound, then hoping the trainer sticks with them and doesn’t start shopping around for a bigger name jockey....
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Because there are so many question marks surrounding the quality of the UAE Derby, including how a round trip there and back can affect a horse trying to come back in five weeks in the Kentucky Derby, let us look at Plus Que Parfait and Gray Magician as unknowns, and therefore potential megabomb exotics horses despite their mediocre form in the U.S. before heading to the desert....
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It was a scene everyone had hoped for and expected. It was a farewell like no other. Tears flowed freely, voices quavered, the words of trainer Chris Waller were difficult to get out. Watching jockey Hugh Bowman being interviewed after the race, I couldn't help having the warped thought of him putting his bloody handkerchief on eBay -.- one final souvenir of the immortal Winx, who provided Bowman with his split lip. Seems like she was the only one at Randwick Race Course who didn't want to be kissed....
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To us folks in the East, Winx, for the past several years has been our Midnight Special. We either set our alarms to watch her or delay our bedtime to watch her. Yes, come midnight on those few nights, an ever-lovin light shines on American horse racing fans that emanates on the other side of the world in Australia. And each time that light grows brighter and brighter. That is the light that radiates from this amazing Thoroughbred, who has now kept us up for a good portion of her 32-race winning streak....
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The racing and breeding world was shocked to learn of the death at age 53 of J.B. McKathan, who along with his brother Kevin, helped propel the comet known as Bob Baffert back in 1996, while establishing the McKathan Brothers Farm in Ocala as one of the best classrooms for young 2-year-olds to get their start....
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