There were 417 races run on the flat in North America May 3, but only one captured the attention of the public. Normally that attention would be in celebration of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner, but this year the attention came in the form of criticism due to the tragic catastrophic breakdown suffered by second-place finisher Eight Belles.

After winning the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) May 2, Airdrie Stud owner Brereton Jones talked of the relationship his family has developed with trainer Larry Jones and his wife, Cindy.

One night during the 2007 Keeneland November sale, Eoin Harty was enjoying a leisurely dinner when the topic turned to horses, in particular those in his Southern California stable.

There are moments along the Triple Crown trail that remain forever etched in our minds. For this writer, one of those was April 27, 1978.

Few have the resources to do anything they want in the Thoroughbred industry. Sheikh Mohammed would be one of the exceptions.

Alice Chandler has no intention of shooting craps in a fancy, glitzy casino. Wouldn't be the same. Now 82, she harkens back to her youth when she would try to make her point in a tack room with the men on her dad's Beaumont Farm. She loves recalling how at the tender age of 10, she won $600 and Triple Crown-winning jockey Smokey Saunders' car. "I came home bragging about it, and daddy made me give it all back," she said smiling.

The horse industry heavily backed Beshear and heard him repeatedly say he would work hard to get a constitutional amendment on casinos passed. But alas, another legislative session has passed with the state’s signature industry left yet again to agonize over why it cannot garner needed help from its elected officials.

Imagine using something in your profession for 25 years because you believe it to be beneficial, and then having regulators take it away from you. That, said Dr. Don Catlin, is how some Thoroughbred trainers must feel about the industry’s push to ban the usage of most anabolic steroids.