BloodHorse.com

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman Who's ready for a fantastic weekend of competitive racing? The lineup of stakes races scheduled for this Saturday is impressive, making it difficult to choose a single race to handicap. Therefore, we'll turn our attention to a trio of races this weekend that I believe offer the ...

If you’re having a tough time deciphering this year’s wide-open and puzzling Belmont Stakes, especially having to sort through 15 or 16 horses and trying to figure out who can get the mile and a half and is in peak form, then just go a different direction and don’t fill your brain with all kinds of speed figures and statistics, which in most ...

While the Triple Crown races are approaching beginning with the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) in Louisville, Ky., the National Thoroughbred Racing Association continues a busy stretch in Washington putting the industry's message forward on immigration and tax issues. The political mood on immigration issues may be too steep a ...

Horsemen talk about the ups and downs of racing; those hills and valleys can occur in the same season, same day, or even the same race. The latter occurred in the 1945 Futurity Stakes at Belmont Park when trainer Tom Smith—of Seabiscuit fame—sent out Maine Chance Farm's eventual champion 2-year-old male Star Pilot and eventual champion 2-year-old ...

Should the connections of Tapwrit decide to enter the Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby (G2) winner in this year's Belmont Stakes (G1), it would provide his sire, Tapit, a shot at history. Tapit, of course, has piled up accolades while leading the North American sire list each of the past three seasons. A Belmont Stakes victory by Tapwrit, or any ...

A sport as unpredictable as Thoroughbred racing does not fall into a rut often, but every once in awhile the results become a little predictable. Sifting through the outcomes from the stakes action last weekend in May provided several cases of déjà vu. While he’d rather win on the First Saturday in May—wouldn’t we all—trainer Chad Brown was a ...

By: Erin Shea, @BH_EShea Just as most of us horse-crazy people have done, Jeff Tow-Arnett found himself enamored with an off-track Thoroughbred named ''Noah'' after seeing an online listing.  ''I read Noah's biography and I said, 'That's the horse I want. I don't need to read (about any others), that's the one that I want,''' ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman This Saturday, Santa Anita will host a fantastic nine-race card that includes four graded stakes races and a couple of very competitive maiden special weights. The day's feature is the $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita (gr. I), a ten-furlong race that has drawn a strong field of nine ...

As reported several times before, this is my 50th anniversary in racing, which means the 50th anniversary of that unforgettable year of Damascus, Dr. Fager, Buckpasser, In Reality, and so many other talented horses. Throughout the year, I will be writing retrospective columns on some the most memorable races and events. As a celebration of this ...