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It was the fall of 1980. My wife and I were in Paris on our honeymoon, which we scheduled to coincide with the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. One of the horses I was excited to see was the Head family’s magnificent homebred filly Three Troikas, who had captured the previous year’s Arc in impressive fashion, racing in the name of Alec Head’s wife, ...

So, is Tonalist better with or without blinkers?Normally, it’s pretty obvious whether blinkers help a horse and if a horse needs them or not. But not in Tonalist’s case. You see, he is two different horses with and without blinkers, but the results are pretty much the same. He wins and loses with them and wins and loses without them. But there is ...

The gray or roan Frankel colt, Hip 571, walked into the ring with the swagger of his sire, and also his sire's namesake. What an easy sell. You could almost hear the barker calling out: “Come see the first offspring of the most brilliant and explosive horse seen in Europe in many years…Bid on him and bring home a piece of history…Catch a bolt of ...

How do you choose the crowning legacy of a person’s career, especially when that person is John Nerud, who had so many careers and has left so many legacies it’s difficult to single one out?As a breeder, you can certainly include Dr. Fager, Ta Wee, Unbridled, and Fappiano and Cozzene (both also owned by Nerud) among Nerud’s greatest legacies. It ...

Somewhere there is a Kentucky Derby with Dale Romans’ name on it. Having grown up a just few miles from Churchill Downs and having spent a good portion of his youth there working for his father, Romans has been dreaming of the roses almost his entire life. But the harsh realities of backstretch life on the claiming scale made it nothing more than ...

There is one final moment on the American Pharoah post Triple Crown tour that needs to be mentioned; this time to demonstrate how today’s sights, sounds, and actions can reflect the changing times.We have all heard the reference to silence being deafening, and that was the case for one person prior to the William Hill Haskell Invitational Stakes ...

The defeat hit like a ton of bricks. It was a crushing blow to the thousands who journeyed to Saratoga and those watching on TV. But the bottom line is that American Pharoah should not be blamed for this loss. He ran his heart out, having to withstand pressure for a long way from a very talented colt in Frosted. That is all you can ask of any ...

The 3-year-old showdown of the year will take place in the grade I Travers Stakes. This time American Pharoah has made another cross-country trip to take on Texas Red and Frosted, and several others, on their home turf at Saratoga.We have already seen the explosive power of Texas Red, who not only is reaching his peak, he has the ...