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Be sure to read the first official Derby Dozen in Blood-Horse magazine next week! 1 Greenpointcrusader Dominick Schettino Bernardini—Ava Knowsthecode, by Cryptoclearance The Holy Bull should tell us if his stay at No. 1 will be short-lived or not. This is going to be an early reality crusher for several of them, having to face undefeated ...

If the recent Eclipse Awards signaled the end to what was the best year of Thoroughbred racing this century, that curtain was pulled down even tighter with the deaths in the past fortnight of a string of equine heroes that remind us the time between the heroics provided by these great athletes and the sadness their passings bring slips by all too ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman As many have probably noticed, this week is a slow one in terms of major racing action—there’s only one graded stakes race on the agenda, and no official Kentucky Derby prep races are scheduled to be run.As a result, I thought it might be fun to take a different approach with this week’s ...

Sometimes, a brief comment can trigger a deluge of thoughts and images, and such was the case when Bob Baffert said of American Pharoah at the Longines World's Best Racehorse Award Jan. 19 in London, “He showed the beauty of racing.” It was an innocent comment, but it struck a chord. And that is why you will read the word beauty repeatedly ...

Glen Hill Farm founder Leonard Lavin has a personality tailor-made for Thoroughbred racing. While tough and demanding of his racing operation’s employees on one hand, he has been equally accepting during the tough times and bad breaks he’s endured through 50 years as an owner and breeder. “He has the highest expectations for and is hardest on the ...

Be sure to read the first official Derby Dozen in Blood-Horse magazine next week! 1 Greenpointcrusader Dominick Schettino Bernardini—Ava Knowsthecode, by Cryptoclearance I know everyone  is shocked to see this and that I’m going against conventional wisdom and perhaps all logic, but I’ve been wavering back and forth among the top 3 and ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (“Keelerman”) Twitter: @J_KeelermanThe Road to the Kentucky Derby will continue in a big way this weekend when Fair Grounds and Oaklawn Park get their Derby prep races underway with the $200,000 LeComte Stakes (gr. III) and the $150,000 Smarty Jones Stakes. Since entries for the latter race have not yet been drawn, we’ll focus ...

The Thoroughbred Charities of America did not just start on the ground floor of aftercare awareness 26 years ago; the charity helped build the ground floor. Created to serve as a United Way-type fundraising vehicle for horse rescue and humanitarian programs, the charitable arm of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association assisted in ...

 If California Chrome were on Facebook, here are some comments you might be reading, and I don’t mean all those human run Facebook pages. I mean comments from the real thing. Well, so to speak.*******OK, I bowed out for almost an entire year to give the stage I once shined upon to American Pharoah in order to let history run its course. I had ...