BloodHorse.com

Make no mistake about it—the movement to decouple pari-mutuel licenses from electronic gaming is a bad deal for racing. Efforts to weaken or even break this connection are now being debated by Florida and West Virginia legislatures (see page 14 of the Feb. 20 Blood-Horse). While both these situations are very fluid, the concern is that any ...

1 Mohaymen Kiaran McLaughlin Tapit—Justwhistledixie, by Dixie Union This horse hasn’t taken a backwards step in his entire career and showed the Holy Bull was a mere stroll in the park by working a half in a bullet :47 3/5, fastest of 31 works. McLaughlin wasn’t looking for anything that quick, but when good horses are doing good they do ...

Sam Houston Race Park officials could offer opinions on the track's many low-takeout wagers, but they figure that pricing every horizontal wager (Daily Double, Pick 3, Pick 4, Pick 5) at 12% for a fourth straight year says volumes. That is to say, if low pricing wasn't working; Sam Houston wouldn't be bringing the 12% rate back each season. ...

They are both 30-1 on the morning line. They are both sons of Bernardini. They both have never been two turns. And they both could be the most fun to wager on in the Kentucky Derby Future Wager…and possibly the smartest in the long run. Their names are Zulu and Shagaf, and although neither has ever run in a stakes or beaten anyone of note, ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman Although it offers no qualification points for the Kentucky Derby, the $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes (gr. III) at Tampa Bay Downs has nevertheless drawn a quality field of seven three-year-olds hoping to use the race as a springboard to bigger and better things down the road. In ...

I enjoyed catching up with owner-breeder Dennis Drazin last week for a Winner's Circle feature in the Feb. 13 Blood-Horse magazine.Drazin, who also advises the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association on operations at Monmouth Park, has a classic contender this year in New Jersey-bred Sunny Ridge, who won the Withers Stakes (gr. III) ...

It’s time for another Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which in February still has a pretty low percentage, which is why Mohaymen is the only horse in single digit-odds, while the mutual field is an unappealing 4-5. It shows that there is still a huge chance that the Derby winner is not among the 23 horses listed with individual odds. We know ...

Today's post ranks right up there with those free HBO weeks, if you're like me and save money to the satellite company now in favor of binge watching shows a year or so later. Just as HBO offers free weekends to see what you're missing, today I'll link to a magazine story I wrote on takeout in the Feb. 6 issue of Blood-Horse Magazine. Give ...

How many ways can the racing industry find to undermine its own efforts? Sadly, too many. The most recent surfaced last week when the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association announced it wanted to pay for new research that would set thresholds and withdrawal times for 28 therapeutic medications allowed under the National Uniform ...