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Regular visitors and fans of Wise Dan, Claire Novak and I went by Keeneland and the Rice Road barn of Amy and Charlie LoPresti.  We reminisced about the accomplishments of the 8-year-old champ and briefly discussed the issue that brought on Wise Dan’s retirement.For more go to ...

One of the nice things about my drive to the office is passing Keeneland each day. In the past few weeks it’s been fun to watch the tents go up that will house the various added seating for the Breeders’ Cup World Championships Oct. 30-31. Some of this added seating also will be available for the upcoming fall meeting, which begins ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman It’s hard to believe, but on September 12th, the Road to the 2016 Kentucky Derby (gr. I) will begin with the running of the $150,000 Iroquois Stakes (gr. III) at Churchill Downs. The Iroquois is the first official prep race for the Derby, offering a total of 17 qualification points to ...

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 ...

Thoroughbred racing in Texas has been going from bad to worse as the racing states across its borders—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico—have steadily grown purses and the value of their state-bred stock through casino gaming. Since 2007 the number of mares bred in Texas has fallen 65% to 814, and the number of active stallions has ...

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 ...

A tidbit to start today's blog: The three sires currently or formerly based in the U.S. to already have two different horses win Breeders' Cup Challenge races this year all boast victories in the King's Bishop Stakes (gr. I) as Tale of the Cat won the seven-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds at Saratoga in 1997 (when it was grade II), Hard Spun won ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman On the final Saturday of the 2015 Saratoga meet, a strong field of eight will contest the $600,000 Woodward Stakes (gr. I), a major prep race on the road to the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I). The nine-furlong race has been won in recent years by such stars as Curlin, Rachel Alexandra, ...

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 ...