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For Bobby Frankel, he was to be the Messiah; the gifted regally bred racing machine that would be racing’s next superstar. He even had the appropriate name – Empire Maker.In the early 2000s, Frankel owned New York racing, winning some 25 grade I stakes at Belmont, Saratoga, and Aqueduct alone. In 2000, Frankel had a classy colt for Juddmonte Farms ...

When Breeders' Cup and Keeneland officials announced in June 2014 that the Lexington track would host the 2015 edition of the World Championships, most believed that the Dirt Mile (gr. I) race would be offered at two turns and 1 1/16 miles or one-turn on Keeneland's Beard Course, which measures seven furlongs and 184 feet.But thanks to some ...

Efforts by casino operators and lawmakers to back away from the original intent of laws that linked approval for gaming to live pari-mutuel racing—some of the legislation has titles that expressly mention preservation of horse racing and breeding—are nothing new. In some states the pushback began only several years after the laws took ...

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, ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman We’re in the homestretch, folks! With just five weeks remaining until the Breeders’ Cup, the racing action will really heat up this weekend with twelve graded stakes races scheduled to be run, including eight grade Is at Santa Anita and Belmont Park. Among the major names entered to ...

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 ...

Mirroring the debate about medication use itself, the Thoroughbred racing industry is sharply divided over ongoing efforts to create a national medication monitoring and enforcement program through federal legislation. Two bills have been filed with Congress, but the proposed Thoroughbred Horseracing Integrity Act of 2015, which is sponsored by ...

You can't keep a great sire down.After being shut out in 2015 Breeders' Cup Challenge races through Sept. 6, Galileo saw three of his runners win Challenge races Sept. 12-13: Johannes Vermeer in the Willis Champions Juvenile Stakes (Ire-III), a ''Win and You're In'' to the Juvenile Turf (gr. IT); Minding in the Moyglare Stud Stakes (Ire-I), ...

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 ...