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Pace handicapping is actually a two-step process. The question is not ''How fast will they go,'' but (in the case of front runners), ''How fast can this horse go and still win?'' ''A lot of pace in the race'' doesn't set the race up for a closer if three front runners are gassed after a :22 first quarter and :45 half but a fourth horse is able ...

NYRA held two off-campus gatherings this week – the first which was billed as a public forum and the second a board meeting.  It was the first opportunity for new CEO Chris Kay to present what he’s done in his first 60 days. Despite his non-racing background, Kay seems to indicate that he’s cut from the same cloth as his predecessors, ...

Classic trials apart, in the U.S. the championship-defining contests for straight 3-year-olds are usually the three Triple Crown events plus the Haskell Invitational (gr. I) and the Travers Stakes (gr. I). Prior to the weekend, the first four events had taken place and had been won by four different horses: Orb (Kentucky Derby, gr. I), Oxbow ...

You can go back in history and find a number of trainers who have had spectacular years. D. Wayne Lukas, Todd Pletcher, and Bobby Frankel are just a few of the modern trainers who smashed the record books, saddling dozens of major stakes winners and dominating their sport like few, if any, before them. But when it comes to the greatest year ...

Ideal summer weather greeted fans at the racecourse again.  Despite pop-up showers in the Berkshires and Mohawk Valley, Mother Nature seemed to prefer sun and mid-80s temperatures for Saratoga and, no doubt, so do horsemen. It’s tough to remember a sloppy track or a race that’s been pulled off the turf course.  Owners and ...

This weekend sees the running of the Forego Stakes (gr. I) at Saratoga Race Course, a race named in honor of the great racehorse Forego, a three-time Horse of the Year. We thought about writing a pedigree post about his family, but in sifting through the library here at The Blood-Horse offices, we came across something a little more ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Princess of Sylmar wins the Kentucky Oaks (photo: Anne M. Eberhardt) The best 3-year-old ...

The public may not know how well new NYRA CEO Chris Kay will do in leading the franchise toward an exciting new future, but by now it has a good read on how often he’ll preside at a ceremony.  Kay seems to enjoy the job of showering praise and leveling platitudes.  He has but one speech and it goes something like this – “On behalf of the ...

The 4-year-old filly Dance to Bristol has come a long way. And so has Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. A $42,000 purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale, Dance to Bristol made her career debut at Charles Town in September 2011, and finished second, beaten a nose, in a maiden special weight event. Two years ...

(Originally published in the August 31, 2013 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.) By Eric Mitchell - @BH_EMitchell on Twitter The auction landscape is being reshaped by economic conditions and buyers’ habits. One casualty of this metamorphosis is the ...