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by Vic Zast Saturday’s card was the best of the new season.  A notable crowd of 25,375 fans witnessed top competition from start to finish.  Three stakes – all graded, an opener that saw the venerable Caixa Eletronica win for the twenty-second time in 65 starts, four long distance turf races and a couple of two-year-old maiden special ...

Friday’s $100,000 Curlin Stakes was created to serve as a little softer spot than Saturday’s Jim Dandy Stakes (gr.II) for three-year-old horses prepping for the Travers (gr.I).  Transparent’s interference on the turn, and subsequent disqualification, had nothing to do with Darley stablemate Romansh’s inability to beat him to the ...

This is an unconventional way to demonstrate how special a horse Unbridled’s Song was, but it still is my main remembrance of the colt, and how brilliantly fast and courageous he was. Because of soundness problems we never got a chance to see just how great a horse he could have been, but we at least got some inclination by the number of ...

You could name many expensive sales horses, brilliant racehorses, or top commercial sires, but it's not often that one horse manages to do everything. Unbridled's Song (TrueNicks,SRO) was that horse, but even better, he did it all with a measure of drama. He was a trendsetter in the sales ring. A $200,000 yearling from the first crop of ...

The good: Social media outlets made the industry aware of a situation that begged for further examination. The bad: Before the facts were gathered, people rushed to judgment with a lynch-mob mentality. Such is the case of Monzante, the grade I stakes winner that broke down at Evangeline Downs during a $4,000 claiming race July 20, and after ...

Sunday Update: Sunday Saratoga, Race 10, 5:45 pm ETThe G2 Amsterdam, Three-Year-Olds, 6 Furlongs, Dirt Betting Strategy:  Bet Salutos Amigos to win and key him in an exacta with Declan's Warrior, Forty Tales, and Mentor CaneThe old racing axiom ''Pace makes the race'' is evident when one studies the results of the Woody Stephens Stakes, ...

Veteran handicapper Tom Amello understands that it’s easier to attract people to the racetrack by promising them fun than by requiring them to attend some sort of handicapping school in order to feel like they belong. He’s devised a clever simplistic betting system that enables newcomers to make smart selections by reading the odds board. ...

We are introducing new content to the ''Unlocking Winners'' blog from handicappers with TimeformUS, a new digital past performance service that launched July 17. TimeformUS will be offering insight to select weekend stakes and provide updates on the blog as track conditions and/or horses entered change, so check in regularly throughout the weekend ...

Complimentary TrueNicks Enhanced Reports are available below for the July 28 Haskell Invitational (gr. I) at Monmouth Park. Click on a horse's name or rating to view the full report. TrueNicks ratings (A, B, C, etc.) describe the stakes winner strike rate of a particular sire/broodmare sire cross compared to the records of those sire lines when ...

The sloppy main track on which Fort Larned worked on Tuesday in preparation for the Whitney Stakes (gr.I) came up fast for Wednesday’s opener. Much Stronger closed from off the pace like a horse would on a good track but it was impossible to tell if the conditions favored that running style.  The David Jacobson-trained colt that had won ...