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The cause behind the adoption of synthetic surfaces was a noble one—reduce the number of catastrophic breakdowns to a negligible level.For the most part, the all-weather surfaces that were installed properly did just that. As is noted in the feature on page 22, the number of main-track breakdowns at Keeneland fell to 0.97 per 1,000 from 2009 ...

The press box. The name evokes images of veteran reporters, sleeves rolled up, sitting behind their Underwood typewriters in a cloud of cigar or cigarette smoke, pounding out stories, scoops, columns, and features for the many newspapers across the country – whether from New York, Boston and Chicago or Kansas City, Cleveland, and St. Louis. Names ...

The annual Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit continues to be a shining example of what cooperation, thorough data collection, and thoughtful analysis can accomplish in a sport as complex as Thoroughbred racing.Particularly valuable is a continuing refinement of the risk factors that lead to catastrophic breakdowns. The more the industry ...

If you ask someone to pick out one memorable victory by Ruffian they would have a hard time singling one out. That is because Ruffian’s career was not made up of one or two standout performances. Each one was equally as brilliant and that is why her career, as brief as it was, is remembered as an accumulation of spectacular processions. To those ...

I cannot in good conscience write about Dahlia without also writing about her arch rival Allez France, who, physically and mentally, was everything Dahlia was not. As much as I loved Dahlia, I loved Allez France a little more during their racing days. The reason why will become evident in the paragraphs that follow. As mentioned in the previous ...

Someone asked me today to send them a link to the column I wrote five years ago about Yeats’ record-breaking fourth Ascot Gold Cup victory. That got me thinking about this year’s Gold Cup, which awakened those same feelings I felt back in 2009. Watching the favored Leading Light, from the same Ballydoyle Stable as Yeats, outfight and outlast The ...

Is Thoroughbred racing ready for an honest-to-goodness Filly Triple Crown, unlike the provincial series created by the New York Racing Association or the unofficial version that stimulated little interest at all back in the 1940s and ’50s?There is no reason why a Filly Triple Crown does not currently exist and why no one has attempted to organize ...

Once again, racing fans, longing for that happy ending to their fairy tale, followed Alice down the rabbit hole in search of Wonderland, only to find nothing more than the harsh reality that is Thoroughbred racing. This year, we hoped to emerge from the rabbit hole seeing everyone’s hero, California Chrome, wearing that elusive Triple Crown, ...

So, it’s California Chrome against the world in the Belmont Stakes. Well, not quite the entire world; just the entities that will challenge him on June 7. As much as his human opponents would love to see a Triple Crown, they still must go out and try their darndest to spoil the party. If you are hardened enough to try to beat him, you ...