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 (By Avalyn Hunter) For Hollywood Park, the long goodbye already has begun. While the venerable plant will keep the doors open for its fall meeting, that's it. Seventy-five years of racing history will come to a close when the lights shut down Dec. 22. The handwriting has been on the wall for some time, of course. When Bay ...

History, it is said, repeats itself, and it will do just that in the 138th Preakness Stakes. It was 25 years ago that Claiborne Farm’s Forty Niner defeated Ogden Phipps’ Seeking the Gold by a nose in a gut-wrenching stretch duel in the Haskell Invitational Handicap, run in near-100-degree temperature. Finishing fourth in the five-horse field was ...

Up until the five-sixteenths pole of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), Gary Stevens was envisioning a fairy tale victory aboard the D. Wayne Lukas-trained Oxbow only five months after returning to the saddle following a seven-year retirement. But that image lasted only about three or four seconds. Oxbow had expended too ...

Yesterday Coolmore purchased multiple group I-winning filly Sea Siren, a daughter of Coolmore's champion sire Fastnet Rock (AUS) (TrueNicks,SRO). Below is a conformation video of the 4-year-old. Sea Siren will make her final start for her previous connections May 11 in the BTC Cup (Aus-I) at Doomben, a six-furlong race that she won last year. ...

(Originally published in the May 11, 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 Trainer Shug McGaughey is pacing the shedrow of Barn 43. Fifteen dragging minutes to go before contenders for the 139th Kentucky ...

When the field goes to the post for the 138th Preakness Stakes (gr. I), don’t be surprised if two of the participants, who could go off as the two top choices, begin gaping at each other, as two childhood playmates might do meeting years later.With horses at Pimlico sharing the same grazing area, the two could very well cross paths prior to race ...

The wins of Orb in the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) and Princess of Sylmar in the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) further solidified the pensioned Lane's End stallion A.P. Indy as the premier sire line source of classic speed in the North American Thoroughbred. Indeed, with Normandy Invasion (by Tapit (TrueNicks,SRO)), Dreaming of Julia, and Revolutionary (out of ...

The day finally had arrived. Everything had gone perfectly for Orb and trainer Shug McGaughey. So perfectly in fact that one couldn’t help but feel there were forces guiding the colt every step of the way, from the early days this winter at Payson Park to his breakout performances in the Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II) and Florida Derby (gr. I). ...

(By Avalyn Hunter) Calder Race Course is hundreds of miles from the glamour and glitz of Churchill Downs in May. There are no fancy hats, no celebrities, no swarms of journalists and photographers. Nor are the horses at work glamorous new stars looking for classic glory; they range from untried juveniles to tough old veterans trying to find out ...