BloodHorse.com

If the recent Eclipse Awards signaled the end to what was the best year of Thoroughbred racing this century, that curtain was pulled down even tighter with the deaths in the past fortnight of a string of equine heroes that remind us the time between the heroics provided by these great athletes and the sadness their passings bring slips by all too ...

The Thoroughbred Charities of America did not just start on the ground floor of aftercare awareness 26 years ago; the charity helped build the ground floor. Created to serve as a United Way-type fundraising vehicle for horse rescue and humanitarian programs, the charitable arm of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association assisted in ...

The timing was right in 1916 when the Kentucky Thoroughbred Horse Association formed and began publishing a newsletter that set the roots of what would evolve into Blood-Horse. The United States was a couple of years away from seeing an end to the economic turmoil churned by the First World War, and the recovery would bring several decades of ...

The tribulations suffered by Ontario's Thoroughbred community offer several lessons for racing throughout the United States...if only political and industry leaders will pay attention. To say everything is rosy in Ontario would be an exaggeration, but it is fair to say the province is coming out of a political firestorm that cut the Thoroughbred ...

''At a crossroads'' can no longer be used to describe the health of racing in Illinois. The industry there is teetering on the brink of collapse and whatever action is taken (or not) next year is likely to determine if it falls off the economic cliff. The state of Illinois' Thoroughbred industry mirrors the Doomsday Clock, the graphic clock ...

Finding new owners continues to be one of the many challenges facing Thoroughbred racing. Syndications and partnerships have created more affordable options for many who have later formed racing stables of their own, and yet access to the sport still seems daunting. Hastings Racecourse near Vancouver, British Columbia, is a shining example of how ...

The commercial markets are generally trending upward, but the selectivity of the market will continue to cause heartburn for a lot of breeders. If a horse isn’t “ticking all the boxes,” then buyers are apparently more inclined to walk away than take a chance.One symptom of a selective market is a rising buy-back rate, which we are seeing at the ...

Eyebrows rose in August 2014 after Breeders' Cup announced the 2015 World Championships would be held at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington. Many wondered how a racetrack with an attendance record of nearly 40,700 was going to host an international event that had drawn more than 65,000 at other venues in the past. The worst was expected regarding ...

Trackside mornings in the week before the Breeders’ Cup World Championships are frantic times. The coordination of getting horses ready for their works, getting back and forth between the grandstand and the barn area to watch the works, and keeping close tabs on how the horses are settling in is all-consuming regardless of where the races are ...

The excitement as well as the anticipation of owning a racehorse builds in waves. The first jolt of adrenaline comes when the trainer says, “I think we’ve got a good one,” and anticipation starts its crescendo toward the first race when everyone will discover whether the ability that seems evident is genuine talent. Winning kicks the excitement ...