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I received a beautifully written column recently from a Facebook acquaintance and horse enthusiast Erika Parry, which is being printed below as a guest blog. Erika’s stirring words inspired me not only to publish her story about her relationship with her father, but to briefly acknowledge something I should have acknowledged a long time ago. As a ...

It seems as though Ken and Resia Ayres and the mare Pyramyst are meant to be together. The Kentucky homebred by Pyramid Peak out of the General Assembly mare Almost Mystical failed to bring her $3,200 reserve price at the 2003 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale, broke loose, and ran around the sale grounds. It was hardly an auspicious ...

Are we are making progress in addressing the issue of race day medication in the United States? That’s a question I hear a lot these days.  My answer to that question is a qualified “yes.”  You see, in June of 2011, the NTRA -- together with the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium (RMTC) and the American Association of Equine ...

What a difference a day made. Saratoga Racecourse went from being wall-to-wall with fans on Saturday to being a barren oasis on Sunday.  The exodus has begun.  Starting Monday you’ll be able to see the horse transport semis on the backstretch.  By Friday - the start of the Final Stretch weekend, it’ll seem like fall and you’ll ...

The first words from trainer Kiaran McLaughlin at the post-Travers press conference were, “What are they going to do with the canoe?” A Mohican on patrol at the Wishing Well in search of the tribe’s missing Chief Louis was told by a New York State racing official that there are going to be two. One will be painted in Godolphin Racing blue; ...

Joe Moran of Boston, Mass. visited Saratoga for 45 summers before passing away a couple years ago. His tradition has been taken up by his son, another Joe Moran, who’s achieved a third of his old man’s record of coming here─15 straight summers and counting now.  Moran and his friends rent a house in the Five Corners section every Travers ...

Thursday afternoon produced a perfectly blissful day. But the bliss had little to do with the horse racing. A trio of early races, fraught with unconventional circumstances, were practically unbettable.  The opener was a steeplechase.  It scared away gamblers who require an unsportsmanlike amount of certainty.  A 1-5 favorite ...

Last weekend was an exciting one for bloodstock consultant Gary Hadden (haddenbloodstock.com). Gary recommended the mating that produced Reckless Abandon, a son of Exchange Rate (TrueNicks,SRO) who won Sunday's Darley Prix Morny (Fr-I) and solidified himself as the top European 2-year-old. The colt previously took the Norfolk Stakes (Eng-II) at ...

The retirement of Hansen earlier this week further gutted this crop of three-year-old males and left us with a largely paceless field of 11 in the Travers Stakes (G1). The mid-summer Derby will be a far cry from the Kentucky Derby, where we had Bodemeister ripping along in 45-2 and 1:09-4, with a field of pursuers that included I'll Have ...

Suddenly, with the onset of Travers Week, the tone of the racecourse has shifted to horse racing.  Saturday alone will feature four graded stakes.  The horses that will race are among the best of their generations.  NBC Sports is setting up on the grounds to allow the world to see them run.  Just about all the final morning ...