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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 ...

My first trip to Saratoga Springs was a whirlwind—four days and nights at the Spa seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, I was returning to Lexington, back to reality. When I told people I was traveling for the first time to this quaint, upstate New York town for the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale (Aug. 6-7), the response was almost ...

Time seems to fly by more quickly the older you get. That’s because a mere day represents a larger percentage of the time you have left than it did when you were young. The 2012 Saratoga meet has advanced to a point that is roughly 70% of its 40 afternoons. There are many things to do in the little time remaining.If you haven’t been to the Mouzon ...

Barry Irwin, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Team Valor International, was the featured guest on the “Talkin’ Horses with The Blood-Horse” live podcast Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012. A Turf writer who later found success as a bloodstock agent and horse owner, Irwin and then-partner Jeff Siegel began syndicating horses in 1987. Since that ...