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No sooner had the Michael Matz-trained Union Rags beat Stat in the Saratoga Special that people started comparing the two-year-old colt to Barbaro.   Matz entered the splendid son of Dixie Union in the grade 2 stakes off one victory in one start, which, in itself, should speak for his respect of the animal’s abilities.  ...

Yearling auctions in upstate New York in early August produced impressive results. Both Fasig-Tipton's Saratoga select sale and New York-bred preferred sale enjoyed gains in their key business figures of gross, average price, and median price. The Saratoga select auction's median of $250,000 equaled the sale record and the New York preferred ...

Blood-Horse Publications and the Thoroughbred industry lost a dear friend this week.If there were a person more open and genuine than Jim Hurst, I haven’t met him or her, and I doubt he or she exists. Jim passed suddenly from this world Aug. 11 and left the staff here at Blood-Horse Publications stunned and saddened. It is hard to wrap one’s mind ...

 After longtime partnership entity Team Valor International won this year’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), it is no surprise that another owners’ syndicate is making a big splash. Blinkers On Racing Stable, based in Northern California and the brainchild of Bay Area resident Scott Sherwood, has a major star on its hands with ...

             Jack Zaraya retired as the Senior Ceremonial Resolution Writer for the New Jersey Legislature and lives in Freehold, N.J.Beginning in the early 1960s, a year-long handicapping contest known as “Broken Downs” was held in the offices of The Morning Telegraph/Daily Racing Form. ...

In the midst of all the major racing this summer at Del Mar and Saratoga, sometimes the hard-knocking veterans of our sport get lost in the shuffle. One of them is remarkable 6-year-old Star Guitar, a Louisiana-bred who won the $125,000 Evangeline Mile Handicap last weekend for the third consecutive year. Trained by Al Stall Jr. and a homebred of ...

Danzig/Secretariat The great Danzig, who would eventually sire 202 stakes winners (18.8% from foals), didn't take long to prove himself when his first runners hit the track in 1984. His daughter Contredance won the Adirondack (gr. II) and Arlington-Washington Lassie (gr. I), and son Stephan's Odyssey took the Hollywood Futurity (gr. I). But the ...

Steve Asmussen, one of the world’s most accomplished Thoroughbred trainers, watched his undefeated filly My Miss Aurelia win the gr. 2 Adirondack Stakes from a spot on the rail among the free tee-shirt people.  It’s not often that fans who take in the races from the grandstand apron see a tall, handsome gentleman dressed in proper-fitting ...

The Arlington Million attracted Gio Ponti and Cape Blanco but another race half its value drew a deeper field.  The grassy, 1-1/2 mile gr. 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga was won by the favorite Winchester, although handicappers made a case on behalf of at least five of the seven runners.  Emma Wilson dropped down from Woodbine to pilot ...