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Another Triple Crown is in the books and unfortunately, it yielded us no Triple Crown winner. That much is not a total surprise. What is a bit surprising is that with nearly half of the season gone we are no closer to finding out who is the best 3-year-old in the country. You can make a strong argument that Animal Kingdom was the best horse ...

Originally published in the June 18, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. By Evan Hammonds   A soggy Belmont Stakes (gr. I) day and a New Jersey-based longshot winner of the “Test of the Champion” couldn’t dampen the optimism that pervades New ...

 (Originally published in the June 18, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)   When Tizway came charging down the stretch in the Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I), his decisive 21⁄4-length victory was a confirmation for veteran breeder Mandy ...

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Incredibly, 2011 was the first time in history that all three Triple Crown races were won by horses with double-digit odds, but longshot or not, siring a classic winner is an achievement not to be taken lightly, especially for a young sire. The chart below shows longshot (10-1 or longer) classic winners since 2000 and the resulting effect on ...

The Triple Crown is a long, arduous grind, with horses shipping to new tracks well in advance, training hard, and racing hard at distances never before attempted.But perhaps no horse in memory has ever made such light work of winning a classic as George and Lori Hall’s Ruler On Ice, whose Belmont Stakes (gr. I) odyssey lasted all of 17 hours. Many ...

Another Triple Crown series is in the books.  Who among us could have predicted during Derby week that the sport’s leading three-year-old stars heading into the second half of the year would be Animal Kingdom, Shackleford and yesterday’s Belmont winner, Ruler on Ice?Belmont Park is to be commended for being such fine hosts to the 55,000+ who ...

Greetings from Al, the turkey vulture that decided to hang out on the window sill at my Blood-Horse office this morning! Needless to say, I was quite surprised to see this large bird come swooping over to visit me as I was writing stakes recaps this morning and had to share this funny photo. I apologize for being MIA the last couple ...

John Donnelly, an employee of Darley America and keen pedigree student, has penned the following guest post for TrueNicks. He takes a slightly different look at the influence of Northern Dancer on the Epsom Derby. With the 50th anniversary of Northern Dancer's birth, May 27, 1961, just recently passing, and the Epsom Derby being run and won, we ...

Because of the nature of the Belmont Stakes (gr. I) and its unknown factors, mainly the distance, any win selection must be made pretty much on pure speculation...or guess.Judging from what we’ve seen over the past week, there is no reason not to like Animal Kingdom. There are fewer unknowns surrounding him than any of the others, he’s already ...