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BloodHorse’s annual “Summer Sales Guide,” like most everything else in this crazy, mixed-up world in 2020, was kicked down the road to the “Yearling Sales Guide.” Our team has worked hard to present some valuable statistics, intel, and insight as the industry readies to transition to conducting some serious commerce. How will the market perform ...

For Thoroughbred racing these are anything but the dog days of summer. The three grade 1 races at Saratoga Aug. 8 delivered monster performances; each effort seemingly trumping the next. The following day at Ellis Park in Western Kentucky, which hosted the Runhappy Ellis Park Derby and four other stakes, the racing was as high-quality as the ...

Even before the pandemic we knew it took a certain sense of humor to understand the business of the Thoroughbred industry. Attempting to read the tea leaves in 2020 outside in the “real” business world isn’t easy. As corporations have released their second-quarter earnings reports over the last few weeks, there have been some alarming figures. ...

Maximum Security’s nose score in the July 25 San Diego Handicap (G2) at Del Mar was a “comeback” win of sorts. The star-crossed 4-year-old’s victory in Southern California was his first for new trainer Bob Baffert,  replacing Jason Servis, who has been charged with administering performance-enhancing drugs in a sweeping doping scandal that ...

It’s a lead to a column that can only make sense in 2020: Never have racetrack executives worked so hard to have 3,546 show up on a meet’s biggest day. Well, that was the case “down the Shore” July 17 at Monmouth Park where CEO and chairman Dennis Drazin and his team worked around the clock to put on a Haskell Stakes day program with fans. In the ...

With horses sired by the first three finishers of the 2007 Kentucky Derby (G1)—Street Sense, Hard Spun, and Curlin—all still on the Derby trail and with another Derby hopeful having won the Street Sense Stakes, this is a good time to go back and reprint my recap of the 2007 Derby, which has never been reprinted.  The 133rd Kentucky Derby ...

While there is plenty of Thoroughbred racing taking place across the country, the opportunities to watch it live are in short supply. Ellis Park, in western Kentucky, started its summer stand July 2 with limited spectators—one has to purchase a seat in advance and provide a phone number for potential contact tracing in the COVID-19 era. Management ...

This reprint from six years ago is to commemorate the 45th anniversary of one of racing's darkest days, the death of the legendary Ruffian. But it is not just about the Ruffian—Foolish Pleasure match race. It is about Ruffian's life and career, partly through personal experience, highlighted by her gut-wrenching battle with ...

The word 'remarkable' is defined as: ''notably or conspicuously unusual; extraordinary.'' The first horse that comes to mind that fits that description is Forego. As you will read, his races, his combination of speed and weight-carrying ability over a prolonged period of time, and his statistics are truly remarkable. On July 4, the one-time ...

For small partnership groups a score at any level is exciting. To land a grade 3 event—one worth $500,000 amid the current pandemic landscape—is a thrill beyond compare. That is just what happened to Brad Rives and company June 26 at JACK Thistledown Racino when Dean Martini, a $50,000 claim May 17, jumped up and won the Ohio Derby (G3). Rives is ...