BloodHorse.com

At about 4:30 in the afternoon, the skies opened up, turning the Monmouth Park surface into a sea of slop. As a reporter covering my first race for a trade weekly, and having gotten to know the horses and their grooms up close and personal that afternoon, I was extremely disappointed to say the least. Dejected, I made my way up to the press box, ...

During most of the past 200-plus years, the Kentucky General Assembly convened for only 60 days every two years. To poke fun at the lawmakers, a group of Frankfort, Ky., citizens once printed bumper stickers calling for the group to instead meet two days every 60 years.Now, the Kentucky Legislature meets annually, 60 days in even-numbered years ...

So ends arguably the most tumultuous, controversial year in the annals of Thoroughbred racing. The sport no doubt is on the brink – of what we don’t quite know yet. But when PETA protests, congressional hearings, synthetic surface studies, steroids, and anti-horse slaughter bills, infiltrate our normally cloistered world and dim our kaleidoscope ...

Magazine publishing has been described as a three-legged stool supported by the pillars of editorial, advertising, and audience development. The perch becomes precarious if the three legs aren’t balanced. The core of the Thoroughbred industry can be thought of in a similar way. Here, the three legs are comprised of stallion managers, breeders, and ...

This final blog of 2008 is to wish everyone a joyous holiday season and say thanks for all the comments over the past six months and all the words of encouragement regarding the historical pieces, most of which combined facts, anecdotes, and personal recollections of the horses and the people. It seems most people have enjoyed looking back -- ...

Handicapping is an integral part of the Thoroughbred game, a cerebral exercise that involves time and patience, skill and luck, risk-taking and rewards. But the ultimate handicapping is not done by those who look at exactas and Pick Threes, but by the owners and breeders who realize how high the odds really are.Commodity brokers know how hard it ...

First it was Holy Bull’s rampage in 1994 and then the reign of Cigar. No chronicle of the mid-to-late ‘90s would be complete without recognizing Skip Away’s career, which football pundits would call smash-mouth racing.The story of Skip Away revolves around four basic elements – his remarkable statistics, his toughness, the love of his owner ...

Michael Nikolic, Gathering the Wind I never gave much thought to routine. Every morning I wake up to a face full of dogs and an hours trudge around the neighborhood. It's nice and quiet and the few desperate souls out at that unholy hour are as numb as I am, so the cowlicks and pajamas are ignored by all. Once I get a cup of coffee in me and ...

The first Breeders’ Cup was held at Hollywood Park Nov. 10, 1984. But in January of that year, long before the first event day, nominators began receiving checks from another of the fledgling organization’s programs, the $10-million Premium Awards.Calder Race Course was the first track to run a stakes enriched with supplemental monies from the ...