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Looking for a potential Derby contender coming out of this weekend’s races? You might want to look outside the winner’s circle.It is difficult finding fault with the winning performances of Pants on Fire in the Louisiana Derby (gr. II), Animal Kingdom in the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes (gr. III), Twice the Appeal in the Sunland Park Derby (gr. ...

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Canonero II’s incredible Triple Crown odyssey; a story that still stands alone in the annals of the Turf. On this occasion, I am reprinting in its entirety, with some additions, the two-part story I wrote several years ago. Be forewarned, it is over 5,000 words. But the real story of Canonero cannot be told ...

Soldat, a Triple Crown nominee who captured the Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II) Feb. 26 and the With Anticipation Stakes (gr. III) last year, is a $180,000 graduate of the 2009 Keeneland September yearling sale, where thousands of young horses were offered. Steve Shahinian, agent, purchased the dark bay or brown son of War Front ...

As our TrueNicks tour continues, Byron and I traveled north out of the Waikato region to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Here we visited Russell Warwick at Westbury Stud and Shannon Taylor at Haunui. The Westbury stallions have now joined TrueNicks for the first time, and Haunui – a longtime TrueNicks supporter – announced Showcasing, ...

Rachel Alexandra fan day finally arrived! Fans like me had signed up on Facebook in February to visit the Horse of the Year during one of four sessions planned for March 25, 2011. Rachel Alexandra, owned by Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke, now resides on their Stonestreet Farm near Lexington, Ky. The Stonestreet staff was organized, friendly and ...

Considering we’re some way up the road to the Triple Crown, a surprising proportion of this weekend’s graded stakes activity was for older mares. Among that group, none were more impressive than Hilda’s Passion, who led throughout the Inside Information Stakes (gr. II, video below) at Gulfstream Park, to score by 5¼ lengths, while setting a new ...

There are three Kentucky Derby preps on the calendar this weekend, as well as the Dubai World Cup. Plenty of good betting opportunities all around, so let's get right into it. Louisiana Derby What was rumored to be a short field only about a week before entries turned into a full field of 13. Mucho Macho Man is the 9-5 morning-line choice after ...

The latest stallion to join the powerful line-up at Haunui Farm in New Zealand is the record-breaking group II-winning juvenile Showcasing (GB) (TrueNicks). Bred by Juddmonte, Showcasing was one of the fastest 2-year-olds of his crop. An impressive maiden winner on his second outing, Showcasing followed up by capturing the historic Gimcrack ...

The weekend of March 12-13 was a good one for some emerging sires in Australia and New Zealand. Magic Albert comes from a branch of the Nearco sire line that has been a purely Australian one for several generations. He is a son of Champion 3-Year-Old and successful sire Zeditave, who is turn is by The Judge, by Showdown (Champion English ...

Dear Beyond the Blinkers readers, As you know, Triple Crown and Kentucky Oaks season is upon us, and from April 1-May 6, I will be switching the focus of this blog to the Kentucky Oaks. Like last year, I will be covering this race for the magazine, and through Beyond the Blinkers, I will be updating you with fun features, and behind-the-scenes ...