BloodHorse.com

1. Tiz the Law: Although the competition in the Belmont Stakes (G1) was suspect and several of the leading contenders just didn't show up, he again put on a stunning visual performance, and many trainers have to be figuring out a way how to beat this machine of a horse. So far this colt has exhibited no flaws and always seems to be in the ...

There certainly hasn’t been much usual about 2020, and the June 20 Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) was just another example of it. If there were any sense of normalcy, it is that the winner of the Longines Acorn Stakes (G1)—Gamine—and the Belmont winner—Tiz the Law—lived up to their odds-on prices and delivered visually stunning ...

Over the next month I will be waxing nostalgic on occasion, whether racing-oriented or personal. This one is both. Portions of this column I am rehashing from old columns, but most of it new and it is an opportunity to link all the pieces together. Let’s just say it is being done for cathartic reasons at an appropriate time. I likely will be ...

We didn’t pay that much attention—or have much in the way of retention—while enduring an English literature class at the University of Kentucky, but we remember a quote from poet James Russell Lowell given to us by famed broadcaster Jim McKay in an introduction to the national television coverage of the 1991 Belmont Stakes (G1): And what is so ...

If you think watching racing from Belmont Park and Churchill Downs and other tracks in front of empty grandstands is kind of eerie try watching the races from Royal Ascot where the event normally is highlighted by a sea of top hats and ornate women's hats, with champagne pouring and a proper buzz in the air. And of course the revered presence ...

On April 3, 1972, the front page headline in the Morning Telegraph read, ''Head of the River Wins Everglades Stakes.'' It looked as if the colt's owner Rokeby Stable and trainer Elliott Burch had another top 3-year-old on the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail to follow their champon Arts and Letters. What made this headline so significant was that it ...

June 6 is a historic day in the history of the United States, with Operation Overlord, better known as D-Day commencing that day on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. While it pales in comparison, June 6, 2020, was an important day in Thoroughbred racing. Starting in mid-March, the COVID-19 closings nearly KO’d the sport, and on the first Saturday ...

The Thoroughbred racing landscape is coming back to life with the depth of a 1960s movie in Cinemascope. The New York Racing Association jump-started its racing calendar June 3, and racing re-broke from the gate at Laurel Park May 30. Monmouth Park in New Jersey has been cleared for a July 3 start. The graded stakes action at Churchill Downs since ...

The order of races in the Triple Crown series has changed for 2020. The race dates have been shifted from spring to the summer and fall. The distance of the Belmont Stakes (G1) has changed. Yet, based on the expressed interest of horsemen with talented 3-year-olds in the first leg of this year’s series—the 1 1/8-mile Belmont Stakes June 20 at ...

The big dilemma this year is whether we have some form of a Triple Crown. Will the winner of all three classics go down as the 14th Triple Crown winner, along with Secretariat, Citation, American Pharoah, Justify and the others or will there be a Triple Crown winner with an asterisk or will there not be a Triple Crown winner at all, even if ...