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Blessed with beautiful weather and an indigenous, knowledgeable fan base, Keeneland Race Course broke in stride during its Fall Stars weekend Oct. 7-9. More than 19,000 turned out on a blue-sky Friday afternoon for some fun and frolic, and despite a local power outage that delayed the racing action a half-hour more than 28,000 were on hand ...

Arrogate will go into the Breeders’ Cup off a 10-week layoff. Frosted and Shaman Ghost will go into the Breeders’ Cup off a nine-week layoff. Melatonin will go into the Breeders’ Cup off a four-month layoff. Heck , if American Pharoah can win the Breeders’ Cup Classic off a  two-month layoff, why not take the cautious route? It is that ...

As we head into the Breeders’ Cup, everyone’s attention will be on California Chrome and Arrogate in the Classic and stars such as Songbird, Stellar Wind, Beholder, Tepin, and Flintshire, and which race Frosted will point for. While these horses dominate the headlines, we tend to forget or simply overlook those hard-knocking, consistent horses, ...

In Hollywood’s film industry, studios seek to develop a franchise—such as “Star Wars” or “Indiana Jones”—that’s so successful they become tent poles that ensure the well-being of the company and, by extension, the industry for years to come. Thoroughbred racing is fortunate to count within its ranks human pillars that have done similar yeoman’s ...

Whether it’s been the result of a misguided battle plan or the horse simply being too headstrong early, the Nyquist we saw in the Preakness and Haskell Invitational was not the same horse we saw in his first eight starts, all victories and all professional efforts. Nyquist never made you feel as if he was the fastest horse in the country or ...

What do the following horses have in common? Secretariat, Forego, Kelso, Dr. Fager, Damascus, Buckpasser, Affirmed, Alydar, Seattle Slew, Spectacular Bid, Alysheba, Cigar, Easy Goer, John Henry, Arts and Letters, Riva Ridge, Skip Away, Holy Bull and fillies Personal Ensign, Genuine Risk, Lady’s Secret, and Winning Colors just to name a ...

Let’s cut right to the chase. Steve Byk, the voice of Thoroughbred racing, is human in flesh and blood, but it would be difficult to convince anyone that he isn’t an android, more simply a robot with human appearance; a mental cyborg. The only other explanation for Byk’s other worldly ability to assimilate information on any subject, ...

There was a time when seven furlongs in 1:23 to 1:24 was considered pretty decent for allowance and stakes horses, and anything under 1:23 was what the fastest stakes sprinters would run. Today, 1:24 normally would be considered pedestrian, as we consistently see seven-furlong times of 1:20 and change and 1:21 and change in graded stakes. We ...

In James Michener’s epic novel and later TV miniseries “Centennial,” an Arapahoe boy learns that his father had been killed in battle and is told, “Only the rocks live forever.” Well, in Thoroughbred racing, there is one rock that sadly will not live forever. On Aug. 31 Rockingham Park, one of the most charming racetracks in America since ...

Among the Hall of Fame inductees in attendance and acknowledged at Friday’s ceremonies at the Fasig-Tipton Company sales pavilion was trainer Nick Zito. The once ubiquitous Zito has not been as prominent in recent years, but he still has hopes of finding the types of young horses he used to pick out at the sales year after year on a regular ...