BloodHorse.com

Steve Haskin's Look Back at the Decade  Editors of The Blood-Horse challenged senior correspondent Steve Haskin to fill in the blanks on several “best of” lists for the decade of 2000-2009. While several of them appear in the Dec. 26/Jan. 2 combined issue of the magazine (mailing on Dec. 29), there wasn’t space for them all.Over the coming ...

By Alex Waldrop, President and CEO of the NTRA   Two tax incentives that greatly benefited the horse industry are set to expire at the end of the year...but there's still time to take advantage of them if you're thinking of an equipment purchase in 2009. Another tax benefit - just for horse purchases - continues for several ...

One of my favorite sayings in covering the horse racing industry is this: A good fiction writer couldn't make up this stuff. So the week before Christmas, word comes from West Virginia that Janene Watson, already barred from Charles Town Races & Slots, has been stripped of her honorary membership in the Charles Town Horsemen's Benevolent and ...

2007 leading first crop sire Posse (TrueNicks,SRO) will stand his first season in New York with Empire Stud. The son of Silver Deputy was represented by record equaling seven first crop juvenile stakes winners in ’07, including champion Kodiak Kowboy. That runner is a leading contender for additional hardware after three grade I wins in 2009. ...

With over $1 million in 2009 progeny earnings, Lightnin N Thunder (TrueNicks,SRO) is the #1 stallion in Massachusetts. He’s a stakes placed son of Storm Cat out of the grade I winner Why Change. Multiple stakes winner La Chica Sensual ($365,660) and 2009 2yo stakes winner Criolla Bonita are among Lightnin N Thunder’s good runners so far. Drewman ...

Millionaire Cowboy Cal (TrueNicks,SRO) won the Laurel Futurity at 2 and rolled on to five graded wins over the next two seasons. In 2009 alone he won three grade II events in Southern California: the Strub S. and San Pasqual S. on Pro Ride and the Oak Tree Mile on the turf. He also placed in six graded races, three of those grade 1’s, including ...

 As the year winds down, a few closing thoughts on gifts given this year that will continue to bring a smile to my face as long as I live. Feel free to share favorite memories, but please leave your HOY and HOD arguments at home. I want to hear races, from Maiden Claiming to Foreign Allowance races to Graded Stakes. ...

By Kingmambo from the family of Seeking the Gold, that would be enough for Rey de Cafe (TrueNicks,SRO) to be given a chance at stud. The fact that he was a very talented runner makes his prospects all the brighter. He won the Bourbon S. in the fall of his juvenile season at Keeneland and went on to win or place in five more blacktype races ...

The day before the 130th Preakness Stakes (gr. I), jockey Jeremy Rose said of Afleet Alex, ''This horse will run over broken glass if I ask him to.'' Several weeks earlier at Churchill Downs, Liz Scott, mother of Alexandra  ''Alex'' Scott, the 4-year-old girl who started the now-famous ''Alex's Lemonade Stand'' to raise money for cancer ...

We were interested to note the victory of Apapane in the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies (gr. I), the most important contest for two-year-old females in Japan. The race has been won in recent years by such stars as Buena Vista and Vodka, and Apapane was scoring for the third straight time in four starts.Apapane (TrueNicks rated A++) is by Kingmambo ...