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In just over two weeks, War of Will will try to join racing's most exclusive club: horses to start but fall short in the Kentucky Derby (G1) only to bounce back and win the final two classics. OK, there's much more interest and prestige in sweeping all three classics, but a whopping 13 horses have done that. Only 11 horses have lost the Derby, ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman Although this week's Unlocking Winners blog post is publishing before entries for the Memorial Day races are released, there's no shortage of quality Saturday stakes races worth handicapping. They might not the most prestigious events of the weekend, but I personally am intrigued by ...

Americans held off the British Navy at Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812. So taken by the skirmish was Francis Scott Key that he took pen to paper and came up with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Straddling the Mason-Dixon line, downtown Baltimore was the site of the first fatalities of the Civil War during the “Baltimore Riots” ...

To follow up on my last column about 9-year-old Eva Lytle and her love for War of Will, there are several ways of instilling the love of horses in children at an early age. Of course, the most obvious is to get them a horse. Bringing them to the racetrack and attending some of the morning programs is another, but that is a longer process. And ...

The summer of 2017 saw the publication of a scientific paper titled ''Y Chromosome Uncovers the Recent Oriental Origin of Modern Stallions'' with the outcomes found in this paper covered by Eric Mitchell in the Blood Horse that year. The paper at the time, while generally a broad discussion about the origins of the equine breed, did raise some ...

Despite the controversies and horse racing continually working to reinvent itself with modern technology, the sport’s future will remain bright as long as the Thoroughbred can captivate us like no other animal and inspire deep passion in people starting at a young age. It is the centuries-old love of the horse that will guarantee its ...

In some ways, the debate over the Kentucky stewards' decision to disqualify Maximum Security from victory in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) now falls into the laps of horseplayers across the country. That's because a key question in handicapping the Preakness Stakes (G1) is: ''How much was War of Will, and possibly other ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman From a sporting perspective, Saturday's $1.5 million Preakness Stakes (gr. I) at Pimlico isn't particularly exciting. The first four horses to cross the finish line in the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) are all skipping the Preakness, so for the first time since 1996, there won't be a Triple ...

This year’s Preakness obviously is not going to be an historical gem, at least on paper, considering it not only lacks the Kentucky Derby winner, for the time ever it lacks two Kentucky Derby winners – the one who had it initially and the one who snatched it away from him. And to go one better, of the first four horses who crossed the finish ...

While the heads in the editorial offices of BloodHorse are collectively continuing to spin from the results of the May 4 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1), there are all sorts of other “spin” out there. From Louisville to Baltimore, it seems everyone wants us to show another angle. In the days following the Derby drama of the ...