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The trusting souls, who didn’t let the threat of inclement weather keep them away from the racetrack, were treated to a grand day of Thoroughbred sport.  This does not mean that the competition was spectacular.  It was first class; not incomparable.  What was proved in the end was that there is no need for NYRA to pool its best ...

Question: My question is whether there a much greater risk factor when considering between two stallions that differ in the fact that one has many proven mares and was a very good performer himself, while the other is a young stallion that is well-bred but has never raced because of an injury, and doesn't yet have a large number of offspring? The ...

There’s been an uptick in sales of ear plugs at the CVS drug store.  The yearlings have returned to the Fasig-Tipton grounds on Madison and East, and sleep-deprived residents of nearby Fifth Avenue are being awakened by their whinnying at 4 a.m.On the other hand, Phyllis Crocker has heard the early call of Thoroughbreds for nearly 44 Augusts, ...

Thursdays are the days the steeplechase horses compete.  On this Thursday, only three races on the card were worth watching, and the first race – 2 1/16 miles over nine fences, with many quondam flat runners – was a fun one. The Price of Love, a 5-year-old gelding trained by Jonathon Sheppard, executed a clever inside stretch move at the ...

  On Wednesday it was announced that one of the nation's favorite horses, Lava Man, would be retired due to ankle problems, which were discovered shortly after he finished sixth in the July 20 Eddie Read Handicap at Del Mar. The 7-year-old Slew City Slew gelding was 17-8-5 from 46 starts and earned $5,268,706 in his remarkable career. ...

Courtesy of Becky Johnston Monmouth Park’s crown jewel, the one million dollar Haskell Invitational Stakes will hold it’s renewal Sunday.  Big Brown hopes to regain his Derby winning form, but this field will be hard-pressed to put on a show like the one we saw in 1987.Each year when the Haskell is run, it is impossible for me not to reach ...

It was quite a weekend for the Danzig. First of all, Danzig himself was represented by 200th stakes winner when Olympic captured the Mataji Stakes at Calder. And a review of stakes activity around the world shows that an awful lot of Danzig-line horses were keen to get in on the act, with no less than 15 other Danzig-line horses winning black type ...

Some time ago on this blog we noted that second-year sire Macho Uno (TrueNicks, SRO) was one to watch. The champion 2-year-old of his crop and half-brother to Awesome Again was represented by Arlington-Washington Futurity (gr. III) and Breeders' Futuirty (gr. I) victor Wicked Style, and two-time stakes winning filly Swifty Victress, with his first ...

The Reading Room was every bit the Pump Room when Liz Tippett used to drive to the Union Avenue clubhouse for lunch in “The Outlaw,” her lavish, black and yellow, horse-drawn road coach.  It isn’t that any longer.Yet, Cot Campbell has enough of old-school savoir faire to make even a catered afternoon one of the classiest Saratoga ...