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Courtesy of Becky Johnston  South Central opens double for America The Group 2 Norfolk Stakes was the first race on the card of day three at Royal Ascot.  The son of Forest Camp out of the Forty Niner mare, Brittan Lee, won his first start at Carlisle by a double-digit margin.  Today, he squeaked out a win over the Irish-bred ...

The day started with a score for the the U.S. when South Central (Forest Camp - Brittan Lee, by Forty Niner) -- a 13-length winner on his debut -- blazed the trail and then held on gamely for a narrow win. South Central was bred in Kentucky by the partnership of Tony Holmes and Dr. Walter Zent, also breeders of juvenile champion Stevie Wonderboy ...

It's no secret that Seattle Slew and Mr. Prospector have been combining well in pedigrees for a considerable amount of time (and probably no coincidence that both go tail-female to the Myrtlewood branch of the family of the great tap-root mare Frizette, who is incidentally doubled in Seattle Slew's granddam). One of the most successful versions ...

While Day One at Royal Ascot was dominated by Mr. Prospector-line horses, Day Two was a Danzig day, that line capturing four of the five stakes events on offer. First off the mark was Aqlaam (Oasis Dream - Bourbonella, by Rainbow Quest), who was making only the third start of his career when capturing the seven-furlong Jersey Stakes (Eng-III). ...

As a grandson of Mr. Prospector, Distorted Humor (TrueNicks, SRO) has been given plenty of opportunity with Northern Dancer-line mares, even though he himself is out of a mare by Northern Dancer son Danzig. Some versions have proved better than others, but overall, the broad Distorted Humor/Northern Dancer cross gets a TrueNicks rating of C+ and ...

The first day of the Royal Ascot meeting produced some remarkably international results. The opening race - the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-I) for 4-year-olds and up over a mile - saw Australian-foaled Haradasun narrowly get the better of last year's classic fillies Darjina (by Zamindar) and Finsceal Beo (by Mr. Greeley). Haradasun, the Australia's ...

  Newsflash: Curlin is a monster. His Stephen Foster romp while carrying a small anchor on his back confirmed as much. As far as most are concerned, he is the best horse in the world - hands down. This much is undisputed. But here are a few questions that I pose to you: Where does he rank on the list of best horses since 1979? And if he is ...

Caption: Stephen Foster - Photo: A. Duckworth  Everyone said my experience on Stephen Foster day at Churchill Downs would be totally different than my experiences on Derby day. Man, there is no comparison. Besides not working, I could see and experience a lot of things not accessible during the Derby. It was a much different experience, and ...

Why do racing fans coalesce around one horse and not another? Favorability can be as simple as a catchy name (Smarty Jones) or backing an underdog (Funny Cide). Unfavorability, since horses themselves don’t usually rub us the wrong way, is tied to the animal’s human connections.Nobody should question Big Brown's talent. Yet, other than vying for ...

 Seattle Slew was a heck of a racehorse. He started only three times at 2 and had just six races prior to winning the 1977 Kentucky Derby (gr. I). He went on to win the Preakness (gr. I) and Belmont (gr. I) Stakes and remains, 31 years later, the only unbeaten horse to win the Triple Crown.Big Brown tried…and failed.We can look back and ...