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By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman There's no shortage of high-class racing action scheduled across the world this weekend. There's the Investec Derby (Eng-I) in England, the Yasuda Kinen (Jpn-I) in Japan, plus 35 assorted stakes races throughout North America... we won't run out of entertaining races to watch and ...

It has been widely believed since his premature retirement that Justify's competition in the Triple Crown was subpar, or let's just say downright weak. Whenever people ask me during or just after the Triple Crown what I think of the crop of 3-year-olds, or whenever they state emphatically it is a poor crop, which many have a tendency to do, I ...

The Memorial Day weekend could have been a downer. Before the holiday weekend even began came the news of the loss of respected horseman J.J. Crupi, who died May 23 in Maryland at the age of 79. We remember him first from his training days, winning races ''down the Shore'' at Monmouth Park in the late 1980s. He later found his true calling as a ...

Try to imagine how tough it is to win a Triple Crown race. Then try to imagine winning two of the three legs. Then try to imagine winning two of the three legs with two different horses. In the past half century you can count on one hand the number of times that has been accomplished. This year we have a rarity – two trainers with an ...

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 ...