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Beau Mistral won the first race at Saratoga for Dave Collins of Lenox, MA.  The two-year-old Irish-bred filly took the opener at Nottingham Racecourse in a simulcasted British maiden race that the fan of international horse racing wouldn’t bet.  “I would never be here if it wasn’t for this,” Collins said about Saratoga Racecourse in ...

No sooner had the Michael Matz-trained Union Rags beat Stat in the Saratoga Special that people started comparing the two-year-old colt to Barbaro.   Matz entered the splendid son of Dixie Union in the grade 2 stakes off one victory in one start, which, in itself, should speak for his respect of the animal’s abilities.  ...

Blood-Horse Publications and the Thoroughbred industry lost a dear friend this week.If there were a person more open and genuine than Jim Hurst, I haven’t met him or her, and I doubt he or she exists. Jim passed suddenly from this world Aug. 11 and left the staff here at Blood-Horse Publications stunned and saddened. It is hard to wrap one’s mind ...

 After longtime partnership entity Team Valor International won this year’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), it is no surprise that another owners’ syndicate is making a big splash. Blinkers On Racing Stable, based in Northern California and the brainchild of Bay Area resident Scott Sherwood, has a major star on its hands with ...

             Jack Zaraya retired as the Senior Ceremonial Resolution Writer for the New Jersey Legislature and lives in Freehold, N.J.Beginning in the early 1960s, a year-long handicapping contest known as “Broken Downs” was held in the offices of The Morning Telegraph/Daily Racing Form. ...

Steve Asmussen, one of the world’s most accomplished Thoroughbred trainers, watched his undefeated filly My Miss Aurelia win the gr. 2 Adirondack Stakes from a spot on the rail among the free tee-shirt people.  It’s not often that fans who take in the races from the grandstand apron see a tall, handsome gentleman dressed in proper-fitting ...

Wednesday in Saratoga offered up a mixed plate of emotions.  It was the first Foxwoods Mardi Gras Day, a promotion that was pitched as an afternoon on which the racecourse would be turned into New Orleans.  Alas, it seemed like a drummed-up excuse to promote something so that one day didn’t pass without anything. Caption: Renee Spilman ...

NYRA announced that handle was up 7.7 percent and attendance down 5.4 percent for the first 16 days of racing.  An asterisk accompanied the attendance figure, noting that so far this summer there’s been one fewer giveaway – a promotion that swells the crowd considerably.  Caption: Nighttime at the Fasig-Tipton auction grounds came alive ...

Sheikh Mohammed moseyed over to the Fasig-Tipton auction grounds for the first time on Saturday.  He was surrounded by entourage, but acted mono-majestically. Someone had to tell him what rain was.  Being from the desert, horse racing’s man of the most means witnesses a downpour only now and then and rarely a deluge like Saratoga ...