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Can a maiden winner win the Louisiana Derby (gr. II)? If you answer yes then you would naturally turn your attention to Cigar Street. After all, as the ESPN show “Numbers Never Lie” would suggest, Cigar Street’s 13 ¾-length procession, earning a 99 Beyer speed figure, is more than sufficient ammunition to land the $600,000 winner’s prize.But what ...

Rosie Napravnik, who for the second straight year is running away with the jockey’s title at Fair Grounds, is one race away from hearing the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home” raining down on her again as she parades to the post in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I).Napravnik ranks her Kentucky Derby experience last year, ...

As of today, or better still, as of this hour, Alpha is running in the Wood Memorial (gr. I)…again. If Alpha was a person planning a vacation, he’d have a room full of brochures from different places and probably would be driving his travel agent batty. No one can claim the Alpha Adventures have been boring, and he hasn’t even gone anywhere.It is ...

Back in 2004, Tim Poole, assistant trainer to Nick Zito, was about to saddle a horse at Delaware Park. Zito at the time was running a number of horses at Delaware, having had success there, especially sending out young horses. On this particular day, Poole arrived just before the race. He stopped by the receiving barn and then drove to the ...

The Derby trail is a perilous one, with all who travel on it exposed to its many obstacles and heartaches. It is where the strong are rewarded and the weak are gobbled up and spit out.The trail is laid out to provide all travelers with numerous stopping off points along the way – each one being an opportunity to rev up the engines and continue ...

(Originally published in the February 25, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)  By Tom LaMarra - @JerseyTom on Twitter What has horse racing learned from 20 years of racetrack-based casino gambling? A review of the landscape indicates the answer ...

 (Originally published in the February 25, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine. Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.)  Ask Thoroughbred breeder/owner Harvey Clarke how long he’s been involved in the industry, and he’ll answer with one word: “forever.” “My theory is that it’s a ...

Last year at this time, Team Valor International was as close to winning the Kentucky Derby as the Indianapolis Colts were to winning the 2012 Super Bowl. Their three top 3-year-olds were all grass and/or synthetic horses, two of whom hadn't even started at 3. The other, Crimson China, had won an allowance/optional claimer on grass in his U.S. ...