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Unfortunately, Sam Riddle’s recollections of Man o’ War’s 2-year-old campaign were not among the aforementioned papers discovered in Mary Simon’s box of old articles and papers. But what follows is a riveting account of Big Red’s three-year-old campaign. Like with all history, we choose to believe what we want, as there are always different ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman With five wins in the Kentucky Derby (and two sweeps of the Triple Crown) since 1997, it's safe to say that no trainer in recent memory has dominated the spring classics quite as thoroughly as Bob Baffert. Nor does it appear that Baffert's string of success will end anytime soon. In ...

The results of the Dec. 8 Starlet Stakes (G1) had been official for little more than three hours when editorial@bloodhorse.com received an email from Lynn Taylor from Laharape, Ill. There was clearly something on her mind following Chasing Yesterday’s thrilling head score over Enaya Alrabb at Los Alamitos Race Course in Southern California. “Look ...

Mary Simon, three-time Eclipse Award winner and one of the sport’s most noted historians, brought out an old box of papers she hadn’t looked at in many years and placed it on the living room floor. She had no idea what was in there, just basically old papers she had saved. Among the contents, secured by a small rusted paper clip, were a number of ...

A couple of weeks ago the manager of a TrueNicks enrolled stallion called to tell us that a hypothetical mating had generated Dosage Figures that were all zeroes – zeroes for each category in the Dosage Profile; a Dosage Index of zero; and a Center of Distribution of zero. A check confirmed that this was not an error, and nor was it the result of ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman The Road to the Kentucky Derby continues on Saturday with the $300,000 Los Alamitos Futurity (gr. I), a very productive 1 1/16-mile event at Los Alamitos that has been won over the last ten years by such high-class colts as Pennsylvania Derby (gr. I) winner McKinzie, Metropolitan ...

The text message from Josh Pons arrived Nov. 14 at 5:15 p.m. Hmm…knowing he wasn’t in town for the Keeneland November sale, we wondered what he was up to. The message read: “E: In a 1932 storage box, unopened since packed in NY in 1933 for shipment to his new farm in Md, is a file penciled on cover as ‘Unfinished.’ Inside, Saratoga sales memo to ...

The racing world is shrinking. We have seen horses from Europe come to the United States on a regular basis for years and win our top turf races, and on occasion top dirt races. This year alone we saw the sensational filly Enable become the first horse to win the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and Breeders' Cup Turf in the same year, and we also ...

The weeping is over. The complaining fruitless. So just accept the direction Thoroughbred Racing is heading. The American Graded Stakes Committee is no doubt comprised of knowledgeable, intelligent people who know what they are doing and follow their formulas and equations with great awareness when juggling graded stakes, especially those rated ...

By J. Keeler Johnson (''Keelerman'') Twitter: @J_Keelerman The Road to the Kentucky Derby continues on Saturday with the $250,000 Remsen Stakes (gr. II) at Aqueduct, a unique race that provides the only opportunity for North America's future Derby contenders to contest a nine-furlong graded stakes race during their two-year-old season. It's ...