(Originally published in the February 9, 2013 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) By Eric Mitchell - @BH_EMitchell on Twitter Thirty points. Under Churchill Downs’ new points system, 30 points is expected to be the minimum...

(Originally published in the May 12, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) By Eric Mitchell - @EJMitchellKy on Twitter In Thoroughbred racing not only do we laud the winner, we also recognize and give credit to those...

(Originally published in the April 21, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) By Eric Mitchell - @EJMitchellKy on Twitter A year ago racing fans were scratching their heads over the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands...

(Originally published in the January 28, 2012 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column.) By Evan Hammonds While we realize it’s still only January and foaling season has just gotten underway, it’s hard not to turn our attention...

(Originally published in the May 14, 2011 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) Hollywood screenwriters could not have scripted a better story for racing partnerships than what unfolded on Oaks and Derby days at Churchill...

(Originally published in the May 1, 2010 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) If you toss a coin 24 times, and it lands on heads each time, what are the odds it will come up heads on the 25th try? Since odds are based on...

Another Triple Crown season has come and gone, and as usual it did not disappoint. Many of the happenings would have been impossible to predict, however, such as: • A 50-1 shot winning the May 2 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I). It looked like Quality Road, The Pamplemousse, and I Want...

(Originally published in the May 16, 2009 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) Speaking to shareholders May 7 via conference call, Churchill Downs Inc. president and chief executive officer Bob Evans said, “The solution for...

Personality-wise, Jimmy Jerkens and Julio Canani have little in common. But this week the two trainers have one important thing in common: Each has a Derby horse in his barn. Thousands of races will be run at racetracks throughout the land over the next two months, but most of our attention will be focused...

At 10 p.m., an exhausted Larry Jones finally fell asleep. Just two and a half hours later, he was back up, making training charts for that day’s sets before loading his trailer to drive from his barn at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland to Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York. Jones was tired...