My love for the sport of Thoroughbred racing was born on a gray, August dawn at Saratoga. The great Texas sportswriter Blackie Sherrod had written that Saratoga was “the granddaddy of American racetracks,” so I had to go. I had heard that one could watch the workouts in the mornings, and there was a...
I’m terrible with good-byes. I cry at Hallmark commercials and dopey movies. So I knew the day that I said farewell to Rewrite, the mare my sister Kathy and I owned, would require plenty of Kleenex. Rewrite, whom we sold as a broodmare prospect at Keene–land Nov. 4, was more than just a horse to us:...
Michael Tabor strolled down the apron at Santa Anita Park, shielding the bright California sunlight with a baseball cap and a dark pair of shades. Peering out at the Pro-Ride surface the morning before the two-day Breeders’ Cup World Championships would begin, the Coolmore principal answered a simple...
The passing of Cozzene Oct. 8 made me reflect on what my life would have been without our “introduction” when I was young. His presence has been a constant thread throughout my life, beginning when I was about 3 years old. When most kids were watching “Sesame Street,” my dad would keep me occupied by...
Arlington fans said goodbye to Earlie Fires on a recent Sunday afternoon, the final day of the 2008 meeting, 42 years after he first rode at Chicago’s showplace racetrack. Arlington’s all-time leading rider (2,886 wins) and North American racing’s ninth all-time leading rider (6,470 wins) kept to his...
With racehorse rescues becoming news today, it is not uncommon to hear a story of a horse that was “rescued” and how he became a successful jumper, hunter, dressage champion, child’s show horse, etc. Some racehorses have devastating injuries that prevent them from becoming useful show or riding horses...
Except for the Triple Crown races, and before the inception of the Breeders’ Cup, Belmont Park’s Jockey Club Gold Cup—run intermittently at Aqueduct—was the preeminent event in Thoroughbred racing and a true test of stamina and class. Contested under weight-for-age conditions, its distance has changed...
Few of us are ever close to “great” persons. The family of Winston Churchill comes to mind; the sisters of Mother Teresa’s convent; the inner circle of John F. Kennedy. Our casual and usually inappropriate overuse of the adjective “great” may even diminish the person we are trying to praise. Some of...
When the mayor of New Orleans (referring to the approaching Hurricane Gustav) described the Doppler radar image as the “mother of all storms” and decreed a mandatory evacuation of the city, I packed my bags in a hurry. The fear factor was escalated when reporter Geraldo Rivera followed with a description...
I testified as part of the “Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred Horseracing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred Racehorse” Congressional hearing June 19. It was both disillusioning and enlightening. I naïvely thought I was invited along with three other veterinarians to talk about...