The unwritten rule has always been that police officers won’t stop you if you are driving five miles over the speed limit. You might call it their “threshold level.” As the case of trainer Steve Asmussen clearly illustrates, the Thoroughbred industry is in need of medication threshold levels. On July...

It sounds like something Yogi Berra would say, but in this recessionary economic time, many companies were in healthy financial shape until they weren’t. It is hard to imagine a company or business anywhere in the world that hasn’t been forced to make major decisions over the past 18 months due to the...

Carl Rollins is not a horse owner, breeder, trainer, nor jockey. He doesn’t work for a racetrack, sale company, racing organization, or bloodstock agent. He has never mucked a stall, hotwalked a horse, bred a mare, or broken a yearling. But Carl Rollins gets it—he understands the importance of the horse...

It’s a shame Vincent O’Brien didn’t hang on a couple more weeks. The legendary Irish trainer, who died June 1 at age 91, would have loved the just-concluded Royal Ascot meeting, in particular the success enjoyed by American conditioner Wesley Ward. It was O’Brien, more than 40 years earlier, who showed...

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...

Bloodstock agent John Moynihan has bought and sold many good horses, seen many top individuals at sales, and witnessed many impressive performances on the racetrack. But he had never been completely blown away until May 1, 2009. Wine mogul Jess Jackson did not attend the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) that day...

(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...

by Dan Liebman Trainer Bennie "Chip" Woolley Jr. had a rough start to the year. He crashed his motorcycle in some gravel and broke his leg, and his stable was having a tough time winning races, with one lone maiden winner from 32 starts. On May 2, his year got better. Chip Woolley won the Kentucky Derby...

(Originally published in the April 25, 2009 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine . Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions at the bottom of the column. ) While spending a spring morning watching horses gallop at Keeneland in 1990, I met a relative newcomer to training Thoroughbreds. He was searching...

On a beautiful spring day in Central Kentucky April 4, it was easy to see why Keeneland was considering a major expansion to its facility (now on hold due to the current state of the economy). With the fifth-highest attendance in its history—30,550—the place was bursting at the seams. With a larger physical...