Horse Racing

Zenyatta story.

Continue reading "Making History - Zenyatta in the Classic"

Breeders Cup weekend started yesterday with an incredible performance in the Marathon. The gritty 9 year old Cloudy's Knight loped to the lead coming out of the turn and looked to be a winner until Man of Iron loomed on the inside. Coming out of the turn it shows what this weekend is all about. Both horses dug down for every ounce of energy they had and it took a photo to separate them. Perhaps Cloudy's Knight didn't see the challenger in time but the gutsy old guy fought back not giving up and driving back desperately.

Continue reading "Breeders Cup weekend - will it answer ..."

It's been a tough month for champions in the TB world. As mentioned in a previous post Gone West was lost. The others are also major horses that have left fans reeling.

 There's the loss, to a heart attack in his pasture, of popular sire El Prado of the 21st.

Continue reading "The Thoroughbred World Loses Legends"

The best sports movies can vary. What sport you like makes a difference too! There's classics like Chariots of Fire and underrated like Prefontaine and can't miss Friday Night Lights. For the horse

Continue reading "5 Top True Sports Movies"

Rachel Alexandra won the Woodward Stakes today in a smoking time of 1:48.1 holding off a hard charging Macho Again. She still has critics. She has won from coast to coast, at the top, against fillies, against 3 year olds, now against older horses. She has a perfect, unblemished season. She's been criticized she didn't "work for it" in some races - can't be said for the Woodward. There were several gunning for her waiting for a mistake from the three year old filly who dared tread outside her gender AND age! It's criticized she won't be at the Breeders Cup but it seems like unless something spectacular happens then she's done everything she needs to do for Horse of the Year, top 3 year old, top 3 year old filly and only Zenyatta arguably could stand between her and a clean sweep to best female running.

Continue reading "We're Seeing History"

 Horse racing has some of the highest highs and the lowest lows. There are stories that are quite unlike other sports because the main players do not care about prize money or earnings and have no concept of retirement. The horses themselves either have the will to run and compete or they don't, and if they don't there is no amount of whipping that will make them be a champion.

Continue reading "Great Sports Moments in Horse Racing"

"The best female athletes in horse racing warrant attention as much as the colts as in most cases the best challenged and beat the colts. Among the greatest fillies in the sport of horse racing i

Continue reading "top female thoroughbred athletes"

    Well this race will tell us a whole bunch about the derby. Maybe not in the way you think though. After this, we will know if the east coast horses are better or is it the west horses that have the best shot. Winning this race and then trying to win the first Saturday in may does not happen often, so lets not get our hopes up on any of these fringe players.

Continue reading "Coolmore always helps to pick a derby winner"

La Ville Rouge probably has more fans than any broodmare out there and many likely don't know her name. She foaled on March 10 with a 142 pound colt by Dynaformer. Said to be a bay with a white marking center forehead he'll be the latest in Dynaformer - La Ville Rouge babies, the first of whom was Barbaro. Nicanor, now 3, had an injury in the first start; a two year old Lentenor is in training in Florida. She'll be bred back, of course, to Dynaformer.

Continue reading "foaling season names in the news."

Critics shunned her then discredited her. The bay filly won more consecutive races than did the great Cigar and Citation. Critics say her connections picked the races carefully.

Don't ALL trainers pick races carefully?! After all how many studs go in promoting they were almost good enough? It's wins that make statistics and wins that draw mares. Pepper's Pride raced into the record books at 17 consecutive wins in an allowance field in New Mexico. A race streak that long no matter what caliber competition is certainly an achievement, but the Desert God daughter didn't stop there. She also went past the international record of Hong Kong standout Silent Witness by winning 19 consecutive races, retiring undefeated. Her lifetime earnings are just over a million dollars. She won at a mile and won at six furlongs. She doesn't have high dollar breeding, true.

Continue reading "Peppers Pride begins New Career"

In the El Camino Real on Valentine's Day, my sweetheart Chocolate Candy delivered a win to swell the hearts of his supporters. Although this previously confirmed come-from-behinder was a bit too fresh too early, landing in an unaccustomed position on the lead with a lot of stretch left to cover, Chocolate Candy turned the challenge into an opportunity to demonstrate his versatility.

Continue reading "Fresh Chocolate Candy Wins El Camino Real Derby"

Oy.

The particular soap opera slant of the Animal Planet's new reality show "Jockeys" makes me cringe.  There's soap opera in horse racing, but Jockeys doesn't just churn up a lather around the personalities inside horse racing for enhanced dramatic effect; it's often illogical about the way the business functions.  

Continue reading "Jockeys!"

Does anyone remember the horse who ran the opening quarter of the Kentucky Derby faster than Secretariat? The horse who pushed the fastest 3/4 record in history? He didn't win the race...but he pushed the fastest time stopping the clock since Secretariat.

Continue reading "Kentucky Derby moments"

Damascus is just a name on a page to many fans and for recent fans not even that. Damascus won the Preakness and the Belmont in 1967, along with the Dwyer, American Derby and romped in the Travers by 22 lengths. He won at two miles in the Jockey Gold Cup. He did all that was asked of him as a three year old and perhaps the only thing he didn't do was win the Kentucky Derby. He was third, washed out from nerves and humidity. He was handed nothing as among his competitors were legends Buckpasser and Dr. Fager. In the Woodward he won by 10 lengths over both of those horses. Damascus was easily Horse of the Year. Retired to stud Damascus sired scores of stakes winners including Desert Wine, Highland Blade, Belted Earl, Private Account (sire of the hard knocking classy mare Personal Ensign), Timeless Moment and many others. By Sword Dancer out of Kerala by My Babu Damascus carried the old lines of Blue Larkspur, Phalaris and Teddy. He was pensioned in 1989 and died at age 31 in August of 1995. He is buried at Claiborne Farm in Kentucky.

Continue reading "The unknown family members"

Larry Jones has informed the Louisiana Times-Picayune that he's closing up shop as a public trainer after Breeders Cup 2009. His decision is definite. The good news is that nobody besides Larry Jones believes his decision will stick.

Continue reading "Larry Jones Says He's Done After ..."

"Kip Deville is not a people person. He's a race horse, he doesn't like to be petted, he doesn't like all that funny stuff around him. He's like a man, he wants to show up on the big days and he's all race horse, as you could see today."

Continue reading "Kip Kip Hooray - It's Another Day ..."

I'm verklempt. Hurray for Albertus Maximus's win in the Donn Handicap. He ran just like his pop, a complete professional, and has really moved up in the world. He's now owned by Shadwell Stables (which paid a substantial sum for him), trained by Invasor's trainer, Kieran McLaughlin, and pointed towards the Dubai World Cup. I could listen to McLaughlin say nice things about Albertus Maximus all day. Congratulations also to the almost too-aptly-named runner-up, FinallyMadeIt, a horse who was partially paralyzed behind at birth, and who has successfully propelled himself from sprinting to going long. FinallyMadeIt runs his heart out and is a joy to watch.

Continue reading "My Baby! Albertus Maximus Wins the ..."

While many people decry racing there are others who are watching closer than ever.

One of the names being watched is a young bay cold named Lentenor - being documented in video long before his racing career. http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/nicanor/archive/2009/01/30/lentenor-video.aspx is a look at a young Thoroughbred that many don't see, and wouldn't see if not for the continued interest in the "Barbaro brothers".

Continue reading "Barbaro 2 years later"

There's a lot to like about Old Fashioned, the precocious son of Unbridled's Song who won the Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct under a hand ride. He gives the impression of mental maturity, a confident and endearing intensity. He was all business. And unlike some of the promising California contenders, he won on dirt. (The trainers who don't intend to run their best three year olds over the dirt en route to the Kentucky Derby are nuts.)

Continue reading "Maybe Old Fashioned Is Too Old Fashioned"

Sid and Jenny Craig's homebred, Chocolate Candy, winner of the California Derby as well as the Real Quiet Stakes, is my current very early favorite to watch for the Kentucky Derby. I love his breeding - he's by first year sire Candy Ride out of the Seattle Slew mare Crownette - and the look of him in full flight is riveting. Each stride seems to float him in the air a beat longer than the other horses. His high front leg action gives him the look of a turf horse, but Barbaro and Secretariat, for two, ran the same way. His front leg action is wide as well, a worry in some people's eyes, but his way of going looks all of a piece. He reaches out to the very full exent of his front legs, and the length of that reach is especially eye-catching.

Continue reading "HOW SWEET I HOPE HE IS"

This is a topic that is more misunderstood and with more focus than any other. There are bad actors in EVERY INDUSTRY. Cops. Teachers. Religious leaders. Politicians. Sports stars. Should we ban all o

Continue reading "Horse racing and cruelty charges"

The horse racing industry needs change. Congressional time? No. We have escalating costs in the economy and jobs going out of the country. There are so many things elected officials need to be doing a

Continue reading "Does Horse Racing Warrant Congressional action?"

Thoroughbred champions are remembered forever. Or are they? History shows that while many beloved names stand the test of time there are others that are not remembered for their accomplishments. Somet

Continue reading "Remembering Thoroughbred Champions"

Seattle Slew is still the only undefeated Triple Crown champion. His name is known even to many who don't follow horse racing and one of the most beloved horses in racing.On February 15, 1974 a daught

Continue reading "Seattle Slew - Horse Racing Legend"

So I normally title my Monday blog: Monday Mourning due to being hungover from a full day of drinking and watching sports, hence the “mourning” because I have to get up, go to work, puke in the bathroom, and subsequently fall asleep in all of my meetings and get absolutely no work done. But today is different, mainly due to the fact that CBS’s and Fox’s regional coverage of NFL games in my area was HORRIBLE. Games that had a spread of +11 with no fantasy implications at all were being aired, so I went and watched polo (you know, the sport where guys on horses trot around and whack a ball with mallets). I had never been to a polo game before but we decided to go due to the possibility of attractive females (there are always beautiful women at horse events). We mingled with a few and made up some elaborate lies that we were just checking out the competition and had our horses stabled a few miles away. We were obviously out of place, with our cheers of “nice pass man!” and “shoooooot it!” but we wholeheartedly plan on attending it every Sunday for the rest of the season – pending what NFL games are on of course. 

Continue reading "Monday Mourning"