We don’t ban baseball because a pitcher tears a rotator cuff. We don’t ban football because a quarterback breaks a collarbone. Racing is highs of winning, lows of losing, and everything in between. It is a sport with two distinct types of athletes: the horse and the jockey. In sports: teams win, teams lose, and injuries happen. Those are inevitable truths all participants accept.

Baseball may be America’s pastime, but racing was here first and it is still the only sport where wagers taken are directly applied to the monetary rewards of the athletes and host facilities. Roger Clemens was crucified for performance enhancing drugs, but there was no public money involved. That’s not the case with racing.

I have seen jockeys be many things: stoic winners, doting dads, kind confidants to cancer-stricken kids, mentors to each other. Mike Smith became somewhat of a character on two seasons of the Animal Planet series, “Jockeys,” but he proved to be so much more this summer.

While I do have hundreds of minutes of tape on the runners for Saturday’s races - exactly as I did for Friday’s - uploading them all to play here would be insane. Therefore, I’m posting my favorite videos - not necessarily who I think will win - but the best footage I have for Saturday [...]

BC Marathon BC Juvenile Fillies Turf BC Filly & Mare Sprint BC Juvenile Fillies BC Filly & Mare Turf BC Ladies’ Classic

With just days to go ’til the gates break open on this year’s Breeders’ Cup, let’s start the first official FocusedFilly’s MoWorks: Hot or Not … Mo will look at the biggest works by day and rate them on a scale of 10 (hot) to 1 (not). Special thanks to GradeOneRacing.com & @DerbyMedia!