I remember watching one of the first runnings of the Sunland Park Derby several years ago and thinking it was an interesting ungraded Kentucky Derby prep. It was like shipping your horse to Turf Paradise just to get him away from the SoCal powerhouses - see if you have the talent, then try to find [...]

Get a group of horseplayers together and ask ‘em who they like and it’s going to sound a lot like this:

Racing is a sport built on debate - do you see a toteboard in the middle of Lambeau Field? No. That’s because racing (unlike football) depends on 2 things: horses running in circles and folks [...]

For the 4th time this year, I get to write a blog about a filly beating the boys impressively in a major stake. But, for the 1st time this year, this is not a story about Rachel Alexandra.

The list of racing’s greatest mares includes the likes of Personal Ensign, Ruffian, Paseana, Regret, Lady’s Secret, and [...]

A non-TrackRat friend asked me earlier this month why the Breeders’ Cup is special. “The Kentucky Derby is like the MLB All Star Game,” he said, “everyone’s heard of it, even if we don’t really understand exactly what it is.”

If the Derby is the All Star Game, that makes Breeders’ Cup the World Series, right?

I [...]

My Grandpa Dave led the world’s greatest Passover seder: there was a soundtrack and special lighting and such an audience that it required the entire ballroom of a Los Angeles Sheraton. Trust me, it rocked. And I used to love when he’d pick a different grandchild each year to answer the big question: Why is [...]

Before I start to extoll the virtues of a small trainer from a small circuit with a small pool of owners with a small horse … let me take a second to make 2 points very very very clear:

#1- Can we all stop with the “Quality Road for President” bumper stickers? Ok, so none were [...]

All right, race fans, we need to take a good long look at our neighbors to the north. Canada - and Woodbine in particular - do racing so right.
Having spent two days here, I’m hooked.
What started Saturday with amazing hospitality from the press box staff, continued with the “personal betting helpers” in the restaurants, and [...]

As they loaded into the Belmont starting gate, my mother called asking who was going to win.
My answer was a son of Birdstone owned by doctors and ridden by a Cajun jockey.
But I forgot one very important thing: there were two of those in the field.
See, Mine That Bird and Summer Bird have the same [...]

I’m in the sport of Thoroughbred racing because my great-grandfather was a professional gambler who ran with Bugsy Siegel and called Santa Anita his office. It was his love for the “horse beach” (as it was called by the kids), that led to Nana bringing Mum who brought me.
But my love for horses stretches deeper [...]

My first Kentucky Derby was watching Smarty Jones win from the roof of Churchill with two secret service snipers. My second was seeing Big Brown cruise home from the Press Box.
My third, this year: from the winner’s circle and then chasing jockeys through the tunnel, the paddock, and into the jock’s room.

Jockeys are a unique [...]