With new health plans in place, Tampa Bay Downs announced Wednesday it will admit spectators for its 2020-21 winter/spring meet that begins Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving. This season is the track’s 95th-anniversary campaign. Headlining that campaign is the 41st Tampa Bay Derby, the track’s marquee event, and a […]
Now that we’ve bid farewell to the Thoroughbred standouts who retired in 2020, which horses will we greet as the returning equine stars worthy of attention in 2021? We bid farewell to Authentic, Improbable, Maximum Security, Vekoma, Tom’s d’Etat, War of Will, McKinzie, Serengeti Empress, Enable, and Ghaiyyath in recent […]
Federal prosecutors handed down superseding indictments Tuesday in the alleged horse doping scandal involving trainers Jason Servis, Jorge Navarro, and 12 other defendants. The new indictments tack on a charge of wire fraud to Servis and veterinarians Alexander Chan and Kristian Rhein. All three pleaded not guilty to the new […]
He ran only seven furlongs, not the 10 that possibly awaits next May. Even so, Red Flag’s 7¼-length romp in Sunday’s Bob Hope Stakes at Del Mar vaulted the juvenile from off the board to 50/1 on William Hill Nevada’s 2021 Kentucky Derby Futures Board. The $220,000 purchase by A&M […]
The Breeders’ Cup is in the rear-view mirror, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any prime late-season races on the horizon. The end of the year may seem like a racing lull before the calendar flips, but don’t let the last two months of the horse racing season go by […]
Spielberg going On the Road to Del Mar in the Bob Hope Stakes. It sounds like a Hollywood mashup, instead of the next hurdle on the heralded 2-year-old’s racing itinerary. The Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes is Sunday’s featured race at Del Mar’s Bing Crosby Meet. The $100,000 race sends […]
Golden Gate Fields in Northern California abruptly shut down Friday after 24 positive COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the Berkeley track’s stable area. The suspension announcement came 20 minutes before Friday’s first race on Golden Gate Fields’ weekend card. The track announced the closure runs through Friday, Nov. 20. Racing […]
Proving those who can do, can teach, Marshall Gramm, an economics professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee nailed an Authentic-Improbable exacta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The $170,250 score gave him the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge title. With the late bet, which vaulted Gramm over 429 other top handicappers, […]
Five days after Tiz the Law came home a disappointing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, ownership group Sackatoga Stable announced that Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez replaces Manny Franco in the irons for the colt’s 2021 season. That season begins at the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup at […]
A bill expanding and legalizing fixed-odds wagering on New Jersey horse races emerged from committees in that state’s senate – a little more than a week after being introduced in New Jersey’s state legislature. The bill, allowing permanent fixed odds on races, enjoys bipartisan support in the state legislature. The […]
The fluidity of William Hill’s Kentucky Derby future odds six months from the 2021 Derby clearly illustrated itself before last Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Note, the key word here: “before.†Because, before undefeated 4/5 Juvenile favorite Jackie’s Warrior entered the Keeneland starting gate, he was no longer the darling of […]
Three days after finishing off the board for only the second time in his career, Maximum Security retired from racing. The Eclipse Award 3-year-old Champion of 2019 heads to Coolmore America’s Ashford Stud, where he’ll begin his stud career in 2021 standing for $20,000. The move comes after Maximum Security […]
While voters in three states recently approved sports betting in Election Day referendums, Nebraska voters overwhelmingly passed three state constitutional amendments of their own, allowing casino gambling at horseracing tracks throughout the Cornhusker State. All three measures, labeled Initiatives 429, 430, and 431, passed by nearly 2-to-1 margins. This allows […]
After watching his gate-to-wire victory in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, it took Authentic’s owners barely 24 hours to retire the three-time Grade 1 winner at the end of his 3-year-old season. The Kentucky Derby champion heads to Spendthrift Farm, the large Kentucky breeding farm and majority owner of Authentic. He […]
With Kentucky Derby champion Authentic, standout filly Gamine, and Knicks Go all winning Breeders’ Cup races in record time – and without general public tickets available – the Breeders’ Cup World Championships managed its sixth-highest all-sources handle since 2007. That was the year the Breeders’ Cup expanded to two days. […]
If you’re grasping to understand how good the field is for this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic truly is, it’s easiest to picture what an All-Star horse race would look like. The Mid-fall Classic, as it were. If the Mid-fall Classic offered a $6 million purse, two Triple Crown race winners, […]
Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien enjoys a wonderfully magical training career, generally free of moguls or other bumps. But as he sends Magical and Mogul out in search of his seventh Breeders’ Cup Turf title, O’Brien does so along an uncharacteristically bumpy road on this side of the Atlantic. Whatever Irish […]
This may not be Secretariat vs. Sham, Affirmed vs. Alydar, or Sunday Silence vs. Easy Goer. But, Monomoy Girl vs. Swiss Skydiver in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff promises to be one of the best one-on-one racing duels of the year. If nothing else, it promises to give bettors a relative […]
The Breeders’ Cup Classic, Turf, Distaff, and – to a lesser extent, Juvenile – are the Breeders’ Cup races everyone follows. That’s understandable, especially in a year like this, when the Classic is a virtual All-Star race and when the Distaff offers one of the best duels of all 14 […]
Breeders’ Cup Sprint favorite Vekoma scratched out of the $2 million race on Wednesday after spiking a fever late Tuesday night. That likely ends his career and sends him to the breeding shed earlier than expected. “Vekoma did not train. He spiked a fever last night. He got treated,†trainer […]
Ten Hag Says Ronaldo’s Decision to Leave Rayo Match Early is ‘Unacceptable’ 
Consecutive NBA Titles: Celtics 8 Straight, Phil Jackson Three-Peats with Bulls and Lakers 
Election Betting Numbers Keep Adding Up for a Biden Victory 
Baseball Movies: ‘Bull Durham’ (1988) with Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon 
The OG List: Top 50 NBA All-Time Scoring Points List, Abdul-Jabbar Still No. 1 