B. Wayne Hughes, the billionaire co-founder of Public Storage and one of the most influential figures in horse racing, died Wednesday at his Spendthrift Farm home in Kentucky. He was 87. Any comprehensive 21st-century horse racing chronicle must include a chapter on Hughes. His impact on the sport through his […]
Horse Racing
Bettors Get Three More Cracks at Del Mar’s $1.64 Million Jackpot Pick 6
On the surface, Del Mar’s eight-race Thursday card appears drama-free from a stakes standpoint. But, there’s plenty of inherent drama stemming from a $1,645,118 carry-over to the track’s 20-cent Jackpot Pick 6 wager. That wager enters its 17th day without a winner, rolling over for 16 consecutive days into Thursday. […]
Santa Anita Puts Plenty at Stake for its Autumn Meet Opening Weekend
Each year, the Santa Anita Park Autumn Meet packs in three of the deepest meet-opening racing days of any major American track. This year’s 16-day Autumn Meet continues the trend, stacking seven Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series events on the track’s opening weekend. “Our intention is to get the Autumn Meet […]
York Ebor Festival Opens With Mishriff vs. Love in the Juddmonte
The four-day York Ebor Festival begins Wednesday at York, wasting little time in making its presence felt on the racing world. That’s courtesy of Group 1 winners Mishriff, Love, and Alcohol Free headlining the Group 1 Juddmonte International. That race, one of three Group 1 events on the 28-race meet […]
Irish Filly Santa Barbara Continues Her American Victory Tour at Arlington
By now, Santa Barbara has this American race routine down pretty well. Come over to the US, drop into Grade 1 turf race, beat all comers, rinse and repeat. Which is what Santa Barbara did Saturday at what is likely Arlington Park’s last marquee card. The Irish invader dropped into […]
Rock Your World Pops Up as Surprising Pacific Classic Nominee
The last two times we saw Rock Your World, he rocked no one’s world. Which is why it rocked Del Mar’s world when the Santa Anita Derby winner was one of 15 horses nominated for the Aug. 21 Grade 1 Pacific Classic. Those nominations closed for Del Mar’s flagship race […]
Arlington Park’s Mr. D Stakes May Send Iconic Race Into the History Book
The Mr. D. Stakes is the race made famous by another name – the Arlington Million. When you’re the first horse race offering a seven-figure purse, you want that “Million†in the title. At this point in what is a bittersweet, likely final running of the race formerly known as […]
Knicks Go Fast-Breaks Into Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings
Knicks Go picked a good time to win his fourth career Grade 1 race, using last Saturday’s Whitney Stakes victory to claim the top spot among American horses in the latest edition of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings for 2021. In the rankings compiled by the International Federation of […]
We’ve Seen Got Stormy Pour Past Her Rivals Before
Plucky mare Got Stormy takes on the boys in a Grade 1 race headlining Saratoga’s Saturday card and, yes, this scenario sounds more than a bit familiar. Just change the principals, the surface, and the starring distaff runner, but yes, next verse, similar to the first. Last week, we saw […]
Disgraced Trainer Navarro Pleads Guilty to Horse Doping Charge
Trainer Jorge Navarro, one of the central figures in the blood doping and drug adulteration scandal that rocked horse racing in a long-running scheme starting in 2016, changed his plea to guilty Wednesday. In doing so, Navarro could spend up to five years in prison. Navarro changed his plea from […]
Staking A Claim: The Name of Del Mar’s Racing Game This Summer
One of Del Mar’s mottos is “cool as ever,†a saying that doesn’t apply to the claiming department for this summer season. The track where the “turf meets the surf,†to borrow another Del Mar phrase, became the track where the claim game is hotter than ever. For the first […]
Sore Foot Grounds Stellar Sophomore Mandaloun for Remainder of Year
Asterisk-wearing Kentucky Derby runner-up and Haskell Stakes winner Mandaloun will miss the remainder of the 2021 season, due to a sore hindfoot. The Daily Racing Form first reported the news. It quoted Juddmonte Farms racing manager Garrett O’Rourke, who said Mandaloun’s X-rays came back negative for any major damage. He […]
Del Mar’s Jackpot Pick 6 Runs North of $1.1 Million
The star of Del Mar’s Thursday card isn’t any of the Thoroughbreds on the track. It’s the Jackpot Pick 6, which ventured north of $1 million after bettors failed to crack the single-ticket code for 12 consecutive days. Thursday’s Single Ticket Jackpot Pick 6 sits at $1,127,460. It sits there […]
Whitney Day Produces Record Handle, Another Knicks Go Romp
Knicks Go, Bella Sofia and State of Rest enjoyed Grade 1 victories on Saratoga’s Whitney Day card. And the New York Racing Association enjoyed a record, all-sources handle for that Whitney Day card. That record all-sources handle came in at $36,820,234, surpassing last year’s take of $35,796,435 that came without […]
Churchill Downs Announces September, Fall Meets Stakes Schedule
Churchill Downs will offer only one Grade 1 event during its September and Fall Meets. But, even as interesting as the Grade 1 Clark Stakes is on the day after Thanksgiving, there are other races further down the class food chain worth some serious attention. Those races are the track’s […]
The Whitney: Quality Over Quantity Makes This the Year’s Best Race
The cliché “quality over quantity†washes over this year’s Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga like the wake from Knicks Go’s last race. It floods the zone like Maxfield’s last two outings and Silver State’s last trip around Belmont Park. If you’re going to send only five horses around Saratoga’s […]
Will Bolshoi Ballet Allow O’Brien to say ‘Eight is Enough’ at Saratoga?
Bolshoi Ballet will attempt to rectify an oversight that’s as mystifying as it is counterintuitive by becoming Aidan O’Brien’s first winning horse at Saratoga. It defies logic that O’Brien, Europe’s most decorated trainer and one of the best horsemen in the world, has never sent a horse to the Spa’s […]
West Virginia Derby Returns, Bringing Bourbonic and Mr. Wireless Back
The West Virginia Derby is back after a year’s hiatus. And so are Mr. Wireless and Bourbonic, who headline Saturday’s Grade 3 West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park. The two 3-year-olds provide the recognizable names for the 1 1/8-mile race, which skipped 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. Those created logistical […]
Star 3-Year-Old Dayoutoftheoffice Makes it Permanent, Retires Suddenly
Dayoutoftheoffice, one of the best juvenile fillies of 2020 and a Grade 1 winner, retired Wednesday, three days before she was set to run in Saturday’s Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga. The winner of last year’s Grade 1 Frizette Stakes at Belmont Park, Dayoutoftheoffice just clocked a bullet 59-second […]
Jesus’ Team Puts Himself in the Perfectly Named Stakes Race, the Alydar
That Jesus’ Team is running in a race named after Alydar is rather apt; a case of history going in circles rather than a straight line. First things first, however. Friday’s Alydar, named after the horse who finished second to Affirmed in all three legs of the 1978 Triple Crown, […]