If you’re ever fortunate enough to gain entrance to the Royal enclosure at Ascot, you’ll see a statue of jockey Frankie Dettori, who rides Stradivarius in Thursday’s Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. The monument commemorates his “Magnificent Seven” victory performance at Royal Ascot in 1996 when he took a multi-million-pound […]
Will this be the year the skittish Battaash finally breaks through at Royal Ascot? His nemesis for the past two years, Blue Point, is off to the stud barn. And, there will be no crowds – polite and well-dressed as Royal Ascot crowds are – to send his nerves buzzing. […]
The Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes at Belmont Park honors the late Ogden Phipps, the former chairman of The Jockey Club, and the textbook definition of the term “blue-blood.†A member of both the International Tennis and National Museum of Racing halls of fame, Phipps was a prominent New York […]
There was no reason to adjust your eyes, even in today’s pampered horseracing atmosphere where star horses don’t race more than once a month – if that. There were three Kentucky Derby hopefuls – Sole Volante, Ete Indien, and Shivaree — running a $55,000 allowance race on an otherwise ordinary […]
Illustrating another example of the precarious nature of Thoroughbred horse racing, Kentucky Derby contender Maxfield injured his front right leg during a routine workout on Wednesday. He will miss the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby after suffering a condylar fracture in his leg. If this sounds eerily familiar, it should. This […]
The Santa Anita Derby did what the West Coast’s premier Kentucky Derby prep always does – put another quality front-runner in the front row of Derby hopefuls for the Sept. 5 Run for the Roses. At the same time, it provided a good time to see where the top 3-year-olds […]
Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert’s vaunted Big Three Kentucky Derby contenders is now down to a Big One with the news that Charlatan will miss the Kentucky Derby with an ankle injury. Baffert told Paulick Report Publisher Ray Paulick the undefeated Speighstown progeny suffered “a filling in a front […]
Even with tracks emerging from coronavirus shutdowns throughout May, Thoroughbred racing handles for the month plummeted compared to their 2019 totals, according to Equibase’s monthly report on horse racing’s economic indicators. The biggest individual culprit for May’s decline was easy to pinpoint: no Kentucky Derby and no Preakness Stakes. The […]
Quadrilateral is the favorite. Millsie is the sentimental favorite, thanks to her trainer, Jessica Harrington. And Love is the value favorite for Sunday’s 1000 Guineas on the Rowley Mile at Newmarket. The 1000 Guineas is the second of England’s four Classic races. Dating to 1814, it sends out the UK’s […]
The Hollywood Gold Cup gets its name back, the name it held for 76 years until 2014. It gets three-time champion: 19-year-old Lava Man, back to lead the post parade. And one of the most respected races for older horses gets an eclectic field of Grade 1 winners and placers […]
Even in a year where the COVID-19 pandemic pushed matters from April to June, Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby storylines begin where they usually do – in Bob Baffert’s Santa Anita Park barn. After all, where else to begin than the barn that produced nine previous Santa Anita Derby […]
The depth of the Grade 1 Carter Handicap field provides exotic bettors with a dream handicap opportunity. The mind reels with the exacta, trifecta and superfecta possibilities in a race featuring some of the top sprinting talent in the country. The flip side of that coin, however, comes with figuring […]
Code of Honor’s resume reflects a horse who deserves more credit than just completing the back end of a wild exacta at last year’s Kentucky Derby. And Saturday, last year’s official runner-up in the Derby, opens his 4-year-old campaign in the Grade 3 Westchester Stakes at Belmont Park. The 1 […]
You can call what transpires today at Belmont Park a serendipitous collision of circumstances. Belmont Park opens for spectator-free racing Wednesday – 5 ½ weeks later than planned due to the coronavirus pandemic. And the star of the third race of a COVID-19-delayed meet is a 2-year-old horse named Fauci. […]
British horse racing returns Monday, coming back to the sporting forefront with a 10-race Newcastle card that opens the gates for the rest of the country’s 59 racetracks. Newcastle’s Monday card, which will run spectator-free, maxed out with all 10 races starting the full complement of 12 runners. The meet […]
After receiving unanimous approval by the Maryland Racing Commission on Thursday to resume racing, Laurel Park will waste little time reopening its starting gates. It joins the racing resumption parade Saturday. Laurel Park’s summer meet opens with three days of live racing from Saturday through Monday, and will run every […]
Officials from the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which operates Del Mar Race Track north of San Diego, announced they will open their 2020 summer meet eight days earlier than planned. In addition, the racetrack plans on running three days per week instead of its customary five. Del Mar will open […]
The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission unanimously approved Keeneland’s request to run a five-day, spectator-free summer meet in July, giving the Lexington racetrack back five days from its original 16-day spring meet. That meet became a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeneland’s abbreviated meet is scheduled for July 8-12 and is […]
Bookmakers throughout England received welcome news on Monday when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced all “non-essential†shops may reopen as early as June 15. That would allow books to take bets the day before the Royal Ascot meet opens. This, of course, hinges on non-essential retail outlets – which […]
As of now, nine horses are probable for the June 20 Belmont Stakes, a total that includes four Grade 1 winners. But how is the New York Racing Association setting Belmont Stakes guidelines for what is the first leg of the Triple Crown? What happens if more than 16 horses […]
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