The 2022 Saratoga season opens Thursday with full barns, the full attention of horseplayers around North America, and a full roster of A-list trainers, jockeys, and horses. It also opens with a full level of optimism that always follows the sport to the upstate New York hamlet. It’s the New […]
There isn’t a lot of star power in this year’s Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar. What there is, however, is one of Jon White’s more challenging morning-line puzzles. Del Mar’s morning-line author, White found himself staring at one of the most competitive fields he’s faced this summer. Yes, […]
Before we break down the field for the second jewel of the Triple Crown, we’ll dispense with the news everyone waited for concerning Saturday’s 146th Preakness Stakes from Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore. Both Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit and Concert Tour passed their three pre-race drug tests, meaning they […]
While Bob Baffert’s speed tandem of Kentucky Derby champion Medina Spirit and Concert Tour suck all the oxygen out of the 146th Preakness Stakes, there’s Midnight Bourbon being Midnight Bourbon. As Medina Spirit’s medication soap opera plays out and Derby passer Concert Tour captures attention as possibly only the third […]
The hardest part of analyzing Life Is Good’s dismantling of Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes field at Santa Anita Park is determining what was the most impressive element of his victory. Was it the eight-length victory? The legitimate fractions of 23.63 seconds for the first quarter-mile and 46.83 for the first […]
Proving that Kentucky Derby futures boards and futures bettors view such matters through a kaleidoscope, Medina Spirit finished second in Saturday’s Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita Park. At 9/1, he needed a furious stretch rally to even get near race winner and fellow Bob Baffert stablemate, Life Is […]
With Charlatan winning Bob Baffert’s 17th Grade 1 race of 2020 headlining an 11-race, six-stakes card, Santa Anita Park set an all-time opening day handle record of $23,003,159 Saturday. That surpassed the previous record: 2018’s 11-race opening-day handle, by more than $2.51 million. And it did so without the traditional […]
It took exactly 75-½ seconds for Life Is Good to live up to his name, throw his hoof into the Kentucky Derby futures picture, and become the latest horse rocketing up William Hill Nevada’s Kentucky Derby Futures Board. After the Into Mischief progeny destroyed an over-classed quartet of maidens by […]
The beauty for horseplayers and horse racing fans alike in Saturday’s Grade 1 Metropolitan Stakes, popularly known as the Met Mile, is the variety of runners meeting in the Belmont Park starting gate for a one-turn mile. Sprinters? They’re there with Vekoma, Hog Creek Hustle and Network Effect. Routers? How […]
Mike Smith didn’t earn the nickname “Big Money Mike†for his gambling acumen, although the 54-year-old jockey has earned owners nearly $330 million over his nearly 40-year riding career. He earned the name because Smith is one of the most clutch jockeys in the world, which is why he’ll take […]
It’s been a while since we saw an old-fashioned hockey line brawl including two goalies fighting. In a heated Battle of Alberta, Cam Talbot (Calgary Flames) and Mike Smith (Edmonton Oilers) were involved in fisticuffs and a classic goalie fight. The Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames came into Saturday’s night […]
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