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Joe Clancy 
Dell Hancock walked toward the Saratoga Race Course winner’s circle after Saturday’s Alabama Stakes, let out a satisfied sigh, smiled and spoke of another milestone to her family’s lifetime of Thoroughbred involvement at Kentucky’s Claiborne Farm.
“I’ve always wanted to win this race,” she said. “It’s just a filly race that’s always been very close to my heart.”
Things are looking up at Blue Heaven, trainer Phil Serpe’s oasis of a barn area just beyond the outside rail of the main track near the five-eighths pole. The cats walk on the roof and lounge on the chairs, the director’s chairs host visitors, the grass looks green and lush – and the stalls are full of quality horses again.
Months ago, Mimi Voss asked me to make an introductory speech about Tom Voss for his Hall of Fame induction. I told her I’d be honored – then started sweating. It went off without a hitch (or many hitches) Friday, but I pretty much stuck to the abridged version. Here’s all of it, or most of it, from a Word doc on my computer labled simply, “Voss.”
As my journalism professors told me it would, a pencil saved me as I scribbled down some observations. I’m sure I still have the notebook (because I hardly ever throw those things away), but I’m not sure where it is. The notes would have been difficult to read, and would have gone something like this:
And the hits just keep on coming. Jump jockey Willie McCarthy – the third National Steeplechase Association champion jockey to go to the sidelines this year – suffered multiple injuries in a fall at Parx Racing Tuesday afternoon.
Englishman Hadden Frost, 26, came to the United States this spring and rode several jump races. He picked up wins at My Lady’s Manor and Willowdale and nearly won the Maryland Hunt Cup. Before all of that, he won “50-odd” races on the flat and another 70 or so over jumps while following his father … Read more
“Every year I say I’m running in that thing. One of these years, I’m going to do it.”
Jake Chalfin heard my excuse for not taking part in the annual Chasin for Chalfin trail run, looked me in the eye and said something to the effect of “Well, if you don’t wimp out this year we’d love to have you.” Only he didn’t put it that nicely.
So I signed up.
Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales buyers and sellers will tell you Paget Bennett is “one in a million” and now they’ve got proof. The regional director of sales, based in the company’s Fair Hill, Md. office is recovering from surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm late last month.
Leslie and Paddy Young ran six horses on the last weekend of April. Four finished second over hurdles while the other two ran 1-2 in a training flat race.
You know him as the guy behind 2014 steeplechase champion Demonstrative and some other stars to come off Whitewood Farm in Virginia. He grew up in a family with little or no horse background, but dove in and now operates one of the country’s most successful stables. We caught up to him by telephone last … Read more
