Medication violations hit jump racing
Zyrtec. People take one little tablet a day. Horses take 11, apparently. Steeplechase champion Demonstrative is regularly given the allergy medication to help him with well, allergies.
Joe Clancy
Jump jock Byrne recovering from broken neck
The text from David Byrne said to call any time, but the phone went to voice mail. “Sorry,” he said when he called back. “I was on the phone to me mother in Ireland and I’ve got to keep her happy.”
Understood.
Grinding Speed closes strong spring at Gold Cup
When Alicia Murphy first thought about running timber horse Grinding Speed without the anti-bleeding medication Lasix, she worried. Two years later, not so much.
A cool morning with Divining Rod
A lone John Deere tractor makes a final pass with a harrow. Birds buzz and dive and sing. The sun peeks over the trees across the way. It’s 54 degrees and breezy, chilly compared to the day before. One horse walks on the horsepath, a human on its back and another leading from the ground.
Divining Rod, Delacours aim for the Preakness
Divining Rod stretched his front leg with an elongated step, extended his neck and lowered his head with a tug. The grass was that good and the grazing – with exercise rider Erasmo Tranquilino still aboard – capped an early morning gallop Friday at Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.
Beautiful music
“Do you live in Baltimore?”
Music City Matchup in the Iroquois
It’s the best starting five since Gretzky, Tikkanen, Kurri, Coffey and Huddy. Only these five have all of their teeth. Saturday’s Iroquois Steeplechase – a 3-mile, $150,000 rumble – attracted a standout group led by two of the sport’s five all-time leading earners in Demonstrative and Divine Fortune.
The Preakness preview bucket
The notes just keep on coming. Pimlico Race Course sends regular updates about next weekend’s Preakness Stakes and – with eight days to go – the status of the various potential runners.
Hunt Cup heroics go to Raven’s Choice
The Maryland Hunt Cup gods give and take, take and give, give and take. Welter Weight finished second twice before he won in 1999, and twice more after. Florida Law suffered through five losses, one where he lost his jockey while leading at the last fence and another by a head, before he won in 1998.
Plenty of Guts for the Hunt Cup
The Irish foxhunter jigged, jogged, walked sideways, snatched at the reins. The retired racehorse did the same. The racehorse, the favorite for the oldest steeplechase in North America, merely set a good example – walking along, sneaking a bite of grass, waiting for a cue from his rider. And that is what it’s like to ride out with a Maryland Hunt Cup winner.
