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Joe Clancy Friday afternoon in June, head to the beach. Steeplechase racing follows the tourists this week with a return to the Jersey Shore for the first time since 2010. Two hurdle races will be part of a 10-race lineup at Monmouth Park with a first post of 12:50 p.m. The jumpers go 2 1/4 miles in the first and the third, maiden and optional-claiming races respectively.
The tasks looked just like that of any trainer with two horses in the same race.
La Verdad translates to The Truth and two years ago the truth was she had a long way to go.
It seems somehow fitting that Joe Aitcheson, the steeplechase jockey’s steeplechase jockey, died on a day of racing. Aitcheson, 85, passed away Saturday at Carroll Hospice Dove House in Westminster, Md., while jump races played on at Fair Hill.
Damon Lann does not own California Chrome. Doesn’t ride him. Doesn’t brush him. Doesn’t walk him around the shedrow. But the Preakness winner knows him.
The Preakness is in the books and history awaits in – holy cow, is it that soon? – 18 days as California Chrome attempts to sweep the Triple Crown in the June 7 Belmont Stakes.
The horses are the best part about Thoroughbred racing. They’re the athletes, the stars, the talent. But the stories run a close second. Success can come from anywhere and the paths are short, long, varied.
Art Sherman was walking back from the track with the Preakness favorite Thursday morning and couldn’t help thinking about where he’d been and how he’d gotten there.
Trainer Jonathan Sheppard sat on the fender of an old flatbed trailer. His assistant Keri Brion perched on the fence lining the Iroquois homestretch. In about a minute, on a steamy Saturday afternoon in Nashville, their 11-year-old Eclipse Award winner Divine Fortune would make his first start of 2014.
At 6:48 Tuesday morning, California Chrome noisily announced his presence at the Preakness with three loud whinnies while standing at the quarter-pole gap of Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.
