Joe Clancy

Wise Dan should run on the dirt. Royal Delta should run against males in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Cross Traffic should run in the Woodward. Racehorses are meant to be challenged. A tough campaign is the mark of a good horse. A good horse can run on anything. 

And on and on and on.

The next time somebody tries to opine about things like that, tell him about Saginaw. Tell her about Kris Royal. Tell him about Sarava’s Dancer. Tell anybody that will listen about Live Lively. Tell them about the horses who died trying. Tell them how difficult it is to be responsible for the well-being of an athlete that can’t talk, can’t read, can’t do math, can’t understand what you say. 

“How is he so strong when he’s so skinny?” That’s what the nurses are saying at Albany Medical Center about injured exercise rider Ray Bulgado, who was admitted Monday with broken bones in his neck.  Bulgado was injured when 3-year-old gelding Ricochet Court fell while working on the Oklahoma turf course Monday morning. The rider … Read more

Two tourists stopped to look at the Leading Jockeys at Saratoga display cases along the walkway toward the grandstand Saturday morning. They looked like tourists anyway. Michael Migliore and Angel Castillo Jr. drove up from Philadelphia for the day, to experience Saratoga on Travers Day, to get an up close look at the biggest names … Read more

I wrote it for this month’s Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, and it started as a simple idea: “See if you can get Cot Campbell to talk about what he was feeling after the Kentucky Derby, but before the Belmont. Ask him what Mike Freeman would have told him, what all those guys back home in Aiken would … Read more