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Sean Clancy 
Sue Sensor hugged and cried at the top of the grandstand. Arch Kingsley numbly walked down the far steps. Wendy Kingsley walked up the center steps in slow-motion awe. Jaime Camacho, hell, he was on the inside rail pumping his left fist and throwing a halter and shank like a cowboy throws a lasso.
“He was brilliant, wasn’t he?” Sensor said, crying, moments after the race. “Just brilliant.”
And it comes down to this. As always and just as it should, the steeplechase season reaches its crescendo at the Colonial Cup.
Rawnaq aims at his fourth win in a row, taking on nine rivals in the Colonial Cup at Springdale Racecourse in Camden, S. C. In those three wins, Scorpiancer, Shaneshill, Nichols Canyon, Rudyard K and Sharp Rise chased the 9-year-old. They’re resting, have gone home or are, sadly, gone.
Plains, trains and automobiles. Actually, just automobiles, from Keeneland yesterday to Camden today. Kicked tires at Keeneland, looking at horses too used or too expensive for our program. Watching the dispersal of the Conquest Stable horses, it was more like a yard sale than an estate sale, strange to see people jump in and jump … Read more
My father kept walking out of the kitchen with another plate. It was 1984, I was 14, in between winning pony races at Far Hills and Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, just a kid, desperate for a place, enthralled by the sport, engulfed by the thought of becoming a jockey.
Keeneland’s fall meet has come and gone. Box fans, rubber matts, webbings and brush boxes line each corner of the stable area this morning. Crossing guards fiddle with their phones, there are few horses coming and going on a sleepy Sunday morning. Larry Jones, still hard at it, rides one home. The track kitchen’s lights … Read more
Road trip. Off to Kentucky to watch Motivational run at Keeneland. We’ve never won a race at Keeneland, a couple of seconds and third (as a jockey and an owner), perhaps, Friday is the day. Miles is putting his finishing touches on his Halloween costume, Marquis de Lafayette. He could have been anybody or anything … Read more
Billy Meister lit a cigarette. That’s how well Grand Manan was traveling in the International Gold at Great Meadow Oct. 22.
“When he got to the water jump and they had let him go,” Meister said. “I lit up a cigarette because the nerves were going.”
No need for nerves as jockey Darren Nagle had steadied and saved enough on the frontrunner to easily hold off favorite Two’s Company in the 3 1/2-mile feature. Owned by Donald Reuwer Jr., the 7-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway drew off to win by 7 lengths over Two’s Company with Prime Prospector third.
Drawn up on paper, the ratings hurdle division was meant to give opportunities for horses who didn’t have any – you know the ones – not quite good enough or had graduated from the novice division, horses who couldn’t compete in open stakes, horses owned by owners who didn’t want to risk them in claimers and/or horses who are better in the hurdle division than the timber division.
Jimmy and Emily Day tend to finish each other’s sentences. After 27 years of marriage, it’s natural. Whether it’s about horses, owners, races or kids, one of them starts a thought and the other one finishes it.
After homebred Officer’s Oath won the Gladstone Hurdle at Far Hills, the Days bantered back and forth about the son of Luftikus, owned by Bruce and Edie Smart, who won his second consecutive hurdle race with a front-running score in the $50,000 stakes.
Paddock judges check equipment for every horse, every race at the major tracks. It’s a simple process, checking off blinkers, tongue tie, etc. It takes seconds.
In steeplechasing, it’s not part of the protocol. Good thing or the paddock judge at Far Hills might still be taking notes for Le Chevalier.
