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Tom Law Not a particularly nice day at Laurel Park in mid-December, those are few and far between. The track was quite sloppy from a cold rain falling all morning. The crowd was sparse at best but that never stopped racing before. Jockeys dismounted in the paddock as not to get their boots dirty, but one was missing, apprentice jockey Trevor McCarthy.
By a Horse of the Year out of a Horse of the Year. Sure it’s been done before. Sometimes with success, other times without. It’s always fun regardless, for breeders, horsemen, fans of the game.
Seven months have passed since reigning female sprint champion Groupie Doll made her last start, a narrow nose loss to Stay Thirsty in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile, but her return to the races is not far away.
The 2013 Triple Crown is in the books and already the same played out, repeated year-after-year and unoriginal thoughts are being bandied about in print, on television or the radio. Probably on social networking, too.
Tough game this deal called horse racing that so many of us love. Not 12 hours removed from feeling the satisfaction of winning one of the country’s biggest turf stakes with a horse who’d only started once since early November, trainer Shug McGaughey took his second uppercut of the weekend.
The half dozen or so employees of Todd Pletcher laughed, high-fived, fist-bumped, ribbed and teased each other and did all the fun-loving things people walking to the test barn with the Belmont Stakes winner should do as Palace Malice made his way back to the Belmont Park stable area.
Tom Albertrani was put in a unique situation after the finish of the Jaipur Stakes at rain-soaked Belmont Park Friday afternoon.
Aaron Gryder was enjoying his first trip back to New York since 2009.
The TIHR Handicappers take one more stab at one of the biggest days on the American racing calendar and the last major one in New York for all intents and purposes before Saratoga opens with Saturday’s Belmont Stakes program.
A little more than a full day to go before the last Triple Crown race of the season is in the books and Belmont Park was about as quiet as can be Friday morning.
