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Tom Law A small stakes the first weekend of March at Turfway Park is usually not enough to stoke any burning thoughts of making it to the Kentucky Derby, but if Kellyn Gorder does wind up in Louisville he’ll at least be there with a little more experience than the other first-timers.
Five weeks from live racing and the Keeneland Race Course grandstand is empty. Nothing’s blowing around, there’s no coffee being sold, deals being made, tourists checking out the scene. Horses are on the track though, groups of 2-year-olds and hard-knocking veterans alike. Not a huge amount, compared to what it will be like in a few weeks. Not surprising either.
The weather today in Kentucky feels nothing like it will-or shall we say hopefully will-in about two months time but Turfway Park will have at least a symbolic feel of spring for the John Battaglia Memorial Stakes. A dozen entered the Battaglia, the last serious local prep for the $550,000 Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes later this month.
One of the first things you notice pulling through the main gates and past the row of signs near the guard house and near the outer rail of the training track at Crupi’s New Castle Farm is an eagle.
The countdown is on.
After three weeks in Ocala, which dubs itself the Horse Capital of the World, it was time to return to Lexington, which also hails as the Horse Capital of the World. That somewhat comical and sometimes heated debate is a story for another day. Let’s get back to the matter at hand.
The countdown is seriously on.
The last race I covered at Saratoga Race Course was a dead heat in the Amsterdam between Mint and Secret Firm. It was 1998, and three days later I started a job as a staff writer at Thoroughbred Times.
Jose Espinoza made three trips from the area near the winner’s circle back to the jock’s room Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs, each trek seeming more significant than the previous even though the one sandwiched in the middle was worth the most.
The signature blue post-and-rail fences are long gone-save for a small segment left behind as a tribute-and so too are the nearly 500 horses that once called the place home. An old blacksmith shop’s windows are dark, and the farm’s movie theater and dining hall are long demolished.
The dust was long settled from the Superstar Saturday some 50 miles to the south down the Florida Turnpike at Gulfstream Park and the atmosphere was still buzzing early Sunday morning at Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach.
Conor Murphy already hit one big life-changing jackpot. He’s not greedy, but he’s got designs on another, albeit on a slightly different level and with an understated approach that reflects his heritage.
