Tom Law

The Winter Olympics rolled into a second week and Presidents’ Day Weekend extended into Monday, coinciding with the fourth installment of The Monday Special to give our take on racing action from around the world.

Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day in the books, it’s time to look ahead to President’s Day Weekend and another packed edition of The Saturday Special presented by Pin Oak Stud.

The calls always come from bloodstock agents when a horse breaks its maiden the way Still Having Fun did in his debut last fall.

The Kentucky Derby, it’s kind of a big deal. If there’s any sort of chance you have a Derby horse, you must at least take a gamble and and try to get there. Isn’t that what racing is all about?

That’s the approach John Oxley and Mark Casse took going into last Saturday’s Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes with Flameaway.

The Monday Special is back for Week 3, in time to recap a somewhat light slate of classic preps, the National Horseplayers Championship, a strong performance by one of our own in a charity handicapping tournament and a little of this and a little of that as Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day barrels down.

A day after a field of roughly 700 entries starts the three-day challenge of NTRA National Horseplayers Championship at Treasure Island in Las Vegas, three members of The Saratoga Special and This Is Horse Racing editorial team are signed up for the fourth annual Tito’s $10,000 NTRA/NHC Charity Challenge.

A Kentucky Derby prep and the return of a champion at Tampa Bay Downs, a Grade 1 turf stakes at Gulfstream Park and another champion in action at Santa Anita Park headline a monster day of action previewed in this week’s edition of The Saturday Special presented by Pin Oak Stud.

Ed Lawless and and Kelly Smith-Lawless didn’t mince words when asked how special it was to return to the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas for another run at the NTRA National Horseplayers Championship.

A little slow on the draw here the morning (all right, afternoon) after the Super Bowl with the second installment of our weekly recap of all things from the last few days. Blame the excitement of the game and not any overindulgence for a later than planned edition of The Monday Special.