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When you turn off the quiet country road of 71st Street Southeast onto the main street of Galchutt, N.D., you see a small church on one side of the road and a grain elevator on the other. Nestled beside the church is a farmstead tucked among the trees. As I pulled into the drive and stepped out of the car, I was greeted by an ecstatic young German shepherd cross, anxious to show me a stick he had found.
What a run for our great game of Thoroughbred racing. A thrilling Triple Crown series is always a good thing; the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years something we only dreamed about back in May.
Triple Crown mania went into high gear as American Pharoah splashed his way through Baltimore in a powerful victory in the Preakness Stakes. A little more than two weeks and he’ll go for the sweep in the Belmont Stakes. How will he do it? Can he do it? Will he do it?
Everyone wants to know the answer to those questions and so many more. American Pharoah, and the 12 furlongs of the Belmont Stakes, hold the answers.
We’re in Baltimore and on the grounds at Pimlico Race Course prepping for Saturday’s Xpressbet Preakness Stakes. People are talking and they’re joking even more, especially during Thursday’s traditional Alibi Breakfast.
American Pharoah, Firing Line and Dortmund – the three leading contenders for the $1.5 million Preakness and the first three finishers in the Kentucky Derby- were on the track Thursday and that certainly got people chatting about their chances.
The 141st Kentucky Derby is in the books. The Preakness just about a week away; the Iroquois Steeplechase now only a day away. Busy days indeed in the racing world and it always seems like everyone’s playing catch-up.
When Sea Of Clouds showed – and earned – very little in his two lifetime starts on the racetrack, Sheikh Fahad Al Thani of Qatar Racing wasted no time finding him a happy and suitable alternative career. He had the right connections.
Free Dubai was welcomed into the world in late March 2005, a spicy chestnut son of prominent Mid-Atlantic sire E Dubai and full of promise. A little more than four years and 18 starts later – races at Laurel Park and Colonial Downs – Free Dubai racked up just two victories and compiled earnings of $45,641.
Spring is in full swing. The Grand National and Middleburg Spring Races are in the books, the Maryland Hunt Cup right around the corner. The Kentucky Derby a little more than a week away. The pace is picking up all over the country and in New York they welcome a new chairman to the NYRA board and rolled out plans for the Belmont Stakes Festival.
There are some circumstances in life that are far too poetic to be mere coincidence – like the idea of a song that foretells a racehorse’s life.
Sweetwhiskeybrown is a 5-year-old bay gelding by Capitalimprovement out of La Vita’s Infinity, by Timeless Native. “Whiskey,” as he’s nicknamed, was born and raised on Peach Lane Farm in Opelousas, La. Peach Lane owner Lora Pitre has been raising the foals belonging to owner and breeder Marcia LaMarche for 20 years, and witnessed nearly all stages of Sweetwhiskeybrown’s life.
He was bred in Germany. His race record shows starts at Dortmund, Frankfurt, Baden Baden, Liecester, Cheltenham and Aintree. But last weekend, Moneytrain made headlines for winning a sidesaddle exhibition flat race at the Loudon Hunt Point-to-Point Races at Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Va.
