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Mitole dominated North America’s male sprint division last year, a season highlighted by a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita Park. He retired after that win and Steve Asmussen and his loyal clients restocked the cupboard with more quality sprinters for the Hall of Fame trainer.
The Breeders’ Cup has always been about dreams. Big dreams – like John Gaines coming up with the concept of the one-day (now two) championship to sort out the best of the best. Little dreams, well, maybe there are no little dreams when it comes to the Breeders’ Cup.
Art Collector announced himself to the greater fan base of American racing with a victory in the Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes in July at Keeneland Race Course.
Jose Ortiz admitted after the Grade 3 Troy this summer at Saratoga Race Course that he made an error that cost Imprimis a victory off a nine-month layoff.
Speed? Do you want to see some speed? Look no further than Saturday’s $2 million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint to open the World Championships Day card at Keeneland.
It’s easy to remember Rachel Alexandra’s manhandling of the 2009 Woodward Stakes field at Saratoga Race Course – “She is indeed Rachel Alexandra the Great,” saith Mr. Durkin – but odds are you don’t have the same recall of the winner of the sixth race on the Monday of Travers Week in 2015.
Champion jockey Kieran Norris admits he’d contemplated retirement the past few years – starting when he broke his neck at the Radnor Hunt Races in 2017.
Notice anything different when you started watching the races from Saratoga this season?
No, no, no. Not the vacant stands, everyone expected that. What about the main track? The dirt, or more specific the color of the dirt. Surely that was noticed by those watching on TVs, laptops, tablets or phones.
When the voice on the other end of the phone belongs to Jerry D. Bailey and in answering a question about a horse he rode 36 years ago he mentions the horse in the same sentence as Cigar, it instantly becomes an E.F. Hutton moment.
When Jerry Bailey talks Cigar, people listen.
The inquiry concerned Fit To Fight, winner of the New York Handicap Triple Crown in 1984, the fourth and most likely last horse to accomplish that feat.
Michael McCarthy is thinking about traveling from his Del Mar base to Keeneland when Rushie makes an expected start in next Saturday’s Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes.
“I feel OK about it, but it’s going to be a game-day decision,” McCarthy said. “You know why I feel OK about it? Because I’ve already had this stuff.”
Yeah, McCarthy has counted the days since coming down with Covid-19.
