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By day, he trains a barn full of horses at Laurel Park. By night, he’s a chauffeur. Like any good father, Tim Keefe shuttles the kids to and from practice, pony club, school functions, pretty much anything.

ST caught up with bloodstock agent Tom McGreevy for an article about Fox Hill Farm’s Havre de Grace (who he picked out) in next month’s Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred. It was one of those conversations that wound up being 45 minutes long and over 2,500 words. We thought you might enjoy part of it. 

 Slam. It’s always the door I hear first. From the far end of the house. I don’t hear feet, no voice, no anything. Other than the door. Slam. He always slams the door. Then I hear his feet. Patter. Patter. Patter. Like a chicken across a bowling alley.

Longtime steeplechase owner Mignon Smith died in Washington, D.C. on Friday, February 10. She was 81. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Smith graduated from the Madeira School in Virginia and Briarcliff College in New York.

It all came back pretty quickly. The hay, the straw, the horses, the mornings, the pressure (or what I thought was pressure), the mixed aroma of oats, manure, medicine, the muffled announcements at the Toyota dealership next door. Mostly, I heard the banter . . .

He’s pushy, a little jiggy and bouncy and you really wouldn’t want to start picking apart his conformation because he won’t stand still long enough to let you look at him.

British import Black Jack Blues secured the Eclipse Award for champion steeplechase horse in 2011. Owned by Irv Naylor, trained by J.W. Delozier and ridden by Ross Geraghty, the Irish-bred son of Definite Article won the Dot Smithwick and the Grand National in an undefeated American fall campaign.

Everybody has them. Life horses. They arrive, take a part of your heart/brain/whatever and stay there. For life.

Two-time Maryland Hunt Cup winner Buck Jakes – whose racing career included victories on the flat, over hurdles and over timber – was put down Wednesday after a bout with colic. The gray son of Turkoman was 24 and had been a foxhunter and much-loved retiree in Maryland since his racing career ended in 2000.

A photo from the A.P. Smithwick Memorial at Saratoga this summer won the Eclipse Award for photography in the annual editorial contest presented by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters.