Opinion

“How is he so strong when he’s so skinny?” That’s what the nurses are saying at Albany Medical Center about injured exercise rider Ray Bulgado, who was admitted Monday with broken bones in his neck.  Bulgado was injured when 3-year-old gelding Ricochet Court fell while working on the Oklahoma turf course Monday morning. The rider … Read more

It’s the moments that make the meet. All together, when put together, they complete another endless summer. Good and bad, harrowing and fulfilling, depressing and elating, they come at you, hard and fast. I wrote that paragraph Aug. 3 and followed it with moments that stood out after 14 days of racing. It was desperation, … Read more

Two tourists stopped to look at the Leading Jockeys at Saratoga display cases along the walkway toward the grandstand Saturday morning. They looked like tourists anyway. Michael Migliore and Angel Castillo Jr. drove up from Philadelphia for the day, to experience Saratoga on Travers Day, to get an up close look at the biggest names … Read more

Susan Wantz couldn’t stay for the Travers. Owner of Ballerina winner Dance To Bristol, Wantz and her husband Dave, drove through the night Thursday, slept for five hours, went to the races Friday. Dance To Bristol, purchased for $42,000 as a 2-year-old, won her seventh consecutive race, holding off favorite Book Review in the final strides of the Grade I stakes. The 4-year-old filly is approaching $1 million in earnings.

I wrote it for this month’s Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, and it started as a simple idea: “See if you can get Cot Campbell to talk about what he was feeling after the Kentucky Derby, but before the Belmont. Ask him what Mike Freeman would have told him, what all those guys back home in Aiken would … Read more

Sometimes, this gig feels like you’re running a crime tip line. Calls, emails, texts and hollers, ‘Hey, you should write about…I’ve got a story for you…have you ever written about…’ Some are good, most are not. Then I get a call from Bill Habib. I don’t know Bill. He says he knows the paper. Knows … Read more

“How old is that jockey?” It was an honest question. A good question. Posed by a fan to a writer, minutes after yesterday’s feature, the New York Turf Writers Cup. The jockey walked past. Looking at him, he looked young and old all at the same time. Gray hair and life’s lines across his face … Read more

My friend Wass asked the question during his first visit to Saratoga. Back in 2001, when we were trying to give wings to The Special. Coming from Wass, short for Paul Wasserman, it was a funny question. A Jewish kid, who grew up in Rockland County, he had never seen anything like the racetrack. He … Read more

“No problem.” That’s all I wrote when asked to speak for the horse at a dinner for Saratoga WarHorse. I always say yes in emails, especially when the task is weeks away. I’ll say yes to anything, if it’s not today. It seemed easy, simply talk about the horse for two minutes. No problem. I … Read more

Forgive me, but when a racetracker starts to talk about all the places the sport can take you my mental checklist starts small: Timonium, Aqueduct, the vet, the back of a truck, the manure pit, the track kitchen, a nap under a fly sheet in a bad director’s chair while waiting for the blacksmith. Yeah, … Read more