Opinion

The last time I was here, I watched a horse die. It still gives me a weird chill when I think about it. Arcadius ran, jumped, won the 2012 Iroquois Steeplechase and then dropped dead on the track. In front of everyone, and about 10 steps from where I was standing. I did my job … Read more

It’s 5:30 in the morning at Churchill Downs. Two days before the Kentucky Derby. One cup of coffee finished, working on the second. Still dark. Still a racetrack. It took an old-habits-die-hard ex-trainer to get me here this early. The tourists won’t get here until 7, they think that’s when it starts, to me, it’s when it ends. I’d give up the afternoon races for the morning exercises. With two hours before my first gig, there’s one place to go.

In celebration of Shug McGaughey winning the Kentucky Derby with Orb, we went back to the 2004 archives and found Shug’s 32 flavors, when we asked Shug to talk about one of his horses every day in The Saratoga Special. It was in celebration of his election to the Hall of Fame. Seems like a good time to read a few. Here’s the first.

Kentucky Derby 139 is in the books. The winner left Churchill Downs Sunday morning and was back the stall at Belmont Park he hadn’t seen since late last fall by mid-afternoon. Talk quickly shifted from the Derby to the Preakness. Happens every year. We live in such an instant age that nowadays its always about what’s next, but the Triple Crown will forever be like that. Two weeks isn’t much time.

The woman clutches her oversized plastic bag to her chest. Finally, the stewardess says the inevitable, “You can’t keep that bag there, it’s got to be stowed under the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartment.” The woman wavers, stammers…then a man flying to another Derby chimes in, “Is that your Derby … Read more

It’s Kentucky Derby week and everybody’s got the fever. At least it seems like they do.

It might be the best quote I’ve ever read from a trainer. In a Churchill Downs press release about Giant Finish running in the Kentucky Derby, Tony Dutrow said he “has agreed to support my owner’s decision to run in the Kentucky Derby.”

One or two posts a week. After getting a few columns from our site linked to The Rail, a Thoroughbred racing blog section of The New York Times website, in 2011-12, I asked about being a regular contributor. Joe Drape and Melissa Hoppert, the NYT’s racing writers, said yes and there’s my byline on the … Read more

I have to admit, I’ve had fun going through the archives looking for new/old things to post here. I dug past three sets of old silks (Brandywine Stable, NSHA, Harbor View) and a box of curtains to find my old laptop, the iBook G4 that has archives from as far back as 2007. It looks like a VW van that climbed Mt. Washington, dings, dents and stickers all over it.

“It’s nice to see you back, um, well you never went anywhere…you just weren’t, um…” It began as a statement, became a retraction and was verging on an apology, until Shug McGaughey came to the rescue. “I know what you’re saying, it slowed down for a while,” the Hall of Fame trainer said. “That wasn’t … Read more