Opinion

Working for a trade publication for nearly 15 years I can’t remember how many times the words “euthanized due to the infirmities of old age” were clicked from my keyboard. I can’t remember because it was a lot. A whole lot.

Goodbye Storm Cat. The 30-year-old stallion was euthanized at Overbrook Farm Wednesday. A winner of four races from eight starts, Storm Cat sired eight champions and 35 Grade/Group I stakeswinners. At his zenith, the Overbook homebred stood for a $500,000 fee while his yearlings fetched monumental prices at public auction.

Flat or jump. It’s all the same to me. It’s horse racing. Part of the reason I love European racing is because the two codes mesh. A winner at Cheltenham or a winner at Royal Ascot? Doesn’t matter, all goals, all accomplishments. Aidan O’Brien trained classic winners on the flat and over jumps. Dermot Weld, the same. Graham Lee rode on the flat, over jumps (winning the Grand National in 2004) and returned to the flat last spring. Champion jockey Richard Hughes has ridden both, loves both.

The line stretched at least 20 deep into the parking lot. The woman in front of us, with her two adolescent and thankfully well-behaved children, heard the surprise in our voices at the length of said line.

First of all, it’s not a church. The Temple Gwathmey is a steeplechase horse race with a big trophy and a history dating back almost 90 years. Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Pennsylvania’s famed Rolling Rock meet hosted runnings. Middleburg now plays host, with a field of 11 signed on for today’s running. The race takes … Read more

One of my mentors, Mike Freeman died Wednesday. I got a call while sitting in a coffee shop in Middleburg. Susie Alexander, who was there for the first Saratoga Special, called to tell me that her mentor (too) had died. Great man. Old school. Fair and loyal. After going through two computers looking for a … Read more

Nobody likes a complainer.

Thursday morning, I went in search of…looking for an article I had written in The Saratoga Special one summer. That’s the problem, I know I wrote it one summer, just don’t know which summer. There are 13 to choose from…I went in the closet and found my old iBook G4. It hadn’t been turned on in years. Wow, my life, my work, my loves, my losses…my horrible organization. I couldn’t find what I was looking for, but found this excerpt. Classic. Name who said it and I’ll send you a Saratoga Special hat, a 5-dollar bill and a jar of Kentucky Derby dirt.

At some point it’s got to be about the horses. Otherwise, you’re just trying to make money for rich guys. I don’t train horses for a living, though I certainly thought about it as a career path at some point – high school and college jobs were always in barns. I liked the horses, the … Read more

And, once again we are slapped senseless by the senseless. Hard to grasp, impossible to process, mind-numbingly obtuse to the life we live. The life we want to live. The life we try to live.