Thursday’s Saratoga picks – July 9

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association, Daily Racing Form, and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters announced Thursday night that the filly Thorpedo Anna, who won six of seven races last year including the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1), was named the 2024 Horse of the Year at the 54th annual Resolute Racing Eclipse Awards ceremony, presented by John Deere, Keeneland, The Jockey Club and … Read more

Who would trade these 12 months? A second Eclipse Award for writing in January 2024, recognition from your peers with the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters’ Walter Haight Award for career excellence in Turf writing in November and a third Eclipse Award for writing in early 2025? Certainly not Sean Clancy. That’s the situation Clancy … Read more

Kenny McPeek jumped up from a front-row box and wound his arm around and around like a hand on a cartoon clock. Todd Pletcher dropped his binoculars, stood up from a fifth-row box, leaned over the ledge and pumped his fist. Two grown men – 119 years, 7,802 wins and 31,365 losses between them – … Read more

And that’s that. The 2024 National Steeplechase Association season took its last jump, navigated its last turn and closed the last page of its book Saturday in Aiken, S.C. The seven-race card at the Aiken Steeplechase wrapped up a racing calendar that began in the same place in March and weaved its way up – and … Read more

And then there was one. The National Steeplechase Association season, which began way back in March, comes to an end with the Aiken Fall Races in Aiken, S.C. Saturday. The seven-race card gets started at 1 p.m., with most of the attention drawn to a still-tied race for the 2024 training championship. Leslie Young and … Read more

Down to two. The shadows are long on the 2024 steeplechase season, which includes just two more days of racing – Sunday’s long-awaited return of the Colonial Cup in Camden, S.C. and next Saturday’s Aiken Steeplechase down the road in Aiken. After that, put the traps away and let the horses rest. Jump racing returns in … Read more

By Jennie Rees The 119 horses in the entries for Saturday’s eight Claiming Crown races at Churchill Downs might have been inexpensive at some stage of their career. But that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. “This day of racing has become a remarkable event in the horse-racing industry as it celebrates the hardworking and often … Read more

Tom Law, managing editor at ST Publishing and a longtime Thoroughbred racing writer, received the Joe Hirsch Breeders’ Cup Writing Award for outstanding news reporting during last Wednesday night’s 64th annual National Turf Writers and Broadcasters Awards Dinner at The Brigantine in Del Mar, California. A native and resident of Saratoga Springs, New York, Law … Read more

A few days before the Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga this summer, Chad Brown thought about Sierra Leone’s second in the Kentucky Derby and his third in the Belmont Stakes and looked ahead. It was the only choice, really. Narrow losses like those two – with bumps, drifts, a stumbling start, an eight-wide bid, a … Read more

Thorpedo Anna showed it to Judy Hicks almost from Day 1. She showed it again this week at Del Mar, and especially Saturday in the $2 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff. “She has two sides to her: the grizzly and the laid-back girl,” Hicks said Saturday, after Thorpedo Anna tore through the scratch-laden Distaff field … Read more