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The first weekend of the 2026 Saratoga Race Course meeting comes to a close Sunday with a nine-race card – remember nine race cards? – topped by the inaugural running of the Grade 1 Leo O’Brien Handicap over jumps and the Grade 3 Kelso and Harvey Pack for older horses on the grass. Back to … Read more
The steeplechase season stays in high gear this weekend with a tripleheader on tap in Maryland and Virginia. Saturday features major hurdle players on the usual deep program at Glenwood Park for the Middleburg Spring Races while Maryland timber horses take center stage at the Grand National in Butler. Sunday’s action goes down at Morven … Read more
Week four of the spring season. Happy Orthodox Easter. The Masters turns the corner. The Jenny Wiley and the Lexington showcase the Saturday card at Keeneland. The flag drops on the Maryland timber circuit with the historic My Lady’s Manor while the Blue Ridge Point-to-Point anchors the Virginia tour. Four races at the Manor and … Read more
Happy Easter. Opening Weekend at Keeneland, the last Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, Kentucky Derby talk, the Elkridge-Harford Point-to-Point in Maryland and three NSA races on the Old Dominion Hounds Point-to-Point card in Virginia. Saturday’s post time at the historic Ben Venue estate in Washington, Va. is noon with the first NSA races at 1:35 p.m. … Read more
Week two. At Aiken, Stephen Mulqueen doubled, steering St James The Great for Keri Brion to win the Imperial Cup and guiding first-time starter Claramente for Todd McKenna to win the filly/mare maiden hurdle. Mulqueen finished in a three-way tie for second in last year’s standings. Bernie Dalton and Freddie Procter, tied with Mulqueen in … Read more
Did you clean out the attic? Go on that vacation? Read those books? Well, it’s too late now. The 2026 spring steeplechase season is upon us yet again. Time flies. Frenetic race season. Fast off season. Doesn’t seem that long ago when Fil Dor galloped off into the fading sunset with an upset score … Read more
Once more unto the breach. I’m sure I wrote that last year as well. Certainly, feels that way as several members of the Big Brother house have fallen to the vagaries of Cheltenham. Sore throats and empty wallets make bad bedfellows. But we carry on, we power through. Once more. One more day and it … Read more
Halftime. Two down. Two to go. Wind and rain moving in to drape proper chasing weather on top of proper racing. The Willie Mullins train chugs along with three Grade 1 scores, including the small but mighty Il Etait Temps picking up where favorite Majborough left off, birch splintering, frame rocking, in the BetMGM Queen … Read more
The reception. That’s what it is about, always been about. In all places, at all times during the sport’s biggest week. The first, for me, was when Istabraq pulled up early in his final Champion Hurdle. Standing at the top of the hill, favorite out, money gone, as the new generation disappeared in the distance, … Read more
And here we are. Yet again. The day of days. The week of weeks. The show of shows. Cheltenham. A place that began to seer into my racing soul way back in 2002. Sharing two bunk beds in the Hunter’s Lodge, breakfast, lunch and dinner in the stable canteen, a pile of Racing Posts to … Read more
Got a Travers horse yet? OK, OK, we get it, the Kentucky Derby is still two months away but it’s never too early to start thinking about Saratoga Race Course’s summer classic – the $1.25 million Travers Stakes Aug. 29. Like the 1 1/4-mile race’s potential entrants, everyone has time but it’s never too early … Read more
