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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Full Serrano is making only his second start of 2025 in the Goodwood at Santa Anita, with an eye toward another appearance in the Breeders' Cup.View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Stella Thayer, the president of Tampa Bay Downs and the President of the National Museum of Racing from 2005 through 2014, came across a book of historical European racetracks during her travels. Sensing that there was a void in the U.S. where no such book existed, she set out to create one. The timing was perfect as 2025 coincided with the 75-year anniversary of the museum's founding. Brien Bouyea, Communications Director of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and renowned racing writer Jay Hovdey were given the assignment. Considering that the book is 440 pages long, weighs 8 1/2 pounds and includes 66 chapters, each one dedicated to a track or a racing circuit, this must have been a mammoth project. To help, Bouyea, the Editor-in-Chief, and Hovdey, hired dozens of racing writers and assigned them a chapter or two to complete. The end result was a book that the racing industry should consider a welcome addition to its historical archives. The book is comprehensive, thorough and well-written, covering everything from tracks that ran before the Civil War to tracks that are still operating today. The book also includes, along with the tens of thousands of words (and maybe more), a collection of photographs that bring so many memories back to life. As much as you may think you know about horse racing, you will learn a lot. Did you know that in 1936 at Bay Meadows, jockey Ralph Neves was declared dead after a spill due to heart failure? But the track physician, who had come to the hospital, administered a shot of adrenaline to the jockey's heart. Neves was not only alive but returned to the track and asked to ride the rest of his mounts that day. The stewards wouldn't allow that, but allowed Neves to ride the next day. Have you ever heard of Benning Racetrack, which opened in 1890 in Washington D.C., and turned into a place to be and to be seen in the nation's capital? Along the way there were a few problems. Workmen discovered numerous skeletons buried beneath the grandstand. It appeared that the property Benning sat on was once a cemetery for enslaved people. Then there was Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice. She liked to play the ponies and was spending time at the track, much to the displeasure of her father. There were reports that Roosevelt sent her away to live in New York so she couldn't go to the track any longer. But she soon resurfaced at the Benning betting windows. Long before Richard Duchossois arrived on the scene at Arlington, the track was run by Marge Everett. In 1962, Everett created the Arlington Washington Futurity for 2-year-olds at seven furlongs. With its series of eligibility payments added to the $150,000 purse the race was worth $357,250, making it the richest event in thoroughbred history. Arlington was also home to the sport's first $1 million race, the 1981 Arlington Million, won by the great John Henry. Those who have fond memories of the now defunct Massachusetts fair circuit will enjoy the chapter written by Lynne Snierson which covers seven different fair tracks. The fairs are best remembered for the chicanery and race fixing that the bettors actually seemed to have no problem putting up with. “There are so many crooked things going on, it was ridiculous,” Robert Temple wrote in the Boston Herald American. “But the people don't mind. 'I don't care that it is crooked. Just tell me who's going to win the race.' That's what everyone said and that is the way it was.” The book covers a wide range of tracks, from the smallest, most obscure tracks in the country, to the giants, Keeneland, Saratoga, Santa Anita. It was John Morrisey, a bare-knuckle boxing champion whose nickname was Old Smoke, who brought racing to Saratoga, despite that fact that the Civil War was raging. Spirit of the Times said of the initial meeting that it “laid the foundation or a great fashionable meeting at the Springs and added “the formation of a competent club, and further proceedings would seem to be a matter of course.” Racing at Keeneland | Coady Media Saratoga would thrive, attracting the best horses and jockeys in the sport. Only 47, Morrisey died in 1878 Things took a turn in the wrong direction, when, after Morrisey's death, the track was run by Gottfried “Dutch Fred” Waldbaum, whose background included ties to outlaw tracks and brothels in New Jersey. Purses declined sharply under his stewardship and many top stables abandoned Saratoga. Things got so bad under Waldbaum that Saratoga did not race in 1896. Saratoga needed a savior and found one in William Collins Whitney. He was committed to restoring Saratoga's past glory and spared no expense in undertaking a program of capital improvements. Anti-gambling forces were successful in their efforts to close the track in 1911 and 1912. Saratoga was back in 1913. In 1955, the Saratoga Association was replaced by the Greater New York Association, which later became the New York Racing Association. What followed was decades of prosperity, with Saratoga once again able to attract the very best jockeys and horses in the game. American Pharoah, Buckpasser, Kelso, Native Dancer, Affirmed, Alydar, Secretariat, Go For Wand, Holy Bull and Personal Ensign were among the dozens of Hall of Fame horses that won at Saratoga during the modern era. Saratoga would only became more popular over the years and has reached a point where more than 1 million fans make their way through the turnstiles each year. There is a bittersweet aspect to the book, as well, a constant reminder of the way racing used to be. Jammed grandstands, people lined up ten deep on the apron, great horses running 25 times or more a year. It serves as a reminder that, well, racing used to be more fun. The book covers numerous tracks that met their demise well before it was time for them to go. There is Atlantic City Race Course. It opened in 1946 to a crowd estimated to be 25,000. Investors in the track included Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly. Race trains carried horseplayers from Philadelphia and New York. On Labor Day 1953, the track set a new attendance record of 33,404. The signature race of the meet was the United Nations Handicap, which attracted such horses as Round Table, Mongo, Dr. Fager and Fort Marcy. Atlantic City was the first track to offer simulcasting, with patrons having the choice of betting on the live action or the races taking place at the Meadowlands. But Atlantic City Race Course's days were numbered the minute casino gambling was legalized in Atlantic City. It also had a hard time competing with other tracks in the Mid-Atlantic region that had extended their meets to overlap with Atlantic City's. The last regular meeting took place in 1997. For the next 18 years it held short meets, normally three or four days, which was necessary in order for them to have a license to import simulcast signals from other tracks. In 2015, it was announced that the track was closing for good. Then there's Calder, which opened in 1971. Sharing the Florida racing dates with Hialeah and Gulfstream, Calder lacked the charm and beauty of its racetrack neighbors. It was a blue collar racetrack that operated during under the scorching summertime sun in South Florida. Churchill Downs would take ownership of Calder and it soon became apparent that casino wagering was more important to that company than horse racing was. Just shy of its 50th anniversary, Calder held its last day of live racing on Nov. 28, 2020. Churchill had found a loophole in the law that allowed it to maintain its casino license if it offered any form of pari-mutuel wagering. Racing was out, replaced by low budget jai alai. It seems that for every Oaklawn Park, Saratoga, Keeneland, Churchill and Del Mar, all of whom are thriving, there are five tracks that couldn't make it in the current gambling market, which began to change when lotteries began to pop up all over the map in the sixties. In “The Racetracks of America, you'll read about the sad stories that are Ak-Sar-Ben, Bowie, Detroit Race Course, Garden State, Hialeah, Rockingham Park, Suffolk Downs and more. The book is for racing fans, in particular those who are interested in the history of the sport. You'll no doubt enjoy it. Just don't drop it on your foot. The post Book Review: The Racetracks Of America: From The Pre-Civil War Days To The Present appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
A new industry-wide plan to shape British racing's sustainable future was unveiled by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) on Thursday. Supported by the Racing Foundation and developed by the BHA, the new environmental plan is part of racing's wider industry strategy work to secure a sustainable future for our horses, people, businesses and communities. Implemented over an initial five-year period, the delivery of the strategy will be rooted in science and take an evidence-based approach, so that meaningful progress is made in four key areas: Reducing carbon emissions – through racing's direct operations – like energy use, buildings and agronomy – the wider supply chain, and by supporting more sustainable methods of transport for customers and participants. Work is underway to establish British racing's carbon footprint and expand the use of the Stud Farm carbon calculator. Preserving water availability – from ground conditions to cooling horses, racing is reliant on water. With less predictable rainfall patterns, efficient water storage and use is more critical than ever. A water impact study will assess the scale of the challenge and how racing can improve resilience. Protecting nature and ecosystems – with thousands of acres of land, racing and breeding is uniquely placed to contribute to the restoration, regeneration and protection of the nation's habitat and species. Utilising existing land management expertise, the industry can support increased biodiversity and help capture and store carbon dioxide. Minimising waste – by adopting a whole life cycle approach. More sustainable sourcing of essential materials and products – from feed and bedding to infrastructure and agronomy – can help reduce waste and pollution. Where viable sustainable options don't yet exist, we will engage with supply chains to identify areas for progress. Katie Carr, BHA head of environmental sustainability, said, “The success of British racing and breeding is intrinsically linked to the health of our natural environment. It's therefore essential for the breeding, training and racing of thoroughbred horses that we all do what we can to protect it. “We've already seen the effects of climate change on our sport. Weather related disruptions have become more frequent and severe, with flooding and drought impacting fixtures and water availability. We face a broad range of environment risks, which could have a real impact on business operations, horse welfare and supply chain security. “But our relationship with the environment is also an asset. We are custodians of extensive green spaces. We are experts in land and animal management. Our training centres, breeding operations and racecourses are embedded in rural communities. There is already really good practice across the industry, including innovative approaches to water storage and reducing emissions. “This is what this strategy is all about: how we harness this knowledge and expertise to mitigate risks, identify opportunities and make a positive and lasting difference. By doing so, we can help safeguard our environment, strengthen our resilience and sustain our sport for generations to come.” The post Environmental Strategy For British Racing Unveiled By BHA appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
One regrettable development of the last few years has been the discontinuation of Timeform's Racehorses annuals, which are as vital and as vivid a history lesson one could find on this sport. Geoff Greetham, who died last week at the age of 79, had an enormous influence on the annuals, both for the Flat and National Hunt. There can be no finer tribute to this much revered writer and editor than the fact that his words will remain in print on the shelves of many racing fans for years to come, and will continue to inform us of the traits and achievements of the best – and the worst – horses in training during the course of the 97 editions over which he presided. In the few days before Greetham died, the essays on Spindrifter, Provideo and Timeless Times had provided invaluable research for an interview with those horses' trainers, Sir Mark Prescott and Bill O'Gorman. While objective in its appraisal, the writing deftly brought to life the results of these marvellous two-year-olds, evoking a sense of the enjoyment they had brought to the racegoers of the day. “Spindrifter's versatility knows few bounds,” wrote the essayist of the son of Sandford Lad, who was bred by famed Irish trainer Joe Crowley and raced for Grahame Waters, who made a point of attending every one of his horse's 16 races during 1980. We'll let that great raconteur Sir Mark Prescott take up the story from here. “Mr Waters had a caravan park in Jaywick Lane, which is regularly voted the worst place in Britain to live,” he says. “He'd been in the Coldstream Guards and he'd started with nothing, and he worked like hell and he built this car park and then he built a golf course, and so on. “The thrill of owning Spindrifter never left him. Mrs Waters said that years later she'd find him in the morning watching his 14 wins. He went everywhere the horse ran. He never missed a race, and it was just the most wonderful journey he had. “At the beginning he said, 'Oh, it mustn't run on October, whenever it is, my daughter's getting married.' And that was the key day it had to run, so they put the wedding back and watched the horse.” Spindrifter's racing career began at Hamilton, just weeks after the start of the 1980 turf season. As he notched win after win – his first 10 victories being consecutive – Prescott started to plot his course towards taking the juvenile record of Nagwa, who, in 1975, had won 13 races for Barry Hills. He says, “One of the extraordinary things about Spindrifter was that his mother and Nagwa's mother, when he was trying to beat Nagwa's record, they were in the same field in Kilkenny together. And they were both bred by Joe Crowley, who became Aidan O'Brien's father-in-law, and who was a genius in his own right. Fantastic. “Joe's breeding policy was absolutely a dash of this and a dash of that. Any new stallion that was struggling, he'd ask [their owners], and he'd say, 'I've got 10 mares. I'll send you all 10. What price do I get?' And that was it. There was absolutely no research into anything. And he bred all those good horses.” Spindrifter's latent talent became apparent to his trainer even before he'd been put through any searching gallops at home. “We had a very large German girl called Gabrielle,” he recalls. “She was very gingery and of ample proportion, and she used to ride him. He was a very good ride and we went a bit quicker one day up Warren Hill and he just glided up there with her. “You'd have been a blind man not to work out that he must not be too bad to lug Gabrielle up there with such elan. He'd never worked, but I did begin to think he must be a fair horse.” Spindrifter's record-equalling feat – which was prevented from being record-breaking when he was denied victory in his final juvenile start at Stockton by a member of Bill O'Gorman's stable – was secure only for four years. O'Gorman again played the villain – certainly from Prescott's perspective – when unleashing Provideo to equal The Bard's 19th Century record of 16 wins during the season of 1984. Timeform had something to say about this, however, as one of The Bard's wins 99 years earlier had been a walkover. “All things considered we believe Provideo did more to enrich the season than any other horse and for this reason we gave him our vote in the poll for the Horse of the Year which he won comfortably with seventeen votes from Teenoso with six and El Gran Senor with five,” stated the essay on O'Gorman's stable star. High praise indeed. “Mr Foustok bred him and he was pivotal to the horse's success because when we had the odd hiccup, he just used to say, 'Do you think the horse is all right?' And you'd carry on, which most people wouldn't have done; they'd start panicking,” O'Gorman says. Six years later, the master horseman O'Gorman did it again with Timeless Times, a son of Timeless Moment who had been bought inexpensively at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale. The colt took well to his new surroundings in Newmarket to win 16 times as a juvenile, that feat achieved by September 4 of 1990. The star two-year-olds had differing personalities, as O'Gorman recalls. “Timeless Times was just like a dog but Provideo was a horrible horse, and he was very coarse in his wind. He only ever got one day off after a race and if he went a week without doing a bit [of work], you could hear him.” Neither Timeless Times nor Provideo added to their records at three. The former stood at Norton Grove Stud in Yorkshire, while Provideo was exported to stand in Tasmania. Spindrifter won early the next season and Prescott says that he found him to be as willing in his training as had been the previous year before fate intervened. “Spindrifter broke his leg the next year,” he says. “He got kicked setting off on the Summer Gallop by a horse called Carpet General. “I was waiting for them at the Links Gap and, as Bill knows, you can't quite see them set off. And they never came, and they never came, and they never came. “This is an awful thing to say, but I remember thinking, I hope it's Spindrifter that comes. Because you knew something had gone wrong, they took so long. And it was Carpet General who came on his own. And there were no mobile phones or all of that, so I trudged across the Heath and when I got to that corner by the Summer Canter, I could see Spindrifter standing there. Poor Mr Waters.” Prescott continued, “Spindrifter won first time up as a three-year-old. Then he was third at York in a big handicap, carrying a huge weight. And then he broke his leg, that was it. But he was as good at three as he was at two.” Both trainers rue the changes to the modern-day racing programme, in which fewer conditions races make it nigh-on impossible for such a feat to be repeated. “Bill messed it up by doing it twice,” says Prescott with a grin. “We were going along jolly nicely until Bill came along.” O'Gorman concurs. “That's what happened. There were peevish voices behind the scenes. I still think it was a mistake for the programme because now, those big races at this time of year, the form is all hearsay. And he says this is the best horse he's ever had, blah blah blah, but if the horse has won six races and runs in there and gets beaten, then we can assume it isn't a mistake, but that doesn't happen now.” Forty-five years on from Spindrifter's annus mirabilis, it is plain that his exploits still mean an awful lot to his trainer despite some major wins for Prescott's Heath House Stables since those days. “I think it was the most exciting few months I've had as a trainer until Alpinista, I suppose,” he says. “And it did me so much good because I'd trained 10 years without ever doing very well or anything unusual happening, and you're sort of plodding along and then this horse came and suddenly you were doing something unusual, and I'm very grateful. “And of course having the excitement of a pretty substantial bet in those days, from which I was able to break out from being, financially, every day worrying about it, suddenly I wasn't worried. So the debt I owed him and Mr Waters. “And what's quite interesting about Spindrifter is that eventually Mr Waters bought a half-sister from Joe Crowley and she had a daughter that produced Masafi, and he won seven races at six different courses in 17 days, which is staggering.” Such feats of training from both men should indeed be commemorated and celebrated. In 1990, Timeform went as far as suggesting that, if British racing had a Hall of Fame, Bill O'Gorman would be an automatic qualifier as an inductee. It does now have a Hall of Fame and that sentence still holds true, for O'Gorman, as well as for Prescott. Their three representatives may not be remembered as champions but they each played their part in producing a significant amount of fun, both for their owners and for the race-going public. And that, as much as anything, it what horseracing is all about. https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Gorman-Prescott-Mix_mixdown_v3.mp3 For the full interview with Bill O'Gorman and Sir Mark Prescott, please click here to listen to the TDN Conversations podcast, presented by Saracen Horse Feeds. The post Remembering the Epic Juvenile Seasons of Spindrifter, Provideo and Timeless Times appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Patriot Spirit, bred in Kentucky by Blue Heaven Farm, may not be as well known as some of his eight Vosburgh Stakes (G3) opponents, but he enters with all cylinders clicking in search of his first graded stakes win. View the full article
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