Jockey Frankie Dettori surprised racing on Saturday with an announcement that 2023 will be the final year of an illustrious career that has made him the world’s most recognizable rider.
Dettori told the British press that he plans to ride throughout the world next year before retiring in the autumn. The first stop on that tour is the Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, where Dettori is expected to be based in the early months of the year.
Last spring, Tim Yakteen received the sort of phone call every trainer enjoys from a client. Owners Pierre and Leslie Amestoy had bought a pair of 2-year-olds in Florida that were bound for Yakteen’s California stable.
The team was Practical Move, the winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Los Alamitos Futurity; and Blessed Touch, who was second in the Desi Arnaz Stakes at Del Mar last month.
“They’ve been in this business a long time,” Yakteen said on Sunday. “They’ve got a good eye for a horse.”
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Bob Coglianese, the longtime New York Racing Association track photographer whose iconic head-on shot of Secretariat’s 1973 Belmont Stakes win still resonates nearly five decades later, died Friday in Boynton Beach, Fla. He was 88.
According to the New York Racing Association, Coglianese had been ill for several months after a fall that required surgery.
Coglianese in 1962 founded Coglianese Photos which, now under the leadership of his son Adam, remains the official photographer at NYRA, which operates Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga.
A leading executive with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and other animal rights activists, urged the California Horse Racing Board on Thursday to take a proactive approach to end illegal racing in the state.
Citing concerns about horse safety, PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo gave a 12-minute overview to the board detailing how illegal racing, almost exclusively involving Quarter Horses, is a concern throughout the country.
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame has selected three journalists from yesteryear to be inducted into its Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor, including the prolific writer Damon Runyon.
In addition to Runyon, who covered major sports and had 20 works of fiction made into movies, the Hall of Fame selected Heywood Hale Broun, a journalist and broadcaster, and the photographer Bernard Stanley "Bert" Morgan for induction into the Media Roll of Honor, which was created in 2010.
A proposal that would require owners to provide the financial bonus of a single stallion season to California-based jockeys who ride colts or horses that win Grade 1 races in the state was discussed by the California Horse Racing Board’s jockey and driver welfare committee for the second time this year on Wednesday, but was met with pushback from some committee members and a leading executive of the sport.
The potential rule will be discussed by the full racing board at a meeting on Thursday, but is months away from a formal proposal.
The four-time stakes winner Hot Rod Charlie is currently at Gainesway Farm in Kentucky with a decision expected soon on whether the 4-year-old resumes racing or begins a stud career in 2023, according to two people familiar with the plans.
Hot Rod Charlie, sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland on Nov. 5 in his most recent start, races for the partnership of Gainesway Stable, Roadrunner Racing, Boat Racing and Strauss Brothers Racing.
Two barns on the Churchill Downs backside remain under quarantine because of recent positive tests for exposure to equine herpesvirus, but track management has begun to allow horsemen to ship out from the track provided their horses test negative, according to Churchill’s top equine health official.
The New York State Gaming Commission on Monday rejected the recommendations of hearing officers to throw out penalties in two recent cases initially decided by the commission’s New York Racing Association steward, including a 30-day suspension handed out to a clocker at NYRA tracks.
The Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia, which administers the $20 million Saudi Cup, will continue to withhold the winner’s share of the 2020 race, won by Maximum Security, until its “investigation” of the horse’s trainer, Jason Servis, is complete, the organization said in a statement on Monday.
