ARCADIA, Calif. - On his first wide-eyed tour of the Santa Anita grounds, during the autumn of 2006, rider Richard Migliore at one point paused in front of the statue of jockey George Woolf and spent a few moments in silent appreciation.
"What was interesting to me," Migliore recalled, "was that the statue wasn't put there by the racetrack. It says it was put there by the public. That speaks volumes about him, and the impact he had on the sport from a fan's perspective."
NEW YORK - More than five years after clumsy criminals nearly hijacked $3 million from the pick-six pool at the 2002 Breeders' Cup, are the American parimutuel pools that total $15 billion a year in Thoroughbred wagers safe and secure?
It's tough to find an industry official who can say anything more reassuring than that there is greater awareness of potential problems. In fact, the people whose job it is to protect the betting public, the state regulators and racing commissioners, are the most adamant in saying that racing still needs to do much more.
RCADIA, Calif. - Win or lose in Saturday's $100,000 Tokyo City Cup, the 6-year-old gelding Zappa deserves some sort of recognition for dancing every major dance for the older main-track division during the current Santa Anita meet.
It wasn't easy, either. Zappa had to be ready to run in the San Pasqual Handicap at 1 1/16 miles on both Jan. 5, when it was originally scheduled, and Jan. 12, when it was actually run after the first, dramatic failure of the synthetic Cushion Track surface to handle a winter rainstorm, causing a cancellation of racing. He won anyway.
NEW YORK - Twenty years ago, the favorite for the Florida Derby was Forty Niner, a champion 2-year-old and five-time stakes winner, making the ninth of 19 starts in a 16-month racing career. The world's best older horse that season was Alysheba, who had won the Kentucky Derby the previous year in his 11th of 26 career starts.
The Dubai World Cup, to be run Saturday night at brightly lit Nad Al Sheba, bills itself as the centerpiece of an international celebration that spotlights the finest of the Thoroughbred breed. Certainly, the presence of reigning American Horse of the Year Curlin is a feather in the cap of the royal Maktoum family, whose members subsidize the World Cup festival's giddy array of multimillion-dollar events.
They all lose. At least, that's what the old-timers say. Man o' War, Gallant Fox, Native Dancer, Secretariat, Citation, Count Fleet, Dr. Fager, Cigar - all of them seemed invincible, except for those rare times they lost.
In our time, only Personal Ensign sustained her excellence throughout a meaningful number of starts to retire unbeaten for life. And because she did it at such an exalted level, she will always be the standard against which other streaking demons are measured.
NEW YORK - Last Sunday, there was live Thoroughbred racing at almost every track in America that had been open the day before, including major meets such as Fair Grounds, Gulfstream and Santa Anita. Those three are all open again this Sunday, along with more than a dozen other tracks from coast to coast. Among the few exceptions? New York, which alone continues to ban racing on both Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, simply because no one can be bothered to amend a costly and antiquated law that grows more hypocritical every year.
ARCADIA, Calif. - For starters, he sounds like a Jeff Mullins horse, right out of Mullins's old rodeo lore.
Greenhorn: "What's that over there?"
Cowboy: "That's the door where the bull comes out."
Greenhorn: "What do they call it?"
Cowboy: "What do you think they call it? It's the Bull Door."
NEW YORK - The race doing business as the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park on Saturday has had six different names in its 36-year history, and maybe it's time for a seventh: This year's running looks like the Isanybodyanygood Stakes.
While only one of the 12 entrants has already amassed enough earnings to run in the Kentucky Derby, and whoever wins the race will earn $300,000, the equivalent of an automatic starting berth, it's entirely unclear whether there is a truly Derby-worthy 3-year-old in the field.