WASHINGTON - As trainer Tim Ritchey pondered how to prepare Afleet Alex for the Kentucky Derby, he looked to history for guidance. He discussed his options with Billy Turner, who trained Seattle Slew to win the 1977 Triple Crown and decided to do what Turner had done: give his colt three prep races as a 3-year-old before sending him to Churchill Downs. Even after an early-season disruption to Afleet Alex's schedule, Ritchey didn't waver:
"Three was always the number."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - For Craig Dollase, the toughest part of running his first horse in the Kentucky Derby is already over. The plane landed.
When Dollase emerged from his Delta red-eye early Monday morning from the West Coast, accompanied by his wife and two little girls, he breathed one of those deep, soulful sighs that said, in essence, "There, that wasn't so bad." To his credit, he refrained from kneeling.
NEW YORK - The announcement Friday that the Breeders' Cup will move from NBC to ESPN for at least eight years beginning in 2006 may seem like a comedown for the sport and its premier year-end event. The World Series, Super Bowl, and NBA finals are all on one of the over-the-air broadcast networks. Is the Breeders' Cup no longer in that league?
A decade ago, that might have been a fair perception, but in the television world of the 21st century, that's no longer necessarily the case.
NEW YORK - Jerry Bailey's autobiography, "Against the Odds: Riding for My Life," published last week, breaks perfectly from the gate, proceeds at a sensible pace, makes a winning move turning for home, and holds on despite wandering a bit through deep stretch.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Aw, now that is really disappointing. The hearing into charges of "conduct detrimental to racing" against trainer Jeff Mullins was going to be the highlight of the spring, giving life to the dog days of California news-making while the Triple Crown dominates the national debate.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It was reasonable to expect the grandstand to be draped in black crepe, unused windows boarded up, and a band on the foredeck playing "Nearer My God to Thee" as the racetrack formerly known as Hollywood Park began slipping out of sight.
Instead, last weekend's opening programs of the 2005 Hollywood season were flagrantly festive in the face of persistent indications that the place soon will be sold and plowed under.
WASHINGTON - Throughout the years of debate over legalizing slot machines in Maryland, leaders of the state's racing industry have insisted that tracks need the devices in order to survive. Skeptics questioned their sky-is-falling rhetoric. After all, Thoroughbred racing has managed to keep going without slots for a couple of centuries.
But when Laurel Park concluded the winter season and released the data on wagering from Jan. 1 through April 17, an objective observer could look at the numbers and conclude that the sky had indeed fallen.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Those who bore witness to the stewards' hearing at Hollywood Park last Saturday morning, convened to hear the complaints lodged against owner Martin Wygod by the California Horse Racing Board over events surrounding Sweet Catomine's performance in the Santa Anita Derby, emerged from the three-hour ordeal in a head-shaking daze.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The original California Gold Rush commenced in January of 1848 upon the discovery of a piece of the precious flake at John Sutter's mill, in the south fork of the American River near the town of Coloma. This momentous event led to the rapid migration of more than half a million fortune-seekers, followed by statehood for California, the invention of motion pictures and the automobile, and the outright theft of both the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers by San Francisco and Los Angeles.
