TUCSON, Ariz. - Medication reform in North American racing is just stumbling out of the starting gate to chase the small but dangerous field of loose horses who are tearing up the track for everyone else. It is far behind, and unless someone starts listening to Edward "Ned" Bonnie, the illegal medication mess will remain far out in front of those hoping to rein it in.
ARCADIA, Calif. - It is nothing short of heresy, even sacrilege, and most certainly a rabble-rousing incitement to all manner of wrong-headed assumptions.
Such things are being said about Wednesday's release of Mel Gibson's "Passion." But that's no big deal - just another Hollywood sword-and-sandals epic.
The real barbarity was inflicted upon the Thoroughbred racing game on Saturday at Santa Anita, when an underachieving 4-year-old gelding named Unfurl the Flag was given credit for equalling the seven-furlong track record set by Spectacular Bid in 1980.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Making predictions about the Kentucky Derby is difficult enough when it's done 24 hours before the race, so it is probably foolish to issue an opinion nearly three months in advance. Nevertheless, I feel reasonably confident that the people at Gulfstream Park a week ago Saturday saw the 2004 Derby winner in action.
NEW YORK - When the National Thoroughbred Racing Association created a Players' Panel to address bettors' concerns in the wake of the 2002 Breeders' Cup Fix Six scandal, the immediate goal was short-term damage control. The long-range result, though, is an important report released this past week that could greatly improve the game if it is heeded.
The , compiled by 11 high-profile horseplayers under the direction of handicapping author James Quinn, is a thoughtful and sober eight-page document containing 66 specific recommendations in seven areas.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Emma Bovary, the 19th century literary character, was a scandalous woman with a rapacious appetite for the trappings of wealth, a serial adulteress, and a chronic spendthrift who drove her husband to near ruin, then ended her life with a sloppy, agonizing suicide. What a gal.
ARCADIA, Calif. - All you glamorous foals of 2001, you Derby dudes and darlings, step back for a second and give an old guy a turn in the sun.
Saturday marks another comeback for , at the ripening age of 13, as he attempts to win the Grasmick Handicap at Fonner Park for the ninth time in a career that dates back to the misty, distant days of the early 1990's.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The first race at Golden Gate Fields on the afternoon of Feb. 5 appeared on paper as the kind of heat that disappears from memory the moment it becomes official. Six $12,500 claimers went three-quarters of a mile for a purse of $11,000. The winner stood to earn $6,050. In today's racing game, that barely covers the bandages.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Any spectator pressing close to the players at Santa Anita last weekend was in for a memorable ride. Picture the front row of a Gallagher fruit-smashing orgy combined with an Offspring mosh pit.
All seemed at peace Sunday, as the group of polite young fillies assembled for the Las Virgenes Stakes prepared for riders up. Then Wildwood Flower, who was leading the parade, wigged out, reared to her full height, and tipped over backward into a bed of yellow snapdragons.
ARCADIA, Calif. - It is probably a stretch to mix presidential politics with the isolated world of Thoroughbred racing. But since this weekend celebrates Presidents' Day - along with the February birthdays of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and William Henry Harrison - the historical reach is worth a try.
