Anyone looking for even the slimmest connection to horses among the eight films contending for Best Picture honors Sunday night at the Oscars will be sorely disappointed.
“The Favourite” is not, in fact, about the 3-year-old Coliseum’s ability to burn money, but the period piece does feature a few steeds pulling carriages, doing their best to distance themselves from the despicable humans taking up the rest of the wildly overrated ordeal.
War of Will’s decisive victory in Saturday’s Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds was a good example of how hot takes immediately after a race might not age very well.
I understand why there was some gushing over War of Will in the time between his gallop-out and when the last patron left the Fair Grounds dining room. I mean, War of Will scored by just more than two lengths, which was his third straight decisive victory since moving to dirt last fall, and he did so after prompting a pace that otherwise fell completely apart.
At the Eclipse Awards dinner in February of 1985, at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, your wandering correspondent found himself in the men’s room washing up at a sink adjacent to the one being used by the actor Albert Finney. It was an opportunity I had to grab.
“Mr. Finney, I’m presenting an award later tonight, but I’ve been battling a sore throat and I fear I might lose my voice. Do you have any advice?”
Finney dried his hands, glanced my way, and replied, “Drink plenty of water. Speak softly. And keep it short.”
Valentine’s Day will start like any other recent Thursday for Nick Vaccarezza. He’ll arise well before dawn and head straight to Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Fla., where he will report for work at the Chad Brown stable and commence checking temperatures stall to stall.
If you can’t dream big in our sport, where can you dream big?
One of the best examples of unbridled optimism in the game can be found among the names of the 362 3-year-olds whose connections met a Jan. 26 deadline and became early nominees to the 2019 Triple Crown.
One of the glaring holes in the Kentucky Derby eligibility system is on full display this weekend when the Sam Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay on Saturday affords ambitious 3-year-olds a chance to earn 17 points toward Derby participation, while the San Vicente Stakes on Sunday at Santa Anita offers zero.
The difference, if a face-value explanation is worth anything, comes down to the distance of each race. The Grade 3 Sam Davis, first run in 1981, is at a mile and one-sixteenth. The Grade 2 San Vicente, sorry to say, has been a seven-furlong race since 1955.
Just when there was reason to be discouraged over the looming lack of depth this season among older runners – mourning still the retirements of Accelerate, City of Light, and Justify – along comes last Saturday’s San Pasqual Stakes at Santa Anita to offer a glimmer of promise.
Everyone would like it to be early May, with much better weather everywhere, baseball in full swing, and all the pieces of the Kentucky Derby puzzle fitted together.
Instead, it’s early February. The weather isn’t great, at least in a lot of places. We don’t know something as basic as which teams two of baseballs brightest, youngest stars are going to play for, and the Derby puzzle pieces aren’t even all out on the table yet.
How far should a hardcore racing fan need to travel to be up close and personal with a flesh-and-blood Kentucky Derby winner? For anyone lingering anywhere near Kentucky, the answer is “not far,” since 14 of the 20 living Derby winners reside at a variety of farms and retirement facilities within a short drive of downtown Lexington.
Those 14 include Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify at Ashford Stud, Funny Cide and Go for Gin at the Kentucky Horse Park, and Silver Charm and War Emblem at Old Friends Equine.
