At Churchill Downs September 16, 2017, the official Road to the 2018 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve began with the Iroquois Stakes—first of 34 official qualifying events. May 5, 2018, following the 144th Run for the Roses, that path dead-ends at the identical finish line. So far, two familiar 2017 leftovers–Bolt d’Oro and McKinzie–continue […]
Read more
Derby Strikes season 2018 has arrived. Back in 1999, I developed my Derby Strikes System. The system consists of nine key factors. When a horse does not qualify in one of the nine categories, the horse gets a strike. The nine key factors are explained at the end of this column. Various “rules” for the […]
Read more
Is this the year it finally happens? Will this be the year in which the Kentucky Derby winner is someone who did not race as a 2-year-old? We already saw one of the longest streaks in all of sports come to an end last Friday when UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) crushed Virginia […]
Read more
The recent passing of Thunder Gulch sent me scurrying to the bookshelf for a copy of Champions: The Lives, Times, and Past Performances of the 20th Century’s Greatest Thoroughbreds, by editors and writers at Daily Racing Form. The book is a treasure trove of information and includes complete past performance lines of title winners. As […]
Read more
Saturday at Santa Anita going a mile and one-sixteenth, two of the nation’s top-ranked 3-year-olds met in the San Felipe Stakes. Bolt d’Oro, runner-up in 2017 voting for top 2-year-old honors, and McKinzie, an unbeaten Grade 1 winner, put on a show worth of the price of admission. Eyeballing as if one owed the other […]
Read more
Last Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park turned out to be a real humdinger. McKinzie, favored at even money in the Grade II affair, and Bolt d’Oro, sent off at 6-5, put on quite a show. They staged a furious battle from the quarter pole all the way to a photo finish. The […]
Read more
Live In-Race wagering is a ‘thing’ somewhere on this gambling planet. Thankfully, it’s not a proposition offered at Gulfstream Park. Good. Because if Fountain of Youth attendees had been able to wager midway through last Saturday’s featured race they would have lost their case Joe’s Stone Crab money on favorite Good Magic. The Breeders’ Cup […]
Read moreThis Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park should be a lot of fun to watch. The Grade II affair features an early season clash between McKinzie, who has been No. 1 on my Kentucky Derby Top 10 all year up to this point, and Bolt d’Oro, who currently is No. 2 on my […]
Read more
The champ is back. Good Magic, who was voted a 2017 Eclipse Award as champion 2-year-old male, returns to the racing wars this Saturday in the Grade II Xpressbet.com Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The 1 1/16-mile affair has drawn a field of 10. Trained by two-time Eclipse Award winner Chad Brown, Good […]
Read more
‘Another one bites the dust,’ is the usual saying. However, this weekend more than ‘one’ sampled dust or, more appropriately, ‘mud.’ In a pair of Road to the Kentucky Derby starting gate qualifying point races–Risen Star at Fair Grounds and Southwest at Oaklawn Park–two strong favorites, Instilled Regard at 7/5 and Mourinho at 6/5, failed. […]
Read more
What two former Quarter Horse trainers — D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert — have managed to accomplish in Thoroughbred racing is truly phenomenal. Lukas has won the Kentucky Derby, the most coveted American race in Thoroughbred racing, four times (Winning Colors in 1988, Thunder Gulch in 1995, Grindstone in 1996 and Charismatic in 1999). […]
Read more
Instilled Regard, who has the look of a rising 3-year-old star, has been installed as the 8-5 morning-line favorite in this Saturday’s Grade II Risen Star at New Orleans’ Fair Grounds. A $1,050,000 auction purchase, Instilled Regard returns to Louisiana from his Southern California base after winning the Grade III Lecomte at the Fair Grounds […]
Read more
Ever hear that nothing’s over until the fat lady sings? Apparently, the phrase has more to do with operatic structure than it does with overeating. And that’s good because when it comes to weight–or an excess of it–yours truly has little room to joke. Residual holiday girth, you see. (BTW, for how long into the […]
Read more
How quickly the Kentucky Derby picture can change. Fans of the sport each year certainly are entertained by the many twists and turns on the Derby trail. There were three races on the Road to the Kentucky Derby last Saturday. They were Gulfstream Park’s Grade II Holy Bull at 1 1/16 miles, Santa Anita’s Grade […]
Read more
Three-year-olds with Kentucky Derby ambitions will do battle this Saturday in a trio of graded stakes races in Florida, California and New York. These three races on the Road to the Kentucky Derby are Gulfstream Park’s Grade II Holy Bull at 1 1/16 miles, Santa Anita Park’s Grade III Robert B. Lewis at 1 1/16 […]
Read more