Horseplayers expecting full cards at major racetracks such as Churchill Downs, Golden Gate, Hollywood Park and Monmouth Park were sorely disappointed Thursday. They were closed.
Richard Eng
Less than a month ago, Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra could have walked into the Churchill Downs paddock drawing barely a glance. Now they are horse racing’s two biggest celebrities.
There are two chances of seeing a bid for the Triple Crown this year: slim and none. No one I know picked Mine That Bird to win the Kentucky Derby, and only a couple of redboarders after the race insist they liked him.
The plot for the second jewel of the Triple Crown just got thicker with the private purchase of Kentucky Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra by Jess Jackson of Stonestreet Stables.
From 1980 to 1999, the Kentucky Derby favorite lost 20 straight times. In this decade, four favorites have won, including three over the last five years. So the question begs: Who is getting smarter, the handicappers or the horsemen? Both are.
Racing lore is full of hard-luck stories in which a jockey and his agent had to pick between top horses to ride and invariably chose the wrong one.
The man with the toughest job in racing each spring is Mike Battaglia, the morning linemaker at Churchill Downs. Battaglia usually gets criticized for his Kentucky Derby line, when, in reality, he does a fine job.
Whoever wins Saturday’s Arkansas Derby and Blue Grass Stakes will slip into the Kentucky Derby field without the burden of being the favorite, a label that probably will go to either Wood Memorial winner I Want Revenge or Florida Derby victor Quality Road.
The road to the Kentucky Derby only gets more interesting as May 2 draws closer. Three major preps — the Santa Anita Derby, Wood Memorial and Illinois Derby — will be run Saturday.
The $6 million Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest race, highlights a mind-boggling $21 million card Saturday at Nad Al Sheba in Dubai, but 3-year-olds prepping for the Kentucky Derby will merit plenty of attention this weekend, too.
A quote that football coach Bill Parcells likes to use is, “You are what your record says you are.” In that case, the record of Southern California-based horses prepping for the Kentucky Derby shows they are a lot better than first thought.
March means madness in college basketball. In horse racing, it means a mad scramble among 3-year-olds on the Kentucky Derby trail.
One name jumped off the page when I got my ballot for this year’s horse racing Hall of Fame inductions at Saratoga: Bob Baffert.
This is prime season for horse handicapping tournaments in Las Vegas. Today we’re into the second day of the Horseplayer World Series at The Orleans.