The likely end of Swiss Skydiver’s stellar career is in sight, with the announcement that the 2020 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly will get time off before being sold this November. Swiss Skydiver will likely run in the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar, then head almost immediately to the […]
Say this for the 2021 Personal Ensign; Letruska may be the clubhouse leader as Champion Older Filly of the Year, but her rivals for that title don’t scare easily. That explains why the Grade 1 Personal Ensign – one of Saratoga’s six Grade 1s on Saturday — features a deep, […]
There are would-be party crashers to Saturday’s Grade 1 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga. There’s Crazy Beautiful. There’s Clairiere. Solid 3-year-olds with solid, proven resumes. However, the two “C” fillies find themselves relegated to that party-crasher role. That’s courtesy of the two “M” fillies – Malathaat and Maracuja – who hold […]
The cliché “quality over quantity” washes over this year’s Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga like the wake from Knicks Go’s last race. It floods the zone like Maxfield’s last two outings and Silver State’s last trip around Belmont Park. If you’re going to send only five horses around Saratoga’s […]
Even with the quarantine for Equine Herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) lifted on Monday, trainer Kenny McPeek filed a hearing request with the New York State Gaming Commission after several of his horses were denied entry into early-week races at Saratoga. BloodHorse reported that attorney Andrew Mollica filed the request on McPeek’s behalf […]
One of the ways Kenny McPeek made his bones as a trainer was to never doubt himself or his charges. This explains one reason why he plans on running star filly Swiss Skydiver in the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. “Someone brought up the word ‘can’t’ to me the […]
Horses quarantined as a result of an Equine Herpesvirus (EHV-1) case in Saratoga’s Barn 86 will be allowed to race Aug. 1, provided there are no further positive cases. The New York Racing Association made the announcement on Tuesday, citing the end of a 21-day quarantine in that barn. This […]
Standout filly Simply Ravishing returned to training late last month, ending her quick retirement after she failed to get into foal to Into Mischief this spring. Trainer Kenny McPeek announced via Twitter that the Grade 1-winning filly will return to racing in the Aug. 4 Statue of Liberty Division at […]
Unlike last year, there are no Kentucky Derby qualifying points available in this year’s Grade 3 Ohio Derby. No mulling over potential Derby dark horses coming out of what is usually a C-level field of 3-year-olds anyway. No. Instead, we have one Derby and Preakness alum, one would-be Derby alum, […]
Somehow, the Swiss Skydiver Stakes Tour bypassed Belmont Park. Somehow, the Champion 3-Year-Old Filly missed the biggest racing sandbox of them all – Big Sandy. How did a filly who won six graded stakes races over five racetracks miss America’s largest racetrack, Belmont Park? An oversight? Well, it’s an oversight […]
Malathaat and her undefeated record earned 5/2 morning-line favorite status for Friday’s 147th Kentucky Oaks at Monday morning’s post-position draw and morning-line announcement. The 1 1/8-mile Oaks anchors Churchill Downs’ 13-race, six-stakes Friday card. The 14-filly field of 3-year-olds runs for a $767,250 first-prize check out of the $1.25 million […]
Two weeks ago, King Fury needed a miracle of falling Kentucky Derby dominoes to get him into the 2021 Kentucky Derby field. On Friday, the Lexington Stakes champion got that miracle. After the defections of Dream Shake and Hozier Friday and Get Her Number’s Saturday defection, King Fury sits comfortably […]
You could make a credible case the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park is the clubhouse leader for the best race of 2021. The reason you can make that case leads you to make cases for the two principals in Saturday’s Oaklawn headliner. Even-money favorite Monomoy Girl vs. […]
The Grade 1 Ashland Oaks is following the path of this year’s Kentucky Oaks prep races, which involves pitting two standouts against each other in a makeshift regional rivalry. You had Travel Column and Clairiere in the Fair Grounds Oaks in Louisiana. Beautiful Gift and Moraz tangle at Santa Anita […]
Bring the jury in on Swiss Skydiver. Throw out whatever doubts you may have held on the Champion 3-Year-Old Filly impressing as a 4-year-old. Swiss Skydiver didn’t exactly pick up in 2021 where she left off in 2020 after stumbling out of the gate at the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Her […]
As one 2020 standout returned to training, another one returned to the shelf – albeit temporarily. Swiss Skydiver hit the track, running for the first time since November’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff, while a report said Maxfield suffered a virus that will keep him out of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational. […]
The 2021 Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks will mark the first time in the history of those prestigious races that horses may run without furosemide, better known by its brand name Lasix. The ban on the powerful anti-bleeding medication, widely employed at tracks all over the country, extends to the […]
Now that we’ve bid farewell to the Thoroughbred standouts who retired in 2020, which horses will we greet as the returning equine stars worthy of attention in 2021? We bid farewell to Authentic, Improbable, Maximum Security, Vekoma, Tom’s d’Etat, War of Will, McKinzie, Serengeti Empress, Enable, and Ghaiyyath in recent […]
She’s run with the boys. Now, with her Preakness victory last Saturday, Swiss Skydiver beat the boys. So what’s the next challenge for one of the great North American fillies of her generation? That would be the Nov. 7 Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland. That much, we know. But what are […]
It’s October 2020, which in this bizarre of all bizarre years, means it’s Preakness Stakes time. That there is no Triple Crown at stake does not mean there is nothing at stake in the third and final jewel of a wild, 15-week Triple Crown campaign. The 2020 American Classics trail […]
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