Winter Storm Landon and the freezing temperatures blanketing the central US wiped out racing at three tracks on Thursday, most prominently at Oaklawn Park, which announced it’s canceling racing this weekend. Along with that Arkansas track, Sam Houston Race Park in Texas and Turfway Park in Kentucky both scrubbed their […]
Monomoy Girl, one of the dominant fillies of the 21st century, was retired from racing Wednesday after she suffered a fracture during a routine Tuesday gallop. Trainer Brad Cox said the 6-year-old mare and seven-time Grade 1 winner went out for a gallop at Churchill Downs on Tuesday morning. When […]
While she returned under tack to WinStar Farm, defending Breeders’ Cup Distaff champion Monomoy Girl is doubtful for this year’s Breeders’ Cup. The two-time event champion and current Champion Older Female has been out since mid-April, recovering from muscle strains and hamstring issues. BloodHorse reported that Monomoy Girl isn’t expected […]
Trainer Fausto Gutierrez turned Churchill Downs’ Spring Meet closing day from impressive to electric when he told the Daily Racing Form on Sunday that his star mare, Letruska, will run the Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Stakes. That turns the already-deep, 1 1/8-mile Fleur de Lis into a Grade 1-worthy […]
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 […]
Plans for horse racing’s newest female star – you know her as Letruska – remain fluid entering the week, less than 48 hours after the 5-year-old mare’s stirring Apple Blossom Handicap victory. ‘I think we’re going to take a little bit more time with her,” trainer Fausto Gutierrez told Oaklawn […]
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. […]
Again, when you’re handicapping a Monomoy Girl race, like Sunday’s Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn Park, it’s best to put the pen down. Instead, pick up your attention and simply watch. Betting on Monomoy Girl, especially in a race like this, lacks value. For horse racing fans, however, it […]
This is the essential lure of MyRacehorse Stables for horse racing fans. Starting early next month, you can own a piece of Monomoy Girl for the price of a tank of gas or a nice bottle of wine. MyRacehorse Stable paid $300,000 to Spendthrift Farm for 51% of the racing […]
This weekend’s stakes card gives us another shot at seeing the 2021 debuts of Essential Quality, Jackie’s Warrior, and Monomoy Girl. After two weather postponements over the past two weekends, Oaklawn Park finally gets a thumbs-up from Mother Nature. That means the Arkansas track finally gets to turn loose its […]
Oaklawn Park announced late Monday evening that it canceled this weekend’s Thursday through Sunday racing card, citing stormy forecasts for the Hot Springs, AR, region. This once again pushes back three Grade 3 races, including a key Kentucky Derby prep involving Champion 2-Year-Old Essential Quality. That race, the Southwest Stakes, […]
With ice and frigid temperatures in the forecast, Oaklawn Park canceled its Presidents’ Day weekend card on Wednesday, rescheduling its five stakes for the following weekend. That means horseplayers must wait another five days to see Champion 2-Year-Old Essential Quality make his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3 $750,000 Southwest […]
This weekend’s stakes races bring us Essential Quality making his 3-year-old debut in one Kentucky Derby prep. They bring us the first win-and-you’re-in Derby prep, and they bring us a Derby prep that gives the winner a berth in the Preakness Stakes. They also bring back Monomoy Girl for her […]
Authentic rarely won his big races by big margins. But, he won his final “race” – the Eclipse Award for 2020 Horse of the Year – by a Secretariat at the Belmont-esque 31 lengths on the track. The Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic champion garnered 224 out of a […]
Horse of the Year candidates Authentic, Improbable, and Monomoy Girl headline the finalists for the 2020 Eclipse Awards, announced Saturday by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters (NTWAB), and the Daily Racing Form. The Eclipse Awards get their name from the iconic 18th-century racehorse and […]
Trainer Brad Cox called her “a monster,” but you probably know her as the best mare of her generation. Either way, Cox says you’ll see Monomoy Girl return Feb. 15 at Oaklawn Park for the Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes. The $250,000, 1-1/16-mile Bayakoa marks Monomoy Girl’s 2021 opener and a […]
Yes, it’s time for the Eclipse Awards, which in 2020, were brought to you by a scrambled Triple Crown schedule, along with tracks closing, reopening – and closing. Also featured were few – if any – fans in the stands and a rash of retirements. But the horses running in […]
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 […]
Proving those who can do, can teach, Marshall Gramm, an economics professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee nailed an Authentic-Improbable exacta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The $170,250 score gave him the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge title. With the late bet, which vaulted Gramm over 429 other top handicappers, […]
With Kentucky Derby champion Authentic, standout filly Gamine, and Knicks Go all winning Breeders’ Cup races in record time – and without general public tickets available – the Breeders’ Cup World Championships managed its sixth-highest all-sources handle since 2007. That was the year the Breeders’ Cup expanded to two days. […]
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