Tag: Whitney Stakes

Summer at Saratoga features 77 stakes races worth $22.6 million over 40 days. (Image: Chelsea Durand)

Saratoga Offers Up 19 Grade 1 Stakes, Increased $22.6 Million Purse

Along with a purse boost of $1.1 million from 2021, the New York Racing Association announced Saratoga Race Course’s 2022 stakes schedule Tuesday. The schedule features 77 stakes spread over the 40-day meet, where horsemen and women will race for $22.6 million in purses. Headlining that stakes schedule as always is the […]

Knicks Go's 4 1/2-length victory in August's Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga set him up to run Saturday's Grade 3 Lukas Classic as a tune-up for the Breeders' Cup Classic. (Image: NYRA)

Is the Inaugural Lukas Classic an Impromptu Knicks Go Workout?

Knicks Go is back in his Churchill Downs stall, coming in off a resounding victory in one of the biggest older-horse races in the country. And he’s running against a familiar crew of competent, but hardly imposing, rivals. As Breeders’ Cup Classic tune-ups go, this one couldn’t come on a […]

Essential Quality won the Aug. 28 Travers Stakes for his fifth victory in six 2021 races. That race serves as his prep for the Nov. 6 Breeders' Cup Classic at Del Mar. (Image: Susie Raisher/NYRA)

Essential Quality, Knicks Go Take Two Roads to Breeders’ Cup Classic

Those of you wanting to see Essential Quality run again must wait until the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Classic. Want to see Knicks Go? Trainer Brad Cox is a bit more accommodating. He’ll turn the 5-year-old loose in the Oct. 2 Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs. Cox told the Daily […]

Swiss Skydiver won the Grade 1 Beholder Mile by nearly three lengths in March for her own 2021 victory in four races. She will go up for sale at the prestigious Fasig-Tipton November Sale Night of Stars. (Image: Ernie Belmonte)

Hard-Running Swiss Skydiver Goes on Shelf Before Going Up for Sale

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 […]

Luis Saez and Bella Sofia set the curve in the Test Stakes, winning the Grade 1 by 4 1/4 lengths on a record-handle Whitney Day card at Saratoga. (Image: Coglianese Photos)

Whitney Day Produces Record Handle, Another Knicks Go Romp

Knicks Go, Bella Sofia and State of Rest enjoyed Grade 1 victories on Saratoga’s Whitney Day card. And the New York Racing Association enjoyed a record, all-sources handle for that Whitney Day card. That record all-sources handle came in at $36,820,234, surpassing last year’s take of $35,796,435 that came without […]

Leave Knicks Go and Joel Rosario along and they wire the field, as they did in last year's Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile. The 5-year-old is the 6/5 favorite to beat a small but deep field in Saturday's Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga. (Image: Coady Photography)

The Whitney: Quality Over Quantity Makes This the Year’s Best Race

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 […]

One of the most forthright trainers in the game, Kenny McPeek never blinks from a challenge. This is one reason why he's sending start filly Swiss Skydiver into the Grade 1 Whitney Aug. 7 at Saratoga. (Image: Kenny McPeek)

McPeek Sending Swiss Skydiver Against Colts Again in the Whitney

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 […]

Serengeti Empress gets one more opportunity to duplicate her victory here in the Ballerina Stakes. She'll head to the breeding shed after the Breeders' Cup. (Image: Chris Rahayel/NYRA)

Serengeti Empress, McKinzie Take Different Paths to Breeding Shed

Serengeti Empress has one more race before the breeding shed awaits. McKinzie is headed to stud immediately. And so drops the curtain on two of the more prominent Thoroughbreds of the last three years. Serengeti Empress will make her final start in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint Nov. […]

Tom's d'Etat stumble coming out of the gate likely cost him his fifth consecutive victory. Instead, Improbable captured the centerpiece of Saratoga's Whitney Day card. (Image: Erica Miller/Daily Gazette)

Saratoga Enjoys Record Whitney Day Handle, Memorable Upsets

Thanks to the coronavirus, this was not a typical Whitney Day crowd at Saratoga, because there was no Whitney Day crowd. Even so, that didn’t prevent the track from setting an all-sources handle record of $35,796,435. That bested the previous record of $31,835,863, set last year when Saratoga welcomed 40,791 […]

Even in the mud, Tom's d'Etat finds Saratoga to his liking. He's 3-for-4 at the Spa, seeking his fifth consecutive win in Saturday's Whitney Stakes. (Image: Elsa Loreul/NYRA)

The Whitney: Where History and Horse Racing Meet

It’s appropriate that in a race named after one of America’s most prominent families, the field consists of five millionaires. Yes, Saturday’s $1,200,000 Grade 1 1 1/8-mile Whitney Stakes at Saratoga, one of the most prestigious races for older horses in North America, features only five horses. But quality abounds. […]

The horses leaving he starting gate at Saratoga is a summer staple. It continues with a stacked Saturday card featuring three Grade 1 stakes races. (Image: The Saratogian)

Saturday at Saratoga Provides a Bettor’s Feast of Stakes

Curious about 3-year-old colts? Saratoga has a stakes for that. How about fillies and mares? It has a race for them as well, including the best mare in the world. Older, accomplished horses? Well, they have not one, but two stakes races for them, too. Saturday at Saratoga is Mecca […]

The 2019 Louisiana Derby was one of By My Standards five wins in 10 career races. He shoots for No. 6 in Saturday's Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. (Image: Scott Serio/Eclipse Sportswire

By My Standards Seeking to Do It His Way at Whitney Stakes

By My Standards ran his last race – June’s Grade 2 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs — exactly by his standards. He chalked a 102 Beyer Speed Figure, tying his career-best mark. He raced exactly out of trainer Bret Calhoun’s playbook, even down to the strong gallop-out afterward. This should […]

McKinzie, seen here winning the seven-furlong Malibu Stakes, will run the six-furlong Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar. It is the shortest race of his career. (Image: Benoit Photo)

McKinzie Goes on the Road to the Crosby, Improbable off to Whitney

Go long and far, or go short and stay home. When it came to deciding where prize colt McKinzie would run next, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert opted for the six-furlong Bing Crosby Stakes at Del Mar over the 1 1/8-mile Whitney Stakes at Saratoga. Instead, Baffert sends Improbable […]

Keen Ice (left) beat Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the 2015 Travers Stakes. The historic race moved up three weeks this year to Aug. 8. (Image: Dan Heary/For the Boston Globe)

Saratoga Schedule Features 39 Stakes, Tiz the Law Expected in Travers

The New York Racing Association put one of the final Kentucky Derby Trail pieces in place on Friday, releasing its Saratoga Race Course summer stakes schedule. It puts the Grade 1 Travers Stakes on Saturday, Aug. 8, four weeks before the Kentucky Derby. That date conveniently fits Tiz the Law’s […]