The Wire

It's Horseplayer Thursday, and we're excited to welcome in Matt Vagvolgyi to the show. Jason and Matt talk about the current Saratoga meet, his handicapping and betting progression, and much more!...

When it comes to the New Jersey Racing Commission (NJRC) and their restrictive riding crop rules at Monmouth Park, horse people, jockeys, owners, bettors, turf writers, and anyone remotely interested in the future of this great sport needs to be supportive of what they are doing. Furthermore, let's give executive...

The only horse to beat Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in his three-year-old season, Keen Ice would not have been everyone’s prediction to be a sire of two-year-olds. So with three winners prior to the end of July, mostly over sprint distances, Calumet Farm would have every reason to feel...

The next best thing in summer to actually being at Saratoga Racecourse is watching full-card races from the venerable “Spa” on Fox Sports cable channels, FS1 or FS2.  2021 is the sixth season for “Saratoga Live.”  TVG does not televise NYRA races, so Fox is the place to go for...

On Saturday morning on the backstretch at Saratoga Race Course, July 24, Maddie Rowland held the shank as trainer Elizabeth Merryman bathed her filly Caravel. The gray/roan filly extended her neck straight up, turned her head in profile, and posed. “She knows when the camera is out,” said Rowland. “It’s...

He should have been a contender. Of course, maybe he still will be. Right up until the starting gate opened for the Sanford Stakes (G3) at Saratoga Race Course on July 17, Maryland Brando looked like he was in with a chance. Though making only his second start, he had...

The game is getting smaller and the bigger players are getting larger. That's how it seems, anyway, whether you're talking about owners, breeders, trainers or stallions. For example, Saturday's sire of the moment was Juddmonte's European-based Frankel (GB). His G1 Epsom Derby-winning son Adayar (Ire) impressively won the G1 King...

Guy Raz asks the same question on every edition of my favorite podcast, “How I Built This.”  “How much of your success is because of luck and how much of it is because of hard work and talent?” It’s a simple but brilliant question, asked to entrepreneurs who have made...

The Times was back in Saratoga Springs this month for the first week of racing at the storied track, which opened on July 15. We are currently working on a piece regarding Saratoga’s National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame that will be published this fall–stay tuned for a...

It's only week two of the Beat Ray Everyday Beach Boss competition at Del Mar and I'm going to violate the first rule of holes: namely, when you're in one, stop digging. I got myself into a hole last weekend when Rushie, the 3-1 third betting choice in the Grade...

Detailed analysis of the 2021 Eddie Read Stakes field by Vance Hanson of TwinSpires....

Like much of what he's done throughout a riding career that began in 1973, the occasion of jockey Perry Wayne Ouzts' 52,000th mount on July 20 got scant attention. It was just another day in the office for the 67-year-old, who recorded three wins that same afternoon at Belterra Park...

Vinnie Viola flipped his straw hat onto his head.  “I’ll put my hat on in memory of my dad,” Viola said. And, oh what a memory. Moments after winning the Sanford Stakes with Wit at Saratoga Saturday, Viola walked out of the Saratoga grandstand, past the 1863 Club and thought...

Head to Head is a 2021 book by award-winning writer Lenny Shulman and published by the University Press of Kentucky.  Its 37 chapters and 220 pages contain the author’s engaging discussions with notable personages in American Thoroughbred horse racing. The chapters originally appeared as articles in BloodHorse magazine, where Shulman...

The loss of Europe’s greatest stallion, Galileo, on July 10 brought forth the question of where the exceptional racehorse and …Continue reading →...

Old Friends at Ashton Grove Senior Living As many of you know, last fall Old Friends formed a partnership with the Ashton Grove senior living community here in Georgetown. Behind Ashton Grove’s facilities and cottages is a spread of pastureland … Continue reading →...

After due process is completed, Mandaloun will almost certainly be declared the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby.  He finished second to Medina Spirit, who tested positive for a banned substance.  In the 2021 Haskell at Monmouth Park, it was déjà vu as Mandaloun again finished second, this time to...

If it rains (check Chip Reinhart's twitter feed) these may all lose. Hold it, they may all lose anyway. Wager at your own risk! R1 Del Miller2 is probably best but she was running in so she wasn't right last time, but she was fractious in PP and shoulda died but...

“It’s good to see you.” You hear it all day, every day. You say it all day, every day.  And then, every once in a while, you really mean it. Like, really mean it. Coming back to Saratoga after missing last summer, yeah, we really mean it.  I heard myself...

Despite coming to Del Mar for more than 40 years, I've never learned to surf. I have been spotted on a boogie board now and then and have logged hundreds of miles walking up and down the sandy coastline (have to get those 10,000 steps in each day!). I'm not...

Detailed analysis of the 2021 Haskell Stakes field by J. Keeler Johnson of TwinSpires....

A 13-time riding champion at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., Joe Bravo has shifted his tack to Southern California in time for Friday's opening of the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club meeting in Del Mar, Calif. For the first time in years, he'll be watching Monmouth Park's big Haskell Stakes day...

Dave Donk looked up from the back page of The Special and laughed. “It isn’t free anymore, buddy.” The veteran trainer stood up from a table outside his barn on the turn of the main track and put his arm around my shoulder, “Brother, I’ve been there.” It was one...

In general, American dirt racing is dominated by horses with a high turn of early speed. Relatively few winners come from far back, especially in the most prestigious races. As a result, those who do make a greater impression. Few would forget Secretariat’s run from last in the first quarter...

By now you've read some of the many excellent remembrances and obituaries of Galileo (Ire), who was euthanized at Coolmore on Saturday at age 23. Any way you look at it, the son of Sadler's Wells was one of the greatest stallions of all time, as were his sire and...