Archive for July 2018
Distaff Threat?
Perhaps lost in the excitement of Monomoy Girl’s incredible season and Wonder Gadot’s romps north of the border against boys are the two dominating wins turned in by a filly who just might be on the upswing with a mind on upsetting them all in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. Red Ruby’s win in the Black…
Read MoreWhere does Good Magic go from here?
When Good Magic won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year, it was very very good for my bank account. And based on that performance as well as his prior race in the Champagne, I felt he was by far the most likely winner of the 2018 Kentucky Derby. So I made a wager with a…
Read MoreTourney Talk – Del Mar Handicapping Challenge
The 2018 Del Mar Handicapping Challenge is this weekend, and I’m out here competing for over $250,000 in cash and prizes. It’s a format that I really like. For starters, the entry fee is $8,000, but since $6,000 is returned to you for the purposes of live money wagering, it’s really only a $2,000 entry…
Read MoreWhen My Two Favorite Things Collide
My living room/dining room area walls have the following photographic arrangements: -12 photos of me and my kids arranged in one cluster in the dining room. -A black and white photo of Secretariat with jockey Ron Turcotte looking at the timer as they crossed the wire in the 1973 Belmont Stakes. This picture sits on…
Read MoreIt’s good to be back
This is my second trip to Del Mar. The first was last November for the Breeders’ Cup when I participated in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. Breeders’ Cup Saturday was my best day at the track ever. I was up over $25,000 for the day after Talismanic won the Turf, and would then lose $5,000…
Read MoreWin or Lose, Let Hoppertunity Race Forever
Whenever I need Hoppertunity to run a big race, he fails to fire his best shot. He saves those efforts for the days when I need him to run off the board. So he and I are not in sync. We are 98 degrees apart. The Backstreet Boys, if you will. (Sorry, that was terrible.…
Read MoreOk, now I’m annoyed
So, I’m kicking it in the Del Mar press box like a total baller because that’s what you do when you get a press credential and there are a ton of empty seats that no one will notice you have usurped (look it up), when I read a quote from Elliot Walden of WinStar Farm,…
Read MoreJustify Retirement
When I first started getting paid to write about horse racing in 2007, I quickly noticed that people who made their living in racing, whether they were part of the media. horsemen, or track employees, had a tendency to be a bit on the cynical side. This didn’t go for everybody. To be sure, there…
Read MoreThis whole Winx thing confuses me
Winx was back at it this week. For starters, let me say that I applaud the connections of Winx for the fact that she is still racing. I have never owned a racehorse. But I have to assume the only reasons one would get into the business of horse ownership are to make money (long…
Read MoreTourney Talk- Winning Ugly
Ask me if I feel guilty about winning my way into October’s Keeneland Challenge yesterday on DRF. Go ahead. Ask me. The answer is….sort of. For starters, I won the seat via the tie-breaker, as the man with whom I tied picked one fewer winner than I did in amassing the exact same score as…
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