Glen Eden. She says it's every bit as picturesque as it sounds. Two hundred acres across a valley in Chester, New Jersey: hunters and jumpers, 50 stalls, an indoor ring, another two outdoors. And a bunch of kids wanting to ride ponies. Nice, rural, domestic scene, a world away from the blue-collar grit of Aqueduct. [...]

It's what keeps everyone going: the chance that somewhere out there may be a single horse capable of transforming your whole career. For most, of course, the quest yields no more than near-misses: horses that don't quite work out, for one reason or another, but that hopefully show enough to get you noticed, keep you [...]

I daresay that plenty of people who invest in bloodstock also like to play “emerging” markets. Both, after all, are notoriously volatile environments, where assets seem to spend at least as much time “submerging.” As such we must applaud Klaravich Stables for the naming of the GII Louisiana Derby winner. Strictly they have taken an [...]

Well, just take a look at the video–and then show us a horse more eligible for stardom, the year the soccer World Cup comes to America. As a yearling, he would roll a beach ball around his paddock 45 minutes at a time. Using his feet, his nose, arching his body. As a rule, other [...]

Steve Landers knows a salesman when he sees one. And here comes a burly young man, into the paddock at Oaklawn, holding out a hand. “Mr. Landers,” he said. “I'm Brad Cox.” This was a good decade ago, when Cox was still trying to get established. So he made his pitch. If Landers could keep [...]

Rome was not built in a day. So at a time when Derby dreams can only be maintained by one horse dashing those of several others, let's celebrate a revival that should give hope to any now finding themselves obliged to retreat and regroup. This time last year Built (Hard Spun) was slithering down the [...]

Heading back to the rostrum from a break, Ryan Mahan was stopped by Wayne Lukas. “This filly coming up, three hips from now,” the great trainer said. “I'm going to put my pen in my pocket. As long as it stays there, keep me in.” “Wayne, please don't do this,” Mahan replied. “This kind of [...]

“All the fancy stallions: Danzig, Forty Niner, Pleasant Colony, Halo. And then there were these two bottom-line fillies, a Spend a Buck and a Mari's Book. And they told me to get them ready for the 2-year-old sale.” Eddie Woods is going back three decades, to the start of the business he closed last spring. [...]

The two new names on the GI Kentucky Derby trail each exemplify one of the principal alternatives to what nowadays feels like the ideal route, namely to exploit the imbalances of the commercial market with a breed-to-race program. Nobody having ever operated one of those on a scale as lavish as the one that produced [...]

By now, no doubt, it must be among my most wearily familiar complaints. Only last week, in fact, I was again lamenting the days when old-school trainers would start Classic campaigns round one turn, gaining sharpness and conditioning without entering a stress zone. Nowadays those benefits are forfeited by the twin imperatives of hiding horses [...]

Okay, so probably we're just running these animals in sufficient circles for the squeaking of the hamster wheel eventually, randomly, to yield something that seems curiously meaningful. But there are times when horses give the impression that they are participating in some mysterious wider scheme in human affairs. Last week, however inadequately, I joined the [...]

“Looking for the hidden gem.” That, to Mike Slezak, is the point of crossover; the place where his breakout success dovetails with a personal passion that has now evolved into a way of life. “Which means trying to ask questions in a different way,” he elaborates. “Not making assumptions, looking a little closer.” To the [...]