A few weeks ago, I felt like a lone wolf howling in the wind (not the first time). I was calling for Keeneland to call off its April meet and for Churchill Downs to go ahead and announce the cancellation of the Kentucky Derby. Based on what I knew of the coronavirus spread in other [...]

Years ago, in a stand-up comedy routine, Steve Martin suggested a way to greatly reduce the crime rate: death penalty for traffic violations. A joke, sure, but it makes you wonder, if the penalty for, say, running a red light, was to lose your license for 90 days, what effect that would have on that [...]

Thirty-six years ago, I was dispatched to cover the annual gathering of the Association of Racing Commissioners (now ARCI). I had been covering Thoroughbred racing and breeding full-time for all of about three months. That night I found myself sitting at dinner with the head of a state testing lab. “I listened to the session [...]

In July 1985, the morning after he had sold a world-record priced yearling colt, I spent some time with the late Warner Jones, then the owner of Hermitage Farm. I always had a great relationship with Warner, so before he would discuss the $13.1-million hammer price, he took advantage of my being captive in a [...]

While watching a yearling sell for $10,000 last Thursday at Keeneland, I was reminded of a day about 30 years ago when I bumped into Ted Bassett during one of the final days of an exhaustive fall sale. “See the guy signing that ticket,” Bassett, then the president of Keeneland, said to me. “So happy [...]

Nearly 35 years ago, as a young Kentucky-bred journalist fascinated with the Thoroughbred industry, I thought I knew a bit about the world's most famous horse race. Then I met Jim Bolus and John Asher. They were a pair of walking Kentucky Derby encyclopedias, able to recall with little effort every fact, figure, nuance, story, [...]

From the moment Justify (Scat Daddy) crossed the finish line in the Kentucky Derby, my thoughts have been about one thing–Bill Nack. During my time in the editorial department at The Blood-Horse, whenever we didn't have a specific writer in mind for “The Final Turn” commentary in the Derby results issue, we simply turned to [...]

So many great races, but as we all know, the Kentucky Derby is special… for so many reasons. This year I wrote about Secretariat after his owner, Penny Chenery, died. Secretariat won the first Derby I ever attended. He hooked me on the game, as he no doubt did countless others. I was compelled to [...]

Journalists are supposed to be impartial …  void of feeling … unfazed by the world around them. Well, on two occasions I simply couldn't help myself – no matter how hard I tried, I was unable to hold back the tears. The first time was at Belmont Park Oct. 27, 1990, when Go For Wand [...]

25 years ago, Keeneland asked me to conduct handicapping seminars for beginners. You know–how to read the program and tote board, how to place a wager, what the difference is between win, place and show. Each Saturday, I would receive questions and every week, among them was: How long is a furlong? Do you have [...]

Ever watch a movie where there are multiple storylines that converge at the end? That sort of happened for me this week, though not on the big screen. In Washington D.C., representatives of Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before Congress on their advertising policies, trying to explain how millions of Americans saw placements from Russian-backed [...]

I was just 14 years old when my late sister, Ellen, took me to the Kentucky Derby with some of her friends. I was a horse-crazy kid who entered the sport by virtue of having taught myself to handicap a few years earlier. I had fallen in love with the horses, the racetracks, the experience [...]