T. D. Thornton
T.D. Thornton is a Boston-based journalist with more than three decades of experience covering Thoroughbred racing as a reporter, announcer and broadcaster. He is the author of the award-winning book Not by a Long Shot—A Season at a Hard-Luck Horse Track (2007). He also authored My Adventures with Your Money: George Graham Rice and the Golden Age of the Con Artist (2015), which details the audacious career of a 1900s racing tipster who later bilked the nation blind as a stock swindler.
Horseshoe Indy Maintains Status Quo of 23 dates for '26
October 28, 2025
Horseshoe Indianapolis in 2026 will stick with the same dates template that has largely been in place since 2023: A mixed-meet racing schedule of 123 dates from Apr. 7 to Nov. 13, with 117 Thoroughbred programs and six for Quarter Horses. The only time Horseshoe Indy veered from that schedule recently was in 2024, when [...]
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Nine Observations on The Eve of Breeders' Cup Entries
October 26, 2025
The Week In Review 1) Not only will this year's Breeders' Cup championships feature the 1-2-3 finishers from each of the 2024 and 2025 GI Kentucky Derbies, but the two champion 2-year-old males who each won the GI Juvenile in the past two seasons will also be in action. Sovereignty (Into Mischief), Journalism (Curlin) and [...]
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Judge Denies Injunction Sought By Mixed-Meet Vet Who Argues HISA's Rules Don't Cover Meds Meant For Quarter Horses
October 24, 2025
A federal judge denied a preliminary injunction Oct. 22 in a lawsuit initiated 3 1/2 months ago by a Sunland Park-based veterinarian against the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) and Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU). The case involves anti-constitutionality claims that are similar to a number of other lawsuits swirling in the federal [...]
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Citing 'Massive Uptick' in Horses as Other Meets Close, Mountaineer Adds Two Dates to End of Season
October 23, 2025
Mountaineer Park on Thursday received unanimous permission from the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) to shift one end-of-meet date on its schedule and add two others, moving closing day of the season from Dec. 3 to Dec. 9. “You'll recall, with the passage of recent legislation, monies were provided back to the purse fund,” Joe [...]
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No 2-Minute CAW Cutoff In Win Pools For Breeders' Cup at Del Mar
October 16, 2025
The two-minute win pool cutoff for computer-assisted wagering (CAW) bets that was implemented at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club over the summer in an effort to stabilize late odds fluctuations won't be in effect when the Southern California track hosts the Breeders' Cup Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, a spokesperson for the championships confirmed to TDN [...]
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With California Down To a Single Circuit, '26 Dates Allotment Sails Through CHRB
October 16, 2025
The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) on Thursday approved a slate of 2026 Thoroughbred race dates that will closely resemble the state's 2025 schedule. Over the last decade or so, hammering out the state's annual race-dates calendar has usually been a long, controversial and often argumentative process that gets drawn out over many monthly commission [...]
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The Week in Review: State-Bred Results Yielding Intriguing Results
October 12, 2025
State-bred and -sired programs in Louisiana, West Virginia and Maryland were in the spotlight over the weekend, and the while main events at Delta Downs, Charles Town Races and Laurel Park each featured heavily backed odds-on favorites, the results produced varying outcomes: A new track record, a double-digit-lengths blowout, and an upset of a Breeders' [...]
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Barbadian Runner Upsets 1-10 Fave In Maryland Million Classic
October 11, 2025
With a resume of graded stakes-placed experience anchored by a runner-up try in last year's GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile and a 10-for-10 lifetime record at Laurel Park that included a 17-length blowout in an open-company stakes there last month, Post Time (Frosted) figured to deserve his formidable 1-10 favoritism in the six-horse feature on [...]
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Turfway Msw Purses Projected at $90,000 for Winter/Spring Meet
October 2, 2025
Two months out from the Dec. 3 start to its 65-date winter/spring season, Turfway Park is projecting maiden special weight (MSW) purses to be $90,000. That's an increase of $10,000 per race from the $80,000 MSW purse level that Turfway paid at the 2024-25 meet. But that figure also falls $10,000 short of the work-in-progress [...]
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Q and A with Maryland Jockey Club's Bill Knauf
September 29, 2025
Bill Knauf is the president and general manager of the non-profit Maryland Jockey Club Inc., (MJC), which took over the management of Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course this year. It's a time of tremendous transition in that state, with Pimlico currently being demolished and rebuilt with the goal of all commercial-track Thoroughbred racing in [...]
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Week In Review: 3-for-3 Filly Flies Under the Radar, but 'Ultimately' Not for Long
September 28, 2025
The weekend stakes featured plenty of outcomes with Breeders' Cup implications. But while top-level races in California, Kentucky and New York yielded headline horses bound for the big Saturday of championship weekend, an ungraded $125,000 grass route for 2-year-old fillies in Maryland produced one of the more intriguing, under-the-radar candidates for Future Stars Friday. Ultimate [...]
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Mike Smith At Suicide Prevention Conference: 'Sometimes It's Just A Matter Of Holding On For Five More Minutes'
September 26, 2025
Although he was the only guest from the Thoroughbred industry to be invited to speak on a panel largely comprised of and aimed at mental health professionals, Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith spoke eloquently and poignantly Friday while offering perspectives tinged with gratefulness and optimism regarding how the racing industry has recently stepped up [...]
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