Churchill Downs

With the completely stunned Kentucky Derby day crowd of 147,294 beginning to file out following Rich Strike (Keen Ice)'s upset for the ages, Strobe (c, 3, Into Mischief--Flashing, by A.P. Indy) looked like he could be any kind while closing out the stacked 14-race card with a dominating 'TDN Rising Star' performance. But where's the Godolphin homebred been since the first Saturday in May? "He's just back with Brad [Cox] and slowly getting back going again," Godolphin Director of Bloodstock Michael Banahan said. "He had his first little work last...

Churchill Downs will host 26 stakes races worth $8.31 million during its upcoming September and Fall meets. The 14-day September meet, which runs from Sept. 15-Oct. 2, will include 11 stakes races worth a total of $3.36 million. The line-up is led by the $400,000 GII Lukas Classic for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles and the $300,000 GIII Ack Ack S. for 3-year-olds and up at one mile--a Breeders' Cup "Win and You're In" race for the GI Dirt Mile--Oct. 1. The meeting also hosts the first races...

Trainer Bob Baffert spent 2 1/2 hours on the witness stand testifying at a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) appeal hearing Monday. Baffert's intent by filing the appeal is to clear from his record a 90-day suspension he has already served while also reversing the KHRC's disqualification of Medina Spirit from the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. Those penalties were the result of the Baffert-trained colt returning a positive for betamethasone after crossing the finish wire first in America's most historic and important horse race. Beyond the already-served suspension (which ran...

Take the time to read colleague Dan Ross's extensive and detailed story on the sordid career of trainer Burton Sipp and you might conclude that, in horse racing, enough is never enough. The story is about a lot more than the many controversies that have shadowed Sipp throughout his career, it is about how racing somehow always let Sipp back in, to give him a third chance, a fourth, fifth chance. It is about the sport's inability to police itself and its failure to permanently ban someone who has no...

There was no Million Lane 5, no foreign contingent--Aidan O'Brien accounted for the only two overseas nominations--and only a fraction of the fans that would have passed through the turnstiles at the now-shuttered Arlington Park a handful of hours to the north. That Saturday's GI Arlington Million took place at all is something of a 'miracle', as Churchill Downs had not hosted a race on the turf since early June. The GII Secretariat S. and GIII Pucker Up S. for 3-year-old males and females, respectively, were canceled so as not...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 7th-DMR, $80K, Msw, 2yo, 6 1/2f, post time: 8:04 p.m ET ULTIMATE GAMBLE (Medaglia d'Oro) cost reseller Nick de Meric $325K at last year's KEESEP sale and the colt hit it out of the park for the consignor at this year's OBS April Sale, hammering for $1.75 million after breezing an eighth of a mile in a very smooth :10 1/5. The March foal is the latest produce to the races from his dam Eltimaas (Ghostzapper), whose son Drefong (Gio Ponti) was this country's Eclipse...

In this instance, you really can't say that the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence. Take your dystopian pick: the floods of Kentucky, or the desiccation of Europe, where I've just returned from a vacation that seamlessly united the city parks of England and Italy in the same wasteland, with just a few bleached spikes still protruding from the baked, ashen earth.

In this instance, you really can't say that the grass is any greener on the other side of the fence. Take your dystopian pick: the floods of Kentucky, or the desiccation of Europe, where I've just returned from a vacation that seamlessly united the city parks of England and Italy in the same wasteland, with just a few bleached spikes still protruding from the baked, ashen earth. However illusory, then, it's a relief to find enough recognizable vegetation salvaged Stateside at least to host all three of Saturday's Grade I...

By this stage, they've probably had enough of being asked about that $1 mare. But the remarkable thing is that the first Thoroughbred ever acquired by Robert and Stacy Mitchell still cost more (cover fees aside) than all the others that have stocked Briland Farm, on and off the racetrack, since 2001. That was the year, having begun an inadvertent breeding career with a mare discarded by a friend of a friend, they decided to see what they could do with one that cost as much as $36,000. Her name...

With continued challenges facing Churchill Downs' newly installed turf course, which has included the cancelling of a number of grass events, the Louisville track has announced the hiatus of both the $300,000 GII Secretariat S. and the $200,000 GIII Pucker Up S. Both were scheduled for Arlington Million Day next Saturday, Aug. 13, which is to be held at Churchill for the first time after the closing of Chicago's Arlington Park last year. Churchill is moving forward with plans to host the GI Arlington Million and the GI Beverly D....

The Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) Advisory Committee meets at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 2 at the offices of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association (4079 Iron Works Parkway, Lexington, KY 40511). The public can attend or watch the meeting through the agency's YouTube channel. Some notables, but not all, on agenda include the election of a Chair and Vice-Chair, Kentucky Downs' Amendment request for KTDF Stakes & Claiming Races, Churchill Downs' 2022 September Meet KTDF Allotment request, and Pari-Mutual Tax: Waqas Ahmed, director, Pari-Mutual Wagering & Compliance.

When the .69-to-1 favorite returned $3.38 to win at Ellis Park in the first race on July 15, the to-the-penny payoffs represented a massively positive paradigm shift for horseplayers. Under a new Kentucky law that eliminates dime breakage at the state's tracks, bettors will no longer be subject to the disadvantageous, industry-wide practice of down-rounding that, in the above instance, would have sliced the return on that winning $2 wager to $3.20. Yes, penny breakage looks a bit odd to the eye. But getting used to the concept will be...