Claire Bandoroff

It was only a few days ago, on April 21 to be exact, that a horse racing at Thistledown sustained a slab fracture during morning training. That didn't mean that he had to be euthanized, but it could have. With many lower-level horses, when a career-ending injury occurs, the owner is often faced with a difficult decision, to either pay for surgery or have the horse put down. But thanks to a recently launched initiative, the HISA Equine Recovery Foundation (HERF), there is another option. The owner can turn the...

Serena's Song, the 3-year-old filly champion in 1995 and the winner of 11 Grade I stakes races, passed away peacefully Wednesday at Denali Stud, where she spent her entire post-racetrack career. She died 25 days before her 34th birthday, but was officially considered 34 at the time of her death. Inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 2002, she won 18 of 38 starts and recorded 17 grades stakes wins. Her finest hour came when she defeated males to capture the 1995 GI Haskell Invitational...

She is not the oldest living Eclipse Award winner--that honor is believed to belong to 1994 Champion Turf Female Hatoof (Irish River {Fr}), who is still going strong at Darley's Gainsborough Farm at age 36--but she's close. As the hours tick down before the newest class of champions are honored Thursday evening, it's a thrill to remember 1995 Champion 3-Year-Old Filly Serena's Song (Rahy--Imagining, by Northfields), who just turned 33 at the Bandoroff family's Denali Stud near Paris, Kentucky. This year the sport celebrates the 30-year anniversary of her spectacular...

Thoroughbred nurseries are a place of new beginnings. Each spring the trees begin to bud, the grass becomes green again, and the next crop of foals arrive. Denali Stud has participated in this tradition for over three decades and has raised hundreds of future racehorses on its rolling acres, from the foals of Hall of Famer Serena's Song (Rahy) to 2011 GI Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}). Last year, Denali Stud was the location of a different sort of new beginning as the site of the wedding of...