Donnie Von Hemel

After Bill Mott confirmed that Kentucky Derby fourth Chief Wallabee (Constitution) would not make the trip to Laurel for the May 16 GI Preakness, trainer Donnie Von Hemel confirmed Monday that Junior Alvarado will ride Crupper (Candy Ride {Arg}) in the second jewel of the Triple Crown. "I talked to them this morning," Von Hemel said on Monday. "Since Bill's not going, that's what we were waiting on." Alvarado rode Crupper in Oaklawn's nine-furlong Bathhouse Row Stakes on Apr. 18, a victory that gave Crupper a free entry into the...

The breeding of Thoroughbreds being such a notoriously long game, a dispersal as uncommon as this one offers the most privileged of short cuts. It's as though you can transplant an oak overnight from a mature plantation. Someone else has put in all the necessary, painstaking seasons, years, decades since the acorns were first sown. So it's a given, absolutely, that the root-and-branch dismantling of Pin Oak Stud into the Lexington lumberyards next week--two dozen mares, fillies and weanlings at Fasig-Tipton on Sunday evening, with 14 yearlings to follow across...