Genuine Risk
Dan Rosenberg has seen it all before. That makes him very different, mind, from the guys who know it all. What they don't know isn't worth knowing, right? The fact, for instance, that Tim Tam was a slow breeder. Who cares about that, today? Well, it's just that each piece of the mosaic eventually adds up to something precious. Meeting Rosenberg, one after the other you're blessed by little vignettes, another miniature tile, that will stay with you. And you begin to sense how rare a perspective he must have,...
Jockey Angel Cordero won 7,057 races during his Hall of Fame career. He is the undisputed "King of Saratoga" after winning the riding title at the Spa 14 times. Kentucky Derby? Preakness? Belmont? Been there, done that. He has rubbed elbows with a president, clowned around with Muhammad Ali and hung out with Bob Marley. An interesting life, for sure, Angel Cordero Jr. has lived. He shared some of it with the TDN. Here is the Saratoga Q&A. TDN: Do you miss riding? Angel Cordero Jr: I used to miss...
Those who have been following racing for, oh, 10 years or less, they may not quite understand the impact Wayne Lukas had on horse racing or how much he changed what it meant to be a successful horse trainer. The Wayne Lukas who was still training when his 90th birthday was just around the corner transformed into your favorite uncle or grandfather. He became the sport's elder statesman. There was a sweet and gentle side to the man that everyone started calling "Coach" because he was once a high school...
Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas has been hospitalized in Louisville, Kentucky and will not return to training, according to Lukas family members. In a release sent out by Churchill Downs, the family shared that Lukas had been battling a severe infection that had worsened his condition, and has reportedly declined an aggressive treatment plan in favor of returning home to spend his remaining time with his loved ones. In a succession plan put in place by Lukas Enterprises, Inc., horses previously under Lukas's care have been transferred to...
No doubt about it, the folks at Hagyards seem to have found themselves a promising intern. Still early days, mind. Richard Holder has only been there 53 years. In fact, Dr. Holder believes himself the first beneficiary of an official internship at the storied Lexington firm, founded in 1876, albeit Dr. William McGee himself was evidently granted a similar opening, less formally, by Dr. Charles Hagyard in 1940. (By 1953 the firm was renamed Hagyard-Davidson-McGee Associates.) In either case, safe to say that the internship model started pretty well. Holder...
The world we share with these amazing animals may be an ever-changing one, but its mysteries abide. We consider ourselves ever more knowledgeable, ever more certain, riding the slipstream of science. Yet how much do we truly know, when Afternoon Deelites holds out for all those years and then waits just six days before following his owner to whatever shore may (or may not) lie beyond the horizon of life? The same journey was made this week by the trainer of Alydar. John Veitch laid the ground for the greatest...
Diana Firestone, who, along with her husband Bert campaigned a number of champion horses, including 1980 GI Kentucky Derby winner Genuine Risk, passed away peacefully at her home in Florida on Feb. 12. She was 91. In 1980, the Firestones won an Eclipse Award as the nation's top owners. Bert Firestone passed away in 2021. "I can't say enough good things about her and Bert and the opportunity they gave me when I shifted from the Midwest to New York," said Hall of Famer Bill Mott, who was hired by...
Bert Firestone, who along with his wife Diana, enjoyed international success at racing's top level for decades, passed away Monday at JFK Medical center in West Palm Beach. He was 89. Firestone, a successful industrial real estate developer, was a hands-on horseman--he spent a summer in the early 1950s galloping for trainer Charlie Whittingham--whose American racing successes led to seven Eclipse Awards. Honest Pleasure (What a Pleasure) earned the couple's first Eclipse statue as champion 2-year-old of 1971 and he was followed by 1977 champion sprinter What a Summer (What...
As a dark-skinned native of Puerto Rico trying to break into U.S. racing in the early Sixties against a largely white rider colony in New York, Angel Cordero Jr. may have faced more racism than anybody working in racing today. It happened to him inside and outside of the sport. More than 50 years later, much has changed in racing and Cordero said he was proud of the strides Hispanic jockeys have made. At most tracks, they dominate the riders' standings. But Cordero said there remains a problem for the...
Somewhere along the way, the Sport of Kings became the racing industry. That was inevitable because that's the way of the modern world in which most people have to earn a living. However, for many it remains a sport in which the joy comes from taking part, with the wins being the icing on the cake and any financial return a bonus. Few have played the game with a truer Corinthian spirit or more successfully than Bertram and Diana Firestone, who have graced the upper echelons of the sport which...