horse racing history
The Thoroughbred transcends borders, oceans, entire cultures. To do so literally, of course, it will need a little help: ideally, nowadays, a plane. And that's where Andrea Branchini's day job comes in, as a shipping clerk with the transport firm Mersant International. But this is a man himself without frontiers. Branchini has lived and worked in five different countries, and traveled widely in between, constantly absorbing what makes one society different from another, and what brings them together. Few fields of interest, Branchini has observed, achieve the latter quite like...
Longtime Finger Lakes Clerk of Scales Jack Keller will be inducted into the track's Hall of Fame this Friday, the gaming establishment said in a press release on Wednesday. When Keller arrived at Finger Lakes outside of Farmington, New York in 1967, he figured he would spend a year working as a valet and then move on to another track for his next adventure in the world of racing. One year, however, became 59. "As it turned out, I never left," said Keller, who is in his 39th season as...
On Saturday at Churchill Downs, 2-year-old Patch Adams (Into Mischief)--yes, as in the 1998 Robin Williams film where the best line might be, "Donner, party of 50!"--earned his very own 'Rising Star' on TDN's Walk of Fame. The colt turned in what Alan Carasso called "a jaw-dropping performance" as he broke his maiden by an eye-catching 10 1/2 lengths at second asking. The time over the fast main track was just 0.33 off the record held by MGISW Groupie Doll. Thoroughbred bloodlines can highlight connections to a rich past and...
How did we get hooked on this sport? We all have stories about how our love affair developed and blossomed. The TDN will be reaching out to numerous notable people in the industry to get their stories to find out how they got hooked and stayed hooked on the sport. Richard Migliore My first memories of racing were watching the Channel 9 show every Saturday at 6 o'clock on WOR with Frank Wright, Charlsie Cantey, and Dave Johnson. I just got enamored with that show. No matter what I was...
The Kentucky Derby Museum earned the number three spot as the Best Attraction for Sports Fans in USA Today's 2024 Readers' Choice Awards after breaking records this past year for attendance, the repository said in a Wednesday press release. Located at Churchill Downs, the Derby Museum finished behind Boise State's Blue Turf in Idaho, the top vote getter, and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, who was the runner-up. Welcoming an all-time high of 258,382 guests during the fiscal year 2024, which spanned from Oct. 1, 2023,...
With a $10,000 prize to the winner, the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award named its semi-finalists, the competition said in a Thursday release. Inaugurated in 2006 by the late philanthropist and global executive Tony Ryan, and sponsored by his family's Castleton Lyons Farm near Lexington, Ky., the award honors the best writing related to the Thoroughbred industry published in 2023. Three finalists will be revealed this summer, with the winner announced during a reception at Castleton Lyons later in the year. The semifinalists are (in alphabetical order, by author name):...
There was a well-known Thoroughbred trainer who was accused of a medication violation by the governing anti-doping agency at the time. This conditioner had a history of putting the horse first, so the case was shocking and the evidence stacked against him did not quite add up. The owner of the animal in question did everything possible to help him mount a defense by calling in experts to give testimony, but in the end he was found negligent and given a year suspension. The trainer was none other than Tom...
The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame will present special exhibitions celebrating the legacies of Hall of Fame members Paul Mellon and Ruffian this summer when they open on Thursday, July 11, the repository said in a release Wednesday morning. "We are excited to honor and share the legacies of these two outstanding Hall of Fame members," said curator Jessica Cloer. "Paul Mellon and Ruffian were both tremendously impactful. These exhibits are a tribute to all they achieved and their lasting influence on the sport." A third special...
If there was a Thoroughbred who ever needed legal counsel to mount an adequate defense of his life, then perhaps it would be Calumet Farm's MGISW Alydar. His battles with rival Affirmed as both a juvenile, and of course, through the 1978 Triple Crown are now the stuff of legend. However, what has clouded all those spectacular past performances came during his stallion career when he tragically died from an injury which was sustained while he was in his Calumet stall on a November night in 1990. Officially chalked up...
Just shy of a century ago, Thoroughbred racing was undergoing a massive transformation in breeding and technology that would set it on a path towards expansion. The importing of international sires, the building of new racetracks, the development of starting gates and the implementation of what was called the totalisator, a device that tracked odds and payouts for pari-mutuel wagering, became all the rage into the 1930s. As you probably know, the 'tote' became linked to a board that everyone on-track could see and was intended to democratize laying a...