Horse Racing

2nd-GP, $94K, Msw, 3yo, f, 1mT, 1:25 p.m. ET. Carrying the same colors as her successful dam, DOUBLE JEOPARDY (Uncle Mo) is set for her unveiling for Bass Stables and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher. The first-time starter is out of Avenge (War Front), the winner of back-to-back editions of the GI Rodeo Drive Stakes, who counts as a full-sister recent GII Buena Vista Stakes heroine Liguria. Double Jeopardy's older half-sister Defiance (Curlin) broke her maiden at first asking at Santa Anita Jan. 26 for Ramona Bass. Also on...

Friday's second of three under-tack previews ahead of next week's OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training witnessed no fewer than two dozen horses that broke the 10-second threshold among those who worked an eighth of a mile over the synthetic track. But it was hip 446, a filly by young Crestwood Farm stallion Caracaro (Uncle Mo) from the draft of On The Run Sales, agent, who was the fleetest of them all when stopping the clock in a slick :9 3/5 about three hours into the session. A Feb....

PENN Entertainment's Zia Park Racetrack is seeking applications for a track superintendent and official starter for its 2025 fall season, the organization said in a press release on Friday. The position's duties include managing the track maintenance team, oversight of all equipment, maintaining compliance with HISA and New Mexico Racing Commission rules and regulations, and ensuring a safe racing surface for all equine and human participants. The role of the starter includes the recruitment and managing of assistant starters, starting of all races, gate schooling for horses and oversight of...

Churchill Downs has scheduled 50 stakes races cumulatively worth a record $26,175,000--a $525,000 increase--for its 2025 Spring Meet, which covers 43 race dates between April 26-June 29, the track said in a Friday press release. The American Turf for 3-year-olds, annually staged on the Kentucky Derby undercard, had its purse raised to $1 million after the American Graded Stakes Committee elevated the 1 1/16-mile grass race to Grade I status. The American Turf is one of four Spring Meet stakes that received purse hikes for 2025 and one of seven...

The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) will host a job fair on Wednesday, Mar. 19 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET to support the 2025 Belmont Stakes Racing Festival at Saratoga Race Course, the track said via an early morning Friday release. The job fair will be held in the 1863 Club at the Spa. Attendees should enter through the Wright Street entrance (Gate 8) with parking available in the 1863 Club lot. Festival positions include mutuel clerks, cashiers, merchandise clerks, customer service representatives, white caps, security guards,...

A federal judge in New Mexico has dismissed a first amended complaint stemming from a lawsuit initiated one year ago in which the New Mexico Horsemen's Association (NMHA) sued SunRay Park, Albuquerque Downs and Ruidoso Downs for injunctive relief and damages over alleged violations of the Interstate Horseracing Act (IHA). "In sum, NMHA fails to state plausible claims for relief under the IHA's consent provisions," stated the Mar. 5 opinion and order out of the United States District Court for New Mexico. "NMHA has not established itself as the relevant...

Dual Eclipse winning trainer Brad Cox is drawing up intended targets for Flood Zone's (Frosted) next start after the colt took home the GIII Gotham Stakes at the Big A last weekend. The trainer said that possibilities include the Mar. 29 running of the GI Florida Derby and also two races scheduled for Apr. 5--the GII Wood Memorial Stakes at Aqueduct and the GII UAE Derby at Meydan. Flood Zone stablemate and GI Florida Derby contender Tappan Street (Into Mischief) continues to tune up at Payson Park. Most recently, the...

On the road to Oaklawn Park from his barn at Fair Grounds, Kenny McPeek seemed like a man without a care in the world when reached by phone in his car. And why should he? His Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna) will begin her 4-year-old year in the GII Azeri Stakes at Oaklawn and since last seen in the GI Breeders' Cup Distaff she has not missed a step. "If she's every bit as good as she was as a 3-year-old I think we'd be satisfied," McPeek...

According to the Encyclopedia Britanica, a self-fulfilling prophecy is the "process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own confirmation." Horse racing's self-fulfilling prophesy appears to be the belief that only a select few trainers are capable of eliciting from the sport's finest Thoroughbred athletes their optimum talent. This notion reached an absurd low last month when a commentator for the UK's Racing Post argued that owners in possession of the best steeplechasers in England and Ireland should essentially have their heads examined for sending their horses to...

After 40 years on the mic, predominantly at Santa Anita and Del Mar, but also for a time as the voice of the Breeders' Cup and Triple Crown races, track announcer Trevor Denman has announced his retirement. "This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made," Denman said. "But my soul is telling me that now is the time." Denman, 72, began calling races in 1971 in his native South Africa and came to America in time to assume racecalling duties at Santa Anita in 1983. At one...

Horse racing is under siege--not by its own reality, but by a story we are failing to control. Worst-case scenarios aren't just seen as common; they've become the rule in the public's mind. The New York Times, among others, understands this well. So they don't report on horse racing; they frame it. Their stories don't inform, they indict. They take exceptions and present them as norms, controversy as the foundation, and outliers as the rule. And when that kind of misinformation dominates, it's not just the media to blame. It's...

System seems to work pretty well. Donato Lanni buys their standout for Amr Zedan, and on they go: win their Grade Is, make another ton of money at stud. In 2022, it was the $2.3- million Uncle Mo colt we now know as Hill 'n' Dale stallion and 'TDN Rising Star' Arabian Knight; a year later, it was a $2-million son of Good Magic, 'Rising Star' Muth, meanwhile underway at Gainesway. With horses, however, there's always something you could do to make things even better. Last year Zedan called Jimbo...