John Velazquez

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There is no time for real celebration and there certainly isn't time to feel sorry for oneself. In horse racing, the game just keeps going on. Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher had first-hand experience of that Sunday afternoon at Saratoga Race Course. Just before 2 p.m., he was elated and crushed in the same race, the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup. Just over an hour later, he had to push those emotions to the side and saddle a 2-year-old in a $100,000 maiden special weight....

The Repole Stable connections have heard it for nearly as long as their star has been racing, that 'TDN Rising Star' Fierceness (City of Light) can be blazing hot when he gets his own way and ice cold when he doesn't. Their Eclipse-winning 2-year-old has spent much of his career in a win-loss pattern that left owner Mike Repole and trainer Todd Pletcher scratching their heads. But perhaps Saturday, Fierceness finally laid those demons to rest in exactly the spot he'll need to have them buried come November as he...

John Velazquez, the winningest jockey in the history of Saratoga Race Course, will serve a three-day "careless riding" suspension this coming Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday stemming from the disqualification of his mount from a win in the sixth race there Aug. 17. Velazquez waived his right to an appeal, according to an Aug. 20 stewards' ruling posted on the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) website. The race in which Velazquez got disqualified was a $100,000 maiden special weight turf route for 2-year-olds. He was aboard first-timer Scope (Gun Runner),...

ETOBICOKE, ONTARIO -- There are those that will often lament the things that are wrong with horse racing. However, a stroll around Woodbine's ever-expanding facilities go a long way in dispensing with some of those notions. The opening of the Great Canadian Casino-Resort has ushered in a next-level racetrack experience offering rooms with panoramic views of Woodbine's expansive E. P. Taylor racecourse while proving all the services and amenities that one might expect at a modern casino hotel. If one enjoys racing and a myriad of gaming products with a...

John and Leona Velazquez were publicly recognized for their longstanding commitment to the backstretch community at Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct on Wednesday when they received the Marylou Whitney and John Hendrickson Award from the New York Race Track Chaplaincy at the 18th annual fundraising brunch at the Saratoga National Golf Club, the non-profit said in a press release on Wednesday afternoon. On hand to assist with the award presentation was Marylou's Whitney's daughter, Heather Mabee. The brunch set a new record for fundraising. "Anyone who has spent much time around...

6th-SAR, 100K, Msw, 2yo, 5 1/2fT, 4:02 p.m. Bloodstock agent Kerri Radcliffe signed the ticket on SCHWARZENEGGER (Not This Time), a $950,000 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale grad one year ago who now races for a partnership which includes David Fennelly, Brook Smith, Mrs. John Magnier and Resolution Road Stables. It was the colt's second time at auction having first sold for $410,000 as a weanling at KEENOV in 2023 to Violet Stables. His winning Lemon Drop Kid first dam just passed through the ring herself, realizing $350,000 from Gainesway at KEENOV...

A single filly, No Time (Not This Time), was named the 7-2 morning-line favorite in a 13-horse field due to line up for the King's Plate Saturday at Woodbine. North America's oldest continually contested race, the Canadian-bred 3-year-olds will go 1 1/4 miles on the main track as the first of three legs of the Canadian Triple Crown. To be ridden again by John Velazquez, the daughter of Not This Time last won the Woodbine Oaks for owner Gary Barber and trainer Mark Casse--the jockey, owner and trainer who won...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Through 14 days of Saratoga's season, Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher's 2-year-olds are getting the job done. Pletcher picked up his fifth victory in the top-level $100,000 maiden special weight races Sunday when Tapit's Legacy (Tapit) cruised to a five-length victory in the third race under Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez. Pletcher has a 5-2-2 record from 15 starters in the open $100,000 races, a win percentage of 33 with a 60 percent finish in the top three. Last season, Pletcher won four of...

Ned Toffey, the general manager of Spendthrift Farm, was confident going into Saturday's seventh race at Saratoga. The Spendthrift homebred Tommy Jo (Into Mischief) had been training lights out for Todd Pletcher and the entire team was expecting a big effort. They got something more. "Some of us were discussing what we saw in her back in Ocala when she was being broken and her early breezes there," Toffey said. "She was one that gave some sore backs to the exercise riders down there. She's been really forward and always...

With five fillies in the 70th running of the Woodbine Oaks, chances were high that it would be a Mark Casse runner to beat them all. The hard part, or so it was thought, would be figuring out which one would step up to win it. No Time (Not This Time) did just that in fine style to take home the hardware carrying the colors of Gary Barber. With only two prior lifetime wins--her maiden score on the grass last September and two back June 1 over the synthetic track...

SARATOGA SPRINGS - The best thing trainer George Weaver did at the 2025 OBS Spring Sale of 2-year-olds in-training was give a filly named Cy Fair (Not This Time) a second glance. On Thursday, opening day of the 40-day race meet at Saratoga, Weaver was sure glad he did. Cy Fair stamped herself as a keeper as she rolled to a 3 1/4-length win in a $100,000 Maiden race for 2-year-old fillies at 5 1/2 furlongs on the Mellon turf and earned a 'TDN Rising Star' in the process. Ridden...

In winning the $300,000 GIII Indiana Derby at Horseshoe Indianapolis Saturday, James Bakke and Gerald Isbister's Tip Top Thomas (c, 3, Volatile--Attempt to Name, by Consolidator) may have gotten a little redemption. Last summer and fall, the sky looked like the limit for Tip Top Thomas, who was named a 'TDN Rising Star' in a hard-fought head debut in an August maiden special weight at Saratoga, then came back for a runner-up finish to another 'Rising Star', Chancer McPatrick (McKinzie), in the GI Champagne Stakes. Fourth in his maiden win...