Skippylongstocking

Saffie Joseph Jr. is easy to pick out. It's got to be the hair. He talks about the long locks he has on his head and what it would take for him to cut it off. He talks about Skippylongstocking going for his third straight win in the Charles Town Classic. He compares the weather of Saratoga to Florida. And, it might surprise you what actor he picks to play himself if ever there was a movie made about his life. He sat down with the TDN's Tim Wilkin to...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When the question came out on the rail at the Oklahoma Training Track Thursday morning, trainer Miguel Clement smiled. But he was not about to give an answer to who is his favorite horse in his barn. That will stay with him. When the name of 'TDN Rising Star' Far Bridge (English Channel) was suggested, Clement smiled some more. "He is definitely up there," Clement said. As well he should. Far Bridge, owned by LSU Stables, shows up whenever Clement puts the saddle on the 5-year-old....

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Two years ago, the GI Whitney Stakes was a whiteout. As in White Abarrio (Race Day), who crushed the field by 6 1/4 lengths. Fast forward to now and White Abarrio is back for another run in Saturday's $1 million Whitney, the premier race for older horses at the 40-day meet at Saratoga Race Course. The 6-year-old horse will look to shrug off a disappointing fourth place finish in the GI Met Mile last month and prove to his trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. that he deserves...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.-'TDN Rising Stars' Fierceness (City of Light) or Mindframe (Constitution) in the GI $1 million Whitney Stakes? Will one of them be running or will it be both? Those questions got definitive answers Saturday morning outside Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher's barn on the Oklahoma Training Track. When entries are taken for the meet's marquee race for older horses on Sunday, both horses names will be front and center, but it will be Fierceness who carries the flag for Pletcher and the ownership group of Mike Repole's...

SARATOGA SPRINGS--When Neil Poznansky, sitting on the back of GI Kentucky Derby and GI Belmont Stakes champion Sovereignty (Into Mischief), saw jockey Junior Alvarado early Friday morning, he wore a wide smile. "How'd I do?" Poznansky said. Alvarado grinned back. No answer necessary. Sovereignty did what Poznansky, Alvarado and Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott wanted to see as he had his second work since winning the Belmont last month. Working in company with 4-year-old stablemate Jefferson Street (Street Sense), Sovereignty and Poznansky, Mott's assistant, covered four furlongs in :48.99...

Saffie Joseph Jr. is no stranger to rejection. In the early years of his training career, there were moments when he wondered if chasing his dream had been a big mistake. In what is now a familiar part of Joseph's origin story, his father had warned him against leaving Barbados to launch a stable in America. Joseph came anyway. He arrived at Calder Race Course in 2011 only to be told that there was no stall space available, but he went back to the racing secretary week after week until...

If one could look up the word 'workmanlike' in racing's lexicon, it surely would have a picture of Alonso Daniel's Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator). And the 6-year-old one again proved that he fits the bill with a professional one-length score over Midnight Mammoth (Midnight Lute) in the GII Hollywood Gold Cup on Santa Anita's Memorial Day card. Installed the 4-5 choice following a third in the nine-furlong GII Oaklawn Handicap Apr. 19, the two-time GII Charles Town Classic winner broke cleanly and settled in an even-tempo fifth as Packs a Wahlop (Creative...

After striking gold beyond the boundaries of the Golden State with Journalism (Curlin) in the GI Preakness Stakes a little more than a week ago, jockey Umberto Rispoli and trainer Michael McCarthy are liable to find themselves front and center on the special Memorial Day program at Santa Anita with Formidable Man (City of Light) in the GI Shoemaker Mile Stakes. And if statistics are anything to go by, they should prove tough to handle, as the duo has combined to win at something around 27% at the Great Race...

Despite a frustrating conclusion to 'TDN Rising Star' First Mission (Street Sense)'s 4-year-old season last year, trainer Brad Cox never lost any confidence in the Godolphin homebred. "Look, we've always thought he was a Grade I talent," Cox said in these pages earlier this week. You can certainly see why now. Pounded late into 7-5 favoritism, First Mission sat the trip of the race beneath Flavien Prat in Saturday's $1.25-million GII Oaklawn Handicap and powered clear to a two-length victory over the in-form Banishing (Ghostzapper). The final time of 1:49.09...

The sun is shining and the birds are singing, which means that spring has sprung and hopefully cold blasts are fixed over yonder. This kind of weather propagates the condition known to many as Derby fever, which technically has no definable cure. So, while you're tinkering with mint julep recipes or heading to the dry cleaners with your seersucker to keep the vapors in check, maybe what you need is to take a look at the weekend's graded stakes slate. The races are chock full of options, so let's not...

In the 25 years that she worked overseeing Todd Pletcher's racing stable, Maggie Sweet only had to concern herself about horses from the time they were two until around five. In the one year that she has been executive director of the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, the nation's oldest Thoroughbred retirement facility, she has learned that inspiring the industry to spend the money to care for them for the next 25 years is a much harder part of the bargain. The TRF currently provides permanent lifetime homes for 400 horses, primarily...

Multiple graded winners Newgrange (Violence) and Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator) each recorded their final works Friday in preparation for the 1 1/8-mile, $3-million, Jan. 25 GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park. Newgrange, who was previously trained by Phil D'Amato and is now in the barn of Jose D'Angelo, breezed five furlongs in 1:01 at Palm Meadows. After winning the GII San Pasqual Stakes at Santa Anita last January, Newgrange hasn't raced since July. The five-time graded-winning millionaire's first Florida work came Jan. 8 at Palm Meadows, when he went a...