In our sport -- the greatest of them all -- we have many creatures of various descriptions and talents who actively join together in the teams competing in each race. Unique among them is the amazing non-human who naturally and instinctively competes.
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Bill Hartack didn’t suffer fools well. And he hated to be called Willie. Legend has it that it was because he was no fan of his contemporary, the great Willie Shoemaker.
Read MoreA six-foot tall Kentucky-bred racetracker, J. Larry Jones is easy to spot in the mornings, his long legs dangling in long stirrups, straddling one of his Thoroughbreds in training, or supervising his stable from a Western saddle on the back of one of his Quarter Horse ponies.
Read MoreAsk two dozen trainers how they prepare horses for their first career start and you’ll get 24 different answers. Variety, as California trainer Peter Miller points out, may be a good thing: “If it was all the same, it would be quite boring.”
Read MoreOver the last two decades the Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) in England has funded substantial research to understand how various body systems respond to training. For example, because of this HBLB investment we now know that the hearts of Thoroughbred racehorses get bigger as a response to athletic training and that big hearts are typically associated with better performers.
Read MoreStress fractures not only lead to training interruptions but if they are not identified early and managed appropriately they can be associated with subsequent catastrophic fractures. Stress fractures of the humerus, tibia, ilium and cannon bone (aka third metacarpal bone or McIII) are most common. Stress fractures are a late stage on a pathway of stress-related bone injury.
Read MoreWhat Emma Stone’s character says in Birdman could be what fans are saying to the powers that be in horseracing: Things are happening in a place that you willfully ignore, a place that has already forgotten you. I mean, who are you? You hate bloggers. You make fun of Twitter. You don’t even have a Facebook page. You’re the one who doesn’t exist!
Read MoreTrainers around the world have widely varying ideas on training methods, feeding regimes and riding tactics, and these opinions can even differ between neighbouring professionals using the same facilities. But one thing that handlers will unanimously agree upon is the vital importance of a competent team of work riders. As South Africa’s James Maree from the Work Riders Development Programme puts it, "I know and all trainers know that if you get to the track in the morning and you haven’t got a decent work rider, you may as well go home. Without that, you just can’t do anything."
Read MoreIn winning the Vodacom Durban July, the 28-year-old Zulu became the first black jockey in history to win South Africa’s most famous race. The timing could not have been better. As the 20 runners headed down towards the ten-furlong start, the minds of the 55,000-strong Greyville crowd were far from a last-minute flutter on this prestigious Group 1 contest.
Read MoreThis year's Triple Crown preps were notable for producing a number of high-class contenders, and, coincidently, it was the first year of mostly all-dirt trials since major tracks in California, Kentucky, and Dubai abandoned synthetic surfaces for the real thing.
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Trainer Wesley Ward didn’t invent “thinking outside the box,” but he sure is living it—joyfully and successfully: racing fillies vs. colts in graded stakes, running an America-maiden claiming winner in a stakes race at Ascot, giving a 10-pound apprentice his first mount at prestigious Saratoga, and skipping the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita to watch his son in a cross country meet a couple thousand miles away in Florida.
Read MoreA self-proclaimed “professional horse player,” Allard is at once dogmatic, enigmatic, pragmatic, and, when it comes to playing the Pick 6, pretty much automatic. Even though he turns 61 on April 26, 2015, pose any question, and Allard’s curious and expansive mind zeroes in on total and accurate recall. Like Jeopardy’s Alex Trebek behind the podium, he’s got all the right answers before the buzzer sounds.
Read MoreDoes advertising work? How can you tell? What makes it good? How much should we spend? Why should we spend anything at all? Whatever we budget, how should we spend it?
Read MoreDavid Bernstein has suffered two tragedies: one a game changer, the other a life changer.
Read MoreThis magazine has examined the correlation between slots revenue and a healthy racing industry. Slots are not enough without a strong breeding incentive program to produce long-term results, and marketing innovations to keep the racetrack as patron-friendly as a modern casino. What happens when one of those three legs is missing?
Read MoreThe TRM Trainer of the Quarter Award goes to Marcus Vitali, read more to find out why!
Read MoreCatching cheaters is like playing Whac-A-Mole. Regulators smack one here, and another turns up there.
Read MoreFor decades, a settlement in the Middle East seemed more likely to happen that an agreement on dates between South Florida’s three warring thoroughbred racetracks, Calder Raceway, Gulfstream Park and Hialeah Park.
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