Braxton Lynch

Purses for maiden special weight (MSW) races are projected to remain unchanged for the third straight spring at both Keeneland Race Course and Churchill Downs. Track executives disclosed the pre-condition book figures during the Feb. 1 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory board meeting. Keeneland expects to write $100,000 MSW races for 3-year-olds and older horses, with 2-year-olds competing for $80,000, according to Gatewood Bell, Keeneland's vice president of racing. Continuing a condition that Keeneland tried last fall, Bell added that there will also be four maiden-auction races written for...

The sports marketing and technology startup OpenLocker, Inc. has launched OpenStable marketplace, a fan-friendly blockchain platform designed to engage a new generation of Thoroughbred racing fans. The Legendary Racing Prospects Collection of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) will initially include GI Kentucky Derby contender Epicenter and GI Kentucky Oaks hopeful Echo Zulu. OpenLocker is looking to expand its Bone Yard Huskyz Club for sports fans at the University of Connecticut with a platform which allows racing fans to become part of an exclusive community. "We are excited to bring together the technology...

Dancing Rags, the 2016 GI Alcibiades S. heroine, will be offered at this year's Fasig-Tipton November Sale on Nov. 8. and will represent the end of the line of an esteemed story in Thoroughbred racing and breeding as one of the last broodmares owned by the late Phyllis Wyeth. The daughter of Union Rags is in foal to top sire Curlin, and already has an Into Mischief yearling filly and a War Front weanling filly on the ground. "I think Dancing Rags should appeal to a lot of people," said...