Giant Game

"Her dad should have shot me," says Tim Hamlin wryly. Needless to say, he had met Nancy at a horseshow. She had just started out on her veterinary studies. "And she quit school to come to a little town in northwest Iowa to help me," Hamlin recalls. "This was '84, we were kids, had no money. We lived in a single wide trailer house for seven years. Nancy would get up at 4 a.m. to make donuts, so we could buy horsefeed." Eventually they found a filly that emboldened a...

A compelling Grade I race with year-end title implications and it's not even a Saturday? Such is the magic of Saratoga. Friday's $500,000 GI Personal Ensign S. at nine furlongs has attracted older mare division leaders Nest (Curlin) and Clairiere (Curlin). Both are multiple Grade I winners with stellar records; the two will meet for the third time. Nest, last year's Eclipse champion 3-year-old filly, is the 4-5 choice after besting Clairiere in a bang-up GII Shuvee S. July 23 over track and trip. It was her first start of...

America's Best Racing, a multimedia fan development and awareness-building platform formed by The Jockey Club (TJC), has launched a new initiative designed to introduce racing to new fans. Named "A Stake in Stardom," the program has tabbed brand ambassadors Sarah Cline and Joey Mulinaro to go behind the scenes as partial owners of 3-year-olds in partnership with West Point Thoroughbreds. Cline is best known as a TikTok influencer and Mulinaro is a former Barstool Sports contributor and impressionist. Each will receive a minority ownership stake in Giant Game (Giant's Causeway)...

Currently ranked number one on the TDN Triple Crown Top 12, Kentucky West Racing LLC & the Clarke M. Cooper Family Living Trust's Classic Causeway (Giant's Causeway) will attempt to further cement his position as a chief protagonist of the 2022 sophomore crop when he jumps a warm favorite in Saturday's GII Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby on what projects a pretty wet afternoon on Florida's Suncoast. One of three from the final crop of the 'Iron Horse' and one of two in the race, the blaze-faced chestnut made the...

The South Florida worktab was dotted with several horses tuning up Saturday morning for a possible start in the GII Fasig-Tipton Fountain of Youth S. at Gulfstream Park Mar. 5. WinStar Farm and Siena Farm LLC's 'TDN Rising Star' Emmanuel (More Than Ready) will be in search of a third win in as many starts in the Fountain of Youth and tuned up for the 8 1/2-furlong test with a bullet half-mile in :48.05 (1/32) Saturday morning at trainer Todd Pletcher's base at Palm Beach Downs. He worked great, I...

Led by last term's hard-fought GII Remsen S. winner Mo Donegal (Uncle Mo), a deep field of nine will line up for Saturday's GIII Holy Bull S. at Gulfstream Park. Owned by Donegal Racing and trained by Todd Pletcher, Mo Donegal outslugged Zandon (Upstart) by a nose after a roughly run stretch drive while making his stakes debut in that aforementioned 1 1/8-mile affair at Aqueduct last time Dec. 4. "We decided that the Holy Bull was the right starting point," Pletcher said. "It gives us plenty of options. If...