Kentucky Derby

Juddmonte homebred Mandaloun (Into Mischief--Brooch, by Empire Maker), the promoted 2021 GI Kentucky Derby winner, has been retired. He will stand for $25,000 (stands and nurses) at Juddmonte USA in Kentucky. Tabbed as a 'TDN Rising Star' in his Keeneland debut at two, Mandaloun was elevated to first via disqualification in a roughly run renewal of the GI TVG.com Haskell S. the following season at Monmouth Park. His resume also includes wins in the GII Risen Star S., GIII Louisiana S. and TVG.com Pegasus S. The handsome bay posted a...

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency 2nd-Ellis Park, $60k, Msw, 2yo, 6f, 2:18 p.m. ET WinStar Farm and CMNWLTH's PENSACOLA (Into Mischief) opens his career for trainer Rodolphe Brisset. The bay colt was acquired for $600,000 following a :10 1/5 work at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May sale earlier this year. He is a son of stakes winner Stormy Regatta (Midshipman) and a half to stakes winner Bay Storm (Kantharos). Also debuting is AMO Racing's Hurricane J (Nyquist), a $330,000 KEESEP yearling trained by Paulo Lobo. He is a half to Grade...

More Than Ready (Southern Halo--Woodman's Girl, by Woodman), whose 216 worldwide stakes winners is the fourth highest total of all time, was euthanized the morning of Aug. 26 at WinStar Farm due to the cumulative effects of old age. He was 25 years old. "More Than Ready was an amazing horse who touched everyone he came in contact with," said Elliott Walden, president, CEO, and racing manager of WinStar Farm. "He may not have been the biggest horse in the barn, but he more than made up for it in...

With the completely stunned Kentucky Derby day crowd of 147,294 beginning to file out following Rich Strike (Keen Ice)'s upset for the ages, Strobe (c, 3, Into Mischief--Flashing, by A.P. Indy) looked like he could be any kind while closing out the stacked 14-race card with a dominating 'TDN Rising Star' performance. But where's the Godolphin homebred been since the first Saturday in May? "He's just back with Brad [Cox] and slowly getting back going again," Godolphin Director of Bloodstock Michael Banahan said. "He had his first little work last...

A deeper dive into the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's rules defining what medications are considered prohibited versus those that are considered therapeutic and the standards for out-of-competition testing in relation to betamethasone as opposed to post-race testing were the hot topics during day two of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's hearing addressing trainer Bob Baffert's appeal Tuesday. Baffert filed the appeal to clear from his record a 90-day suspension he already served this spring, along with reversing Medina Spirit (Protonico)'s disqualification from his victory in the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby....

Churchill Downs will host 26 stakes races worth $8.31 million during its upcoming September and Fall meets. The 14-day September meet, which runs from Sept. 15-Oct. 2, will include 11 stakes races worth a total of $3.36 million. The line-up is led by the $400,000 GII Lukas Classic for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles and the $300,000 GIII Ack Ack S. for 3-year-olds and up at one mile--a Breeders' Cup "Win and You're In" race for the GI Dirt Mile--Oct. 1. The meeting also hosts the first races...

Trainer Bob Baffert spent 2 1/2 hours on the witness stand testifying at a Kentucky Horse Racing Commission (KHRC) appeal hearing Monday. Baffert's intent by filing the appeal is to clear from his record a 90-day suspension he has already served while also reversing the KHRC's disqualification of Medina Spirit from the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby. Those penalties were the result of the Baffert-trained colt returning a positive for betamethasone after crossing the finish wire first in America's most historic and important horse race. Beyond the already-served suspension (which ran...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY - Trainer Eric Reed is looking back and ahead as he prepares GI Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike (Keen Ice) for the GI Runhappy Travers S. With a firm opinion of what went wrong in the Rich Strike's sixth-place finish in the GI Belmont S. June 11, Reed is expecting a much better performance in the $1.25-million signature race of the Saratoga Race Course meet Aug. 27. He will be the first Derby winner to run in the Travers since Always Dreaming (Bodemeister) finished ninth in 2017....

To twist an old saying so it best describes rock-steady GII Jim Dandy S. winner Epicenter (Not This Time), "The more things stay the same, the more they change." This is annually the time of the season when we start hearing from trainers of Triple Crown contenders how markedly their sophomores have improved and matured over the past couple of months. So it was a bit of a surprise when Steve Asmussen told DRF.com last week that he hasn't seen much change in the colt who ran second as the...

It's been almost 55 years since Dr. Fager set a world record for the mile distance when winning the 1968 Washington Park Handicap at Arlington Park in 1:32 1/5, a record that has yet to be broken. In 1973, Secretariat won the GI Kentucky Derby, covering the 1 1/4 miles in 1:59 2/5, a record that still stands 49 years later. There are other examples, all leading to the same conclusion--the Thoroughbred racehorse is not getting any faster. Some believe that horses have gotten as fast as they can get,...

Sonny Leon, the winning rider aboard Rich Strike (Keen Ice) in this year's GI Kentucky Derby, is about to relocate to Gulfstream Park. He is listed to ride six horses on the Saturday card, including Easy Come Easy Go (Midnight Storm) in the $75,000 Azalea S. Leon has been riding at Belterra Park, where he was fourth in the standings with 33 wins entering Thursday's card. "He's going to move his tack there for now and give it a shot," said Jeff Perrin, his agent at Belterra. Perrin will not...

Since the advent of the simulcasting era 30 years ago, I've never understood why some enterprising track somewhere hasn't seized a late-morning first-post slot and carved out its own niche at a time of day when no other pari-mutuel competition on the continent is running. Be it midweek in the winter, when most of the fair-to-middling Eastern time zone tracks do little to distinguish their products, or as a Saturday special during the summer when some C-level track could have an uncontested advantage for several hours as a lead-in to...