Longacres

Over the past week, the TDN has been asking racing personalities with no family involvement in racing what the moment was that got them hooked. Jason Beem, track announcer and podcast host I grew up about five miles from Longacres Race Course in the Seattle suburb of Renton, Washington. My dad was a gambler and loved the playing the horses and started taking me from a very early age. I thought jockeys were the coolest thing ever and my dad has photos of me at age three sitting on the...

courtesy Emerald Downs Vic Cozzetti, a staple in Washington racing for over five decades, passed away Sunday in a Puyallup assisted living facility at age 93. Cozzetti was a fixture in the press box at Longacres and Emerald Downs--where he was known as "Victor the Predictor"--and involved in every form of racing media--television, radio, newspaper, Internet. His nightly recap on local radio was especially popular with handicappers and horsemen alike, delivering results and racing news in the pre-Internet era of the 1970s and 80s. Cozzetti was more than just a...

Assuming that you, too, have by this stage marvelled at the tenacity, balance and athleticism of Alex Cruz in winning a race despite losing both irons leaving the gate, at Emerald Downs last weekend, then perhaps you might also have been prompted to reassess our prejudices against the seat of the 18th Century guardsman. To the modern eye, the long-shanked equitation of those days appears ludicrous: awkward, stilted and, above all, inimical to the freedom of the horse's movement. We think of the elevation of the modern jockey, as popularized...