Nick Alexander

For the second year in a row, jockey Juan Hernandez has won both the summer and fall riding titles at Del Mar. However, unlike past title runs, he had to rally from behind late in the season to win the Bing Crosby Season title with 21 wins. Hernandez trailed both Antonio Fresu and Umberto Rispoli through much of the fall. But he got hot in the second-to-last week, winning five races and grabbing the lead. He then secured the title with another eight victories in the final week including five...

Tom Clark is the owner and manager of Rancho San Miguel, where more than 400 horses currently roam a sprawling 250-acres in California's San Luis Obispo County. He owns and manages the farm with his wife, Nancy. They have run it since 2000. The farm is a lynchpin of the state's breeding industry, housing as it does such workhorses of the California breeding shed as Sir Prancealot (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}), Danzing Candy (Twirling Candy) and Mo Forza (Uncle Mo). But Clark harbors a grim prediction for the future of the...

You may know Rose Maddox (Grazen) the horse. A 4-year-old California-bred filly, she's won five races, including the Golden Poppy S. and the Moscow Burning S., and is 6-1 in the morning line for Tuesday's GII Great Lady M. S. at Los Alamitos. But you may not know of Rose Maddox the person. She was an American country singer-songwriter and fiddle player who passed away in 1998. Born in Boaz, Alabama and the daughter of sharecroppers, her family sold all their possessions for $35 when she was seven and left...

The winners of the 2021 Lycetts Leadership Award, the Lycetts Team Champions Award and the Farm & Stable Award for Innovation & Wellbeing were announced by the National Trainers Federation (NTF) on Thursday. Listed below are the winners of the three awards: Lycetts Leadership Award: Dan Skelton Lycetts Team Champions Award: Richard Phillips Racing Farm & Stable Award for Innovation and Wellbeing: Eve Johnson Houghton Dan Skelton is the first winner of the Lycetts Leadership Award that was inaugurated this year and is designed to shine a light on and...

Tuesday afternoon, the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) announced that the California Thoroughbred Business League (CTBL) board had "unanimously approved" a $2-million subsidy from its reserves to be paid to Post Time Self Insurance Group--the self-insured workers' compensation program for trainers in the state. As part of the deal--which took some three months to negotiate--the various stakeholders have agreed to the creation of a new position of "Director of Safety," who will help establish and regulate uniform safety standards and implement them across all California training and racing facilities. Th...

The longer live racing is suspended in California the deeper the economic toll, which is why the industry continues to push hard for that suspension to be lifted: that was the main takeaway from a broad-sweeping conference call Friday morning, organized by the Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC), for industry heads to outline and discuss the impacts from the coronavirus pandemic on racing and training in California. The call was presided over by TOC Chairman Nick Alexander, Greg Avioli, TOC president and CEO, The Stronach Group (TSG) CEO Craig Fravel,...