T.D. Thornton

An appreciation, by T.D. Thornton Over the course of 45 years as a jockey, trainer, owner and breeder, Patricia E. Meadow never really cared for it to be publicized that she was a Harvard University astrophysics major who had additionally earned a medical-school degree. She rarely, if ever, referred to herself around the racetrack by her hard-earned "doctor" title. Although Meadow accumulated only 32 victories from 480 lifetime starts over nearly four decades of training and hadn't saddled a winner since 2019, her passing Dec. 29 was met with an...

As the year winds down, now is a relatively quiet time for horse racing. But there was nothing quiet about 2024, another year when there was no shortage of bad news and plenty of controversy thanks to the nasty battle between pro and anti-HISA Forces. The TDN seeks to be fair in its news coverage and makes no attempt to accentuate the negative stories. The problem is that the numbers say the readers prefer to read the "bad stuff." What stories resonated most with TDN readers? Here are the top...

For the past few weeks, we have been telling you how some of racing's biggest names fell in love with the sport. Now it's our turn. Here are some of the stories behind the bylines you see every day in the TDN. I grew up in Salem, New Hampshire, which decades ago was the home of Rockingham Park. My parents were schoolteachers, and my dad, Paul, was the high school baseball and basketball coach. Everyone in town seemed to have some sort of connection to the track, and my father...

Canterbury Park is proposing a 51-day Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meet for 2025 that will trim three dates off the schedule that was conducted at the Minnesota track in 2024 while also including a nine-day break in the middle of next year's season. The schedule, which will be up for approval at the December meeting of the Minnesota Racing Commission, will run from Saturday, May 24 through Saturday, Sept. 20, beginning one week later and concluding one week earlier than this past season. Racing would be conducted primarily on Wednesdays...

After a nine-day delay to fix safety concerns that pushed back the opening of the 2024-25 racing season at Turf Paradise from Nov. 2 to Nov. 11, horsemen, jockeys, regulators and track management were all largely in concurrence Friday that the first four days of racing at the Arizona track this past Monday through Thursday were conducted in safe and sustainable fashion. The largely positive reviews and glowing articulations of cooperation at the Nov. 15 Arizona Racing Commission (AZRC) meeting stood out in contrast to the contention and infighting that...

Seven of the 11 directors of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (PTHA) filed a legal response Monday that denied sweeping allegations of corruption and cronyism that were made last month by the PTHA's current president and another board member. Facing a petition in the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that seeks to use a state business corporations law to remove those seven directors from the PTHA board, the respondents stated in their Oct. 21 filing that the petition should be denied "because it is both legally and...

Richard Rigney joins this week's TDN Writers' Room to discuss the win by Jonathan's Way in the Iroquois and talk all things Rigney Racing.

A federal judge cancelled a July 31 hearing in a lawsuit filed last week by eight Oklahoma horsemen who are trying to get the Horseracing and Safety Integrity Act (HISA) declared unconstitutional after learning that seven of the same plaintiffs last year filed a substantially similar complaint but voluntarily withdrew it three months later. The judge in the newer case, Charles Goodwin of United States District Court of Oklahoma (Western District), also signed a July 30 court order reassigning the lawsuit to Chief Judge Timothy DeGiusti, the same federal judge...

A rezoning vote that could permit a super-sized recreational vehicle (RV) and "glamping" park to be built on farmland near Midway, Kentucky, got postponed from July 11 to Aug. 8, setting up the next clash in what has been a three-year civic and legal battle over whether a commercial operation of such a massive scale is right for the low-key city of 1,700 residents and the numerous horse farms in the area. When the project was first proposed in 2021, Woodall's Campground Magazine billed the "enormous" development as having "973...

After a very successful mini-meet highlighted by the running of the GI Belmont Stakes, NYRA is set to return to Saratoga for the start of the 2024 meet. Guiding the ship will be NYRA President and CEO Dave O'Rourke, who will be hoping for sunny skies, no breakdowns and record attendance and handle numbers. That's a lot to ask, but it is Saratoga, where magical things happen. To talk about the meet, O'Rourke joined this week's TDN Writers' Room Podcast Presented by Keeneland. He was the Green Group Guest of...

David O'Rourke, the President and CEO of NYRA, joined this week's TDN Writers' Room ahead of the opening week at Saratoga.

Horsemen who are alleging a "present and clear danger" because of a decade's worth of purportedly uncorrected safety issues at Camarero Race Track continue to legally spar with the corporate owners of Puerto Rico's only track and the gaming commission that regulates the island's racing. In response to an Apr. 26 federal lawsuit filed by the Puerto Rico Horse Owners Association, Inc. (PRHOA), both the owners of the track and the Gaming Commission of Puerto Rico filed responses in the United States District Court of Puerto Rico this month that...