With Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and Preakness champion Cloud Computing skipping the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, the Triple Crown races will produce three different winners for the second consecutive year.
Richard Eng
Today the trend is for racetracks to cluster their stakes in a festival-style program. Thus, the Met Mile will be among nine graded stakes on the Belmont Stakes card June 10.
Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming by various accounts came bouncing out of Churchill Downs in good order. His Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher felt good about his preparation.
Always Dreaming is the horse the racing industry will be rooting for. A win in the Preakness sets up another Triple Crown chance in the Belmont Stakes on June 10.
After Always Dreaming crossed the finish line first in the Kentucky Derby, the first question was, “Is he good enough to win the Triple Crown.”
Many experts are calling this the most wide-open Kentucky Derby in years. When I hear that, I get cynical. Wide open was in 2009 when Mine That Bird destroyed the field at 50-1 odds.
The Kentucky Derby attracts the most novice and casual bettors of any race in our sport. With that in mind, there are all kinds of free Derby seminars next week.
I love making future bets, not only in horse racing but also other sports. That’s because horseplayers learn a basic tenet early on. Our goal is to bet a little to win a lot.
The long and winding road to the Kentucky Derby ends Saturday with the $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park.
When the folks at Churchill Downs dreamed up the Kentucky Derby points system, I was skeptical at first. Not anymore. It has worked by producing fields of in-form horses that, for the most part, are also bred to race two turns.
The two Kentucky Derby preps on Saturday are big ones — the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park and the Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds.
As Arrogate, the world’s best racehorse, enters the starting gate for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on Saturday, jockey Rafael Bejarano will rue what might have been.
Jockey Mike Smith said he felt something go wrong “about 10 jumps after the wire.” Smith dismounted, took off his tack and held Mastery still until the horse ambulance arrived.
Four of the past five Kentucky Derby winners have come out of Southern California. Thus, the San Felipe will lay out the blueprint for the Santa Anita Derby and then on to the Kentucky Derby.
Jay Cronley was one of my heroes. And if you are a horseplayer like me, then he probably was to you, too. Cronley died Sunday from a heart attack at age 73.
