Many bettors didn’t heed clear signals that Good Magic was not primed for a top effort in last weekend’s Fountain of Youth Stakes. They have an opportunity to rebound this weekend by applying the lesson from that defeat.
Mike Brunker
Mike Brunker is an assistant city editor at the Review-Journal and he writes a weekly horse racing column. The column is posted on Thursday's and appears in Friday's print edition. He previously covered horse racing for the San Francisco Examiner, the Thoroughbred Times and NBCSports.com. Follow @mike_brunker on Twitter
Just as playwrights use unseen characters to advance the plot, this year’s road to the Triple Crown has been overshadowed by two horses — Good Magic and Bolt d’Oro — whose absence has called into question everything we’ve been watching on stage.
When you use Twitter to filter for a specific niche like horse racing, you begin to receive valuable intelligence without lifting a finger. Best of all, it’s often information you wouldn’t necessarily think to search for.
More points used to determine the starters in the Run for the Roses are on the line starting with Saturday’s Risen Star Stakes (Grade 2) at the Fair Grounds. Horseplayers need to pay close attention to this second round of preps.
A record 570 horse racing handicappers are competing for $3 million in prize money, $800,000 of which will go to the winner of the three-day contest beginning Friday.
The Horse of the Year’s final race in the Pegasus World Cup was a wonder to behold and offers some important handicapping lessons as well.
Gun Runner, the 4-5 morning line favorite, drew post position 10, a major disadvantage in a 1 1/8-mile race where the horses enter the first turn almost as soon as they break from the gate.
We briefly detour off the road to the Kentucky Derby this week to consider the Pegasus World Cup, a little contest in Florida coming up next week that carries the distinction of being the richest horse race in the world.
We revisit last week’s Sham Stakes to highlight an angle that turned an unbettable race into an opportunity.
The Sham Stakes at Santa Anita and the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream Park on Saturday give newly turned 3-year-old thoroughbreds their first chance to show their stuff in 2018.
Arrogate’s brilliance, Gun Runner’s steady excellence and the emergence of a pair of top jockeys from Puerto Rico top columnist Mike Brunker’s recount of the year’s highlights.
The outpouring of support after last week’s tragic fire at San Luis Rey Downs in northwest San Diego County, which killed 46 horses, may ultimately burn as brightly as the so-called Lilac wildfire itself.
Industry leaders brace for Supreme Court ruling that could potentially open the flood gates for legal sports betting in the U.S.
Find out which other horses the early bird wagerers liked in the first Derby futures pool offered by Churchill Downs and which horse is most intriguing based on the betting patterns.
Futures betting is already available for the 2018 Kentucky Derby, but you’ll be better off playing the prep races.
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