A unique handicapping factor in this year’s Belmont is the fact that four of the 10 horses will enter the race with layoffs ranging from a couple months to more than five.
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
Meanwhile, the field for next weekend’s Belmont Stakes is taking shape, with eight likely starters and one potential add-on as of Thursday.
Many Las Vegas Valley casinos have reopened their racebooks, and app-based horse wagering — cut off during the 78-day closure — should be running again by the weekend.
Two of trainer Bob Baffert’s horses tested positive for lidocaine after recent races in Arkansas, including Belmont Stakes contender Charlatan, according to reports.
Officials with the New York Racing Association this week announced big changes that will see the race move ahead of the rescheduled Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes.
Racing at Santa Anita Park will continue, most likely three times a week, through June 23 assuming all goes well. Action begins Friday with a nine-race card.
Churchill Downs, Charles Town and Golden Gate Fields all are expected to begin running within the next week, all without fans in the stands and with strict health and safety protocols in place to protect track workers.
We won’t be singing “My Old Kentucky Home” on Saturday, but racing fans will hardly be bereft on only the second opening Saturday in May in 146 years without a Kentucky Derby.
It should be a no-brainer, but we’ll likely find out in the coming days whether public health officials in California are willing to let Santa Anita Park reopen for racing sans spectators.
With all the cancellations, suspensions and closures, it should come as no surprise that both the Del Mar and Saratoga race meets hang in the balance.
But local public health officials in California have shut down Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields despite the fact that neither track reported any COVID-19 cases.
The displacement of the Kentucky Derby from the first Saturday in May until the first Saturday in September has created a cascade effect on the 3-year-old division.
Javier Castellano, a Hall of Fame rider, tested positive for the disease after arriving in Florida with plans to ride in this weekend’s Florida Derby.
Most inhabitants of a city once renowned for its plush star-studded racebooks are unable to play the ponies, even as bettors in many other states continue to do so.
Twenty-seven owners, trainers and veterinarians are charged with conspiromg to give illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to the horses under their control.
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