His battles with rival Affirmed as both a juvenile, and of course, through the 1978 Triple Crown are now the stuff of legend. However, what has clouded all those spectacular past performances came during his stallion career when he tragically died from an injury which was sustained while he was in his Calumet stall on a November night in 1990. Officially chalked up as an accident, his sudden and shocking death has remained shrouded in conjecture ever since.

What happened to Alydar? That is the central question that Fred M. Kray attempts to tackle in his ambitiously titled new book, Broken: The Suspicious Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing's Golden Age.

There is nothing quite like a tenacious true crime writer. Plucky isn't a descriptor that goes far enough. It's one's dogged determination, coupled with an ability to stare deep into the abyss that demands sterner stuff. Kray has all of that and more. His passion for this topic is evident, and he possesses the requisite skills to follow a labyrinth of clues and misstatements that go back forty-plus years.

A former animal-rights attorney who was on hand to witness the John M. Veitch trainee when he won the 1978 GI Flamingo S. at Hialeah Park and the GI Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, Kray began to delve into the case in 2018. He tried to track down those involved, performed seemingly countless interviews and attempted to weave together a story chock full of contradiction.

But has Kray actually uncovered a smoking gun or is this just a series of red herrings? Where exactly is the conspiracy to commit murder?

Broken flows rather like a true crime memoir. It's Kray's defense laid bare on behalf of the Thoroughbred in question. Committing the cardinal sin if we skip to the end of this mystery, the author mythically knots his favorite Windsor tie and strides to the same courtroom in Houston, Texas where the security guard who was on duty that fateful night was tried and sentenced. There, he gives his own account of why he believes Alydar was murdered. It's heartfelt, but somehow it falls just short of compelling drama à la Raymond Burr.

Still, what makes this work a worthy read is the journey. Kray starts with the initial, all-too-brief insurance investigation. He then moves briskly through a composite of Alydar's racing and breeding shed exploits and delves into the questionable economic practices of Calumet's J.T. Lundy & Co. After painstakingly wading through the ensuing trials which fingered less than a handful of Calumet figures, Kray opens the curtain for the final act in which he becomes the lead. Perched on his shoulder like a GoPro Camera, we watch as he sits in front of many a horse farm gate, chides a reluctant private detective who didn't deliver and relates a number of emotional moments with key witnesses.

Alydar visiting Lucille Gene Markey on Blue Grass S. Day in 1978 | Keeneland

The relationship he forms with Tom Dixon, the equine insurance agent who was the first on the scene at Calumet, is particularly poignant. Dixon is a no-nonsense umpire that calls them like he sees them, and Kray has to steadily battle for the former agent's uneasy trust in order to access key photographs and notes. 'Deep Throat', Dixon is not, but the back-and-forth between the pair as they argue points of view on several occasions is quite a chess match.

Speaking of emotional moments, Kray's interview with Alydar's groom, Michael Coulter is both enlightening to his case, but we also find a man who hasn't returned to the scene mentally in quite some time. Though a witness in one of the trials, Coulter's perspective was underutilized and from Kray's questions, we get a window into the relationship the groom built with this superb equine athlete. Coulter explains how tired Alydar was from over-breeding and addresses the horse's psychological state. This is important because there were constant questions throughout the different trials about Alydar's penchant for kicking stall doors.

What Kray finds is a trail of dead ends and memories which are parsed with a few nuggets of remembrance. The author leads us to the assumption that key players that do not want to talk are clinging to something deeper. His mission to ask everyone connected why there were no marks on the paint in Alydar's stall, and why the latch was not disturbed becomes an indelible part of the script. A tense section relates an interview with the well-known Dr. Larry Bramlage. It is particularly excruciating to plow through, but it also shows how resolute Kray is when it comes to defending Alydar. You feel both men's frustration bearing out and it makes for good theater in the Rood & Riddle waiting room where the interview was conducted.

There is something very Citizen Kane about Broken. Like the reporter who is sent to find out what Charles Foster Kane meant when he said 'Rosebud' on his deathbed, we may never know what happened to Alydar that night at Calumet in 1990. Was his leg hit with something? Was more than one person involved? Who knew about the coverup at Calumet? Who knows something right now? Questions will continue to float. While we are on a roll, did Kray prove that this was the end of horse racing's 'Golden Age' as the book's subtitle suggests? That answer seems even more amorphous.

Instead, maybe we can take a sliver of comfort in knowing that there are some things we just can't uncover about a tragedy. If you read Broken as an homage to this Thoroughbred, then we need to thank the author for his contribution and determination. What we can say is that if Fred Kray had defended Alydar, at the very least, he might have had his day in court.

Broken: The Suspicions Death of Alydar and the End of Horse Racing's Golden Age by Live Oak Press, 348 pages, photos, May 2023.

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The whole premise of nostalgia is irretrievability: the yearning for a time or place that can't be revisited. (Very often, perhaps, because it never existed in the first place.) This morbidity is suggested in the Greek stems of the word: nostos, homecoming, and algos, pain or distress. Unfortunately, while the first of these is doomed to remain notional, the second can even be national. It spills over into the here and now, corroding the happiness not just of individuals but whole societies. All round the world, we see populists promising to renew some golden age by restoring lapsed imperial or demographic boundaries.

But that observation obliges me to ask myself whether I'm doing anything so very different, in stubbornly resisting the groundswell towards Triple Crown reform?

With a solitary Kentucky Derby runner deigning to line up for the second leg of the series, for the first time since the current schedule was adopted in 1969, many whose opinions I respect appear to be accepting that there is no longer any point trying to turn back the side. They look at the seven runners in the GI Preakness S. on Saturday, and say the time has come to yield principle to pragmatism.

Well, they may be right. But first, I have a couple of questions. One is exactly where we can find this putative engagement with a disaffected wider public? Is it from having more competitive Triple Crown races, or is it from the romance of the quest itself?

Mage, Pimlico Race Course | Horsephotos

For a long time, during the drought between Affirmed and American Pharoah, we were told (despite several extremely close misses) that the assignment lay beyond the modern Thoroughbred and that we were duly squandering our best chance of engaging fan attention. On that basis, however, the defection of so many rivals clearly only enhances the prospects of Mage (Good Magic) heading to Belmont with a Triple Crown within reach. If that is supposed the grail of publicity, pricelessly combining heritage and accessibility, then does anyone imagine that casual viewers will tune out because the Preakness field lacked triple-figure Beyers?

But maybe the whole premise is wrong anyhow. If the Triple Crown is the best way of stemming our sport's drift from mainstream affections, then how do we assess the impact of the two we have saluted as recently as 2015 and 2018? While unanswerably demonstrating that the current schedule remains perfectly within the competence of the 21st Century Thoroughbred, American Pharoah and Justify hardly reversed the slide. As should be painfully obvious by now, we must address far more serious and challenging deficiencies in the way we present ourselves to a changing world.

Not that we can afford complacency in the audience we already have: the people, that is, who know enough about our arcane world to be dismayed by the lack of both quality and quantity in the field awaiting Mage at Pimlico. When so many indices are spiraling down, retention must be a still bigger priority than expansion. But a Triple Crown extended into July–which, in itself, might well stretch the fickle attention of a casual sports fan–could prove disastrous for other cherished races of high summer, especially now that horses are supposed to need a break before regrouping for a Breeders' Cup prep.

It is, as we know, the trainers who are driving this whole agenda. They have either seen or for some reason decided that horses today cannot soak up the kind of campaign that once allowed breeders a reliable measure of the kind of genetic resources they could aspire to replicate. The incidental benefit of this approach, of course, was precisely the fan engagement we have forfeited in protecting horses not only from competition but also from visibility.

The trainers have given the industry a choice. Either we concede that commercial breeding must be producing a Thoroughbred lacking the physical resources of its predecessors; or we candidly take issue with the trainers, and employ people who will explore the capacity of their charges more thoroughly. In both cases, however, the solution is in our own hands. What we are seeing in the Triple Crown series is a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

If it's about the physical caliber of the horses we are producing, then that obviously ties into another and far more serious challenge. If modern horses can't race twice under the same moon, or even stand up to federal regulation, then surely, we need to address the crazy situation where breeding for the sales ring has somehow become different from breeding a runner.

If it's simply the trainers that are wrong, however, then there are also things we can do about it. And that's not just because D. Wayne Lukas is still doing his thing at 87. I've regularly cited the example of another old master, Jim Bolger, just a couple of years ago running Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) in three Classics in 22 days, before winning at Royal Ascot barely three weeks later; and, as often, deplored how only the Japanese could find a place for this horse at stud. But Bolger was also the mentor of Aidan O'Brien, who has himself frequently taken a similar approach. (One of my favorite instances was Peeping Fawn (Danehill). She was placed in a Classic 11 days after breaking her maiden at the fourth attempt; and then ran second in another, over an extra half-mile, five days after that. That experience so damaged her that she proceeded to four Group 1 wins inside eight weeks.)

Good Magic | Sarah Andrew

To me, it looks as though Bolger and O'Brien both believe that a thriving horse has a window of opportunity. And, on that basis, it may actually prove harder to maintain a Derby winner at the same peak for a Belmont in July than with the present calendar.

Most American trainers today evidently disagree. And look, I accept that times change. Mage himself, a horse we hadn't heard of 10 minutes ago, is a Derby winner for our times. He has a different scenario to tackle this time, and shouldn't give a start to one working as briskly as National Treasure (Quality Road). Even in this small field there are some pretty legitimate horses, and it's certainly an incredible achievement for Good Magic's first crop to yield three of seven starters in a Classic.

According to the behavior of trainers, it should be nearly inevitable that a raw colt like Mage regresses from his effort two weeks ago. If he happened to do that, however, it's a fair bet that whichever “mediocre” horse (not my view, I stress) took advantage could still be rewarded with 200 mares at stud next spring. Suffice to say that we have a lot of other stuff to sort out before we start scapegoating an anachronistic Triple Crown.

Good luck to Mage. He has a ton of talent. Who knows? Maybe he will prove the last Triple Crown winner over five weeks–and the last, therefore, who can validly claim parity with the previous 13. And then, when these elusive young fans become as old and grumpy as me, he may even be the stuff of nostalgia.

The post This Side Up: How To Make The Crown Fit Again appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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“I think Secretariat would have beat him,” Secretariat's jockey Ron Turcotte said of a hypothetical match up between the two legendary horses. “That's no knock against the other horse. He's a beautiful horse. Well put together. I can't fault him in any way. But he has hasn't done enough for me to say he is better than Secretariat.”

That's not to say that Turcotte isn't a Flightline fan.

“He's a fabulous horse,” he said. “We don't know how fast he could run.”

Turcotte, 81, resides in Drummond, New Brunswick, Canada. He watched the GI Breeders' Cup Classic live on television and took a look back at Flightline's previous races on YouTube. He sees some similarities between Flightline and Secretariat.

“He's very muscular like Secretariat,” Turcotte said. “He's got a real large stride like Secretariat and it looks to me than he's taller than Secretariat was.”

But Turcotte added that he finds it difficult to compare a horse who ran only six times to Secretariat, who made 21 career starts.

“There aren't enough races for me to really judge him,” he said. “It's very hard to judge a horse against Secretariat when he only had six races. Secretariat was a machine  The same goes for some of the great horses like Kelso. He won the Gold Cup five times in a row. I rode against him and know what a great horse he was.

“I would have loved to see Flightline run another year because it's very hard to judge him on just six races. it would have been much better for racing if they ran him another year, but I can understand why the people did what they did, with all the money there is now in breeding.”

Turcotte said another factor that makes a comparison difficulty is that Secretariat did not run as a 4-year-old while Flightline did.

“Comparing a 4-year-old and a 3-year-old, that's awful hard to do,” he said. “Secretariat was just maturing when he was retired. His last two races were just unbelievable.”

He also pointed to Secretariat's versatility and the track records Secretariat set in his three Triple Crown wins.

“Secretariat would run in the slop , the mud, on a fast track, the grass. He would run on anything.” he said. “The other horse only ran on fast tracks. And he never broke a track record, like Secretariat did.”

It's been 49 years since Turcotte rode Secretariat and there have been some tremendous horses that have come after him, like Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, Cigar, Zenyatta and, of course Flightline. But will there ever be a horse that compares to Secretariat?

“I've always said we'd never see a horse as good as Secretariat,” Turcotte said. “But you never know.”

The post Turcotte: Secretariat Was Better appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The $100,000 Dr. Fager, a six-furlong sprint, and the $100,000 Desert Vixen, a six-furlong dash for fillies, will kick off the 2022 FSS series Aug. 6. The $200,000 Affirmed will be contested at seven-furlongs Sept. 3, the same day as the $200,000 Susan's Girl for fillies. The $400,000 In Reality and the $400,000 My Dear Girl for fillies, the 1 1/16-mile final legs of the series, will be run Oct. 1.

The inaugural $100,000 FTBOA Florida Sire Stakes Gil Campbell Memorial, a mile stakes for 3-year-olds, will also be run Oct. 1.

The Florida Sire Stakes Series has produced five Eclipse Award champions: Awesome Feather (2010 Juvenile Filly), Big Drama (2010 Sprinter), Smile (1986 Sprinter), Brave Raj (1986 Juvenile Filly) and Not Surprising (1995 Sprint).

The six Florida Sire Stakes races are among 40 stakes races scheduled during the spring, summer and fall months at Gulfstream Park. The $75,000 Honey Ryder, a mile turf stakes for 3-year-old fillies, and the $75,000 English Channel, a mile turf event for 3-year-olds, will kick off the stakes schedule next Saturday, followed by the $75,000 Monroe, a 1 1/16-mile turf stakes for fillies and mares, next Sunday.

The Royal Palm Meet's stakes schedule will be headlined by the $250,000 GII Princess Rooney Invitational, a seven-furlong sprint for fillies and mares, and the $100,000 GIII Smile Sprint, a six-furlong race for 3-year-olds and up, July 2 on Summit of Speed Weekend, which will also feature the $100,000 Bob Umphrey Sprint, a five-furlong dash for 3-year-olds and up on Tapeta.

The post Florida Sire Stakes Returns in 2022 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Topping the auction was Andre Pater's War and Peace, a pair of signed and dated pastels, sold for $115,000, including buyer premium.

The high-priced Pater pairing was among 192 quality lots representing fine sporting art, American paintings and sculpture by renowned artists cataloged.

Fishing on the Elkhorn, a signed oil by popular Kentucky artist Paul Sawyier, brought the second-highest price of $100,050.

Works by Kentucky native Henry Faulkner commanded four of the auction's top prices: Taormina, a signed oil, sold for $59,800; Midway, a signed oil, went for $57,500; Penthouse for Alice, an oil signed, inscribed and dated '74 verso, brought $46,000; and Ode to Edith Piaf, a signed oil, was purchased for $40,250.

Peggy Kaufmann's Holding Tight, a signed bronze dated 2018, brought $46,000.

Other notable works sold as part of the Sporting Art Auction were Henry Stull's The Inaugural Running of the Connaught Cup 1912, Old Woodbine, an oil signed and dated 1912, for $42,550;

Richard Stone Reeves' Affirmed, an oil signed, inscribed and dated '90, for $40,250; Claude Grosperrin's La Coupe d'Argent a Deauville, a signed oil, for $40,250; and a 19^th century American copper and zinc Weathervane of Lexington, for $37,950.

All prices include buyer premium.

In keeping with its mission, Keeneland's portion of the auction proceeds will benefit its non-profit initiatives.

For more information, please visit thesportingartauction.com.

The post Keeneland’s Sporting Art Auction Grosses $1.9 Million appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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On this week's episode, bloodstock editor Joe Nevills asks Ray about his beginnings, both in horse racing and covering the sport, which horses inspired him along the way, and what about the sport compelled him to make it a career.

Ray and Joe also discuss how the Thoroughbred industry, and reporting on it, has changed in the three-plus decades since Ray moved to Kentucky.

We then unveil a new and improved Star of the Week segment, in which the hosts look at a notable winner from the previous week at Woodbine.

Watch this week's show, presented by Monmouth Park, below:

The post The Friday Show Presented By Monmouth Park: A Publisher’s Retrospective appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The $775,000 KEESEP graduate got the 'TDN Rising Star' nod on debut sprinting at Santa Anita Oct. 24, then returned on quick notice with an eighth-place finish after showing speed in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile last time Nov. 6. Working bullets for his return, Bob Baffert takes the blinkers off for this.

The Chosen Vron (Vronsky) tackles two turns for the first time here. The Cal-bred was impressive in his last two, capturing the Echo Eddie S. Apr. 3 and GIII Lazaro Barrera S. May 15 with a pair of 90 Beyer Speed Figures.

Mr. Impossible (Munnings) took a big step forward with a maiden win at fifth asking stretching to a mile in Arcadia most recently May 16.

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With first post time for a nine-race card at Santa Anita on Saturday at 1 p.m., the 30-minute Cauthen/Olczyk handicapping seminar will begin at 10:30 a.m. PT and can be viewed free of charge at santaanita.com/live, on YouTube and via Twitter. Fans are encouraged to subscribe to Santa Anita's YouTube Channel or follow Santa Anita's Twitter Account to get notification when the show goes live.

Saturday's seminar will be hosted by Santa Anita's Jeff “Chappy” Chapman and George Ortuzar, who will also provide their handicapping insights in a fun, free-flowing format.

An invitation-only contest, the Charity 1/ST Handicapping Challenge features head-to-head elimination-style tournament competition, comprised of five total rounds and 31 live racing days, which will ultimately produce one Charity Champion.

At the end of the contest, Santa Anita Park will donate a minimum of $1,000 to the California Retirement Management Account CARMA, and that amount will increase every time one of our participants turns their daily bankroll to more than $1,000.

Charity 1/ST Handicapping Challenge Tournament Format:

–Each player will start with a mythical $300 bankroll, with players required to wager as follows (three races max): $100 Win Bet on one horse in each race. $100 in Exactas in one race (can be either a straight $100 exacta or a $50 exacta box or a $50 part wheel). $100 in Daily Doubles, starting in one race (either straight or two $50 doubles).

–The player with the most money at the end of each round will move on, while the other is eliminated.

With Santa Anita scheduled to reopen to the General Public on a limited basis beginning Friday, April 2, fans are encouraged to visit santaanita.com for additional information, including reserved seating.

The post Legendary Steve Cauthen Faces Eddie Olyczk In Saturday’s 1/ST Charity Handicapping Challenge appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Ward 'n Jerry won the second leg of the challenging marathon on Feb. 20, coming from well off the pace as usual to take the mile and a quarter turf event by a head as the 4-5 favorite under Flavien Prat who is back aboard Saturday.

The “Tin Man” series provides distance-progressive opportunity for older horses that have started for a claiming price of $40,000 or less dating back to 2019 to run in four races that began at a mile and one eighth on Jan. 18 and will conclude at a mile and three-quarters on April 24.

In addition to the winner's share from this Saturday's Tin Man, the winner will get a free berth into either the Grade 2, $200,000 Charles Whittingham Stakes at 1 ¼ miles on turf May 29, or the Grade 3, $100,000 San Juan Capistrano at 1 ¾ miles on turf June 19.

The series is named in honor of Ralph and Aury Todd's homebred son of Affirmed, The Tin Man, who was foaled in 1998 and raced through age nine in 2007. Trained by Richard Mandella, The Tin Man was a multiple graded stakes winner and a two-time Grade 1 winner at age nine, after which he was retired with earnings of more than $3.6 million.

“Our hope is this distance series serves as a throwback to some of the legendary horses that have competed at Santa Anita and the races provide good betting opportunities,” said Santa Anita's Director of Racing and Racing Secretary Chris Merz.

“This race came up a lot tougher than the last one,” said Puype, who has had California-bred Ward 'n Jerry going on six years now for owners/breeders Mr. and Mrs. Larry Williams, longtime successful supporters of racing in The Golden State.

“This is a very solid race for the purse level, no doubt ($47,000, plus up to $5,640 to Cal-bred winners),” Puype said. “You've got Oscar Dominquez and Red King (each a Grade 2 stakes winner) running for $47,000. Tartini's not bad, either, so it's no easy race by any stretch.

“But we've surely got a good chance. He's got a great rider (Flavien Prat, who pilots the 8-year-old Lucky Pulpit gelding for the eighth time, winning twice); we're ready to go.”

Ward 'n Jerry has a 7-2-4 record from 27 starts with earnings of $434,419.

“I've had Ward 'n Jerry since his 2-year-old season (back in 2015),” Puype said. “He's very nice to have around and it's nice to have a horse for that many years. He's been here longer than any of them. He's kind of like the chairman of the board at the barn.”

Leg three of The Tin Man series, which goes as race five: Lure Him In, Edwin Maldonado, 5-1; Red King, Umberto Rispoli, 5-2; Ward 'n Jerry, Flavien Prat, 3-1; New Year, Tyler Baze, 50-1; Oscar Dominguez, Mario Gutierrez, 4-1; The Stiff, Alexis Centeno, 12-1; Tartini, Juan Hernandez, 4-1; and Irish Heatwave, Abel Cedillo, 8-1.

The post War Horse Ward ‘N Jerry Chasing Second Win In The Tin Man Turf Starter Distance Series appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The series is named in honor of Ralph and Aury Todd's homebred son of Affirmed, The Tin Man, who was foaled in 1998 and raced through age nine in 2007. Trained by Hall of Famer Richard Mandella, The Tin Man was a multiple graded stakes winner who was a two time Grade 1 winner at age nine. Retired following his 9-year-old campaign, The Tin Man banked more than $3.6 million.

Leg One of The Tin Man series on Saturday will be contested at a mile and one eighth on turf. Leg Two, on Feb. 20, will be run at a mile and one quarter, Leg Three, on March 20 will be run at a mile and one half and the fourth leg will be contested at a mile and three quarters down Santa Anita's Camino Real Hillside Turf Course on April 17.

The Tin Man Starter Distance Series will be open to older horses which have started for a claiming tag of $40,000 or less from 2019 to the present.

“Our hope is that this distance series will serve as a throwback to some of the legendary horses that have competed here at Santa Anita and that these races are going to provide good betting opportunities,” said Santa Anita's Director of Racing and Racing Secretary Chris Merz. “I think our fans and horsemen are going to be excited to see these races run over the downhill Camino Real Course, which has such a rich history.”

Entries for this Saturday at Santa Anita will be taken Wednesday morning. Although there is still no public admittance, fans can view all Santa Anita races free of charge at santaanita.com/live and they can watch and wager via several ADW platforms, including 1st.com/Bet.

The post Santa Anita Launches ‘The Tin Man Turf Starter Distance Series’ This Saturday appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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