More eyes will be on Saratoga’s prized summer meet than ever before thanks to a landmark agreement between the New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) and FOX Sports. As part of the most expansive television programming deal in horse racing history, the critically acclaimed Saratoga Live will appear on FOX, FS1 and FS2 for an […]

When outrider Kaymarie Kreidel weaved through horses and humans to retrieve loose Bodexpress at the end of the Preakness Stakes, her ability to defuse a dangerous situation drew national attention. But the former jockey has endured much worse than that. Kreidel broke her back three times in riding accidents in the early 1990s when she […]

As David O’Rourke prepares to oversee his first Belmont Stakes since he was named chief executive officer and president of the New York Racing Association, he looks to a future filled with an equal measure of peril and potential. A disturbing string of equine fatalities has placed Thoroughbred racing under immense pressure to reform. The […]

Earl Wade had just graduated from high school in Louisville in 1982. He was 18 years old, an age when many young people are carefree. Not Wade. He had already fathered two children, and he urgently needed income. His mother, Alma, who cleaned bathrooms and handled other maintenance chores at Churchill Downs, found him a […]

Maryland based-trainer Phil Schoenthal used to become upset when things did not go his way in a sport filled with adversity. Not anymore. He remains passionate about winning and the attention to detail that requires, but his perspective radically changed when his son Emerson, then 3 years old, was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy last spring. […]

No competition in the United States compares to Belmont Park’s spring-summer meet in its history-making potential. This year’s 48-day meet offers 59 stakes worth $18.4 million and the hope that maybe, just maybe, a Triple Crown champion will be crowned for the third time in five years after the coronation of American Pharoah in 2015 […]

Trainer Todd Pletcher said he has scrutinized every facet of an operation that produced a record seven Eclipse Awards in a remarkable stretch from 2004-’14 but recently showed evidence of decline. A dazzling spring last year in which Noble Indy won the Louisiana Derby, Audible the Florida Derby, Vino Rosso the Wood Memorial and Magnum […]

While Jude Pastor was installing a rock garden on a broiling July afternoon in Louisiana, he could not wait to enjoy a cold soda. When he finally allowed himself a break, he drank deeply, expecting to almost instantly feel refreshed and restored. Instead, he was jolted by pain he never experienced before. “Wow, that hurt,” […]

Mothers know their children – the good, the bad, and the awful – so Fern Augusti knew the call would come one day. Brian, the oldest of her five children, had been resuscitated once before after overdosing on heroin only to plunge again into those depths of despair. When the call came in July 2009 […]

Noted orthopaedic trauma surgeon Philip Kregor was blunt when he met with jockey Kendrick Carmouche and his wife, Whitney, following a horrific accident at Kentucky Downs last Sept. 8. According to Whitney, he told them Carmouche’s broken right femur was one of the two worst he had ever seen and compared the damage to what […]