Chelsea Hackbarth

Like all good Louisvillians, Josh Stevens was taught how to celebrate the first Saturday in May. There are parties to be held, heaping piles of delicious food, light-hearted wagering pools between family and friends, and any number of smartly coordinated dresses and bow ties befitting the occasion. Every year Stevens would join his family around […]

Here’s one you don’t see every day: A 7-year-old mare and her 2-year-old son are running on the same card this Wednesday at Saratoga.  Both Enthusiastic Gal (Race 9) and Get Set (Race 6) are owned by breeder Joseph Imbesi and trained by Steve Klesaris. “It’s a quite a coincidence that they land on the […]

Jack Sisterson has been out on his own for about a year training for the legendary Calumet Farm, but he had a first last weekend when he sent out stakes winners at two different tracks. Bandua captured the G3 Arlington Handicap as the favorite in Chicago on Saturday, and Lexitonian put up an 18-1 shocker […]

Consistency and tradition are two of the pillars on which George “Rusty” Arnold’s training stable has been built, and they are also two of the reasons that he has been in business for 40 years. Concrete Rose’s domination of last Saturday’s Belmont Oaks gave Arnold his first Grade 1 win in 2019 and had the […]

Last-to-first bursts seem to be a theme for Michael Trombetta trainees this week. On Saturday, David Palmer’s Wet Your Whistle stepped up to capture the Grade 1 Highlander Stakes at Woodbine, his fourth win in a row. Then on Thursday, Live Oak Plantation’s Triple Crown contender Win Win Win followed suit with a switch to […]

Horse racing executives have long been sitting in dusty board rooms trying to envision new ways to broaden the sport’s reach to include a younger generation of fans, but 20-somethings Dare Sutton and Sam Bussanich were a step ahead with an idea birthed in 2016. Neither grew up in racing, however, and the prohibitive costs […]

Top U.S. show jumper Candice King grew up riding cutting horses in California and showing a pair of Appaloosas in the jumpers, all the way up to the puissance at age 14. The internationally successful King has a well-earned reputation for being able to effectively work with the most difficult and sensitive horses, but I […]

Kevin Atwood has always liked speed. His boots were in stirrups more often than on the ground while he was growing up in Hopkinsville, Ky., and he carried on that tradition with barrel racing through adulthood. In 2008, however, Atwood had to admit he needed to slow down. Then 46, he started searching for another […]

A lot of people in the horse racing industry are ready to move on from the controversy of the 2019 Kentucky Derby, but even as the second leg of the Triple Crown approaches, the buzz in Baltimore still revolves around what happened in Louisville. In this edition of The Friday Show, Scott Jagow and Chelsea […]

On a damp, chilly Thursday morning at Pimlico, most Preakness contenders were being walked around the shed row wearing blankets emblazoned with their name, or perhaps their trainer’s name. One was unique, however. It’s a bright blue and square wool blanket with white edges and big block letters emblazoned across the left side, and it […]