Chelsea Hackbarth

Saturday, July 29, at Monmouth Park, jockey agent Jimmy Riccio “won” the day with his riders Joe Bravo and Jose Ortiz sweeping all six stakes races on the card, including the $1 million Haskell Invitational with Good Magic. “We just were on the right horses that day,” said Riccio, 40. “It looked like a good […]

Law school. Rodeo. Horse racing. These are Cheyanna Patrick’s passions. The 21-year-old spends most of her year at the University of Kentucky’s School of Law, but in the summers she is a well-respected professional Thoroughbred jockey at Indiana Grand. Born into a family of equine enthusiasts, Patrick grew up with a “need for speed.” She […]

Catherine Day Phillips traveled across the globe to find her way back home. Canadian born and bred, Day Phillips now trains a string of 25 Thoroughbreds at Woodbine, and will saddle the filly Dixie Moon, winner of the Woobine Oaks, in Saturday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate. “She’s very seasoned for a young horse,” said Day […]

Trainer Ignacio Correas IV didn’t start out pursuing the American Dream. Neither did last Saturday’s Grade 2 Fleur de Lis Handicap winner, Blue Prize. They both earned their stripes in Argentina before making the move to the United States, where each would have to carve out a new beginning. “I really never thought I would […]

Dismissed at 13-1 on the tote board, the little brown colt barely drew an eye in the paddock on the Belmont Stakes undercard. As the field for the Grade 2 Woody Stephens left the starting gate, he was even less prominent, traipsing along at the back of the field, nearly 12 lengths behind the leader. […]

“He just kept showing up in the barn, every day.” Ricardo Santana, Jr. has been showing up for as long as anyone can remember. He’s in the barns every morning and always gives a top effort in the afternoons. That work ethic is what first earned the 24-year-old Panamanian jockey a chance to ride for […]

A Preakness Stakes win by Kentucky Derby winner Justify would be the seventh for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert in a span of just 22 years – which would equal Robert Wyndham Walden’s all-time record of seven set in the 19th century. All of Baffert’s previous Preakness winners competed two weeks earlier in the […]

There’s a small town in Kentucky called Tompkinsville, nestled into the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains just north of the Tennessee border. A decline in the local garment industry hit the area hard over the past several decades, and a striking 30 percent of the approximately 2,000 locals live at or below the poverty line. […]

This year’s relatively short eight-horse Preakness field is exactly evenly spilt between runners who competed in the Kentucky Derby and those who didn’t. The latter, often tiresomely named “new shooters,” are compromised of the following runners, to which we shall now introduce you: Quip (12-1): You might think the primary owners of the Kentucky Derby […]

Fellow Frenchman Julien Leparoux helped Rodolphe Brisset find a job in the United States, following the latter’s short career as a jockey, now the trainer of Preakness contender Quip. “We came here very young,” said Brisset, 34, “and we didn’t have any family nearby. The whole (Bill) Mott team was such a family, and he […]