Chelsea Hackbarth

If you’re going to do something, do it well. Danny Gargan has worked every day of his life on the racetrack, but he didn’t start out wanting to be a horse trainer. It’s a curious beginning for the conditioner and part-owner of G3 Withers winner Tax, a strong prospect on the Road to the Kentucky […]

Every good horseman will tell you that a racehorse does his best running when he’s happy. The hard part, of course, is figuring out how to put him in that headspace; horses aren’t always logical creatures. About a year ago now, trainer Clinton Stuart tried sending his hard-knocking gelding Wings Locked Up home to his […]

Just before Big Changes went in the starting gate for Saturday’s Sunshine Millions Turf, one of the Gulfstream commentators mentioned that he was a little bit worked up. “What she didn’t know is that he’s geared like that,” said owner Steve Landers, 65. “That’s just the way he runs.” Neither Landers nor the betting public […]

It was his 898th training victory, but easily the one that meant the most to Canadian-born Don Schnell. His Escape Clause won the G3 La Canada Stakes at Santa Anita Park on Saturday by 5 ½ lengths, then jogged back to meet her owner and trainer in the winner’s circle for his first graded stakes […]

The last-minute pick-up mount on Saturday at Santa Anita had jockey Geovanni Franco and agent Jim Giannone dreaming big. With Joel Rosario feeling under the weather, Franco was gifted the opportunity to ride Grade 1 winner Next Shares in the G2 San Gabriel Stakes. “When my agent told me, I got really excited,” said Franco, […]

From the saddle of a red roan mustang with a “little streak of craziness in him” to following Spiced Perfection into the winner’s circle after the Grade 1 La Brea Stakes, Michael Faber just keeps daring himself to dream a little bigger. Or in this case, maybe Faber was dreaming a little smaller, but it […]

“Cowboys like us sure do have fun, “Racin’ the wind, chasin’ the sun, “Take the long way around back to square one.” The juvenile filly Cowgirls Like Us demonstrated her continuing dominance with a 3 ¼-length win in Sunday’s $100,000 Trapeze Stakes at Remington Park, marking her third stakes victory in a row. For general […]

Murray Valene was on a conference call for his day job while simultaneously trying to bid over the phone during the 2018 Equine Sales of Louisiana 2-Year-Old sale, and had a fortuitous mix-up with the sale catalog. He’d thought he was bidding on a filly, but Valene wound up with a juvenile colt by Songandaprayer […]

If first impressions are anything to go by, 30-year-old Liz Crow is off to an auspicious start in the Thoroughbred industry. Authorized to purchase yearlings on her own for the first time in 2016, Crow went searching for bargain buys at the Keeneland September sale with a maximum budget of $100,000. As it turns out, […]

Puerto Rican jockeys have been making a big impact on North American racing ever since Angel Cordero first threw his leg over a Thoroughbred. Following him were names like John Velazquez, Irad and Jose Ortiz, and Manny Franco, among others. This generation of jockeys had one thing in common: they all attended the state-sponsored jockey […]