All Equine All The Time

Attending Remington Park has quickly become one of my favorite racing trips of the year so when I was invited back for Springboard Mile weekend this year, I jumped at the chance. The great thing about Remington Park is that you can’t help but get in the Christmas spirit when you get to the track. There are Christmas lights everywhere and Christmas music blaring on the speakers, so you can’t help but feel a little jolly. But an even better part about Remington is how friendly the people are. When I arrived at the track on Friday morning, I hit the ground running to get in interviews for the track and for stories I was running for other outlets. The headliner of Friday was meeting Shotgun Kowboy and getting photos of the gelding for a feature published on Blinkers Off. The morning also included a stop by the Steve Asmussen barn to talk to Darren Fleming about the 19 horses they were running on Sunday’s card (you can see that video on Remington Park’s Facebook) and...

An exciting closing day of racing at Remington Park on Sunday saw multiple milestones passed by both humans and horses during the six stakes on the card. From Steve Asmussen becoming the all-time leading trainer at Remington Park to Into Mischief siring a double on the card, here are seven observations from the Springboard Mile card. Into Mischief – Spendthrift Farm's  Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) is only a few weeks away from being crowned Champion Sire for the first time and he continued to add to that resume on Sunday at Remington Park. Cowboy Mischief kicked off the stakes success when he won the Jim Thorpe Stakes one race before Shoplifted won the Springboard Mile. They were on different ends of the commercial spectrum with Cowboy Mischief a homebred for his connections and Shoplifted selling for $800,000 earlier this year at a 2-year-old sale (and selling for $525,000 as a yearling). The two runners were conceived when Into Mischief stood at $30,000 and $45,000, respe...

Dialed In's Answer In is morning line favorite. A $400,000 race with 10 Kentucky Derby points on offer to the winner, the Springboard Mile sees both local runners and shippers taking a shot at the final official Kentucky Derby prep race of 2019 with horses bred in three different states running here. I’ve looked at each horse’s pedigree heading into the race to see who will be living up to a family tradition with a victory here and who will be breaking new ground with a Springboard Mile victory. SCRATCHED: No. 1 – Piece of Work (Laurie’s Rocket): Arkansas-bred Piece Of Work is a half-brother to Flat Out’s Listed placed Flatoutandfoxy. The colt is out of the unraced Every Day is Good (El Corredor), who is a half-sister to two stake placed horses and the dams of five stakes horses – including three stakes winners. There is stakes class throughout the family with Piece Of Work’s granddam a half-sister to Horse of the Year Holy Bull and the dam of Grade 1 winner Sweet Sym...

When stakes winning 2-year-old Embolden lines up in the Springboard Mile on Sunday, he will be one of the most traveled horses in the race with starts on four different tracks coming into this race. The son of The Factor may have experience on his side but he’ll also be trying something new when stretching out to two turns for the first time.  For trainer Michael Stidham, the Springboard Mile was the perfect time to stretch out with $400,000 and 10 Kentucky Derby points to the winner on the line. “It’s more or less looking for some race to stretch out and certainly the $400,000 purse played a big part in it,” he said. “It just made sense to go to the Mile, try him at the added distance, and while doing so run for a big purse.” While returning to dirt for the first time since his debut in the Springboard Mile, Embolden has proven to be adapt on both surfaces when running against other stakes winners. He lined up in a tough race for his debut with winner Meru winni...

American Pharoah sired a Breeders' Cup winner in his first crop. Understandably, the main headline in this year’s Breeders’ Cup will be the loss of Mongolian Groom Saturday night after his breakdown in the Classic. While his breakdown marred an otherwise good two days of racing, in the day and hours before that fateful race many different storylines were forming. Here is a quick rundown of some of the breeding industry’s big moments (and one for a trainer) over the two days of racing at Santa Anita. Spendthrift – Spendthrift Farm currently stands one of the top stallions in the industry with Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) and have followed him up with an exciting line-up of young sires quickly proving themselves with their first runners but the farm may have its best class of stallions added to the 2020 roster if this year’s Breeders’ Cup is any indication. The farm announced in September that it will have five new stallions for 2020 with four of them running in...

Shamardal Royal Ascot has come and gone and with it brought many storylines to last us until 2020 with multiple stallions having much success, both new and old. In today’s blog, I look at eight different interesting points that we were left with when the Queen headed home after the final race on Saturday, including a resurgence of some stallions and debut of others. By The Numbers: One hundred and seventy seven stallions had horses entered (pre-scratches) at Royal Ascot over the five day meet. Of those, 11 had entries every day and 20 stallions overall sired 29 individual winners at the meet (Blue Point won both the G1 King’s Stand and G1 Diamond Jubilee). Forty-five different stallions had horses hit the top three in the 30 races with Frankel (Galileo), Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) and Kingman (Invincible Spirit) the only three stallions to have horses finish first, second, and third throughout the week. Birthdays: Of the 29 winners, 12 (41.38%) were born in February and ...

Tapit The final leg of the U.S. Triple Crown is upon us with 10 runners taking their place in the Belmont Stakes with many familiar faces. Tapit again reigns supreme in the entries as the sire with the most runners while three sires who currently stand internationally are also representing their current countries. Without further ado, here are some useful facts about the Belmont Stakes runners. Birthdays: While both the Kentucky and Epsom Derby winners were born in May, the odds are stacked against that month in this classic. Of the 10 horses entered, only one was born in May – that being Grade 3 Peter Pan third Intrepid Heart (Tapit). Six of the 10 entries were born in February with February 12th birthday boy Joevia (Shanghai Bobby) the oldest by six days over Spinoff (Hard Spun). March has no representatives with the other three runners all born in April. The first two legs of this Triple Crown were won by horses born on May 8 (Country House) and April 17 (War Front). ...