Del Mar

In this TDN series, we curry lessons and wise counsel from veteran Californian figures who, like gold nuggets panned from the Tuolumne River in the High Sierras, have unearthed career riches on arguably the toughest circuit in the States. The series started with John Shirreffs and Art Sherman, and continues here with Eddie Truman, who announced his retirement last month. The land around Mulvane, Kansas, has been flattened as though by some colossal steamroller, and the vast, leafy battalions of maize and wheat and sorghum stretch outwards on and on...

Tickets for this year's Breeders' Cup World Championships, held Nov. 1-2 at Del Mar, will go on sale April 22. Featuring 14 Grade I races and over $31m in purses, the 2024 World Championships bring together the world's best horses, jockeys and trainers over two days in Del Mar, CA. Fans can view ticket information here.

The third annual Horse Racing Women's Summit will be held at Santa Anita Park Sept. 25-26 the group announced Thursday, with satellite events at Keeneland, Saratoga, Del Mar and the 2024 Global Symposium on Racing and Gaming. The HRWS, founded in 2022, brings speakers, networking opportunities and events together from across the horse racing industry. "Our executive committee and volunteers are working hard to pull together another series of great events across the country in addition to growing the membership and tackling the other priorities identified at the 2023 Summit,"...

The New York Racing Association has announced the formation of an All-Weather Surfaces Committee to study the impact of various racing surfaces on equine injury rates. According to a Wednesday NYRA press release, the committee, which first met last October, will evaluate safety metrics from tracks utilizing all-weather racing surfaces, as well as study the feasibility of broader adoption of all-weather surfaces nationally. The committee, chaired by NYRA CEO and President David O'Rourke, was formed at the request of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, as part of HISA's strategic...

Last June, Pat Cummings, executive director of the National Thoroughbred Alliance and former executive director of the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, issued a stark warning about the encroaching impacts from Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW) to the men and women trying to forge a living through horse racing in the Golden State. CAW players constitute a small group of mostly anonymous, high-volume gamblers with an outsized impact on the betting markets--including in California--due to their use of sophisticated wagering technologies and the inducements offered to them in the form of attractive rates...

  In this series, the TDN takes a look at notable successes of European-based sires in North America. This week's column is highlighted by the victory of Unconquerable Keen at Del Mar.   Keen Rides Out The Storm At Del Mar It was another stakes victory for the Phil D'Amato barn with the former European runner Unconquerable Keen (Ire) (Clodovil {Ire}) in the Stormy Liberal S. at Del Mar on Saturday (video). Bred by Nicholas Hartery, the 4-year-old gelding managed a pair of victories in his native land in the...

Chad Brown sent four horses to the West Coast in search of his sixth victory in the GI Matriarch S. at Del Mar Sunday and the New York-based conditioner's quartet ran one-two-three-four with the aptly named Surge Capacity (Flintshire {GB}) getting free late to just edge stablemate Fluffy Socks (Slumber {GB}) on the wire. Beaute Cachee (Fr) (Literato {Fr}) was third and Whitebeam (GB) (Caravaggio {Ire}) was fourth. It was the first time that a trainer had swept the top four in a Grade I win Del Mar history. "It's...

Jockey Geovanni Franco notched the 1,000th win of his career when his mount Miss Commander, who was second under the wire, was promoted to the victory in the second race at Del Mar Saturday. Asked if getting the milestone victory via DQ tarnished the achievement, Franco said with a smile, "It doesn't. I've won plenty of races by DQ and I'll take a winner any way they come." Franco has been riding at Del Mar since 2017, with a year off in 2022 when he moved his tack back to...

Denied as the heavy favorite at Colonial Downs by the undefeated Integration (Quality Road) in the GIII New Kent County Virginia Derby last time out Sept. 9, Program Trading (GB) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) got back on track to take his fourth win in five starts in the GI Hollywood Derby. A winner of his first three starts, the Chad Brown trainee reached the pinnacle two starts back with a narrow victory over Webslinger (Constitution) on a lucky on-the-turf weekend in Saratoga in the GI Saratoga Derby Invitational Aug. 5....

Stop us if you've heard this a time or a thousand. Horses trained by Chad Brown figure tough in the GI Matriarch S. on closing day of the Bing Crosby Meet at Del Mar. Undisputable though that is--he has, after all, sent out the winner all but once since 2017--Harris Farms homebred Closing Remarks (Vronsky) will look to have the final say Sunday afternoon. The chestnut has yet to strike in three tries at the top level, though she was runner-up in the 2021 Del Mar Oaks while finishing just...

The late Charlie Whittingham won his first Hollywood Derby back in 1967 with Tumble Wind and the last of his four victories in the race in 1989 with Live The Dream. Chad Brown added his name to the list of Hollywood Derby winners courtesy of Annals of Time (Temple City) in 2016 and followed up with Raging Bull (Fr) (Dark Angel {Ire}) in 2018 and Domestic Spending (GB) (Kingman {GB}) two years later. In Saturday's renewal of the nine-furlong event, Brown will send out a pair of lightly raced sophomores...

   In this series, the TDN takes a look at notable successes of European-based sires in North America. This week's column is highlighted by the victory of Easter in the Seabiscuit H. at Del Mar on Saturday.   Easter Came Early At Del Mar Madaket Stables' Easter (Fr) (Exosphere {Aus}) secured his first graded victory in the GII Seabiscuit H. at Del Mar last weekend (video). It was trainer Phil D'Amato's fifth victory in the race in the past nine years. Bred by Aleyrion Bloodstock, Ltd., the gelding won two...