Horse Racing

A six-time winner of the race in its days at Hollywood Park, including with future GI Kentucky Derby hero Real Quiet (Quiet American) in 1997, trainer Bob Baffert took the first seven runnings of the GII Los Alamitos Futurity after the relocation to Ocean County in 2014 and ran his overall total to 14 when Wnystock (Solomini) caused a 13-1 upset last year. Just five juvenile males have taken up the challenge this term, three of whom are trained by Baffert, and Gaming (Game Winner) is an all-the-way candidate at...

The Indiana Thoroughbred Alliance (ITA) is celebrating its Fifth Annual Stallions & Services Auction--beginning Dec. 18--by partnering with platform BidXSell, the organization said in a press release on Friday. The auction focuses on uniting the Midwest horse racing community through the funding of scholarships, educational programs and the promotion of the industry. Featuring over 50 stallion seasons from Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, the event goes live on BidXSell's site at 8:00 a.m. (all times eastern) Dec. 18 and concludes at 4:00 p.m. Dec. 20. The catalogue review is set to...

Champion Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo--Charming Lassie, by Seattle Slew) has died of an undisclosed cause at the age of 28 at Lane's End, the farm said via a press release on Friday morning. Foaled at Lane's End and bred by W. S. Farish and W. S. Kilroy, Lemon Drop Kid is out of Charming Lassie, a half-sister to Broodmare of the Year Weekend Surprise (Secretariat). The Lane's End sire was closely-related to the impactful A.P. Indy. Lemon Drop Kid was sold for $200,000 at the 1997 Keeneland September Sale to...

GSW West Saratoga (Exaggerator) was sold privately to Sheikh Rashid Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi's RRR Racing for $375,000 following the Inglis Digital USA December Sale, according to a Friday press release issued by the auction company. The gray will be sent to the Dubai barn of trainer Doug Watson, where he will undergo an evaluation to determine his future racing plans. "I'm very excited with the purchase of West Saratoga," Watson said. "He looks like a horse with a really nice future in the upcoming years in the UAE. He...

Dr. Alan Ruggles--a partner at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital who specializes in orthopedic surgery and lameness--made a presentation on condylar fractures, a common injury in racehorses, during the final installment of the 2024 OwnerView webinar series which was held Dec. 10, the resource said in a press release on Friday morning. With a PowerPoint presentation, Dr. Ruggles covered how the injury occurs and its treatment through surgery. He also discussed bone bruising and the advantages of different diagnostic tools. The presentation was followed by a video showing the specialist...

5th-FG, $58K, Msw, 2yo, f, 5 1/2fT, 3:45 p.m. ET. TANTI AUGURI (Quality Road) makes her debut for an ownership group which includes breeders Anthony Manganaro and Iapetus Racing. Trained by Cherie DeVaux, the homebred's dam is On My Way (Giant's Causeway), who has nine foals to her credit and four winners out of five to race. The first-time starter hails from an extended female family which includes Hong Kong hegemonic hero and recent retiree Golden Sixty (Aus) (Medaglia d'Oro). Also slated for the starting gate is Twin Creeks Racing's...

9th-Tampa Bay Downs, $32,000, Msw, 12-11, 3yo/up, f/m, 7f, 1:24.69, gd, 4 1/4 lengths. INTO AMORE (f, 3, Into Mischief--Embellish the Lace {GISW, $441,540}, by Super Saver) made the trip up off a solid worktab at Palm Beach Downs and was made the 7-5 choice to get her career off to a winning start. Ridden along to take up a chasing role in second down the backstretch beneath Pablo Morales, the homebred was more or less on even terms approaching the stretch and asserted through the final furlong to take...

In the last two years in particular, the $468,241 Listed Zen-Nippon Nisai Yushun--the second of four legs on the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby--has been won by horses that went on to become significant players on the world stage. The 2022 renewal was taken by Derma Sotogake (Jpn) (Mind Your Biscuits), subsequent winner of the G2 UAE Derby, a participant in the 2023 GI Kentucky Derby and cracking second in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at season's end. Last year's running was won by Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel...

Dr. Tracy Turner, partner in Turner Wilson Equine Consulting in Stillwater, Minnesota, was installed as president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) during the President's Luncheon Dec. 10 at the AAEP's 70th Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida, the organization said via a press release Tuesday. Retired from private practice late in 2023, Dr. Turner concentrated exclusively on equine sports medicine, lameness and surgery at Turner Equine. He established the practice in 2016 following 12 years with Anoka Equine Veterinary Services in Elk River, and he was in academia...

For the past few weeks, we have been telling you how some of racing's biggest names fell in love with the sport. Now it's our turn. Here are some of the stories behind the bylines you see every day in the TDN. I grew up in Salem, New Hampshire, which decades ago was the home of Rockingham Park. My parents were schoolteachers, and my dad, Paul, was the high school baseball and basketball coach. Everyone in town seemed to have some sort of connection to the track, and my father...

Staton Flurry wanted to park that trophy on his shelf. He wanted to win the Oaklawn Park owner's title so badly he could taste it. The hometown product who calls Hot Springs his backyard and sports that wide grin, knew the race was going to be a good old-fashioned Arkansas throwdown. Flurry sweated it, stayed up late strategizing and for months did everything humanly within the rules to secure the prize. Let's put it this way, if he had a jockey's license he might have donned his distinctive black and...

I got into racing via horses who had nothing to do with racing, as it is for many people with no family ties to rely on. Horses were a side hobby for me due to competitive swimming taking up enormous amounts of my time (a contentious topic in my house when I entered those famously stable teenage years) and my introduction to Thoroughbreds was, ironically, thanks to a mistake on my part. I had asked my instructor once what the fastest horse in the world was, as someone had erroneously...