Jena Antonucci

To quote the English author Charles Dickens, from his 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I choose to believe we are currently living in the golden age of American racing. The purse structure we are currently experiencing is at an all-time high. The quality of racing that we have witnessed in the last decade surpasses anything we have seen in the history of our sport. If you have followed racing over the last 10 years, you have...

Thoroughbred horsemen Jena Antonucci, Bob Baffert and returning member Timothy Keefe have joined the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's Horsemen's Advisory Group, HISA announced Friday. Formed in 2022, this body of racing industry participants provides HISA's executive team and Standing Committees with formal feedback on the evolution of its Racetrack Safety Program and Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Program. Its new members succeed outgoing Horsemen's Advisory Group members Kelsey Danner, Gavin Murphy and Jonathan Sadler. "We are deeply grateful to Kelsey Danner, Gavin Murphy and Jonathan Sadler for their service...

GI Haskell Stakes winner Baby Vino (Vino Rosso) will make his next start in the Aug. 29 GI Travers Stakes at Saratoga, trainer Lindsay Schultz confirmed. The decision was made after Baby Vino returned to the work tab Saturday at Monmouth Park, where he breezed four furlongs in :49.20. Schultz had also been considering the GI Pennsylvania Derby. "Right now, the plan is to go to the Travers. He went very easy in the work, worked well and came out of it good," Schultz said. "He has time for two...

Luminous Beauty (f, 2, Flameaway--Sly Beauty, by Into Mischief) went to the front and stayed there, taking her second career start with ease while going 5 1/2 furlongs in Saratoga on Thursday afternoon. She was let go at 21-1 for her career bow going five panels at Churchill Downs on May 15 and she got a little leg-weary late, having to settle for second beaten 1 3/4 lengths by Pierrette (Girvin). Sent off at 4-1 while adding a sixteenth, the $40,000 Fasig-Tipton July yearling purchase broke like a shot and...

Editor's note: Currently, in HISA states, Lasix is banned in two-year-old racing and in stakes races 48 hours before a race. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) is approaching a critical vote regarding the use of race-day Lasix in the rest of racing. Per the original Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020, the drug is effectively banned under that same 48-hour rule, though most states currently operate under a three-year exemption put in place to allow time for studies to be conducted. That exemption is now coming to...

As the global racing industry returns to its respective corners following the Breeders' Cup World Championships, the same drum is beating once again: "Regulatory vets are terrible. They have too much power. My horse is sound--we imaged them, we've had no issues, and we wouldn't send them if they weren't 100%." The truth is, all of those statements can be true at the same time--and often are. Whether you're a casual fan, a critic, or a lifelong racing supporter, you could easily walk away from this spectacular week thinking that...

Every week, the TDN posts a round-up of the relevant Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) related rulings from around the country. The following rulings were reported on HISA's "rulings" portal and through the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit's (HIWU) "pending" and "resolved" cases portals. Among this week's rulings, trainer Juan Munoz Cano has been suspended a combined 12 years and a combined $150,000 (including arbitration costs) for a series of clenbuterol positives spanning the end of last year and earlier this year, according to a final decision by an...

According to the HIWU website, GI Belmont Stakes winning trainer Jena Antonucci has had a horse test positive for Lidocaine. The horse in question is Bee a Queen (Khozan). Bee A Queen last raced on Sept, 12 at Gulfstream, but it is not clear whether or not that was the race from which the filly had a positive test. After the notice of the positive was posted on the HIWU website, Antonucci posted a statement on her X account explaining that she was willing to work with HISA/HIWU and called...

The finalists and runners-up for the 2025 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards have been chosen in the seven categories as the program celebrates its 10th anniversary, according to a Wednesday press release posted on co-sponsor Godolphin's website. The 2025 ceremony will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 21, in Lexington, Kentucky. Finalists and their guest will enjoy a variety of activities, including a tour of a local horse farm, a stallion show, the ceremony dinner with an afternoon of racing the following day at Keeneland. The shortlist judging panel--the first of two--met...

A Senate committee advanced Florida's controversial decoupling bill at a Tuesday hearing after amending the legislation so that the effective date for removing the live racing requirement for Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs to operate their respective casino and card room would be seven years instead of the five years that appears in the amended companion House bill. After absorbing more than two hours of testimony--almost all of it from Thoroughbred trainers, owners, breeders, sales company officials, veterinarians and other industry workers speaking out against the bill--Senator Jennifer Bradley...

According to the Encyclopedia Britanica, a self-fulfilling prophecy is the "process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own confirmation." Horse racing's self-fulfilling prophesy appears to be the belief that only a select few trainers are capable of eliciting from the sport's finest Thoroughbred athletes their optimum talent. This notion reached an absurd low last month when a commentator for the UK's Racing Post argued that owners in possession of the best steeplechasers in England and Ireland should essentially have their heads examined for sending their horses to...

A week and a half before Saturday's Pegasus World Cup, Gulfstream Park's glitziest event of the year, former The Stronach Group (TSG) executive Keith Brackpool stood before an assembled group of industry stakeholders and warned them the event might not go ahead in 2029, even if a bill to decouple Thoroughbred horse racing from casino licenses passes the state legislature. "We have said, this passes, this bill passes, that we will commit to racing here at Gulfstream at least through 2028," Brackpool told the crowd, according to a recording of...