New York Racing

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Nothing is final yet, but it looks like GI Preakness Stakes winner Napoleon Solo (Liam's Map) will have a new partner in Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez in his next start. Velazquez was on board the grey for the first time and Napoleon Solo sizzled through five furlongs in :58.81 (1/7) on the main track Wednesday morning. Trainer Chad Summers said Napoleon Solo was originally supposed to work in company with a horse from trainer Rudy Rodriguez's barn but ended up going by himself. Kiaran McLaughlin,...

Marc Holliday, a Thoroughbred owner, breeder and chairman of The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA), and his wife Sheree, an avid and competitive equestrian, were honored Wednesday, Aug. 12, with the John Hendrickson and Marylou Whitney Award for their generous support of the New York backstretch community at the New York Race Track Chaplaincy's 19th Annual Fundraising Brunch at the Saratoga National Golf Club, the non-profit said in a Wednesday press release. "The backstretch community is the lifeblood of any racetrack and Sheree and I are proud to support...

Last August, the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) voted to eliminate many coupled pari-mutuel entries. The commission accomplished this by changing the wording in rule 4025.10 so the operative term got switched to "may" be coupled instead of "must," then left it to the state steward to exercise discretion in most instances. When the commission considered those amendments in 2025, a brief written by NYSGC general counsel Edmund Burns explained that the New York Racing Association (NYRA), Finger Lakes Racetrack, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (NYTHA) and The...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - It was around 5:20 a.m. one Sunday morning on the Saratoga backstretch and 17-year-old Will Walden was nursing a hangover after an ill-advised night on the town. The young man was doing his best to hotwalk his first horse of the day for Bill Mott. Walden took the job that summer with the Hall of Fame trainer after his father Elliott Walden told him it was time to start earning his keep. Riley Mott--Bill's son--was in worse shape than his friend and in no condition to...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Last weekend, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown held its annual induction ceremony and ESPN's Joe Buck joined his father Jack Buck as the only father-son duo to receive the Ford C. Frick Award, which honors a broadcaster for major contributions to baseball. During the press conference on Saturday morning for the man who has called more World Series on television than anyone, this reporter asked Buck how much his father followed Thoroughbred racing. "Oh, he loved it," said Buck. "He took me to the...

SCHUYLERVILLE, N.Y. - At this year's Fasig-Tipton New York-Bred Yearlings sale, Ironhorse Stallions' Bucchero (Kantharos)--the Empire State's Leading Sire from 2025--will have 10 from his inaugural New York-sired crop go through the ring at the Humphrey S. Finney Pavilion when the two-day event gavels Aug. 16. It's safe to say that Bucchero is hitting them where they ain't. He is the only New York-based sire in 2026 with graded stakes winners to his credit. Bucchero's stock obviously reached new heights with Book'em Danno's fame, which was capped by the gelding...

Editor's Note: The following is an edited press release from the Jockeys' Guild responding to comments made by NYRA executives and other personnel regarding Sunday's late change in distance from one mile to 1 1/16 miles for Race 4 on the Saratoga turf course. To view July 12 interview with Maggie Wolfendale posted on X with NYRA Bets Tony Allevato. The Jockeys' Guild and the local colonies regularly work with racetrack officials across the country to establish optimal standards for rail settings and the numbers of starters, depending on the...

John Parisella, a top trainer in New York and California for decades and one of the sport's most colorful figures, passed away Friday July 3 at a Long Island hospital. According to Wikipedia, he was 81. The news was confirmed by family friend and fellow trainer Bruce Levine. Levine believes Parisella passed away as the result of a head injury he suffered in a fall. "His health had been declining pretty good the last year, year and a half," Levine said. "For whatever reason, he kept falling and losing his...

As the calendar flips to a scorching July and with several meets ready to start their summer engines, potential Thoroughbred owners are on the hunt for racing prospects. The Fasig-Tipton Digital Sale for June wrapped on Tuesday and there was no shortage of runners ready for their next draw. The $190,000 topper from the sale was Long Pour (Tom's d'Etat) (hip 2), a 4-year-old colt who was consigned by Taylor Made Sales on behalf of Calumet Farm. A New York-bred, the dark bay was taken home by Sullivan Lane Stable....

OZONE PARK, NY--Aqueduct has been running since 1959, for 67 years, the track is rundown and a new shiny Belmont Park will open in September. So the time has come for New York racing to move on, for the Big A to step aside in the name of progress. On Sunday, after the ninth race, a race they called "It Was a Good Run," the Big A shut its doors, taking a lot of history and memories with it. But what could have easily been a somber occasion was anything...

The act of calling a live horse race has got to be one of the most solitary, yet public endeavors around a track. Announcers have the power to attach their own soundtrack to a race for posterity. Whether you are Aiello, Becker, Beem, Calo, Collmus, Dinerman, Dooley, Geller, Griffin, Mirahmadi, Paquette, Rodman, Stone, Tammaro, Wrona or any of the others who dot racing's current U.S. landscape on high, track announcers are both foreign language translators and air traffic controllers. The big top demands an entertaining ringmaster and the pressure is...

Applications are now being accepted for the 2026 Gerald A. Nielsen, Sr. New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. Scholarship and the Debby Malloy Winkler New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. Scholarship, each of which will be presented by the New York Thoroughbred Breeders, Inc. (NYTB) at Saratoga Race Course on Friday, Aug. 21, according to a press release from the organization on Friday. Each scholarship recognizes a full-time undergraduate student enrolled in an equine-related course of study at an accredited college or university in New York State who has demonstrated academic achievement,...