Sportsman's Park

Half a century ago, greater Chicago had five Thoroughbred tracks. Washington Park closed in 1977. Balmoral Park last ran flats in 1990 before spending its last 2 1/2 decades as a harness venue, shuttering in 2015. Sportsman's Park--which had the unique distinction of being built back-to-back behind Hawthorne Race Course--switched to auto racing in 2003 before being demolished. Arlington Park was ravaged by a 1985 fire, got rebuilt far more opulently, then ceased operations in 2021. By the time you read this, Hawthorne, the last surviving stop on a once-robust...

Edited Press Release from Oaklawn Park Trainer William H. 'Jinks' Fires will saddle his final runner in a career that has spanned 50 years when House Trick contests the second race at Oaklawn Park on Friday afternoon. According to Equibase statistics, Fires, the older brother of Hall of Fame jockey Earlie Fires, has sent out 1,502 winners from 11,400 runners. Arguably the best horse Fires trained was Archarcharch (Arch), who won the GIII Southwest Stakes and GI Arkansas Derby en route to an appearance in the 2011 GI Kentucky Derby....

A former assistant to Bobby Frankel and a licensed trainer for more than 50 years, Eddie Truman announced on Monday that he had sent his final horse to the track on New Year's Eve morning at Santa Anita—ending a racetrack run that dates back to the early 1960s. A winner of 763 races from 5,334 starters, with purse earnings of $15.7 million, Truman said that with his 77th birthday fast approaching Jan. 23, the time was right for him and his wife Elizabeth to step away from a way of...

For nearly three years, a frayed cardboard box has hidden in the corner of a small apartment in the Westside of Los Angeles, buried from view by wooly blankets, a tennis racket with broken strings, worn clothes long earmarked for the thrift store and an old jacket with a broken zipper and patched leather sleeves. The box is filled mostly with creaky photo albums stuffed full of old newspaper clippings pasted onto faded paper, laminated win pictures--the plastic as brittle as sheet-ice--and handwritten letters. There are magazines and an old...

I'm writing to offer my thanks for the article you posted recently featuring Dora Delgado. Timely, yes and helpful to learn more about her thinking on diversity, equity and inclusion within our sport. It also hit home for me as my father was one of three black trainers actively campaigning in Chicago during the 1970s - 1990s. Mr. Clifford Scott, Paul Darjean and my father, Clenon Brown. I've enjoyed the sport since age three, when my father started teaching me how to read the DRF, he noted, before I could...