Tyler Gaffalione

Jockey Tyler Gaffalione and trainer Brad Cox entered the final day of racing Sunday at Churchill Downs having already locked up their respective titles for the 14-day September Meet. Both successfully defended their titles from a year ago and set new September Meet records for wins: Gaffalione with 25 victories through 13 days and Cox with 15. Gaffalione more than doubled second-place Cristian Torres's 12 wins prior to Sunday's 10-race card. This will be Gaffalione's 10th riding title at Churchill Downs since 2018 and fourth-straight September Meet title. Cox's dominant...

Breeders' Cup has launched its 40 Days of Giving, a fundraising program that puts key Thoroughbred industry charities in the spotlight as the countdown continues to the 40th running of the Breeders' Cup World Championships Nov. 3-4 at Santa Anita Park, the organization said in a release Thursday. Designed to raise funds for a variety of important causes within the Thoroughbred industry, Breeders' Cup Charities' 40 Days of Giving campaign highlights the vital work of nonprofits in the following areas: aftercare, jockey health and wellness, backstretch and industry workers, equine...

Edited Press Release Tyler Gaffalione capped off his third Kentucky Downs riding title in style, winning three races on Wednesday's closing-day card to finish with 12 victories for the FanDuel Meet, five more than 2021 riding champion and second-finisher Joel Rosario. Brendan Walsh earned his second training title, and first outright, at the track with eight wins, three more than Kentucky Downs' all-time win leader Mike Maker, who had a meet-high 10 seconds and nine thirds. Ken Ramsey, the winningest owner in Kentucky Downs history as well as Kentucky, won...

Injured an in Aug. 23 spill at Saratoga in the John's Call S. in which he fractured left wrist and dislocated his right collar bone, jockey Luis Saez has made rapid progress and will be ready to ride on opening day of the Keeneland fall meet on Oct. 6, reports his agent Kiaran McLaughlin. "He's doing real well," McLaughlin said. "There's no pain and he's doing physical therapy. He will be X-rayed in a few days. He'll be back for sure for beginning of Keeneland, if not a week before....

He might need to give that gopher a head start. 'TDN Rising Star' Carl Spackler (Ire) (Lope de Vega [Ire}) continued his dominance over the New York turf and picked up his second straight graded stakes win Friday at the Spa, taking the GIII Saranac S. under Tyler Gaffalione for e Five Racing. Victorious just three weeks back with a come-from-behind effort in the GII National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame S. Aug. 11, the Chad Brown trainee was bet like the class of the field, going off at...

Justice Julia (Medaglia d'Oro--Dreaming of Julia) would have been the sexier half of a commonly owned entry that was sent off as the 7-10 favorite in what became the first race of the final week of racing at Saratoga, but the half-sister to champion Malathaat (Curlin) was never truly involved, and entrymate Emery (f, 2, More Than Ready--Athena, by Street Sense) proved more than equal to the task, skipping clear in the final 150 yards to debut impressively. Away in midpack in a scratched-down field of five, Emery tracked from...

After watching the best horse he ever trained, New York Thunder (Nyquist), suffer a catastrophic injury in Saturday's GI H. Allen Jerkens Memorial S., trainer Jorge Delgado had to get out of Saratoga. Shortly after the race, he drove back to his base at Monmouth Park, arriving there about 4 1/2 hours after the field crossed the wire in the Jerkens. It was 9 o'clock, but he needed to be with his horses. "I had to go to his stall to make sure he wasn't there," Delgado said. "It was...

On a day that was supposed to be a celebration of the Grade I Travers S., a pall was cast over Saturday's card at Saratoga when two horses broke down on the card and had to be euthanized. Including racing and training, they were the seventh and eighth equine deaths during racing at the meeting. Four horses have died during training. One Saturday fatality was on the turf, the other on the dirt. Both horses were ridden by Tyler Gaffalione. Travers Day continued a very difficult stretch for horse racing,...

Last year's GI Belmont S. third Skippylongstocking (c, 4, Exagggerator--Twinkling, by War Chant), a three-time graded winner since, added Friday's late-night $1-million GII Charles Town Classic S. to his steadily growing CV. Under Tyler Gaffalione, the 7-5 favorite hustled straight to the front, set fractions of :24.82 and :48.88, and wasn't for catching, drawing clear in the stretch by five lengths. The winner's Saffie A. Joseph, Jr.-trained stablemate O'Connor (Chi) (Boboman), a Group 1 winner in his native Chile, closed from the rear of the field to finish second, while...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Unbeaten and hardly challenged so far through four starts, New York Thunder (Nyquist) will not be an unknown Saturday in his second visit this summer to Saratoga Race Course. New York Thunder made a grand entry on the big stage at the Spa on July 28 with a resounding victory in the GII Amsterdam S. Sent off at 11-2 in his first race on dirt, he rolled to a 7 1/2-length score under jockey Tyler Gaffalione. Though he was eased up in the stretch when the...

Dismissed at 12-1 by the bettors, Ozara (Ire) (Lope de Vega {Ire}) pulled off the upset over heavily favored Weigh the Risks (Mendelssohn) from the Chad Brown barn to win Sunday's opener at Saratoga, a $136,000 maiden special weight race run at a mile-and-a-sixteenth on the turf. The win came less than a year after bloodstock agent Mike Ryan purchased the filly out of the 2022 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. The purchase price was 350,000 guineas. "This was very much a team effort," winning trainer Christophe Clement said. "Mike Ryan...

Dear TDN Editor: Some may argue that Thoroughbred racing is a contact sport. Twelve-hundred-pound athletes running at 40 mph around an oval and navigating through holes as tight as the eye of a needle might support that reasoning. Our racing stewards are there to guard against the worst from happening and protecting the integrity and safety of the sport of Thoroughbred racing. With the eyes of a hawk, they are doing their job well from their perch atop the clubhouse. All are accredited with experience and must be commended for...