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The hardest race in the world to handicap has just become more difficult.

The usual confusion over horses converging on Churchill Downs from different regions of the country has been complicated by the addition of artificial racing surfaces. Some horses, prepping for the Derby in California, may have never seen a dirt track.

Other horses racing in New York, Florida, Louisiana an...

>> Continue reading: Gary Roedemeier's 2008 Kentucky Derby picks

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As if the Kentucky Derby wasn't hard enough to handicap, now they throw in Polytrack.
Because nobody was winning on the lead at Keeneland this spring, the Bluegrass Stakes turned out to be the first Derby Prep run in slow motion.
Nobody wanted the lead. And now, nobody can figure out what this race means to the Derby picture.
The horse that won, Domincan, has won three races.
He has half a million dolla...

>> Continue reading: The Polytrack Dilemma

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The Derby Prep season had its first defining moment in the often overlooked Tampa Bay Derby.
The long awaited return of Breeders' Cup champion Street Sense produced a thrilling stretch duel with Any Given Saturday. It was Street Sense by a short nose, thanks to jockey Calvin Borel, who shot through an opening on the rail and won a photo finish.
It was a big race at a little track. The overflow crowd was just over ten thousand, whi...

>> Continue reading: Nose to Nose in Tampa

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In the spring of 1991, I visited the Derby dreams of Tommy Valando.
Fly So Free was the first horse that the Broadway music publisher had ever purchased and he would be a star on the race track.
Valando was already a hit on Broadway. His company had published a dozen musical hits, including Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret. And his first thoroughbred was an absolute show stopper.
Fly So Free won the Breeders' Cup Ju...

>> Continue reading: Tommy Valando and Showbiz

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Holy Bull was a thoroughbred fairytale waiting to happen.
In 1994, the beautiful gray had already captured the public's imagination. They made him the favorite in the Kentucky Derby. But on a rainy May 7th Holy Bull got lost in the crowd. Go for Gin was the ultimate mudder, and the big gray came home a mud spattered 12th.
Holy Bull won multiple graded stakes and 13 of 16 races. He earned 2.4 million dollars. Yet his memory is...

>> Continue reading: Holy Cow it's Holy Bull

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The 2007 Kentucky Derby has its first casualty and it's a horse that Churchill Downs fans had seen sweep the two year old stakes races in November.
Tiz Wonderful injured his right front tendon and will be out of training indefinitely.
Like every road to the Triple Crown, this one will be full of victories and bad steps.
Tiz Wonderful had won three in a row, had plenty of graded stakes money and was ready to start the jou...

>> Continue reading: Tiz Not So Wonderful

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