The Friday Show

Marty McGee ended his long run as a writer and handicapper for Daily Racing Form in May after attending his 50th consecutive Kentucky Derby. But hardly the retiring type, the Eclipse Award-winning journalist moved into a new position as jockey agent for Joe Talamo, who began his career on the West Coast in 2006 but […]

The discourse around the rash of fatal equine injuries at Churchill Downs has onlookers inside and outside the horse racing industry searching for causes and solutions. Many have examined the 12 fatalities at Churchill from the beginning of the meet on April 29 through the end of the day on June 1, looking for patterns […]

The past several weeks have seen a rise in mainstream media coverage of racing fatalities in the lead-up to this year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness. So far, nine horses have died at the Churchill Downs spring meet, while the Preakness undercard saw one fatality from the same barn as Preakness winner National Treasure. All this […]

“The life of the jockey has always been difficult, but the recent death of jockeys Avery Whisman and Alex Canchari by suicide have the racing industry asking itself tough questions about why it’s so challenging – and who can help,” writes Natalie Voss, editor in chief of the Paulick Report, in her two-part series earlier […]

So, you’ve won the Kentucky Derby. What comes next? For Ramiro Restrepo, co-owner of 2023 Derby winner Mage, what came next was an urgent search for a phone charger, followed by an outpouring of love and congratulations unlike anything he’d ever seen. Restrepo, who co-owns Mage with OGMA Investments, Sterling Racing, and CMNWLTH, is a […]

Imagine a horse that’s had the most phenomenal lead-up to the Kentucky Derby ever. Dominating performances and a champion at 2, undefeated at 3 and sitting atop the Derby’s qualifying points leaderboard. And then, by the luck of the draw, he is assigned the dreaded No. 1 post position, seriously diminishing any chance of winning. […]

One of the first riders Corey Nakatani befriended when he joined the Southern California jockey colony as a teenaged apprentice in 1988 was Fernando Toro, who was beginning to contemplate retirement from a career that began in 1956 and saw him win riding championships in his native Chile and a multitude of big races in […]

The final prep races have been run. Thoroughbreds from all corners of the United States (and Japan) are converging on Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. Jockey commitments, with only a few exceptions, have been made. All that’s left are two weeks of closely analyzed training runs and the post position draw, then it’s game on […]

Japanese horsemen have made four previous attempts to win the Kentucky Derby going back to 1995 when trainer Hideyuki Mori sent Ski Captain out for a 14th-place finish behind Thunder Gulch. The closest they’ve come in the Run for the Roses was when Master Fencer closed from last to be seventh (and placed sixth upon […]

Kentucky recently became the 37th state to approve sports betting since the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that a federal law banning such wagering was unconstitutional. While Kentuckians will have to wait until later this year or early in 2024 to place their first legal sports bet in their home state, the number of people […]