Blog

We couldn't believe what you're about to read, either. We stumbled (amazingly, while quite sober, too) across this psychadelic gonzo gem on the website KentuckyDerby.info. Behold this journalistic pearl from the one and only Hunter S. Thompson, at the peak of his lurid, hallucinatory powers, and in his debut outting with his deranged pen-and-ink sidekick Ralph Steadman. The two madmen explore the deepest and dankest, and certainly the drunkest, corners and characters in Lousiville during the 1970 Kentucky Derby. Believe us when we tell you that the run-up to the Run for the Roses has never been envisioned like this before or since.

Here's a little taste to tempt your brain buds. Please read no further if insensitive language offends your better nature. Mr. Thompson was nowhere near politically correct. But he was weirdly accurate.

To be continued here. (Caution: Mr. Thompson's use of foul language can be terribly offensive, so please use serious discretion. And if you’re not offended, don't blame us if you roll on the floor and laugh your a-- off.)

Imagine Ryan Howard hitting 50 home runs for 10 years straight. Or Ben Roethlisberger passing for over 4,000 yards every year for a decade (and winning The Super Bowl nearly every year). Or how about Roy Halliday pitching 10 perfect games every season.

Ok, you get the idea. That’s how amazing Dave Palone’s record is. Dave Palone, without a doubt Pennsylvania’s most under-rated, under-appreciated – heck, under the radar – sports hero, has quietly, with nothing but grace and class, reached the virtual pinnacle of sports achievement. Dave’s won more than 500 races a  year for the past 22 years.

On March 27^th, at his hometown track, The Meadows, he won his 15,000^th race. Take a look at that number; it’s not a typo. Now take a breath and say it aloud: “Dave Palone has won fifteen-thousand races.” He did it driving an 11-year old gelding by the name of Boos Boy to a decisive victory in the 10^th Race at The Meadows. (Watch here as our favorite announcer, Roger Huston – who has called more than 150,000 races – calls this one home.)

Only one other harness-racing driver has ever won more races, and that’s Herve Filion, “The Frenchman.” Largely retired from the track, Filion’s record is 15,180 wins. Given Dave Palone’s remarkable productivity, he should reach that number sometime this summer. Best to keep an eye on what’s happening at The Meadows and get out there to see Dave go.

With a noble generosity, Herve Filion was there at The Meadows when Dave Palone came across the finish line first for the 15,000^th time.  In tribute, Dave came to the winner’s circle standing in the sulky, a trademark of “The Frenchman’s,’ and a real crowd pleaser.

So what’s next for Dave? Once he’s past Filion’s record, he’ll have the German driver Heinz Wewering in his sites. Wewering’s victories total more than 16,000 as of this blogging. (But of course, we all know the Germans run their horses in the wrong direction. See what we mean?) We figure it’s another three years or so until our own Dave Palone is Numbero Uno on all of Planet Earth. Would that make him the most successful athlete in all of humankind? Sounds hyperbolic, doesn’t it. But it just might be the truth.

Go Dave, go!

It's hard to tell Union Rags' story because it sounds like you're making it up, or at least laying it on a bit thick. I mean, he's still the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby, does he also need to have an unlikely birth, a touching back story and a cast of characters that could easily populate a heart-lifting Disney movie? With all his physical beauty, awe-inspiring power and arresting personality, is it absolutely necessary to have a story so filled with love, loss and redemption that Oprah wouldn't have felt bad about slapping a seal on it's cover? The answer is no. It's not necessary. This horse has enough going for it without the incredible biography, but it's his story and we are going to tell it. So, let's start with that unlikely birth . . .

Union Rags was a breath away from never becoming anything more than a gleam in his sire's eye. Tempo, the mare that gave him life, nearly lost her own in a harrowing delivery of the foal Durante two years before Union Rags came along. And, even though she lived, it seemed her breeding days were through. I mean, sometimes the universe tries to tell you that a portion of your life is over. You throw your back out playing basketball and realize that your days of driving the lane are past. Or, in the case of Tempo, you develop a uterine hematoma and nearly bleed out, suggesting that perhaps the reproducing portion of your life is about wrapped up.

Amazingly, Tempo recovered and two years later was bred one last time with good sire Dixie Union. The result was that unexpected, but eternally hoped for horse, Union Rags. A gangly, goofy, but imminently promising colt. A horse that lineage couldn't truly predict and the wiles of nature couldn't prevent.

The lazy, friendly, slightly clumsy foal grew up to break his maiden at Delaware Park, frolic in the mud at Saratoga, thread the needle through a pack of churning thoroughbreds in the Champagne Stakes, run out of racetrack at the Breeders Cup, comeback like a champion in the Fountain of Youth and break a few hearts while not catching the breaks in the Florida Derby.

Phyllis Wyeth, who retained Tempo after her parents passed, finally had the horse her family had been working toward. In Union Rags she thought she had a winner, but could she keep him?

This is a great American love story, an unlikely tale of loss and redemption. And the full story will be coming to this blog the week of April 9^th in a glorious documentary about a fearless woman in love with a very great racehorse. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Get the full Union Rags Story and see the Union Rags film »

Some call horse racing the most exciting 2 minutes in sports. But attention spans seem to be shrinking, don't you know. (Note the brevity of this blog post.) So how about betting on an extremely exciting 17 seconds or so? That's about the time it takes for a barrel racer to complete a dangerous, challenging barrel racing course in a rodeo. 

Think it's easy? Think again. It takes one tough cowgirl and one pretty amazing horse to get good enough to race for a championshiop. And barrel racing is becoming so popular that it's supplanting bull riding in many stops along the rodeo circuit.

It's such a phenomena that some in the horse racing game are considering bringing barrel racing to the track. In Florida, horse bettors are discovering barrel racing joints as a pretty crazy and very attractive alternative to hanging out along the same old rail. 

This report from NPR tells the tale. Give it a listen and ask yourself this: Are you ready for these rough-and-tumble cowgirls to bring barrel racing to a PA racetrack near you?  If you have an opinion one way or another, click on over to our Facebook page and share your thoughts. 

Yeehaw!

So often we refer to the world of horse racing as an “industry.” Granted, its economic and commercial qualities are industrial by definition, but is this label a hindrance to the growth of the sport?

We recently stumbled upon a Business Day article focusing on a similar issue. 20 years ago, horse racing was the only form of legal gambling in South Africa. Today, it’s an industry unjustly grouped under the same regulations laws as casinos and slot machine operators- something the American horse racing is all too familiar with.

 

"It needs to be taken into consideration that the sport of horse racing employs 24 times more people [per million of gross gambling revenue] than casinos, so there is room to say we need to look at this differently from a mathematical gambling machine."

Rian du Plessis, chief executive of Phumelela, Africa’s largest horse racing betting company. 

We’ve interviewed people in every facet of the sport- owners, drivers, jockeys, announcers, trainers, handicappers, etc. There's a familial quality to horseracing that takes it beyond the label of Industry. And, more often than not, that closeness and intimacy extends to the voracious fanbase. This distinction, we believe, is one of the driving factors behind the passion enthusiasm that makes this sport so great.

Here’s to the Sport of Kings.
 

On Monday, the intrepid TrackPackPA crew took a trip up to Harrisburg to visit the Standardbred sales. After devouring some delicious burgers at Jackson House, we headed over to the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex- a site to see in itself. You couldn’t even tell where the thing ended, it just went on into the mountains.

Upon entering, perused some of the horse swag they had for sale. Sulkies, rider outfits,and every accessory you could imagine. They even had horse jewelry. Not jewelry for your horse, but, like, necklaces with horses on 'em. It’s pretty obvious that Hanover is king when it comes to Standardbreds. Their orange-and-blue regalia covered a good percentage of the enormous complex.

Little stations were set up, filled with folks staring intently into screens. They were observing a horse’s prerecorded gait and pace: 

We picked up some Black Books, which are the thick catalogs filled with meticulous stats for the hundreds of horses for sale during the week. Our guide walked us around the backside of the compound, allowing us some face time with many of the potential superstars. It was funny walking around and saying "excuse me" to a horse. We rubbed many-a-noses.

We took a seat in the stands just in time for the bidding of Some of the Beach, who was rumored to bring in big bucks (even just as a yearling). There were some pretty good auctions up to this point, but nothing quite like this. The ticker couldn’t keep up with the bids. The air was sucked out of the room. No one wanted to accidentally place a bid and owe a couple hundred thousand. After a prolonged silence, the gavel came down at $430,000. Everyone cheered with a mixture of relief and elation.

The guys getting pat on their backs were the Cancelliere brothers, natives of our border state New Jersey. Turns out these guys were looking to put together a horse farm dream-team. Take a look at the video of their record-setting bid for Detour Hanover- full brother of 2008 Horse of the Year Somebeachsomewhere.

$825,000- shattering the previous Standardbred yearling record sale of $650k.

The Standardbred Sale runs till Saturday at the PA Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, PA. We’ll be sure to keep you updated with any more record-setting sales!

Oh, and make sure to enter in our Racetrip Giveaway while there's still time!
 

There’s a lot of murmuring about this year’s Eclipse Award. The trophy, which recognizes the Horse of the Year, has been more of a clear-cut decision in years past. And yet, one name keeps popping up through all the hubbub: Havre De Grace.

She recently topped a poll over at NTRA for HOTY, despite finishing fourth in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. Gary West of ESPN wrote a glowing article on her, stating: “clearly nobody has had a better campaign than Havre de Grace.”
 

What do you guys think? A glance at her record for the year makes us think Mr. West may be onto something. But, is that enough? 

Throw us some of your picks on our Facebook and Twitter! 

ESPN just posted a fantastic piece on esteemed trainer Bob Baffert, who has entered 10 horses in this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup Races. It may seem like an unorthodox move to enter such a large group, but maybe that’s just because no one else can pull it off. It seems like grandiose gestures such as this is an indicative snapshot of Baffert’s career as a whole.

You wouldn’t be able to take a quick glance at his past performances, as the list goes on for about 86 pages. But if you did, you might see that he was a nose away from winning three consecutive Kentucky Derbies. Or that he took home the prize in the world’s richest race in Dubai.

In a sport whose crux is money, Baffert still finds the fun in it all. With level head and a great attitude, he is a perfect example of what the sport of kings is all about.

Check out the article here and stay tuned all week long for updates on Breeders’ Cup action!
 

Bill Denver/Equi-Photo via AP

With the Breeder's Cup a week and a half away, the competition has been showing up and taking shape. 

Pennsylvania Derby victor To Honor and Serve (pictured above) began warm-ups today at Churchill Downs- home to the Kentucky Derby, but also the more pressing Breeders Cup on November 4th. The competitive 3-year-old dug right in to the famous track, which was still moist from the previous week’s rains. Trainer Bill Mott felt the session went nothing short of "perfect."

Another BCC contender and odds favorite Uncle Mo also put in a serious workout on Sunday at Belmont Park’s training track. Check out video of the one and only Johnny Velazquez warming him up, as well as quick chats with trainer Todd Pletcher and owner Mike repole:

Early Odds and Contenders provided by the venerable DRF: 

Uncle Mo                    7-2

Havre de Grace          5-1
Flat Out                      6-1
Tizway                        6-1
So You Think             8-1
Stay Thirsty                8-1
To Honor and Serve  10-1
Game on Dude          12-1
Drosselmeyer             20-1
Headache                  30-1

Who are some of your favorite picks? Reach out to us and Facebook and Twitter, let's chat! 
 

We headed down to the Meadows and snapped off some great pics of the Pennsylvania Fair Finals! Great times and Great races all around!

All photos by the great, Ryan Zidek.