Brooklyn Backstretch

For my post last week on the Mother Goose, I spent a good deal of time researching and verifying what I was reading about the change in the configuration of the Triple Tiara—I checked multiple and sources, and I felt confident that what I wrote was correct: that currently, the series comprises the Mother Goose, [...]

Another Grade I at Belmont, another win for the longest shot on the board. Didn’t have this one, unfortunately, though I’m a little mad that I didn’t, as my eyes kept going back to Frost Giant in the program, and I dismissed my interest. Woulda, coulda, shoulda…but not nearly as bad poor Patrick’s day.
I [...]

Today’s 115th running of the Suburban Handicap at Belmont is the last leg of the Handicap Triple Crown, a concept with which I’ve become enamored over the last few months and that is largely ignored by the rest of the racing world. It’s not as if trainers circle the dates of the Handicap Triple Crown [...]

Last spring, Greg Avioli’s decision to re-name the Distaff and to move all the filly/mare races to Friday occasioned much discussion in the racing press and in blogs. Some of us were even moved to start a petition to express our distress at this move, and to ask that Avioli and the Breeders’ Cup re-consider [...]

What with the trifecta of bad racing news over the last couple of days, (the Jeremy Rose suspension and the Dutrow/Asmussen violations), I’m going to focus on some good racing news.
As both the NY Daily News and Green but Game reported earlier this month, Casino Drive and his connections developed quite a relationship with the [...]

On Tuesday Santa Anita announced that it will completely overhaul its track surface, replacing its current Cushion track with Pro-Ride, the first track in this country, I believe, to use the Pro-Ride surface. The Paulick Report links to the Santa Anita press release and reports its own research (in slightly less detail than I’d [...]

The challenge of biographies is to make the subjects more than the sum of their accomplishments, of the events that make up their lives. The best biographies convey the inner lives of their subjects, as revealed through behavior and conversation and the artifacts of their lives: the letters they wrote, the art they [...]

The first piece of news I heard this morning was that George Carlin had died. This is not ordinarily something that would catch my attention, but it did today, because thanks to the comments of a few regular readers, it seems that my generally PG-rated blog turned into a porn site in my absence yesterday. [...]

A few thoughts on the mind of Brooklyn Backstretch this summer weekend:
The feature race on Friday at Presque Isle Downs was the Willy Wank. Yep, the Willy Wank. Google that and see what, ahem, comes up. I did; the only surprise was that the fourth result actually had to do with racing.
According [...]

Today’s feature at Belmont is the Grade II New York Handicap, currently run at a mile and a quarter on the turf, for fillies and mares, three years old and up. It has not been ever thus; first run in 1940, the race was originally open to both sexes and was run on the dirt, [...]