As mentioned in our July News post, Turf History Times is writing a piece about the new Hall of Fame multimedia experience at the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga Springs for The Horsemen’s Journal, a quarterly publication produced by the National Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association (HBPA). Our forthcoming September News post will include a link to the electronic fall issue of the magazine with the article and we highly recommend planning a visit to see the revamped interactive Hall of Fame and the numerous museum exhibits.

Speaking of Saratoga, the track hosted on August 1st the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes, a 6 1/2 furlong sprint in which former Fair Grounds Racing Club colt Excitations finished second in 2017. As the Times was a member of the Racing Club, longtime readers of this website may recall previous posts about him and the Club’s filly Efforting–she’s currently a broodmare in Texas and produced a male foal by Always Dreaming last year. We have continued to follow Excitations’ career and since 2019 he has been part of World Champion Chanse Vigen’s Chuckwagon Racing Team in Alberta, Canada.

The chuckwagon racing season returned this summer after a year off due to COVID-19 and the team is competing in seven championships during July to September–its greatest success to date at the Bonnyville Championships in early August. Chanse drives a team of four horses for a day’s heat run and alternates horses during the multi-day competitions, and Excitations–known as “Ex” in his new career–raced on day 1 and day 4 at Bonnyville. On opening day, Excitations’ team won their heat in a time of 1:16:83, the fastest time of all teams over the four-day competition. He raced again on the final day in the “Dash for Cash” for the $25,000 purse, and the team finished in second place overall of 27 total teams. We are so proud to see him excelling in his second career and love cheering him on from afar!