In honor of Preakness Week, the Times looks back at one of the race’s historic winners from 1946, the improbable Triple Crown hero and “Little Chocolate Galloper,” Assault. In our Kentucky Derby post in May, we shared one of our favorite quotes about his victory in that first …
[Read more...] about It’s Preakness Week! Revisiting Triple Crown Winner Assault’s 1946 Preakness
It was the first Kentucky Derby, but the race wasn’t the star attraction of the Louisville Jockey Club and Driving Park Association’s six-day inaugural spring meeting in 1875. Opening day on Monday, May 17, 1875, drew more than 12,000 attendees to the new track that would later …
[Read more...] about The First Kentucky Derby, Unhorsed by the Louisville Cup
It’s Travers Week, and we look forward to crowning the next three-year-old champion of the mile-and-a-quarter “Mid-summer Derby” this Saturday at Saratoga Race Track. The race has amassed 150 winners to date, its earliest titleholder being a colt named Kentucky in its inaugural …
[Read more...] about Kentucky, the First Winner of the Travers Stakes, Immortalized in Oil
Saturday, July 12, marks the anniversary of the birth of Edward Troye (1808--1874), America's preeminent animal painter of the 19th century. During his 40-year career in the U.S., the Swiss-born Troye painted commissions of hundreds of prized Thoroughbreds, and was recognized by …
Racing schedules have been turned upside-down across the globe due to COVID-19, and this Saturday, July 4, will feature the second leg of Britain’s Triple Crown, the Derby Stakes (officially the Investec Derby) at Epsom Downs Race Course—a race that was first inaugurated in 1780 …
[Read more...] about A Poem for this Weekend’s Epsom Derby: Ode to No More Betting on the Races
