On this day in New Orleans in January 1852, racing was cancelled on account of—snow? Mild winters in New Orleans mean that few days, if any, fall below freezing in a given winter, thus snowfall is a rarity. While 19th-century race days were often rescheduled due to rainfall …
Handy Rules for Laying Out a Race Course
The following “Rules for Laying Out a Race Course” is shared from an 1833 issue of the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine. Enjoy! …
[Read more...] about Handy Rules for Laying Out a Race Course
It’s Preakness Week! Revisiting Triple Crown Winner Assault’s 1946 Preakness
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
The First Kentucky Derby, Unhorsed by the Louisville Cup
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
Kentucky, the First Winner of the Travers Stakes, Immortalized in Oil
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