Horse racing is dead, right?

That’s all we’ve heard for the last decade or two, much less years. All those horrible equine fatalities at Santa Anita a couple of years back. All those Bob Baffert drug positives in all those high-profile races. All those PETA protests against a sport thought to be well past its prime, one on a slow, agonizing...Read more

DEL MAR, Calif. — No, jockey Flavien Prat's weekend is not an audition for the television show "The Amazing Race."

Or is it?

Perhaps the best jockey in horse racing began Friday's opening day at Del Mar racetrack aboard a horse in the first race. And the second. And the third. And the fourth. And the fifth. And … well all 10 of them.

That...Read more

Trainer Bob Baffert scored his first legal victory in the wake of the positive medication test of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit on Wednesday when a New York federal judge said it was unconstitutional for the New York Racing Association to ban him from running horses in that state.

Brooklyn Judge Carol Bagley Amon said that NYRA acted ...Read more

In the 1991 movie “What about Bob?” title character Bill Murray drives his new psychiatrist batty while relentlessly unpacking his tangled thoughts, phobias and home-spun truths.

A gem from the latter: “There are two types of people. Those who like Neil Diamond … and those who don’t.”

That could apply to a real-life Bob, embattled ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The prep race schedule for the 2022 Kentucky Derby will have a different look.

Officials at Oaklawn Park announced Tuesday that the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby will be run April 2, 2022, five weeks before the May 7, 2022, Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. The Arkansas Derby has been run three weeks before the Derby.

Keeneland’...Read more

It was a race of blown brake rotors and cut tires at Nashville Superspeedway, a track that hosted its first NASCAR Cup race on Sunday.

The Ally 400 winner didn’t blow any rotors. Kyle Larson wasn’t braking much, leading 264 of 300 laps, including the final one, to win his fourth race of the Cup Series season.

He finished with a 4.3 second ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky judge on Wednesday ordered Medina Spirit’s frozen urine sample to be flown to a New York lab in a private plane for more testing to help determine the fate of the Kentucky Derby winner.

After a previously sent blood sample shattered, Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas D. Wingate also ordered that two representatives ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — A long-held rumor in Southern California horse racing circles is that Santa Anita will be sold off and turned into a much more lucrative real estate project. So, it was understandable that tensions rose dramatically after a Bloomberg news report on Tuesday said that the Stronach Group plans to sell some of its assets.

Aidan ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The result of the 2021 Kentucky Derby, the first jewel of Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, might come down to exactly how much Medina Spirit’s urine Bob Baffert’s attorneys can get their hands on.

They want all 25 or so milliliters of it, which the state argued is excessive.

Franklin Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Attorneys for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and the owner of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit have gone to court in Frankfort to force the state’s racing commission to allow more testing.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in Franklin Circuit Court, Baffert and Zedan Racing Stables asked the court to make the Kentucky Horse ...Read more

ELMONT, N.Y. — Last summer at Keeneland, Brad Cox had just seen Essential Quality complete a strong workout when the trainer made a proclamation. “That’s my Belmont Stakes horse,” Cox said.

And he was right.

Essential Quality, under a patient ride by Luis Saez, started picking off horses on the far turn and by the top of the stretch ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Trainer Bob Baffert's two-year suspension from Churchill Downs rocketed through the horse racing world Wednesday and overshadowed Saturday's third leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes.

This story is going to be with us for a while as it makes its way through the courts. What does it mean for California tracks? There are ...Read more

Horse racing needed this moment. Not the part where the face of its sport who just set its most prestigious record on the most storied track in its crown jewel race faces near certain and historic disqualification.

Trainer Bob Baffert is likely to be stripped of his unmatched seventh Kentucky Derby victory at some point after a split-sample ...Read more

Churchill Downs on Wednesday announced it will bar trainer Bob Baffert from all of its racetracks for two years following the news that Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s postrace positive drug test has been confirmed.

The racetrack and casino company announced that the suspension begins immediately and will last through the conclusion of ...Read more

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s post-race positive drug test has been confirmed, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

A lawyer representing Amr Zedan, the owner of Medina Spirit, told The Times that the horse’s split sample tested positive for the drug betamethasone, matching the initial postrace positive that led...Read more