When farm manager Ellie Dalton and assistant manager Alex Lee got to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation’s Front Royal, Va., farm one sunny April morning, 69 horses waited. Some wanted grain. Others had misplaced their fly masks. Most quietly grazed the gentle hills of the farm’s approximately 200 acres.
(Editor's note: Nolan Clancy's story on blacksmith Randy Reed, published in the April 2022 issue of Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, won first prize in the Service to the Horse Industry: Single Article category at the 2022 American Horse Publishers Equine Media Awards. Clancy's story is reprinted here)
Tom Ryan gathered the troops outside Bridie Harrison’s consignment on the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sales grounds, ready to tackle short lists and plot a game plan for final looks at potential buys out of the sale of selected yearlings.
When Withoutmoreado (Ire) arrived in trainer Kathy Neilson’s barn from Ireland in 2019, the 5-year-old made a strong first impression – natural jumper, quick learner, gears, all of it. The runaway winner of an English point-to-point and £60,000 purchase by owner Irv Naylor at the Tattersalls April Cheltenham sale made his American debut at Shawan Downs that September.
(Editor's note: Maryland-bred Coffeewithchris was profiled in the February 2023 issue of Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred. John Piassek took a closer look at his deep Maryland roots and his local connections. Coffeewithchris will compete in Saturday's Preakness Stakes-G1 at Pimlico, as he looks to become the first Maryland-bred to win the Preakness since Deputed Testamony in 1983. In preparation for his Preakness bid, his story is reprinted here)
In front of the Pimlico Race Course starting gate parked across the track, seven guys in caution-tape yellow windbreakers huddle around an older man in a yellow-and-black plaid sports jacket. Just beyond them, on the other side of the gate, six horses finish warming up. Down the stretch, broadcaster Jack Whitaker takes his cue from co-host Frank Wright and says, “The weather is perfect and we’re just waiting for a fine horse race.”
When the field crossed the wire for the 2022 Barbara Fritchie Stakes-G3 at Laurel Park, what odds would you have gotten that next year’s winner would be:
