horse Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
A Flair for the geriatric
Ric Flair’s self-descriptors are outdated. Jet-flying, kiss-stealing needs to be the AARP-promoting, Werther’s Original-loving, slow-moving son of a gun! There’s no discounting the now-73-year-old Flair as the greatest American professional wrestler ever. His combination of entertainment and athleti...
So Derby winner Rich Strike was a heart-warming story for less than a week
I wish Vegas would’ve given the public odds on how long Rich Strike’s feel-good story remained feel-good. While it didn’t take a turn to Cancel Town in the first 15 minutes after the race, it did get there during trainer Eric Reed’s 15 minutes of fame, so my unders bet would’ve hit....
80-1 shot Rich Strike wins Kentucky Derby
Rich Strike wasn’t in the Kentucky Derby field when head trainer Eric Reid woke up Friday morning. After a late scratch to Ethereal Road, a spot opened up for a 21st horse in the 20-thoroughbred field. And one of the longest shots in the field at 80-1 at post time just won the 148th Kentucky Derby....
Welcome back, baseball
I spend a lot of time here pointing out everything that’s wrong with baseball. Maybe even most of my time. And for good reason. Baseball is broken, and the latest CBA doesn’t do nearly enough to address the problems. And those who are in a position to do anything about it aren’t interested in doing ...
MLB has tried nothing and it's all out of ideas
I guess that’s not completely fair. They have one idea. It’s a Hail Mary to try to reclaim the PR battle for themselves which the players union has had in their pocket ever since Rob Manfred started throwing all of his toys out of the crib about the reduced schedule of 2020. It’s half of an idea, ma...
Is tanking illegal?
Among the many incriminating allegations in former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL’s obvious and rampant discrimination lies what could perhaps be the most legally damning accusation: Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered to bribe Flores to “tank” games in the 2019 season in ...
Aaaand we’re back to the start
This is my last Mourning After of 2021, and in some ways it feels like the first. Not that we’ve been running in place, so much as we sprinted around the track and ended up back where we started. Which is how Jerry Seinfeld described horse racing, I guess. “We were just here! What was the rush?!”...
Will Urban Meyer get a shot at redemption? Let's look at how other coaches bounced back after failing miserably
Urban Meyer is out as coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after going 2-11 in his only partial season at the helm. While that’s 13 more games than Meyer ever should have coached in the NFL, and he leaves with a lower winning percentage in the league (.154) than Marty Mornhinweg (.156), it somehow does...
Horse racing should be put out of its misery
In yet another measure of how irrelevant horse racing has gotten, Kentucky Derby “winner” Medina Spirit collapsed and died at Santa Anita yesterday. He had a heart attack after a workout, which 3-year-old horses don’t tend to do. It does happen, though, but is rare. ...
You’ll never believe that Claude Lemieux’s son is as big of a tool as he was
There’s nothing hockey seems to love more than its lineage or dynasties, at least among its playing ranks. If you’re the son of a former NHL-er, any skill above being able to lace up your skates properly will almost certainly see you get drafted. Bounce around on hockey Twitter even for just a littl...
Why do we keep thinking sports is the best of us, when it’s just … us?
Maybe it’s just my misconception of why people watch and follow sports. It seems like they’re held to too high a standard at the worst possible times. Because we’re asking people completely unequipped to deal with serious, life-changing issues… to say and do things that we’d imagine we do if put in ...
Hawk Harrelson would love this horse
I don’t know what the future holds for horse racing, or if there’s much of one to hold. It feels like it could be consigned to the past within the next decade. Or maybe sports gambling will revive interest as more tracks get their own sportsbook to go with the slots they needed years ago. Or maybe t...
MLB definitely wants to die like horse racing
Either MLB’s PR people are locked in a room with no escape, no windows, and all communications shut off to the outside world. Or it’s just a team of koala bears stoned to the bejesus and lying on the floor. That’s the only conclusion you can draw when, on the same day it looks like MLB ducked a majo...
Nice record you broke there — be a shame if I broke it by more
In 1983, Edwin Moses broke his own world record in the 400-meter hurdles, blazing home in 47.02 seconds at a meet in Koblenz, Germany. The following year, Moses won his second Olympic gold medal in the event, but he never did break the 47-second barrier — that didn’t happen until Kevin Young ran a...
Bob Baffert’s attorney gets eviscerated on CNN
After Kentucky Derby winner* Medina Spirit failed his first drug test, his trainer, Bob Baffert, did the media rounds to blame cancel culture and everybody besides himself for his horse’s unusually high levels of betamethasone....
The Top 5 Idiots of May
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH, in which we make fun of famous (and non-famous!) people who have done stupid things. And May did not disappoint....
Bob Baffert inexplicably blames ‘cancel culture’ for horse-doping controversy
Trainer Bob Baffert’s horse, Medina Spirit, who won the Kentucky Derby on May 1, tested positive for a banned substance. Apparently, according to Baffert, this happened because one of the groomers decided to take a piss on the hay in the horse’s stall after taking cough medicine, and the horse consu...
What happens if Medina Spirit is disqualified?
Only one horse has been disqualified for a drug test after winning the Kentucky Derby. That happened in 1968, when Dancer’s Image was DQ’d for testing positive for a banned anti-inflammatory. But Forward Pass, who finished in second was not declared the official winner until 1972....
Bob Baffert cries wolf again
You have to ask if there’s anything left of horse racing to kill. Perhaps it’s entrenched so deeply into irrelevance, outside of four or five days a year, that just about nothing can make it worse. This is an industry basically surviving on the courtesy of state governments, really....
Undefeated favorite Essential Quality has everyone asking: Wait — how many gray horses have won the Kentucky Derby?
There’s this phrase in thoroughbred racing, it goes one of two ways: “always bet the grays” or “never bet the grays.” [Ed. note: My uncles were firmly in the “never” category — R.O.]...