Kentucky Derby Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Japan's Derby hopefuls chasing history, flash in final prep
The pair of Japanese horses entered in the Kentucky Derby turned in their final work on the Churchill Downs dirt track on Tuesday, with mostly rest ahead prior to race day in Louisville, Ky.,Admire Daytona and Luxor Cafe finished their five-furlong workouts in 1:02.4. While their times were identica...
Ban over, Bob Baffert back in Kentucky Derby spotlight
Disgraced and decorated, Bob Baffert is back at Churchill Downs this week ahead of the 151st Kentucky Derby with a tale to tell. ,With a a three-year suspension in the rearview mirror -- stemming from 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit testing positive for the corticosteroid betamethasone -- B...
Burnham Square wins Blue Grass Stakes, qualifies for Derby
Burnham Square qualified for the Kentucky Derby in dramatic fashion on Tuesday with a riveting stretch drive to claim the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.,The winner of the Holy Bull Stakes at Florida's Gulfstream Park two months ago was last among the field of seven heading into the...
Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming (colic) dies
Always Dreaming, the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner, died on Tuesday in Oklahoma at age 10 after a bout with colic led to an intestinal issue.,The post-time favorite at just better than 4-to-1, Always Dreaming won the 143rd Kentucky by 2 3/4 lengths over Lookin at Lee. Always Dreaming was ridden by John...
Mystik Dan seeing Triple as path opens at Preakness
Mystik Dan's path to winning the Kentucky Derby opened up about midway through the final turn after he cleared out pacesetter Track Phantom and rode the rail to the slightest of victories.,His path to capturing Saturday's 149th Preakness Stakes cleared out a bit on Wednesday.,Mystik Dan's owners Zed...
Horse racing needs a stoppage, not a change of scenery
One of the rebuttals to Churchill Downs’ suspension of horse racing after this weekend was that officials couldn’t find proof of the venue’s role in the dozen horses who’ve died there this year. While that logic comes off like an amusement park owner saying “Nothing to see here” as kids get launched...
A fix for horse racing that’s more than an ‘emergency meeting’
Horse racing regulatory and safety officials, along with representatives from Churchill Downs, are holding an emergency meeting today in response to two more horse deaths at the famed track in Louisville, Ky. this spring. The reason I’m writing this before the actual meet-and-greet is that nothing i...
Kentucky Derby winner Mage doesn’t disrespect horse racing by saying yea not 'neigh' to Preakness
Last year, Rich Strike won the Kentucky Derby at 80-1 odds, like a kamikaze to horse racing. Not honoring the tradition of the sport was the team behind the emeritus Kentucky Derby champion, who decided to sit the winner out of the second leg of the sport’s Triple Crown. The biggest prize in the spo...
Is horse racing worth saving?
The discussion of the future of horse racing seems to be popping up more regularly these days. The greater regularity of the topic probably started in 2019, when Santa Anita Park in Southern California had an unprecedented rash of horses suffering fatal injuries, with 42 horses dying and shutting do...
Quick, what hat says, ‘I’m fun but also grieving 7 dead horses’?
Here at Deadspin, we take a wait-and-see approach to covering horse racing. Every year, someone will pitch a Kentucky Derby preview and either get laughed out of the writer’s room or ignored. The only reason we wrote about the 2022 iteration was because long shot Rich Strike won at 80-1, and his tra...
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....
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. ...
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....
Tim Tebow is REALLY competitive, y'all... So what?
Urban Meyer says Tim Tebow is “the most competitive maniac you’re ever going to talk to.”...
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....
A definitely-winning guide to betting the 2021 Kentucky Derby using only horse names and how badass they look
First of all, I have indeed been to the Kentucky Derby (which is, like, a WHOLE other story, and I’ll never write it as well as Hunter S. Thompson, so just read his). ...
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.]...