Horse Racing News

If Mambo Meister is going to successfully defend his title in the $125,000 Miami Mile on Saturday he's going to have to do it the hard way.

Scoring a victory in a graded race is reward enough for any trainer, but there is a race within the race in Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 San Francisco Mile at Golden Gate Fields.

Kentucky is regarded as a border state, but not in regards to Canada. Yet when the Keeneland spring meet ends Friday with the Grade 2 Elkhorn Stakes, it just might be all Canada all over the board.

The 11-week meet, which will include 56 cards of racing, runs through July 17 before the move to Saratoga on July 22.

Haynesfield, who drew post 5, will meet five opponents in the Westchester, which is run at one mile and serves as the local stepping-stone to the prestigious Grade 1, $500,000 Metropolitan Handicap to be run here on May 30.

Kentucky Derby week at Churchill Downs will start in earnest in the dark - and that's not to poke fun at the thousands of fans who admit to being clueless about which horse might win the 137th Derby here May 7.

Her Smile had been owned by her breeders, William Backer, and based at the Fair Hill training center in Maryland with Leigh Delacour.

Jockey Calvin Borel has won the Kentucky Derby three times in the last four years, but not until Wednesday did he line up a mount for this year's race on May 7.

Looking to alleviate that stress from his life, Durkin will no longer be the voice of the Triple Crown, deciding not to seek a renewal of his contract with NBC Sports, with whom he has been affiliated for 27 years.

J P's Gusto on Tuesday joined The Factor as horses who were not expected to run in the Kentucky Derby and whose connections finally made that news official.