The annual VTA Stallion Season Auction, which takes place next week, has attracted some top national stallions.
Made Bail will try to get sprung into stakes company in the Marylander at Laurel for owner-trainer Susan Cooney – helping make up for Embarr’s retirement.
Tonalist’s breeders and V. E. Day’s owner are more than Breeders’ Cup Classic rivals; they’re Northern Virginia neighbors and, now, friends.
Saturday’s International Gold Cup at Great Meadow will include both steeplechase and flat racing and could be a blueprint for racing’s Virginia future.
The Virginia Racing Commission convened on a gray October day in Richmond, which was only foreshadowing what was to come next.
Horses raised in Virginia are thriving everywhere but at home. Tomorrow’s Racing Commission meeting might, or might not, resolve the long impasse over days.
Colonial Downs says it’s fixing Virginia racing by creating, then negotiating with a new “horsemen’s group.” Nick Hahn says that sounds more like gelding.
Whether it will end with a signed contract, or the relinquishing of the Colonial Downs’s license, Virginia’s dates dispute is moving towards an end game.
Tomorrow’s state-bred racing at Laurel Park — instead of Colonial Downs — gives Virginia breeders something they’re used to: an out-of-state chance to shine.
Nothing’s gone to plan for Tonalist’s breeders. But he’ll enter the Belmont starting gate June 7 with a shot to deny California Chrome’s shot at history.
