#Sharp Samurai

This is "last call" weekend for Breeders' Cup hopefuls with more than a dozen "Win and You're In" races spread across three U.S. tracks. It's also Arc weekend in Paris and Winx seeks her 28th straight win in Australia. There's even more, with important 2-year-old races in Canada and the Group 1 Sun Chariot in England. Twenty-eight straight wins? It…

It is the great story of the understudy getting that one shot to step in for the star. One shot to step into the spotlight. And maybe even stay there. When Drew Bledsoe got hurt, in came Tom Brady. Wally Pipp was replaced by Lou Gehrig. Phil Fulmer less elegantly for Johnny Majors. On the other hand, sports are full of one-hit wonders like Jeremy…

The Bob Baffert-trained Gamine will try to establish herself as the top three-year-old filly in the country on Friday when she leaves the starting gate in the nation's top race for three-year-old fillies, the 2020 Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs. This daughter of Into Mischief has never trailed in any of her four career starts. She is coming off a…

Horse of the Year honors could be on the line Saturday when the country's top dirt horses square off in North America's richest race, the 2020 Breeders' Cup Classic. Saturday's race features three of the top four horses in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association's Top Thoroughbred Poll: No. 1 Improbable, No. 2 Maximum Security and No. 4 Tom's…

All 13 of the Triple Crown winners in horse racing history earned that signature victory at Belmont Park, which hosts the 2021 Belmont Stakes on Saturday evening. But none was greater than Secretariat's run in 1973, as the Triple Crown winner smoked the field by 31 lengths and set both the Belmont Stakes and world record for a 1 1/2-mile race in a…

Churchill Downs has hosted the Kentucky Derby continuously since 1875, making it the longest-running major American sporting event, but last year it faced one of its most serious challenges because of the coronavirus pandemic. The race was postponed to September and no fans were allowed in attendance, but the Kentucky Derby 2021 brings back…

Trainer Todd Pletcher will try to win the Haskell Stakes for the fourth time when he sends out the up-and-coming Following Sea in the 2021 Haskell Stakes on Saturday at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. The 54-year-old Pletcher, who will be inducted into racing's Hall of Fame next month, won the race in 2006 (Bluegrass Cat), '07 (Any Given Saturday)…

After almost four months of waiting, the 2020 Kentucky Derby is finally ready to go off Saturday from historic Churchill Downs. When the 16-horse 2020 Kentucky Derby field is called to the post at 7:01 p.m. ET, a normally raucous Churchill Downs will be eerily quiet due to no spectators in the grandstands or infield. Favorites have lost 12 of the…

LEXINGTON - The second and final day of the Breeders' Cup World Championships are set for Saturday at Keeneland. Post time for the first race is 10:15 a.m. with nine Breeders' Cup events set to start at 12:02 p.m. with the Filly & Mare Sprint. The $6 million Classic will cap the day at 5:18 p.m. TV coverage is set for noon-2:30 p.m. on NBC Sports…