Thats Amore Stable

Lingering

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:11:12 GMT

Victorious races are hard to come by. They are the culmination of a journey, a billion variables all going just right: the right genetic components, the right owners, the right trainer and training regimen, the right sequence of efforts leading to the...(read more)

Storylines

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:33:34 GMT

Saturday’s 23rd annual Maryland Million day at Laurel Park — a smorgasbord of 12 stakes races restricted to horses sired by stallions standing in Maryland — offered in abundance what Maryland racing seems to deliver every day: a glorious...(read more)

Haircuts and flip-floppers

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:46:29 GMT

In the 2004 election, President George Bush successfully tagged Senator John Kerry a flip-flopper, comically supported by Kerry’s own recollection of having been for a bill before he was against it. Good thing Bush isn’t running for office...(read more)

New feature

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:04:24 GMT

With six or so weeks until election day, the campaign to allow slot machines in Maryland is heating up. Sorta. Actually, compared to the vitriol so prevalent in past years around this issue, things are surprisingly quiet here in the Free State. Nonetheless...(read more)

Six inviolable rules to claiming horses

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:17:35 GMT

Occasionally — as in, very rarely — someone will ask me how we go about identifying the horses we claim. Usually, this question is asked in a semi-breathless manner, as if I just might be about to give them the key to life, the universe, and...(read more)

Alumni Report

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:44:11 GMT

Toiling, as we mostly do, among the claiming horses of the world, turnover is an integral part of the equation. In other words, horse today, gone tomorrow. That’s not because we don’t want to keep the horses we buy. Very often, we watch them...(read more)

Terrible twos

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:30:24 GMT

Racing’s a sport where thought is rarely considered to be superior to knee-jerk reaction and where “cuz this is the way it’s always been done” is often considered a sophisticated rationale for continued futility. So I suppose we...(read more)

Something fishy

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:17:27 GMT

Horse racing has a problem — well, many problems actually, but just one that’s bugging me today. The problem is this: Many people simply don’t believe that the game is on the level. Racing has a long and inglorious history of crooked...(read more)

Debut

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:23:24 GMT

Word came back yesterday. Homefire is entered and will make her first start on Friday at Laurel (check here for details). It’s an exciting moment in the life of a horse owner, the debut of a promising two year-old. At the same time, though, it’s...(read more)

To market, to market…

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:28:40 GMT

The problem with having too much to do at the moment is that the world — discourteously — continues to spin on its axis whether I blog about it or not. As a result, a variety of racing news of some import has come and gone without me. The...(read more)

First crop

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:04:01 GMT

A mid-August list of the leading first-crop sires — courtesy of the Blood-Horse — is a little like a message sent by the future to those of us stuck in the present, or, in this Olympic year, the first few strides of a long race. The truth...(read more)

Today’s amusement

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:34:50 GMT

The death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby brought an avalance of needed — though, at least to the powers that be, unwanted — attention to the treatment of horses in the sport. In other words, there was a lot of screaming and shouting...(read more)

Opening Day

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:12:50 GMT

A couple of years ago, Erin and I attended opening day of the April race meet at Keeneland. As the gates opened for the otherwise nondescript first race, a huge cheer went up from the big crowd, an eruption of joy that seemed to say, “Finally, racing...(read more)

Vanned off

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:20:58 GMT

Injury lurks around every corner for our equine charges. A bad step, a flying rock, a suddenly developed breathing problem — any of these can forever alter a racing career, a life, and all are but a moment away from becoming reality. We send them...(read more)

In Maryland, the other shoe, dropping

ThatsAmoreStable.net — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:36:07 GMT

Colonial Downs ends its two-month thoroughbred race meet tonight, and racing returns to Maryland with a mini-meet at Laurel, commencing on Friday. The Laurel meet, however, begins amidst a growing sense of doom. According to the Baltimore Sun, via our...(read more)