Wednesday must have been the windiest day ever in Ozone Park, where the gusts off Jamaica Bay can be a test. Even though the average departure and arrival delays at Kennedy International were a mere 15 minutes, which is probably less than normal, and skies were clear and blue, the proof that confirms...

The state budget proposed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer includes a proposal for 4,500 video lottery terminals at Belmont Park according the reports from Albany – a blow to anyone who regards the site of the final leg of the Triple Crown and more Grade I races than any track in the world, a place where more racing...

Admission of failure, incompetence and futility was apparently first thing on the holiday agenda in the state capital on Monday. Before lunch, the temporary extension of the New York Racing Association franchise, due to expire on Wednesday, was again extended temporarily until Feb. 13. Among other loose...

With the announcement of the Eclipse Award winners late Monday night, the extension of the New York Racing Association franchise due to expire on Wednesday, the remote possibility of a settlement of negotiations between the hostile partisan factions of philistines in Albany, the more likely additional...

philistine, noun 1.( sometimes initial capital letter ) a person who is lacking in or hostile or smugly indifferent to cultural values, intellectual pursuits, aesthetic refinement, etc., or is contentedly commonplace in ideas and tastes. 2.( sometimes initial capital letter ) lacking in or hostile to...

It appears that differences on a handful of inconsequential differences stand between the current uncertainty in which the New York Racing Association is operating on time borrowed by politicians and the relative calm that will accompany the moment at which the issue is put to rest. Foremost is the configuration...

A showdown would have been better. A showdown would have made public Sen. Joe Bruno’s nonsensical, irrational stance on franchise issue. Drop the gloves. Lock the gates at Aqueduct. It appears, though, that the politicians have rallied in the eleventh hour and deal is at hand, though it will not be final...

Having paused for the trip over the river and through the woods, we return to confront squarely the eleventh hour of racing in New York. This is where the political ego and the prospect of new frontiers of patronage and kickbacks trump the good of the state and its people, who are trampled as the power...

After a week of racing as it ought to be in Asia, the welcome home email contained links and references to dozens of stories concerning the still-unsettled racing franchise, none more bizarre than a piece published while labeled “opinion” by the New York Sun authored by Austin Shafran, a venomous political...