Horse welfare on the backstretch
If backstretch workers encounter conditions they can’t tolerate, they have an option of walking away. Horses don’t have that luxury. Whether a racetrack’s backstretch is horse-friendly or grossly indifferent, the horse remains. He relies on his trainer and his trainer’s staff to act in his best interest.
Do horses sense fear?
Racehorses are athletes performing at the peak of their physical capabilities, with their strength and fitness carefully monitored and researched. However less consideration is given to the psychological factors that may affect their performance, with fear being a major influence.
Sid Fernando - Racing's Rich Tapestry
Plot: An ambitious two-pronged plan is hatched by some guys in Hong Kong, to take a local horse from Sha Tin Racecourse to the United States with the aim of winning the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on dirt in early November. First, though, they'll prep in a Grade 1 race on dirt at Santa Anita in California in early October as a practice run for the main event.
Christophe Clement - The Belmont Stakes winning trainer profile
Frances Karon visits Christophe Clement and learns all about the foundations he developed in racing from such a young age starting from his french roots to his arrival in America. The successful trainer of Tonalist talks about his life on both sides of the pond and how he ended up at Belmont Park
Sid Fernando - The Lasix anomaly
Sid Fernando talks about how Wesley Ward's successful raids on the elite European race meetings goes in some way to dispel the myth that Lasix is a performance enhancer. Time after time Ward sends out winners in Europe at meetings such as Royal Ascot but with Lasix being a banned substance it shows that maybe there is too much faith put into the drug in America.
Ron McAnally - Still pumping out Gr1 winners
Described as the poster boy for the geriatric set and like a fine wine we meet Ron McAnally, the trainer that will never give up. Ron McAnally has just celebrated his 82yrs old and still churning out Gr 1 winners and here we find out about how it all began in 1948 working as a groom, lifelong long friends and owners.
Alan Balch - Insoluble Problems?
Alan Balch looks into the hope that every cloud currently hanging over California racing has the silver lining every race follower is praying for. With more racetracks closing and trainers unable to make a living the long term future of California racing is looking doubtful.
The TRM Trainer of the Quarter - King Leatherbury
TRM Trainer of the Quarter is awarded to King Leatherbury, the Maryland based trainer who is hoping that his stable star Ben's Cat may just provide him with the item on his wish list he has yet failed to obtain, a Cadillac convertible.