Maybe it’s the name. Tranquility Farm offers visions of a blissful world where Thoroughbreds no longer able to compete on the racetrack live out their lives like happy seniors at a retirement community, taking lazy afternoon strolls and playing parlor games into the night. Hay, feed, veterinary supplies and services just parachute out of the heavens. “There is this ‘Valhalla’ …
Old Warriors Two of The Lucky Ones
By Jay Hovdey – Daily Racing Form For all their travels, there was a reasonable chance that 9-year-old Buddy Gil and 6-year-old Fete, a pair of well-seasoned geldings, might have crossed paths at some point along the way. Through two solid years, Fete raced at Louisiana Downs, Oaklawn Park, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, and Saratoga before heading west to run at …
Descendant of Sea Biscuit Saved
ARCADIA, Calif. — By the time a Thoroughbred enters the ring at the livestock market in Chino, located only about 25 miles east of Santa Anita Park, that horse has become anonymous. It doesn’t matter where it was bred, how many times it raced, or if it won or lost. Sharp buyers might know enough to check a tattoo, if …
Jay Hovdey Column
ARCADIA, Calif. — Lese Majeste, officially considered age 12, awoke on the first day of the new year to a whole new world. After nine campaigns and 190 starts in places like Belmont, Saratoga, Hialeah, Calder, Gulfstream, Suffolk and Rockingham–mostly Suffolk and Rockingham–he found himself in a roomy paddock, staring at the rolling hills outside the town of Tehachapi, Calif., …