Summer 2026

I don’t like starting blogs on sad notes, but I just want to pay tribute to my father-in-law, who sadly died a few weeks ago from complications of a stroke very suddenly. Howard or Rasser or Raff, as he’s affectionately known amongst our family, was a wonderful grandfather to Willow and Grace, enjoyed spending a lot of time with them, watching them grow up, and generally being tortured by them on a daily basis. He really thrived seeing them become the young ladies that they are and appreciated the staggering job their mother Maggie, his daughter, has done of raising two absolutely epic young ladies as well as maintaining her very busy professional schedule.

The trainer of over fifteen hundred wins in his own training career and a stalwart of the Mid-Atlantic region for a couple of decades, including a few years where he was champion trainer and meet leading trainer. He’ll be fondly remembered by those in the Maryland and West Virginia racing circles, as well as personally some really cool days like watching him win a stake at Atlantic City when Maggie and I were still dating. It’s a hard loss and, as such, has weighed very heavy on us as a family.

Another tragic loss was Robby Albarado, who won over five and a half thousand races as a jockey, including some good races for us in Louisiana and Kentucky over the years. At the top of his game, Robby was as good a jockey and horseman as you could come across. At age fifty-two, his loss due to heart complications is immensely devastating and he will be deeply missed.

On a brighter note, we got off to a very good start to the Saratoga meet this year. Up until ten days ago, the weather had been absolutely glorious in Saratoga and all of our turf racing had gone ahead as scheduled.

Morning Prayer scored a victory in a marginally controversial stewards inquiry on July 4. It was controversial because many people didn’t understand the disqualification, but the rules of racing were adhered to by the stewards and the disqualification was well within what is acceptable in race riding. I also felt Morning Prayer was a greatly deserving winner of the race and was very pleased for Steven Rocco. This daughter of Combatant has done very little wrong in her career and will now head to the New York Stallion Series going a mile on August 19, which she will be very competitive in.

One of the difficult things of being a trainer in a ding-dong finish is when you train both horses. On July 10, Felixyn and Jordan’s Love gave connections a thrilling stretch drive going head-and-head the entire length of the lane to be separated by a nose at the wire. Jordan’s Love got the upper hand in the head bob but both of these fillies ran incredibly well. It was a bit painful for the connections of Felixyn that she didn’t win, but as a New York-bred running in an open maiden, she now should be very competitive on August 16 in a New York-bred maiden special weight.

Felixyn has been plagued by a rule of racing, which says that if a horse has started for less than $40,000 they are immediately excluded from races that overfill. So, we’ve had to pick our spots very carefully with Felixyn to get her into the starting gate. She’s run with a great deal of credit in all three starts for the barn since moving to us from Nick Esler, who campaigned her once at Tampa Bay before she came up to join our string of horses.

We’ve had a tough time finding the winner’s circle this year and that run of luck has plagued us each and every month. We’ve won far fewer races than I would have wanted to have won by now, but on the flip side of that coin, we’ve had a number of horses who have run second and third incredibly well without winning.

Glavine is a prime example of this. He has slightly fluffed the brake in his two starts in stakes in Saratoga, and that has probably cost him a winning chance in both the Pennine Ridge and the Saranac. He was cross-entered this past weekend in the Hall of Fame and the Saratoga Derby and ended up racing in the latter, using quarter pads in the starting stalls to try and aid him in getting away a little quicker. He’s a very high energy colt who gets very excited when he gets in the gate, and sometimes that means he’s not standing square, which is what keeps costing him chances. That just seems to be the way our luck has been going on occasions this year.

We’ve had some very gallant seconds through this period as well. Private Desire ran the best race of his career, finishing second on the day before the Belmont Stakes at long odds in a seven furlong allowance other than. Outsource ran into a clever piece of entering by trainer Rob Atras when he was second to a horse that was eligible but in a different class to the horses that he ran against. Ricardo Santana was aboard the gelding this past Sunday, August 9, where he again ran well but finished second once more.

Very pleased with Victory Hall when she shipped over to Finger Lakes for the New York Oaks on July 13. A small and very tenacious filly, she ran into an unbeaten filly of Danny Gargan’s but never gave up the whole way around and ran very creditably to gain herself some more valuable Black Type.

Through the months of June, July, and August, I spend a lot of time on the thruway going up and down from Saratoga to Belmont Park. We split the horses between both divisions and that means that I spend a lot of time driving in the car. The two-year-olds at Belmont Park appear to be doing very well indeed. There’s some very promising types such as Friend Tax and Brothers Walsh. Shook Up the World had a lovely piece of work from the gate, and I’m looking forward to this year’s second half of two-year-olds getting to run. They’re all getting a lot closer to making their debuts and appear to have a decent level of ability.

We’ve had two monumental storms in the last two weeks—one that led to a card being totally cancelled a couple of Wednesdays ago and another very big storm on Monday of last week. Thankfully the rain stayed away this past weekend. If the weather could continue to behave this way, it would be greatly appreciated.

The beginning of the yearling sales is upon us. We’ll start off at the Saratoga Select Sale this week and then move on to the Select New York-breds. These are sales that we typically shop selectively at prior to moving on to Keeneland for fourteen days of four and a half thousand yearlings on sale in September, followed by Tattersalls in October. So, always a busy year for our barn and exciting time of the year to be recruiting future stars.