Author Archives: Richard R. Gross

Swans glide across a large lake while a central fountain continuously sprays water. Spring grass is green as the eye can see in all directions. A peacock struts across a...

Justify completed the Belmont Stakes in a relatively slow 2:28.18—perhaps because he continues to drag along doubters. Not long after the big chestnut son of Scat Daddy became the 13th...

Carrying Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith and a great many doubters, Justify became the 13th winner of the American Triple Crown Saturday at Belmont Park with a picture-perfect 1...

One is easily recognizable in jeans with his shock of white hair and ready smile. The other is a diminutive collection of muscle and quiet determination, on first glance known...

They will have to run the race before they give him the trophy—and the Triple Crown—but Justify has magnified historical odds by drawing post position #1 in Saturday's Belmont Stakes....

In now-familiar muddy conditions, with an added dose of fog shrouding the track, Justify barely put away Bravazo by a half-length in Preakness 143 to set up a fairytale storyline...

It's very possible the 143rd running of the Preakness Stakes will be in conditions as messy as the Kentucky Derby. Rain is forecast through most of the week and on...

On a night when five track records were broken, a French horse not named Goldikova won a third straight championship-level turf race and a European-based first-time-on-dirt runner pulverized a quality...

Super Saturday at Meydan is meant to separate Dubai World Cup contenders from the pretenders and it certainly did that as North America gobbled a gate-to-wire 5 1/4-length victory over Thunder...

Godolphin's Winter Lightning was expected to run away with the featured 1 1/8-miles UAE Oaks for fillies Thursday at Meydan. But there is a reason they run the race and...

We're still a few weeks away from St. Patrick's Day, but Thursday was the "greenest" night so far this year at Meydan, with three group turf features and the highest...

It was doubleheader week in Dubai and the Meydan "players" did not disappoint in a Thursday and Saturday Dubai World Cup Carnival pairing. Godolphin's Gold Town put away a full...

Ever-mercurial Godolphin star Thunder Snow chose to shine by a leisurely neck over North America in the Group 2 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2 across near 1 1/4 miles of...

A night after the eclipsed blue super moon, the boys in blue eclipsed the competition and remained super, securing a sweep of Group 2 events and a consecutive Dubai World...

Hometown Godolphin enjoyed a grand slam-winning evening Thursday at Meydan highlighted by a comfortable 4 1/2-length win by Promising Run in the featured mile-long Group 2 Cape Verdi turf for...

With North American racing catching its breath before the 2017 Eclipse Awards on Jan. 25, and the $16 million Pegasus World Cup at Florida's Gulfstream Park two days later, this...

In their 2007 hit film "The Bucket List", terminally ill buddies Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) set out to see the world before theirs ends. Among their stops...

It’s a pleasantly mild Wednesday evening in late May. There are 10 races on the evening card and while the Thoroughbreds racing this evening are hardly world class, most rated...

In 2015 there was Mubtaahij, who brought mystery and intrigue to Kentucky after winning the UAE Derby in Dubai, only to finish 9th. Last year, it was looney Lani who...

In a race that shaped up as a tactical challenge, Hong Kong 's leading jockey general Joao Moriera led Japanese runner Neorealism to the lead on the backstretch then hung...