Winning Ponies

Jockey Garrett Gomez, fresh off his triumphant return to racing and release of his book The Garrett Gomez Story - A Jockey's Journey Through Addiction & Salvation, will give us an insight to his life through his addiction to drugs and alcohol in 2003 and his successful battle to return in the saddle. Gomez learned to ride by watching his father, Louie, who was a jockey at many tracks in the Southwest United States. When Gomez was in the tenth grade, he dropped out of school to start his career as a jockey, and began riding at Santa Fe Downs in New Mexico in September 1988, picking up his first victory at that venue aboard Furlong Circle. Gomez is one of 5 jockeys to be considered for induction into racing's Hall of Fame for 2013. The others are Calvin Borel, Chris Antley, Craig Perret and Alex Solis. In the second segment a previous guest on this show, Michael Beychok who won the $1 million first-place prize and title of 2012 Daily Racing Form/National Thoroughbred Racing Association Handicapper of the Ye

Former trainer Richard Lundy apprenticed as an assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Charlie Whittingham. He went on to train for Virginia Kraft Payson and won the 1984 Travers Stakes with Carr De Naskra. He was hired by Allen Paulson to train his horses the day after the 1988 Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs. The following year, Lundy won 15 stakes and $3 million and had the 1989 Eclipse Award winner as the nation's best older horse in Blushing John. He will reminisce for us about his early years with Charlie Whittingham and will tell us about his involvement with LubriSyn and the current advances in nutritional supplements for horses. In the second segment, a previous guest on this show Ralph Siraco is a former track announcer who became a turf writer, and currently hosts the racing radio show Race Day Las Vegas, broadcast on KSHP AM 1400 in Las Vegas. He will join John Engelhardt to handicap Saturday's stakes races from around the country: - the Gr. 3 $100,000 Gardenia Stakes from Ellis Park; the Gr. 2 $500,00

Dr. John Piehowicz a graduate of The Ohio State University School of Veterinary Medicine, has been an Equine Veterinarian for nearly 20 years. He then opened his small business, Cincinnati Equine, LLC, and built an unparalleled reputation locally as a caring and compassionate physician with a client list that includes 10 Kentucky Derby winning trainers and countless Breeder's Cup winning trainers. He will be our first guest discussing changes in equine care over the years and addressing the current injuries sustained by Take Charge Indy, Oxbow and St. Nicholas Abbey. In the second segment, a frequent guest on this show DRF's Marty McGee is on-site at Mountaineer Park for their big evening of racing highlighted by the West Virginia Derby and West Virginia Governor's Cup. He will help our host handicap those races and two Breeders' Cup Win and You're In races. They will also review last week's major races and the impact they may have leading to the Travers Stakes. The BC Win and You're In races are : - the Gr.

With all of the great races from coast to coast, we have called on 2 professional handicappers to bring us home some winners. 'Money won is twice as sweet as money earned,'' Fast Eddie Felson (played by the late Paul Newman) says in The Color of Money. Rich Eng will handicap the return of Paynter in Grade 2 $200,000 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar and then go to the east coast to Monmouth Park for the Grade 1 $1,000,000 Haskell Invitational. Our second handicapper Rich Ruda is a lifelong horseplayer, who has been the on-air handicapper for Thistledown for 10 years. On Saturday, Thistledown will feature the state's top stakes race, the Grade 3 $100,000 Ohio Derby. Rich Ruda will also break down the top races at Saratoga including the Grade 1 $300,000 Prioress Stakes; the Grade 1 $600,000 Diana Handicap and the Grade 2 $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes featuring the return of Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice.

Over the last 12 years 'Horse Whisperer' Ed Crothers and his staff at Cedar Brook Farm have broke and trained over 3100 horses including horses that others could not break. Ed has continued to use and perfect the techniques that he has developed over the years, by combining all the lessons he has learned. His holistic approach to horsemanship is to use veterinarian and chiropractic treatment to ensure soundness before beginning training. Currently Ed is entrusted with the care and stud career of stallion Arctic Bright View – better known as “Silver” to the public – one of the selected horses starring in the recently released “The Lone Ranger.” He will walk us through a lifelong of equine experiences and will explain his approach to handling bad behavior horses. In the second segment, a frequent guest on this show Tom Law who is a native of Saratoga Springs, will look at the 150th year at the historic track and handicap Friday's Grade 3 $150,000 Schuylerville Stakes and Saturday's Grade 3 $200,000 Shuvee Handi

Terence Collier, the director of Marketing at Fasig-Tipton Sales and the Senior Sales Announcer has been with the Lexington, Kentucky based company since 1976. They are holding a unique sale on Monday featuring many stakes horses currently racing. The select yearling auction season kicks off at Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky headquarters July 15, 2013 and this year there’s a bonus. Immediately following the yearling session, Fasig-Tipton will offer a new auction: the summer sale of selected horses of racing age. With this sale, Fasig-Tipton is attempting to establish a new tradition of selling an estimated 50 to 65 “horses with meaningful racing potential to showcase to the sport’s leading buyers,” as chief executive Boyd Browning describes it in the auction’s promotional material. Mr. Collier will tell us about this new venue for his company and what are his feelings and expectations about it. In the second segment, we will tour the country with Ed Meyer as our handicapper - BC win and Your In Grade 3 $200,000 A G

Since there is a lot of good racing this week, we will focus on handicapping and picking winners. Our first guest will be DRF's writer/handicapper John McDulin. We will focus on the big day at Prairie Meadows with three Gr.3's races - the $300,000 Cornhusker Handicap; $250,000 Iowa Derby and $200,000 Iowa Oaks. Then we go to California for two Breeders' Cup Win and you're In stakes. DRF's west coast columnist Steve Anderson will break down the Gr.1 $300,000 Shoemaker Mile and the Grade 1 $250,000 Triple Bend Handicap from Hollywood Park. On the east coast, we will be joined by NYRA's new Director of Communications and longtime handicapper Eric Wing who will handle for us the big races at Belmont on Saturday, the Gr.2 $200,000 New York Stakes and the Gr.3 $150,000 Victory Ride Stakes.

Sid Fernando is president of eMatings.com and Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc. (WTC), owner of eNicks. A former bloodstock editor and columnist at Daily Racing Form, Sid is an internationally known pedigree writer whose articles have appeared in leading thoroughbred racing and breeding publications around the world, including Owner-Breeder, Racing Post, North American Trainer, The Thoroughbred Times, Thoroughbred Daily News, Turf Diario, and Pacemaker. He will talk about the breeding industry and his involvement as the president of eMating.com and Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc. In the second segment handicapping maven Dan Cronin, himself a son of legendary handicapper Hap Cronin, with many documented streaks of winners which included sweeping entire cards with top winners many times, will join our host in handicapping the $300,000 Gr.1 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park; the $150,000 Gr.2 Hollywood Oaks at Betfair Hollywood Park; the $300,000 Gr.2T Colonial Turf Cup at Colonial Downs and the $100,000

Mandy Minger, Vice President of Marketing, has been with Daily Racing Form since 1992. Minger began her career in thoroughbred racing as a groom at Philadelphia Park and in the publicity department at the Atlantic City Race Course. In 1991, she joined The Racing Times and, following the publication's closing, moved to Daily Racing Form as marketing coordinator in 1992. She held various marketing positions before assuming her current position in 2000. Minger is President of the Turf Publicists of America, a member of the Eclipse Awards Steering Committee and is active in thoroughbred retirement causes. She will tell us about her responsibilities in her current position at the Daily Racing Form and talk a little about her involvement with organizations such as Old Friends Equine active in thoroughbreds retirement causes. In the second segment, John Asher, Vice President of Racing Communications at Churchill Downs Race Track (“CDRT”), has worked in the Thoroughbred racing industry as an award-winning journalist

Claire Novak won top honors in the feature/advance division for her story that appeared on June 8 on ESPN.com entitled “Unforgettable Day at Belmont Park.” The article chronicled the events of June 8, when Triple Crown hopeful I’ll Have Another was scratched from the Belmont, becoming the first horse in 78 years to win the Derby and Preakness and miss the third jewel of the series. She will give us the inside scoop of what is going on at Belmont Park these days in preparation for the last leg of the Triple Crown. She will be receiving an engraved Tiffany crystal bowl, to be presented June 5 at Belmont Park during the official draw breakfast for the 145th running of the Belmont Stakes. Another frequent guest on this show, Dan Illman will undertake with our host the task of separating the contenders from the pretenders in this Belmont Stakes. They will also dissect some of the other graded stakes on the card. Winning Ponies is offering some unique prizes in a Belmont Stakes handicapping challenge. For the con

The richest night of racing in the 40-year history of Penn National is unfolding on Sat. June 1 with the inaugural running of the $500,000 Penn Mile anchoring a card that will also include the $250,000 Mountainview Handicap, the $150,000 Pennsylvania Governor’s Cup, the $50,000 Penn Dash, and a pair of $60,000 sprints for Pennsylvania-bred or Pennsylvania-sired horses. Dan Silver who recently took up his new responsibilities as director of racing operations at Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course since the last time he was on our show, will talk about the challenges of his new job, and the huge racing action night at Penn National Saturday June 1st. In the second segment, Dick Jerardi who will be the paddock handicapper that evening, will team up with our host in 'capping the $150,000 Pennsylvania Governor's Cup Handicap; $250,000 Mountainview and the new $500,000 Penn Mile Stakes.

Our first guest Frank Mitchell will discuss classic winning bloodlines and who has the stamina to get the distance in the grueling 1 1/2 mile Belmont Stakes. Frank Mitchell is the author of Racehorse Breeding Theories, as well as the book Great Breeders and Their Methods: The Hancocks. In addition to writing the column “Sires and Dams” in the Daily Racing Form for nearly 15 years, he has contributed articles to Thoroughbred Daily News, Thoroughbred Times, Thoroughbred Record, International Thoroughbred, and other major publications. Our second guest is writer/handicapper Frank Angst from the Blood-Horse. We will review the Derby and Preakness and discuss the major races to be run on Memorial Day Monday. Frank and John will handicap the $150,000 Gr.3 Arlington Classic and the $150,000 Gr.3 Arlington Matron from Arlington Park; the $150,000 Gr.2 Sheepshead Bay from Belmont Park and the $150,000 Gr.2 American Handicap from Betfair Hollywood Park.

This is Preakness weekend and we have 2 guests with different connections to the race. This is also the 40th anniversary of Secretariat's Triple Crown and no one captured his essence on film over the years other than photographer Tony Leonard. After his passing last year, Bobby Shiflet put together a partnership to protect Leonard's legacy. Many in the industry thought Leonard's work would be broken up, but through Shiflet's efforts he has ensured that his work will be preserved for posterity. His goal is to preserve and provide access to his body of work and to keep the memory of of the historic horses he immortalized alive for future generations to enjoy. Secretariat's final time for the Preakness was changed to a track record after review of the tapes this year. Our second guest Tom Law, is the Managing Editor of ST Publishing, Inc., the award-winning publishing company that produces the Saratoga Special and Steeplechase Times. He has been at Pimlico all week watching the works and the behind-the-scene hap

Mike Watchmaker is the national handicapper for Daily Racing Form. He first joined the Form in 1980, and was named New York columnist in 1983. He left the Form in 1991 to join The Racing Times, then worked for NYRA, where he was program handicapper and morning line maker before rejoining the Form in 1998. He will review his observations of Oaks/Derby weekend and the impact the Derby will have on upcoming Triple Crown races. In the second segment our own Ed Meyer will be our guest. He was its original host for over 2 1/2 years, beginning in December of 2008. He tackled this task while he was Publicity Director at River Downs. For those of you who missed his blog on Derby eve, he gave out ORB as his top pick. He will join John in analyzing some of the main stakes races this week-end: at Belmont The $200,000 Gr.2 Peter Pan Stakes; at Betfair Hollywood Park the $100,000 Gr.3 Senorita Stakes and the $70,000 added Came Home Stakes; and finally at Woodbine the $150,000 Queenston Stakes.

For this year's Kentucky Oaks and Derby preview, we have lined up a trifecta of handicappers representing the country from coast to coast, who will help us put the Oaks and Derby picture into perspective. West-coast based Jay Privman, Louisville's own Jennie Rees and Daily Racing Form's East coast handicapping editor Dan Illman. Jay Privman covers the Southern California circuit plus such national events as the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup. He is the author of Breeders' Cup: Thoroughbred Racing's Championship Day and a contributor to Champions. Jennie Rees has been associated with the Louisville Courrier-Journal as a turf writer for the last 28 years. Prior to that, she had a stint of 2 years with the Rochester Times-Union as a sportswriter copy editor. She was a member and former president of the National Turf Writers Association. She was also a key member of team that won Eclipse Award for on-line/multi-media coverage, in 2008. Dan Illman is the DRF.com Handicapping Editor and host of the Daily Racing For

The Kentucky Derby is almost upon us and our first guest is last year's Kentucky Derby winning trainer Doug O'Neill. He won both the Derby and the Preakness Stakes with 'I'll Have Another'. He knows how to get his colt in top shape for the first jewel of the Triple Crown. This year he will be represented by 'Goldencents', winner of the Santa Anita Derby in his last. He will give us a comparison between both colts and a feeling of how confident he is about his charge this year. In the second segment our host will be joined with Horseplayer Magazine publisher Tom Quigley. He will tell us a little about the Horseplayer Magazine and then lend his expertise in handicapping the #300,000 Snow Chief Stakes and the $300,000 Melair Stakes both at Hollywood Park, the $150,000 Gr.3 Westchester Handicap at Belmont Park, and possibly the $200,000 Gr.3 Derby Trial from Churchill Downs.

Remi Bellocq will talk a little about what keeps him busy at Equine Programming for Bluegrass Community and Technical College these days, which he joined after 18 years in various management positions at racetracks across North America, notably Santa Anita in southern California. Remi will tell us about their trip to Abu Dhabi in Nov. 2012, and all the fund raising efforts to support their teaching horses at the College. He will brush over the new online course offerings, summer classes in the field of horse racing, and talk a little about the Equine Industry Workforce Certificate obtained by its graduates. He will give us a feel of what a typical day is like for NARA students. He will go over some NARA statistics and how we can get in touch with that organisation. In the second segment DRF columnist Byron King will be our guest handicapper. He will help John analyze the Doubledogdare Stakes on Friday and the Coolmore Lexington on Saturday, both at Keeneland; and the Illinois Derby at Hawthorne and the Santa

Darren Rogers is the Senior Director of Communication and Media Services at Churchill Downs. As one of the busiest men in racing over the next four weeks, he'll be discussing the impact of the Kentucky Derby and Oaks point system on this year's races. Darren will also update listeners on any new activities that will be incorporated into Kentucky Derby Week at Churchill Downs. As horses begin to ship in for training at the historic oval, he'll give us updates on any training plans for those on the grounds and those ready to ship in. In the second segment, Mike Battaglia will be handicapping for us the three Grade 1 races at Keeneland on Saturday - the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes, the Jenny Wiley Stakes and Madison Stakes. He will also be giving his handicapping insights into the Arkansas Derby and a sneak peak into the odds for Kentucky Derby 139.

Julie Balog is the Director of Communications at the Keeneland Association, the world’s largest Thoroughbred auction company and a world-class Thoroughbred race course, where she joined in 1999. She has led Keeneland’s media outreach relations efforts. Keeneland is unveiling a host of enhancements for the upcoming spring meeting to help make betting easier and more enjoyable for fans. Aditional race analysis this spring from handicapper Katie Mikolay Gensler and longtime Keeneland handicapper Mike Battaglia for each race with Gensler concentrating on offering up-to-the-minute analysis from the Keeneland Paddock. In addition, staff from such local and trade media outlets as the Blood-Horse, Daily Racing Form and Lexington Herald-Leader will provide their daily selections for each race on in-field board and in-house televisions. Gensler, along with handicappers Jeremy Plonk and Joe Kristufek, will give selections on Keeneland’s twitter handle @keenelandracing. Julie will give us the lowdown on all the innovatio

Anna Ford from New Vocations will be our first guest. She is the program Director in charge of the Thoroughbreds & Adoption Office. This program produces the simulcast television feed for Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race which runs informational slates that feature retired racehorses available for adoption. All of the featured horses are from recognized racehorse adoption and aftercare organizations, such as the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program and CANTER. Anna will fill us in about this wonderful program. In the second segment, Michael Beychok, who won the $1 million first-place prize and title of 2012 Daily Racing Form/National Thoroughbred Racing Association Handicapper of the Year by a single dollar at the 13th annual DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship last January at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, will reminisce on how it felt to win that title, and join our host in handicapping some of the major events happening this week-end: the Gr. 1 $1,000,000 Florida Derby