Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Big Brown Co-owner IEAH Stables To Sponsor Monmouth Stakes
Posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
IEAH Stables, part-owner of Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Haskell winner Big Brown, will be the presenting sponsor of Saturday’s $500,000 Monmouth Stakes, it was announced today by Bob Kulina, vice president and general manager of Monmouth Park.
The 1 1/8 mile Monmouth Stakes on turf, likely to draw a full field of top grass horses, will be headed by Big Brown, who is prepping for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic next month at Santa Anita Park. Big Brown, who won the Haskell Invitational on Monmouth’s main track, has not run on turf since breaking his maiden last summer at Saratoga.
“We are thrilled to be the presenting sponsor of the Monmouth Stakes,” said Michael Iavarone, co-president and co-CEO of IEAH Stables. “With this year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic being run on a synthetic track, running on grass was the next logical step for Big Brown, and what better place to do that than here, where he won the Haskell.”
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Loose Shoe of Big Brown May Be The Cause Of His Belmont Stakes Performance
Posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
According to a report in Newsday, Big Brown’s owner, Michael Iavarone, said a loose shoe might be the reason for the colt’s miserable performance in the Belmont Stakes last June 7 at Belmont Park.
Michael Iavarone, the co-president of IEAH Stables, told the newspaper he was e-mailed photos Saturday night that showed a slightly dislodged shoe on Big Brown’s right hind hoof.
“The picture shocked me,” Michael Iavarone said. “When the shoe spread, a nail could have been pinching him. Or he could have been stepping on a hot nail, which would have been worse. I’m guessing the nail went back in but not in the same spot. Or it could have been a loose shoe, which would be like trying to run with a wobbly cleat.”
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Big Brown Owners To Stop Giving Performance-Enhancing Drugs To Horses
Posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown’s owners said on Sunday that they would immediately stop giving performance-enhancing drugs to their horses.
Michael Iavarone, co-president of International Equine Acquisitions Holdings, told the New York Times that the 50+ horses owned by his stable would be drug free by October, and that he would pay for tests to be administered by state or track veterinarians before and after each of their races to prove it.
“I know Big Brown or any of our horses do not need this stuff to win,” Michael Iavarone said to The Times of the horse that won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes before faltering in the bid for the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes.
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Big Brown Owners To Donate Portion Of Belmont Stakes Earnings
Posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008
The owners of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown announced Friday they would donate a portion of the colt’s earnings from the $1 million Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 7, at Belmont Park to help a establish a scholarship fund for the young son of a Nassau County police officer who was critically injured in the line of duty.
In a news conference at Belmont Park, IEAH Stable owners Michael Iavarone and Richard Schiavo, both of Long Island, pledged to donate a substantial portion of whatever Big Brown earns in the final leg of racing’s Triple Crown toward college expenses for Baribault’s six-year-old son, Chris.
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Minority Interest in Curlin May Go On Sale
Posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Franklin County Senior Judge Roger Crittenden announced at a hearing on Wednesday, April 16, that he is ready to order the sale of assets held by companies affiliated with attorneys William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr., including their 20% interest on 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin.
Stonestreat Stables’ owner Jess Jackson, who owns 80% of Curlin, has the right of first refusal on the minority interest if Curlin goes up for sale, giving him a chance to take full ownership of Curlin, who recently won the $6-million Dubai World Cup.
Curlin, the son of Smart Strike, was purchased for $57,000 at the 2005 Keeneland September yearling sale. Curlin had an amazing 2007 campaign which includes winning the Arkansas Derby, Preakness Stakes as well as the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
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2006 Kentucky Derby Winner Barbaro To Rest at Churchill Downs
Posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Churchill Downs has been selected as the final resting place for 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, who was euthanized one year ago after a lengthy battle with laminitis. The announcement was made Tuesday, January 30, by Barbaro’s owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, at a Churchill Downs news conference.
Barbaro’s remains were cremated following his death on January 29, 2007, and his ashes will be interred outside of Gate 1 at Churchill Downs, in a large elevated space enclosed by bricks that is currently used as a garden. The site, which will be open to the public, will include a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue of the Kentucky Derby 132 winner that will be commissioned by the Jacksons and loaned to Churchill Downs as part of Barbaro’s official memorial site.
“Churchill Downs is deeply honored to be selected as the final resting place for Barbaro, who first captured our hearts with his impressive win in the 132nd Kentucky Derby and who demonstrated strength and determination in his long battle to overcome both injury and illness,” said Steve Sexton, president of Churchill Downs and executive vice president of Churchill Downs Incorporated. “Barbaro took his place in history on the first Saturday in May 2006 with a brilliant Kentucky Derby victory, but his accomplishments as a racehorse are certainly rivaled by the courage and resolve he displayed after his injury. We are grateful to the Jacksons for entrusting their beloved Derby champion to us.”
“Gretchen and I are pleased to be collaborating with Churchill Downs in this wonderful project,” said Roy Jackson. “In the year that has just preceded, we have spent much time thinking about Barbaro’s memorial and where it would be best placed. Churchill Downs became the obvious site for us. It was here that he ran his best race. It was here where we spent our most memorable day as horse owners and breeders. It was here where his racing fans could visit daily, and it was here at Churchill Downs where he was cordially invited to rest. We look forward to working with Steve Sexton and his team.”
In the coming weeks, Churchill Downs will install a bronze marker in the garden outside Gate 1 to designate the area where Barbaro’s ashes and bronze statue will be located.
The Jacksons are currently considering a select group of artists for the project and plan to make a final decision on the artist and statue design in the next few months. The Jacksons and Churchill Downs anticipate the statue’s completion and the formal unveiling and dedication of the Barbaro memorial site sometime in 2009.
To date, Barbaro will become the only horse buried on the grounds of Churchill Downs. The adjacent Kentucky Derby Museum has the remains of four Kentucky Derby winners interred on its property — Sunny’s Halo (1983), Carry Back (1961), Swaps (1955), and Broker’s Tip (1933).
Following Tuesday’s news conference, the Jacksons participated in an autograph signing session at the Kentucky Derby Museum, which was open to the public.
www.churchilldowns.com
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Curlin Not To Be Auctioned
Posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Special Judge Roger Crittenden disallowed to auction off ownership stake of William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. in 2007 Horse of the Year Curlin. During a 90-minute hearing on Tuesday, it was concluded that the plaintiffs did not have enough information about the assets of attorneys Gallion and Cunningham to force the auction.
The ruling comes in a lawsuit against Gallion and Cunningham, who were Curlin’s original owners through Midnight Cry Stables. They, together withMelbourne Mills Jr., are accused of bilking former clients out of at least $42 million in a $200 million settlement involving the diet drug fen-phen.
Their criminal trial is set for May 12. They have pleaded not guilty and are being held in the Boone County jail.
William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. sold an 80% stake in Curlin to a group led by Jess Jackson, the founder of Kendall-Jackson Winery and owner of Stonestreet Stables, and his wife, Barbara Banke, in February 2007. Jackson has since bought out two partners and became Curlin’s majority owner.
A state judge ordered Cunningham’s and Gallion’s assets, including Midnight Cry Stables, turned over to the plaintiffs to satisfy a $42 million judgment stemming from the lawsuit.
Lexington attorney Angela Ford who represents the plaintiffs said Gallion and Cunningham and the companies and foundations they ran have refused to turn over financial information since the judgment. “To date, there’s not been any answer served by any of the entities,” Angela Ford said. “And they haven’t turned over any assets.”
Ford sought to foreclose on Curlin after accusing Gallion and Cunningham of trying to sell the 20% stake in the horse.
Andre Regard, the attorney representing Tandy LLC, the parent company of Midnight Cry Stables, said Tandy and other companies aren’t party to the lawsuit and not required to turn over information to the plaintiffs.”We’re bringing these LLCs into court when they aren’t really plaintiffs,” Andre Regard said.
Judge Crittenden ordered Ford to issue requests for specific information about the companies and foundations and also ordered attorneys for Gallion and Cunningham to turn over to him their fee arrangements for a private review. He said any money paid to the attorneys but not spent could be turned over to the former clients. “That money may have been paid, but it still belongs to the defendants,” Crittenden said of legal fees paid by Gallion and Cunningham.
Curlin, who won Horse of the Year and top 3-Year-Old Male honors at the 37th Eclipse Awards Monday night, has been in training at the Fairgrounds in New Orleans.
Richard Getty, the attorney for Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables, echoed comments Jackson made Monday night about Curlin racing as a 4-year-old. JessJackson is considering running Curlin in the Dubai World Cup in March.
“I don’t think the horse is training for no particular reason,” Richard Getty said after the court hearing. “The horse is training because we expect to do something with it.”
Curlin won $5.1 million in purses in 2007, winning the Preakness Stakes and the Jockey Club Gold Cup before his Breeders’ Cup Classic win at Monmouth Park last October.
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