e-ponies.com

Five days of fun at Churchill Downs including the final Downs After Dark of the Spring Meet! Theme = Caribbean Nights 🌺

See you at the races! 🏇

Start spreading the news - steeplechases are coming back to Laurel Park! For the first time since 2000, Laurel Park will host TWO National Steeplechase Association hurdle races on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 15.

Stop the presses! JOURNALISM is your 2025 Preakness Stakes winner with Umberto Rispoli aboard for trainer Michael McCarthy.

Next stop 🔜 The Belmont Stakes at Saratoga!

BALTIMORE, May 1973 —Sigmund Sommer's Sham, the powerful son of Pretense who was second to Secretariat in the Kenucky Derby, came out for his final Preakness workout this morning at Pimlico Race Course and impressed clockers and his trainer, Frank (Pancho) Martin, as he went five furlongs in 0:58 2‐5.

The $150,000‐added Preakness, with Secretariat and Sham the chief attractions, will be run at 13/16 miles Saturday before a crowd expected to number more than 55,000.

Martin Seems Pleased.

The big bay c**t went to the track sporting four bandages, which is not unusual for him, and reeled off fractions of 0:12, 0:24, 0:35 3‐5, 0:46 4‐5 and then galloped out six furlongs in 1:10 4‐5 under an exercise boy, Pedro Cachola, who with‐his. tack weighs about 135 pounds.

“He's ready. He couldn't be better. Anybody that beats him will have to do some running,” said Martin.
The possibility of an off track doesn't bother Martin. “No,” he said, everybody would like to have a fast track, but Sham has won the only two times he started on an off track.

“His mouth isn't bothering him at all now,” Martin continued, alluding to the two teeth that were knocked out when Sham hit his mouth on the side of the starting gate at the Derby. “He'll have no excuse Saturday.”
New York Times.