|
Big Sport Of Turfdom Award
The Big Sport of Turfdom Award has been given annually by the Turf Publicists of America since 1966 to a person or group who enhances coverage of Thoroughbred racing through cooperation with the media and Thoroughbred racing publicists. The Turf Publicists of America, founded in 1951, is made up of approximately 180 Thoroughbred racing publicists and marketing executives at various racetracks throughout North America with the shared goal of promoting the sport of Thoroughbred racing. Two-time recipients of the Big Sport of Turfdom Award include Penny Chenery (1973 and 2017), Laffit Pincay Jr. (1985 and 2000), Bob Baffert (1997 and 2015, the latter as part of Team American Pharoah), Mike Smith (2014 and 2015, the former as part of Team Zenyatta), and Ken McPeek (2002 and 2024). List of Big Sport of Turfdom Award winners *2024 – Ken McPeek *2023 – Jena Antonucci *2022 – Cody Dorman, namesake of Cody's Wish *2021 – Brad Cox *2020 – Tom Amoss *2019 – Mark Casse *20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thoroughbred Racing
Thoroughbred racing is a sport and industry involving the racing of Thoroughbred horses. It is governed by different national bodies. There are two forms of the sport – flat racing and jump racing, the latter known as National Hunt racing in the UK and steeplechasing in the US. Jump racing can be further divided into hurdling and steeplechasing. According to ''The Guardian'', the racing of Thoroughbreds has been steadily declining in popularity worldwide. Between 700 and 800 racehorses die in racing each year. Ownership and training of racehorses Traditionally, racehorses have been owned by wealthy individuals. It has become increasingly common in the last few decades for horses to be owned by syndicates or partnerships. Notable examples include the 2005 Epsom Derby winner Motivator, owned by the Royal Ascot Racing Club, 2003 Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide, owned by a group of 10 partners organized as Sackatoga Stable, and 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, owned b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark E
Mark may refer to: In the Bible * Mark the Evangelist (5–68), traditionally ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark * Gospel of Mark, one of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic gospels Currencies * Mark (currency), a currency or unit of account in many nations * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1928 * Finnish markka (), the currency of Finland from 1860 until 28 February 2002 * Polish mark (), the currency of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Republic of Poland between 1917 and 1924 German * Deutsche Mark, the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until 2002 * German gold mark, the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914 * German Papiermark, the German currency from 4 August 1914 * German rentenmark, a currency issued o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funny Cide
Funny Cide (April 20, 2000 – July 16, 2023) was an American Thoroughbred champion racehorse who won the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. He was the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby. He was a popular horse and remained a fan favorite in retirement at the Kentucky Horse Park. Background Funny Cide was bred at WinStar Farm in Versailles, Kentucky, but was foaled at the McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbred Farm, owned by Joe and Anne McMahon in Saratoga Springs, New York. His sire is Distorted Humor, who was then an unproven sire at WinStar, struggling to attract good mares. Belle's Good Cide, an Oklahoma-bred granddaughter of Seattle Slew, was already at the farm, and was therefore bred to him. She was then shipped to New York so her foal would be eligible for New York-bred races. Funny Cide was part of Distorted Humor's first American crop when his stud fee was $12,500, dropping down the next year to $10,000. Due to the success of Funny Cide and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Servis
John C. Servis (born October 25, 1958, in Charles Town, West Virginia) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer who was relatively unknown until May 2004 when his horse Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby. The colt then went on to win the Preakness Stakes further increasing Servis' reputation. Servis' Cathryn Sophia won 2016 Kentucky Oaks, winning by 2-3/4 lengths over Land Over Sea. In 2018, Servis won his first Breeders' Cup race with Jaywalk in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. Servis trains horses primarily out of Parx Casino and Racing in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. He was born into a family involved in the Thoroughbred racing industry. As a boy, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where his father worked as a jockey A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase (horse racing), steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pat Day
Patrick Alan "Pat" Day (born October 13, 1953, in Brush, Colorado) is a retired American jockey. He is a four-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey and was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1999. Day won nine Triple Crown races and 12 Breeders' Cup races. He was once the leader for career Breeders' Cup wins though he was later surpassed as the events were expanded after he retired. Pat Day retired in 2005 with 8,803 wins (ranked fourth all-time) and as the all-time leading jockey in money earned. He was a dominant rider on the Kentucky riding circuit and holds all of the career riding records at Churchill Downs and Keeneland. Day's signature wins include winning the inaugural $3 million Breeders' Cup Classic in 1984 aboard Wild Again and his partnership with Easy Goer in a rivalry with Sunday Silence. Technique Pat Day was known for being a patient rider with gentle hands and for not usi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbaro (horse)
Barbaro (April 29, 2003 – January 29, 2007) was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the 2006 Kentucky Derby but shattered his leg two weeks later in the Preakness Stakes which ended his racing career and eventually led to the decision to euthanize him. On May 20, 2006, Barbaro ran in the Preakness Stakes as a heavy favorite, but, after a false start, he fractured three bones in and around the fetlock of his right hind leg. The injury ruined any chance of a Triple Crown in 2006 and ended his racing career. The next day, he underwent surgery at the New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvania for his injuries. In July he developed laminitis in his left rear foot. He was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent five further operations, and his prognosis varied during an exceptionally long stay in the Equine Intensive Care Unit at the New Bolton Center. After his right hind leg eventually healed, he developed further laminitis in both front hooves. His v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Nafzger
Carl A. Nafzger (born August 29, 1941) is an American Hall of Fame horse trainer. Before he was involved in horse racing, he was a champion rodeo bull rider. Nafzger trained Unbridled, who won the 1990 Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic. In 1990, he was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer and the Big Sport of Turfdom Award. In 1994 he wrote a book entitled ''Traits of a Winner'', on the training of Thoroughbred horses, that was published by R. Meerdink Co. (). In 1998, Nafzger trained Banshee Breeze, who won that year's Eclipse Award for Outstanding 3-Year-Old Filly. In 2006, he was back in the national spotlight as the trainer of the colt Street Sense, who won the 2006 Breeders' Cup Juvenile and went on to win the 2007 Kentucky Derby. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Nafzger moved into semi-retirement, training only for two clients: James B. Tafel, owner of Street Sense, and Bentley Smith. Smith's first wife (who died in 1999) was the daughter of Unbridled' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Shirreffs
John A. Shirreffs (born June 1, 1945, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. Based in California, Vietnam War veteran John Shirreffs began training Thoroughbreds in 1978. He has won a number of stakes races with his most important coming in the 2005 Kentucky Derby when Giacomo scored a major upset. In 2007, another Shirreffs-trained horse scored a major upset when Tiago, a half-brother to Giacomo (both out of the mare Set Them Free) won the Santa Anita Derby. He is also the trainer of champion Zenyatta, beaten only once in twenty career starts, and winner of the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic in 2008 and Breeders' Cup Classic in 2009. In November 2009, Shirreffs became the first trainer to conquer both the Ladies' Classic and Classic in the same year, as Life Is Sweet romped home in the former and Zenyatta defeated males in the latter. Shirreffs grew up around horses at his family's farm. He served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam during t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerry Moss
Jerome Sheldon Moss (May 8, 1935 – August 16, 2023) was an American recording executive, best known for being the co-founder of A&M Records, along with trumpet player and bandleader Herb Alpert. Music career Early stages (1958–60) After graduating from Brooklyn College with a degree in English and serving in the United States Army, Moss began his music career by promoting " 16 Candles", a 1958 hit for the Crests on Coed Records. A&M Records (1960–99) In 1960, he moved to California, where he teamed up with Herb Alpert, forming Carnival Records in 1962 and running the company from an office in Alpert's garage. Discovering that the name was already taken, they dubbed their newly founded company A&M Records. Moss and Alpert agreed in 1989 to sell A&M to PolyGram for a reported $500 million. Both continued to manage the label until 1993, when they left because of frustrations with PolyGram's constant pressure to force the label to fit into its corporate culture. In 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dale Romans
Dale L. Romans (born August 14, 1966, in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American Thoroughbred racehorse trainer, best known for winning the 2011 Preakness Stakes with Shackleford and the Breeders' Cup Turf with Little Mike. He also upset American Pharoah in the 2015 Travers Stakes with Keen Ice. He won the 2012 Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer. Background and early career Dale Romans is the son of trainer Jerry Romans and grew up around horses at Churchill Downs in Louisville. He graduated from Butler High School in 1984 despite having dyslexia. Romans worked for his father from a young age. He once said, "I had a way with the horses. I could walk the worst horse in the country when I was 10 years old. My parents were divorced, and if my father had a bad horse he couldn't get on the van he'd come and get me at home to load the horse. I don't know what it was about horses, but they saved me as a child. The guys who worked for my dad took me in and I always felt at home here. I d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Stevens (jockey)
Gary Lynn Stevens (born March 6, 1963) is an American Thoroughbred horse racing jockey, actor, and sports analyst. He became a professional jockey in 1979 and rode his first of three Kentucky Derby winners in 1988. He had nine wins in Triple Crown races, winning the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes three times each, as well as ten Breeders' Cup races. He was also a nine-time winner of the Santa Anita Derby. He entered the United States Racing Hall of Fame in 1997. Combining his U.S. and international wins, Stevens had over 5,000 race wins by 2005, and reached his 5,000th North American win on February 15, 2015. His career successes were intertwined with significant injuries and periods of temporary retirement, mostly due to knee problems, from 1999 until 2000 and again from 2005 to 2013. He had an acting role in the 2003 film ''Seabiscuit''. After his second retirement from riding in 2005, he worked for TVG and then HRTV and NBC Sports as a horse racing analyst for seven ye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Durkin (sportscaster)
Tom Durkin (born November 30, 1950) is a semi-retired American sportscaster and public address announcer specializing in Thoroughbred horse racing. He was the race caller for NBC Sports from 1984 through 2010 and served as announcer for the New York Racing Association from 1990 until retiring in 2014. For his career-long dedication, he was awarded the Eclipse Award of Merit in January 2015. Life and career Durkin was born in Chicago, Illinois. He studied drama at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. In 1971, he was hired as a race caller at Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred races at county fairs in Wisconsin. He did this each summer through 1975 then the following year was employed by the ''Daily Racing Form'' as a call taker responsible for documenting the comments and statistics used in the official charts of the races at Cahokia Downs and Thistledown Racecourse. He went on to work as a race caller at Florida Downs in Oldsmar, Florida, Miles Park in Louisville, Kentuck ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
