Larry Jones must feel as though everyone is out to get him.

First, he strongly feels that foul play was involved in one his horses testing positive at Delaware Park this past week. Then, another crime was committed on Saturday at Belmont Park as stewards disqualified his Proud Spell from second place and placed her third for interference through the lane in the Grade 1 Mother Goose.

Proud Spell’s troubled trip began right at the break as she went straight to her knees. Pinned down along the inside turning for him, Alan Garcia aboard pace-setter Never Retreat came over and took away her path. Once switched out, Never Retreated then drifted towards the center of the track at the eighth pole, at which point Gabriel Saez directed Proud Spell back to the rail.

Merely 30 yards from the wire, Proud Spell did veer right and bump Never Retreat a shade, although clearly not affecting the final order. From the pan shot, the incident seems even less significant.

Nonetheless, the stewards deemed the action substantial enough to take Proud Spell from second and drop her to third — proving once again that the stewards in NY have ABSOLUTELY NO PULSE FOR THE GAME.

No Lava Man. And now, not even Heatseeker.

Nonetheless, a contentious, 11-race card kicks off at 3pm ET at Hollywood Park.

First race: 3 Sleepin In - 9 Solar Miss - 5 Dolly Daggers
2nd: 2 Victor’s Cry - 5 Yankee Stadium - 4 Star Time
3rd: 7 Carman - 4 Kingdom Come - 2 Giovanni
4th: 7 Trifecta King - 8 Cosmic Queen - 5 Emmy Darling
5th: 5 Hyperbaric - 7 Daytona - 1 Whatsthescript
6th: 7 Usurp - 11 Cherokee Tear - 6 Bestdressed
7th: 4 Call Transfer - 6 Dr. J J - 7 Pictural
8th: 6 Valiant Effort - 5 Barbecue Eddie - 12 Secret Shuttle
9th: 10 Magnificience - 5 Romance Is Diane - 2 Ashley’s Kitty
10th: 4 Tiago - 6 Student Council - 7 Go Between
11th: 10 Ima Offended - 2 Chimera Star - 9 Hot Little Bug

Horse2Watch: Pegasian

Pegasian made just his second career start at Belmont Park on June 22, a maiden special weight contest going 1 1/16 on turf.

After finishing a non-descript 10th and last in his debut, the Phil Serpe runner showed better early speed (more…)

Four weeks from Wednesday, Saratoga Race Course will open the gates for the 140th meeting, and preparations are well underway.

NYRA officials conducted their annual pre-Saratoga press conference this past week, an exercise more suited to generating sound bytes than producing actual news.

That said, talk of Saratoga is always welcomed, and some of the highlights included:

* Saturday, Aug. 9 will feature (more…)

As we begin to distance ourselves from Big Brown’s Belmont shocker, it is painfully evident how over-hyped the Triple Crown is, and how little attention the best horse in the world — Curlin — receives as he marches through his 4-year-old campaign.

Curlin’s dominating performance in the Stephen Foster against an overmatched field — and let’s face it, any field he could possibly encounter will be overmatched to him — went largely unnoticed.

What needs to be done so that racing can capitalize on all of the momentum the Triple Crown brought, and should conceivably carryover to Curlin? It certainly seems as though the past few weeks only produced a spotlight on Big Brown, and not the sport itself.

Wow, the trip handicappers have come out of the woodwork to criticize and/or support the ride Kent Desormeaux endured aboard Big Brown in the Belmont Stakes.

First things first… what happened during the first quarter mile in now way was the reason Big Brown raced his final half-mile the way he did.

However, the journey into the first turn did not help matters, either. Many believe Desormeaux was at fault for taking Big Brown abruptly to the outside. At that stage, the damage had already been done.

Mistake #1 — Should have held position into the first turn as opposed to letting Da’ Tara assume command and putting yourself in a position where you absolutely need to shift out. I am not buying this option was taken away with a slow brake. That incident was minor at best and not nearly enough to force you to alter strategy.

However, once this choice was made, Eibar Coa aboard Tale of Ekati did a masterful job of forcing Kent to make decisions into the turn. He got over just in time to pin Big Brown in, although I think Kent may have been more uncomfortable along the fence than Big Brown was.

Desormeaux was a shade too eager to get Big Brown out in the clear, and in doing so, totally grabbed a hold and yanked him out behind Tale of Ekati.

Big Brown has plenty of speed to prevent him from getting in situations like this, but Kent failed to take advantage of this.

That said, the shocking scene of horses flying by Big Brown rounding the turn were not a result of these actions one mile earlier.