Auerbach's Karma with CARMA
Look in the winner’s circle after any offspring of Unusual Heat wins a race and you’ll likely see a petite, brown-haired woman hugging the jockey, high-fiving the trainer, or congratulating the owner. Madeline Auerbach fiercely champions her former racehorse-turned-stallion, and she, along with trainer Barry Abrams, has been his biggest booster. Read Full Story

Wedding at the Wire
A relationship that began nine years ago will culminate in a wedding revolving around two passions the betrothed couple share: horse racing and Saratoga Race Course. Between the third and fourth races on the twilight card of Saratoga’s final Friday of the season, Aug. 29, Jim Barbetta and Michelle Mattiske of Waterford, N.Y., will exchange vows courtesy of the track’s first-ever “Race to the Altar” contest. Read Full Story

Purple Haze
With thousands of unwanted racehorses throughout the country and the ongoing effort by many to stop slaughter in the United States gaining momentum, the need for Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse adoption programs has never been greater. Read Full Story

Top o' the Hill
It was one of those eureka moments. In early 1992 veterinarian Kathleen Anderson drove through the front gates and down the dirt and gravel road at the Fair Hill Training Center. The barns were in tatters. Top-flight horses were non-existent. Read Full Story

Midsummer Derby Artist
When the owner of a Saratoga Springs, N.Y., gallery learned that a visitor thought a poster commemorating the 1985 Travers Stakes didn’t serve the gallery or the race proper respect, the owner challenged the visitor to create something finer. Read Full Story

A Different Kind of Beginning
In this day and age, more and more stories seem to be popping up about Thoroughbreds being retired from racing and retrained to do different jobs, from police assistants to track ponies to show circuit performers. Read Full Story

Like Father, Like Son
Brandon Meier stepped into the winner's circle, his mouth bloodied and teeth fractured. He grin was ear-to-ear, reminiscent of a boxer who had just survived a 12-round unanimous decision. Read Full Story

Under the Wire
Racing’s photo-finish camera was invented for and first used at Del Mar—and as Thoroughbred fans know, there are photo finishes virtually every day at the track, some of them so tight the phrase “won by a whisker” is literally true. Read Full Story

Go To Guy
In 1973 when Gene Guy was only 15 years old, he wasn't quite sure the direction in which his life was headed. And then he had a conversation with John W. Greathouse Sr. - one that would change his life forever. Read Full Story

Rehab Specialist
Hundreds of former racehorses owe their second careers to Leigh Gray. Gray not only rehabilitates racehorses for a living, she does it in her spare time. Read Full Story

Happy Trails
In the midst of the disappointments and tragedies that sometimes occur in the horse industry, it’s refreshing to hear a story with not one, but two happy endings. Read Full Story

Overcoming Obstacles
Brian Pitnick grinned widely as he stood under a television monitor in the Bay Meadows clubhouse the evening of April 11. “I can’t wait to see this chart,” the trainer said as he anxiously awaited the replay of his filly’s maiden-breaking score in the last race on a Friday night. Read Full Story

Burnett's Journey
On April 28, long time racetrack worker and paraplegic Rodney Burnett began a daunting journey with a worthy mission. Burnett, 51, is currently en route to the West Coast in a covered wagon on a 2,500-mile cross country trip that began in Williston, Fla. Read Full Story

Great Expectations
On the morning of April 30, as the eyes of the nation turned to Churchill Downs for the upcoming running of the 134th Kentucky Derby, a Brook Ledge horse van arrived at Stephens Thoroughbreds in Ocala, Fla. Nicanor was shipping to Fair Hill. Read Full Story

Picture Perfect
When Shawn Faust wanted to enhance his portrait studies in oils, the equine artist enrolled in a class with Daniel Greene, one of America’s foremost artists in oils and pastels. Read Full Story

Overcoming Adversity
Because of the physically demanding nature of competitive sports, it is rare when athletes find their prime after two decades of competing, especially once they hit the magical age of 40. It is even more uncommon for an athlete to find that prime after overcoming several injuries, a life-threatening illness, and a pair of childbirths. But that is exactly what Tammi Piermarini has done. Read Full Story

Living the Dream
Pam Stockard’s first dream as a child was to ride racehorses at Churchill Downs. Her second dream as an adult, perhaps more fanciful than the first, was to have her artwork exhibited at the Kentucky Derby Museum. Dreams do, indeed, come true: the drawings and paintings of the Churchill Downs exercise rider will be part of an exhibition of art by members of the track’s backside community. Read Full Story

Record Smasher
Records are made to be broken. Yada, yada, yada. You never hear anybody say that records are made to be smashed. But on the closing night of March 29 at Delta Downs, after winning both ends of the Daily Double, Gerard Melancon guided Bandido under the wire 3 1/2 lengths clear. Say hello to win number 146 and a meet record smashed. Read Full Story

Safety First
In 1986, Art Gray watched one of his closest friends—driver William “Billy” Haughton—die due to injuries suffered in a harness racing collision at Yonkers Raceway. The accident happened about two months after another driver, Dave Dunckley, was killed at Roosevelt Raceway in a similar type of accident. Read Full Story

Colton Makes a Briefback
To say that Robert Colton is back in the saddle could be slightly misleading, since he never really left. The 51-year-old jockey has been galloping horses since he stopped race riding in 2002, but now he’s donning silks in an attempt to reach a specific milestone. Colton wants to ride 4,000 winners. Read Full Story

Working on a Comeback
Every morning for more than four decades David Vance made the same trek up Interstate I-71 to Turfway Park. Beginning in 1966, his first year as a trainer, Vance’s schedule was the same, waking up at the crack of dawn, jumping in his car, and venturing to the Florence, Ky., racetrack to tend to his stable of horses. But Dec. 9, while making the drive for who-knows-how-many-thousandth-time, life changed in an instant. Read Full Story

The Hardest Mile
Feb. 14 was a relatively normal day for Justin Vitek, although the jockey felt a little more fatigued than usual after riding in several races at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky. Normally a strong competitor, Vitek was unaware that two days later he would be diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-growing form of cancer. Read Full Story

A Satisfying Ride
Write about a kid who loved racing, a horse called Daisy Mae, and summers spent on a big ranch out in South Dakota, and you end up with a tale straight out of My Friend Flicka. Read Full Story

All in the Family
Jackie Davis was three years old when she rode a horse for the first time. As a child, she spent all of her time at the racetrack, shadowing her father, Robbie, as he made a career as a jockey. Read Full Story

The Perfect Ending
Sherpa Guide found a friend in author Maggie Estep, who followed the New York-bred throughout his 39-race career and claimed him so he would be guaranteed a good retirement home. Read Full Story

Much Too Young
Nearly three decades ago, Arlene Phillips predicted she wouldn’t leave horse racing any time soon. At age 83 and much too young to hang it up, Phillips continues to breed, own, and train Thoroughbreds despite her advanced age. Read Full Story

Classic Success
Danzel Brendemuehl’s passion for Thoroughbred racing was ignited – almost literally – when she was just 16 years old. Living in Malibu, Calif. in 1973, she watched as the nearby mountains burned with raging wildfires and knew she would have to leave the area. What she didn’t know was how the evacuation would change her life. Read Full Story

Flipping Lips
By now, most horse racing fans have long forgotten about the infamous Blairwood-Briarwood switcheroo on Kentucky Derby day at Churchill Downs in 1988. But one person who still remembers the event well is Barb Borden. Although Borden was not involved in the incident, the next 20 years of her career were directly impacted because of it. Read Full Story

Make It or Break It
Timothy Thornton's injuries from race-riding include, in chronological order, a broken right wrist that was misdiagnosed and later required surgery; torn ligaments in the same hand; torn ligaments in a left leg; a torn left rotator cuff; and innumerable bumps and bruises  And he has only been wearing silks for the past five years. Read Full Story

Running Back to the Track
At 6-foot-1, 220 pounds, Maurece “Moe” Williams is not your typical Thoroughbred trainer. Of course, not too many trainers are former college football stars or retired NFL running backs either. Read Full Story

The Making of a Trainer
Kellyn Gorder is a skilled horseman and one of the few trainers, say his clients, who is truly worthy of that description. Gorder is not famous – yet. But those who work closely with him feel he is on the verge of a career breakthrough. Read Full Story

Fighting for a Happy Ending
Last July the sudden kick from an aggravated horse left trainer Elaine Ferri with 100 facial fractures and stole the use of her left eye. Since then, she has been fighting a daily battle filled with pain, depression, and the financial strain of a six-figure medical bill. Read Full Story

Racetrack Original
They call Camac "a Calder original," but the more appropriate term might be “racetrack original.” Brought up on the backstretches of Mid-Atlantic racetracks like Delaware Park and Garden State Park, he inherited a love for horses and the skill to handle them from his father, leading trainer Charles Camac. Read Full Story

Harris' Long Climb to the Top
On Dec. 1, a longshot wired the field in the final race on a cold day at Hawthorne Park, but it wasn’t the winner Wildwood Pegasus. The longshot was jockey Sylvia Harris, who overcame two decades of hardship to capture her first career victory at the age of 40 and became a part of horse racing history. Read Full Story

The Quiet Man
Given his low profile in the racing industry, it is a bit remarkable that the 39-year-old Cornelio Velasquez is wrapping up a career-best season in 2007. Velasquez is no charismatic self-promoter. He rides with little fanfare, does not regale the media with tales of his racing exploits. Read Full Story