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The Brooklyn Handicap, 1904

The Brooklyn Handicap will be run today in its new position on the New York racing calendar as a Friday feature a day before the Belmont Stakes. The Brooklyn Handicap, run for the first time in 1887, once stood among America’s most significant stakes races ... Read full post >>

Colin's Belmont Stakes, 1908

"Great horses have been defeated by mischance, racing luck, injury, and lesser horses running the race of their lives. None of these, however, took Colin. He was unbeatable." – Kent Hollingsworth in 'The Great Ones'...Read full post >>

Belmont Park, "Consecrated to racing," 1937

The value of the land at Hollywood Park is why its owners decided its history as a race track will end in 2013. Think about that as you read this 1937 piece about Belmont Park from Turf & Sport writer O’Neil Sevier ... Read full post >>

Whirlaway's Kentucky Derby, 2013

In retrospect, all Triple Crown winners were born to be great. However, if we rewind to April and May of 1941, Whirlaway was just another 3-year-old who was, in the parlance of handicappers, "hard to figure" ... Read full post >>

Kentucky Derby, 2013

Here are four articles I authored for Hello Race Fans!, CBS Local, and Raceday360 ... Read full post >>

Kentucky Derby points and the last Derby shocker

Count me as a fan of the new Kentucky Derby qualifying point system that replaced graded stakes earnings as the measure to qualify for America's greatest race. When a two-year-old winning a race in Vinton, Louisiana in November qualifies him (or her) for the Kentucky Derby the following May, its safe to say the system is broken. As we approach the 139th Derby ... Read full post >>

Pittsburgh Phil's Thoughts on the Pari-mutuel Machines

In 1948, Horace Wade wrote an article titled "Uncle Phil's Boy" for the Turf and Sport Digest about James McGill. McGill, a lifetime "racetracker", was close to eighty years old working in California and Chicago as a racing official at the time of the articles publication ... Read full post >>

Citation before the Derby, April 1948

As I have written here in the past, I think Citation's 3-year-old season stands alone in racing history. An article from the Turf & Sport Digest published in May 1948 titled "The Latest Calumet Sensation" provides a unique perspective on the amazing Citation during his greatest year ... Read full post >>

Memories of 1951 Kentucky Derby winner Count Turf

One of my favorite things about Colin's Ghost is the growing collection of comments from racing people left on the site. The comments have ranged in content from long debates over the merits of one great horse or another to corrections where I have goofed a fact here or there. Far and away my favorite comments are those left by people with connections to significant moments and horses in racing history ... Read full post >>

A Bookmaker's Operation 1937

Among the pages of the Turf and Sport Digest from December 1937 is a valuable description of a bookmaking operation at the end of an era. It was written just prior to the widespread adoption of the pari-mutuel system in New York, the last significant place where bookmaking was tolerated at America's racetracks ... Read full post >>

Tim Mara, New York Bookmaker, 1937

Anyone who knows me a little bit knows that I am a big fan of pro football. Unfortunately, my team of choice since birth has been the Philadelphia Eagles. It's been a tough lifetime with no Super Bowls and a laundry list of letdowns. Like all good Philly fans, I hate the Cowboys with an unreasonable passion. I'm supposed to hate the Giants too ...
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Broadcasting the Kentucky Derby, 1935-1936

This week's focus is on an article that was written in 1935 by Turf and Sport columnist Jimmy Loftus. It offers rare insight into the content of early Kentucky Derby broadcasts and, even more interesting, it talks about how race fans reacted to the relatively new experience of listening to the race. As we often find when looking at the past, not much has changed ... Read full post >>

"Native Dancer looks beaten to me!" The Kentucky Derby, 1953

Last week I came across a review of the 1935 radio broadcast of the Kentucky Derby in the pages of the Turf and Sport Digest. This got me thinking about where the early recordings of the Derby (first broadcast in 1925) might be archived or if they still existed anywhere. ... Read full post >>

A Major Racing History Score

A few weeks ago I received an email from a guy in Baltimore who was selling a major piece of racing history. He had on E-Bay a bound set of the Turf and Sport Digest that covered a stretch from 1933 to 1977, forty-four years of racing during the peak of its popularity. I have written about my affection for Turf and Sport in this space before and have used it as a source on a few occasions. In doing a little research, I found only about ten libraries in the country that held all or a portion of the popular racing magazine that folded in the late 1980s ... Read full post >>

Alongside Joe Palmer, 1950

In the relatively brief time that I have been making an annual pilgrimage to Saratoga Springs, New York there are two places where I happily part with my money. The obvious one — with handicapping skills equal to an 8-year-old — is the racetrack. The other is the Lyrical Ballad Bookstore. For a student of racing history, there is no better place to browse and ultimately spend more than intended... Read full post >>

The Great American Race Track Project, 1865 to 2012

The idea is to document every thoroughbred race track in the United States. Before I even began compiling sources to consult, I came up with the grandiose name of "The Great American Race Track Project" it's now linked at the top of the page ... Read full post >>