Latest news with #RacefortheCrown
Vancouver Sun
08-05-2025
- Automotive
- Vancouver Sun
Hastings Racing Club helps parlay casual fans into full fledged owners
Last weekend's Kentucky Derby drew its largest North American TV audience in 30 years with an average of 17.7 million viewers tuning into NBC to see Sovereignty win the 151st running of the storied race, according to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, How much of the six per cent uptick in interest was due to the recent Netflix series Race for the Crown is a matter of opinion. However, as we also saw with the surge in popularity of Formula One following the streaming service's Drive to Survive reality series, it can't have hurt. While there was certainly a larger-than-normal crowd watching from the Hastings' grandstand last weekend, the difficult trick for Vancouver's racing industry is turning new, or once-a-year, racegoers into regular fans and ultimately, horse owners. Horse Racing, despite being described on the Netflix show by former Major League Baseball star-turned-race horse-owner Jayson Werth as the 'most underrated sport on the planet,' can be daunting to the newcomer. At Hastings, which hosts live racing this weekend, the path to ownership and understanding the sport is simplified through the popular Hastings Racing Club which, with an annual membership fee of $300, puts the Sport of Kings within the reach of ordinary fans. Now in its tenth year, the Hastings Racing Club has around 150 members who, as part of their membership, are also registered as individual owners. And they will be out in force at Hastings this weekend with Bakburner, one of the club's three horses, slated to carry the club's distinctive blue and white silks. The club is managed by Mark Freeman and Matt Elder, both of whom began their Horse Racing adventure as members. 'The experience for people once they join up and get here is incredible,' Freeman said. 'And the benefits you get as a partial owner of a horse just fosters more interest in the game.' Formerly a professional hockey player, Freeman is a walking advertisement for the club's ability to convert its members into fully-fledged Horse Racing insiders. He became interested in the sport after meeting the racing club's founder, the late Richard Yates. Subsequently, Freeman became so immersed in racing that he first became an owner with friends before ultimately earning his trainer's licence. He said: 'The racing club is a perfect way for people to get their feet wet without the bills you would normally get owning a horse outright. It gives people a taste of it and then, once they become familiar with it and see how the inner workings go, they're really excited about jumping into more of a regular ownership.' Freeman's fellow manager Matt Elder agreed. 'It's an excellent no-risk way to test the waters of thoroughbred ownership,' he said. 'With the experience and social network that comes with being a Hastings Racing Club participant, many of our members have used this as a springboard to own bigger shares of horses of their own.' Both practice what they preach. In addition to their duties as racing club managers at Hastings this weekend, Freeman also hopes to saddle Matsqui, a five-year-old mare he trained to win the valuable Monashee Handicap last season and who is also part-owned by Elder and several other friends, all of whom met through Hastings Racing Club. Hastings Race 2: Trainer Dino Condilenios hit the board with all three of his opening day runners and THIRSTY FRIEND could hold a fitness advantage over his rivals following a solid winter campaign in California and Arizona. Hastings Race 3: BAKBURNER has dropped slightly in class to make his debut for the Hastings Racing Club. He's been working well in the mornings, represents a traditionally fast-starting barn and looks the one to beat.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Simone Biles, the Birkheads, Selma Blair and More Attend the Barnstable Brown Gala Ahead of the 2025 Kentucky Derby
The stars were aligned for this year's Barnstable Brown Gala! On Friday, May 2, a day before the 2025 Kentucky Derby, celebrities including Simone Biles, Selma Blair and Aaron Rodgers attended the 36th iteration of the annual event, which is held in Louisville, Ky. Dierks Bentley, Tracy Morgan, Mickey Guyton, Scott Stapp and Travis Tritt were also in attendance, as was TJ and John Osborne of Brothers Osborne and Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook. Larry Birkhead and his daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead — whom he shared with the late Anna Nicole Smith — similarly attended the event, which they've been a staple at in recent years. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Related: Meet the Stars of Netflix's Race for the Crown (Including the Jockey Favored to Win the 2025 Kentucky Derby!) Chris Barnstable-Brown, one of the event's organizers, tells PEOPLE that the event was "meaningful" for Biles, 28, who was joined by her husband, Jonathan Owens, and her mother, Nellie Biles, who is a Type 2 diabetic. "My daughter, Catherine, is a Type 1 diabetic, and Nellie and Catherine were comparing their continuous glucose monitors they both wear as a 'fashion accessory,' " he says. Rodgers, 41, meanwhile, "was flanked by many of his former teammates, all of whom are incredibly loyal to him," Chris adds, further detailing, "He posed for a picture with his crew before hitting the back and jamming out." As for music at the event, Chris tells PEOPLE, "The performances were nonstop." Some of those who performed included Boyz II Men and Joey Fatone, among others. The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! The Barnstable Brown Gala was founded by twin sisters Patricia Barnstable Brown and Priscilla Barnstable, along with their mother, Wilma Barnstable, and Patricia's late husband, Dr. David E. Brown. The annual event — which sees stars across entertainment, news and sports come together to celebrate one of horse racing's biggest moments — takes place at Patricia's home. To date, the Barnstable Brown Gala has raised and donated over $21 million — including $1 million from the 2024 gala alone. All proceeds benefit the Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Related: Travis Kelce Excitedly Reacts to Winning His First Bet at Kentucky Derby — See the Video The 151st running of the Kentucky Derby took place a day later on Saturday, May 3, at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Sovereignty took home the first place title alongside jockey Junior Alvarado. The horse, who was trained by Bill Mott, won the race with 7-1 odds. Journalism (3-1) came in second, Baeza (13-1) placed third and Final Gambit (17-1) earned the fourth place spot. "It's more than even a dream come true," said Alvarado, who suffered an injury weeks ago that set him back, during the event broadcast. Mystik Dan, who was trained by Kenny McPeek, won last year's Kentucky Derby at 18-1 odds. Read the original article on People
Telegraph
28-04-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Willie Mullins and Dan Skelton deliver epic title race
The scrap for the National Hunt trainers' title between Willie Mullins and Dan Skelton has arguably made this season the most exciting in living memory. What would normally have been quite low-key meetings turned into incredibly memorable events. Who would have thought that a horse that had been placed at the Cheltenham Festival and been beaten by one-and-three-quarter lengths in the Melbourne Cup would be turning up at Plumpton in April? But that is what happened with Absurde. It was probably the greatest race ever run at the Sussex track. That was their reward for putting up such good prize money. In the end the endless cohorts of Mullins runners overwhelmed Skelton and his 255-horse cavalry, but the two contrasting protagonists should take huge credit for such a wonderful tussle. The fact that the public warmed to both of them says volumes about them as people. Mullins, always straight-talking, full of humility and unflustered in defeat. Skelton, the young gun who wears his heart on his sleeve and gives it everything. At no point did it feel like they were putting their own ambition in front of the best interests of their horses. This had a very different feel to 2004, when Paul Nicholls and Martin Pipe slugged out the title in the dying days of the season like two drunks on a pavement outside a pub. Reading the hugely respected Timeform's review of that season brought it all back to me. I quote. 'The RSPCA's equine consultant David Muir said it was 'outrageous' that Commercial Flyer was being asked to race three days in a row…former trainer Charlie Brooks was also vocal, arguing that Sindapour should not have run [at Sandown] less than 24 hours after taking a heavy last-flight fall at Newton Abbot.' Pipe's ruthless approach was not sport, it was vanity. The RSPCA have subsequently become an extreme organisation that one should not take too much notice of, as far as their attitude to racing is concerned, but David Muir was a guy that had a fairly good working relationship with racing. What this season should have taught us is that there is not much wrong with the structure of the end of the National Hunt season, as long as the challenges of climate change and extreme weather can be accommodated. Racing's version of Drive to Survive a triumph Last week Netflix released their horseracing equivalent of Drive to Survive. It's a triumph. Totally addictive. You will not be able to step away from the remote before you have binge-watched the entire series. Race for the Crown is the story of last year's Triple Crown series: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. And it reminds one of the importance of a good narrative in sport. Like Drive to Survive, Race for the Crown is made by Box to Box Films. Some might say they got lucky with the arrival of Frankie Dettori in California and the prominence of some pretty out-there owners involved in that series – none of whom I would want to train for. But like the Victorian freak shows, they have a certain fascination. But Box to Box make their own luck. They know what they are looking for to make a show that appeals to a wider audience than any particular sport normally reaches, and they get into the lives of their protagonists. Like Jeremy Clarkson's farm series, where he knew exactly what he had found when he stumbled across Kaleb and Gerald Cooper, Box to Box can spot a good human interest story. The people who are good at making these programmes don't rely on luck. The only shame, however, was that no grooms feature in Race for the Crown. Their hard work and dedication, their threadbare lives could have provided a poignant contrast to the opulent exhibitionism of the horse owners. Without giving too much away, there are so many high points in this series. The look in Dettori's eyes as he leaves hospital after his plane crash, a quarter of a century later, is still chilling. The absurd highs and gut-punching lows of horse racing are uncomfortable to watch. But the brilliance of the camera work and the use of the 1968 Thomas Crown Affair-style split-screen edits work brilliantly. You will love some of the characters featured in Race for the Crown, and you will hate others. But you will watch to the end, even if you already know the results.
USA Today
27-04-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Chunk of Gold trainer Ethan West is ultimate Kentucky Derby anomaly
Chunk of Gold trainer Ethan West is ultimate Kentucky Derby anomaly | Opinion Show Caption Hide Caption Kentucky Derby 2025: Baffert's return, and Journalism is the horse to watch Previewing the 151st Kentucky Derby, focusing on Journalism's chances and Bob Baffert's return. LOUISVILLE, Ky. — If you've stumbled upon the new Netflix documentary series 'Race for the Crown," which chronicles the lead-up to last year's Kentucky Derby all the way through the Triple Crown, you'd get the sense that horse racing is a sport of private jets, eccentric billionaires and corporatized trainers collecting dozens of high-priced 2-year olds hoping just one will be good enough to get in the starting gate on the first Saturday in May. And that depiction is … not exactly wrong. Especially these days, the reality is that oil sheikhs, massive racing partnerships and ultra-wealthy American moguls buy up so much of the top-end horse flesh and send them to such a small handful of high-profile trainers that the odds are stacked almost impossibly against someone like Ethan West. Who is Ethan West? In more ways than one, he's the ultimate Derby anomaly – but also the kind of personality that gives the race its mystique as the greatest two minutes in sports. Not only is West a relative unknown who races mostly at Turfway Park outside of Cincinnati and cheaper tracks in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, he's a mere 32 years old, has only had a trainer's license for seven years and is bringing a horse named Chunk of Gold to the Derby that was purchased for $2,500. And here's the best part: He actually has a decent chance to win. "It's a lot of hard work, even more luck," West told USA TODAY Sports after his horse drew the No. 19 post position. "It's unbelievable. I really don't have any other words to put into it." One of the great things about the Derby is that even if Chunk of Gold were to take the roses on Saturday, he wouldn't be among the top handful of shocking winners in the 151-year history of the race. That bar has been set impossibly high by the likes of Rich Strike coming home at 80-1 three years ago, Mine that Bird emerging from New Mexico to win at 50-1 in 2009 or Canonero II coming out of Venezuela as a laughingstock before blowing past everyone to win by daylight in 1971. Coming off a pair of solid second-place finishes in the Louisiana Derby and Risen Star Stakes in New Orleans, the quickly-improving Chunk of Gold wouldn't be a total stunner. But even Canonero II, who was famously sold to his Venezuelan owners as a yearling for $1,200, wasn't as humbly priced when you consider that he would have cost around $9,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars today. When you consider the whole package – a relatively new trainer who has only won 168 career races at any level going up against multiple Hall of Famers and a $2,500 horse in the same starting gate as Derby favorite Journalism, who was purchased for $825,000 – that's where the true magic of the Kentucky Derby resides. Not in a hedge fund guy who dresses for the race track like he's headed to Studio 54 and has Ace of Spades bottles in his refrigerator to celebrate a seven-figure Thoroughbred purchase, as the Netflix show suggested by focusing on 2008 Derby-winning owner Michael Iavarone. "People love our story," West said. "Young trainer, smaller owner. We've come a long way." Even the way West got into horse racing is pretty unusual. Whereas a lot of the successful young trainers like Chad Brown or Brad Cox entered the sport by doing low-level work around prominent barns and learned the craft by working their way up the apprenticeship ladder, West didn't have an obvious path to a training career. Introduced to the game by his grandparents, who owned a couple horses that ran at the Indiana tracks near where he grew up, it was actually his older brother Aaron who first pursued training as they both picked up odd jobs around the local track to make some money. Then after he graduated high school, the brothers leased a training center in Russell Springs, Kentucky, where they started a business that focused on raising and training younger horses. "That grew, and one of us had to go back to the racetrack," West said. "That was me. I didn't have a family at the time so I did the racetrack traveling back and forth and then in 2018 I took a license out on my own and started my own (stable). It's unorthodox. Most kids have a foot into it, they have a dad in the business or a mentor they can follow under. We were just kind of winging it and now we both have our own productive businesses." While working in Russell Springs, West of course had heard about Terry Stephens, arguably the town's most prominent resident and the owner of a steel manufacturing company that ranks among the country's biggest chain-link fence distributors. West knew of Stephens but did not know him personally. It just so happened, though, that Stephens purchased a half-interest in the horse last year from Chris Melton, who also runs a Kentucky-based training center and had originally purchased him at a 2-year old auction for $2,500. Originally slated to go to a trainer in Maryland, Stephens preferred that the horse run in Kentucky and his advisor recommended West based on a prior relationship. After Chunk of Gold impressively won his debut, Stephens – who owned a piece of 2021 Derby fourth-place finisher O Besos – bought out the rest of the horse for $100,000. The first time West met Stephens in person was in February before Chunk of Gold ran second in the Risen Star, putting him in contention for the Derby. "We're so proud of the horse," West said. "He's brought us a long way. It's easy to say, 'Oh, we're going to get this horse to the Kentucky Derby, but now here we are. It's cool. I really don't know how to put it into words." Now a father of three whose wife, Paige, is a racetrack photographer, West's life could change in significant ways over the coming weeks. Regardless of how Chunk of Gold performs on Saturday, just having this platform at the Derby will give him the kind of name recognition and credibility that could open doors into a level of horse racing that typically takes longer than seven years as a trainer to achieve. "Whether you're training horses down there or up here, the horse still comes first," he said. "It's your responsibility to get them in the spot where they can compete whether they're a mediocre horse or a notch below or above, turf, dirt, that's our job to figure out. That's all the same. But with the media, the publicity, it's a whole new world." And then, of course, there's the most important question: Can he win? That's what the connections for all 20 horses have to figure out this week, but West thinks Chunk of Gold has a case. Though he's won just once in four starts, he's taken forward steps in each race and shown the ability to overcome some adversity in each of his three second-place finishes. That portends well for a Derby where it's hard to avoid traffic trouble in a 20-horse field, and Chunk of Gold should be positioned somewhere in the middle of the pack early and give himself a chance coming around the final turn. Is he good enough? Time will tell. But the mere fact that a $2,500 horse and a 32-year old trainer who's never won a Grade 1 stakes can compete for the sport's most coveted prize shows another side – and arguably a better side – of horse racing that you're not going to see on Netflix.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Sean Woods introduced as new head boys' basketball coach at Scott County
Georgetown, Ky. (FOX 56) — Scott County High School introduced its brand-new boys' basketball head coach, Sean Woods, on Tuesday. 'This situation right here at this time in my life couldn't be any better,' Woods said. 'Perfect timing, with perfect people, in a perfect situation, with great tradition. Something that I'm used to.' Sean Woods introduced as new head boys' basketball coach at Scott County This Netflix docuseries is about what it takes to 'Race for the Crown' Long journey to the NFL draft is only the beginning for college prospects aiming to make the pros Woods has 14 years of head coaching experience at the collegiate level, where he has spent time at Mississippi Valley State, Morehead State, and most recently Southern. Back in his playing days, Woods spent four seasons at the University of Kentucky, playing on 'The Unforgettables' in 1992 under Hall of Fame head coach Rick Pitino. 'Getting to open a brand-new high school. Continuing the amazing tradition with Scott County High School basketball, and with a legend like Shawn Woods is just a match made in heaven,' Principal Elizabeth Gabehart said. 'I'm excited for the opportunities for our players. I'm excited for our students as well as our community.' It's been six years since the retirement of the late great Billy Hicks and the opening of crosstown rival Great Crossing High School, and since then the Cardinals have had five losing seasons. Woods will look to bring Scott County back to its former glory. Amber Spradlin murder case officially moved to Pike County 2 charged after pounds of meth, stolen gun seized during Kentucky traffic stop Suspect in custody following Owensboro shooting 'I'm the connection between what we call old school and new school. The good thing is, I've coached my son, who's in the new school, so I have familiarity with it,' Woods said. 'It's just a different language, a different tone. But the fun and the passion for coaching kids and raising young people, it runs through me.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
