A Year to Forget
Barely a week into the new year and already 2005 seems so long ago. I guess that speaks to what an abysmal year in racing it was: 2005 opened with indictments against 17 people for race fixing, fraud, and conspiracy; it closed with the retirement of Afleet Alex. In the months between, the Jockeys’ Guild collapsed into scandal and insolvency, three jockeys died, and NYRA barely escaped bankruptcy. In Massachusetts, Suffolk Downs cancelled the Massachusetts Handicap and Northampton Fair cancelled thoroughbred racing permanently. No, it wasn’t a very good year. Bill Finley, Jay Privman, and Jennie Rees catalog the woes and say goodbye to 12 months they’d all rather forget.
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Of course, it wasn’t all bad …
On the track: Afleet Alex amazed in the Preakness and then triumphed in the Belmont, Rock Hard Ten showed his true talent in the Strub and Goodwood, Ghostzapper dazzled in the Met Mile, Lost in the Fog wowed crowds in every race he ran before the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and Megahertz proved again and again what a dynamo she was on the turf, winning four out of six starts with her patented late kick.
In the press: This was John Scheinman’s year. Whether writing about a stakes race or the last start of a local favorite, the Washington Post racing correspondent delivered consistently fantastic coverage of the Maryland-Virginia circuit.
