JC / Railbird

Suffolk Downs Archive

At the Downs Today

Jockey Winston Thompson extended his winning streak to 13 days with three wins this afternoon and clinched the meet’s jockey title, beating out eight-time title champ Joe Hampshire. With one day of racing left at Suffolk Downs, Thompson leads Hampshire 154-143.

Posted in Suffolk Downs on November 27, 2004

Wacky Wednesday at Suffolk

“It wasn’t a full moon, but something celestial seemingly made it a wacky Wednesday at Suffolk. The battery for one of the starting gates died just before the first race. In the third race, a horse flipped in the starting gate, causing a five-minute delay. The stewards disqualified the winner of the fourth race for what they saw as two distinct fouls in the same race. They then declared Nieges Que Te Amo a non-starter in the fifth race, after he reared up in the gate and unseated jockey Edwin Molinari seconds before the starter opened the gates. The horse ran loose during the race and bothered some of the other horses, but was covered up so well in the pack, the track announcer and fans couldn’t tell what had happened until the far turn.” (Daily Racing Form)
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The November issue of Boston Magazine has an article on Suffolk Downs’ backstretch workers. The photos by Joshua Dalsimer are striking; the text by John Wolfson is offensive. “Most of the hundreds of men and women here never had a single glory day. They probably never will,” he writes of those that work on the backstretch, focusing his story on a couple of broken-down, hard-luck souls and one scrappy immigrant. So bleak. So colorful! What a nice little trip for Mr. Wolfson into a world of hard knocks and hard work. Too bad that the story he writes isn’t the story of most of those who make their living with the horses.

Posted in Suffolk Downs on November 11, 2004

Ladies’ Night

Or rather, ladies’ late afternoon. Suffolk Downs’ Jill Jellison and Tammi Piermarini are among 12 female jockeys taking part in the fourth annual Female Jockey Challenge at Hoosier Park on November 6.

Posted in Suffolk Downs on November 2, 2004

News from Suffolk Downs

With another win this afternoon, jockey Joe Hampshire extended his winning streak to 10 days. I must ask: When will there be a Hampshire bobblehead?
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Not too long ago, it looked as though the meet would go stakesless in its final weeks. But a little money appears to have been found somewhere: Track officials announced this afternoon that one $40,000 Massachusetts-bred stakes race would be held each Saturday in November.
More: “Four more statebred stakes” (Daily Racing Form)

Posted in Suffolk Downs on October 20, 2004