ELMONT, NY- High-priced free-agents and wide-eyed rookies aren’t the only sporting participants to struggle playing in front of huge crowds.
Even horses can endure performance anxiety and nervousness. Dunkirk posted an 11th-place Kentucky Derby finish, stumbling twice in the first 50 yards amid the 153,563 fans at Churchill Downs.
Dunkirk skipped the Preakness but still garnered favorable [...]

ELMONT, NY – Count Nick Zito as one of horse racing’s few human celebrities.
Zito’s name is well known to casual racing fans, a byproduct of two victories each in the Belmont Stakes and the Kentucky Derby as well as a Preakness win. The 2005 Hall of Fame inductee is a mainstay in Triple Crown competitions [...]

NEW YORK – The 1 ½-mile distance at Belmont Stakes separates the race from the Triple Crown’s first two legs.
Jockey Calvin Borel will be making his debut in the “Tournament of Champions” Saturday.  But Borel’s inexperience was a secondary concern for odds-makers, which made Mine That Bird a 2-1 morning-line favorite Wednesday.
Borel will be going [...]

NEW YORK – Charitable Man shares a similarity with every other entry running in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes in that the horse will not capture the Triple Crown title.
The gelding didn’t even enter the Kentucky Derby or Preakness. But both Charitable Man and jockey Alan Garcia established a comfort level in Elmont last year, which could [...]