If you believe Seth Hancock quit the Churchill Downs board of directors simply to “move on and embrace new challenges,” as his official statement said, then you don’t know much about Hancock’s values, his family’s history, or the bottom-line mentality of the track’s current administration.
Hancock, president of the world-famous Claiborne Farm and a Churchill director […]

[Read more →]

If you read David Hawpe’s column in today’s Courier-Journal, you may have been surprised to learn that he received an inscribed football from the members of the 1961-’62 freshman football team at the University of Kentucky. Why the surprise? Well, suffice it to say that in his long and distinguished editorial career, David has exhibited […]

[Read more →]

When I was sports editor of The Courier-Journal, I tried to cover the U.S. Open golf tournament every year. I did it mainly because I believe Louisville and southern Indiana is a golf hotbed. Of course, it helped that I loved to play the game, one of Dan Jenkins “dogged victims of inexorable fate.”
So I […]

[Read more →]

The mystery of Big Brown’s shocking demise in the Belmont Stakes is potentially a far greater scandal than Eight Belles’ tragic breakdown after the Kentucky Derby. Yet where’s the outrage both inside and outside the industry? Why hasn’t a commission been empanelled to investigate it? Where are the custodians of the sport’s integrity when we […]

[Read more →]

Whenever Jim McKay walked through a pressbox, he wanted to be treated as just one of the guys. His ego was the flip side of Howard Cosell, his longtime colleague on ABC Sports. Where Cosell was bombastic and vain, McKay was quiet, dignified, and totally unimpressed with himself.
Among the ink-stained wretches – or dashing knights […]

[Read more →]

The petty thief in Rick Dutrow’s larcenous heart told him he could get away with stealing the Triple Crown. He knew the Big Brown that was heading into the Belmont Stakes wasn’t the same Big Brown who rolled in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. But the petty thief whispered, “So what, babe? Hey, he’s good […]

[Read more →]

In a recent column I said that Jay Bruce was the best major-league baseball prospect I’d ever seen come through Louisville. Of course, no matter what you may have heard to the contrary, I’m not nearly old enough to have seen Honus Wagner and Pete Browning play for the local franchise back in the late […]

[Read more →]

Nobody asked me, but…
YOU’RE A SUCKER if you bet against Big Brown in the Belmont Stakes. Maybe you don’t like trainer Rick Dutrow’s obnoxious boasting, but, as the saying goes, “It ain’t bragging if you can back it up.” Blunt and insensitive, Dutrow has only been stating the obvious. Give him credit for being honest […]

[Read more →]

If Big Brown wins the Triple Crown, the “sport of kings” will momentarily become the “sport of knaves.” The colt’s trainer is a boorish loudmouth who has a long rap sheet for illegally medicating horses. One of the partners in International Equine Acquistitions Holdings, which owns Big Brown, has a shady reputation from his days […]

[Read more →]

The arrival of the Celtics and Lakers in the NBA finals sparked a wave of nostalgia about the legendary rivalry between the franchises. Most of the history pieces revolved, fittingly, about the megawatt duels between the Larry Bird Celtics and the Magic Johnson Lakers in the 1980s and early ‘90s.
But maybe because it’s summer, and […]

[Read more →]