Horse Racing

6:56 PM ET ESPN News Services NEW YORK — Favorite Essential Quality won the Belmont Stakes on Saturday to give trainer Brad Cox his first victory in a Triple Crown race — maybe. Cox could get another from Mandaloun in the Kentucky Derby if Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit is disqualified. But Cox was able to

1:26 PM ET Associated Press NEW YORK — Jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. is out of the Belmont Stakes after a scary fall while racing but seems to have escaped long-term injury. Ortiz was thrown off a horse during a race Thursday at Belmont Park and then trampled by the horse being ridden by his younger

8:00 AM ET The 153rd Belmont Stakes marks the final leg of the Triple Crown. Essential Quality, who finished fourth as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s race. Post time is 6:49 p.m. ET. Rombauer upset Medina Spirit, winner (for now) of the Kentucky Derby, to take the

5:51 PM ET Associated Press The chairman of horse racing’s future governing body said the failed drug test of Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit shows the need for a uniform set of rules and penalties in place of the sport’s current patchwork system. In his first public comments since being appointed chairman of the Horseracing

4:38 PM ET ESPN News Services Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert was suspended for two years by Churchill Downs on Wednesday after Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit tested positive for a steroid in two different postrace drug samples. The suspension begins immediately and lasts through the 2023 Spring Meet at the race track. Attorneys

11:11 AM ET ESPN News Services Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit is facing disqualification after testing on a second postrace sample confirmed the presence of the the steroid betamethasone, a lawyer who represents the horse’s owner confirmed to the New York Times. Attorney Clark Brewster told the newspaper that a laboratory at UC Davis confirmed

3:14 PM ET Associated Press RED BANK, N.J. — Sam Boulmetis Sr., a Hall of Famer who rode for nearly 20 years and won most of his four jockey titles at Monmouth Park in the 1950s, has died. He was 94. He died Sunday at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, his family said. Boulmetis

12:21 PM ET Associated Press NEW YORK — Essential Quality was set Tuesday as a 2-1 favorite for the Belmont Stakes, which will be run without a horse from trainer Bob Baffert pending an investigation into Medina Spirit’s failed drug test after winning the Kentucky Derby. Preakness winner Rombauer and Essential Quality headline a field

10:02 PM ET Associated Press ARCADIA, Calif. — Country Grammer edged Royal Ship by a head to win the $300,000 Hollywood Gold Cup, giving embattled trainer Bob Baffert his record-tying eighth victory in the Grade 1 race at Santa Anita. Baffert tied fellow Hall of Famer Charlie Whittingham, who won his eighth and last Gold

1:09 PM ET ESPN staff Double Asian Games silver medalist Fouaad Mirza officially confirmed his Tokyo Olympics spot, finishing second and third respectively on Seigneur Medicott and Dajara 4 to complete his Minimum Eligibility Requirement in the CCI4*- L at the Baborowko Equestrian festival Poland this weekend. It makes him only the third Indian equestrian