On a Derby week Lexington day trip: "Finally arriving at Tom Van Meter's Pretty Run Farm in Winchester, Team Zayat unloaded from the car and went about inspecting yearlings, mares and foals. This was an operation like no other. Most owners stand back and allow expert grooms to handle their horses, presenting an equine parade about as interactive as a fashion show. Not this one. He petted the foals and felt their legs and backs and held their halters and led them around and usually, done casting them over with an expert eye, he kissed their fuzzy foreheads."

Re: Kentucky and New York rejecting Kadyrov's applications for an owner's license: "'Short of the State Department drastically changing its tune on Mr. Kadyrov,' said one New York racing official who refused to be identified by name, 'it’s safe to assume he will not be racing horses in New York State.'"

"Dogwood Stable’s annual vet bills can run as high as half a million dollars."

"A shot of Lasix costs $26 retail. Some vets will administer it for $20. But the accompanying drug regimen before and after the injection often runs the race-day cost to $200 or more. The race-prep veterinary work for one of the most honest, cost-conscious trainers in the business regularly included a $16 bute injection, a $25 injection of acetylcysteine designed to break up lung mucuous, a $30 Salix shot on race day and $49 worth of replacement fluids and electrolytes the day following.... That means that some owners pay more than $400 per month for Lasix and bute alone. Add $800 worth of the prescription ulcer medicine -- omeprazole -- some version of which almost every American racehorse requires -- and the meaning of the word 'mark' quickly becomes clear."