Down the Stretch for January 11, 2021

In the first podcast of 2021, Peter Gross has a wide-ranging series of stories. There’s Jon Stettin, whose podcast is called After the Wire and not only does he comment on some of the best racing stories of 2020, he tells Down The Stretch how he hit a Pick-6 that paid over half a million dollars. Thanks to Joe Tilley Sports, we have clips from Eurico Rosa da Silva and writer Bruce McDougall; the latter talking about Riding For Freedom, the wonderful book he wrote with da Silva, who walks us through some of his greatest victories. Contributor Garnet Barnsdale is up for an O’Brien Award for a story he wrote and he handicaps his chances against Chris Lomon. We’ve got a head-scratching story about newlywed jockeys Katie Davis and Trevor McCarthy who decided to ride in New York for the winter only to find that there’s this ridiculous rule that if two jockeys who are married to each other are in the same race, their horse must be coupled in the betting. And last week at Turfway Park, jockey Akifumi Kato won a race. This got our attention because Kato is...69.