Rail Talk Podcast

Surprise! It’s a bonus episode of Rail Talk, our second of the week. Only one thing could spur Joe Bianca and Jon Green to return to their mics so quickly—a guest spot by the mysterious and brilliant Tinky. If you’re not familiar, @Tinky47flat has taken horse racing Twitter by storm in recent months with eloquent, funny and insightful posts taking to task some of the biggest names in the game. Cle...

This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green react to a soggy but star-studded Saturday at Fair Grounds, where progeny of Gun Runner—including impressive Derby contender Sierra Leone—took center stage, as they so often do. They also said farewell to his brilliant daughter Echo Zulu and debated whether or not her career is Hall of Fame-worthy before touching on the issues being caused by the pr...

This week on Rail Talk! Joe Bianca and Jon Green, who toughed it out through a case of COVID, discuss two major trainer suspensions and whether or not they were justified before Jon lets it fly on the decisions of certain Eclipse Award voters. Original guest Ren Carothers also stops by to talk about a big weekend of racing at Tampa, a loaded renewal of the Risen Star and how she reacts when someon...

The road to the 150th Kentucky Derby kicked off in earnest this past weekend, and it started with a BANG as Jon and Len Green’s DJ Stable captured the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes with Hades, upsetting Mike Repole’s heavily-favored 2-year-old champion Fierceness in the process. So naturally this week on Rail Talk, Jon and co-host Joe Bianca talked all about that euphoric experience and welcomed in H...

At the start of the NFL season, Rail Talk hosts Joe Bianca and Jon Green made a friendly wager involving their favorite teams. Though neither the Jets or Giants could be classified as winners this season, Joe’s Jets finished with a better record than Jon’s Giants and as the slightly bigger loser, Jon had to journey from suburban New Jersey all the way to Joe’s Brooklyn apartment to record Episode...

This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green take an involuntary trip back in time, as Bob Baffert has finally decided to drop his appeal of the 2021 Kentucky Derby disqualification. Will Baffert be welcomed back to the Derby by Churchill Downs now? Would he have even been sanctioned in the first place had he taken responsibility and accepted the decision from the jump? Later, the guys are joi...

It might be freezing seemingly everywhere, but the cold temperatures also mean we’ve reached foaling and breeding season! This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green welcome Darley stallion coordinator Elizabeth Masi to learn all about the matings being planned and new life being welcomed into the world on a major stallion farm. Plus she discusses the unique personalities of Darley legends Me...

We’re welcoming in the New Year on Rail Talk! Jessica Paquette joins hosts Joe Bianca and Jon Green to talk race calling, Parx, combatting sexism in racing, and getting young people into the sport. More money in the pot for the Kentucky Derby tops the Triple Crown news while Maryland racing braces for some big changes. How will Stronach leaving Maryland and the influx of state money affect the Pre...

Happy holidays from the Rail Talk team! In this final, bonus episode of 2023, Joe Bianca and Jon Green take on the perplexing decisions of the American Graded Stakes Committee. The AGSC continued its trend of downgrading several historic New York races per year in 2024, while the list of 30 total races downgraded somehow included zero from Kentucky. Joe and Jon asked for more transparency in the d...

This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green get the rest of the story that 60 Minutes left out of its ‘drugs in racing’ piece with HISA CEO Lisa Lazarus. The three discuss the reforms racing has implemented *in response* to its doping crisis that are already showing tangible results, making the sport safer and cleaner. To that end, Joe and Jon branch off to celebrate that from their perspecti...

This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green react to the biggest news of the week: an expose on doping in horse racing that aired Sunday on legendary news program 60 Minutes. Was the story reported fairly? Or was there too much focus on the sensationalist drug bust of 2020, not enough focus on what racing is doing to clean itself up in the aftermath? Plus, the guys react to the HBPA head pred...

Fresh off their groundbreaking on-site episode from the plane to the Breeders’ Cup, Joe Bianca and Jon Green were back at their regular stations to break down a phenomenal week of racing and sales on the latest episode of Rail Talk. Jon and Len Green’s DJ Stable had the honor of selling a champion at Fasig-Tipton November’s Night of the Stars in Wonder Wheel, and Jon takes us behind the curtain fo...

Joe Bianca and Jon Green host the show from this week’s special guest Len Green’s plane en route to the 40th Breeders’ Cup. DJ Stable’s (owned by Len, managed by Jon) Can Group is scheduled to run in the Juvenile Turf on Friday. The hosts cover the news of unfortunate scratches and losses before welcoming Len Green to talk about his fifth successive Breeders’ Cup. Len also shares valuable tax and...

The countdown to the Breeders’ Cup has entered its final stages, and Joe Bianca and Jon Green welcomed an array of fun guests to get you primed for the 40th renewal of the World Championships this week on Rail Talk. First, the brilliant and hilarious FanDuel/TVG reporter/analyst Andie Biancone stopped by for a rollicking discussion on what she looks for in a horse’s physical appearance, the therap...

This week Joe Bianca and Jon Green talk stallion fees as farms begin to release their 2024 rosters. Three at $250,000 still hold good value while another’s doubled fee is clearly ‘justified.’ Some second-year sires see reduced fees but not reduced quality. While on the topic of breeding Joe and Jon welcome Bret Jones to catch up on Airdrie Stud’s roster and a lot more including growing up (and rai...

Does racing need a new association of owners and trainers to confront its challenges? Should there be an increase in the Kentucky Derby purse? Just how many words can a person fit into one tweet? Those are all questions ultra-successful Thoroughbred owner Mike Repole attempted to answer this week, and it provided fuel for a fascinating discussion this week on Episode 13 of Real Talk. Joe Bianca an...

This week on Rail Talk, the boys go guest-less because there was simply too much news to discuss, starting with the ultimate confrontation between Horse Racing Twitter™ and the sport’s institutional giants. Bob Baffert is suing two of racing’s most well-known social media firebrands/instigators/rabble-rousers for alleged defamation and extortion, and Joe Bianca and Jon Green break it down from eve...

This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green welcome Terry Finley, the founder and CEO of West Point Thoroughbreds, for an illuminating discussion on racing, auction strategy, the brave new world of HISA and much more. Fresh off of a huge three-week span of graded stakes successes, West Point was also extremely active at the Keeneland September Sale, including taking a piece of the $3-million...

Joe Bianca and Jon Green are back at their mics for a late-night record of Rail Talk, with Jon reporting from the September Yearling Sale with lots of good news and big numbers. Joe then welcomes one of his racing heroes, illustrious journalist Jay Privman, who recently retired from his post as the excellent National Correspondent for the Daily Racing Form. Joe and Jay cover the topics and challen...

They're back! Joe Bianca welcomes Jon Green back from his European adventures as Mark Casse brings some sanity to the mix. There's a lot of catching up to do. Reflections on the Saratoga meet, the (preventable?) tragedy of New York Thunder, synthetic tracks, wearable biometrics and a look ahead to the Breeders' Cup are all on the table this week. Celebrated trainer Mark Casse offers ex...

It seems like yesterday that Ramón Dominguez, the three-time defending Eclipse Champion Jockey, was forced to walk away from racing after several bad falls put him on the precipice of catastrophic injury. In reality, it was 10 years ago, and if anything, Ramón’s legend has only grown since. A regular at New York racetracks since his retirement, he’s become one of the game’s top ambassadors and one...

It’s a new era in racing. Long clamored for, the sport finally has an umbrella organization to unify its rules and regulations—most significantly, its anti-doping policies. The woman at the top of that organization, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, is CEO Lisa Lazarus. This week, she joined Joe Bianca and Jon Green on Episode 7 of Rail Talk to answer questions about the successes an...

It was an incredibly difficult weekend for horse racing at Saratoga. Emotions were as raw as they’ve ever been, particularly over the soul-crushing breakdown of Maple Leaf Mel as she was just a few strides from winning the Test Stakes. Incidents like that make us fundamentally question the sport we all love so much. This week on Rail Talk, Joe Bianca and Jon Green held an informal therapy session...

Road shows are always the most fun. With the intersecting buzz of Whitney weekend, the Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the upcoming yearling sales, there was no better place to be Friday morning than Fasig-Tipton in Saratoga. With buyers inspecting horses in the and the enshrinement after-party in the background, thats exactly where the Rail Talk crew set up shop, recording Episode 5 of the gr...

This week's episode has all the twists and turns of a classic Bond Flick - action, peril, villains, and suspense. Hosts Joe Bianca and Jon Green welcome the "Voice of Saratoga" Frank Mirahmadi to the show. The guys discuss Frank's journey from Beverly Hills High to the heights of race calling at the most premier tracks in the country. Frank also provides insight as to how the Gol...