Joe Clancy

Push, pull, push, pull, push, pull. John Velazquez looked more like an Olympic rower than a jockey while describing what it’s like to ride Love And Pride, a 4-year-old filly with her own ideas about racing strategy.

Allen Jerkens drove his golf cart from this barn deep in Clare Court to the outside rail, near the three-quarter pole to see a daughter of Passing Shot gallop. On a dreary Tuesday morning, rain had drenched the track, keeping many horses in the barn and a late night at 13 had kept plenty of others in bed.

In the photo, you can count the treads on John Velazquez’s boots. Braced like the anchor man in a tug of war, his feet are angled at 45 degrees, his hands eight inches off Turbulent Descent’s neck, her ears are pinned back as she rips through a half-mile breeze on the main track, 20 days before the Grade I Ballerina.

“We are not doing this like this again.”

The over/under on that statement was issue #11, as sales week began to inhale us. It’s the first tell-tale sign of stress, you can’t get to the cleaners, you’re out of razor blades, you forgot an ad, you put the wrong stakes name on the cover, you get kicked around by a Saratoga star who was born in 1978, you lay on your horn as the old lady tries to walk across the crosswalk and you’re late for the races.

Twenty-five days after enduring a tough-trip fourth in the Lake George, Stephanie’s Kitten appeared destined for the same fate in Sunday’s Lake Placid – stuck on the rail in the stretch, blocked by one rival in front, shut off by another to the outside.

Back in the summer, in The Saratoga Special, we were covering Point Of Entry, who recently won his fourth Grade 1 – taking down the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap over Animal Kingdom. The Phipps Stable runner hearkens back to an earlier age in racing. Here’s the story.

Steve and Al came back to Saratoga Thursday morning. They crossed Union Avenue from the Saratoga Sleigh Bed and Breakfast, went through the front gate, up to the grandstand and out to the track next to the winner’s circle.

Every year, it’s the same thing. Summer help, hired for six weeks at The Special. Where do we find them? How do they find us? Whatever became of . . . ? What will happen to . . . ?

It will be a year next week. I was interviewing jockey Jesus Castanon about Shackleford. What’s he like to ride? How does he feel? Is he different in a race vs. in a gallop? How long is that stride? Castanon talked, my recorder recorded, I jotted down some notes.

Somebody asked for a double shot of espresso, rather than the regular cup of coffee…one day a week where I vent, rant, complain and question. Here goes.