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Sean Clancy Day 1. The Queen wore pink on opening day, creating a carryover into Wednesday. Powder blue has some play. Yellow has support. Peach has taken late money. As for the racing, Solow and Gleneagles starred on Royal Ascot’s opening day.
Exactly where I said I wasn’t going to be, one year ago. On the couch while Royal Ascot begins. Five days. Pomp. Pageantry. Great racing. Turf.
Call in sick. Take the week off. It’s time for Royal Ascot. Five days of the best racing in the world.
Saturday morning, before American Pharoah’s attempt at the Triple Crown, I wrote that it felt like I was walking into a sixth grade dance, wishing for a kiss but waiting to be brushed aside by the likes of Amy, Kate and Carolyn (disappointing that none of the three responded, they’re obviously not reading the website). … Read more
The rain has come and gone. The sun’s creeping through the clouds. It’s down to hours. And, yes, I feel like I’m walking into a sixth grade dance, waiting to be jettisoned by the likes of Kate Klingeburg, Amy Cotton and Carolyn Heaton. Oh, how, they broke my heart. But, still I walk in believing in free love.
It’s Oaks morning in England. Here, well, it’s Belmont Eve morning. Strong card at Belmont Park today, unbelievable card Saturday.
Hard to fault American Pharoah, as he sauntered around Thursday morning. We’ve been here before, watching the wheels fall off – Funny Cide was mentally at the end of his tether, Smarty Jones fraying, Big Brown was cracking and I’ll Have Another, well, his tendon told the world how he was doing. This year, from the track apron, American Pharoah looks like he’s handling it, he hasn’t changed, mentally and physically, he looks the same, like milk in a tall glass. That’s what you need to endure the rigors of the Triple Crown. Constitution and ability. A lot of both. People and horses.
“What are you working on?”
It is asked often. Mostly, because people don’t really know what I do. Which is fair, because there are plenty of days when I don’t know what I do.
I laughed at the question.
There must be a moment before a man gets struck by lightning when he says, “Man, I shouldn’t be out here…”
Standing on the turf course, looking toward the Pimlico grandstand Saturday afternoon, I was thinking that thought. Lightning had already appeared beyond the backstretch, it seemed like a long way away, but now, looking over the grandstand, there was no doubt, it was coming. My radio cohorts, safe and secure (well, as safe and secure as you can feel in a wooden hut on a roof) described the weather, “…under battleship gray skies…sprinkling…we could be in for a storm.”
It’s a deck. A wooden rectangle, providing a level platform on the side of a grass bank, maybe 10 feet by 20 feet. It could sit overtop an inlet or a pond, a couple of fishing poles, a cooler, a place to watch the sun set.
Counting down. The Preakness looms in hours. The toll both, American Pharoah needs to pay the toll. Best horse, short field, inside post, all eyes, all arrows on him. Feels like we’ve been here before.
