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Finished The Sun Does Shine, How I found life, freedom and justice, by Anthony Ray Hinton. Number eight on the 52-book quest of 2021. Yes, I’m behind schedule, four books behind to be exact. Just like on the 1,000 Mile Challenge and advertising in The Saratoga Special and finding a guest for this weeks’ In … Read more
First day of baseball. First practice. Tigers Majors. Eleven kids. Four coaches. All new. On the first day of practice, you stumble with their names, they stumble with their moves, the balls feel heavy, the bats heavier. The team looks like a bunch of spare parts, old mis-matched baseball jerseys, random hats from far-ago teams, … Read more
Ramon Dominguez is one of my all-time favorite jockeys and interviews, going all the way back to Phi Beta Doc winning the Saranac at Saratoga when I was writing Saratoga Days. Writing a journal about Saratoga in 1999 provided freedom, I could slow down and talk to a jockey winning his first race at Saratoga, … Read more
We went racing. Wow, what a joy to go racing again. Include It finished second in the George Robert Slater Memorial maiden timber at Piedmont Point-to-Point. Chris Gracie gave him a sweet, precise ride for his first start over timber. There is nothing more important than providing a horse with a gentle introduction to a … Read more
Last day of Cheltenham. A strange, surreal Cheltenham. Juggling a house renovation, Zoom calls about business, Miles’ breakfast, laundry…with accumulators, tips, touts, Zoom calls about horses and races every 35 minutes. Hopefully, this won’t happen again. Seventy wins for Nicky Henderson. Chantry House picking up where Envoi Allen went down. Nico de Boinville aboard Chantry … Read more
Tiger Roll. When he jumped off sharply, pinged the first couple, ears pricked…it was the Tiger Roll of old, bounding over fences, whipping around turns, skipping and scampering. Five wins at the Festival. Put The Kettle On does exactly that and then lets it heat and hiss, steam shooting like a geyser as she … Read more
It’s a funny game, the horses are the stars and we speak to the supporting actors in this crazy, captivating game we play. We actually never speak to the true stars, the pure heroes, the horses. Of course, you wish the horses could speak for themselves, right? Well, maybe…
I tried this once before. Not by choice, cervical discs causing pain and pausing my Cheltenham run that had begun in 2002. I tell time by horses, it was the year Sprinter Sacre reclaimed his title, I have to look up the actual date. Right, 2016, I wasn’t there. I watched from the couch, the … Read more
A very different run up to Cheltenham. By now, we are settled in, drop zone secure, another year with old friends, a few pints downed, a few moments to decide on life-changing punts. A preview at the local pub, George, the expert, and for good measure, the American, sometimes. The suits are hanging, the ties … Read more
Each year at Cheltenham, my friend George Baker and I hunch over a kitchen counter or a dog-shared couch or in next-door rooms and write our daily reports. It’s not our best writing, usually wedged between too few hours of sleep and mad dashes out the door to beat the traffic. Many times, we don’t … Read more
