Everything
It’s happened the past few weekends, I have actually thought to myself, “Should be time for the Sunday Long Read.” And in minutes, sometimes seconds, the Sunday Long Read comes across my email.
The Streak
Rolling out of bed this morning and the first thing to do – even before pouring that first cup of coffee – was ask Alexa the current temperature.
Thanks Buck. Kisor leaves steeplechase memories
Reading his obituary, I probably should have talked to Buck Kisor about money instead of horses and writing. But horses and writing it was.
At steeplechase meets, racetracks and associated events of one kind or another, I’d find myself talking shop with Kisor. He was a good listener, had sound opinions. He admired the product and the process of our newspaper Steeplechase Times. His horses, always at the lower end of the game, even made the pages of ST now and then. Lochnagar won at Middleburg in 1999, finished second four times in 2000 and 2001; Heir Apparent did OK; Sumo Power won twice at Tryon; Gather No Moss came through at Foxfield, and did it again at Morven Park, even placed in the timber stakes at Shawan Downs.
Dogs, Round Bales and Papa Jim’s
In a day, I might read anything from a chapter of Churchill at the Gallop by Brough Scott to a feature in the Washington Post (Why did you do This?) to the overnight at Tampa Bay Downs in search of an extra race for a certain horse. Some days, the overnights are the best reading.
‘The life of kings’: Akindale will miss Evening Attire
Chris Andrews never saw Evening Attire race, never knew the fit, determined, hard-trying racehorse. But she knew all about Evening Attire.
“The stall he is . . . was . . . in is the key stall right next to my office and he talked to me every morning and every night,” said Andrews, executive director of Akindale Thoroughbred Rescue where Evening Attire lived out his retirement for the last 10 years. Andrews talked back because, well of course she did. Horses like Evening Attire make you talk to them. On the racetrack, he won nine graded stakes, earned just shy of $3 million and won legions of fans while making 69 starts over nine seasons. He died Sunday of colic, leaving a big hole at Akindale.
Notable
I always look. Just a token, wistful, wishful glance, never in the front, knowing that’s out of reach and surely you’d know, but thinking perhaps in the back, the asterisk column of The Best American Sports Writing. It’s called notable sports writing (from the previous year). This year, I escaped to the three-door privacy of the bathroom in the first-floor guestroom in my brother and sister-in-law’s house on Deerfield Lake in Shelby County, Alabama. Book in hand, a moment of peace.
Boxing Day Special – December 26
Christmas in Alabama. Mad dashes to the Summit, jazz band and a bloody Mary at Shae’s, talk of eight-points and Busch beer, baseball on the lawn and walks around the lake. Not my Christmas, but certainly Miles’.
Birthday Parties and Books
Miles turned 10 Monday. Yes, 10. Everybody said time would fly.
A Winter’s Tale: Kalashnikov
It’s that time of year, when National Hunt racing has begun in earnest. The weather has turned, the ground has softened and names like Tingle Creek, King George and Fighting Fifth have returned as headliners.
Good Bye, Harry
Harry Leslie Smith died Wednesday. He was 95.
