Local Saturday
A quiet, rain-soaked Saturday morning. Quiet house. Horses slogging through the soft turf outside the front window and outside the back window.
A Week has gone…
Some day, perhaps, I’ll learn to write here every day. Just hasn’t happened yet. I look back and it’s been a week, whoops, the last time I was writing it was about horses running. Now, I’m back a week later, the horses have run, have started back under tack and we are looking at our … Read more
Making the right call with Songbird
A racing fan watched the post-race interviews conclude after the Cotillion at Parx Racing Saturday and called to me from the far side of the winner’s circle. “Joe, hey Joe, Joey, hey Joey, come here. What did Jerry say? What does Rick want to do? Which Breeders’ Cup race are they going to run in? They have to run in the Classic, don’t they? They have to test her. If she’s a great one, she’s got to be tested. It’s the Classic, right?”
Wrong. It was never the Classic. It was always the Distaff.
Merck gives back to horses, one more time
Fast, slow, friendly, mean, large, small, English, Irish, American, filly, mare, gelding or stallion, the horses always mattered to Betty Merck. She grew up riding ponies, graduated to fox hunters and point-to-pointers, became a racehorse owner at 75 and led the National Steeplechase Association owners’ list at 89.
“I love to spend time with horses,” she said simply in 2009, when asked to explain why she was involved as an owner. Merck backed up that statement by retiring her horses, frequently to her farm in Bedminster, N.J., and giving them as much care and respect in retirement as they received while racing.
Saturday Morning
“Cheers Sean…Just got out of op not feeling to bad now!”
That was the text from Jack Doyle, delivered at 12:02 Friday morning, after a crashing fall from Rudyard K in the novice stakes at Belmont Park Thursday afternoon. Doyle suffered two small fractures in the front of his pelvis and a fractured coccyx (tailbone). Atop the standings, Doyle is now grounded with rides like Rawnaq going up in flames, Doyle’s name scratched off today’s overnight like yesterday’s sandwich special.
Cup of Coffee: So Long Saratoga
And then there was one. The last page in the last paper, I think I’ve been here before, trying to find the words for the long goodbye.
It’s down to this, the pressure of one final deadline and the levity of one final deadline. Tomorrow, I’ll watch races but my voice recorder will be at home, I won’t scramble around trying to figure out where the winner’s watching the race, I’ll simply enjoy a race like everyone else. I’ll laugh at things people say, but I won’t wonder if I can print them. I’ll eat a real meal at a real table and go to bed when I want, instead of when the paper allows. That goes for Tom, Joe and the rest of The Special team who have brought you this year’s volume of work, our 16th loop on this crazy ride.
Cup of Coffee: Missing It
It’s that time of year. Time for the annual – or at least occasional – ‘I’ll miss, I won’t miss,’ from Saratoga. I have a list, you have a list, everybody has a list as Saratoga fades away for another season. With all its energy and charm, Saratoga brings stress and angst. There is nowhere else where we are so on for so long. It’s not love/hate, as I will never hate the place, for me, it’s miss/won’t miss.
Record Setter
It might have been the best track record in Thoroughbred history – an easy time to remember, in a historic race, at a historic venue and in bold/daring fashion. And now it’s gone.
But that doesn’t mean it will be forgotten.
Cup of Coffee: Boys of Summer
The Salvation Army rings its bell. A woman in a slinky black dress and six-inch heals unfolds a baby carriage, while holding an infant, bumps her arm and shows it to her man, he kisses it gently, they walk into the races.
A security guard waits in the shade. Louie, who played catcher on the last softball team I played on, tells me about a photo he took of a bathing cat. Chad Brown wins another race. A grandmother takes a photo of granddaughter and grandfather, the grandfather takes a photo of granddaughter and grandmother, then an EMT steps in and takes a photo of all three together, they smile and thank him.
Cup of Coffee: Saturday
“What did you think of Saturday?”
It was a simple question, asked Sunday morning, after a long Saturday and longer Saturday night.
Like a lawnmower starting on one pull, I said what I thought of Travers Saturday. It lasted awhile.
“Are you going to write any of that?”
I hesitated.
“I should,” I said.
“Yeah, you should.”
