Weekend Update

Tweet With the Belmont Stakes 13 days away, I decided to take the weekend off from horse racing and I only did a quick peek to see how my pirate horse Arrrrr faired on Saturday's 5th at Big Sandy, and he took a disappointing seventh. The big story from the race was the 72-1 longshot winner Halation ($146.00!) who also headed up a $1,700 exacta and $9K trifecta. Whoa nelly!

Went to lax-crazy Cuse for the holiday weekend to check out the Senior PGA at Oak Hill in Rochester and followed the Shark for six holes and was right next to his fiancee Chrissy Evert while he attempted a sand shot on #7. The Cuse is abuzz over its lacrosse heroes who play for the National Championship tomorrow at Gillette Stadium. Somehow my brother scored luxury box tickets and made the journey today to watch Cortland (D3) and Lemoyne (D2) play their respective championship games and will be there again tomorrow for the Cuse-Hopkins title clash.

So here's a little weekend update on the Belmont scene. ESPN is reporting that Big Brown will miss several days training due to a quarter crack in his left hoof. Hoof specialist Ian McKinlay has reported that is just a "minor crack" and he should be back on the track by Thursday. In other news, it appears Garret Gomez has landed the mount on Macho Again (Preakness runnerup), displacing Julien Leparoux. This is the second year Gomez has displaced a jockey for the Belmont (last year he displaced Mario Pino on Hard Spun) based on "home court advantage." Still no word on the rider for Casino Drive.

Bella Cavello's star mare La Chica Rica will take her three race winning streak back to Mountaineer Tuesday under the lights in the $75K Ohio Valley Handicap. One of her arch rivals All Giving, won a big stakes on Black-Eyed Susan Day as part of the late pick four which even further bolsters her laurels. More on Tuesday on Chica's next adventure.