Checking In

Tweet Saturday maintenance post for the weekend. Cleaning the salt off the car and wondering why the check engine light is on at the blog? Here's some odds and ends as we head into a holiday weekend of racing.

I took a look at the Fair Grounds all-stakes Pick 4 for The Buffalo News in my Sports, Ink Blog post yesterday, check it out.

Prayers go out to Eibar Coa who is in surgery this morning after fracturing vertebra in his neck in a horrific spill at Gulfstream yesterday.

I had a nice visit on Wednesday to Fort Erie Race Track to meet with Elissa Blowe, Manager of Media & Marketing for the FELRC who showed me their new RaceBook and shared plans for the 2011 live racing season at the Fort. My article in today's News on my visit can be found here.

The TBA's Road to the Roses League is up and running thanks to new league manager Tony Bada Bing, who writes the A Leg Up blog, and was winner of the 2010 EquiSpace Toga Party contest (like how I plug my contest?). [League Number: 428912689 Activation Code: 2771589346] Sign up and play along with the TBA bloggers. There are some other leagues out there, I plan up signing up for the HRF and Wireplayers.com RTTR leagues this year also. (Feel free to post your activation codes in the comments section!)

Good luck this weekend and let's cash some tickets!

Love at First Sight

Tweet It was a harmless Pick 4 play in mid March 2009 and I was testing out Formulator for the first time. I singled a certain filly in the Fair Grounds Oaks, the first sequence of races that included the New Orleans Handicap, the Mervin Muniz and the Louisiana Derby although I had never seen her before. I think it was the first time I even had bet on a race at the Fair Grounds and it was pouring rain. You know, the stuff gambling disasters are made of. But something happened that afternoon while online with fellow Twitterati ColinsGhost and superterrific. That certain filly crushed the field at 1-5 with a jockey named Borel on board. We all sensed something special that day and were all over Borel for showboating in the stretch. It was the first time I laid eyes on Rachel Alexandra. It's kinda eerie looking back on the "day after" post where I mention the single and was actually more excited about the freight train closing move by Macho Again, a horse Rachel would face, ironically, in the Woodward six months later in the defining moment of her tremendous Horse of the Year campaign. Even Friesen Fire, who would become the Derby favorite a month and a half later, seemed to grab more of the attention that day, as a promising Derby hopeful. But it kept coming back to me, race after race, remembering that performance in the slop in the Fair Grounds Oaks, like when she romped home later in August in the Haskell mud crushing most of the class of the 3yo colt crop.

(Picture courtesy: Brianna Paciorka)

Oddly, I'm kicking myself for not grabbing a signed picture this weekend in State College of her(there were more than a few) when I picked up the Borel/Super Saver one. I guess I thought she had one more left, especially after the spectacular work yesterday. But, when you kick back and think about her 4yo campaign to date. It was time.

This is probably the billionth post on Rachel today (I apologize). Maybe it's because it was before she was loaded on the Jess Jackson showboat and was still running in the colors of former owner Dolphus Morrison for trainer Hal Wiggins. It also made me remember the day Curlin retired, and while many are saddened by her retirement, I'll celebrate her memory by remembering those historic 3yo victories and that day in the mud in New Orleans. I regret that I never actually was fortunate enough to see her in person, but as for that day a year ago in March....

For me, it was love at first sight...

Here's another look at that rainy day in the Big Easy...

Did You Know...

Tweet This month's edition of DYK has a little history and a little future...first this week in racing history:

- 72 years ago (yesterday) Bing Crosby announced plans to open a racetrack and call it something like the Del Mar Turf Club. Appears to have been a pretty good move.

- 15 years ago (yesterday) the Fair Grounds suffered through a fire supposedly started in the jockey room, that destroyed the grandstand.



- 25 years ago today, the first $1 million race for 2 year old thoroughbreds took place called the Hollywood Futurity, which was won by Fali Time with Sandy Hawley in the irons.

To find some of the best TBA posts on history check out Colin's Ghost and Brooklyn Backstretch, both who excel in this area.

Finally, a little future (and fun) with the 25th running of the Futurity this Saturday (now called the Cash Call Futurity (G1), did you know that in post position 4 will be one Axel Foley by Officer (by Morganza), coming over across the pond for trainer John Best, with Michael Baze up? Just thinking about it had me humming a certain melody........i apologize in advance to everyone who will have this tune in your head all day today.