Jay Hovdey

The horror…the horror Kurt Vonnegut, a wise and funny man, wrote in his 1990 novel “Hocus Pocus” that “profanity and obscenity entitle people who don't want unpleasant information to close their ears and eyes to you.”

Most followers of the Triple Crown season have been under the impression that Orb’s terse, unlyrical name is inspired by that of his sire, Malibu Moon, which does paint a pretty picture. But not so, and who knew that Dinny Phipps and Stu Janney were big fans of Woody Allen’s earlier work? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAKWKfVcd04 Count your blessings. They could have named him “Orgasmatron.”

In "Henry Cecil - Trainer of Genius," biographer Brough Scott describes his subject as having "blacksmith's hands and an artist's face," then goes on: "He is both a complex and a simple man. He can be dauntingly direct one minute and winningly vulnerable the next. But in the early years of the new century the winning ways seemed to have deserted him as a series of sometimes self-induced blows left him a cancer-ridden ember of his glory days."