LAS VEGAS – We’re three weeks away from Bowl Championship Series Selection Sunday, and the discussion is really heating up.
Alabama and Florida State are 1-2 in the polls (and, most importantly, in the BCS rankings that determine who plays in the title game Jan. 6 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.) and are presumed to meet as long as they both run the table.
Having written recently that all the Eclipse Awards for 2013 were decided one way or another by the results of the Breeders’ Cup, and that nothing happening during these final weeks of the year would make a bit of difference in the various championships, your correspondent left no room for equivocation. Turns out, though, that there is a division very much up in the air, and all the pieces should fall into place on Saturday when the $100,000 Marion duPont Scott Colonial Cup is offered once again at Springdale Course in Camden, South Carolina.
I have been reading a lot of what has been written about the 3-year-old championship. It is a fascinating subject with no obvious correct answer.
With Horse of the Year decided in favor of Wise Dan again, the 3-year-old title, our second most important, becomes an even bigger deal. It really comes down to how you interpret the evidence. For the purposes of this discussion, it is an either/or. If you want to include horses beyond Orb and Will Take Charge, feel free. I just don’t want to complicate this any more than necessary.
Fifty years ago, on Nov. 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time, President John F. Kennedy was shot while his motorcade drove through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.
At that same moment, although the clocks read 1:30 p.m. Eastern, a field of allowance horses was entering the starting gate for the fourth at Aqueduct, a six-furlong race worth $6,000. A crowd of more than 24,000 was in the house for the Friday program, and those who bet on Don Pierce and the 5-year-old Tom Fool gelding Trial Balloon were rewarded with a payoff at 5-1.
The Penn National-Belmont Park Thursday 50-cent pick four (15 percent takeout) experiment went from Sept. 12 to Oct. 24. Nobody really knew what to expect, but Penn National officials were hoping there would be benefits beyond the pick four itself. The bet, which included the last two races at Belmont Park and the first two at Penn National, averaged $42,393. That, however, was not the story.
In his capacity as national manager of the Jockeys’ Guild, Terry Meyocks was attending the opening session of the 13th International Symposium on Fatigue and Fracture Mechanics in Jacksonville, Fla., last Wednesday when he received word that Javier Castellano – not only North America’s leading rider but Meyocks’s son-in-law as well – had been taken to the hospital after a ninth-race accident at Aqueduct.
LAS VEGAS – Caesar Espinosa is a mild-mannered 43-year-old marketing executive for a real estate title company here in town, but every Friday he dons his alter ego of SammyTSquid.
Under that alias, Espinosa gives out football picks on the MMAjunkie.com radio show/podcast that is taped at noon Eastern at the Mandalay Bay race and sports book.
Did I hear someone say that there are still Eclipse Awards to be decided in the wake of the Breeders’ Cup?
This is true only if you believe Will Take Charge needs to win the Clark Handicap in order to stick a fork in the championship chances of the now retired Orb, a lovely colt who hasn’t been a factor in anything since the first Saturday in May. I say Wayne Lukas will stand pat.
It is never too late to do a Breeders’ Cup post mortem, but the body is getting a little cold. So, before the sport moves on to the wonders of Aqueduct in November and the Last Days of Hollywood Park, here are a few lasting impressions.
LAS VEGAS – The death of horse racing has been greatly exaggerated – at least here for the big events.
While the Super Bowl and March Madness are seen as the kingpins of Las Vegas tourism, horse racing held its own again this past weekend with all those who chose to take in the Breeders’ Cup festivities here as opposed to going to Santa Anita just a state (and a one-hour flight or four-hour drive) away.
