LAS VEGAS – “Where are the Olympic odds?”
That’s sure to be the most common question asked in the sports books here over the next fortnight (that’s two weeks for you non-Brits). Betting on the Games is not allowed in Nevada sports books. To explain why, let’s set the way-back machine to January 2001.
In terms of a well-aged vintage you can’t do much better than Russell Baze, who will be turning 54 on Aug. 7 while in the midst of competition at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa. Baze has been doing the Santa Rosa meet for so long he can’t recall his first experiences there, but that’s okay. Until he decides to stop making history he should not be required to remember it.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The 144th summer of racing at Saratoga has begun as if it could be the best one yet. The daily purses, enhanced by revenue from the Aqueduct racino, are the highest for any track in the history of American racing, and that has led to full and competitive fields at every level of the game.
Let’s savor that good news for a few moments, because it may not last.
The young stallion Stormello was just 7 when he was euthanized in April of 2011 because of complications suffered after a severe case of colic. It was an awful blow to Bill Currin, who raised and trained the son of Stormy Atlantic to do some wonderful things, like win both the Norfolk Stakes and the Hollywood Futurity and finish second by a nose to Scat Daddy in the Fountain of Youth.
“He was a very special horse,” said Currin, who’s had enough good ones to know.
Just to be perfectly clear, Del Mar management means no disrespect by sticking one of its signature events in the throwaway third-race position on the first Saturday program of their hotly anticipated summer meet. Anyway, running the feature at three in the afternoon has its advantages. It gets the anticipation out of the way early, leaving the next three hours to get the waiter’s attention.
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For those unfamiliar with what California racing is up against these days, before the hotly anticipated summer season at Del Mar could open its doors Wednesday the track first had to wait for the Crossroads of the West Gun Show to clear out of Pat O’Brien Hall, just across the entry road from the clubhouse gates.
It came as a slim ray of welcome news to Michael Matz at the end of a long, draining day: Union Rags had tested clean for frog juice after his seventh-place finish in the Kentucky Derby.
The cloud was lifted, such as it was, manufactured by a public relations stunt courtesy of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, which announced Wednesday that all Kentucky Derby and Oaks starters had tested negative for dermorphin.
The race books here have looked less like betting parlors and more like refugee camps of locals trying to escape the 100-degree heat the past few weeks, but a cold front is coming.
Cold as in cold, hard cash that is forecast to go through the betting windows with the start of the Del Mar and Saratoga race meets next Wednesday and Friday, respectively. There is always a bit of a letdown after the Triple Crown season, but nothing rejuvenates the soul and reopens the wallets like the spa meets.
Ten or so years ago Jorge Herrera, now famous for dying last week after being thrown from a Thoroughbred at the Alameda County Fair, wanted to learn a rider’s trade badly enough to spend eight months at Frank Garza’s jockey school north of the L.A.Basin while working off his tuition, his room, and his board in chores at the ranch.
“He was walking hots at Hollywood Park,” said Garza, who rode for 27 years. “He called me up and told me he wanted to be a rider. When I picked him up he was waiting at the stable gate with his suitcase.”
ISTANBUL — During a period when the world’s Thoroughbred business has suffered, and betting totals in the United States have dropped year by year, there is at least one nation where racing has prospered: Turkey.
Its success may be unrecognized even by industry insiders; despite the globalization of the sport, horse racing in Turkey is little known. Its horses rarely venture outside their own borders, and outsiders seldom come in. But last year Turks wagered the U.S. dollar equivalent of $1.49 billion on their races — a 21 percent jump from 2010.
