Santa Anita Park opens Monday, a few trees shy of a full orchard after recent winds but brimming with hope for a successful season free of the trials and tribulations that have plagued California’s most beautiful racetrack these last five years.
The racing surface is old news. It’s dirt. When it rains it will be packed tight and play fast. Horses will get quarter cracks and sore feet. Welcome to 1976, and live with it.
Welcome to the 12th annual ROI Awards. We usually wait until closer to the Eclipse Awards in January, but with many newspapers, magazines, and websites doing their end-of-year wrapups earlier and earlier each year, we might as well join the club.
The balloting for racing’s divisional champions of 2011 does not close until 3 p.m. on Jan. 3, but it looks from here as if the engravers can safely start inscribing seven of the 10 trophies that will be handed out in Beverly Hills on Jan. 16. The other three look like races that could go down to the wire.
The news that Strike the Gold was euthanized after falling and fracturing a leg this week was sad enough to cast at least a brief shadow over any racing fan’s holiday spirit. He was an admirable little horse, possessed of a grinding finish that earned him victories in the 1991 Kentucky Derby and the 1992 Pimlico Special, along with placings in seven major stakes and earning of $3.4 million. Sometimes he got there, sometimes he didn’t, but he always showed up.
Majestic City is one of those creatures whose picture ends up in a kid’s magazine labeled “horse,” no embellishment required. With his caramel coat, single stockings fore and aft, and a handsome mug paved brow to nose by a wide, forthright blaze he is, by all accepted standards, a pretty boy.
LAS VEGAS – What NFL team is overachieving the most this season?
Well, most people would answer the San Francisco 49ers as they have pretty much come from nowhere to win 10 games and have already clinched the NFC West under first-year head coach Jim Harbaugh with basically the same players that weren’t able to win under Mike Singletary. Their over/under season total in Vegas sports books was set at 7.5 wins, and they blew past that by mid-November. They also have the best record against the spread at 10-2-1, despite losing to the Cardinals last Sunday.
The date was 11-11-11, and the blogs were abuzz in the wake of Ever So Lucky’s maiden voyage at Churchill Downs [Watch Replay]. Why not? A $600,000 sale-topper last May, sired by Uncle Mo’s papa Indian Charlie and trained by a Hall of Famer, the colt made short work of a 6 1/2-furlong event as if it were nothing more than a walk in the park. [UPDATE: Indian Charlie dies at age 16]
No, this reporter has not yet finished his Christmas shopping, mostly because in order to finish something you’ve got to start that something first. However, this should not prevent a full-time kibbitzer from urging others into the malls – both virtual and real – to purchase all manner of horse racing goodies for those special someones who have had their fill of fruit cakes and hand-painted ties.
