WASHINGTON – Horse racing has rarely inspired serious fiction. Novels about the sport are usually formulaic (e.g., Dick Francis’s mysteries) or filled with cliches (e.g., the triumph of an underdog.) So it was a shock when “Lord of Misrule,” a new novel set at a bottom-level West Virginia racetrack in the early 1970s, was named one of the five finalists for the National Book Award for fiction, a prize that has been won by literary giants such as William Faulkner, John Updike, and Saul Bellow.
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DRF Past Performances
Chris McCarron, who won the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Alysheba under considerably less illumination than was provided last Saturday at Churchill Downs, saw what was happening from ground level, standing as he was about a hundred yards past the finish.
“Everyone’s asking me why he let her drop back so far,” said McCarron, figuring the listener would know the “he” was Mike Smith and the “her” was Zenyatta, who had just lost by the length of Blame’s head for the first time in her 20-race career.
WASHINGTON – The nationwide television audience watching “Zenyatta: A Quest for Perfection” and the 72,739 people cheering for the mare at Churchill Downs surely felt deflated when she lost to Blame in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. They shouldn’t have despaired. Zenyatta was more ennobled by this defeat than by almost anything she did during the 19-race winning streak she brought into Saturday’s race.
No one hit the pick six on Friday's Breeders' Cup card, leading to an $817,000 carryover for Saturday's sequence starting with the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint -- and ending with Zenyatta's attempt at making history in the Breeders' Cup Classic.
Perfection is elusive, even for the very best.
Affirmed never figured to have a perfect record, what with Alydar breathing down his neck every time he turned around. And even if Spectacular Bid had somehow sidestepped those two losses to inferior creatures at age 2 and then found a way to overcome the human errors weighing him down the day he failed in the Belmont Stakes, he could have tried the 1979 Jockey Club Gold Cup a thousand times, and still he would have lost to Affirmed.
LAS VEGAS – Breeders’ Cup Weekend is feeling like Kentucky Derby Days of old.
Say what? Let me explain.
Back as far as anyone I could find could remember, the Kentucky Derby was the biggest draw here in Vegas for horseplayers every year on the First Saturday in May. Especially before widespread simulcasting came about, Vegas was known as Churchill Downs West as fans and bettors came here to celebrate the Run for the Roses and get in on the action.
NEW YORK – Nobody is calling the first day of Breeders’ Cup races “Filly Friday” this year, for obvious reasons: The sport’s three most accomplished females are all running against males Saturday – Zenyatta in the Classic, and Goldikova and Proviso in the Mile. As a result, Cup officials have concerns that the Friday card is a little light on marquee names this year.
They may need to rethink the way their 14 races are carved up between Friday and Saturday, but the good news is that Friday’s six Cup races still have plenty of sporting and wagering appeal.
It gave a warm and fuzzy feeling, on a snarling and mean-spirited election day in America, to see the vivid star-spangled red, white, and blue silks being cheered wildly by a crowd of 120,000 at a horse race half a world away.
That was the scene at one of the truly great horse races in the world, the Melbourne Cup at the Flemington course in Australia’s most intriguing city.
This is the Kentucky Derby magnified, in a city almost three times bigger than Louisville, before a crowd whipped with the fervor and flavor of an all-encompassing international spectacle.
Breeders’ Cup week should be all smiles and giggles, sunshine and flowers, and glasses way past half full. The best the game has to offer in an event designed to please, the Cup usually delivers on its promise, leaving behind a feel-good vibe that lingers well into winter.
As such, the atmosphere during Breeders’ Cup week is the hardly conducive to a eulogy. Barbara Walter wouldn’t stand for it anyway. Propriety being her hallmark – she once turned down a relatively indecent proposal from the young Marlon Brando – the last thing she would want to do is rain on anyone’s parade.