LAS VEGAS – Whether you believe the recession is over or not, the football contest scene here continues to thrive.
Sure, there have been some layoffs. For example, the Challenge at Station Casinos, which used to have a $1,000 entry fee and dropped to $500 last year, and the $250 buy-in Gridiron Gold at Club Cal Neva won’t be held this year. Some prizes have also been lowered in contests over the years, but there is still a contest for every budget.
Twenty-nine years ago, as John Henry stood on a pallet at Los Angeles International Airport shooting disgusted glances at the younger Super Moment, his agitated traveling mate, the Arlington Million was nothing more than an idea wrapped in a public relations campaign and garnished by cash. A few days later, John Henry put the race on the map, and the race took it from there.
In this week’s installment of “The Fallen,” retired Hall of Famer and all-around guy who should know better Gary Stevens finds himself grinding through a veritable rainbow of pain after sustaining a fracture of his left clavicle, not to mention his pride, in a sad piece of business last Sunday morning at Saratoga.
CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. – Charles Town Race Track has operated since 1933 and it introduced slot machines in 1997, but it had never experienced a gambling frenzy like the one that occurred last month.
Table games – including blackjack, craps, roulette, and poker – were made legal as of July 1, and it took some 24 hours to truck in the equipment, set up the tables, and get some dealers licensed. Charles Town’s casino was packed with customers playing its 5,000 slots, but shortly after midnight on July 2 almost everyone was impatiently eying the tables.
NEW YORK – Dick Turpin returns to York Racecourse on Tuesday, 271 years after his last appearance on the infield gallows. The current occasion for the Thoroughbred Dick Turpin will be the prestigious Juddmonte International Stakes. It was his human namesake who suffered the ultimate indignity of a public hanging at York on April 7, 1739, when he was strung up for the then unforgiveable crime of horse theft.
This reporter long ago gave up trying to understand the subtleties and sensibilities of the American Graded Race system. The process of choosing a Pope is easier to understand. I have been led by the hand, drawn crayon pictures, and spoken to v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y by the people who compile the list, and still I awakened this morning wondering what in the name of Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons did the John C. Mabee do to fall from Grade 1 grace last year to the Grade 2 ghetto for this year’s version.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Tuscan Evening lived in the first stall on the west side of the facing shed rows occupied by the Jerry Hollendorfer horses this summer at Del Mar. You couldn’t miss her.
As the reigning queen of the California turf, along with her newfound following in the Midwest, Tuscan Evening had the star power of a champion in the making. Preparing for her next start in the Beverly D. at Arlington Park, on Aug. 21, she left that stall for the last time last Sunday morning for a work on the Del Mar grass.
LAS VEGAS – Las Vegas is known for hosting big-money contests. Most people know about the $10,000 buy-in Main Event at the World Series of Poker as well as football and horse racing contests.
Last year, the then-new M Resort on the south end of town jumped into the contest game with a $3,000 buy-in football contest. That garnered some attention as it eclipsed the Las Vegas Hilton’s SuperContest, the longest-running established football contest in town with an entry fee of $1,500, and the $2,500 entry fee at the South Point.
With America awash with sunshine on both coasts, last Saturday’s racing features added summer fuel to warm a racing man’s heart.
Television carried the message: People still love this sport, and the big and festive ramps were packed at Saratoga, Del Mar, and at the $1.5 million Hambletonian at the threatened Meadowlands.
As usual, there was enough Blame to go around at Saratoga, as the new Horse of the Year candidate flashed to his fifth straight victory, beating favored Quality Road.
Across the country, the charismatic Zenyatta was the magnet at Del Mar.