TUCSON, Ariz. - If you're trying to reach any national racing leaders this week, I can tell you where to find them.
They're right down the street from my office, at the fancy Westin La Paloma here in Tucson, talking and listening and eating and drinking at racing's annual pre-holiday orgy of oratory, the University of Arizona's Race Track Industry Program Symposium.
In the murky world of journalism, quoting secondary sources is always dicey. No writer worth their laptop makes that leap too often, and certainly not without heavy attribution, even when there seems to be no apparent reason for doubt.
Then along comes a doozy like this one, attributed to Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale after Marsh Side, winner of Woodbine's Canadian International, had to be scratched the day before he was scheduled to run in last weekend's Japan Cup:
It has not been the best week of headlines for the general reputation of racetrack veterinarians. The Dow's done better.
In Kentucky, Dr. Rodney Stewart has been trying to explain to a racing commission hearing officer why he stored cobra venom in a refrigerator located in the backstretch stable office of trainer Patrick Biancone. Stewart is appealing a five-year suspension, while Biancone just ended what amounted to a year on the sidelines.
Now that every pundit and his or her brother has weighed in on the meager pros and ghastly cons of the recently released list of American graded stakes for 2009, it's my turn.
Pass.
It's not that I don't have an opinion. Opinions about the American graded race system are like winter colds. Everybody's got one. And it's not that there are better things to complain about, although there are. A broadly accepted method of rating America's best races can be useful. Of course, most fans know which races are which already.
NEW YORK - Is American racing producing more and more outstanding races and horses each and every year? Common sense says no, but the American Graded Stakes Committee apparently disagrees: It designated 100 races as Grade 1 events just three years ago for the 2006 racing year, and increased that number to 107 in 2007 and 110 in 2008. The 2009 gradings, announced earlier this week, kicked the number up to 115 for next year.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Hollywood Derby and the Matriarch offer healthy purses, intriguing fields, and reason enough to spend this Sunday afternoon at the track, which is why it is hard to believe that they'll both be upstaged by a simple little walk in the park.
Believe it, though, because Zenyatta will parade between races during the afternoon's festivities.
NEW YORK - A victory in the Grade 1 Cigar Mile, first run as the NYRA Mile in 1988, has never been part of a horse's championship season. That's not going to change in its 21st running at Aqueduct on Saturday, where no one is going to dislodge Midnight Lute or Benny the Bull as the nation's champion sprinter or Curlin as the top older male of 2008. Yet the race has a fascinating and distinguished history, including victories by three horses who were champions in other seasons.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Matriarch is the best race of the Hollywood Park autumn season, bar none, and when Hollywood Park finally closes, and takes the Matriarch with it, let's just hope the peerless history of the event lives on for at least a little while.
There are few races as resilient as the Matriarch, especially at the