The plan was simple and made perfect sense. Habaya, the 2-year-old ingenue, would warm up the Friday afternoon crowd at Hollywood Park with her best possible effort in the $100,000 Miesque Stakes. Then, about an hour later, the old man Shakis would take the stage for his final performance in the $400,000 Citation Handicap, wave to the crowd, and ease gracefully into retirement.
At least, that's what Kiaran McLaughlin had in mind.
In a roundabout way, horse lovers should be grateful for the message inadvertently sent by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last week during a televised interview on the meaning of Thanksgiving . . . while she was standing in front of a guy slaughtering a turkey. No matter what the celebration, everyone should know how the meat hits the table.
Major news stories in the last week about formal tests studying effects of Viagra on athletes, and the scientific possibility of re-creating wooly mammoths from the DNA of species now extinct but alive 60,000 years ago, brought the expected round of smirks, snickers, and sub rosa jokes.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - As long as there is going to be major-league racing this time of year, competing head to head with the meat of the NFL and college football product, it might as well be interesting.
Instead, a Sunday afternoon at the track - this Sunday, for instance - is starting to look like just another Thursday. With racetracks hoarding stakes events for the Thanksgiving weekend, poor little November Twenty-Third has been orphaned.
In one sense, the company is not that bad. A three-time winner of the Eclipse Award for leading owner. A champion trainer. The minority interest owners of a Horse of the Year. These all represent levels to which most people who enter the racing game would aspire.
First he was going to race next year, perhaps. Then he was going to run once more this year, maybe. Now, with few if any options left, Curlin is all but retired, although owner Jess Jackson can be forgiven for wishing that the music would never end.
NEW YORK - On the first two Sundays of December, a pair of statebred stars will make the final starts of their remarkable 2008 campaigns in vastly different races. In one case a big fish will stay in her own small pond, while the other will jump into the deepest part of the ocean.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Now that Stardom Bound is safely out of the way, at least for now, the rest of California's 2-year-old filly crop can come out of hiding. Pamona Ball emerged as the real deal two weeks ago in the Sharp Cat Stakes at Hollywood Park, and on Sunday another bunch will go forth in Hollywood's $100,000 Moccasin Stakes at seven furlongs.
The first American trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses to produce a million dollars in earnings for a single season was Horace Allyn Jones, better known as Jimmy, who turned the trick in 1947 with the main string of the Calumet Farm stable. By the end of the year, Jones had won 85 races and $1,334,805 in purses with horses like Armed, Faultless, Fervent, and a couple of 2-year-old named Citation and Bewitch.