ARCADIA, Calif. - In a world where drinking water has become polluted with Prozac runoff, perfectly good beef is being recalled by the boatload, and the governor of a populous eastern state that rhymes with You Dork falls prey to man's most basic instincts, let us give thanks for at least one true constant in this mixed-up world.
Praise be to Nashoba's Key.
Nina Kaiser was not happy. Something wasn't quite right. Maybe it was the tilt of the head, or the width of the chest, or the right knee. That's it. He was just a little bit back at the knee. Or maybe the hind end in relation to the chest. No, it was the eye, his unforgettable eye. The eye had to be perfect or else nothing would matter.
Intercepting an artist in the middle of a major work is like dealing with a woman after eight hours of labor and just two centimeters of dilation. Things can get touchy, and the actual delivery seems a far, distant dream.
NEW YORK - Saturday's Louisiana Derby Day card at Fair Grounds is the richest and perhaps the best program of racing so far this year, capping a triumphant return for the historic New Orleans track that just two winters ago was closed and faced an uncertain future after being ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
ARCADIA, Calif. - In a perfect world (stop laughing) the field for the $300,000 Santa Margarita Handicap at Santa Anita on Sunday would include the five most exciting older females on the West Coast.
Okay, so there's no chance. But just for a moment imagine a 1 1/8-mile main-track event pitting Ginger Punch, Nashoba's Key, Hystericalady, Magnificience and Zenyatta. There have been Breeders' Cup races come up lighter than that.
TUCSON, Ariz. - Crisis has turned to chaos.
In one day's e-mail came word that two of the key leaders of Maryland Thoroughbred and harness racing - Joe De Francis of Pimlico and Laurel and CEO Tom Chuckas Jr. of Rosecroft Raceway - are leaving their jobs.
But there was more. Frank Stronach's Magna Entertainment announced a fourth-quarter loss of almost $43 million, bringing total long-term debt to $879.9 million, $209.4 million of that due this year. The
ARCADIA, Calif. - Sons of the auld sod had a pretty good day at Santa Anita last Saturday. And why not? There was a proper crowd turned out, fast horses everywhere you looked, and ale flowing freely in the infield, courtesy of a microbrew festival that would have been called, back home in Ireland, lunch.
Add the gentle atmospherics of a cool Irish mist, squeezed throughout the afternoon from a heavenly sponge, and all the ingredients were in place for Frank Lyons, Eoin Harty, and Will de Burgh to have a grand afternoon.
If the intention of Breeders' Cup officials was to spark public reaction at the decision to have an all-girls Friday card come the 25th running at Santa Anita Park in October, congratulations. This one is impossible to ignore, at least by anyone writing for this particular page.
NEW YORK - The way racing usually shoots itself in the foot is by continuing to do the things it historically does badly, so let's at least give the Breeders' Cup credit for a new approach to self-inflicted wounds: By dismantling the sport's greatest single card of championship races, it is instead taking aim at one of the few things in the game that needed no fixing.
NEW YORK - Is the "help" of the federal government necessary to prevent the abuse of anabolic steroids in Thoroughbred racing?
That was the central question for the racing industry during the few minutes of attention it received Wednesday at a congressional hearing about drugs and sports. Alex Waldrop, the president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, was one of 14 witnesses who were asked to testify before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.