TUCSON, Ariz. - In desperation, after the 227th replay of John M. Karr in his blue-and-pink shirts and blank stare, surrounded by a crazed cluster of paparazzi, I abandoned television forever and fled to my library.
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DRF Past Performances
DEL MAR, Calif. - Late Sunday afternoon, in the wake of 's historic victory in the $1 million Pacific Classic, Doug O'Neill was reciting his familiar postrace litany, the same one heard after each of Lava Man's major victories during his relentless streak of 2006, in which the trainer describes teamwork as the key and thanks everyone surrounding the stable star for doing a "super" job.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The executive director of the California Horse Racing Board arrived at the John Shirreffs barn a little before 8 o'clock Friday morning and made a beeline for the trainer. Shirreffs, apparently a man with very little to hide, never even flinched.
As it turned out, Ingrid Fermin only wanted to give some friends from the Department of Finance in Sacramento a peek at Giacomo, a real, live Kentucky Derby winner, who at that moment was mellowed out in stall No. 1, standing in knee boots filled with ice and getting an electronic massage.
DEL MAR, Calif. - There are reasons that Lava Man has yet to become a breakout superstar - along the lines of Bernardini, for example, or last year's Horse of the Year, Saint Liam - in spite of the fact that he has won $2.9 million, two Hollywood Gold Cups, and a Santa Anita Handicap, Grade 1 races on turf and dirt, and will be the starting favorite on Sunday at Del Mar in the 16th running of the $1 million Pacific Classic.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Automatic systems for betting on horses never work for long because the horseplaying market assimilates profitable angles and knocks their price below the level of success needed to make a profit. Favorites win three times as often as randomly selected horses, but don't pay enough to beat the takeout. The same goes for backing every horse with the highest speed figure, the leading jockey, or any other equally accessible and obvious piece of information.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The Tin Man. Perfect Drift. Lava Man. Their names conjure themes of class, durability, and speed, long held as hallmark characteristics of the Thoroughbred breed. Their owners are to be envied, their caretakers admired, and their fans are rarely disappointed. Amazing is what they are, and there's not a surviving testicle among 'em.
The mixed message sent by a testosterone-dominated culture holds that a racehorse is not a whole horse unless he can spread his seed. The word used, in the jargon of the industry, is "entire."
DEL MAR, Calif. - Pity poor Victor Espinoza. To hear him tell it, at least to the ears of this slothful scribe, it sounds as if he lives the life of a Trappist monk. He is up with the dawn for morning labors, followed by a ritual scourging of the temporal body. Then comes the afternoon public ceremonies that require an intense combination of physical bravery and intellectual discipline. After that, all that's left is evening vespers, water and a biscuit, and bedtime on a wooden pallet.
"The jockey's life is not an easy life, if you do it right," Espinoza insists.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The week just ending at Saratoga used to be known almost officially as Sales Week, a time when talk of bloodstock and pedigrees almost overwhelmed the racing here and hundreds of yearlings sold for fabulous sums over several nights at the Fasig-Tipton pavilion. The world's best yearlings sold either at Keeneland in July or Saratoga in August, and part of the charm was that you would see the best of them a year later as the winners of Saratoga's 2-year-old maiden races.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The Del Mar Thoroughbred Club website goes so far as to list the e-mail addresses of its top executives and department heads, which at least gives them something to do between Friday night rock concerts.
Such a policy of welcome customer feedback has its dark side, of course, especially during something like the siege of breakdowns and equine fatalities that occurred during the opening three weeks of the meet.