DEL MAR, Calif. - Last month, the Chilean racing world was rocked by the deaths of jockeys Francisco Laprida and Javier Nino in separate incidents at two different tracks. Nino's skull was fractured in a four-rider crash at Hipodromo Chile on July 21. He was 36. Laprida caught his foot in an iron, lost his seat, and was dragged to his death at Hipodromo Antofagasta on July 18. He was 35.
TUCSON, Ariz. - Readers who enjoyed Norah Pollard's lyrical poems about her father, jockey Red Pollard of Seabiscuit fame, that appeared here last time out, have asked if there are more.
Happily there are.
They appear in a new book of her poetry titled "Leaning In," published by Antrim House, Box 111, Tarriffville, CT, reachable on the Internet at www.antrimhousebooks.com. With their permission, here are two more of Pollard's elegant and elegiac poems dedicated to her father.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - There comes a point in the midst of every Saratoga meeting when some planetary misalignment or conspiracy of mischievous racing deities creates a sort of Adirondack Triangle. Reason is swallowed by madness as the racing becomes almost random. Favorites disappear into the vortex, closely followed by the bankrolls of players who believe past performance predicts future results.
DEL MAR, Calif. - By the eighth pole of the Clement L. Hirsch Handicap on Sunday at Del Mar, Azeri had pretty much finished the job. Mike Smith glanced over his right shoulder, just in case, but all he saw was Alex Solis and Julie Krone going tooth and nail for second money with Got Koko and Tropical Blossom.
DEL MAR, Calif. - On his new HBO show, "Real Time," comedian/social commentator Bill Maher offers a segment he calls "New Rules," during which sacred cows are butchered, braised, and served up with relish. If only he would take a look at horse racing.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - If you believe what you read in the upstate newspapers and hear from the political hangers-on at the track these days, the New York Racing Association is about to lose its franchise, its officials will be led away from their box seats in handcuffs, and the Saratoga simulcast signal will be shut off to the rest of the country. Any day now.
DEL MAR, Calif. - From California to Kentucky to the Middle East and back to California again, the 2-year-old filly Tizdubai has logged enough miles to qualify for a free ticket to just about anywhere. For now, though, she must be content to stick with her stable at Del Mar, where she will make her stakes debut on Saturday in the 6 1/2-furlong Sorrento Stakes for trainer Eoin Harty.
NEW YORK - When Todd Pletcher won a record 40 races at the Belmont Park spring meeting this year, he was understandably cautious about continuing his pace at Saratoga. He had won with plenty of maidens who now would be stepping into the allowance ranks. His stock would be running against the best of everything east of the Rockies instead of just the regulars from the New York circuit.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Have I got a movie for you. Beautifully photographed and set in exotic, breathtaking locales, it is based on a popular book full of vivid characters who are caught in the throes of social strife. As individuals, they are badly in need of redemption - a second chance in a harsh new world - and that redemption comes in the form of an unlikely hero. The hero, flawed but noble, courts personal danger, passes a test of great physical courage, and, in the end, carries the story to satisfying emotional heights.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The jokes were flowing as freely as the cocktails and lies in Saratoga Sunday night after the dual defeats of Empire Maker in the Jim Dandy and Funny Cide in the Haskell. Wags wondered whether there might be a 50-percent-off sale at the new Funny Cide Store in downtown Saratoga Springs and whether Travers Day box seats might come down from $1,000 to $100 on eBay.