HOLLYWOOD PARK, Calif. - The idea of the sure thing taunts racetrackers to distraction. Just one in a lifetime, please let it happen. Fish in a barrel, brick through a window, a fat pitch over the center of the plate.
Azeri in the Vanity Handicap Saturday at Hollywood Park.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It's time again for Friday night at the races. Everybody duck.
During the current Hollywood Park meet, which conducts night racing once a week, there have been at least three scary incidents of horses gone wild in the outdoor saddling paddock, as twilight fades and darkness begins to fall.
TUCSON, Ariz. - Some parents aspire to sending their kids to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton.
Until last week I always felt a wiser course was to try to get them a job as a mutuel clerk in California. It's the cushiest deal I know in racing, and can lead to comfort, affluence, and security, without undue mental exertion or the physical skills necessary to become a multimillionaire by shooting or hitting a ball or someone else.
Events of recent days, however, make it clear that the profession of law is the proper way to go after all.
Ask Bob Baffert.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It's hard to decide which rider had the best weekend. Candidates run deep.
Richie Migliore turned in a beauty, lulling the Brooklyn Handicap field to sleep and splashing home with Iron Deputy. Gary Stevens swept both the Hollywood Oaks and the Whittingham Memorial, and came within a half-length of taking the Californian as well. And not even a three-day suspension could spoil the roll of Patrick Valenzuela, who won nine races in two days, including Sunday's Quicken Tree Stakes at Hollywood Park.
ELMONT, N.Y. - After months of trouble, the reward was sweet.
Iron Deputy, making only his third start of the year, took complete charge of a strong field and scored a decisive victory by 2 1/2 lengths in Saturday's $250,000 Brooklyn Handicap. A torrential rain in mid-afternoon turned the track into a lake and may have helped Iron Deputy, who has tactical speed. His performance was outstanding, however, giving the impression that he has turned an important corner with a foot problem and is ready to go on with his career as a prominent figure in the handicap ranks.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Another Father's Day has arrived. Let the unwrapping of the bad ties begin. Word of advice, however. If dad wants to just sit around the family room, watching the U.S. Open or the New Jersey Nets, or spend the afternoon going through the "Die Hard" series on DVD, leave him alone. He'll be in seventh heaven.
NEW YORK - More people tuned in to the final hour of the Belmont Stakes telecast June 7 than to "Everybody Loves Raymond," "CSI," or any other blockbuster that week. Believe it or not, that hour of horse racing was the No. 1 show on network television during the first seven days of June. There may yet be hope for the republic if more Americans care to watch a Triple Crown bid than Barbara Walters's exclusive interview with Hillary Clinton on "20/20."
The question now is what, if anything, racing can do to build on and benefit from that exposure.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It might be happening, right before our very eyes. There is a chance that Bobby Frankel is becoming the game's new Charlie Whittingham.
Now, this is where the calm and reasonable reader rips page 5 out of the paper and uses it to soak up the grease in a bacon sandwich. The idea that someone could fill the well-worn barn boots of Charles Edward Whittingham is preposterous. The notion that Robert F. Frankel might be that guy . . . well, wars have been fought over less.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - If Saturday's $400,000 Californian at Hollywood Park is going to live up to its glorious past, something will have to emerge from the woodwork. The field is blue collar from top to bottom - a tribute to equal opportunity - offering no threat to embellish a list of past winners that includes Swaps, Dr. Fager, Cougar, Affirmed, Precisionist, and Sunday Silence. Did I mention Dr. Fager?
ELMONT, N.Y. - The focus last weekend was on the Belmont Stakes and Funny Cide's gallant bid for the Triple Crown. In the excitement it was easy to overlook Denon's smashing score in the $400,000 Manhattan Handicap, an achievement which indicates that this 5-year-old son of Pleasant Colony is probably the best grass horse in the East this season.
Denon, who began his racing career in France, came to the United States in the fall of 2001 and drew immediate attention by winning the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby.