INGLEWOOD, Calif. - This is not a news flash. Travel during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is a nightmare. Those who venture forth risk freeway gridlock, airport delays, and ruined reunions. The wise hide their keys and hunker down at home with football and leftovers.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Turkey, being a natural source for the amino acid tryptophan, can trigger the production of seratonin in the human brain, thereby inducing relaxation and sleep. This makes turkey the perfect racetrack food.
Racing fans need to be lulled into a state of semi-consciousness these days, or else they may end up running from the game as fast as they can. Thanksgiving? Thanks for nothing. That's how fans should feel this holiday week, when all around them the keepers of the sport are letting them down with increasing regularity.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Thanksgiving Day evokes pleasant memories of the past, and the six-furlong Fall Highweight Handicap, Aqueduct's feature, prompts thoughts of such speedsters who won this venerable stakes as True North, Rippey, Pet Bully, Impromptu, Accordant, Ta Wee, and Mt. Livermore.
Where are those wonderful sprinters of yesteryear and why do so few of the moderns seem to earn the same affection? Come to think of it, there is a colt in Thursday's competitive field who seems to have the potential for distinctive speed. His name is Smooth Jazz.
NEW YORK - "Politics make strange bedfellows," a sentiment usually attributed to William Shakespeare, was in fact first written by Charles Dudley Warner, a Connecticut newspaperman and a collaborator of Mark Twain's. What Shakespeare actually wrote in "The Tempest" was that "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."
WASHINGTON - When the alleged mastermind of the Breeders' Cup pick six fix pleaded guilty Wednesday, he brought horse racing's worst scandal nearer to closure. The three wrongdoers are likely to go to jail. The rightful winners of the pick six will collect their money, sooner or later. And the racing industry is taking aggressive steps to make sure that such a fraud doesn't happen again. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that the sport has learned all the necessary lessons arising from this jolt to its public image.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - "I love New York," said Edgar Prado. "The competition is great. The horses are great. In every 2-year-old race there is a potential champion, and in many allowance races a champion is competing."
The feeling is mutual, and mutuel. New York loves Edgar Prado. Since he began riding regularly on the Big Apple circuit in July of 1999, he has brought another world-class talent to the scene. He is concluding an outstanding season, and his $17.3 million in purses won ranks him second in the national standings to Jerry Bailey.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - "I see this season's 2-year-olds as an above-average crop," said Jerry Bailey.
America's leading rider with more than $22 million in purses this year, Bailey names four horses as the pro tem leaders of the juvenile division.
They are Sky Mesa, winner of the Hopeful at Saratoga and the Lane's End Breeders Futurity at Keeneland; Vindication, winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Arlington Park; Empire Maker, impressive winner of his only start at Belmont Park; and American Mon, second in Aqueduct's recent Huntington Stakes on a sloppy track.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. - It's fun to go racing with friends, particularly if your horse wins, as partners in the CT Stable discovered at Aqueduct on Sunday.
Their Super Fuse, a speedy son of the rapid Lite the Fuse, came with an explosive run in the upper stretch and danced through the slop to a convincing victory by more than three lengths in the $82,475 Huntington Stakes for 2-year-olds at six furlongs.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Sunday should be a good day at Hollywood Park. A mild Santa Ana condition has raised the temperatures and dried out the grass. Fast fillies will be tangling on the turf in the Safely Kept Handicap.
The smell of barbecued burgers will permeate the paddock, while up in the Turf Club, the public is invited to partake in a "lavish Sunday Brunch, the grandest buffet in town."