INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Balloon wranglers wrestled with their stubborn decorations, drooping and billowing in the mild afternoon breeze, while a rapt crowd of 16,850 looked down upon Chris McCarron, standing before family and friends, dropping names like they were going out of style.
McCarron listed owners, trainers and jockeys. Role models, colleagues and mentors. Assistant starters, veterinarians, even publicists, for goodness sakes!
ELMONT, N.Y. - As a 2-year-old in the 2000 season, Raging Fever won her first five starts for the stable of owner-breeder Edward P. Evans, including the Grade 1 Matron and the Grade 1 Frizette. She wasn't effective at Churchill Downs, however, and her single loss that year, in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, cost her an Eclipse Award, to the disappointment of her people.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - In order to take the full measure of a man, it helps to consider his family, how they support each other in time of need, and how they observe the great occasions.
Chris McCarron is surrounded in Boston Irish blood by four brothers and four sisters. As children of Herb and Helen McCarron, they were taught by example to bear themselves with humility and grace. No matter what happened, in school or at play, no single one of them was ever held in more esteem than another.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Chris McCarron will have to wait at least another day before he can indulge himself with a thick slice of his wife's incredible apple pie. The racing secretary has decided that Ask Me No Secrets, McCarron's mount in the $250,000 Vanity Handicap on Saturday, is 10 pounds inferior to Azeri and therefore need carry only 115 to the favorite's 125.
NEW YORK - It is appropriate for Lone Star Park to host Friday night's colorful All Star Jockey Championship, and to be awarded the prestigious Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships, probably in 2004, for this is one of the most successful racetracks ever introduced in this country.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Chris McCarron Retirement Tour will be short and sweet. On Friday night, he rides in the NTRA All-Star Jockey Championship at Lone Star Park. On Saturday and Sunday he competes back home at Hollywood Park. Then, on Monday, as one career ends and another begins, McCarron will turn his energies toward issues near and dear to his heart.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Chris McCarron was in the midst of his retirement press conference on Saturday morning when he interrupted himself to deliver a melancholy bulletin.
"By the way," McCarron said. "I heard some news this morning that Mrs. Ridder passed away last night."
McCarron apologized for being the bearer of such a downer. At the time, he was listing the names of the best horses he has ridden - John Henry, Alysheba, Precisionist, Flawlessly - when he came upon the name of Flying Paster, who was bred and raced by Ben and Georgia Ridder.
ELMONT, N.Y. - The handicap division, which at one point this season appeared lackluster, took on a notable infusion of quality over the weekend with the victories of Seeking Daylight in Belmont Park's $250,000 Brooklyn Handicap, Street Cry in the $750,000 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, and Milwaukee Brew in Hollywood Park's $500,000 Californian Stakes.
NEW YORK - It's wonderful that 103,222 people were at Belmont Park last Saturday for the Belmont Stakes and that another seven million watched the race on television. It's a pity that only 8,517 were at Belmont the next day, joined by a television audience limited to simulcast and OTB customers, to see the most exciting racehorse in the game these days.