A first exposure to Del Mar’s raucous opening day can be unsettling. The idea of 40,000 people doing something on a Thursday afternoon other than reporting to work is weird. Furthermore, these 40,000 seem to be costumed for a mash-up of Mardi Gras and fashion week in Milan.
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DRF Past Performances
It won’t exactly be the second coming of Damascus vs. Dr. Fager. But when Gabriel Charles and Power Ped take the field Saturday in the $400,000 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar, there’s a chance it will be worth the price of admission just watching the guys in the saddle.
Mike Smith and Gary Stevens can tell you the exact date when they first met – it was April 20, 1985 – for reasons that had little to do with their common destinies as future Hall of Famers.
It’s okay to haze the new kid a little bit. Go ahead and nail his desk drawer shut. Cram a live chicken in his locker. Have him paged by the principal, all day long. But what they did last summer to David Jerkens in his first season as Del Mar racing secretary went way too far.
On Sunday at Emerald Downs, the $50,000 Seattle Slew Handicap will be run for the 38th straight season. It was first presented in 1977, and if the year rings a bell, it should. Seattle Slew was very much in the news that summer as the 10th winner of the American Triple Crown.
The carnival had ended, but the memory lingered on. Roustabouts were busy tearing down tented pavilions and dismantling the Grand Wheel, G-Force, and Alien Abduction. Maintenance crews cleaned up after all manner of domestic livestock. The exotic food trucks had packed and were off down the road, taking with them the heady flavors of Australian Battered Potatoes, Chicken Charlie’s Deep-Fried Snickers, and a personal favorite, Everything Cheese.
When (if?) Ben’s Cat is retired, they should rename the Parx Dash the “Ben’s Cat Dash.” Ben’s Cat has run in the Dash and the Turf Monster, run on Labor Day at Parx, in each of the last four years.
He is going for career win No. 30 in Saturday’s running of the Parx Dash. Ben’s Cat has won the race the last three years after losing by a head in 2011. I have absolutely no idea how Ben Cat’s won the Dash last year, as he looked hopelessly beaten with 100 yards to go.
How the mighty have disappeared.
Living as we are in the Age of American Pharoah, it is easy to forget that the health of the sport relies on a horizontal integration of exceptional talent to maintain widespread interest. The game cannot rely on Pharoah’s daily gallops alone.
The wildlife is winning in western Pennsylvania. The people who run Presque Isle Downs have had to cancel programs and reschedule post times to deal with the potential dangers posed by deer romping around the racetrack. The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners has been consulted, and there is something called the Deer Management Assistance Program in which antlerless deer are legally “harvested” (like strawberries), but that season does not officially start until late November.
It’s too early in the history of the Belmont Oaks and Belmont Derby, both of which will be run for just the second time Saturday at Belmont Park, to know whether the races – technically continuations of the Garden City and Jamaica – are white elephants or instant successes. Either way, the purses for these grass races for 3-year-olds still look like typographical errors: $1.25 million for the Belmont Derby and $1 million for the Oaks.