This poll has actually been up a few days and I’m happy to see people have been voting. You may have noticed the up tick in posts and commentary on the various issues surrounding the Breeders’ Cup so why not vote on it?

Need some refreshers on the issues? There’s Crist’s column on Ladies Day, the TBA point/counter point on Ladies Day (with interesting ongoing comments), John’s excellent recent post “What’s in a Name” and Kennedy’s observations about various inconsistencies, just to name a few.

Is your biggest complaint that there’s two days instead of one? Is Ladies Day not your cup of tea or are you just bothered by the name Ladies Classic (and hey, why didn’t the change the Juvenile and Turf Fillies too? Little Ladies, Little Ladies Turf and Ladies Turf)? Is running the championship on a new surface your biggest complaint or do you just wish they’d use standard saddle cloths to help a horse player out? And for the indecisive and/or equally bothered, there’s always All of the Above.

In our last poll Zenyatta was leading prior to the races but afterwards Curlin started to pull ahead. I thought Zenyatta’s win was more impressive but no doubt some of you were swayed by the record breaking earnings, or was it the repeat of the JCGC?

The voting worked out to be 37 for Curlin, 25 for Zenyatta and 20 for Big Brown. As always, thanks for voting!

Posted by dana on Oct 06 2008    
Filed Under: Big Brown, Zenyatta, Poll, 2008, Curlin, Breeders' Cup, Racing

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Zenyatta after winning the Clement Hirsch (Charles Pravata)

After bitching yesterday about how boring it is read about Curlin vs. Big Brown for HOY I decided that I wanted to see how many other people would pick Zenyatta over them.

In our last poll, 31 of you said that the NTRA should market to any and all groups of people (a point of view I share), 14 of you said they should market specifically to sports fans, 3 of you said that they should market to known gamblers as well 3 for puzzle solvers. 2 of you said they should go after day trippers and not one single person said they should market to millennials.

As always, thanks for participating!

Posted by dana on Sep 18 2008    
Filed Under: Poll, 4yo, Big Brown, Zenyatta, 2008, Charles Pravata, Fans, Curlin, 3yo, Racing

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Philadelphia Park (~ RAYMOND)

I had the feeling that I might return to blogging tonight as I crabbed to someone in an email that I’m already sick of hearing all the droning about Curlin vs. Big Brown for horse of the year. It’s about as interesting as incessantly following who’s up in the presidential polls.

I’m somewhat surprised (and somewhat not) that no one has seemed to mention Zenyatta in the same breath as HOY (disclaimer, if you have, I may have missed it as I’ve not been keeping up with reading!).

Undefeated? Check. Won on multiple surfaces? Check. Beat an impressive reining champion? Check. Beat the impressive reining champion while making first start on new surface? Check.

Let’s face it, the Filly & Mare Classic division is making a mockery of the boys this year. I loooove Curlin and think Big Brown is pretty great but Zenyatta has been turning in consistently impressive performances all year. And her nemesis Tough Tiz’s Sis demolishing the field in the Ruffian also speaks volumes about her talent.

Speaking of the Breeders’ Cup, Kennedy has an excellent set of observations about inconsistencies with the BC. Just when I thought I had heard it all!

I’ve been too busy to compile the August SAFC reports just yet, which might be a good thing because we got a fab submission today (or possibly sometime in the past few days… I’ve been really out of it!) that has many, many great ideas/issues. One of them, which I want to point out while we’re still on the subject of the BC, is the damn saddle cloths. They’re a serious scourge for those who actually want to be able to tell which horse is which without memorizing hat and silk colors. Please, go to SAFC and complain about this one!

A juicy blind item was revealed over at Moran’s today when he finally got to tell us which NYRA official said ‘Fuck the Horseplayers’. Now I’m sort of wishing I had a done a poll when the original item came out.

GbG horse of interest National Pride won his 3rd race today at Belmont in the third, a $50k OC N2X. He had Coa aboard for the first time and caught a strong On Board Again at the wire. I also thought Goldsville was impressive for the show. He had some traffic trouble in the stretch and had to swing wide but came on nicely as well. As always, looking forward to National Pride’s next start.

And if you’re still reading, I should remind that you the deadline for the SAFC DIY Marketing Presentation Contest has been extended to this Saturday at 7pm EST. So stop farting around reading blogs and get your presentation together! We’ve already gotten a handful of great ones and are expecting a few more… c’mon surprise us with your great ideas or clever harangues! Need some ideas? Start here.

Posted by dana on Sep 17 2008    
Filed Under: Raymond Haddad, 4yo, 2008, Big Brown, Rivalry, Tough Tiz's Sis, Zenyatta, National Pride, Ginger Punch, Breeders' Cup, Curlin, Race Replay, Eibar Coa, 3yo, NYRA, Racing

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Lest you think I’ve been abducted or have run away with the circus I thought I should post a little something.

I’ve been busy over here crunching numbers for SAFC’s first reports and I’m happy to say that it’s going well!

The submissions have been well thought out and well intentioned for the most part with no real smart ass or useless contributions. The effort is definitely off to a great start and I’ll post more about the reports and some of our upcoming plans soon (after I get done with the reports… just visualize me with a digital wheel-barrow taking lots of piles of data from one place to another and then deciding it all should go in 3 separate piles elsewhere to then change my mind again).

A few little things that have jumped out at me recently…

Jess Jackson schools us all on the classy way to trash talk:

I would love to meet Big Brown. It would be great for the industry and the fans. But all we can do is take one race at a time. I don’t know where it would be. I suspect they might retire him before we ever get a chance to meet. (If we do) I prefer it be on dirt and at a mile and a quarter.

Did anyone else think this statement by Paul Pompa was odd:

The Woodward isn’t in our thinking right now,” said Pompa, a 25% owner of Big Brown. “The timing isn’t right for the horse. Mike Iavarone (of co-owner IEAH Stables) and I discussed it, and we’re not going to Saratoga. There is no reason to rush him back. He’s coming off a tough race.

It was a tough race in part because he was coming off a break. That race probably did him a lot of good as he actually fought for his win. Many others have made far more concise and astute readings of this situation than I could so I’ll leave it at that, but that sentiment seemed completely ass backwards to me.

And finally, Lava Man’s 2005 Hollywood Gold Cup recently popped up on YouTube so I added it to my Lava Man post. It’s an incredible race, he really blows them away at something like 6-1 where it seemed obvious he was somewhat disregarded.

Back to the digital wheel-barrow.

Posted by dana on Aug 07 2008    
Filed Under: Big Brown, Self Appointed Fan Committee, 2008, Hollywood Gold Cup, Curlin, Lava Man, Racing

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Should Big Brown run in the Haskell, he will be “Running for Re-Run“, a program that donates a portion of the win/place proceeds to the rescue group Re-Run.

Here at GbG we encourage finding innovative ways to donate to thoroughbred rescue and safe retirement, perhaps IEAH can shame some other high profile owners into joining this excellent program! Eric Fein ran Big Truck for Re-Run in the Derby and fellow TBA-er Steve Zorn of Castle Village Farms also takes part in the program. Maybe IEAH should run ALL of their many acquisition holdings for Re-Run!

Posted by dana on Jul 30 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Industry, Big Brown, TBA, :), Retirement Watch, Rescue, Racing

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