Wanderin’ Boy is a GbG fav and the equivalent of a big foot sighting in racing as a 7yo HORSE. I always wondered about that and now feel enlightened thanks to an excellent post by Steve Haskin over at his Bloodhorse blog.

It’s always refreshing to see big fancy deep pocket owners keep their horses in training, particularly when fate provided so many opportunities for retirement! Wanderin’ Boy really made big bad Curlin work for his win in the JCGC. Go on with your bad Wanderin’ self (and stay sound and healthy while you’re doin’ it)!

Also from the “right on” department, Crist has a fantastic column this week about the BC gender division tom foolery entitled “If you must fix what ain’t broken…”

Proponents of a Filly Friday and a Studly Saturday are difficult to locate outside the Breeders’ Cup offices, and most fans and pundits seem to hate the idea. The most frequent criticisms are that it is inherently sexist (and renaming the Distaff the Ladies’ Classic sure didn’t help) and that it marginalizes half of the racehorse population by relegating it to second-class status and a much smaller television audience. Shouldn’t racing be showcasing the likes of Lady’s Secret, Personal Ensign, and Azeri on its biggest day rather than on a Friday afternoon?

He goes on to propose some viable, and less alienating ways to divvy up the races over two days. Hear, hear.

Posted by dana on Oct 01 2008    
Filed Under: 2008, Take Back the Race, Impressive, Steve Haskin, Wanderin' Boy, Breeders' Cup, Injury, You Tell 'em!, Racing

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Racing right to the shed, Big Brown wins the Derby, but what’s the real cost in the long run? (Charles Pravata)

Hats off to Jessica for pointing this out…

Meanwhile, amid all this talk of improving safety and the breed, IEAH co-president Michael Iavorone boasted on Wednesday that a stallion deal for lightly-raced, achy-hooved Big Brown is nearing completion, and that the farms bidding for the Derby winner’s breeding rights included “one of the most widely recognized stud farms in the world” (Blood-Horse). All the outrage over Eight Belles’ unfortunate death, all the urgent discussion about what happened and what should be done differently, all the critics piling on Rick Porter and Larry Jones — I think we’re talking about the wrong horse, the wrong connections. Big Brown represents the racing industry gone awry, not the filly.

Boom, there you have it. Inspired by this I commented the following on the current Straight Up post, Safety First:

There’s another horse we all should be talking about as well… Big Brown and the implications of such a lightly raced horse with foot issues being put into the breeding shed! We can’t pay lip service to the issues by acknowledging we have breeding issues (among others) while we passively watch a horse that probably can’t even make it past 6 races go to the shed! Shame on everyone! Where is the outrage about this kind of greed? This is EXACTLY what creates more of the circumstances that we should be avoiding when it comes to safety. Wake up people.

I’m also saddened by the Jockey Club’s Health and Safety Panel. How can breeders be objective about issues with breeding? Four of the seven panel members (all men) are in the business of breeding horses. As my grandmother used to say, Jesus H. Christ on a crutch! (clearly we weren’t religious people).

In all sincerity, I hope Big Brown (and everyone else running) stays safe through the Triple Crown. I don’t have the best of feelings about it.

Update: My apologies to Dell Hancock for my erroneous (and moronic) assumption about her gender based on her name… sorry!!

Posted by dana on May 08 2008    
Filed Under: Charles Pravata, Greed, 2008, You Tell 'em!, Triple Crown, Breeding, Retirement Watch, Grrrr, Racing

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Fellow TBA-er Valerie dug up a very interesting study of mixed gender racing in dogs and horses.

Favorite line from the study… in refuting the correlation between human athletes vs. equine and/or canine athletes:

This analysis is strictly speculative, yet it is clear that humans have selectively bred both racehorses and Greyhounds for speed in both genders for several hundred years, whereas humans do not select their own mates based solely on running ability.

I guess it’s time for me to adjust my mate selection criteria!

She also includes a random sample of Australian racing, which is very mixed gender. Well done!

Posted by dana on May 05 2008    
Filed Under: Industry, 2008, TBA, You Tell 'em!, Racing

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Man, Jim Squires, owner of Two Bucks Farm in Versailles, Ky, is quickly becoming my favorite read over The Rail, or anywhere for that matter.

His current post, “Why the filly has a chance“, not only discusses both Eight Belles and Proud Spell, but shares some interesting insights into fillies & colts in general.

Forget that nonsense that intimidation is a male prerogative in the equine world, too. Young females often run the colts off their food in the pasture. And a lot of big handsome colts have had to be moved to safer quarters just to protect them from a dominant, mean-tempered little filly.

and

But there are two big obstacles for fillies facing colts for the first time, that could be easily overcome by experience in earlier prep races. When running against one another, fillies do a lot of talking in the gate, shrill whinnying for the most part. But the sound of colts in the gates is different, more slamming around, grunting and snorting. Colts seldom whinny in a race gate. This can be unnerving to fillies, who are often in a hurry to leave, sapping adrenaline as object of a chase.

And his post from Sunday entitled “The Last Winstrol Derby?” is still drawing some eye opening comments!

Posted by dana on Apr 29 2008    
Filed Under: Internet, 2008, Drugs, You Tell 'em!, Derby Trail, Kentucky Derby, Racing

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Under the whip (geni80)

I don’t watch too much of the coverage of races on network or cable when they’re on. I DVR them for posterity and watch the race part, but I want to see odds, the paddock and the parade, not patter.

I had ESPN’s coverage of the Lexington on with volume down as I was deciding how to make my play. When I turned on the volume the patter was about Samba Rooster. Apparently he’s a bit of handful and HATES the whip. They were discussing that the strategy with Samba Rooster was that Garrett Gomez wouldn’t even carry a whip. Samba Rooster does best when you make him feel like he’s pulling against you… and clearly it worked as went off at 17-1 and placed paying $17.

Jerry Baily, a hall of fame jockey, added “most horses will give you everything they have without hitting them”.

Then, Randy Moss chimes in with…

I think this this is the wave of the future, I think we should do away with whips completely

Hear, f-ing hear!!! Naturally Tessitore cut in jokingly that it was “very European of him” and then they cut to the bugler. But how fantastic of him to say it! I can’t STAND over whipping and to hear someone of Randy Moss’ stature suggest that not only should there be less whipping, but NO whipping was well, fantastic.

I’ve blogged about this before (still at the old site) but it bears repeating. In England they have very clear specifications about the use of the whip. Superstar jock Frankie Dettori was banned for 14 days for his whip use on Ramonti during Royal Ascot. Can you imagine if one our superstar jocks was banned for whip use during the Breeders’ Cup?

Of course that would require there to be some kind of standard and then someone to actually enforce it… let’s hope we see the day when issues such as over whipping and drugging are taken seriously, because until then it’s really hard to convince people that the sport of kings is not “troubled… and filled with dirty little half-kept secrets” or worse, “old-fashioned animal abuse made into a business“, no matter how hard we try.

Before cutting to the bugler, Moss got in “by the way, this shows the horse is very intelligent…”.

Posted by dana on Apr 20 2008    
Filed Under: Randy Moss, 2008, The Whip, TBA, Hennegan Brothers, TV, Inspirational, You Tell 'em!, Racing

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