Suspensions

To the casual sports fan, racing comes under a cloud every now and then when a marquee trainer like Bob Baffert enters the news with a horse who's tested positive for a banned drug. In Bob's case, it's been happening fairly frequently and with such a variety of banned substances that you wonder what drugs, if any, are safe for a horse to have in their system.

Add to the attention that someone like Bob Baffert gets the fact that his drug-related news seems to occur in the classic, or marquee races like legs of the Triple Crown—the races the casual, seasonal fan knows about—and you have a lot of attention coming Bob's way almost seasonally.

But racing does not operate under a seasonal cloud, its skies are always partly sunny/partly cloudy. The die-hard racing fan knows this and just shakes their head at the latest news, news that doesn't even make the mainstream newspapers like the New York Times, but stays confined to the trade papers like the Daily Racing Form (DRF) and Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN). If not for scanning links to these publications how would I know that a long-time New York trainer, Linda Rice has been given a three-year suspension and $50,000 fine from the New York Racing Association (NYRA) for "improper and corrupt conduct to gain an edge with her horses by obtaining the names of entries in races before the cards became final." And what is that?

The short explanation would be trying to gain inside information on who her competition will be in a given race, and then deciding whether she is going to enter her horses at all; using inside information to spot an easy spot in which to enter to improve her chances of booting home a winner for herself, jockey and owners. Jesus, that's a thing?

Apparently, and you have to follow horse racing to realize that being accused of that represents a new one. Most trainer suspensions are the result of a chronic pattern of drug abuse on their horses. Richard Dutrow got a 10-year suspension so many years ago that it's almost over. There are those who are not looking forward to his return.

Jockeys in turn can also get suspension for careless riding, and sometimes even more serious infractions like trying to use a battery to jolt a horse with a charge of electricity in order to get them to run faster. Just recently Joe Drape of the NYT  wrote of Kendrick Carmouche's father Sylvester who famously cut the course at Delta Downs, Louisiana, and brought home a long shot with a 24-length lead by not running the full length of the race That was accomplished under seriously foggy skies, at night, and earned Sylvester a 10-year suspension.

I once read that the great jockey Eddie Arcaro was nearly suspended for life! for a riding infraction. The penalty was downgraded, and Eddie continued to ride after serving a suspension. I don't know the details, but it must have really been something to rule that a jockey could never compete again.

Almost any trainer has been slapped with a drug infraction of some kind, even if it's been determined there was no intention to deceive and no malice aforethought. A positive test is viewed with finality, since that trainer is responsible for all aspects of the horse's care. 

In the case of the most resent high-profile positive test result, Bob Baffert's Medina Spirit's win in this year's Kentucky Derby is under a cloud because the first post-race sample tested came back positive for a banned substance, betamethasone, a pain killer.

In the case of drug testing, horses and humans, there is a split sample taken at the same time as the first that is held aside and tested further if the first sample comes back positive. In Medina Spirit's case this sample hasn't even been sent to a lab, a lab I read is remarkably of Bob Baffert's own choosing. The explanation for the delay is a single word: lawyers.

While all the legal sabre rattling takes place, NYRA has banned Baffert from running any horses at its tracks, Belmont, Saratoga, and Aqueduct. Since Bib is basically a West Coast, Santa Anita trainer, this is notable, but not crushing. There are high value races that Bob can right now not come East for, but it's not the most severe restriction that can be invoked.

Everyone seems to understand drugs. As humans, we certainly take plenty on our own, prescribed and otherwise, but what the hell is a "corrupt scheme to gain an edge..."

Here's where a little deep dive into the nuts and bolts of race eligibility comes in. Every race has eligibility conditions associated with it. This is done to level the competitive playing field so that horses are not overmatched by being made to compete with more accomplished (read faster) animals. Racing is so hierarchical that it would make an English Lord smile in his oak paneled manor library with the restrictions that are created for each race.

Since I made a long-awaited appearance at Belmont this past Saturday, and still have my printout of the day's DRF past performances (pps) in my wastebasket, I've just fished out the conditions for the first race at Belmont, an Optional Claimer, for $80,000/N2X, purse of $94,000. The conditions for a horse's eligibility to be in that race were:

"For fillies And Mare Three Years Old and Upward Which Have Never Won $13,000 Twice other Than Maiden, Claiming, Starter Or State Bred Allowance Or Which Have Never Won Three Races Or Optional Claiming Price of $80,000."

What follows in the conditions are the conditions for the weight assignments, dependent on age and how recently they've won, weight off favoring horses that haven't won since a pre-determined date.

If you think that's boiler plate worthy of needing a lawyer, you're almost right. But those at the track know that this makes the race basically an allowance race, with the option for a trainer/owner to put a horse in for a "tag," a claiming price of $80,000.

Reading and understanding the conditions of a race are important to handicapping. The conditions establish the level of competition. The more the word "or" appears in the condition the more wide-open the race becomes; the umbrella for eligibility widens."

I once wrote to the NYRA racing secretary and asked how did he create the conditions. I imagined this to be a sophisticated computer program that looked at all the horse on the grounds and what their level of competition has been, and spit out a narrative of conditions.

Almost. The racing secretary was kind enough to call me and explain that he creates conditions based on the horses that have been working out in the mornings. Working out is an indication by a trainer and owner that they're ready/getting ready to race. The racing secretary compiles these intentions, synthesizing them into conditions, and prints a condition book, a proposal of race conditions for a designated period of time in the very near future, perhaps for the next 10 days.

This is a Bible. Trainers and jockey agents are always looking at the condition book and deciding who they may want to enter in a given race; by extension for the jockey's agent, what trainers are looking to need a rider for a given race. Sign my jockey up. The condition book creates the races.

Every condition is different. They are snowflakes. If you've got a New York bred that's just broken its maiden (first win) you're going to need a race that recognizes that accomplishment, but doesn't thrust your horse into running against a proven stakes horse or a non-New York bred. You're going to probably scan the condition book for a distance and surface for a state bred that's won a race, but maybe not yet two races, and that you're willing to put in for a tag, or not. The condition book will keep you in the barn, or put you in the starting gate.

Linda Rice has ben a leading trainer for many years on the NYRA circuit. She's won trainer titles at meets. Her father Clyde was a trainer. If you ever see Linda in the paddock or in the winner's circle you will see that she's always clutching papers. She's always got her eye out for what to do next, like a pool player figuring out their next shot. She's very active with claimers and established allowance horses, for owners of wealth, but perhaps not extreme wealth. She' not a Bob Baffert, or a Todd Pletcher, but horses from her stable fill the card. So what did she do that was "corrupt?"

Apparently, based on investigations that looked at behavior over a period of time going back to 2011-02015 at Aqueduct, she bribed racing officials for improper access to information that may have provided her an edge in races. The New York State Gaming Commission revoked her license for three years that prevents her having any thoroughbred racing interests in New York State.

After months of hearings, she was found guilty of obtaining, through bribes, pre-entry racing information. The TDN reports that Rice testified in 2020 that she had handed over cash gifts amounting to thousands of dollars at a time to NYRA racing employees between 2011 and 2015. The investigation reveled that improper access had been given to the Jockey Club's InCompass entry management software.

Winning a race is tough for anyone, the jockey, the owner, the trainer and the bettor. To myself it's interesting that Rice's infraction of the rules could actually pay off for her if she detected a stiff competitive field and therefore chose to stay in the barn. Not entering a race because the chances of winning were considered dim would just mean you'd have to wait for the next condition to roll around for your horse to qualify, and that may not occur for another two weeks, maybe longer. Racing is a waiting game.

I always imagined talk on the backstretch going something like this: "You know so and so is entered in next week's turf race that your horse is entered in. You're in deep do-do against that one." Birds and rumors fly on the backstretch.

I imagine Linda can appeal. If not successful, it would seem she could move her operation to California perhaps. The ruling seems binding only in New York. There is not always reciprocity in race rulings.

I always print out the trainer stats when I do my handicapping. From watching the FS1/2 racing telecasts and looking at the stats, I saw that Linda Rice only had four wins at the meet, two of which were turf races.  She was ranked 7th amongst the trainers, a little low to what I expected to find.

If she is ruled off the grounds for three years I'll miss her and her entries. She always had the so called "lunch pail" horses who were of modest pedigree but were of high winning percentage. And perhaps the "corrupt edge" gave her that.

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Hugs and Handshakes All Around

The lens caps came off the binoculars yesterday, and the lenses were polished. They were needed at the racetrack. Belmont, despite the $20 admission tab was the scene yesterday of The Assembled being re-assembled for their first outing since September 2019.

Without dwelling on it too excessively, NYRA in their great marketing wisdom was allowing fans back to the track if they pre-bought tickets for $15 through Ticketmaster, which came with the privilege of finalizing the cost at $20 after fees and whatever Ticketmaster adds on to the deal.

The offering included what would have normally been a $5 admission, a revised, new $4 program with some weak looking three race pps her horse that is thoroughly useless to serious handicappers who get advance copies of the Racing Form pps and spend Friday studying Saturday's card, and free parking, which by itself is not bad except the lot is still showing the effects from being used by Israel and Hamas for target practice. Any money NYRA is spending on "infrastructure" hasn't been earmarked for anything outdoors with regard to parking.

Inside, the place looks like everyone moved out and skipped paying the rent. There were four SAM machines in place, and only three were working. One was CLOSED all day. There were perhaps at the high water mark three mutuel clerks, eventually one. But with what to me was a surprising crowd of nearly 150 people on the second floor, there was never any waiting, and there was no chance of being shutout.

Happy to report, there were clusters of young adults, guys and gals seen in some seats. At least it's not just a country for old men.

There is absolutely no likelihood that any of us will return to Belmont unless they revert to a plain $5 admission that doesn't require advance ticket purchases that tie in unwanted items. But for now, we were happy to see each other, even though we've talked and emailed each other throughout our absence from the track.

And how did we do? Pretty much mediocre to lousy. No one came out ahead moneywise. Jose was there first for a change, sporting some colorful highlighters and already into early morning Pimlico betting. Unless he pulled a bunny out of his hat in the 11th race and hit the Preakness, Jose was going down for the count. ( A Sunday morning email from Jose revealed that he did indeed pull a big bunny out of his hat by hitting the winner of the Preakness and having $2 on the near $100 exacta. He wouldn't be Jose otherwise. He pulled even for the day, having played 25 races between Belmont and Pimlico.)

Johnny M, Johnny D and Bobby G. left after the 10th race in order to get in front of a living room TV to watch the Preakness live, which we did accomplish. For Johnny D., it looked good that the scales might right themselves when Midnight Bourbon pulled ahead of a weary Medina Spirit, but who the hell is Rombauer? Johnny D. had a high school chemistry teacher named Romberger, but the hunch connection wasn't made, and therefore nothing was won on the Preakness. The day was complete. But we always eat well after the races with my wife's cooking. 

Johnny M. was skunked, with minimal damage luckily, and Bobby G. handicapped an odds-on favorite across the finish line in fine fashion, winning the race, but still losing money. Horse racing is one of those pursuits where you can be right, but still lose. Quitting any kind of day job, no matter what it pays, is never recommended. And now three of us are retired, with Jose, the "baby," ready to pull the ripcord soon.

It will remain to be seen how NYRA prices themselves from here on in. Pandemic restrictions are lifting. The hope is Saratoga can enter the picture and Johnny M. And Johnny D. will be able to consider going without feeling exploited.

There's always hope we'll win money next time.

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Jeopardy

Those Jeopardy question/answer makers are a smart bunch. They seem to be able to endlessly produce easy and hard answers to the answers. I read a recent A-Head piece in the WSJ and can't help wondering if the gang backstage at Jeopardy is going to somehow frame a question around the name of the Norwegian Island that sits in the South Atlantic, or the Southern Ocean if you follow other criteria, that is uninhabited and is the most remote island in the world. It is near Antarctica, not always lovely at all times of the year.

If it came down to all the marbles and the vaunted GOAT designation between John Holzhauer and Ken Jennings, would either be able to name the place? Bouvet Island. I somehow think they both might, and we'd need another tie-breaker.

How the hell do the Norwegians control a place where the sun don't shine for 6 months of the year and is thousands of miles from Oslo? And how come Julian Assange didn't seek asylum there? Might be because there's no Internet or cable? But if he got there, who would try and get him back? They'd have just waited for him to turn into a popsicle. After all, they leave the dead at the top of Mount Everest. Which doesn't really explain the name Ever Rest, but it could.

James McCormick's A-Head piece revolves around a group of people, HAM radio operators, who seek out the most remote places on earth to broadcast from for the sheer credit of having done it. They are called DX-peditions, and they are next going to try Bouvet Island in 2023. Forget the tickets to Mars and the Moon; try and book in with this bunch.

Bouvet is a very uninviting place. Nineteen square miles of glacier, seals, penguins, seabirds, moss and lichens that is now a protected nature preserve. After many countries seem to have claimed it, the Norwegians got their claim to stick and named it after an explorer, who else?

The island enjoys a loose status with Norway, and is officially a "dependent territory" of Norway. Not sure what would happen to your tax status if you claimed to live there. Or, what terms of extradition would apply if some fleeing felons decided to set up shop. The place does seem to present some interesting questions.

The HAM radio people seek remote areas to achieve bragging rights that they've broadcasted from a spot on earth that no one had ever tuned into CNN. They bring their own equipment, and stay just long enough to reach as many people they set out to.

The HAM radio people have obviously been eclipsed by he Internet. When I was a kid I thought it sounded like fun that you might be able to talk to someone in Russia and find out what they really thought of the U.S. Now, I'm not so interested. But I'm sure conversations still go on, perhaps trying to get the inside scoop on soccer injuries so Vegas can be outsmarted on some bets. There's nothing like an edge.

Just because Bouvet is remote doesn't mean that all you need to do is set your course there and climb ashore. Mr. McCormick's piece lays out the difficulties in getting ashore.

"...an uninhabited locale largely covered in glacial ice. The odds aren't favorable.

"High winds and massive waves batter ships entering the region. Among travelers who manage to catch sight of Bouvet Island, which belongs to Norway, some never makes shore. Slivers of beach give way to steep rock and ice formations that reach 100 feet and higher.

"'It's the most remote island in the world,' said Mr. Grzyb, 47 years old. 'It's also one of the most dangerous places in the world.'"

Imagine if Humphrey Bogart as Rick warned Major Strasser at the airport in 'Casablanca' that if he were sent to Bouvet he might not come back? Scary prospect. Tougher than the Lower East Side, or Times Square, with no people no less. One shudders at the prospect.

"Mr. Grzyb spent three days on Bouvet Island in 2001. He tried again in March 2019. The team got within 63 nautical miles when the ship lost its communication antennas in a storm and had to return to South Africa. 'It's for people who are a little bit crazy,' he said.

And lest you think the island is too insignificant to find in an Atlas, I did find it. There is was, a dot, way down there, belonging to Norway. 

Wikipedia reports the DX-pedition—as the HAM people call it for their jargon meaning broadcasting over long distances—will try again in 2023 to get onto Bouvet Island.

Will Elon Musk join them? Will he sell tickets? Will be take Mom?

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Those Were the Days

Long, long time ago, when we were full of zip...to borrow some lyrics from some songs, the two brothers I hung out with and myself were regulars at a bar on Broadway, the Spotlight. It was at 52nd Street, on the West side of Broadway, a narrow place adjacent to the Ed Sullivan theater, run by a squat man Joe Harbor, who may or may not have been from the U.K.—I called Yiddish British— and his wife Sarah and their long-time bartender Gene Williams.

Gene had been a bit of a singer during the big band era, and to us, famously appeared in a 1943 Abbott and Costello movie, 'Hit the Ice,' singing something on a sled in a movie studio's sound stage. It's been years since I've seen any part of that movie again. Perhaps Turner retired it. Or purposely lost it.

We were not yet even 21, but in those days you didn't have to be in New York to go drinking. Legal drinking age was 18, and we were that. It was probably 1969, and we had already made the Spotlight our destination after rounds of pool at Broadway Billiards in the lower level of the penny arcade upstairs, just south of the bar on the same side of the street.

Times Square was decidedly different then. Still seedy in enough places; plenty of porn movie theaters and street walkers in doorways near cheap hotels and other regular movie theaters mixed in. It was brightly lit, but nowhere near as brightly lit as today. The fairly recent HBO series 'The Deuce' more than accurately depicted the vibe of the place and the era. It's always been about sex. 

The Spotlight is long gone. Last call was on New Year's Eve 1972, an event I missed when I had a terrible cold. I believe you can catch a fleeting glimpse of it in Al Pacino's early movie, 'Panic in Needle Park' in a scene filmed from across the street. The penny arcade is long gone, as is the pool hall. The Novotel Hotel sits on the land now, a fact I'm still annoyed at.

One night in 1969 we arrived at the Spotlight and the bartender Gene was a bit animated. There had been a shooting across the street, a murder of Lloyd Price's partner Harold Logan. At the time we didn't know the name, just that Gene told us about the shooting and that the cops were there all day. 

Directly across the street from the Spotlight was I think the Mark Hellinger theater and offices. In one of those offices Lloyd Price had his production company. And there, at some point  Mr. Logan was murdered. There was still police activity there after many hours had already passed. The lights were still on the offices.

All this came back to me when I read Lloyd Price's obituary, but only after I first thought that wasn't Lloyd Price already dead?

Well, of course not. His partner was, and to this day it remains an unsolved murder. Talk about a cold case. That one's in the freezer.

In fact, archival search of the NYT didn't find any story about the murder. It was probably a professional hit, because they never get solved. Price's office was just blocks from the famous Brill building, home of a slew of music publishers and songwriters in the '60s. The place was an incubator for hits. 

Years went by and I learned of Lloyd's association with Don King. It was mentioned in the obituary, and I used to speculate that King had something to do with the shooting, since he was already a convicted murderer. Don King has never  been linked to the murder, so the case will likely remain unsolved forever.

I write all this because once again something always reminds me of something else, even a single line in someone's obituary.

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Captain Louie Renault

I have a Twitter account (@jdemet). I have few followers, and follow few as well. I have scant Twitter traffic that I attribute to not bothering to be political or outraged, vocal, or saying anything that might border on stirring the hornet's nest, or poking the bear.

This of course doesn't mean I don't have opinions; it means I don't think Twitter is where they belong. So when after the announcement that Bob Baffert, now the winningest trainer of Kentucky Derby winners with seven has once again had a horse come back with a positive drug test and is, until further notice, suspended from entering horses at Churchill Downs, I openly asked Joe Drape, the racing columnist for the NYT, "Where did Bob get his degree in chemistry?"

Chemistry seems to be a key word. Years ago DuPont the chemical company used an advertising tagline: "Better things for better living through chemistry." Indeed.

I've never had such Twitter traffic, as many people have "liked" a Tweet I was named in, and correspondingly, "liked" someone else's comments about Teflon Bob.

One Tweet from @KarlSemkow was most interesting. It went:

Quick story...once at Aqueduct, I stood under a TV watching a race next to Allen Jerkens who had a horse in the race. I asked him why he didn’t win more.....he looked me straight in the eyes & said “because I’m not a chemist, son."

Trainers are not spotted often with the general public, but I can remember once being at a refreshment stand counter with Elliot Burch of Rokeby Stable and Sallie Baily, who trained the great turfer Win, who was running that day. It happens.

Interesting in the Churchill Downs ruling so far is that Baffert is prohibited from having any horses in his barn be entered under an assistant trainer's name. In days gone by, this was a common tactic, like a manager getting thrown out of a baseball game but still managing from the dugout tunnel.

To illustrate how well known Baffert is to the general public consider my wife, who is not a sports fan in any sense of the word, who yesterday leaned out of the front door as I was gardening and asked me, "What does it mean that the Derby horse tested positive for a drug?" I replied, "It means Bob Baffert is not going to have a good day."

Bob is quoted as being "shocked" at the positive result. He's beginning to remind you of Captain Renault in Casablanca who has just been asked to close Rick's casino by the Nazi Major Strasser because he's mad at a patriotic display by the resistance fighter Victor Laszlo.

Rick asks on what grounds can Renault order his casino closed. Louie responds, "I am shocked, shocked to learn gambling is going on," just as Renault is handed his payoff in the form of "winnings." The wagons are starting to circle Bobby B.

Even this morning the Tweets keep coming. Stories of how back in Bob's quarter horse days he was felt to be drugging. He has so far escaped anything resembling a suspension or fine that would put him out of business, despite five positive results in the past year or so. He's not just Teflon Bob. He's Houdini.

The drug detected this time was betamethasone, a corticosteroid injected into joints to reduce pain and swelling. Other drugs were scopolamine, found in tainted hay. It never seems to be the same drug. It's even been an allergy medication supposedly inadvertently transmitted from the assistant trainer's hands to a horse. The explanations are starting to sound like how Nixon's secretary accidently reached out with her arms and legs and somehow deleted 18½ minutes of Watergate tapes. Oops.

I thought horses in big races were quarantined for a few days before the race, kept in a separate barn with security supervision to prevent the administration of race day, or near race day illegal medication. I don't know if this was he case in Churchill.

If the split sample comes back positive and Medina Spirit is removed from the purse distribution, and Bobby B. suffers a genuinely serious suspension/fine, the legal activity is going to rival that of the bankruptcy case of Penn Central in Philadelphia Federal courts. The song "On and On" will go on and on.

In 1968 when I started my love affair with racing at the Belmont Stakes by hitting a cold Daily Double  for $22, the Dancer's Image disqualification from the Derby was the news roiling the sport. Dancer's Image had been disqualified for a positive drug test, and Forward Pass was declared the winner. Forward Pass went on to win the Preakness, and therefore set up a possible Triple Crown by winning the Belmont that no doubt would come with a giant asterisk. (Stage Door Johnny won the Belmont that year, so the asterisk was avoided.)

Peter Fuller, the owner of Dancer's Image started a series of lawsuits that pretty much followed him to his grave. At one point, Dancer's Image was reinstated by the courts as the winner, only to have that  ruling reversed. Fuller died having his horse finally irrevocably disqualified.

The owner of Medina Spirit, Amir Zeden, no doubt will be suing, probably not just Churchill, but Baffert himself for what will be the forfeiture of a $1.8 million purse payout. On and On.

Going back over my past performances, it's not as if Medina Spirit went from a plodder to a world beater. The horse's last four Beyer speed ratings were: 94, 95, 94, 99. I've read his Derby rating was 102, not an impossible, legitimate improvement.

It is interesting to note that when I read Joe Drape's NYT story about the Derby result on the following Sunday it struck me as a little dour, emphasizing Baffert's past troubles, rather than writing about John Velazquez's front-running, creative ride. Thinking of the story now, it seems Mr. Drape was prescient in his writing, because today his Derby story is front page, below he fold. Racing again is getting the bad light, like what shines on the Tour de France and Olympic sprinters. Nobody seems to compete cleanly.

A race gets declared official and the bettors paid off very soon after the result is posted. There is no wait for the toxicology report to come back. I played Baffert's horse thinking to myself, "well, if he wins and gets a positive result, they're going to pay out anyway." And of course that's what happened.

A suspension from one track can be recognized by other tracks. Thus, Baffert's string in California could find him frozen out of Santa Anita if they choose. But even most interesting is that Bob intends to race Medina Spirit in this Saturday's Preakness. Plans to. We'll see what happens

And why not? Even when it's over, it's not over. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

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The Fan League

By now, anyone who reads anything about sports on a daily basis has read about the Super Soccer League that was going to hold all the elite European soccer clubs. The premise was that these elite, deep-pocket clubs would play each other, and not the more marginal soccer clubs throughout England and the Continent.

You're going to do whaaaaat? It was an amazing story to read, not just for the audacity of the plan, but for the financial entities that were involved in putting up enough money to create this Super league. Think billions of dollars. Think J.P. Morgan Chase. Think Wall Street. Think The City of London.

I'm not all that familiar with soccer, amateur or professional, but I do know that clubs have to show a fairly good record in order to stay in certain leagues, like the Premier League. Falter, and you're asked to leave the schedule until you improve.

But once in these top-tier leagues, you get to play the top tier teams. You might lose, but your fans get to see top flight opposition, and there is the chance that there will be an upset, and your modest club will upset the big boys. In sports, we live for upsets.

Soccer fans are unlike any other breed of human. They are incendiary. They riot. They stampede. They have behavior issues. When my son-in-law attended a soccer game in London last year he was told by the ticketing people to make sure he didn't wear the opposition's colors since he'd be sitting in the home team's section. Yank unwittingly wears orange, and who knows what could happen. He might  he coming home in a body cast.

Years ago when I was a diehard New York Rangers fan and there were A LOT of fights between the clubs, the Rangers and the Bruins, the Philadelphia Flyers (Broad Street Bullies) with everyone. A hockey game could stretch way beyond a normal playing time with all the penalties called and all the interruptions to clean the ice of sticks, gloves and players after everyone got tired of throwing punches and pulling on each other's uniforms.

I used to deflect the non-fan criticism of hockey (I went to hockey game and a boxing match broke out.) with the counter claim that soccer fans are worse by far. They are truly dangerous.

But the rebel spirit can effect change. And it did. Two days of street protests, near rioting, and the Super League folded. That's faster than the World Football League and Donald Trump's presidency. I'm not sure they even got a logo out there. The elite club owners became fearful for their lives and reputations when the European fan was confronted with radical change in the alignment. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain gained in popularity when he came out against the Super League. No time to be a billionaire.

I have to hand it to those fans. As apparently a few writers do as well, particularly the WSJ Sports writer Jason Gay, and a WSJ columnist Joe Queenan.

Let's consider Jason's April 21st column, "The Super League is Dead. Here's What Sports Learned."

"As stunts go, the Super League was brazen, a nine-figure yacht with twin helicopter pads barreling into the harbor past the NO WAKE sign.

"By late Tuesday afternoon, the collapse was under way. Manchester City pulled out. Chelsea did too, prompting cheers at Stamford Bridge. By evening, the six Premier League clubs that joined the Super League were sulking back to the status quo with some public apologies. Arsenal copped to a "mistake." Liverpool's owner, John Henry, known locally as the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox, offered a contrite video message.

"'I want to apologize to the fans and supporters of Liverpool Football Club for the disruption I caused over the past 48 hours,' Henry said. Amazingly, the Mookie Betts trade now has a rival."

Not bad sports writing coming from a guy who came to the WSJ after writing for GQ magazine. Imagine Jerry Jones apologizing for $75 parking fees in Dallas.

Joe Queenan, who writes a WSJ column that appears in their weekend edition gives us this: "With Super League Defeated, Fans Can now Fight Other Evils."

"The league would...effectively freezing out hundreds of small, less glamorous clubs and their fans. It would be as if the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers suddenly announced that they no longer wanted to play the Detroit Lions and the Tennessee Titans. Much less the New York Jets."

Joe now goes on  to exhort the American fan to use the power of protest to effect change in professional sports. He lists a number of beefs from the time it takes to play the last two minutes of an NBA game., to axing pre-season football games. He suggests that you can't charge $75 for parking, or, if you haven't been in the playoffs for the last 10 years, you can't charge $15.50 for a beer.

I love the suggestion to peg ticket prices to performance. If teams can have flexible pricing to charge more when a top contender comes into town, then the fans should enjoy flexible pricing in the downward direction when the years roll by and an entire generation hasn't seen the Super Bowl. If this were to happen, Jet tickets should cost a minimum of $5, given that they haven't even been in a Super Bowl for over 50 years and their one remaining star player from the past, Joe Namath, is perpetually pitching Medicare Advantage coverage. Give it a rest, please Joe.

This should apply to all leagues. I would have loved for my Ranger season tickets to have decreased in price as they continuously failed to win the Stanley Cup. Ranger fans of the '90s know that the Cup win in 1994 was the first Stanley Cup win since 1940, a mere 54 years. My father was 25. They are now into their 27th! year without a Cup win.  Like a decaying radio isotope, they're halfway to another 54 years. Tickets should be somewhere near $2 by now.

Soccer fans should no longer be called "hooligans." They are protesters for social change and should collectively be short listed for a Nobel prize.. We should be ashamed of ourselves for being lead into the night by the Judas goat of media and money. Our national emblem should drop the fierce looking bald eagle and replace it with the Brooks Brothers logo of a sheep in a sling.

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Fog Race

Larceny comes in many forms and many sizes, all borne out of a planned, or spontaneous impulse. So consider Sylvester Carmouche's mind on January 11, 1990 in Vinton, Louisiana as he gets set to ride at Delta Downs for the day. Or evening, as it turns out.

Delta is a ¾ mile bull ring oval where strange things happen in the daylight sun. Even stranger things happen when there is no sun and the fog rolls in, as apparently it does on January 11th, in time for the 11th race, with 9 horses being lead into the starting gate. It is 10:50 P.M. because Delta is running under the lights.

Sylvester is scheduled to ride Landing Officer, a five-year-old $2,500 claimer in fittingly, a $2,500 Claiming race for 4-year-olds and up who are non-winners of races since July 15th 1989. I have no idea what Landing Officer's past performances look like, but they can't be too encouraging since the horse goes off at a robust 23-1. 

Joe Drape of the NYT the other day wrote of the professional progress of the journeyman jockey Kendrick Carmouche. As part of Kendrick's bio it can't help but be mentioned that he is the son of another journeyman jockey Sylvester Carmouche, who on the fateful day in January made a decision to leave the starting gate with everyone else, but instead linger at the top of the stretch and wait for the appropriate time to begin to run as the field eventually started to approach the final turn.

This is known as cutting the course, and if pulled off, should guarantee Landing Officer's victory and boxcar win and exacta payoff. Someone is going to score big, because when Sylvester decided to start his idling horse's engine, he finishes first with a staggering 24 length lead, and nearly ties the track record.  Never mind that final time for the mile race is 1:441/5; they don't go fast when it's a 6f track and the horses are $2,500 claimers.

How does this happen? Well, the fog is so thick that the chart writer and the stewards can't see the race. Or they can't see it well enough to create an ordinary chart that tells us each horses' running position at each pole, and how far they are ahead of the horse behind them. All you see on the chart are dashes —  for each horse. at each point of call throughout, with an explanation: "Due to a dense fog covering Delta Downs the calls for the eleventh race were not available." 

The great folks at the Keeneland racing library were able to secure a copy of the chart and forward it to me. I'm not all that familiar with minor league tracks, but it is obvious each track can be different. In Delta's case, the payouts are quoted in terms of a $3 bet, rather than a $2, or $1 bet. This is unusual, but understandable when a track needs to goose the handle somehow.

So, do Sylvester's efforts on a 23-1 pull off a betting coup for someone with the track paying out on his finishing first? Not so fast.

Another  jockey in the race approaches the stewards and tells them that Landing Officer didn't run the whole race. He cheated. It takes 15 minutes, nearly 15 minutes less that the stewards' review of Maximum Security's Derby disqualification in 2019 to somehow determine that only 8 of the 9 horses entered the clubhouse turn, but all 9 finished. Uh-oh.

Sylvester is in a world of trouble, and eventually is suspended by the Louisiana Racing Commission for 10 years, a hefty penalty. He fully admitted his deed, and paid the price.

But when did Sylvester hatch the plan? On impulse, when it became obvious to him that the fog was going to be a pea soup curtain of moisture that even lights couldn't penetrate? Hard to plan ahead much with weather.

And did he have an accomplice who suggested to him that there was money to be made if he did such and such? A co-conspirator? Surely someone got down with some hefty $100 bets on Landing Officer in hopes that a successful coup would produce many multiple payouts of $48 or so for a $2 bet. More of course for a $3 bet. And if the exacta is wheeled with Landing Officer on top, even more money can be had.

As it turned out, on the DQ, Something Strong is declared the winner, paying $20.80 for $3 to win, and producing a $177 $3 exacta with Hit the Hammer.  There is always money to be made at the track. It just varies greatly who gets to make it, and how.

And those ever-helpful folks at the Keeneland Racing Library seemed to have read my mind when in a follow up I asked to see if they could produce the 10th race chart. They seemed to know that my thinking might be headed in the direction of, "well, what was it like before the 11th race,"

Producing the 10th race chart answered the question. A complete set of dashes, just like the 11th race.  No visibility during the race. Without any further prompting, they told me that from the 3rd! race on, there was so much fog that none of the prior races could be viewed well enough to create a chart. In other words, it was London almost all night.

Thus, there were hours to hatch a plan to get to choose the right race to pull the stunt where they didn't have to move the starting gate and have the chance to see you double parked at the quarter pole, waiting for the rest of the field to reach you. Opportunity is presenting itself.

Knowing how the mind works, you have to wonder if Sylvester Carmouche's short circuit plan was the first and only short circuit ever perpetuated at Delta Downs, or anywhere for that matter. It's too diabolically delicious not to have been tried before, probably with success if the right people keep their mouth shut.

Somewhere on the Web I saw that someone has listed the Delta Downs race as the 7th best attempt at racing/betting fraud ever perpetuated. I'm going to have to dive into that and see if the No.1 was the Drexel University frat boys who nearly walked away with the entire Pick-6 Breeders' Cup pool in 2002, only to be undone by the extraordinary price of a long shot Valponi winning the race, leaving them holding the only winning ticket, as well as holding all the consolation tickets. Uh-oh.

Their deed was accomplished by internally manipulating the computer's reading of the results of the betting legs in the Six-6 sequence. It was undone by someone at NYRA alerting the mutuel room at Arlington Park that there was a serious betting anomaly to the Pick-6 betting. Uh-oh.

If the scams can be ranked, think of the ones no one but a select few know about that we're never going to hear about. It's diabolically delicious. It's horse racing. And we love it, warts and all.

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Derby Day

For the first time in several years I cashed a Derby bet. I even made a few shekels in the process. I think my drought goes back to 2010 and Super Saver.

And maybe Super Saver is what happened yesterday. I finally used a Bob Baffert horse in the right spot, a "saver" bet that kept me from having to write a check to replenish my XPressBets account. Nothing like not having to write a check on Sunday morning.

It was over 50 years ago when my friend and I first learned of what a "saver" bet was from our handicapping mentor Les Barrett, nicknamed by us as "Mr. Pace." In the late '60s there weren't even exacta bets. There was the  Daily Double, and win, place, and show. And Les wouldn't even get there in time to bet the Double, a bet on winning the first two races whose opportunity to be bet closed 10 minutes before the post time of the first race. It almost seems like we started out in the Stone Age of betting. Comparatively, we did.

Les wanted to avoid the Double because he tended to blow his stash for the day if he lost. He'd rather go the distance and get to the 9th race with something left in the tank.

Any group of horseplayers always ask the other horseplayers, "who did you bet." When we asked Les, it was never a simple response. He seemed to generally bet two horses to win, with some other bets he called his "saver" bets," hedges against his top choices. Various amounts of money were allotted to each bet. Les was a human calculator. With the $20 we each brought out to the track, we'd shake our heads at Les. We couldn't afford such strategy. But then again, Les was about 25 years older than us, and made more money.

Bob Baffert is an active trainer with the most Derby wins. Going into yesterday's race he lead the other trainers with six wins, tied with Calumet Farms Ben Jones, who was active in the '40s and '50s.  The jockey Mike Smith has been called Money Mike for his wins in big races, Baffert doesn't seem to have a catchy nickname, but it doesn't keep him from success.

After my handicapping and developing my "core" bet of boxing an exacta with Essential Quality, Highly Motivated, and Rock Your World I made some saver bets, using Mike Smith and Baffert's 12-1 shot Medina Spirit. My handicapping gave Medina Spirit a decent chance of winning, but there were others who came out more on top using my calculations.

The results of course are in. Medina Spirit wins, giving Bob Baffert a now record setting 7th Derby win. It was an exciting race, with basically four horses straining at the end to get there first. To me it is interesting to note that the top three finishers, Mandaloun and Hot Rod Charlie behind Medina Spirit all came from the middle post positions: 8,7,9. respectively. With usually 20 horses in the Derby (19 yesterday) post positions mean something. When it comes time to handicap[ next year's race I'm going to be more conscious of where the horse is breaking from. It can make a difference.

The fractions were legitimate, 23, 463/5, 1:111/5, 1354/5, leading to a 2:01 finish. Jorge Velazquez on Medina Spirit lead at every pole, won his fourth Derby, and stripped away any chance of the others having anything left to mount a successful come from behind bid. It worked.

Medina Spirit earned a decent 102 Beyer speed rating. Any triple-digit Beyer is a good Beyer. The horse's breeding is completely pedestrian, having been sired from a first crop 10-year-old sire Protonico for a $5,000 stud fee that made Medina Spirit available for a modest $35,000 at a yearling sale. Other than the mare's sire Empire Maker, there is nothing in Medina Spirit's breeding that puts him in Blue Blood horse social circles. Medina Spirit is passing around the hors d'oeuvre tray.

If there is irony in the race it is that Medina Spirit is owned by a Saudi businessman, Amr F. Zedan. The Saudi sheiks that control Juddmonte, Godolphin and Shadwell stables have been pouring millions into Kentucky sale thoroughbred sales in hopes of capturing a Kentucky Derby. It's the missing bullet in their vast belt of international prestige wins.

The overwhelming favorite in the race is owned by Juddmonte farm, Essential Quality and was backed heavily in the U.S. betting by Jim McIngvale who plunked down $2.3 million to win. "Mattress Mack," from Houston is a gregarious character who owns a string of furniture outlets, Gallery Furniture in Texas. He is political, philanthropic and when there is a natural disaster like when hurricane Harvey hit Texas, Mack gives away a lot of mattresses.

Essential Quality had some trouble at the start, and basically winds up running wide the whole way around. Luis Saez had him pointed with dead aim at Medina Spirit in the stretch, but Essential Quality didn't have enough left to pull it off, and finished fourth.

The second place horse, Mandaloun, is another Juddmonte horse trained by Essential Quality's trainer Brad H. Cox, an Eclipse award winning training talent who tried their best to overtake Medina Spirit in the stretch., Thus, the sheiks were denied again, but the Saudi businessman prevailed. The guy with the hors d'oeuvre tray.

As usual, I handled the bets for whomever in my household wanted some action. My XPressBets account was dipping below the refill line, but I was converting my digital money into cash. It's all good. And I had those few "saver" bets, just in case.

I thought of Les yesterday, and my friend, who passed away in February. It was the first Derby when the phone didn't ring with a call from him after the horses hit the wire. I miss Les, and I miss Dave. I missed talking about my "super saver" bet.

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