The Trainer

The role of the thoroughbred trainer is simple, and it is the same for most people in the thoroughbred world: win. Get in the winner's circle. Some trainers are so good at it that you might think they get their mail there, and a post-race interview is just saying hello with a friend. No matter how often a trainer gets there, whatever their winning percentage is, the winner's circle appearance is most of all the product of planning.

Aside from training horses capable of winning, the trainer has to enter horses where they have a chance of winning, not only for themselves, but for the owners, those that are either brave enough, or foolish enough to enjoy the game at the ownership level. As I've often quoted Bobby B., who when asked why hasn't he and his long-time friend Richie Pressman gone in together and co-owned a horse replied, "It's bad enough one of us has the disease."

Take Barclay Tagg, is perhaps the best trainer not yet to be in Racing Hall of Fame. Sounds like an odd way to compliment someone, but in the Hall or not, Barclay represents the true, smart trainer.

He has conditioned Funny Cide and Tiz the Law to Derby, Preakness and Belmont victories.  Funny Cide's two-thirds of a Triple Crown is not nothing. I first started noticing Tagg in the 80s when I was at Saratoga. He always seemed to have a good turf horse. Since his name was Barclay, I always thought he was British. He's not.

He's 82, and is always seen at the track and the winner's circle in a sport coat and tie, definitely the Old School look. He's not above carrying the sponge bucket in the paddock and out to the track. He's a bit taciturn, but that just means he doesn't give his plans away.

At this point, after using many different trainers, Bobby B's buddy Richie is now coupled with Barclay in the training of Step Dancer, a talented 3-year-old turf horse who has shown both promise and disappointment.

Step Dancer has had trouble getting a good start. He's generally spotted the field several lengths just by getting off slowly. And when you're racing 7 furlongs on the turf, getting a bad start doesn't leave a whole lot of time to get back in the race.

But persistency in racing can be rewarded, and this is where the talents of the trainer are so important, to aim the horse for a spot that they have a very good chance of winning.

If you know anything about racing, the conditions of the race create a field of runners who should be competitively matched. There is little sense in entering a race that there is no prospect of winning. Nobody wins.

Step Dancer won early as  2-year-old, showing great promise for when they turned three. He won at a terrific mutuel first time out, then won the black type Awad Stakes. Step Dancer was rested in Florida for the winter and turned out for what was hoped to be a continuation of his winnings ways. It didn't happen.

Disappointment followed the horse. Getting an inattentive start immediately put Step Dancer behind the eight ball. Three-year-old career? No wins.

Then along comes the $150,000 New York Stallion race, for 3-year-olds at a mile on the turf at Saratoga.

The New York Breeding program was started by Governor Carey, and has made upstate New York a breeding ground for decent thoroughbreds. Wednesday's 3rd race at Saratoga sounded like a race for New York Breds, but there was a twist. It was not a routine State Bred Race.

The Stallion Series, with this race being named after the Cotton Club entertainer Cab Calloway, who was often seen at the races, had conditions that created eligibility if a horse's sire had been nominated for the Stallion Series. This is where a good trainer can excel. They have to know when their charge might qualify for a lucrative race based on their breeding.

In Step Dancer's case, his sire War Dancer had been nominated for the series, with the owner of War Front getting a Breeders' award if an offspring of War Dancer were to win the race. Their reward would be 5% of the $150,000 purse.

Stake races have nominating fees, entry fees and starting fees, monies that are all added to the initial value of the race. A trainer's office is also an administrative hub. They need to make the payments in order to keep their horse eligible for the future race. Thus Step Dancer, by virtue of being foaled by a sire whose breeder has nominated War Dancer for the New York Stallion Series, earns the breeder 5% of the purse if a War Dancer offspring wins.   

Thus, Step Dancer became eligible for a $150,000 stakes race, a restricted race, based on the sire's nomination. Barclay kept his eye on the Condition Book, where the racing secretary lays out various criteria for races the track hopes to fill.

The odds maker decidedly did not rate Step Dancer as an outsider. He was installed as the favorite at 2-1, even as his 124 pounds gave as much as six pounds in weight to some rivals. He moved to 8/5 and was on the board at when the gates opened at 7/5. He was not overlooked. He was expected to do well.

Step Dancer broke a little better this time, 7th of the 8 horses, and pretty much was in the second tier around the Clubhouse turn and backstretch. Coming down the stretch, catching the front runner Dreamer's Disease seemed like it wasn't going to happen. Step Dancer was not going to win, again...until...he just kept coming, straight as an arrow with dead aim on Dreamer's Disease. 

Step Dancer ranged up alongside inside the sixteenth pole, and just passed Dreamer's Disease going away to win by a neck. Dylan Davis had guided the horse perfectly to the wire.

Dylan is the son of jockey Robbie Davis, who was an excellent turf jockey. Because this was a mile turf race at Saratoga , it was two turns. And two turns just might be what gives Step Dancer the feel to excel in the stretch. His last quarter was in :22.1, a very fast final quarter. The final time was a pedestrian 1:35 4/5, but the last quarter had to have earned Step Dancer a mid-80s Beyer. Just guessing.

Step Dancer hit 7/5 on the board when the gates opened, and wound up paying $4.90 to win. Richie's horses are no longer long shots. But a bet that's placed that pays out is always a good bet.

No one ever has to be asked to smile in the winner's circle, and this was festive. Richie Pressman owns 50% of the horse with Diamond M. Stable, which put a party of people in the photo. There was a trophy for the owner.

Barclay Tagg was interviewed by Acacia Courtney after the race and was asked what you might expect: "Will Step Dancer go in an open race next?"

Barclay, who never gives much away, replied with what any good trainer should say. "We'll put him where I think he can win."

I know I'll be rooting for him.

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Cart Talk with J.K.

There  is a feature on the American Racing Program that occasionally airs with Jonathon Kichen interviewing a race track personality while he drives a golf cart through the backstretch. My guess this is a riff on the comedic routine of Talking in Cars that Jerry Seinfeld initiated.

Jonathon's guests have generally been well-known (to those who follow the sport) trainers, Todd Pletcher, Shug (Claude) McGaughey, Steve Asmussen...It's a short, light segment, with softball questions and no controversial questions about the direction of the sport, or doping. 

Over the weekend Jonathon interviewed Brian Lynch, a 57-year-old transplanted thoroughbred trainer from Brisbane, Australia who has had success at the top levels of the game. He's Keeneland based, but like a lot of Kentucky trainers, comes to Saratoga when Kentucky racing closes for the summer.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather hear an Australian accent than a British accent. And I like British accents. The Australians are more down to earth, with no artifice in their voice, no pear-shaped vowels or plummy tones. A British accent lets them get away with a lot. And an Australian accent can own the world. It's what made Paul Hogan so endearing to the American public decades ago.

So imagine J.K. Longhair (@UTbighair) driving the cart with his interviewee sitting beside him. A Creole man next to an Aussie; the professional handicapper and the professional thoroughbred trainer, each well aware of their respective worlds and pursuits.

Some short biographical background comes from Brian; born in Brisbane, started riding in rodeos and bronco bustin', came to the United States for a better level of rodeo riding, became a horse trainer. 

Jonathon wants the lowdown on an apparent story that Brian once went into the stall and "boxed" one of this thoroughbreds. Was that true? I know people box kangaroos.

"Yes, [horse's name] was in his stall on his hind legs and he and we had a bit of a go at each other. I had a chance at a good left hook, but didn't want to take it, we needed the horse to run."

"I had done a bit of boxing in my day. I was known as the Candle Kid: One blow and I was out."

And there we have it. The self-effacing Aussie riding in a golf cart discussing his athletic past with Jonathon. Saratoga is not always about the horses.

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The Handicappers

Grants Pass Betting Window

Never have so many said so much to a select few and have it mean so much to racing. The handle is goosed by opinions and satellites

Since I've paid attention to thoroughbred racing since 1968 and still have my marbles and a fairly robust bank account at 72, I feel I can talk about how things are different—and better for the bettor.

Sure there are basically far fewer people at the racetrack, except on marquee days for the Classics and Breeders' Cup, and vacation destination places like Saratoga and Del Mar, but the money finds its way into the till through online wagering and satellite broadcasts.

Purse levels are predicated on handle, and Saratoga is offering $100,000+ races for optional claiming races, and $90,000+ for maiden races. Even New York Bred races are highly lucrative. The personalities offering opinions on TV are a beauty queen who wears runway fashions, a blonde standing in the paddock and occasionally on horseback who can tell you everything you need to know about a horse's anatomy, a retired major league catcher from Brooklyn who is thoroughly at home with the Racing Form in front of him, two retired jockeys, two professional handicappers, one who is slightly acerbic at times, the other who might be scary looking with a high hat of brillo hair, but is as affable as they come, an active, successful trainer, and a genial host who ties them all together.

Can't name who they are? Then you haven't been watching the FoxSports channel telecasts with Acacia Courtney, Maggie Wolfendale, Paul Lo Duca, Gary Stevens, Richard Migliore, Andy Serling, Johnathon Kinchen Tom Amoss, and Greg Wolf. And that's just basically in the New York area. Tracks all across the country have their on-air personalities and public handicappers who offer race analysis, picks, and even some good information if you're listening closely.

Maggie Wolfendale, who can go on and on about the size of a horse's hoof, the slope of their back, and the type of blinkers they're wearing, said something the other day that made me look up from my newspaper when she was on the telecast. I have mentally filed it.

A horse sired by Midshipman, Shipsational, romped home with a 6¾ length lead as a first-time starter in a maiden race the other day at Saratoga. Maggie pointed out that the sire Midshipman was going for a relatively low $7,500 stud fee. But Shipsational, bred by the Firestones, went for $125,000 at the sales, indicating, at least to Maggie, that it wasn't the breeding (pedestrian) driving the sale price, but the look/confirmation of the horse and probably their audition, horse-in-training workout.

Okay, it was a typical Maiden Special Weight race for New York Bred 2-year-olds, 5½ furlongs on a sloppy, sealed track with four only other entrants, but the observation of the stud fee and the final sale price was a new nugget for unraced horses, or 2-year-old handicapping in general. I've always looked at both figures, but never calculated the ratio between them. Thanks Maggie.  

There are also all sorts of handicapping shows and podcasts devoted to racing. The Daily Racing Form can link you to several, and there are many others through links on Twitter. TVG does more than a good job promoting betting, the lifeblood of horse racing.

Racing handle almost seems to be recession proof. The handle at Saratoga is up from last year. There are now so many ways to play a racing card it can be impossible to even think about them all. From the era of Daily Doubles as the only "exotic" bet, to the cautious introduction of three exactas on a card, in the early '70s, there are now so many ways to formulate a bet you can forget what your options are sometimes. I know I do.

And when you have on-air broadcasters putting together $60-$90 multi-leg race tickets, there is no wonder the handle is up. Hit one of those babies and your relatively modest bet can return a multiple many times over.  It is a rare multi-leg ticket that comes out in the relatively low atmosphere of $30, which is a sizable bet when your ticket can be worthless immediately after the first leg with a loss. Try, try again but it will cost you. Pretty soon you're spending real money.

While multi-leg betting does not appeal to me, the comments as to the picks for the legs do. Win and exacta wagering is what I still cling to.

One of the literally colorful handicappers to pop up on the screen is Jonathon Kichen, (@UTbighair) a winner of a top level handicapping contest and one who finishes high up in such competition.

Jonathon is also the only racing personality who has his own clothing line of shirts. Aside from colorful, they are artistically patterned and fit a race track look of someone who might know something. If you're comfortable with a rakish hat, you can pull off a gambler/tout look, even if that's not what you really are. At the racetrack, you never know who's telling you the truth anyway. There is no truth until the race is over. Then, everyone knows everything. It's all easy then.

The other day I was pissing and moaning that there is no racing news in general newspapers. Sure, the Daily Racing Form is the Bible, but you have to go online to read it, unless you're buying that day's past performances for a track you're betting. And finding a hard copy at a newsstand is near impossible if you're not near a racetrack.

Thankfully, you can download a race card for a fraction of what a hard print costs, usually up to $11.00, which is a lot for a newspaper. But there are generally 5-6 tracks' past performances in there, and if you're a bettor who puts their money virtually everywhere, then that's for you.

The day or so after I was carping about the absence of racing stories there appears in yesterday's NYT a two-page spread with color photos of Joe Drape's story about the half-mile bull ring racetrack in Oregon, Grants Pass, nestled in between two huge forests and in a valley with a mountain backdrop, down Interstate 5 from Portland. Grants Pass is a town of 35,000 or so, but it seems the racetrack is the nucleus of the town's interest. A retired gymnastics teacher is a leading owner, who owns and breeds her own horses. She wins at a nice 22%.

Drape reports how a local set of brothers who made a fortune selling coffee, have invested heavily in the track and its infrastructure to create what can truly be called a Brigadoon atmosphere of genteel and safe racing—with betting.

And lest you think all the money goes to Del Mar and Saratoga, consider that the Grants Pass handle has gone from $60,000 a day to $407,000. TVG carries it, and of course promotes its betting. The Daily Racing Form prints pps and race charts. Its daily purse distribution is an average of $66,000, with hopes to double it within three years.

Reporting on racing in a daily paper has changed greatly. Everyone is aware of the results from TV and the Internet. The late Harvey Pack talked of the time when he started doing his schtick that no one knew a race result unless you were at the track, or read the paper the next day. There were no phones at the facilities, afraid that illegal bookmaking would flourish on site. Cell phone have taken care of that inconvenience.

So, a newspaper like the NYT has gone to what I call Life Magazine/Sports Illustrated journalism, writing feature stories about a sport and surrounding it was huge color photos. 

Along with the absolute crazy number of choices of ways to bet, there is an experiment brewing which would put racing back in line with the hand-book days of betting a horse and getting a guaranteed odds quote that won't change as post time nears. If say the Morning Line is 2-1, and you take 2-1, you get 2-1 no matter how favored, or not favored the horse becomes.

Monmouth is supposed to be experimenting with this for win bets only. I'm not sure if they will change the odds as post time nears with a newly guaranteed bet, but the concept of getting a bet placed at odds that won't change is a very interesting one. The nature of pari-mutuel wagering is that it is skewed to the amount bet, no matter how many people are contributing to that bet.

Anyone who has been ever placed a bet will likely have experienced the shrinkage in odds on their choice from the time they made the bet to the time the gates open. A bet made with five minutes to go at 4-1 can turn into a bet at 9/5 if someone, or a cluster of someones, bet heavily in the interim. It's like what living in the Weimar Republic was like. The price of bread changes in an instant.

The broadcasters will tell you after a race that when a favorite, or a near favorite wins, that the "public was right." The truth is, the so-called "public" might be a small set of individuals, or even one individual, whose action dropped the odds and was rewarded with the win, whatever it pays. Favoritism is not driven by the number of people making the same choice, it is driven by the preponderance of the bet against all the other bets. The enduring racetrack statistic of favorites winning a third of the races doesn't mean in the slightest that a third or more of the crowd had it.

Racing has never been more robust with betting choices, commentary and ability to actually see the races live, while at the same time being more fragile because of horse safety issues and doping integrity issues than ever before.

Fixed odds wagering, if it can be pulled off, will be the single biggest thing to hit racing since pari-mutuel wagering was introduced. I can't wait to see if it will work. I've lived long enough to see some new things.

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Commonplace Book Chapter 8

I lost track of this effort—putting out my Commonplace Book entries, thus the gap between the last chapter and this one.

The first entry is a quote from President Truman, that plain spoken man from Independence Missouri who might be the 20th-century's forgotten president. He basically had two term, coming into office in 1945 after FDR passed away, and then running for election in 1948, defeating the bridesmaid Thomas Dewy, who lost to FDR in 1944, despite what I'm sure was barely a campaign by Roosevelt since he was already ailing. 

In 1944 the war was still on, and I'm sure te American people were not about to change horses in the middle of the stream. So Truman steps in, is brought up to speed about what's been going on at Los Alamos, and is on the deck when the war ends.

In the '50s I remember the TV press trying to keep up with Truman as he was taking one of his "constitutionals," his walks. He was a peppery guy, walking briskly with a cane. I don't remember any of the questions, or the answers, but the lead outtake here is an example of Truman's forthrightness. It would be hard to imagine a U.S. present now, sitting, or former, calling the widow's family of a foreign leader that we backed with extensive military aid and money a "thief." Harry was a very popular president.

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Madame Chiang Kai-shek, a Power in Husband’s China and Abroad, Dies at 105

--NYT Obituary Headline, October 25, 2003

In her frustration, she [Madame Chiang Kai-Shek] publicly likened American politics to “clodhopping boorishness.”  Coming after years of generous American support, that irritated Truman.

“They’re thieves, every damn one of them,” Truman said later, referring tho Nationalists leaders.  “They stole $750 million out of the billions that we sent to Chiang.  They stole it, and it’s invested in real estate down in São Paolo and some right here in New York.”

--Ibid, by Seth Faison

You know you’ve lived a long life if you pass away in 2003 and President Truman once called you and your family a bunch of thieves.

--Anonymous

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Warren Spahn, who in a career spanning 21 seasons won 363 games, the major league record for a left-handed pitcher, died yesterday at his home in Broken Arrow, Okla.  He was 82.

Whitlow Wyatt, Spahn’s pitching coach at Milwaukee, once said: “He makes my job easy.  Every pitch he throws has an idea behind it.”

--NYT Obituary, November 25, 2003, by Richard Goldstein

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In the middle of her splendid new cabaret tribute to Frank Loesser, Andrea Marcovicci quotes a character from Neil Simon’s “California Suite” as complaining, “You’re worse than a hopeless romantic: you’re a hopeful one.”

--Cabaret Review, NYT, November 21, 2003, by Stephen Holden

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Alone on the farm she acquired when her father died, Ada threatens to become a backwoods Blanche Dubois, pinning soulfully and starving slowly.  But Ms. Kidman finds her energy (having never misplaced her beauty) shortly after the movie gets a badly needed jolt of it from the arrival of feisty Ruby, who promptly solves Ada’s protein deficit by wringing a rooster’s neck.

--Movie review of Cold Mountain, by Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, December 26, 2003

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“I had never ridden for Andre Fabre and didn’t know what he looked like,” Bailey recalled the other day.  “The paddock was crowded so I went directly to the horse and met the traveling lads.  They gave me instructions, but it was all in French and I didn’t understand a word of it.  It reminded me of the South American riders who come here and get their orders in English.”

Bailey had ridden European horses before, and he knew they preferred to settle into stride and then come on in a sustained drive.  He decided to ride that kind of race, put his horse on the rail upon reaching the backstretch, and saved as much ground as possible.

The favored Bertrando cut out a lively pace and led into the stretch with Arcangues directly behind him.  At the sixteenth pole, Bailey sent Arcangues around Bertrando to score by a decisive two lengths.  An audible gasp filled the warm air over Santa Anita as the 55,000 on hand realized the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic was going to pay $269.20.

Bailey rode Arcangues into the winner’s circle where he finally met a smiling Andre Fabre.

“He had a lot to say,” Bailey recalled, “but it was all in French.  I gathered he was pleased.”

--At the Post, racing column by Joe Hirsch, DRF, October 25, 2003

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Action This Day   R. Mandella    His slow maiden win was timed with a calendar

--Name of the horse, trainer, and pre-race comments on his possibilities in the day’s Juvenile Breeders’ Cup race, October 25, 2003

--Result: Won by 2¼ lengths, paid $55.60 to win as the longest price of the day.  Richard Mandella won four races on the 8 race Breeders’ Cup card.

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Bill Shoemaker, the 4-foot-11, 98 pound dynamo who was among horse racing’s most renowned figures and who rode the winners of 11 Triple-Crown races, died yesterday at his home in San Marino, California.  He was 72.

He rode 40,350 horses, [times] won with 8,833 of them—surpassed by only Laffit Pincay’s Jr.’s 9,530 winners—ran second 6,136 times and finished third 4,987 times. That meant he won 22 percent of the time, and was in the money nearly half the time.  At Santa Anita alone, he rode 2,544 winners during a career that started in 1949 and ended in February 1990.

He rode for Rex Ellsworth and Meshach Tenney at the peak of their days at the track, and he rode the great horses.  Tenney, the trainer of Candy Spots, was asked once what he liked about Shoemaker as a rider, and replied, “The way he meets me in the winner’s circle.”

--Obituary, NYT, by Joe Durso, October 13, 2003

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In short, she never lost her work ethic.  She believed the point of making money was to allow you to live comfortably enough to work some more, until you simply could work no longer.

--Kate Remembered, biography of Katherine Hepburn, by A. Scott Berg

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I stood up and dropped some money on the table.  “You talk too damn much, I said, “and it’s too damn much about you.  See you later.”

I walked out leaving him sitting there shocked and white-faced as well as I could tell by the kind of light they have in bars.  He called something after me, But I kept going.

Ten minutes later I was sorry. But ten minutes later I was somewhere else.

--The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler

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“Everything in this city is getting expensive.  How are you supposed to live? Thank God I’m nearly dead.”

--NYT, May 7, 2003; Frank T. Cervatini, 77, retired shoemaker from the Bronx

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In response to the Jan. 16 editorial-page essay, “Flunking the Martha Stewart Test” by David Mills and Robert Weisberg, regarding the criminal charges against Martha Stewart...

However, it is clear that Ms. Stewart did not heed the warnings of the old law school professor: “Find the line, then stay away from it.”

--Ned Watts, Letters to the Editor, WSJ, January 24, 2004

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Long, Long Time Ago

Every time I hear the opening lyrics to Don McLean's elegy to the music he grew up with, American Pie, I start to get nostalgic for any number of things.

Long, long time ago,
I can still remember how that 
Music used to make me smile...

I guess it's a comment on where your life has been when you can remember a federal judge who has now passed away, William H. Pauley III. Not because I really met him, but I did in a way, when I testified twice for the prosecution in the Niels H. Lauersen M.D. trails in 2001 and 2002, both of which he presided at. There were two trials because the first ended in a hung jury. The second trial found Dr. Lauersen guilty, and later sentenced to at least 7 years.  

The Lauersen trial is not mentioned in Judge Pauley's NYT obit, likely because the judge, many years later, sentenced Donald Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen to 3-years in prison for what he called a "veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct."  Mr. Cohen, who represented himself,  was also ordered to pay $2 million in fines, restitution and forfeitures after pleading guilty to "helping to buy the silence of two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump by paying the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000, which the government considered an illegal campaign contribution, and orchestrating a $150,000 payment to American Media, the parent company of The National Enquirer, to a former Playboy playmate, Karen McDougal, which prosecutors labeled an illegal corporate donation."

It is understandable why mention of a conviction of someone associated with Donald Trump would gain mention over a doctor who was convicted of insurance fraud. Dr. Lauersen's offenses seem tame compared to Mr. Cohen's, but he did report on insurance forms uncovered fertility services as covered services, a deception which netted well over a million dollars and affected several health insurers, including the one I worked for.

Dr. Lauersen's sentence was over 7 years, and was appealed by the prosecutors and made even longer.  Meanwhile, Mr. Cohen was released early to home confinement due to the Covid outbreak. Very hard to compare the two trials. The two Lauersen trials were in between the events of 9/11, a good reason for distinct memories. (Dr. Lauersen passed away in July 2020.)  

For the first trial, I appeared in court after reporting to work at my job on the 29th floor of One World Trade Center. For the sentencing, I arrived at the court from home on October 15, 2001 because there was no office to go to, and we were not yet assigned to temporary space. We always live in interesting times.

I remember at the sentencing Alan Dershowitz's brother Nathan gave what appeared to me to be a rambling presentation trying to mitigate the sentence. I know I couldn't follow the reasoning, and I doubt Judge Pauley did either, because he listened politely, and then said what he planned to anyway.

Dr. Lauersen was always well represented by name-plate counsel. His first lawyer was Ted Wells, famous for the Scooter Libby trail. His second lawyer was Gerald Shargel, a top New York defense attorney who sometimes represented organized crime figures, notably John Gotti. Nathan Dershowitz was brought in to make a sentencing plea.

Dr. Lauersen himself was a celebrity. Geraldo Rivera did a piece on him and dubbed him the Dyno Gyno for his success at in-vitro fertilizations for some notable celebrities like Liv Ullman and Celine Dion. His downfall was malpractice cases and the insurance fraud in which he tried to play Robin Hood for woman who were having a procedure that was generally not covered by their health insurance contracts. He reported these procedures as covered cyst removals so often that for the company I worked for he was a total outlier in cyst removals. Many things helped convict him, including data.

And like Judge Pauley's sound bite of characterizing Michael Cohen's offenses as a "veritable smorgasbord," at Dr. Lauersen's sentencing he said of him, "your fall from prestige has been Faustian in its dimensions." The quote appeared on the front page of the NYT the next day in the story about the sentencing. Judges speak for the ages.

One of the aspects from Sam Roberts's obit was a quote from Judge Eleni M. Roumel of the United States Court of Federal Claims, who had been Judge Pauley's law clerk, "what really distinguished him was his innate sense of fairness..."

Perhaps that was on display at the sentencing when Judge Pauley ordered the co-prosecutor to go outside the courtroom to find out what constituted the difference in federal prison when you were being considered for minimum, low, or medium security confinement, since at the moment that was not known by the prosecution.

To me it seemed an odd time to try and find this out, and how the hell was the co-prosecutor going to come back with the right answer? Well, he did, and I think it had something to do with the level of fencing around the facility as security and the ease or lack of ease prisoners could walk around the facility. Whatever it was, Judge Pauley was satisfied with the answer.

I read that Judge Pauley had achieved "senior status in 2018." This meant he was semi-retired and could have a reduced workload. I remember a judge's seniority being mentioned at the first trial as to determining the courtroom his cases got heard in, and it was commented on by the lead prosecutor that the courtroom the proceedings for the first trial were held in was the same one that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried in in the 1950s.

Long, long time ago...

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Bobby B. and NYRA

I don't necessarily have a steel-trap memory, but there are things way in the past I do remember. I can forget short-term what it was I went into the garage for, but I'm told this is common with people like myself who are of a certain age.

Andy Serling, a NYRA public handicapper and racing broadcaster on Fox's Racing Across America telecasts does have what I'll call a phenomenal memory with regard to who won what, and when. He's not as old as myself. He tells us he doesn't remember Secretariat running, or Dr. Fager, like myself, but does check in tp the sport approximately in 1979 when Spectacular Bid was running and presented a good chance at the Triple Crown, having won the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and was bunked into the Belmont backstretch waiting for the Belmont Stakes. Go Bid.

Spectacular Bid was spectacular. Sired by Bold Ruler, the same sire of Secretariat, he set track records and finished his career in 1980 with a 26-2-1 record for 30 starts. Only once out of the money, a 4th in his third start. His final race was a "walkover" in the Grade I Woodward at Belmont on September 20th.

What's a "walkover," the rarest of races? A walkover is when you're the only horse in the race. Why would that happen? It's complicated.

Spectacular Bid was a Marilyn Bred owned by the Meyeroff family, trained by Grover "Buddy" Delp and up to a point ridden by Ronnie Franklin, a teenage journeyman jockey from the Mid-Atlantic circuit who was considered his regular rider until after the losing effort in the Belmont, finishing third, when he was replaced by Bill Shoemaker for the rest of his races.

In 30 starts, Bid was the favorite 26 times, odds-on, really odds-on, 23 times, sometimes as low as 5¢ to the dollar, the lowest you can go. 

The last "race," the walkover, was held pretty much as an exhibition between the 7th and 8th races on September 20. Naturally, there was no betting. Shoemaker rode him.

Fast forward a bit to the news today that the Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that NYRA cannot keep Bob Baffert from entering horses in their races. Baffert has been considered a cheating pirahha by NYRA, and they feel they do not want him on the grounds. Racing jurisdictions often take stands on who can operate on their grounds, and in Baffert's case, because of his history of suspensions and alleged doping of this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, NYRA has taken a stand against. 

Lately, Bob Baffert is seen standing next to a lawyer as often as he's in jeans holding a halter. Such is his life these days. bouncing from his West Coast base to East Cost court rooms.

Without even reading Joe Drape's story in today's New York Times you can almost guess what the judge had to say about NYRA's case. This shows you how much we, as a non-lawyer public, and non-medical degree practitioners, have learned about the professional arts just by watching TV. Who says TV is a wasteland?

Judge Carol Bagley Amon said "Baffert had not been offered the opportunity to respond to claims made against him after Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test at Churchill Downs."

This is in keeping with Baffert and his lawyer's claim that he had been denied due process. NYRA invoked the suspension before the second sample from the Derby came back positive. After the second positive result Churchill banned Baffert for two years, preventing him from entering horses for the 2022 and the 2023 Derby.

The court upheld NYRA's right to make suspensions however, a facet of the ruling that David O'Rourke, President and CEO of NYRA is pleased with and will react to accordingly in the future in Baffert's case

Bob Baffert has lost some clients from his barn, particularly Spendthrift Farm, the owners of Baffert's 2020 Derby winner Authentic. According to Baffert, five more stables have discussed not using him as their trainer.

So what has this got to do with Spectacular Bid? After the Bid's Belmont loss the voluble, and somewhat unlikeable trainer, Grover Delp, started shooting his mouth off that Spectacular Bid had stepped on a safety pin in the backstretch shortly before the Belmont Stakes, in which he finished third  under Ronnie Franklin to Coastal's victory. (I had Coastal and was there.) 

Spectacular Bid ran twice more in New York after the Belmont, now with Bill Shoemaker on his back. He won the Marlboro Cup, avenging his defeat to Coastal, who finished third behind General Assembly.

He then ran in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, finishing second to Affirmed. These were top rated races against quality opposition. Spectacular Bid then raced exclusively outside of New York, mostly at Santa Anita, with some stops at Arlington Park, The Meadowlands in New Jersey, and Monmouth. He went undefeated, winning 9 straight, carrying as much as 132 pounds into his career as a 4-year-old.

He was not Horse of the Year in 1979, which went to Affirmed for the second straight year. Affirmed,  was also the Handicap Eclipse winner. Spectacular Bid was Male 3-year-old of the year. In his 4-year-old career, 1980, he was Handicap Horse of the year, and also Horse of the Year. He was a very good horse. 

The September 20, 1980 Woodward was spectacular Bid's 9th race of his four-year-old career, and was intended to be a bit of a prep for the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He had won the prior 8 races in 1980, so he was undefeated as a 4-year-old going into the Woodward. There were only three horses slated to run against him, Winter's Tale, who scratched with an injury, and Temperance Hill, winner of the 1980 Belmont, and Dr. Patches. The trainers of the two remaining horses, Joe Canty and Johnny Nerud  declined to keep their horses in the race. 

The purse for the Woodward then was $130.000, but neither trainer claimed they were willing to run as also rans, despite their being eligible for runner up shares of the purse, and maybe even the top spot if they won.

The rumor was that they ganged up on the unliked Grover Delp and withdrew so that the purse was lowered to $73,300. As pervasive as this rumor was, it made little sense, since the $73,300 was near enough to 60% of the original $130,000 purse—what a winner's share usually was, 60%.

So, with no opposition, Spectacular Bid competed in a walkover, the first since Stymie in 1946 at Saratoga when no one wanted to run against him. 

Delp made no friends when after the Belmont in 1979 he cried an injury from a safety pin as the reason for the horse's loss. The NYT recapped the "safety pin" claim when Spectacular Bid passed away at 27 in 2003.

"The day of the Belmont in 1979 has remained as a controversy and a mystery within horse racing.

Spectacular Bid lost to Coastal and Golden Act. After the race his trainer Grover, "Buddy" Delp claimed that a safety pin had accidently been jabbed into the colt's left front foot early that Saturday morning. According to Delp, the pin apparently fell off a bandage covering the foot while Spectacular Bid was in his straw-covered stall. The colt stepped on it, driving the pin an inch into his hoof.

"When I drove up to the barn at 5:45 a.m. I soon discovered he was lame," Delp told The New York Times the morning after. Delp said he cleaned the wound and put the horse's foot in a tub of water, and he seemed to quickly recover.

"That afternoon, bettors wagered $699,000 on Spectacular Bid to win. And he did not disappoint—for most of the race he led after one and a quarter miles, but faded to third down the stretch as the lightly raced Coastal won.

"Delp also blamed the colt's teenage jockey, Ronnie Franklin, for running a ''scared race.'' And the credibility of the trainer's injury claim was questioned by the track's chief veterinarian, Manuel Gilman, who said: ''I'm not saying Mr. Delp is telling a story. All I can tell you is what I saw. The horse went out for the race all right and he came back all right.

"Spectacular Bid was shipped the next day to Pimlico, where one of his handlers claimed to have seen blood coming out of the hoof."

The safety pin explanation took on the skepticism of a UFO sighting. If your horse showed signs of lameness, then he should have been scratched. Other trainers did not like Buddy Delp.

Young Ronnie Franklin's ride was suspect, having taken the lead early in the race, using Spectacular Bid early. The rider's poor judgment and nervousness was understandable, given the pressure of the Triple Crown pursuit and his unfamiliarity with Belmont, and particularly a mile and a half race. He never rode the horse again, being replaced by Bill Shoemaker

As for what happened to cause trainers to withdraw from the Woodward, no one can asked at this point.  Both Joe Canty and Johnny Nerud have passed away.

But what if Bob Baffert comes to the say The Travers, and no one else enters? He'll get the win, but not with the enjoyment of truly competing.

It's unlikely New York trainers would at this point collectively keep their horses from competing against a Baffert horse. The purses are truly big, and there are "win-and-you're in" races that put you in the Breeders' Cup with entry fees and ancillary expenses paid, a plum win.

But with five Bobby B. horses having failed drug tests in a little over a year, and 30 failed tests in his career, the wagons are circling, and Bobby B. may just have to keep the suit and tie on for court appearances and ditch the jeans.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

John L. Rotz

News of another death of a race track personality has once again been delivered. In February my friend, the human FourstarDave passed away; Harvey Pack just last week, and now John L. Rotz, a Hall-of-Fame jockey on the NYRA circuit who rode some top horses and who I remember betting on, and was often frustrated with. You're always frustrated with a jockey when they don't win for you.

Rotz was a NYRA steward for a time after retiring from riding. Our friend and mentor Les knew Rotz, and would tell us Johnny lived on Queens Boulevard with "some Chinese woman." To us, who were younger than Les, and Rotz, this sounded erotic and exotic, and although we never met him, he envied him, being young males who probably thought about relationships every 14 seconds.

Les of course was "Mr. Pace," our handicapping mentor who will forever be enshrined in my personal hall-of-fame for, in 1971, picking Pass Catcher to beat Cannanero II in the Belmont Stakes, having handicapped him with his number system that was heavily reliant on weight being carried.

I have mimicked Les's system with my own 11 point analysis which is heavily reliant on current form. Weight is hardly the handicapping factor it was in horse racing. Les's "numbers" were good, but swung to false outliers when a hurdles horse, usually running with 152 pounds over the jumps, was now in a turf race, maybe for the trainer Sid Watters, and running at 118 pounds.

Les would claim that Rotz communicated with him with some sort of signal during the post parade when the horse he was on was live in the race, or was a dud. In particular, I remember Les telling us that "Johnny doesn't think much of Deceit," a filly going for the Filly Triple Crown in the then mile and a half Coaching Club American Oaks at Belmont. I forget who won, but Deceit was up the track I believe.

Supposedly, Les would tell us Johnny had a bad back, and really doesn't try too hard unless the purse was significant. For us, this would be the late '60s, early '70s. I started going to the track in 1968, so I don't remember the famous ride in the 1962 Preakness when Rotz rode Greek money to a nose victory as Manny Ycaza was trying to put him over the rail on Ridan coming down the stretch. Greek Money prevailed, and Ycaza was eventually suspended for rough riding, something Ycaza engaged in frequently, often getting suspended.

In fact, to say Ycaza was an aggressive rider, is to not say enough. He once got Dr. Fager DQ'd from the Jersey Derby at Garden State in 1967 at 30¢ to the dollar for crowding the field at the clubhouse turn, stupidly, since it was a four horse field.  Fager was placed fourth, therefore out of the money. Can imagine being a bridge jumper and Manny Ycaza cost you show money? It's a wonder a sniper's shot didn't get him. Ycaza always thought no one was looking.

I've kept most of my track programs, and can find Rotz listed as late as 1971. Win or lose, There isn't a time at the racetrack that I don't remember fondly.

You can't say that about many things.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Up, Up and Away

By now. most people have absorbed the news that a 70-year-old civilian (albeit a Brit) has ascended into space and successfully returned to earth. I say most, because at dinner the other night my wife didn't know who the hell I was talking about when I mentioned Sir Richard Branson. Since FoxNews didn't cover his up and down trip into space, my wife hadn't heard of it. Oh well. I guess to be somewhat fair, it was on a Sunday.

Obviously, space travel is nowhere near what it was when a morning crowd of commuters stood in Grand Central Terminal and listened to Walter Cronkite and watch CBS on the Kodak monitor, as a successful launch was televised. It was us vs. the Russkies. Now it's dueling billionaires.

Sir Richard Branson, and maybe Jeff Bezos are on their way to making space travel something mere millionaires can afford. "Ladies and gentlemen, you can now unfasten your seat belts and float around the cabin."

Exciting times? Certainly for some. Sir Richard was metaphorically over the moon when he landed and talked to the press, and expressed joy that a "dyslexic" boy could achieve his dream. What dyslexia has to do with getting in the way of amassing a billion dollars is unknown, but people love to make you think they crawled out of a cave in loin cloth and became a rich CEO.

Never mind the critics that are calling for affordable housing rather than Branson spending millions on a space junket. Let the guy have some fun. We can live vicariously through his life. Powering away into space and experiencing weightlessness has got to be more exciting than planning on a construction site that provides toilets.

As for the weightlessness, an entire generation in the '60s experienced it at Yasgur's farm at the  Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York, when they sat in the mud and listened to music. Some have never come down since.

Rich people have been seeking alternative thrills and frills for years. Howard Hughes was trying to fly a wooden plane, the Spruce Goose. August Belmont built a rail spur so that his private train could get him to Belmont racetrack in style, and before the Daily Double closed. The railroad spur is still there, and in addition to ferrying a few hundred people to Belmont, will soon be ferrying happy Islanders fans to their new arena at Belmont. Thanks August.

Those who cynically remark that what good can come out of space travel for billionaires and millionaires are truly not seeing the BIG picture.

The Democrats now have a place they'd like to send Donald Trump to other than hell. At least a one-way trip. 

Organized crime has new ground to dispose of bodies. If you think Judge Crater and Jimmy Hoffa can be made to disappear on earth, imagine who they can make disappear in space. The mind boggles.

Jimmy Kumquat doesn't just have to be asked to take a car ride a car ride, he can get one to the airport, be strapped into a seat, and be convinced to take a space walk without a tether. What's he going to do, ask for his money back?

No, Sir Richard has opened a new frontier. And while my guess is while there were those who probably wished Sir Richard well, there will be those who don't wish the same success for Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame. My wife for one would like to see the bald-headed "creep" not come back, paying the price for dumping his wife for a Brazilian pool toy. Dumping your wife doesn't sit well with some women, even if the ex-wife's wealth now will likely exceed the split fortune of the Gates pair.

Kenneth Chang in yesterday's NYT discusses the doors that civilian space travel, however short, will open. It is believed scientists will use the flights to study how plants grow in zero gravity, with the prospect being growing food in space for the long-term crews at the space station. Sort of Whole Foods in space. Surely Gluten free.

And of course this is only the beginning of the plans. Flights to the International Space Station are expected. Prices on Virgin's vehicle and Bezos's Blue Origin vary a bit, somewhat like an Uber fare.

Apparently 600 people are in the queue at $200,000 a piece for the Virgin Galactic ride, while Jeff's taxi is begged at $250,000, but claiming to fly higher.  

And there are others. Space X, Space Adventure, and Axiom Space. If all these efforts succeed, then space is going to resemble the crowd at the top of Mount Everest; there will be a crowd waiting to get to the top and take a selfie.

Prices should tumble, and then merely the rich will be able to travel in space. Check your Pennysavers for coupons.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Where Have All the Characters Gone?

What's wrong with the NYT?

Depending on who is making out the list, it's either a very long list, or just a short one. And since right now I'm making out the list, it's a short one—where do all the characters who've passed away go these days?

We know Robert McG. Thomas has long since passed away himself, the obit writer who gave us The Goat Man, a woman who knocked over more duck pins than anyone,  the man who invented kitty litter, a pool hustler, an aviator who flew the wrong way... And they weren't the only ones he found somewhere on this earth after they left earth. Other obit writers would marvel at his sources.

And when you find genius, you tend to find it in isolation. It's not easily replicated. There was only one Mozart, one Ted Williams, and one Robert McG. Thomas. But Jesus you guys at the Times, you can make an effort to give us people other than the ones you've been feeding us lately.

Not that these people don't deserve a tribute obit, but consider the source of their fame:

Academic who soured on the American dream,
Filmmaker and provocateur,
Composer and synthesizer innovator,
Kidney transplant expert,
Eminent geneticist with a sharp pen,
Curator who focused on African art,
Dance teacher with human touch,
Defense secretary during Iraq War,
Lionized composer with radical roots,
C.I.A. chief in world capitals

All accomplished in their own right. None of them funny, or quirky. In other words, nothing to make you identify with them.

The most recent obit that came close for me was the ballerina who retired, went to the West Coast, and opened a hamburger joint with her husband.

I don't know what threshold a deceased has to cross to rate a tribute obit in the Times. Obviously, space is an issue, but that can't be all of it. You can tell by glancing at the paid obits from families that accompany a photo of the deceased and an often lengthy self-penned bio that they felt they rated a tribute obit, didn't get one, and are willing to shell out beaucoup bucks to tell the world about their departed loved one. It's their money.

I can't help but think there's a certain snobbishness to the selection process that prevents the obits desk, perhaps a bit cloistered, from knowing anything about what went on in New York with regard to horse racing. A deceased's life's achievement has to be academic, artistic, political, literary, or be a sports great. You can't be a horseplayer.

Despite the fact that horseplayers are among the most colorful of all characters, the NYT has failed to provide us a tribute obit for Harvey Pack, who at 94 has passed away. Harvey is well known to legions of horseplayers of a certain age who spent some of their time looking up at television screens in OTB parlors, or encountered him at Saratoga in Siro's parking lot holding forth as the emcee for handicapping sessions before the day's races.

For me, Harvey should have won an Emmy with Pete Axthelm, sports editor for Newsweek, for their coverage of the Breeders' Cup races at Aqueduct (the second Breeders' Cup in 1985) when together they made a four hour show about horse racing interesting and funny. 

To open the show showing the audience how to get to Aqueduct via the Subway Special at Times Square, passing under the steel horseshoe shaped arch at the base of the stairs with "Good Luck" painted at the apex, was inspired television. Harvey knew what any horseplayer in Manhattan knew: a large token that was then $1.50 could get you on a train that made only one stop, at Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn, before reaching the promised land Aqueduct in South Ozone Park, Queens, the only racetrack still within the city limits.

The New York Racing Association, (NYRA) and of course the Daily Racing Form had nice obits for Harvey. There are some links in these releases to podcasts with Harvey, as well as taking advantage of one with Peter Fornatale (@loomsboldly), Harvey's co-author on his one and only book, 'May the Horse Be with You,' Harvey's signature line as he threw the program in the air at the end of a telecast.

The gesture of throwing the program accurately reprises what horseplayers used to do with their programs/Racing Forms at the end of a day's worth of racing. Win or lose, there is nothing more useless than a program or a set of past performances after the races have been run. If a day old newspaper is meant to wrap fish, a discarded program/Racing Form is meant for wrapping fish as well—on the same day. After the last race, the trash barrels fill up.

I say "used to" because there is barely anyone at the track these days who acts like they did when I first was going out in 1968, and after. Few tear and throw their losing tickets on the ground. There is very little litter at the track these days. There is very little live crowd, and those who are betting are doing so remotely through their Advance Deposit Wagering (ADW) accounts, or betting through their phone accounts—even while at the track. It's electronic these days.

The gambit used to be to pick up sufficient losing tickets if you hit an IRS payout, so that when it came time to file your taxes to get what was automatically withheld on a big payout, you could "declare" losses near or equal to your winnings. Make it a wash, so there is no tax exposure.

It's a position I've never been in, having never hit a so-called IRS payout. But others continue to hit them, so I wonder how they present losses. Not my problem, though.

Like a lot of horseplayers, Harvey's interest in the sport came from his father, who would give him $10 to take the train from Penn Station to Belmont and get there and reserve some seats for his later arriving father and his friends. Reserving seats in those days, and when I started going out, meant tearing off some unneeded pages from your program or Morning Telegraph and stuffing them, or taping them to the seat. In a moving box in my clothes closet I recently came across the pencil with now faded tape I used to wrap a quantity of masking tape around so that when I got to the track I could secure seats for myself and a few others, and really establish secure territory with taped newspaper. The code was that a seat with newspaper on it was a "reserved" seat. These days, with few in live attendance, that whole seat saving routine is passé.  

Because of what then were large crowds at the track, before on-track wagering cut into the attendance, saving seats was essential. Harvey mentions it in his book, but big attendance days were of course weekends (no Sunday racing) and holidays, but also Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashannah. Harvey, himself Jewish, knew this because instead of going to the synagogue, the men would play hookey and head for the track.

So, not only was it impossible to buy a #10 envelope in NYC in that pre-Staples era because all the stationery stores were closed, you had trouble getting a seat at the races unless young Harvey was sent ahead and plopped some newspaper on some seats.

Born in 1927 Harvey would remember the hand-book days when wagering was done through on-track bookmakers, and illegal off-track ones. These were the Damon Runyon years when high stakes gambling was done by gamblers on horses as well as on visits to one of the few casinos in Vegas. The action was on horses.

In what would be middle age, Harvey fell into his tub of butter when he started doing race "replays" on the radio as legal off-track betting proliferated in New York City, starting in 1971. Eventually, there were some 114 OTB, Off-Track Betting parlors scattered throughout the five boroughs. Legal bets could now be made by those who didn't have to break a leg to get to the track by 1:20, ten minutes before the 1:30 first race post, to make playing a bet on the Daily Double, then the only exotic wager you could make.

There was no funnier sight than seeing guys nearly jump off a moving train as it approached Belmont if it was running late and was endangering their chance to get down on the Double. Amazing, but I never saw anyone get electrocuted. God was watching. Likewise, they would come charging off the subway at the Conduit Avenue, Aqueduct stop if making the Double was in jeopardy. Olympic track and field athletes were born.

Quick-witted and with a warehouse of stories to tell, Harvey's popularity grew. You only have to take in one of the telecasts with Andy Serling, or a podcast with Peter Fornatale, to hear of those in his circle who might have known Bugsy Segal, or others who are not named, but who are familiar.

Aside from the quick wit, I always thought Harvey's attraction was his voice, a sincere cadence with clear annunciation, free of rough New York inflection. If he wasn't doing what he did, he could have brought you the evening news, or make money doing voice-overs on commercials. In a sense, he was delivering the news: results.

One of the joys of going to Saratoga was to take in the morning handicapping show from the Siro's restaurant parking lot, hosted by Harvey. There, up on dais was Harvey as the emcee with a few guest handicappers who would talk to the assembled about the day's card. Amongst those was Andy Serling, "Little Andy" as he was referred to, since "Big Andy," Andy Beyer was the other Andy.

Andy Beyer, a racing writer for The Washington Daily News, would make an appearance on the dais in conjunction with a big weekend, say an upcoming Travers, or Alabama. Andy Beyer wrote some seminal handicapping books, and will be forever enshrined for his proprietary Beyer speed rating figures, an exclusive feature of the Racing Form, and his analysis of a race based on "trip handicapping." (I'll never forget he picked Raven's Past to beat Curlin in the 2008 Breeders' Cup Classic. And it happened when Curlin hated a then synthetic surface at Santa Anita.)

Andy Serling was really just getting started then as a public handicapper (now doing it for NYRA), and he had then, as now, acerbic opinions about certain horses in an upcoming race.

I'm not sure who started it, but Harvey would make Andy wear a tall dunce cap the following day if one of his "can't win" rants turned out completely wrong, and the horse did win, easily, even if it was a short price.

Sure enough, one day we were there, Andy went on and on about the lousy chances of a horse who was a short-priced favorite, who didn't deserve the short price, and would surely finish up the track. There was no "value" there. When the horse that day won easily, Little Andy was wearing the dunce cap the next morning. Harvey made sure.

After one of these handicapping sessions I approached Harvey with a program opened to a page of entries and asked for his autograph. Now knowing Harvey passed away at 94, he was probably somewhere in his 80s then, still quick-witted, missing nothing.

Harvey signed the page I had opened with what was really just a squiggle, but did comment that I had it opened to a New York Bred race and said he wished he was signing his name to a "better" race.  (Even then, New York Bred races were considered inferior to other races. That has changed.)

The press release from NYRA tells us that David O'Rourke, President and CEO of NYRA, says there will be a way NYRA remembers Harvey in the future. That probably means naming a race after him. Fitting. But my hope is despite Harvey being a New York bred himself, NYRA doesn't name a New York Bred race after Harvey.

He might not like it.

http://www.onofframp.blogaspot.com

Bells Are Ringing. Calling from Where?

Caller id is even better than sliced bread and direct deposit of Social Security checks. Just consider the calls I've been able to avoid taking in the last several days. You would think I've met everyone in the United States on a cruise, or at Disney World, and they're just trying to get back to me. Jesus, I'm a popular guy. Or am I?

Raleigh, Illinois,
Liberty Hill, Texas,
Williams Bay, Wisconsin,
Orlando, Florida,
Teaneck, New Jersey
Grantsville, Maryland,
Bowie, Texas,
Bellevue, Texas
Simi Valley, California (I do know someone there. It's not them.)
Atlanta, Georgia,
Lake Placid, Florida,
Germantown, Maryland,
Greensboro, North Carolina,
Newark, New Jersey,
Jersey City, New Jersey,
Bakersfield, California,
Denton, Texas,
Nassau, New York,
Oyster Bay, New York

Obviously, as anyone with a phone knows, the people who make these calls, the "robo callers," are not really in these locations. Their outgoing calls to unsuspecting people are routed through phone exchanges at those locations, and they are very likely not sitting in a boiler room in say, Williams Bay, Wisconsin. But they are somewhere annoying the rest of us.

The phone companies are at least helping to solve the problem, or at least alert us to the problem, by getting the originating number out there as part of caller ID. Additionally, the companies often are able to identify a source of a call as SPAM, like the recent call I received...SPAM? Committee.

The temptation is to answer the call and start an interrogation as to why they think I should be reached out to. This is fruitless, and will only raise your blood pressure. The advice is to let the calls ring through and don't engage with the annoying caller. 

If they let the call ring enough times, my phone records their attempt as a "message" with a red blinking light. The fun would be if they really did leave a message. At least I would know what they are hawking. Unfortunately or not, retrieving the message only results in silence. Oh well.

You can gnash your teeth and rail about the lack of privacy, but there really is little privacy. Your number is out there somewhere, and someone's got it on a list of prospects to call. The numbers are not worth blocking because they seldom repeat. The "Committee" might be trying to reach me, and I might someday in an expansive mood ask them what the hell they want with me. but I pretty much refrain from engaging. You've got to be off the grid to not be annoyed by attempts to reach you.

I do have a favorite one that I haven't gotten in a while. The tough cop sounding voice that is soliciting for the fraternal order of police chiefs of America. He's Joe something and I love to answer that one and just tell him "no." I'm tempted to tell him he's full of crap, but I play nice and just decline. Oftentimes the calls will come in a cluster, but usually by 7 p.m. there are no more. And they seem to take weekends and holidays off.

There is a modicum of decency left in the world.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

It's In the Name

There's reason in that rhyme.

Names for thoroughbred horses can sometimes be like solving crossword puzzles. There's a clue in the name, and your job is to divine the answer.

Take some of the horses from yesterday's card at Belmont. Horse names can often be a bit of a portmanteau based on the sire and dam's names. And if you buy a decent past performance, those names are there to see, as well as the grandsire's names on the sire and dam's side. If there's one thing that's true in thoroughbred racing, breeding counts.

Naming a horse is a function of the breeder, the person or farm that is responsible for matching the sire to the dam. Breeders can be owners, but usually they arrange the union, have the foal trained, then sell the foal at an auction, or yearling sale. By the time someone owns a horse they've also bought the name, a name governed by he naming conventions of the Jockey Club, an organization somewhat like the Internet domain naming group that governs the length (no more than 18 spaces, blanks counted) and the appropriateness, no politically charged names or overt sexual innuendos, and no reference to reserved named of former champions. You can't be Secretariat II.

Occasionally, a name seems to sneak through that carries someone's long-held sentiments. Consider Effinex, a seemingly innocuous name that sounds like a chemical ingredient in your toothpaste, but when  sounded out aloud clearly expresses someone's disdain for their former spouse: Effin' Ex. Get it?They're not always that clever.

Most names tend to be prosaic, and have no discernible relation to the breeding or the breeder's message. Or, they can be an obvious reference to their breeding, e.g. Awesome Indra by Awesome of Course, sired by Awesome Again. Yawn.

Then there are those that are subtle, and perhaps head scratchers. Take Mosienko. Just a Slavic name,  right? Well, the New York breeder Anthony Grey reached somewhere in his memory because the sire of Mosienko is Hat Trick. Yeah, so?

Well Bill Mosienko was the captain of the Chicago Black Hawks who in 1952 against the hapless New York Rangers, playing with their third string goaltender called up from the Eastern League in the final game of the season, scored a hat trick in 21 seconds. (Three goals)

Stan Fischler, that octogenarian hockey maven and historian wrote about it in 2017 and was at the game as a 20-something year old Ranger fan, the vice president of their fan club.

Stan's piece rings all the bells of my memory of the "Old" Garden. I'm nowhere near as old as Stan, but I have distinct memories of the place. Apparently for that final game, the Garden management knew fan interest would be low so they closed off all the upper sections, the side and end balconies, where Stan and myself would be to watch the games. 

Side balcony was $1.50 when I went in the '60s, and because of the way the Garden was built for boxing sight lines, offered an obstructed view of the ice as soon as you were in row B. The end balcony was better for viewing, and was $2.00. I knew a friend in high school who had season seats, side balcony, Row A. As soon as I sat behind him, a quarter of the ice was invisible to me.

Stan recalls watching the game from the End Arena seats as part of a crowd of 3,254 rather than the usual sellout of 15,925. In that era of the six-team NHL, the first four teams in the standings made the Stanley Cup playoffs. I think the season then was 50 games, so a final season game in late March makes sense. (How times change!) The Rangers were pretty much perennial cellar dwellers, but that season it was the Black Hawks who were in last place, with the Rangers just ahead of them.

I have to admit I never read anything about Mosienko's goal details until Greg Wolf and Richard Migliore mentioned Mosienko during a Racing Across America telecast. I caught that they made a fleeting reference to Mosienko's sire, Hat Trick, and that it had something to do with Bill being a hockey player. At the outset they didn't know about his 21 second record.

As for the horse Mosienko, she's a hard knocking 4-year-old $25,000 claimer who doesn't have a bad record: 14 starts, 3, 3, 2, winning $105,498 so far lifetime. Because she brings home part of the purse she's often claimed, meaning different people get to own her.

Perhaps fittingly, although Mosienko didn't win on Monday, she does have three career wins: a hat trick.

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July 4, 2021

July 4th. Again. Every time I write the current year I can't believe how far into the 21st century I've traveled. We're a long way from the parade of tall ships inching their way up the Hudson River on the centennial of the nation's independence, 1976. A long way.

The typical things are going to happen today. Joey Chestnut is going to be introduced to the gathering of some 5,000 near Nathan's in Brooklyn's Coney Island by George Shea, a straw hat wearing huckster introducing him in chautauqua tent fashion and devour 70+ hot dogs in Nathan's Hot dog eating contest. He'll win, because no one ever comes close.

If Einstein did indeed leave his brain to science, then Joey should leave his esophagus and intestines, large and small, to science as well. He's a human being who's been crafted with a difference.

Will Nathan's morph into a frog leg eating contest? I saw something to the effect that they are now going to offer fried frog legs. Outside of France, will someone be eating those?

A local real estate agency has deposited flags on everyone's lawn here with a small placard attached. They've been doing this for years, but I think last year was an exception. Covid created a lot of exceptions.

And the NYT has once again printed a facsimile of the Declaration on the back page of one of its sections today. Takes up the whole page. They've lately been easing the ability to read it by also transcribing the text. That 18th-century quill pen cursive can be challenging.

And once again I'll think of the family that I read that takes time out on July 4th to pass the document around and have family members read portions of it out loud. My guess is they're still doing it.

And through the magic of Twitter I'm reminded that I wrote a posting about this family tradition when I read about it in the obituary of Whitey North Seymour Jr. a formed U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District in the '70s who passed away at 95 in 2019.

It seems someone (@jakeanbinder) Tweeted something about a Whitney North Seymour Jr. CV on 7/26/2020 that was Retweeted by @fremebarima on July 2, 2021 with a link to my posting of July 2, 2019. That first Tweet referred to the CV boasting his heritage, including that of his father who served as Herbert Hoover's assistant solicitor general, and his wife, who is a descendent of Roger Williams, a founder of a state, albeit a small one, Rhode Island. Come over on the Mayflower, sign the  Declaration or be responsible for putting another star in the flag, and you're American royalty. 

With 1,568 postings since 2009, I pretty much forgot about the Whitney North Seymour Jr. posting and obituary that finally put a family name on my long-ago reading of their July 4th tradition.

In the obit The Times recalled the family tradition:

"In a profile of Mr. Seymour during the Deaver case,[alleged lobbying violations] The Times noted that for years he had gathered his extended family on Cape Cod every Independence Day to take turns reading passages of the Declaration of Independence aloud and discussing the document's meaning and significance.

"'If this seems an unusual and poignant way for an American family to mark July 4, it is nonetheless thoroughly in keeping with the character of Whitney North Seymour Jr. If Mr. Seymour—mike to his friends— comes across as pious and stuffy to some, he strikes many others as a man rightly living life, utterly honest, committed to the public good, interested, engaged.'"

Since Mr. North and his wife  had two daughters, and I suspect they had husbands, and likely children, that the family tradition is continuing somewhere today.

Sounds like a good one.

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Brave New World

Digitization. That's what they've done with medical records. If you can buy a car online now, you can also see what they did to you on your latest ambulatory visit for your back. Photos as well. 

Photos (black and white) of the kind that are inside views of the body and make it look like the doc did reach space through a ride with Bezos or Branson and land on Mars—before you've even gotten home. (I stopped off for a haircut first.)

Without going into as much detail as I got yesterday by my signing into my "account" I'll tell you it came with medicine name, strength, quantity, the gauge of the needle, approach, the fact that I was on a pillow, (not, apparently MyPillow.com. I asked. Sorry Mike Lindell), photos of the fluoroscopy, and the op report, which concluded, nicely, like most op reports I read when I worked for BlueCross and BlueShield, "patient tolerated the procedure well." You like to read that when your name is on the top of the report.

Missing, were the actions of the nice nurse Jenny who treated be royally after the procedure by offering me water and my choice of a snack. Snack? I get a snack? When does this plane reach JFK?

I chose Lorna Doones over pretzels. Wow, Lorna Doones. "When was the last time you had a Lorna Doone?" asks Jennie sweetly. "I might have been 12."

Wasn't Lorna Doone one of those characters I saw on an Illustrated Classics comic book in the back of Siegal's candy store in Flushing? Damn right. I never bought that one, but through Google I now know the plot. Sort of a 17th-century Patty Hearst without F. Lee Bailey. Art before life.

The cookie Lorna Doone reminded me of the shortbread Girl Scout cookies we didn't get this year. I usually get about 5 boxes of different varieties when they're hawking them in the shopping  center. Covid of course eliminated that.

But back to medical records and their digitization. Given the type of medicine I received I immediately thought of a horse being injected with a banned substance.  If I were to have a blood test after a race I'd be DQ'd, the purse would be withheld, suspensions and fines would be levied, and there'd be lawsuits up the gazoo. A normal week for Bob Baffert. Or Olympic athletes, or Tour de France riders.

Of course the digitization of records would not make the game of horse racing more honest. Those doing prohibited things would just not fill out the paperwork.

But I couldn't help thinking about how much information we let out there. Truthfully, I'm not concerned about my records being hacked. I'm too old (Motto: Old enough to know better, too old to care.) to care what the rest of the world knows about me. Or thinks about me.

But there is so much information that gets out there that I can't help think if there is an Afterlife I might be able to log back in moments after death and find out how they tried to save me. With photos, maybe color by then.

The mind boggles.

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