Surprise!

Sometimes the cynic can be surprised.

It's a week later, but the New York Times has deigned to hardcopy print Corey Kilgannon's piece on the closing of Aqueduct, that prior to its appearance on the front page of Sunday's, July 5th edition, Metropolitan section, only existed online in cyberspace. 

This mean it will forever be part of the archives, and anyone 50 years from now who might wonder what happened to the place will get an excellent read of how it reached its closing after 132 of presenting thoroughbred racing within the New York City limits in South Ozone Park, Queens.

Anyone who might be a reader of this blog—and I know there are a few of you out there, I get the stats—will know I took the NYT to the woodshed for not producing his article in print.

When I congratulated Mr. Kilgannon on an excellent piece with top notch photos, he replied with his thanks, and confirmed what I thought, that he's not really any kind of horseplayer. True, but he's a good reporter.

New York City is so big that it can withstand numerous events taking place simultaneously. In between Aqueduct's closing in Sunday, June 29 and now, the city has been the site for Taylor Swift's wedding at Madison Square Garde, Times Square holding tourists of every stripe who are here to witness FIFA World Cup matches at Met Life Stadium, which has to be called New York New Jersey Stadium because only FIFA can gain any money from imbedded advertising. Met-Life stadium is not allowed.

And of course you can't ignore the amorous Russian couple that climbed to the top of the antenna on the Empire State Building and unfurled their banner about LOVE.

Say what you will about AI, it does allow for the creative to insert images where the original image was. Take the banner that was unfurled. Some horseplayer took the time to create an AI image of a betting ticket from Aqueduct as what they unfurled. My own daughter inserted Mr. and Mrs. Met atop the antenna. 

I read that as metaphor that that is the only time the Mets will be atop anything this year. I'm sure there are many AI creations.

The photo used at the top of this post is an image taken from Mr. Kilgannon's piece of what a crowd that once existed at Aqueduct looked like. It is undated, but my own horseplaying guess is that it's from the 1970s. The tote board is not LED, but lit by numerous light bulbs. The information displayed aside from current odds will tell you the amount bet on each entrant in the WIN, PLACE, and SHOW pools. That kind of information is no longer displayed, basically because there are many pools these days for each race. Never has the racetrack offered so many ways to make a bet as now. They've cone a long way from a single Daily Double on the first and second races.

I sent a congratulatory email to Mr. Kilgannon on seeing his effort so prominently displayed in print. My hope for him is that his editors send him to tell the world about the "newly imagined Belmont" and what its patrons think of the place after it opens on September 18th.

I for one will appreciate a non-horseplayer's take on the place. Because you can take it to the bank that I'll be providing my take on the "newly imagined Belmont."

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