Filling in the post-summer meet, pre-fall championship season lull …
Steve Haskin on the unsettled awards picture:
One thing we should all be in agreement with is that it is going to take a victory in the Classic and possibly one other race or two spectacular performances by Questing or Point of Entry to take Horse of the Year honors away from I’ll Have Another.
That should be easy. At this point, I’ll Have Another seems barely in the Horse of the Year conversation — there would have to be chaos coast-to-coast over the next eight weeks for him to be a factor — and even 3-year-old champion honors hardly seem assured — both Alpha and Dullahan are well positioned to claim the title, if either manages to win the Jockey Club Gold Cup (A)* or Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (D), and then win in the Breeders’ Cup.
*Never mind, re: Alpha and the JCGC. He’s going to Pennsylvania.
Posted by JC in Racing on 09/07/2012 @ 2:52 pm / Tagged 3-Year-Old Champion, Eclipse Awards, Horse of the Year, I'll Have Another / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Keeneland auctioneers adapt:
“You try and get rhythm in your chant, but at the same time you understand you’ve got people out there speaking probably 15 or 20 different languages, and most of the time they’re looking at the tote board now instead of listening to you,†he said. “So it’s very important that you are clear and precise in your numbers and everybody understands what the bid is and what the current asking price is.â€
Posted by JC in Racing on 09/06/2012 @ 2:25 pm / Tagged Auctioneers, Auctions, Business of Racing, International, Keeneland, Sales, Yearlings / Follow @railbird on Twitter
The late John Oaksey’s bittersweet account of the 1963 Grand National:
It was, I think, setting out on the second circuit that the thought of victory first entered my head. Carrickbeg had long since made the fences look and feel like hurdles and, after jumping the water well behind, he moved up outside his field turning away from the stands with a surge of power that warmed my heart.
At Becher’s second time round he made one of the few mistakes I remember, and for an awful moment his big brave head seemed to rest on the quarters of another horse stumbling in front of us. But then, somehow, we were clear, and at the Canal Turn, as Ayala blundered badly, Carrickbeg nipped inside him like a polo pony.
Now there were only a handful ahead, and as the fences flicked by we pulled them back, one by one, until four from home, when for the first and only time in this hectic, wonderful race, fate took a hand against us.
He was denied the win. “I know who you are,” a man said to him on the street years later, “you’re the b—– who got tired before his ‘oss“.
Posted by JC in Readings on 09/05/2012 @ 8:00 pm / Tagged Grand National, International, Jockeys, John Oaksey, Jumps, Turf Writers, UK / Follow @railbird on Twitter
