– “Bargain-buy Sir Percy was delivered on the line to gain a famous victory in a pulsating finish to the 227th Vodafone Derby at Epsom.” The colt won the race by a head in one of the closest finishes seen in the Epsom Derby in years, with the top four all finishing within a head or nose of each other. The race was marred by the tragic breakdown of second favorite Horatio Nelson, who was pulled up in the stretch after fracturing his right front leg, an injury unfortunately foreshadowed before the race when jockey Kieren Fallon expressed concern that the colt wasn’t warming up well. Trainer Aidan O’Brien and racecourse vet Peter Webbon watched Horatio Nelson trot and determined that he was fit to run. “Thus was the equine Horatio Nelson killed in action, sharing the fate of his illustrious namesake, Lord Nelson, killed in action at Trafalgar.” Owner John Magnier, asked about the pre-race concerns, declined to lay blame on anyone for the accident. “If there was something, it was checked by the people down there and they passed it.”
– At Epsom on Friday, Alexandrova “ran away with the Oaks,” winning by six lengths under a handride from jockey Kieren Fallon. “She just took off with me,” Fallon said. “Any filly that wins in the Oaks is very special, and I’ve been lucky enough to win it three times before today, but I never thought until today that I’d get a feel from a filly in the Oaks like I did from Ouija Board two years ago.” In the Coronation Cup, Shirocco was briefly tested by Ouija Board, but then easily drew away to win by 1 3/4 lengths.
Posted by JC in International on 06/04/2006 @ 10:45 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Barbaro has received a lot of fan mail recently, and now, with a little help from his assistant Doreen Steinmetz, he’s taking the time to write back:
Dear Nancy,
Well, I appreciate your patience as I sift through these bags full of mail from all my supporters. Know that your letter meant a lot to me.
You know, I’m not exactly sure what life has in store for me now. Racing is all I’ve ever known, really. I guess I’ll just have to get used to taking it easy. One day at a time, etc. etc.
From all I’ve heard, though, retirement doesn’t sound so bad. The life of a stud is pretty sweet. And they’re setting me up with a Roth IRA, which should yield a solid annual return.
But don’t expect Barbaro to disappear into the sunset! I can command a pretty hefty speaker’s fee. I’m actually already in discussions to host a Dr. Phil-style talk show, and I’ve been invited to speak at the Women’s Health Forum at the Chicago Convention Center later this summer. But as for everything else, your guess is as good as mine.
I’m looking into some disability insurance, but frankly, I’m confused. Some days I don’t know what to do; I stare blankly at the medical forms. And other days I say, “Forget it. That stuff’s complicated and, I mean, after all: I am a horse.”
All my best, always,
Barbaro
—
More seriously: Over on Slate, Meghan O’Rourke tries to explain why people care so much about Barbaro:
Americans have historically become preoccupied with horseracing in times of national strain. The last time we saw this much interest in the sport, my father recently pointed out to me, was during the Watergate era, when two horses, Ruffian and Secretariat, seized the public imagination. Ruffian was the game front-running 3-year-old filly who broke down in a match race with Foolish Pleasure near the finish line and had to be put down. The year was 1975. Patty Hearst had been kidnapped the previous summer. The fall of Saigon took place in April. Only a few years earlier, the Watergate scandal had begun; America had pulled out of Vietnam; and Palestinian terrorists had attacked and killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich.
Posted by JC in Horses on 06/01/2006 @ 9:00 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter
In other words, a typical weekday at the track:
I went out to Bay Meadows recently — my first visit to a track in years, I admit — and things were so sedate I thought I’d lost my hearing. Most bets are placed at electronic touch screens now, so there were no wishful last words or giddy collection scenes at the windows, no general clamor or charge. It was more like some horse-theme mall, with gift shops and ATMs. What I took to be Bay Meadows habitues were seated at long tables near a vacant bar in isolated cones of silence, like men at an old porno movie house, their glazed eyes trained on banks of television screens that relayed the labors of horses at distant tracks — Hollywood Park, Belmont, Churchill Downs.
Posted by JC in Track Notes on 05/31/2006 @ 3:45 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter
