JC / Railbird - Thoroughbred racing news and notes

I met Marc Subia today and he told me the story of his amazing autograph jacket. "It's my most prized possession." Marc started coming to Del Mar with his dad in the 1970s. It's his home track. And he's been collecting jockey autographs for decades ...

Grand Jete keeping an eye on me as I take a picture of Rushing Fall's #BC17 garland. #thoroughbred #horseracing #delmar

Another #treasurefromthearchive — this UPI collage for Secretariat vs. Sham. #inthearchives #thoroughbred #horseracing

Thanks, Arlington. Let's do this again next year. #Million35

That's a helmet. #BC16 #thoroughbred #horseracing #jockeys

Lady Eli on the muscle. #BC16 @santaanitapark #breederscup #thoroughbred #horseracing

The Reviews Are In

And the headlines say it all. The movie about a zebra who thinks he’s a racehorse wins no love from critics. “Racing Stripes” …
– Pulls up lame
– Fails to show
– Can’t break out of the pack
– Brings up the rear
– Hits trifecta of cute, crude, and contrived
– Ebony without irony
– A horse of a disappointing stripe
– An also ran
– No barn burner
– More nag than racehorse
Ouch. Love the wordplay though.

Posted by JC in Media/TV/Film on 01/15/2005 @ 10:35 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter

Headlines: January 15

– Kentucky Derby prospects are racing in stakes on both coasts this weekend (CJ)
– Sweet Catomine is ready for her three-year-old debut in the Santa Ysabel Stakes. (TT)
– Suffolk Downs’ track announcer Larry Collmus will fill in for a vacationing Tom Durkin, calling NYRA races from February to April. (SFG)
– Send links, comments to railbird at jessicachapel dot com

Posted by JC in Miscellany on 01/15/2005 @ 10:30 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter

Developing Suffolk

There have been ominous rumblings about the future of Suffolk Downs in the local press recently — an article hinting at the possibility of more commercial development on land owned by the track appeared in the Boston Globe two weeks ago and a couple of stories in the Herald have mentioned the Celtics are considering Suffolk as a site for their new arena — but nothing so alarming as what the Globe reported this morning:
“Steven Roth, the tough, entrepreneurial chief executive of giant Vornado Realty Trust, has his sights set on Boston’s Suffolk Downs. And it is a better bet than any you could place at the struggling track that the opportunity he sees is not in a bunch of old men shouting at a TV screen and betting two bucks on a race at Aqueduct.
“Suffolk Downs is a dying business, and has been for years. But make no mistake: There is value there, and the smart money is lining up.
“Vornado, a New York real estate investment trust with a market value of $9 billion, has launched a tender offer seeking to buy the shares of Suffolk Downs’s constantly warring stockholders.”
Live racing is scheduled to begin in April, and as a New England racing fan, I hope it’s not the last year. If Suffolk Downs is sold for development, it effectively means the end of the sport not just in Boston, but in the region.

Posted by JC in Suffolk Downs on 01/14/2005 @ 11:45 am / Follow @railbird on Twitter

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