The Must-Reads, 2010
It’s no exaggeration to say that every year I bookmark, tweet, or link here to hundreds of horse racing features, columns, and blog posts — stories and opinions that catch my attention for a turn of phrase, the quality of storytelling, the depth of research, an unusual argument, or a striking insight. A few each year — like the 10 pieces below — are especially memorable.
The Making of ‘Legends’ (Pat Forde/ESPN)
“The present is another matter. The present stings a bit. The present is Kentucky Derby week, and it offers vivid evidence of how brutally hard it is even for learned horsemen with a lot of money to win a Derby — or to simply reach the starting gate.”
The Linemakers (John Scheinman/Pimlico)
“It is no secret the man gambles with gusto, a word that derives from the Latin gustus, or tasting. Carulli is all appetite and, like the bear he resembles, doesn’t like to be disturbed while concentrating.”
The Best Broodmare of All Time? (Alicia Wincze/Lexington Herald-Leader)
“Though Hasili was a stakes winner on the track and had a solid pedigree in her corner, nothing in her form could have indicated the impact she would have on the sport once she entered the breeding shed.”
What Makes the Great Ones Great? (Jay Hovdey/DRF)
“No question, in terms of personality type, the great ones appear to be happy in their work.”
Why We Love Secretariat (Meghan O’Rourke/Slate)
“In the moment when he pulls away from Sham, his brilliant archrival (who would’ve been a champion in any other year), we have the sense of an animal exceeding the boundaries of the category of animal.”
Forlorn Filly Comes from Nowhere (Bill Finley/NY Times)
“A few days after he bought a modestly bred horse from a friend named Don Hunt, Tim Snyder took a moment to reflect. He had no money, no horse trailer to get his new acquisition to where he needed to go and a filly that had been rejected by nearly everyone else who had come in contact with her. The horse had a clubfoot, a bad shoulder, a reputation for being slow and was blind in one eye, reason enough for Snyder to second-guess what he had just done.”
Who Really Invented Race Charts? (Kevin Martin/Colin’s Ghost)
“Whatever the case might be, it was Brunell who had the foresight to put race charts and later past performances into a daily publication dedicated to racing. While the above puts his role as ‘originator’ in doubt, no one can deny that he popularized the tools that all horseplayers have been dependent on for more than a century.” [See also, Martin’s follow-up post.]
Rachel’s Place in History (Gary West/West Points)
“Most of us had never seen anything like Rachel Alexandra, and for having seen her, I’m grateful.”
Frankel’s Rise No Romantic Dream (Chris McGrath/Independent)
“Despite the present, witless tendency to treat them as characters in search of an author, men such as Frankie Dettori and Henry Cecil could never be adequately prefigured by a script.”
A Vote for Horse Racing (Claire Novak/ESPN)
“For now, suffice it to say it is the opinion here that a vote for Zenyatta is, simply put, a vote for horse racing. To recognize this kind of runner as vital to the sport’s survival is common sense, not emotional gibberish as some would choose to believe.”
What’s missing? Add your must-reads from the year past in the comments …
Working Around
Production is set to begin October 31 at Santa Anita on “Luck,” complicated by the racetrack surface renovation underway:
All of the changes have forced HBO to break up filming of their episodes and have caused problems in booking certain guest cast members and in working with the series’ directors, Bronchtein said.
In addition, the crew has less days to shoot the early episodes and fewer days to prepare for upcoming ones.
“That just adds pressure to the process,” he said. “It’s really forced us to work extra hard and to be at the top of our game.”
The new track surface is expected to be ready by early December, which is when “Luck” plans to stage races for filming. That’s one way to test the dirt …
How has this tidbit not come up before? Bill Barich, author of “Laughing in the Hills” and “A Fine Place to Daydream,” is part of the writing crew on “Luck” and on the scene at Santa Anita. The handicapper-writer, who had been living in Dublin, told the Irish Times, “If all goes well … this gig, as opposed to my books, may keep me out of the Trail’s End trailer park in Santa Rosa.”
Anticipating “Luck”
Michael Mann talks about “Luck” with the Los Angeles Times:
“To make these characters be alive, you have a sense of them intuitively and viscerally,” Mann said. “The challenge of it is obvious, but the economy of it is wonderful — if you can make it work.”
Making “the economy” work has been the director’s career. Khoi Vinh:
What’s left out from these movies is as important and beautiful as what’s included. They’re exercises in doing as much as possible with as little as possible, implying whole swaths of narrative information by allowing the audience to extrapolate events, details, backstories and subplots from only the barest hints of their presence…. Mann employs an architectural approach that establishes a plot framework but declines to fill every nook and cranny. He uses very few elements to suggest many more, and in so doing constructs a kind of environment that the audience experiences rather than a narrative account that the audience observes.
Or, as Mann tells his interviewer, discussing audience perceptions:
“It’s liberating to jump into the stream of a story and jump into the stream of a character and convey by attitude, ambience and the tone of that person — and their surroundings and how they’re reacting to those surroundings — the magic of what’s happening. When you can bring the audience into understanding and they have leapt over that little gap, and they’re getting it on their own, it’s a much more intense involvement.”
There is nothing about this show that isn’t coming together.
Secretariat Subtexts
Andrew O’Herir enjoyed “Secretariat,” but that:
… doesn’t stop me from believing that in its totality “Secretariat” is a work of creepy, half-hilarious master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, and all the more effective because it presents as a family-friendly yarn about a nice lady and her horse.
His review drew a reply from Roger Ebert, who gave “Secretariat” four stars:
I myself have written insane reviews. It happens.
O’Herir’s political reading is outlandish, Ebert’s lengthy response indignant. And personal? The critic is a great friend of Secretariat biographer Bill Nack.
10/10/10 Update: O’Herir responds. He was being intentionally outrageous!
The Bright Side
Jeremy Plonk points out that, for a game supposedly in decline, there’s a lot of horse racing on newsstands, TV, and the big screen:
Horse racing has done pretty well in the mainstream for a sport on life support, if you ask me. What other sporting venture can claim box office titles like “Seabiscuit,” “Dreamer,” “Racing Stripes,” “First Saturday in May” and “Secretariat” since just 2003? These films came long after the glory years when horse racing, college football and boxing owned the mainstream sporting consciousness.
And Plonk’s inventory is hardly exhaustive. He leaves off the late night appearances of jockeys Joe Talamo and Calvin Borel, the Vogue appearances of Rachel Alexandra and rider Chantal Sutherland, the recent W photo shoot of Zenyatta, the Sports Illustrated cover featuring Mine That Bird …
With all the consciousness in the culture at large, maybe the racing audience numbers cited by NTRA consultant SocialSphere aren’t so “Potemkin” after all.
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